Shakesville: climate change

Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts

Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts

Trump Is Toxic: Ambassador Quits Over Climate Policy

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link.]

Elise Labott, Zachary Cohen, and Michelle Kosinski at CNN: Acting US Ambassador to China Quit Over Trump Climate Decision.

Acting US ambassador to China David Rank resigned from his post in Beijing over [Donald] Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, several sources familiar with the decision told CNN.

A career foreign service officer since 1990, Rank assumed the position of deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Beijing in January 2016 and had been serving until the arrival of Trump's pick for the job, former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who was confirmed by Congress late last month.

Rank has served in several senior positions within the US State Department including time as the director of the office of Afghanistan affairs and as a senior adviser to the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"Mr. Rank made a personal decision," a senior State Department official told CNN, stopping short of citing the climate deal developments as the reason. "We appreciate his years of dedicated service to the State Department."

But sources familiar with the decision indicated that Rank's departure is directly tied to Trump's controversial move to pull out of the accord.

Whether he's actively warring with members of his own administration, or alienating career bureaucrats who will not be associated with his extremist policies, the long and the short of it is that Trump is toxic, and it's a big problem for all of us that principled people want nothing to do with his presidency.

Trump Is Making the United States a Global Pariah

Anyone who was paying the slightest bit of attention during the election knew this would happen if Donald Trump were elected. It was what we feared, and had hoped desperately to avoid. But here we are.

After only 134 days in office, Trump is turning the United States into an object of scorn around the world, abdicating leadership and repeatedly signaling that he intends to position this nation as a global antagonist instead.

Allying with Russia. The Muslim ban. Reinstating the Mexico City policy. Chanting "America First." Provoking and alienating our allies. Cozying up to dictators. Spilling intelligence secrets from allies. Trash-talking. Pulling out of the Paris climate accord.

That is hardly a complete list. The latest move on Paris is the worst, for a number of reasons, not least of which is because Trump's decision for this country stands to have harmful consequences for the rest of the world.

The people of the world are paying attention.

The world community has already begun to levy "sanctions" on the United States: Tourism has precipitously declined. And that was before Trump stood at a podium in the Rose Garden yesterday, glibly declaring that the U.S. doesn't give a shit about the health of the planet.

It's no wonder that Disney CEO Robert Iger joined Elon Musk in resigning from the President's Council. Iger resigned, he explains, "as a matter of principle."

Which principle is not clear, but I'm guessing it has a little something to do with the fact that Disney parks have long been major international tourist destinations and a huge chunk of Disney's profits come from international box office dollars and international sale of their products.

I saw a lot of "even corporate executives are criticizing Trump!" yesterday. Of course they are. Some of them even because they are human beings who like breathable air! All of them because they don't want to have to compete in a global marketplace where the U.S. is reviled.

Trump's rationale for pulling out of the accord was that staying in would have been bad for the economy and bad for U.S. workers. This is a lie on two fronts: 1. Greening the economy would not have been bad for U.S. workers and would create jobs. 2. Pulling out will certainly cost jobs, as disdain for American companies and products starts showing up on the bottom line of corporate ledgers.

A number of mayors across the U.S. and several state legislatures have already made very public promises to comply with the accord. I hope that cuts through the noise, and makes some difference to a global community who are wondering what this country is even fucking doing right now.

But the fact is that Trump is isolating us and making us a figure of contempt in the world. And that is going to have consequences.

Among them is not "making America great again."

Trump to Announce Withdrawal from Paris Agreement

Any minute now, Donald Trump will appear in the Rose Garden reportedly to announce that he will withdraw the U.S. from the Paris agreement on climate change.

Provided he does indeed announce exactly what we expect, it will be, like many Trump decisions, not surprising but still gutting.

Military jazz quartet accompanying Trump's Paris pull-out announcement at WH: "Surreal...its like the Titanic band," 1 guy here says pic.twitter.com/LFqxOi4er0
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24) June 1, 2017

Here is a thread for discussion.

UPDATE: And here it is.

"The United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord--" He pauses for applause. "Thank you. Thank you."
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 1, 2017

"We're getting out; we'll start to negotiate. We'll see if we can make a deal that's fair. If we can that's great. If we can't that's fine."
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 1, 2017

UPDATE 2: I am nauseous after watching that address. I can't overstate how extreme a speech that was, no less the decision it announced.

I am indescribably angry at this reprehensible lie to justify risking the planet, turning this nation into an object of scorn in the process https://t.co/7IojrpUqxY
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 1, 2017

Trump's constant ad-libs about how much he loves this country are making me fucking sick.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 1, 2017

It is not hyperbole to say this decision, and its anti-global rationale, will fundamentally alter the course of our future.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 1, 2017

If you were concerned that maybe there wasn't a man around to call me a hysteric, FEAR NOT.

george w bush literally lied about WMDs to justify bombing another country...relax https://t.co/JQDl7qh0k8
— Jake Woolf (@jakewoolf) June 1, 2017

You know what I don't need any the fuck more of? Men telling me to "relax" about Donald Trump. https://t.co/LwIz2CU2QE
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 1, 2017

This, what happened today, is exactly the sort of thing I feared with a Trump presidency, and why I flattened myself trying to prevent it. Lies. Disastrous decisions. Global peril. The United States becoming a pariah around the world.

And here we are. Maybe a few more people should have been as not fucking relaxed as I was. Goddammit.

This Presidency Is Terrible

Exhibits 1,204,983 and 1,204,984:

Trump is reportedly expected to pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement on climate change. Of course he is, b/c that is the worst decision.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 31, 2017

Trump, who once said "Nobody respects women more than I do," prepares to take away the contraception coverage mandate.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 31, 2017

Neither is definite yet. But I have no faith we will not get the worst possible outcomes in both cases. I don't know what else to say that I haven't already said dozens of time before. This presidency is terrible. Trump is cruel, and cruelty is a central feature of his presidency. It is difficult to bear.

"It's Just a Question of Time."

As Donald Trump keeps us waiting to hear his decision on the Paris accord, and whether we'll be [Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] only the third country out of 197 not to sign onto the climate change agreement, scientists are raising the alarm that U.S. coral reefs "are on course to largely disappear within just a few decades because of global warming."

New research has shown that strict conservation measures in Hawaii have not spared corals from a warming ocean in one of its most prized bays, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicting yet more bleaching is likely off Hawaii and Florida this summer.

