Month: May 2024

Biden is a climate hero by presidential standards, the best we’ve ever seen. What, you haven’t heard?

Here’s an article by Michael Thomas who writes about climate change:

In the last few months, the Biden administration has quietly passed multiple federal policies that will transform the United States economy and wipe out billions of tons of future greenhouse gas emissions. 

The new policies have received little attention outside of wonky climate circles. And that is a problem.

Earlier this year, I wrote that Biden has done more to mitigate climate change than any President before him. For decades, environmentalists tried and failed to convince lawmakers to pass even the most marginal climate policies. It wasn’t until Biden took office that the logjam broke and the climate policies flowed. And yet few American voters are hearing this story in an election year of huge consequence.

It’s been two and a half months since I wrote that article. In that short time, the Biden administration has passed a handful of climate policies that will collectively cut more than 10 billion tons of planet-warming pollution over the next three decades, more than the annual emissions of India, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and the entire continent of Europe—combined.

In today’s story, I’ll share a summary of three of these policies and the impact they will have over the coming decades.

I generally write stories like this for Distilled’s paid subscribers. But in an election year as important as this one, I want to keep stories like this free to read and share. If you want to support this work please consider becoming a paid subscriber or sharing this article with a friend.

Do click over to read it if you have time. I didn’t know this and I follow the news, particularly the accomplishments of the Biden administration in this election year. It’s important, especially if you have young voters in your family. There’s nothing more important and Trump has openly vowed to the oil industry that he will reverse every single regulation and every bit of climate legislation if he wins.

Seriously?

I don’t know what to say:

Over the past several months, Donald Trump has told some of his advisers and friends that federal clemency for [Peter] Navarro, if Trump is back in office, is a “very good idea,” according to a person familiar with the matter and another source briefed on it. The former president, as some of his former staff say, often speaks in vague and thinly-coded terms that they refer to as “mob speak.” 

Like a number of former Trump advisers, Navarro received a subpoena to testify before the House Jan 6. Committee about his work attempting to delay Congress’ certification of the 2020 election results, and his role in producing a series of reports with bogus allegations of mass voter fraud during the election. Unlike most of his former colleagues, however, Navarro openly defied the subpoena, leading to a criminal referral by the committee, an indictment from a federal grand jury in June 2022, and his conviction in September last year. He received a four-month prison sentence, which began in March.

In the years since Biden’s inauguration, Navarro has surfaced on Trump and the MAGA elite’s informal shortlist of who should expect job offers for senior roles in a second Trump administration, according to numerous people familiar with the vast government-in-waiting preparations. 

As Navarro’s legal odyssey has unfolded, Trump has privately marveled at the extreme loyalty of the former White House trade adviser whom Trump has affectionately referred to as “my Peter.” The former president has said that once Navarro is out of prison, “we’re going to take care of him,” a source with direct knowledge of this comment says. The ex-president has also repeatedly asked confidants how Navarro is doing behind bars, this source, and another person briefed on the situation, add.

Trump has dangled pardons from the beginning and he followed through. He pardoned Bannon, Manafort, Stone etc., all stand-up guys who never flipped. He’s promising to pardon all the January 6th insurrectionists. He’ll not only pardon Navarro, he’ll give him a powerful job in the administration if he wins.

And all I can say about “my Peter” is that I’m not sure it’s quite the compliment he probably thinks it is…

A 5-4, unsigned, good-for-this-case-only decision handed down by justices who owed their jobs directly, or indirectly to the father of the guy they handed the presidency to. THAT is when the modern Supreme Court decided "fuck it, we're just gonna do what we want, screw democracy" pic.twitter.com/C66IWZe1uC

— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) May 18, 2024

A few items lost in the fog

The New Republic has posted a 9-article special issue, “What American Fascism Would Look Like.” It’s just popped up and I won’t have time to study it until later. Not, at least, until I’ve had another cup of coffee. Heads up.

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to restart its aggressive crackdown against payday lenders and other companies that offer high-cost, short-term loans to poor borrowers, after a Supreme Court ruling this week resolved a challenge to the federal agency’s authority to act,” reports The Washington Post. Yes, that Supreme Court.

