The D.C. federal judge overseeing ex-President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the House Jan. 6 select committee quickly rejected Trump’s latest attempt to block the National Archives from handing over White House records to the committee.
Continue reading “Judge Promptly Shoots Down Trump’s 11th-Hour Attempt To Block Jan. 6 Docs”Good Break for Dems
Gov. Sununu of New Hampshire has just announced he won’t be running for Senate in 2022. That is a big, big relief for Democrats who need to hold Sen. Maggie Hassan’s seat to have any hope of holding on to the chamber next year. Hassan isn’t out of the woods. But Sununu is popular and his family has all but monopolized state-wide office in the state for a couple generations. He was their best shot at picking up that seat.
AOC Belittles Creepy GOP Rep As ‘Collection Of Wet Toothpicks’
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
A Small, Small Man
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) dragged far-right Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who has well-documented ties to white nationalists, on Monday night after he tweeted a deranged anime-style video of him killing her and attacking President Joe Biden.
- Gosar is “just a collection of wet toothpicks,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
- Ocasio-Cortez said Gosar’s self-concept relies on the notion of white supremacy because “deep down he knows he couldn’t open a pickle jar or read a whole book by himself.”
- The Democratic congresswoman predicted that Gosar won’t face any consequences from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
- Gosar’s video has been flagged by Twitter as a violation of the platform’s hateful conduct policy. He posted it on both his official and personal accounts.
42 Nations Vow To Cut Emissions From Health Industries
Some 42 countries have pledged to cut down on carbon dioxide emissions caused by the health care sector, which makes up almost five percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.
GOPer Misses His Anti-Vax Mandate Event After Coming Down With COVID
North Dakota state Rep. Jeff Hoverson (R) couldn’t make it to the rally he organized protesting COVID-19 vaccine mandates last night because–yep, you guessed it!
Trump’s Glowing Praise For McConnell In Memoir Was Written By McConnell
In an updated 2019 version of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) book, “The Long Game,” Trump sang the GOP senator’s praises in a forward penned by the then-president.
- Trump “couldn’t have asked for a better partner” in McConnell, his “ace in the hole” who “deserves great credit” for shaping the courts, the then-president gushed.
- Yeah, turns out Trump didn’t write any of that. He told the Washington Post in a recent interview that he told McConnell to write the forward for him “because that’s the way life works.”
- McConnell didn’t deny Trump’s account, saying only that he didn’t “have anything to add related to” Trump.
Cruz Tips Hat At Texit
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) suggested during a conservative youth event last month that his state secede from the U.S. if Democrats “fundamentally destroy” the country with filibuster reform, voting rights, D.C. statehood and other horrors.
- Cruz argued that “there may come a point where it’s hopeless,” even though he’s “not ready to give up on America.”
- The GOP senator said that while he doesn’t support the Texit movement, he understands the “sentiment” behind it.
- If Texas did withdraw from the union, it ought to take NASA, the military and the oil with it, Cruz proposed.
Jan. 6 Subpoenas Issued To More Trump Clown Car Riders
The House Jan. 6 select committee sent out a new round of subpoenas to the ex-president’s top lackeys, including John Eastman, the former Trump legal adviser who devised an absurd plot for Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election. The other five subpoenas went to:
- Former Trump 2020 campaign adviser Bill Stepien
- Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller
- Trump campaign executive assistant Angela McCallum
- Former Trump adviser-turned-QAnon celebrity Mike Flynn
- Bernard Kerik, an ex-New York City police commissioner who “investigated” voter fraud at the “command center” where he and other Trump goons plotted to steal the 2020 election the day before the Capitol insurrection.
NRCC Ad Uses Trump-Era Footage To Blame Violence On Biden
The National Republican Congressional Committee put out a new 30-second ad that accused the President of allowing violence and chaos in the streets–but at least three images were taken from videos filmed during the 2020 protests.
Alleged Insurrectionist Flees To Belarus
A California man wanted by the FBI for allegedly assaulting a police officer as he breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 is seeking asylum in Belarus.