...A global coral bleaching event has shifted between the northern and southern hemispheres since 2014, affecting around 70% of the world's reefs. The "terminal" condition of Australia's sprawling Great Barrier Reef, which suffered bleaching along two-thirds of its 1,400 mile length in 2016 and 2017, has provoked the greatest alarm.

But scientists have pointed out that America's main reefs, found off Hawaii, Florida, Guam, and Puerto Rico, are facing a largely unheralded disaster.

"The idea we will sustain reefs in the US 100 years from now is pure imagination, at the current rate it will be just 20 or 30 years, it's just a question of time," said Kim Cobb, an oceanographer at Georgia Tech. "The overall health of reefs will be severely compromised by the mid point of the century and we are already seeing the first steps in that process."

..."This is another data point on the staggering breadth of damage across the global oceans," Cobb said. "You can run but you can't hide from the train wreck that is coming. The recent bleaching has been a brush with death and shows that this fatal stress is upon us."

Most of the people reading this will be alive in 20 or 30 years. The idea that a severely compromised environment as a result of global warming is something with which future generations will have to reckon is a fantasy.

I'm sure I've said this before, but: One thing I will never understand is how members of the press who bent over backwards to create a false equivalency between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and voters who promulgated narratives about how there was "no difference" between the two candidates, could have been so aggressively indifferent to the issue of climate change.

Even if the only difference between them had been that Clinton didn't think climate change was a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, that should have been enough. That is enormous.

I haven't written about this much—in fact, I believe I've written about it only once, ten years ago—but a major part of the reason I supported Bill Clinton's ticket in 1992 was because Al Gore was his running mate, and I was a huge fan of this Senator from Tennessee who was talking about "the environment," way back when this issue wasn't widely called "climate change," or even "global warming," but was mostly about "the ozone layer" and "greenhouse gases."

I was very hopeful, then, that we might have leadership that cared about protecting the environment. I am much more pessimistic now, because 25 years have been passed, most of them entirely wasted in terms of meaningful policy. So I don't write very much about climate change, but it is always on my mind.

I desperately hope Trump will do the right thing, and I fear that he won't. I fear that, even if he does, it's too little too late.

Just a question of time. And less time than we might like to think.

Trump to Sign Devastating EO on Climate Change

Today, Donald Trump will sign an executive order that will rescind crucial climate change provisions enacted by President Obama. Valerie Volcovici at Reuters reports:

The decree, dubbed the "Energy Independence" order, will seek to undo former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan requiring states to slash carbon emissions from power plants—a critical element in helping the United States meet its commitments to a global climate change accord agreed by nearly 200 countries in Paris in December 2015.

It will also rescind a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, reverse rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas production, and reduce the weight of climate change in federal agencies' assessments of new regulations.

"We're going to go in a different direction," a senior White House official told reporters ahead of Tuesday's order.

Less the direction of trying to save the planet and more the direction of destroying it for corporate profits.

This is just a sweeping devastating of climate protections that were already insufficiently robust. And this is the kind of policy that has effects that can't just be unwound with the stroke of a pen sometime down the road.

The time we lose waiting for a court to overturn this executive order, or for a Democratic governing majority, is time we cannot get back.

Hillary Clinton's campaign was "the first major presidential campaign ever to make combating climate change a central issue." She was the only presidential candidate to speak frankly about environmental racism, issuing a factsheet dedicated to detailing her "Plan to Fight for Environmental and Climate Justice." When the first two presidential debates failed to meaningfully broach climate change, she dedicated an entire speech to it, with Al Gore alongside her.

Anyone who still believes there was "no difference" between the two candidates is being willfully ignorant. That narrative was always mendacious, dangerous trash—and nothing makes that more plain than what is about to happen on climate change.

Relatedly: Arctic researcher Victoria Herrmann details at the Guardian how the data critical to her research is being deleted by the Trump administration.

Which is no less than any of us should have anticipated from a man who declared climate change a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012

Your New EPA Chief

I cannot put it any more bluntly than this: The entire Trump administration doesn't care if people live or die.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said Thursday he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming.

"I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it's a primary contributor to the global warming that we see," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box."

"But we don't know that yet. ...We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis."

...Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, co-chair of the Senate Climate Action Task Force, slammed Pruitt for his comments, calling his views "extreme" and "irresponsible."

"Anyone who denies over a century's worth of established science and basic facts is unqualified to be the administrator of the EPA. Now more than ever, the Senate needs to stand up to Scott Pruitt and his dangerous views," he said in a statement.

Rising levels of carbon dioxide are bad. Bad for marine life, bad for terra flora and fauna, bad for human beings.

But Pruitt's only concern is that capping carbon dioxide emissions is a minor inconvenience for corporate profiteers.

I have said it before and I will say it again: I will never understand the utter lack of self-preservation that underwrites climate change denialism. Not only do these people not care about other people, or even their own kids and grandkids; they don't even appear to care about their own damn selves.

All the wealth in the world won't matter if the planet is dead.

Everything Is Fine

Everything is not fine:

An Argentine research base near the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula has set a heat record at a balmy 63.5° Fahrenheit (17.5 degrees Celsius), the U.N. weather agency said on Wednesday.

The Experanza base set the high on March 24, 2015, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said after reviewing data around Antarctica to set benchmarks to help track future global warming and natural variations.

...Antarctica locks up 90 percent of the world's fresh water as ice and would raise sea levels by about 60 meters (200 ft) if it were all to melt, meaning scientists are concerned to know even about extremes around the fringes.

And now we are two years further into global climate change, with a U.S. president who once said he believes climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.

During the campaign, I had so many conversations with friends and colleagues about the shameful display by corporate punditry, and the thing I always kept coming back to was: If nothing else, not even the faintest trace of decency, have they no sense of self-preservation? Wealth and access aren't going to save anyone from climate change.

I wonder the same thing still.

Trump's Rampage Continues

[Content Note: Islamophobia; homophobia; war.]

Last night, Trump fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates, after Yates "ordered Justice Department lawyers not to defend his immigration order temporarily banning entry into the United States for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees from around the world. In a news release, the White House said Yates had 'betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States.' Trump named in her place Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Boente said he would enforce the president's directive until he was replaced by Trump's attorney general nominee, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala)."

Sally Yates was a career prosecutor for more than 2 decades & prosecuted Olympic bomber prior to being named Deputy AG. She exits DOJ a hero
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) January 31, 2017

To be totally clear: Yates was doing the job she swore an oath to do—defend the U.S. Constitution. And, in response, Trump called it a "betrayal" and fired her.