The CFPB’s mom was more than pleased:

“The CFPB is here to stay. In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court followed the law and confirmed that the CFPB’s funding structure is constitutional. For the last decade, the consumer agency has fought the big banks and predatory lenders that try to cheat hardworking people. As of this week, the CFPB has returned more than $20 billion in ill-gotten funds to American families. This isn’t the last attack on the CFPB we’ll see from Wall Street, the banks, and their Republican allies. When an agency is this effective at sticking up for working families against industry’s consumer abuses, it’s an obvious target for multi-million dollar lobbying campaigns. The CFPB will keep on doing its work to slash junk fees, fight giant banks when they cheat people, and level the playing field for everyone in this country. I commend Director Chopra for his leadership, the entire CFPB team for their determination, and President Biden for his commitment to protecting consumers.”

When you’re as good as @CFPB is at doing its job to protect consumers, you can expect that giant banks, payday lenders, and Republican politicians will come after it and try to shut it down.

But yesterday, the Supreme Court followed the law, and the @CFPB is here to stay! pic.twitter.com/xQsejVAnZM

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) May 17, 2024

Axios reports, “Brown v. Board plaintiffs and their family members were invited to the White House Thursday to meet with President Biden in honor of the landmark school desegregation ruling’s 70th anniversary.”

President Biden means to remind Black voters he has their backs. In a speech Friday at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in D.C., Biden announced $16 billion in aid to historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs.

HBCUs are responsible for:

40% of Black engineers,
50% of all Black teachers,
70% of all Black doctors and dentists,
And 80% of all Black judges.

Today I’m proud to announce we’ve invested over $16 billion in HBCUs, the most ever by any Administration.

— President Biden (@POTUS) May 17, 2024

Immersing oneself each day in politics in this fraught time, it is tough keeping your head on straight. The Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell recounts the alternate realities one of her focus group participants, a two-time Trump voter, sees when switching between Fox News and ABC coverage of the Trump trial.

“Well, I turn on Fox, ‘The Five’ on Fox,” Longwell retells, “and they say this is going to get thrown out, that there’s nothing there. And then I turn on ABC and they say Trump is going to prison.” Because the trial is not broadcast, the trial is being filtered through press coverage. Whom to believe?

.@davidfrum reacts to Michael Cohen's testimony: "The Trump defense is that everyone in the Trump organization was a criminal and a liar and a crook, except for the boss, who was not." @kasie
pic.twitter.com/bYTwwRgeAf

— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) May 17, 2024

Conservative columnist David French sees the same American split-brain in himself. He recalls how, despite polls often misreading the electorate, partisanship colors how we read them. He offers examples and then (emphasis mine):

I write often about American polarization, including about how the red-blue divide is perhaps less illuminating than the gap between engaged and disengaged Americans, in which an exhausted majority encounters the highly polarized activist wings of both parties and shrinks back from the fray. This dynamic helps explain why our political culture feels so stagnant. The wings aren’t changing each other’s minds — hard-core Democrats aren’t going to persuade hard-core Republicans — but they’re also not reaching sufficient numbers of persuadable voters to break America’s partisan deadlock.

Even worse, partisans don’t realize they’re part of the problem. Their zeal isn’t persuasive; it’s alienating, and the examples above help illustrate why.

In swing states like Arizona and North Carolina, independent voters outnumber Democrats. In Arizona the split is R>Other>D. In North Carolina it’s Unaffiliated>D>R. The largest block of persuadables lie in the independent category, enough to decide statewide elections and perhaps the fate of the republic.

Democrats are “not reaching sufficient numbers of persuadable voters to break America’s partisan deadlock.” Their voter outreach strategies were designed decades ago for an era in which independents were under 20% of the electorate in such states. Base turnout decided elections and partisans were easier to identify. Not so today. Democrats have yet to adapt to the changed campaign environment. If, as French suggests, independents (most under 45) find partisanship alientating, a “Vote for Our Team” message may not be the most effective, as I’ve suggested:

Volunteers’ pitch to these untapped, young independents is not to evangelize for Democrats. Independents don’t like them. They don’t pay close attention to party politics. Independents “view themselves as proudly unmoored from any candidate or party.” Voting in 2024 has to be about them, about local/state issues to be decided in the election that may impact them or people they love. The ask is: Vote this fall for them.

But that’s not the message zealous candidates and party volunteers mobilize to send … to independents … if they engage enough of them … which they’re not set up to do. There’s still time to rethink, people.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.

Y’all need no more context

Cartoon pic.twitter.com/JsICOdmaZo

— Bill Bramhall (@BillBramhall) May 17, 2024

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.

Baby Snow Leopards!

The forecast was right: we have snow in May! 

Your Guardians of Wild are proud to share that overnight on Monday May 13th, three-year old snow leopard Jita gave birth to two cubs after a 97-day pregnancy.

