Denmark’s minister in charge of energy policy plans to head to the U.S. this year to talk to state representatives in an effort to promote wind energy despite open declarations of hostility toward the technology from President Donald Trump.
Lars Christian Lilleholt, energy minister in Denmark’s minority center-right coalition led by Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, has just returned from India to promote wind power. He now plans to travel to the U.S. to do the same and will count on state legislatures to see the potential of the energy form, irrespective of signals from Washington D.C., he said in an interview in Copenhagen on Tuesday.
“We’re intensifying our efforts with the U.S.,” Lilleholt said. “We’re expanding our cooperation with local authorities abroad to include the U.S.” As part of the minister’s planned trip this year, he said he’ll “visit green states and areas that want to pick up the green gauntlet.”
The comments come as the minister prepares to unveil a plan to put an end to Danish subsidies that have supported renewable energy in the country since the 1970s. He says such a framework is no longer necessary because wind power has proven its long-term capacity to compete on equal terms with fossil fuels, without state support. Lilleholt says it’s already cheaper to use wind than coal to generate electricity, based on estimated costs of creating a new facility. [...]
David Broder's skewed vision of bipartisanship plays on. Today he finds comfort in the fact that his old favorites in the Gang of 14 (now down to 12) have breakfast together.
Broder waxes on and on about the "budding spirit of fellowship" among Senators, led by "Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, reelected as an independent Democrat." Broder's hero.
Now, however, you can see the independence party forming -- on both sides of the aisle. They are mobilizing to resist not only Bush but also the extremist elements in American society -- the vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers on the left. . . . A "decent respect" begins at home, with an acknowledgment of public opinion.
Broder's independence party, with McCain, Lieberman, Graham boldly standing up to Bush and the extremist elements. I hate to tell Broder this, but they are the extremist elements. For example, on the minimum wage bill, the first hike of the federal minimum wage in a decade? The extremist wing of the Gang represented by McCain and Graham, decided that mending the bipartisan fences of the Senate on this critical piece of legislation just wasn't that important. They also had little respect for the opinion of the American people and the 81 percent of them who support a minimum wage increase.
Broder, McCain, Graham, and Lieberman aren't in the coalition of moderate bipartisanship. What McCain, Lieberman and Graham, and Broder for that matter, are good at is talking about being moderate, but never actually being moderate. These are the "moderates" that will support George Bush until the bitter end.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin and Joan McCarter are on hand to discuss the Trump chaos, both inside and outside the White House. It’s on every mind that Trump’s out of his. The gov’t communications crackdown continues, and his nominees look worse every minute.
CREEEEEEAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKK! Trump's EPA nominee Scott Pruitt unhinged his jaw for a smile.
CREEEEEEAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKK! Trump's EPA nominee Scott Pruitt unhinged his jaw for a smile.
The Republican Party has been attacking science and the “regulations” that come out of scientific discoveries and data for some time now. Texas Representative Lamar Smith was about to become the chair of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology. When Rep. Smith farts, oil and Koch brothers money shoots out of his ears, that is. Rep. Smith has used his position to tie up scientists’ time and energy by relentlessly subpoenaing various agencies of research. He and other Republicans use the guise of “oversight” to create these costly and time-consuming witch hunts to stall the progress that different groups are making and then figuring out ways to neuter those programs. There is no shame for Republicans in overstepping any and all boundaries of decency or legality. Trump’s transition team has brought us Oklahoma’s oil and gas industry friendly Scott Pruitt to become the head of the EPA. If Pruitt is confirmed what can we expect to see? The head of Trump’s communications section of his transition team had this to say:
"We'll take a look at what's happening so that the voice coming from the EPA is one that's going to reflect the new administration," Ericksen told NPR. [...]
Any review would directly contradict the agency's current scientific integrity policy, which was published in 2012. It prohibits "all EPA employees, including scientists, managers and other Agency leadership from suppressing, altering, or otherwise impeding the timely release of scientific findings or conclusions."