Then, Trump fired acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Daniel Ragsdale, and replaced him with Thomas Homan. "By promoting Homan, who most recently led the arm of ICE that enforces detentions and deportations, the Trump administration signaled its intent to place a greater emphasis on the harsh enforcement measures that Homan carried out."

Both Yates and Ragsdale were "placeholders" as acting heads, but the ubiquitous argument that their temporary status renders this irrelevant is absolutely wrong. Trump did not merely remove them because their finite leadership was finished, but to make way for people who will more faithfully and aggressively execute his unconstitutional Muslim ban.

"This isn't fascism." Sure. I guess. In the same way a single cobblestone isn't the entire street.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 31, 2017

Trump fired both acting AG & acting ICE director. He accused AG of "betrayal" for following court order. This is a purge. It is not normal.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 31, 2017

Meanwhile comes news that several House Judiciary Committee aides helped the Trump administration draft the Islamophobic executive order, but did so after signing nondisclosure agreements, and then failed to inform the Republican committee chair and party leadership. This is extraordinary. Someone in the Trump administration (my guess is Pence) convinced Congressional staffers to work in secret to draft an unconstitutional Muslim ban. That is incredibly alarming.

Republicans are not happy about it, but are they going to do anything about it? Someone (my guess is Bannon) is working very hard to sow discord with Republican legislators, but he may be underestimating how craven they actually are. Either way, whether by fissures in the party or unfathomable fealty, the Trump authoritarians are going to get what they want, and no one in the GOP seems inclined to stop them.

In other news: "Trump is taking aim at one of the federal government's main agencies for climate change research—the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—and NOAA employees are girding for drastic changes in how they conduct science and report it to the public. Trump has appointed a leading denier of climate change, Kenneth Haapala of the Heartland Institute, to serve on the administration team handling appointments for the U.S. Department of Commerce, the federal agency that oversees NOAA." This is so, so dangerous.

Further: Trump has announced he will "keep the Obama administration protections extended to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender workers, a statement said, apparently responding to reports that the orders would be reversed." That is a relief, but a very minimal one. As I noted yesterday, Congressional Republicans are preparing the "First Amendment Defense Act," which is a heinous anti-LGBT bill, and none of us should have any faith at all that Trump won't sign it when it lands on his desk.

And more: "Trump's top trade adviser accuses Germany of currency exploitation." Unreal. "Germany is using a 'grossly undervalued' euro to 'exploit' the US and its EU partners, Donald Trump's top trade adviser has said in comments that are likely to trigger alarm in Europe's largest economy. Peter Navarro, the head of Mr Trump's new National Trade Council, told the Financial Times the euro was like an 'implicit Deutsche Mark' whose low valuation gave Germany an advantage over its main trading partners. His views suggest the new administration is focusing on currency as part of its hard-charging approach on trade ties. In a departure from past US policy, Mr Navarro also called Germany one of the main hurdles to an American trade deal with the EU and declared talks with the bloc over a US-EU agreement, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, dead." This is just incredibly worrying.

And finally: "Battle Rages Amid East Ukraine's Bloodiest Fighting in Weeks." By way of reminder, Trump and Putin had a phone call over the weekend, and casualties have starkly increased in the interceding days.

@MalcolmNance Putin laid down the law to Trump last Saturday. pic.twitter.com/peB6wNETds
— Michael Joyce (@MJoyce2244) January 31, 2017

This is all very, very bad.

In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

Please read this beautiful piece by my Shareblue colleague Matthew Chapman: "As a man on the spectrum, Clinton's support of autism rights means so much to me."

"The Paris agreement to combat climate change became international law Friday. The landmark deal aims to tackle global warming amid growing fears that the world is becoming hotter even faster than scientists expected. ...United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki moon commemorated the event, talking with nongovernmental groups at U.N. headquarters in New York to hear their concerns and visions for the future. 'This is an emotional moment for me. It is a credit to all of you. And it is historic for the world,' Ban said in his opening remarks."

[Content Note: Misogyny; body policing] Damn, this piece in the NYT: "Nearly half the girls say Mr. Trump's comments about women have affected the way they think about their bodies." Seethe.

Welp: "Jury Finds Bridgegate Defendants Guilty on All Counts." This does not bode well for Chris Christie! (Good.)

Uhhhhh: "Giuliani says he was leaked information about emails days in advance of Comey letter: 'You're darn right I heard about it.'"

It's a pretty alarming commentary on the state of political punditry that this policy-for-policy analysis of the issues by "Hamilton" star Daveed Diggs is better than anything I've seen by the optics-centered garbage media this entire cycle.

[CN: Rape culture] This is unsurprising but deeply infuriating: "Data Suggests D.C. Prosecutors Pursue Cases That Conform to Rape Myths."

[CN: Misogyny] Wow: "Harvard University has suspended its men's soccer team for the remainder of the season because of sexual comments made about members of the women's soccer team. University president Drew Faust said in a statement on Thursday night that an investigation into the 2012 team found their 'appalling' actions were not isolated to one year or the actions of a few, but appeared to be more widespread across the team and continued through the current season."

If you'd like to hear a song to celebrate Hillary Clinton, here you go!

What have you been reading?

In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

RIP Tom Hayden. "Tom Hayden, the preeminent 1960s radical who roused a generation of alienated young Americans, became a symbol of militancy by leading riotous protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and added Hollywood glamour to his mystique with an activist partnership and marriage to film star Jane Fonda, died Oct. 23 in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 76." Truly an end of an era. My condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, and fans.

Katie Klabusich was kind enough to have me on her show again, and you can listen to it here!

[Content Note: Hacking; sexual assault; misogyny] This is a really fascinating read: "Inside the Strange, Paranoid World of Julian Assange." Another case of "this is a guy who clearly has a problem with women, which is why you maybe should have never turned him into a hero in the first place," but don't mind Cassandra!

[CN: Climate change] Damn: "Levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have surged past an important threshold and may not dip below it for 'many generations.' The 400 parts per million benchmark was broken globally for the first time in recorded history in 2015. But according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), 2016 will likely be the first full year to exceed the mark. The high levels can be partly attributed to a strong El Niño event."

Ugh. "AT&T;/Time Warner deal could be approved without any FCC merger review."