Jita and her new cubs are NOT currently visible to guests visiting the Toronto Zoo, but updates will be shared in the days and weeks to come about how and when guests will be able to view these little snowballs.

Jita’s cubs, sired by nine-year-old Pemba, came into the world following a few hours of labour. Wildlife Care, watching on remote cameras, observed her laboured breathing as well as circling and rolling (signs of impending birth) around 7:30pm. The first cub was born at 7:45pm, followed by the arrival of her second cub in the early hours of Tuesday, May 14th. 

Jita is doing very well as a first-time mother and is diligently nursing, grooming, and cuddling her “snowballs.” Her Wildlife Care team is monitoring the new family closely via CCTV cameras to minimize any disturbance, and will be closely observing the development of the cubs. More information will be shared as it becomes available.

The elusive snow leopard, also known as the “ghost cat”, is not often spotted in the wild and is listed as Vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) list. The Toronto Zoo participates in the snow leopard Species Survival Plan® (SSP), a cooperative breeding program amongst AZA accredited North American facilities. Through the SSP, we maintain a sustainable population of snow leopards in human care to preserve their genetic diversity and allow them to serve as ambassadors for their wild counterparts.

Through the Toronto Zoo Wildlife Conservancy’s Adopt an Animal program, you can symbolically adopt a Toronto Zoo snow leopard and become a Guardian of Wild. Funds raised through the program support the ongoing conservation and research efforts of your Toronto Zoo, helping to save endangered species. For more information or to adopt, please visit https://www.tzwcadopt.ca/. 

Some more baby leopards:

We have has the rather stomach churning experience of watching stars of the GOP establishment descend on Donald Trump’s criminal trial this week to defy a judge’s order and claim that the justice system is corrupt because it deigns to hold their Dear leader to account for his crimes.

If you want to see how this degradation of the rule of law is playing out in everyday life, witness this shocking move in Texas.

You may recall the case of Garrett Foster, an Air Force veteran who was attending a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 and was, as is legal in Texas openly carrying a rifle. A man named Daniel Perry drove his car into the protesters and Foster (who was white) confronted him without raising his gun, Perry shot him five times.

As JV Last points out in his piece on this at The Bulwark:

The case had everything Republicans love: A peaceful protest with people exercising their First Amendment rights. A veteran lawfully exercising his Second Amendment right. And before the murder the killer had been searching the internet for young girls and sending sexually explicit texts to a minor.

The only problem was the protest itself: It was a Black Lives Matter protest.

And so Daniel Perry—a groomer who was convicted of murder by a jury of his peers—became a conservative cause celebré.

The justice system worked in this case. Perry was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison (which seems low to me considering it’s Texas which usually loves to inflict the death penalty.)

Last explains why Perry did this:

First off, Perry is a racist. And when I say “racist” I don’t mean in the Archie Bunker sense. This is a guy who *hates* black people so much that he frequently talked about killing them for sport. The prosecution presented a mountain of evidence on this point and I won’t quote any of it here, but you can read about it if you like.

Second, there is ample evidence that Perry had been working himself up to seeking out a Black Lives Matter protest for the purpose of killing. Radley Balko has the full rundown on this here.

For instance, here is a something Perry wrote in June of 2020: “I might have to kill a few people on my way to work, they are rioting outside my apartment complex.”

At trial, prosecutors presented an exchange Perry had with a friend in which he had mused on how to create a situation in which he would be justified to kill:

Perry speculated about how he might get away with such a killing – by claiming self-defense, as he is now doing. Prosecutors presented a Facebook Messen­ger chat between Perry and a friend, Michael Holcomb, which occurred two weeks before he shot Foster. In it, Perry argued that shooting protesters was legal if it was in self-defense. Holcomb, who was called to the stand Wednesday afternoon, seemed to try to talk Perry down. “Aren’t you a CDL holder too?” he asked, referring to the men’s licenses to carry concealed handguns. “We went through the same training … Shooting after creating an event where you have to shoot, is not a good shoot.”

And yes, he is also a man who has been shown to be stalking underage girls. He is a sick, criminal piece of work who killed a man in cold blood.

And yet, Gov. Abbott pardoned him yesterday. Full pardon, the man is now free. His death cult MAGA constituents are thrilled.

Can you believe it?

As Last notes, that’s not the end of the story. Texas has a law designed to remove locally-elected DA’s ostensibly because they are too lenient on crimes. Guess what?

While pardoning Perry, Gov. Abbott claimed that Garza had “demonstrated unethical and biased misuse of his office in prosecuting Daniel Scott Perry.”

