Cartoon

Redacted

Written by SK Ashby

(Cartoonist - Nick Anderson)

In other news, another Russian, Nikolai Glushkov, who worked for one of Putin's biggest critics, has been killed in London. His current cause of death is unknown.

Meanwhile, Trump's longtime assistant John McEntee was fired and escorted out of the White House this morning because he's under investigation for financial crimes. The Wall Street Journal reports that the investigation is linked to his online gambling habit.

Finally, emails reviewed by the Huffington Post show that Whitefish Energy had a net income of less than $1 million before it was handed the $300 million contract to rebuild Puerto Rico's power grid.

That raises more questions about how the company was able to obtain the massive contract, but that's not necessarily what caught my attention here. What really amuses me is Whitefish (which only has 2 employees) blaming their poor portfolio on foreigners selling electrical transformers in the region.

The strength of the company’s bottom line came up in both a meeting and emails with Susan Nicosia, the Columbia Falls town manager, and Jerry Meerkatz, president of West Montana Economic Development, a nonprofit which helps local entrepreneurs. In one email in mid-December 2016, Meerkatz expressed his skepticism about the company’s finances to [Whitefish CEO Andy Techmanski]. [...]

“Not sure whom is sharing our confidential financials with you,” Techmanski replied. The problem wasn’t the company’s finances, he said, but “in procuring sales from USA utilities that are complacent in buying from the same foreign providers that they have purchased from for the last 30+ years.”

"Complacent."

It is not the duty of utility companies to prop up your shithouse business. In fact, there are strict controls on utility procurement because everything they do effects the average person's power bills.

I have no evidence at my fingertips to back this up, but I still believe Whitefish got the Puerto Rico contract because they're located in Ryan Zinke's home town.