[CN: Guns; racism] The Mothers of the Movement continue to campaign with and for Hillary Clinton, making their case for why they hope people will vote—and vote for her.

Donald Trump's strategy of trying to depress enthusiasm among Clinton supporters by dragging the campaign down in the dirt has wildly backfired: "The key finding in the new ABC News tracking poll, which finds Clinton leading among likely voters nationally by 50-38, is that affirmative support for Clinton among her supporters, as opposed to a motivator only rooted in dislike for the other side, is growing. As ABC's polling memo notes, the percentage of Clinton supporters who say their vote will be for her [as opposed to against Trump] is at a new high." And it's increased 16 points since early September.

LOVE: "That look when you cap off a day on the trail by watching the Cubs cement their trip to the World Series."

Awwwww: "Grandma Gets Emotional When Family Surprises Her with Puppy." The puppy she always wanted!

What have you been reading?

In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Police brutality; death; racism] READ THIS: "To be Black in America is to be afraid."

Hillary Clinton wrote an op-ed for the New York Times on her plans to address poverty: "My Plan for Helping America's Poor."

[CN: Racist slur] At a Trump campaign event in Cleveland Heights billed as a "town hall meeting on African American concerns," Don King used the n-word while introducing Donald Trump. While I'm not about to police whatever words King wants to use, seeing Trump chortling away about it in the background is deeply disturbing.

[CN: Video autoplay at link; hostility to consent] Joss Whedon and a bunch of celebrities put together a video about the importance of voting in this election, with a pretty clear message about for whom to vote. Two big problems: One, I don't find the joke (even though he's clearly in on it) about Mark Ruffalo getting naked funny, since the joke is still premised on the appearance of non-consent. Two, I don't really think this works to convey the seriousness of this election. Too clever by half.

GOOD: "Congressional Democrats Campaign to Prove Hyde Amendment's Undue Burden."

[CN: Domestic violence; death] Another family annihilator "is in custody after a quadruple homicide left his four children dead and their mother in critical condition from an apparent stabbing." (But let's continue to not have a public conversation about toxic masculinity.) My condolences to the woman who was harmed herself and has lost all four of her children. I don't even know how one could begin to process the scope of that sort of violence and loss. I ache for her.

"On Wednesday morning, 31 countries officially ratified the Paris climate agreement, pushing it over one of the required thresholds needed for the agreement to enter into force. Sixty parties, representing 48 percent of the world's emissions, have now officially joined. For the Paris agreement to enter into force, at least 55 nations, representing at least 55 percent of global emissions, must formally ratify. That means that the agreement needs just 7 percent more greenhouse gas emissions before the agreement can enter into force."

"Clever Dog Saves the Life of a Newborn Puppy Abandoned on a Garbage Pile." Awwww good dog!

What have you been reading?

In the News

Here are a couple of links of interest from the news today:

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] This is a real paragraph in a New York Times article on President Obama and climate change: "But while climate change has played to Mr. Obama's highest ideals—critics would call them messianic impulses—it has also exposed his weaknesses, namely an inability to forge consensus, even within his own party, on a problem that demands a bipartisan response." JFC. This President has done everything he can with an obstructionist Congress, and used his executive orders as judiciously and thoughtfully as possible, to address climate change. And this is the write-up he gets in the paper of record.

In related news: "New Study Shows Link Between Louisiana Floods and Climate Change."

[CN: Toxic water; neglect] "Flint's Undocumented Residents Go Without Care in Wake of Water Crisis." Fucking hell.

[CN: Misogyny; abuse] This widely shared tweet is doing my head in: "Wasn't a fan of Hillary. Didn't vote for her in the primaries. But you know what? Never seen someone handle abuse so stoically. Has my vote." I mean, yay for another Clinton supporter and everything, but HOLY SHIT the idea that a woman's most admirable quality is her ability to stoically handle abuse. Yikes.

RIP Lady Chablis. "The Lady Chablis, one of the most remembered characters from both John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Clint Eastwood's film of the book, has died. A longtime performer at Savannah's Club One, many referred to Chablis simply as 'The Doll.' ...She has long been a giver to the community. Throughout the 2000's, she worked closely on various campaigns for the American Diabetes Association, donating thousands of dollars raised by her performances to the cause. She was the headlining entertainer for Savannah Pride's inaugural celebration, and hosted their Miss Gay Pride Pageant. She would go on to perform, donate and contribute to many LGBT charities throughout her career." My condolences to her family, friends, colleagues, and fans.

"We Just Found Out There's More Than One Species of Giraffe." Neat!

What have you been reading?

Deadly Flooding in Louisiana

[Content Note: Flooding; death; displacement; video may autoplay at link.]

Torrential rains have devastated parts of Louisiana over the past couple of days:

The federal government declared a major disaster in Louisiana Sunday after torrential rain inundated the state killing at least four people, flooding thousands of homes and prompting thousands of water rescues.

...Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Sunday that more than 20,000 people had been rescued by all participating agencies and volunteers since the flooding outbreak began.

"This is a serious event," Edwards said. "It is ongoing. It is not over."

The governor said in a press conference Sunday that as many as 10,000 people were in shelters as a result of the widespread flooding.

The downpours have sent at least six river gauges to record levels in Louisiana. This includes the Amite River, which exceeded its previous record by over 6 feet in Magnolia, and by over 4 feet in Denham Springs.

Mike Steele, communications director for the Louisiana Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, told weather.com on Sunday that there was a huge spike in flood rescues Saturday into Sunday, mostly in the eastern half of Baton Rouge into Denham Springs.

"It's kind of an all hands on deck," he said in a phone interview. "We still have a situation where motorists are stranded on I-12, and it remains closed between here and St. Tammany Parish, so the whole interstate system from Baton Rouge to that location is still closed."

...Steele said more than 1,000 homes have been flooded in Baton Rouge, and that number that is expected to climb. In Livingston, more than 1,000 homes have been flooding, along with 200 in St. Helena Parish, and 500 or more in Tangipahoa Parish. Apart from residential damage, Steele said they are also monitoring nursing homes and hospitals in the area that could be impacted by rising water.

Steele said the Louisiana Air National Guard has about 200 full-time employees working, plus about 750 guardsmen that have been deployed, a number that could climb to 1,000 soon. Additionally, he said 160 high water vehicles were in use as of last night, along with 35 watercraft, which brought the LANG rescue total to more than 3,500 people and 166 pets as of Sunday morning.

Absolutely devastating.