Texas Republicans are not content to allow Perry’s murder of Garrett Foster. They also want to send a message that even using the law to bring charges against members of the ingroup who kill members of the outgroup is verboten.

This is MAGA America, folks. The rule of law under these monsters will be the law that protects them and punishes their enemies, period. We’re seeing it play out with the national GOP which wants to throw the book at Democrats and calls any attempt to hold them accountable for their crimes a rigged, witch hunt. An we’re seeing it play out in states where MAGA racists are allowed to kill with impunity.

And, as Tom pointed out this morning, this extends all the way to the Supreme Court where we have a Supreme Court Justice flying an upside down American flag signalling sympathy with the insurrection back in 2021. This idea of “rule of law for me but not for thee” runs very deep in the American right.

Check this out:

Maria Bartiromo argues that SCOTUS should give Trump immunity "to make sure people understand you can't just get into office and start prosecuting your political opponent." GOP Rep. Michael Waltz responds by suggesting members of Congress should also have immunity. pic.twitter.com/XuoG0fkHpc

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 17, 2024

Well this is scary…

Dairy farmers are hiding likely bird flu cases from government officials, coping with the virus’s symptoms in their herds while avoiding testing, one dairy industry representative told NOTUS.

Already distrustful of government, worried about economic and reputational damage and increasingly skeptical of public health officials following the COVID-19 pandemic, many farmers see no reason to test their cattle or engage with federal officials, Rick Naerebout, the CEO of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association, said. “Nationwide, the vast majority of cases are not reported,” Naerebout said. “Dairymen understand they have it based on the symptoms, but they don’t get a confirmation. They’re just managing through the disease.”

Cattle have tested positive in 42 herds as of May 10, but the actual number of affected herds is unknown. The USDA now requires a negative test for cattle to move across state lines, but no federal agency can mandate testing on the farms or go onto the farms without permission from the owners. Government requests to test farmers’ cows have mostly been ignored.

“You have to understand how they approach the world. They take on so much risk every day with what they do in their operation,” Naerebout said. “They are very reluctant on this issue or any other issue to have the government involved.”

Naerebout is in regular conversation with farmers whose cows are exhibiting symptoms across the state, and those farmers are choosing not to test their cows because a positive test would alert regulators, he said.

More than a dozen farmers and industry groups did not respond to NOTUS’ phone calls. The mistrust, stemming from a desire to protect business and a fiercely independent culture, has become increasingly partisan in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One raw milk dairy farmer in Texas told NOTUS they had never heard of the bird flu. “You must be listening to CNN or something. Fake news,” they said.

MAGA is a death cult. These people are going to get us all killed.

I don’t know if this bird flu outbreak is going to be the next frightening virus but something is. And these people have been trained to believe that they cannot trust scientists and should only believe Donald Trump and whatever right wing media they are sampling on a given day. It’s going to cause huge problems down the road. God help us when the next pandemic hits. And it will…

Oh my….

Things are out of control in the Oversight Committee as there have been repeated outbursts from Marjorie Taylor Greene. The hearing has been tied up after Greene insulted the appearance of another member.

Greene: I would like to know if any of the Democrats on this committee are… pic.twitter.com/vl2LWpkbm2

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 17, 2024

Watching Raskin’s face and then Crockett’s as she seeks a point of order to see whether it’s appropriate to comment on Marge’s “bleach blonde bad built butch body” after Greene talked about her eyelashes is the best part. pic.twitter.com/kTzztlSFm7

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) May 17, 2024

Goldman and Luna are now exchanging words

Greene adds that she thinks her body is pretty good and that she turns 50 next month pic.twitter.com/kH45vq8x1Z

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 17, 2024

WTF???

It’s almost quaint now to look back at the shock we all felt at presidential candidate Donald Trump attacking the judge presiding in the Trump University fraud lawsuit as biased because he was Latino and Trump was talking about building a border wall. Most Americans assumed that it would be impossible that such a disrespectful and, frankly, racist person could be elected in the 21st century but as it turned out that was just a preview of many such attacks to come. (That lawsuit eventually settled for $25 million)

Because Trump is such an inveterate lawbreaker, he has been the subject of many legal cases over the years and biographers and armchair psychologists have speculated that his strategy has always been to publicly denigrate the judges and the prosecutors in these cases due to his father’s admonition that one must always fight with everything they have. But it’s just as likely that he’s following the advice of his mentor, the odious attorney Roy Cohn who has been called “one of the most reviled men in American history.” If anything it was Cohn who pulled Trump out from under his father’s shadow.