Must-Read
“At One Alaskan Hospital, Indigenous Foods Are Part of the Healing Plan” – The New York Times
GOPer Gets Death Threats For Voting For BIF
Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), one of the 13 House Republicans who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill (BIF) last week, shared a voicemail yesterday that he’d received from an individual telling him he ought to die and calling him a “fucking piece of shit traitor.”
- Upton’s office noted that that wasn’t the only threatening call he’s gotten. The calls started coming in after far-right extremist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tweeted his number, along with those of the other GOP lawmakers who’d voted for the bill.
Prager Pretends Anti-Vaxxers More Stigmatized Than AIDS Crisis Victims
Conservative commentator and anti-vaxxer Dennis Prager, a proud COVID-19 patient, compared people who refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine to “pariahs” who face ostracization that gay men absolutely never experienced at all during the AIDS crisis (especially not from Prager himself).
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Gosar Tweets Anime-Themed Video Glorifying Violence Against AOC And Biden
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who has ties to the far-right, on Sunday tweeted an anime-themed video that depicts him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and attacking President Biden with swords — which drew backlash and demands for Twitter to suspend the GOP congressman’s account.
Continue reading “Gosar Tweets Anime-Themed Video Glorifying Violence Against AOC And Biden”Where Things Stand: McAuliffe Campaign Says Turnout Wasn’t The Problem
Guest hosted today by TPM reporter Kate Riga.
In an election post-mortem, the Terry McAuliffe gubernatorial campaign in Virginia highlighted some of its findings in the immediate wake of Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory.
Continue reading “Where Things Stand: McAuliffe Campaign Says Turnout Wasn’t The Problem”Flynn, Eastman Among Latest Group Of Jan. 6 Committee Subpoena Recipients
Donald Trump’s former national security advisor and pardon recipient Michael Flynn has been subpoenaed as part of the Jan. 6 Committee’s ongoing investigation of the attack on Congress.
Also on the list: John Eastman, the lawyer who advised Trump on his legal options for stealing a second term, and Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Bill Stepien.
Jason Miller, a senior advisor to Trump’s campaign, and Angela McCallum, the national executive assistant on the campaign, were also subpoenaed by the committee. So was Bernard Kerik, the Trump pardon recipient, Giuliani consigliere and former New York City police commissioner.
The committee is currently seeking criminal contempt charges against one previous subpoena recipient, Steve Bannon, for refusing to testify. And there could be more on the way: After former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who aided Trump’s effort to stay in power, refused the committee’s request to testify, Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said more contempt charges were “on the table.”
Letters from Thompson to the subpoenaed individuals Monday laid out their connections to the Capitol attack and the weeks preceding it.
“You reportedly attended a December 18, 2020, meeting in the Oval Office during which participants discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers, and continuing to spread the message that the November 2020 election had been tainted by widespread fraud,” the letter to Flynn read, linking to an Axios report about the off-the-walls meeting.
Eastman’s letter, the longest of the batch, went over his role advising Trump on strategies to interrupt the Electoral College counting process and remain in power. It also noted, “you were at the Willard Hotel ‘war room’ with Steve Bannon and others on the days leading up to January 6 where the focus was on delaying or blocking the certification of the election.”
Thompson’s letter noted that, though Eastman served as an attorney for Trump, the lawyer has also commented publicly on a podcast “that President Trump has authorized you to discuss the matters at issue, thus waiving any applicable attorney-client and attorney work product privileges,” according to the letter.
John Eastman And Colleagues Worked On 2020 Election Simulation That Is Drowning In Irony
Just a few weeks before advising the White House on Donald Trump’s efforts to steal a second term as president, conservative lawyer John Eastman took part in an election simulation that imagined it would be left-wingers, not Trump supporters, attempting to destabilize the country through violence.
Continue reading “John Eastman And Colleagues Worked On 2020 Election Simulation That Is Drowning In Irony”NRSC Chair Scott Won’t Say Whether GOP Candidate Accused Of Strangling Wife Should Be A Senator
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), signaled on Monday that a candidate being accused of strangling his wife isn’t a dealbreaker for the GOP’s top Senate fundraising organization.