My thoughts are with everyone in the affected area, which includes one of my colleagues at BNR, who has asked that people keep the people in the affected area in their thoughts and prayers, if you're a praying person.

Please feel welcome and encouraged, as always, to recommend ways to help in comments. And let's keep this an image-free thread.

In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Rape culture; sexual assault; racism] Rage seethe boil: "The embattled judge in the Stanford sexual assault trial is presiding over a similar case in which a Latino man is facing a much harsher sentence than Brock Turner, raising questions about how the former student may have benefited from his privileged background. Raul Ramirez, a 32-year-old immigrant from El Salvador who admitted to sexually assaulting his female roommate in a case that has similarities with the Stanford case, will be sentenced to three years in state prison under a deal overseen by judge Aaron Persky, according to records obtained by the Guardian. The three-year-prison sentence, part of a plea agreement signed in March, provides a sharp contrast to the outcome for Turner, a white 20-year-old former Stanford swimmer who Persky sentenced to probation and six months in county jail after he was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. The parallel cases, which include similar felony charges of sexual assault, could lend weight to what critics of Persky allege are biases in his courtroom." They sure could!

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] "Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama will campaign together for the first time in 2016 when they meet in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Tuesday, Clinton's campaign said. ...'In Charlotte, President Obama and Hillary Clinton will discuss building on the progress we've made and their vision for an America that is stronger together,' the Clinton campaign said in its announcement on Wednesday." Do you know how excited I am?! YOU KNOW HOW EXCITED I AM!

[CN: War on agency] This is a must-read essay by Madeline Gomez: "The Burden Is Undue: What I Have Learned and Unlearned About Abortion."

[CN: Misogyny; rape joke] This Jimmy Kimmel video is going around today, for good reason. People are interviewed about how dishonest Hillary Clinton is, while straight-up lying about having seen news stories about her that don't exist. There is, however, a really awful rape joke in it, so I'm recommending it with that significant caveat.

There is difficulty, for a number of reasons, calculating what percentage of the population is transgender, but "a new study from the Williams Institute estimates that there are approximately 1.4 million [trans people in the US]—twice as many as were previously estimated." On the one hand, it doesn't matter how many trans people there are in total, in the sense that trans rights and accommodations are necessary out of basic decency because trans people, irrespective of the number, exist. On the other hand, demographic numbers have always had, and will no doubt continue to have, relevance to public policy, so the more accurate the number, the better—especially if the number of trans people has previously been underestimated.

[CN: Misogyny] This is a very frank and sad essay by sportswriter Bill Plaschke: "I regret marginalizing Pat Summitt's greatness: [T]o marginalize greatness because you don't think many people are watching is embarrassing, even shameful. Summitt's life showed that, when it comes to women's sports, if you follow the ratings, you miss the point."

[CN: Racism; misogyny; guns] Of course: "The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), which USA Today describes as a 'conservative-leaning ethics watchdog group,' was not pleased with House Democrats' sit-in last week. On Monday (June 27), the group filed a complaint with the House of Representative's Office of Congressional Ethics. USA Today reports that the complaint alleges that some of the legislators who sat on the floor of the House in an attempt to force a vote on gun control violated the body's ethics rules." Naturally, the women and/or people of color who led the sit-in appear to be primary targets of the complaint.

[CN: Trans policing] This seems problematic: "Transgender troops 'will be able to use the bathrooms, housing, uniforms, and fitness standards of their preferred [sic] gender only after they have legally transitioned to that identity,' according to guidelines emerging in a report from the AP ahead of a rumored announcement that the U.S. military ban will be lifted. Troops undergoing the process of gender transition would not be able to dress as their preferred gender while on-duty." Aside from the issue of general decency, it seems to me that this could present problems for trans people trying to transition, who may be required by healthcare providers to live as their correct gender as a prerequisite for legal transitioning. Are military healthcare personnel going to be advised to use different guidelines? I hope these "emerging" guidelines are submitted to trans consultants for review and edit before they are finalized, because they seem pretty clueless at the moment.

[CN: Climate change; video ad may autoplay at link] Damn: "Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) have survived in Antarctica for nearly 45,000 years, adapting to glacial expansions and sea ice fluctuations driven by millennia of climatic changes. The penguins remained resilient through these changes, but new research from the University of Delaware suggests that unique 21st-century climates may pose an existential threat to many of the colonies on the Antarctic continent. Published Wednesday in Scientific Reports, the study, led by oceanographer Megan Cimino, found that up to 60 percent of the current Adélie penguin habitat in Antarctica could be unfit to host colonies by the end of the century."

And finally! WeRateDogs is one of the most delightful accounts on Twitter, and this tweet made me laugh foreverrrrr.

In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Guns] Rep. John Lewis, who is genuinely a national treasure, is leading a sit-in on the House floor "to push Republicans to address gun violence in the legislative chamber. Lewis wrote a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan demanding that he keep the House in session through its planned recess to debate and vote on gun control legislation. 'As the worst mass shooting in our nation's history has underscored, our country cannot afford to stand by while this Congress continues to be paralyzed by politics,' the Georgia Democrat and civil rights icon wrote. 'We urge you to lead the House into action and work with both sides of the aisle to pass commonsense solutions to keep American children and families safe.'" Wow. Thank you, Rep. Lewis.

[CN: Guns] "One day after the Senate failed to advance a series of new measures to rein in America's gun violence epidemic, a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans banded together to carve out a way forward so that individuals on the FBI terror watch list do not have access to guns. Led by Susan Collins, a Republican senator from Maine known to work with others across the aisle, the lawmakers dubbed their approach a middle ground method of implementing a 'No-Fly, No Buy' rule while protecting the due process of Americans who are wrongfully kept under surveillance by the federal government. Collins was joined in the push by three Republicans, four Democrats, and her Maine colleague Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. The bill would authorize the US attorney general to stop firearm sales to individuals on the no-fly list or a 'selectee' list composed of people who are subject to extra screening at airports. Americans and green-card holders would be able to appeal if they believed they were wrongfully denied, and their legal fees would be reimbursed by the government were it proved they were put on the list by error." Welp, let's see if this gets anywhere.