Pressed further about whether specific research on issues such as climate change could be withheld, Ericksen told NPR that "it's premature to comment on a hypothetical before we've even had the time to look at what's currently happening in the [agency]."
That’s bad news, because the “hypothesis” of that question shouldn’t be up for discussion in an intelligent government.
The Post surveyed 1,388 people, showing half of them side by side pictures of the crowd size at President Obama’s 2009 inauguration and at this year’s, and asking which picture was of Trump’s inauguration. Predictably enough, 41 percent of Trump voters chose the 2009 picture, with the much larger crowd, as Trump’s. But maybe they didn’t know—if you don’t follow the news you might not have seen the pictures discussed—and so they just guessed at the answer they wanted to be true.
What proved that Trump supporters are willing to blatantly lie is this: the other half of the people surveyed were shown the two pictures and asked which had more people. It should be very difficult to get this question wrong, yet 15 percent of Trump supporters did, compared with two percent of Clinton voters and three percent of non-voters. So now we know that two to three percent of people are simply unable to assess visual evidence … and that either Trump supporters are much, much worse at doing that, or they’re dishonest. Let’s have enough respect for Trump voters to not jump to the conclusion that they’re that stupid—which means they’re willing to lie.
It’s not a majority of Trump voters, to be sure. But if you find yourself in an argument with a Trump supporter, and they’re denying reality left and right and you’re wondering if they believe what they’re saying or if supporting Trump is just more important to them than acknowledging what’s true, maybe try showing them these two pictures and asking which one shows a larger crowd. Their answer will tell you a lot.
Now that control of government spending is at Donald Trump's tiny fingertips, he's like an unsupervised kid in a candy shop looking to OD on sugar. He wants it all: major tax cuts, a spike in military spending, massive infrastructure spending, and, of course, his big beautiful multibillion dollar wall. All of this without offsets in the form of tax revenue will balloon the deficit to epic proportions, a far cry from the mantle of "fiscal responsibility" Republicans have been claiming for decades. But that doesn’t bother Trump—he doesn’t care about making tax cuts “revenue neutral” (i.e. continuing to supply the government with the same amount of revenue), let alone cutting spending. Rachael Bade writes:
A number of Trump advisers in recent weeks have privately questioned whether tax reform needs to be “revenue neutral,” according to multiple people familiar with early-stage tax reform discussions. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) personally reached out to administration officials to argue that tax cuts without corresponding offsets would spur faster economic growth, and conservative groups such as Club for Growth and Heritage Foundation second that idea, bolstering the argument in the eyes of the right.
Oh yes, now that the GOP is control, growing the deficit is a net plus—after years of being the end of the world as we know it. Paul Ryan, if he retains any sense of dignity, should stand firm against tax cuts that aren't revenue neutral.
During a private tax reform meeting with Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, strategic adviser Steve Bannon, and son-in-law Jared Kushner two weeks ago, Ryan reiterated that stance. And sources familiar with the talks said nobody objected.
Here's a look at the acting heads of the Justice Department, from Zoe Tillman:
Absent Senate-confirmed officials to lead various DOJ divisions — not to mention the US attorney general job — other officials already working there are stepping in to serve as acting heads. That includes people brought in already by the Trump administration to jobs that do not require Senate confirmation.
Noel Francisco, the acting US solicitor general, who was appointed last week as the principal deputy solicitor general, and Curtis Gannon, the acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel, who was just brought in as the principal deputy assistant attorney general.
Former deputy attorney general Sally Yates is serving as the acting US attorney general. Trump’s nominee for that position, Sen. Jeff Sessions, is still awaiting Senate confirmation.
Yates is a holdover from the Obama administration. Francisco and Gannon both clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia.
Over the next few years there are going to be, presuming we have not already devolved into a banana republic, several Dumpster fires' worth of investigations into Donald Trump and his associates. There are the Russia connections. There's the failure to divest from his businesses, and the Constitutional prohibition against foreign gifts that Trump is even now violating due to the profit he's garnering from his hotel business promoting itself as the way for foreign diplomats to properly ingratiate themselves to Trump. There's the tax returns we haven't seen yet, which may or may not have been withheld because they show behavior inappropriate of a president. There's the serious question of his own mental capacity to make decisions, and his obsessions with retaliation, revenge, and self-promotion. There are shady campaign trail dealings, and orders to government agencies that may or may not violate the rights of workers in those agencies, and take your pick.