In fact, Trump’s current troubles and many in his past stem from his weird relationship with Cohn, who taught him that there are no rules and no limits to what he can get away with if he has the chutzpah to challenge the very concept of reality itself, daring people to disbelieve his lies or risk destruction. It’s the ethos of the bully and the gangster and despite all the drama in his life Trump’s gotten away with all of it, eventually becoming the most powerful man in the world with a full-fledged cult following of tens of millions of people. Cohn’s student learned his lessons well.

The case unfolding in New York these past few weeks centers on another of Trump’s lawyers, Michael Cohen, who Trump saw as a low rent Roy Cohn who would carry out the dirty business Trump feels entitled to engage in without accountability. He eagerly took on the job of Trump’s legal henchman, never questioning the ethics or morals of what he was asked to do and when asked how he could have done that he testified this week that he was “knee deep in the cult of Donald Trump.” The trial has shown how much Cohen yearned for Trump’s approval and how little Trump respected him in return.

Cohen is a broken man today, loathed by the press with which he had a hostile relationship as Trump’s hatchet man and humiliated before the entire country as a liar and a loser on the witness stand, even as he provides the testimony that corroborates evidence that his former boss broke the law. Michael Cohen paid a high price for his loyalty to Donald Trump.

We’ve also been reminded in this trial of another of Trump’s lawyers, the former US Attorney and mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani. Once a front runner himself for the Republican presidential nomination, and esteemed by many as a hero for his leadership of the city after 9/11, Giuliani is now one of Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference trial, has been held liable for $148 million for his defamation of two election workers, is facing disbarment and was fired from his radio show. This week he left the judge overseeing his bankruptcy aghast as he’s completely non-compliant and has not followed any of the court’s instructions.

Rudy Giuliani has been completely destroyed by his loyalty to Donald Trump, which he maintains until this day despite the fact that Trump has not helped him financially and would have no power to pardon him if he were to become president again. All of this is a result of the dirty work he did on behalf of Trump’s Big Lie.

Two other lawyers, Jeffrey Clark (who appeared at the courthouse in support of Trump on Thursday) and John Eastman have had their reputations shredded and their lives upended willingly plotting with Donald Trump to overturn the election in 2020. Both men are co-defendants with Trump in the Georgia case as well and Eastman has been disbarred and was fired from jobs at Chapman University and the University of Colorado over his involvement in the January 6th plot. Loyal legal soldiers and Trump co-defendants, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, have also been destroyed by their involvement with Trump’s schemes. Like the others, they were thrilled to be part of Trump’s nefarious plans and are paying the price for it today.

Giuliani, Eastman, Clark, Powell and Chesebro are all unindicted co-conspirators in the federal case against Donald Trump brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith. What an ignominious end to their legal careers. And it’s all in service of Donald Trump.

Trump has more lawyers, of course, although it’s not as easy to find them as it once was. Many can obviously see the writing on the wall. (The running joke is that MAGA actually stands for Make Attorneys Get Attorneys.) Luckily for the newer hires, the campaign is paying the bills these days so they don’t have the same worries as Trump’s previous attorneys about getting paid — yet.

Trump seems to be very attached to his attorney Alina Habba who defended him the NY civil fraud trial and the Carroll defamation cases, all of which he lost. They frequently travel together and she has attended the NY hush money trial as moral support as well. Another of his favorites is Christina Bobb, recently indicted in the Arizona fake electors case, who has been hired by the Republican National Committee to head their election integrity unit.

His top lawyer in both the Mar-a-lago and NY case, Todd Blanche, is a former prosecutor with a good reputation who has thrown his lot in with Trump entirely, moving his practice and his family down to Florida and is reportedly very “broey” with Trump. So far he hasn’t broken any laws in his defense of Trump so his reputation and standing as a lawyer remains intact.

Just as all those Republican office holders who are making the ritual pilgrimage to that Manhattan Courthouse to demonstrate their fealty to Donald Trump as Michael Cohen once did, so too should his current lawyers .

His first lawyer Roy Cohn taught Trump everything he knows about being a ruthless, belligerent, con man who can get away with murder with a take-no-prisoners, win at all costs attitude. And Trump loved him for it. But when Cohn got AIDS (and lied about it claiming it was liver cancer) and the walls started closing in on him for tax evasion and he was disbarred, Trump abandoned his mentor without a second thought. Cohn’s secretary Susan Bell told Michael Kruse of Politico that he “dropped him like a hot potato, he really did.”

If he would do that to his mentor and muse he would do it to anyone. Just look at the broken human wreck named Rudy Giuliani.