[CN: Pulse shooting; homophobia; HIV stigma; self-hatred] "In an exclusive interview with Univision News, a man has stepped forward claiming he had a sexual relationship with Omar Mateen, the man who killed 49 people in an Orlando night club. ...The man, who Univision (Fusion's parent company) is calling 'Miguel,' said that he met Mateen on the gay dating app Grindr. He claimed the two met 15 to 20 times over two months before the relationship ended last December, when Miguel moved away from Orlando. ...He also told Univision that Mateen's rage about Puerto Rican gay men might have stemmed from a sexual incident in which Mateen had sex with two Puerto Rican men, one of whom later revealed that he was HIV positive. ...Mateen was 'terrified' of being HIV positive, Miguel said. 'When I asked him what he was going to do now, his answer was 'I'm going to make them pay for what they did to me,'' he added. The FBI confirmed to Univision that they have interviewed the man." Please note that this story, though already being widely reported, has not been independently verified, which is especially important given that "HIV panic" is an old, though rarely seen recently, narrative used to justify homophobic hatred.

[CN: Misogynoir] "Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, moved on Tuesday to block the Treasury Department's sweeping plan to represent women and civil rights leaders on American currency, including the placement of Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Mr. King filed an amendment to an annual appropriations bill that would prevent any money from being spent to redesign American currency. It is unclear whether it will ultimately get a vote when the full spending bill, which covers financial services and general government appropriations, comes before the House this week. The congressman's motivation for filing the amendment was also unclear." Oh, I think it's pretty fucking clear.

"Marco Rubio will seek Senate reelection, reversing pledge not to run." Shocking. He's also losing. Shocking.

[CN: Queerphobia] "Donald Trump today announced his Evangelical Executive Advisory Board which is a 'Who's Who' of anti-LGBT figures. Said Trump: 'I have such tremendous respect and admiration for this group and I look forward to continuing to talk about the issues important to Evangelicals, and all Americans, and the common sense solutions I will implement when I am President.'" Let's be clear: Trump is no friend to the LGBTx community.

[CN: Racism; child welfare] "A new federal rule issued this month under the Indian Children Welfare Act could keep more Native children in tribal communities, advocates say. The new regulation requires state child custody proceedings to more consistently apply the federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) by imposing several new standards. The first comprehensive update issued since ICWA's implementation in 1978, it requires state courts to ask all participants in child custody proceedings whether a child is an 'Indian child,' legally defined as being a member of, or eligible for membership in, a federally recognized tribe. The regulation, issued by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and set to go into effect in December, also clarifies when child custody cases can be transferred to tribal courts, and requires parents and the tribe to be notified when a family is involuntarily relinquishing a child, among other key provisions. Prior to ICWA's enactment, an estimated 25 to 35 percent of Native children had been separated from their families in what congressional testimony at the time described as an 'Indian child welfare crisis of massive proportions.'"

[CN: Police brutality; racism] A Chicago police officer was caught on video punching a man in custody. An Independent Review Board investigation will commence. The Chicago Police Department has issued a statement on the investigation, saying in part: "We are committed to the highest levels of integrity and professional standards and look forward to IPRA's review of this incident." Maybe investigate that commitment to integrity and professional standards while you're at it.

[CN: Climate change] Fuuuuuuuuck: "On Monday at the International Coral Reef Symposium in Hawaii, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) unveiled projections that show that water temperatures will be high enough in the coming months to carry the global bleaching event into a third year. Already, the bleaching event, which started in 2014, is the longest in global history—stretching into a third year would be 'unprecedented,' NOAA says. Bleaching is a grave threat to coral reefs. Corals, which are made up of tiny polyps that live symbiotically with photosynthetic algae, expel that algae when they get stressed by things like pollution or too-warm or too-cold water. This algae gives the coral its color, so when it's expelled, the coral turns white. Its photosynthetic abilities also provide food for the coral, so without the algae, the coral is greatly weakened; if ocean temperatures don't fall quickly enough for the algae to recolonize the coral, it can die. Right now, wide swaths of the world's coral are being bleached, thanks to warm water temperatures brought on by climate change and El Niño. According to NOAA, as of April, 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia was bleached. This bleaching has stressed corals in the Great Barrier Reef so heavily that over a third have died."

And finally! "Girl Uses Stuffed Toys and Her Rescue Dog to Recreate Scene from E.T.: We're not 100% sure if she had set up this scene to look just like a similar, famous scene in the film, E.T. The Extraterrestrial on purpose or not. However, she ended up doing an amazing job. Once you notice where little Snickle Fritz is in the photo, we're positive it will melt your heart." Heart officially melted!

In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

RIP Anton Yelchin, whose New York Times obituary is here. The young actor was killed in what was described in early reports as a freak auto accident, but it may not have been so "freak" after all, as the NYT reports that his 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee "was a model that Fiat Chrysler has recalled for a gearshift issue that has confused drivers, leading them to accidentally leave the car in neutral when they think it is safely in park." So deeply sad. My condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, and fans (among whom I count myself).

[Content Note: Racism] Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor brought the fire in a scathing dissent in Utah v. Strieff, a Fourth Amendment illegal-stop-and-search case: "By legitimizing the conduct that produces this double consciousness, this case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time. It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged. ...We must not pretend that the countless people who are routinely targeted by police are 'isolated.' They are the canaries in the coal mine whose deaths, civil and literal, warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere." Fuck yeah. Imagine listening to your colleague make this argument but deciding to rule the other way, as the majority of the court did. Unfathomable.

[CN: Guns] President Obama did not mince words on the Senate gun vote: "'Gun violence requires more than moments of silence,' President Barack Obama said on Twitter. 'It requires action. In failing that test, the Senate failed the American people.' Earlier, White House spokesman Josh Earnest appeared on morning television news shows excoriating the U.S. Senate for rejecting on Monday four gun bills aimed at keeping firearms away from people with suspected ties to militants. 'What we saw last night on the floor of the United States Senate was a shameful display of cowardice,' Earnest said on MSNBC." Yup.

Of course: "When Trump flies, he uses his airplane. When he campaigns, he often chooses his properties or his own Trump Tower in New York City, which serves as headquarters. His campaign even buys Trump bottled water and Trump wine. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has been on the campaign trail for a year now, and federal finance reports detail a campaign unafraid to co-mingle political and business endeavors in an unprecedented way—even as he is making appeals for donations. Through the end of May, Trump's campaign had plunged at least $6.2 million back into Trump corporate products and services, a review of Federal Election Commission filings shows. That's about 10 percent of his total campaign expenditures." So he's using campaign contributions as his own personal slush fund, basically. By which I presume exactly zero people are surprised.