Continue reading “NRSC Chair Scott Won’t Say Whether GOP Candidate Accused Of Strangling Wife Should Be A Senator”New Global Methane Pledge Can Buy Time While World Drastically Reduces Fossil Fuel Use
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It first appeared at The Conversation.
There were four big announcements during the first week of COP26, the U.N. climate conference in Glasgow: on coal, finance, methane and deforestation. Of those four, the global methane pledge could have the most immediate impact on Earth’s climate – provided countries follow through on their pledges and satellite monitoring works as effectively as advertised.
More than 100 countries agreed to cut their methane emissions 30% by 2030 under the Global Methane Pledge, an initiative launched by the U.S. and European Union. And major foundations and philanthropic groups pledged over US$325 million to help countries and industry dramatically reduce methane emissions from multiple sources.
Methane is about 84 times more powerful at warming the climate than carbon dioxide over the short term. Since it only stays in the atmosphere for about 12 years, compared to hundreds of years for carbon dioxide, reducing the amount of methane human activities are adding to the atmosphere can have a quick impact on global warming.
A 30% cut in methane emissions could reduce projected warming by 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 F), according to European Union estimates. That buys some time while countries are lowering their harder-to-cut carbon dioxide emissions, but it doesn’t mean other efforts can slow down.
How big of an impact could the pledge have?
The increase in methane emissions is driven by three anthropogenic sources: leaks from fossil fuel infrastructure – methane is the primary component of natural gas and can leak from natural gas pipelines, drilling operations and coal mines – and also from agriculture, primarily livestock and rice fields, and from decaying waste in landfills. The technology exists to locate and stop the leaks from pipelines and oil and gas operations, and many landfills already make money by capturing methane for use as fuel.
Several recent analyses show the immense potential of the methane pledge to slow warming. In May 2021 the Climate and Clean Air Coalition and U.N. Environment Programme released the Global Methane Assessment, a landmark report that describes how reducing methane can change the climate trajectory within the next 20 years – a critical time frame for slowing warming enough to avoid passing dangerous tipping points. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report concluded in August 2021 that methane mitigation has the greatest potential to slow warming over the next 20 years.
Human-caused methane emissions are growing at an alarming rate. Data released by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2021 shows global methane emissions surged in 2020. Over the last decade methane emissions have reached five-year growth rates not seen since the 1980s.
An ambitious start
So, can the new global methane pledge work in time to help governments and industry limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C in the next two decades?
In short: yes, it can.
The Global Methane Assessment determined that global human-driven methane emissions should be reduced by between 130 and 230 megatons per year by 2030 to be consistent with the Paris climate agreement goal of keeping global warming under 1.5 C compared to pre-industrial times. The Global Methane Pledge announced at COP26 would achieve approximately 145 megatons in annual reductions in 2030, an estimate extrapolated from the International Energy Agency’s methane tracking reports.
The Biden administration has proposed sweeping new rules on methane emissions, particularly targeting oil and gas operations, to help reach its target. Missing from the pledge’s signers, however, are some large methane emitters, including China and Russia.
I worked in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations and have been involved in climate change issues for several years. I see the pledge as a strong first step as the first-ever global commitment to specifically reduce global methane emissions.
The 30% goal serves as an ambitious floor to start from while countries get better at reducing methane and technologies improve.
Jeff Nesbit is a research affiliate at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communications at Yale University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
House GOPers Insist They Love Infrastructure—Just Not The Very Socialist And Bad Kind In The BIF
They’re sweating it.
House Republicans really want you to know that they love roads and bridges — but just not in this particular case.
Not, in other words, when Democrats score a legislative victory — with the help of a handful of Republicans — that the Trump administration failed to achieve.
Continue reading “House GOPers Insist They Love Infrastructure—Just Not The Very Socialist And Bad Kind In The BIF”