Sen. Jeff Sessions was nominated by Donald Trump to be the nation's next attorney general. Jeff Sessions climbed aboard the Trump campaign wagon early and clung there tenaciously, which is the reason he was nominated for the post, and Jeff Sessions says he sees no reason to recuse himself from investigations into Trump once he’s on the job. Why would he?
Sessions said in written responses to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that he is "not aware of a basis to recuse myself" from investigations into incidents involving the president, such as Russian meddling in the presidential race or issues relating to conflicts of interest. [...]
“If merely being a supporter of the President’s during the campaign warranted recusal from involvement in any matter involving him, then most typical presidential appointees would be unable to conduct their duties,” Sessions told Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) in written responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
So if the FBI or CIA comes to the conclusion that, to throw an example out there, members of Trump's campaign team illegally coordinated with Russian hacking attempts, Jeff Sessions would be the person deciding whether to prosecute the crime or brush it aside. If it just happened to turn out that Donald Trump's children were using the Oval Office to promote the family businesses and brands, Jeff Sessions would be the man on the case.
So fret not, America. Jeff Sessions will be keeping watch. Jeff Sessions will let us know if anything untoward is going on, and Jeff Sessions will decide how American law ought to apply to Donald J. Trump and his various hangers-on.
In 2017, we are still debating a woman's right to reproductive health care
In 2017, we are still debating a woman's right to reproductive health care
As Saturday’s massive marches around the country demonstrated, women (and those who care about us) are incredibly concerned about what our lives will be like under the Trump administration. And some of us are downright terrified—with good reason.
The cabinet being assembled likely represents one of the most openly misogynistic in the last few decades, with an assorted crew of politicians, billionaires, and others who have no business making policy and whose views on women’s rights are a throwback to the Stone Age.
Remember that time when Trump said during the campaign that once he bans abortions women who seek them should be punished? Or when Ben Carson suggested that Planned Parenthood was a racist organization that disproportionately set up shop in black neighborhoods and needed to be defunded? Apparently, “making America great” means dragging us ass backward to the days when women had no say over their bodies, had little to no access to reproductive health care, and no right to choose. In Trump’s America, greatness means a whole lot of non-great things for women’s health. And while all women are at risk, certain groups of women find themselves particularly vulnerable—such as immigrant women, women of color, uninsured women, transgender, and non-gender conforming women.
Thankfully, Oregon is one state that is committed to fighting for reproductive justice and health equity for women. According toMother Jones:
Last week, a coalition of activists and community advocates announced the launch of a new promotional campaign in support of the Reproductive Health Equity Act of 2017, a bill that would make the state the first in the nation to establish reproductive health equity by protecting no-cost birth control and extending full coverage of reproductive health services to immigrant women, transgender and gender-nonconforming people, and the uninsured.
Trump continues appointing dangerous bigots and their supporters to the Justice Department
Trump continues appointing dangerous bigots and their supporters to the Justice Department
Jeff Sessions is dominating the headlines as Trump’s nominee for attorney general. The thought of a known racist who was denied a federal judgeship because he was too racist, even back in the 1980s, being allowed to run our nation’s top law enforcement agency and tasked with protecting civil rights should make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. This pick shows how creepy and, frankly, gross the depths of Trump’s swamp cabinet is likely to go. But wait, there’s more.
Shortly before Friday’s inauguration, Trump’s team announced the appointment of John Gore to the position of deputy assistant attorney general in the civil right’s division of the justice department. Never heard of him? Well you should get familiar with his name fast. He’s a former partner at the law firm Jones Day.
It should come as no surprise, given that the cabinet that is being assembled is wholly unqualified to do anything but dismantle our democracy, that Gore is not actually a civil rights lawyer. Not to worry—he does have quite a distinguished legal career in which he has defended some of the most despicable violators of civil rights in the last decade.