[CN: Racism; disablist language; death penalty; sexual assault] Once upon a time, Donald Trump said "that if he were starting off in business at this point in time, he would 'love' to be 'a well-educated black.' He explained, 'I really believe they do have an actual advantage today.'" Oh.

[CN: Misogyny] This is one of the worst Politico articles I've seen this cycle, which is REALLY saying something. It's about how a bunch of dudes who won't go on record don't want Hillary Clinton to choose Elizabeth Warren as her running mate. An actual excerpt: All of the donors and senior Democrats interviewed for this story demanded that their names not be used both because they were not authorized to speak about the Clinton campaign's internal deliberations and because they feared Warren's wrath. 'There is no upside to my talking to you on the record,' one big donor said. 'Either I piss off the Clinton campaign or I piss off Warren, or both.'" WOMEN'S WRATH!!!

[CN: Death; video may autoplay at link] Ughhhhhhhh: "It was 100-plus degrees by 7 a.m. in parts of the Southwest today." Nope. And, naturally, there are dire consequences to a heatwave like this: "The record-setting heat that came in like an inferno on the first day of summer has killed at least five people, strained power demands, and helped fuel massive wildfires in several states." Damn.

This news just makes me ridiculously happy: Rick Astley has another hit album at age 50. And the first single is AMAZING!

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Cool: "A distant, Neptune-size planet 500 light-years from Earth appears to be the youngest fully formed exoplanet ever found crossing its star, raising questions about how it formed so close, so quickly. Researchers first found the planet, which whisks around its star every five days, using the Kepler space telescope currently orbiting the sun alongside Earth. Its star is only 5 million to 10 million years old, suggesting that the planet is a similar age—incredibly young, on a cosmic scale."

[CN: Moving gifs at link] And finally! "Raccoon Family Forms a Chain to Help a Baby Raccoon Get over the Wall." Awwww! Raccoons are so clever!

In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

Hillary Clinton just gave a speech responding to Donald Trump's heinous garbage speech yesterday. She got huge applause just for saying that candidates need to respond with decency. This is where we are. I'll have more on this later, time permitting.

[Content Note: Rape culture] More pushback on the heinous sentence handed down in the Stanford rape case: "[O]ne of the jurors who convicted Turner of sexual assault wrote a letter to [Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky]. The juror wrote of being 'absolutely shocked and appalled' at the sentence. 'After the guilty verdict I expected that this case would serve as a very strong deterrent to on-campus assaults, but with the ridiculously lenient sentence that Brock Turner received, I am afraid that it makes a mockery of the whole trial and the ability of the justice system to protect victims of assault and rape,' the juror wrote to Persky. 'Clearly there are few to no consequences for a rapist even if they are caught in the act of assaulting a defenseless, unconscious person,' the juror wrote in the letter, which was obtained by the Palo Alto Weekly."

"The White House is holding an event focusing on women's issues on Tuesday, and as part of the day-long summit it announced actions it is taking to try and reduce the gap in pay between men and women. One brand new step is calling on private sector companies to make a promise that they will look at their own internal gender wage gaps. Any company that signs up for this 'White House Equal Pay Pledge' agrees to conduct an analysis of pay by gender across its entire workforce, review its own hiring and promotion practices to reduce bias, and include equal pay in overall efforts to promote equality within its own ranks, as well as look for any other practices that can ensure women are paid equally with men. The pledge already has a number of high-profile companies signing on out the gate, from industries ranging from technology to consumer products. There are 28 signatories so far, among them Amazon, American Airlines, Dow Chemical, Gap Inc., Johnson & Johnson, L'Oréal USA, PepsiCo, and Staples." Well, let's hope this is the start of their actually doing something meaningful!

[CN: Anti-choice terrorism] Wonder when we are going to have a national conversation about this? Is it never? I bet it's never! "Eleven Months, Five Clinic Arson Attacks, One Arrest, and Countless Unanswered Questions: Arsonists have attacked five Planned Parenthood clinics around the country since last July, wreaking hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, closing down the facilities, and sowing fear among staff and providers." And patients.

This is a truly weird story: "Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach. The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC's system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said DNC officials and the security experts. The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some GOP political action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available." Since Trump and Putin are besties after meeting backstage at 60 Minutes once, I presume the Russians will be giving the oppo dump to Trump. (That's a joke.) (Sort of.)

[CN: Climate change; animal harm] Fuck: "Human-caused climate change appears to have driven the Great Barrier Reef's only endemic mammal species into the history books, with the Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent that lives on a tiny island in the eastern Torres Strait, being completely wiped-out from its only known location. It is also the first recorded extinction of a mammal anywhere in the world thought to be primarily due to human-caused climate change. An expert says this extinction is likely just the tip of the iceberg, with climate change exerting increasing pressures on species everywhere."

RIP Margaret Vinci Heldt, creator of the the beehive hairdo, who has died at age 98. "Heldt ran a salon in Chicago, where she was born, and first debuted the hairstyle for a magazine cover in 1960. According to the Chicago History Museum, Heldt attended the Columbia College of Hairdressing before opening her own salon. 'She had a zest for life, the most positive attitude,' her daughter Carlene Ziegler told Reuters. 'She was the life of the party right up to her last days.'"

Neat! "Astronomers say they have discovered the largest planet outside the solar system that orbits two suns. The newfound world, about the size of Jupiter, is 3,700 light-years from Earth. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles. It was detected by a team led by NASA and San Diego State University using the planet-hunting Kepler telescope. The discovery was announced Monday during a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Diego." Insert your Tatooine jokes here.

Paul Feig on Ghostbusters: "I think you'll have a good time. We made this movie with such love and excitement. We made it big, action-packed and with tonnes of special effects." Yay! I think I'll have a good time, too!

[CN: Images of snails at link] If you love snails (I do!) then you will probably love this gallery of photographs of "the magical world of snails."

And finally! Baby lemurs! "Three curious and active Red Ruffed Lemur babies born at the Nashville Zoo are a boost to this critically endangered species. The two females and one male were born on May 24, the eighth birthday of their mother, Lyra." Aww.

In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Pulse shooting; bigotry] There is, of course, an abundance of news about the gunman in the Pulse Nightclub shooting. I am reluctant to link to any articles in the corporate media, because they either show pictures of Omar Mateen, so ubiquitous that you would think he's a hero rather than a mass murdering fuck, or because they show pictures of survivors in their moments of absolute grief. I frankly don't want to support either one of those habits. So, here is some relevant (and verified) news in brief: Mateen has a history of domestic violence, which makes him like most other domestic terrorists. Both his ex-wife, his coworkers, and his father confirm that he was virulently homophobic, misogynist, and racist. He passed background checks to secure employment as a security guard. His coworkers expressed concerns about his violent rhetoric. He legally acquired the weapons that he used to slaughter and wound dozens of people.