One of the hallmarks of authoritarianism is that you're obviously not allowed to publicly criticize your government; such speech would be wrong and bad and laws are quickly made to dispense with such potentially naughty things. Anyhoo, apropos of nothing let's see what's going on in the increasingly despotic realm of North Carolina.
After a video was posted on Facebook Friday showing a group of people following [Former Gov. Pat McCrory] during a trip to Washington, D.C., for inaugural weekend, chanting “Shame!” and calling him a bigot, Sen. Dan Bishop of Charlotte says he’ll introduce legislation to protect public officials.
The proposed legislation would “make it a crime to threaten, intimidate, or retaliate against a present or former North Carolina official in the course of, or on account of, the performance of his or her duties,” Bishop said.
Threaten? Sure, but threats of violence are already illegal. Retaliate against? It's unclear what that means, but using the common definition of the word it would appear to ban taking any action against a North Carolina Republican as a result of how they're doing their jobs, which would presumably include voting against them. Intimidate? What counts as intimidate?
Apparently, judging from Sen. Dan Bishop’s stated reasons for introducing the bill, shouting "Shame!" or calling a former elected Republican official a bigot counts as "intimidating" them, because Republicans are—what's that term that keeps being tossed around these days?—delicate freaking snowflakes who are perfectly fine legislating away the rights of their fellow Americans but who cannot bear the thought of having their fee-fees occasionally hurt in public as a consequence of those acts. So shouting hurtful things at a former Republican lawmaker will, according to the bill, be punishable by five years in prison.
Sen. Dan Bishop of Charlotte is, by the way, one of the vile little grubs that launched North Carolina's "bathroom bill," a bill that sent the whole state into an uproar, launched boycotts, and did absolutely nothing good for anyone. He calls the people shouting hurtful names at Pat McCrory "leftist rioters," and has a vested interest in new laws to protect North Carolina Republican bigots from being called hurtful names in public. Republican bigots need their safe zones, after all. The First Amendment is fine and good, but yelling hurtful things at a public official should be right out.
South Carolina just traded its first non-white governor for a new chief executive who refuses to leave his all-white country club. On Tuesday, Gov. Nikki Haley was confirmed by the Senate and resigned to become Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations; shortly thereafter, Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster was sworn in as the Palmetto State’s new governor, bringing some remarkable baggage that he adamantly refuses to shed.
During his 2014 campaign for lieutenant governor, Bakari Sellers, who was McMaster’s Democratic opponent that year, called for McMaster to resign from Forest Lake Club, a country club that Sellers said had only white members. Indeed, two Republican legislators confirmed they couldn’t say whether Forest Lake had any black members at all. The State reported at the time that unnamed sources claimed “an interracial couple” was on the club’s “waiting list for membership,” as if that meant everything was fine. But the story didn’t stop McMaster from beating Sellers 59-41.
McMaster remains a member in good standing of Forest Lake to this day, and that’s not changing. Last week, McMaster’s office told The State that he has no plans to end his three-decade association with the club, and his fellow Republicans don’t seem to be in any hurry to get McMaster to change his mind. In fact, state Sen. John Courson, another Forest Lake member, defended the incoming governor’s membership, saying he not only doesn’t “perceive it to be an issue” but adding, “It has not been perceived to be an issue in any of my nine Senate campaigns.” Unfortunately, given the way GOP politics has been going, Courson probably isn’t wrong.
McMaster will enter the 2018 election with incumbency on his side, but he may not get a smooth ride through the GOP primary. Sen. Tim Scott hasn’t ruled out running against McMaster, and he’s probably the Republican who has the best chance to beat him. Attorney General Alan Wilson and some lesser-known GOP politicians also haven’t said no to a bid.
Of course, South Carolina is a very red state, and while a few Democrats have talked about getting in, no one seems to be in a hurry to run, and McMaster’s involvement with the whites-only Forest Lake doesn’t seem likely to change any minds. For a state that made a huge deal of removing the Confederate flag from its capitol grounds less than two years ago, the lack of concern about—and lack of attention to—this story is as distressing as it is telling.
Resisting arrest will get you felony charges in Louisana
Resisting arrest will get you felony charges in Louisana
In a move that supports increased policing and the ever-expanding militarization of the police, Louisiana became the first state in the country to pass a law that now makes it a hate crime to resist arrest.
Under the new “Blue Lives Matter” law, resisting arrest can now be considered a serious felony which comes with harsh consequences and potential jail time.
Under the new law, Hebert says any offender who resists, or gets physical, with an officer can be charged with a felony hate crime.
For example, if someone who's arrested for petty theft, a misdemeanor, tries to assault an officer, that individual can be charged with a hate crime. A hate crime is considered a much more serious offense, with serious consequences.
This would seem to make sense but for the fact that data supports something entirely different. Yes, it is true that police face different levels of risk when they go out and do their jobs everyday. But facts show that cops are actually at less risk of harm on the job than ever before.
Data released by the FBI on Monday shows that 2015 was one of the safest years for U.S. law enforcement in recorded history, following a sustained trend of low numbers of on-duty deaths in recent decades.
But who cares about facts, right? In an environment where conservatives twist any calls for police accountability into a false war on cops and paint a lawless society that needs to be returned to order, making resisting arrest into a hate crime allows them to target protestors and police reform activists like those from the Black Lives Matter movement.
Yesterday the White House asserted, with abso-tootly zero evidence and in public, that the current administration believes widespread voting fraud took place in the 2016 presidential election, voting fraud so massive and severe that it bent the popular vote in Hillary Clinton's favor even while delivering the Electoral College, aka the important part, to Donald Trump.
One of the things that's super-duper odd about this—far be it from me to call professional paid sack of crap Sean Spicer a liar, mind you, but it sure is super-duper odd—is that in the days after the election Donald Trump's team went to great lengths to prevent recounts of the presidential vote from happening. Because, they said, there was absolutely no fraud anywhere to be found. From the court documents presented in Michigan, for example:
All available evidence suggests that the 2016 general election was not tainted by fraud or mistake. Governor Snyder has said so. [...] So too has the White House. [...] Even the chief-council to second-place finisher Hillary Clinton concedes there is no evidence of any tampering that would warrant a recount.
They were quite put out about it, in fact. When a third-party candidate suggested that perhaps the vote that the White House is now themselves contesting was not fully on the up-and-up, all the Trump lawyers turned beet red with indignation that anyone anywhere would do such a dishonorable thing.
Regrettably, Michigan is not the only victim of Stein's electoral farce. Rather, it is the nation as a whole. By "contesting" the clear choice of millions of voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Stein aims to sow doubts regarding the legitimacy of the presidential election [...]
And what kind of inhuman monster from the depths of hell would do that?
!["Dominic Strauss-Kahn is a powerful global figure who has been accused of a string of sexual offences and is still under investigation for his role in a prostitution ring. By inviting him to speak, the Cambridge Union risks colluding with attitudes that condone or trivialise violence against women. Ironically the event comes one day after International Women's Day (8th March) when people around the globe will be taking action on sexual and other violence against women." - Holly Dustin, Director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition..The pictured protest is not affiliated with Holly Dustin nor the End Violence Against Women Coalition. The quote has been used to summarise why the protest occured.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170126071148/http://images.dailykos.com/images/348159/story_image/6820220764_6e35e77d5f_o.jpg?1483996518 ""Dominic Strauss-Kahn is a powerful global figure who has been accused of a string of sexual offences and is still under investigation for his role in a prostitution ring. By inviting him to speak, the Cambridge Union risks colluding with attitudes that condone or trivialise violence against women. Ironically the event comes one day after International Women's Day (8th March) when people around the globe will be taking action on sexual and other violence against women." - Holly Dustin, Director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition..The pictured protest is not affiliated with Holly Dustin nor the End Violence Against Women Coalition. The quote has been used to summarise why the protest occured.")