[CN: Continued from above, plus terrorism] This is important commentary, care of New York Times correspondent Rukmini Callimachi, on how the Islamic State's "lone wolf" appeal works. Essentially: Anyone can now claim to be a "lone wolf" working for IS, and then IS just takes credit. Which has a number of significant ramifications, including making "lone wolves" much more difficult to thwart, and the promise of being elevated as an international terrorist acting as enticement for violent men who are disposed to commit heinous acts of violence already.

[Continued CN] Meanwhile, Donald Trump has implied that President Barack Obama may be intentionally sabotaging the US. Rage seethe boil. Because precisely what we need in this moment is accusations that the President who has, more than any President before him, challenged othering rhetoric, and who has tried to enact gun reform, is committing treason. JFC.

[CN: Racism; misogyny; Islamophobia] Meanwhile, Trump surrogate Roger Stone says that Hillary Clinton's chief aide and friend Huma Abedin, who is Muslim, could be a "Saudi spy" or a "terrorist agent." I honestly do not even have words to explain how enraged this makes me. I have never met Huma Abedin (although that would be awesome!), and she is a very private person, but I feel reasonably confident, based on the role she has long played at Clinton's side, that she is probably one of our country's greatest patriots.

In other news:

"The Supreme Court said on Monday Puerto Rico cannot restructure the debt of its financially ailing public utilities to help overcome a decade-long economic crisis. The 5-2 ruling means the US territory must wait for Congress to pass debt-relief legislation to help ease its fiscal woes."

"How unusual is the Republican blockade of the nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court? After a comprehensive look at every past Supreme Court vacancy, two law professors have concluded that it is an unprecedented development. ...In every one of the 103 earlier Supreme Court vacancies, the professors wrote, the president was able to both nominate and appoint a replacement with the Senate's advice and consent."

[CN: Climate change] "Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 will shatter the symbolic barrier of 400 parts per million (ppm) this year and will not fall below it our in our lifetimes, according to a new Met Office study. Carbon dioxide measurements at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii are forecast to soar by a record 3.1ppm this year—up from an annual average of 2.1ppm—due in large part to the cyclical El Niño weather event in the Pacific, the paper says. The surge in CO2 levels will be larger than during the last big El Niño in 1997/98, because manmade emissions have increased by 25% since then, boosting the phenomenon's strength."

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] "Microsoft Corp. is acquiring the professional social network LinkedIn Corp. for $26.2 billion, one of the largest technology-industry deals on record, as the maker of Windows software attempts to put itself at the center of people's business lives. ...LinkedIn will retain its brand, culture, and independence and Jeff Weiner will remain chief executive officer of the company, Microsoft said in a statement Monday. The deal is the most expensive relative to earnings of any takeover valued at more than $5 billion this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg."

And finally! "Cat Becomes Friends with a Chipmunk." Aww.

In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

I live-tweeted Hillary Clinton's speech to Planned Parenthood today, and I've Storified those tweets, if you would like to read them.

[Content Note: Climate change] Damn: "The Paris floods, that saw extreme rainfall swell the river Seine to its highest level in decades, were made almost twice as likely because of the manmade emissions driving global warming, scientists have found. A three-day period of heavy rain at the end of May saw tens of thousands of people evacuated across France, and the capital's normally busy river closed to traffic because the water levels were so high under bridges. As artworks in the Louvre were moved to safety and Paris's cobbled walkways were submerged, the French president, François Hollande, blamed the floods on climate change. Now a preliminary analysis by a group of scientists, including the Dutch weather agency and the University of Oxford, has concluded the risk of the flooding event in Paris was almost doubled—multiplied by a factor of 1.8—by humanity's influence on the climate."

[CN: Rape culture] A couple of updates on the Stanford rape case: 1. "USA Swimming, the governing body for the sport in the United States, told USA Today that Turner was not a member of the organization at the time of the assault, hasn't been since, and would not be eligible for membership in the future." 2. "More than a million people have signed a petition calling for the judge in the controversial Stanford University sexual assault case to be sacked. Judge Aaron Persky has been heavily criticised for giving student Brock Turner six months for assaulting an unconscious woman last year. Two other petitions have reached 115,000 and 175,000 signatures each. The petitions have no legal force but organisers hope they will increase pressure on politicians to act." 3. "Judge Aaron Persky, who is under fire for his lenient sentencing of Brock Turner, a former Stanford swimmer convicted of sexual assault, made several controversial rulings in a 2011 civil trial stemming from the alleged gang rape by members of the baseball team at De Anza Community College in Cupertino, California. ...[He] allowed defendants accused of gang-raping a 17-year-old high school student to show the jury photographs of her wearing a revealing outfit when he presided over another controversial case involving college athletes."

[CN: Worker exploitation; video may autoplay at link] "Donald Trump casts himself as a protector of workers and jobs, but a USA TODAY NETWORK investigation found hundreds of people—carpenters, dishwashers, painters, even his own lawyers—who say he didn't pay them for their work." I'm not surprised, but I am angry.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that Donald Trump needs to pick an experienced running mate because 'he doesn't know a lot about the issues' and strongly urged him to change course on his rhetoric." Maybe don't support him then?!

Republican Senator from Maine Susan Collins says she hasn't ruled out supporting Hillary Clinton, because Trump is such a dirtbag. Whoa.

Democratic Senator from Oregon Jeff Merkley, who was the lone member of the Senate to endorse Bernie Sanders, says he now supports Clinton.

Smart: The Clinton campaign "has hired Bernie Sanders' director of student organizing to serve as her national campus and student organizing director, a Clinton official confirmed to POLITICO. Kunoor Ojha is the Clinton campaign's first major hire from the Sanders campaign, and her move to a role where she will work with the state teams to mobilize young voters represents a significant step in the former secretary of state’s outreach to the Vermont senator's most ardent backers."

Do you want to read Melissa Harris-Perry interview Serena Williams?! Well, if you do, here you go! (P.S. It's great!)

And finally! "Bulldog Has Interesting Bridge Crossing Skills!" LOL! Indeed.