Today’s comic by Tom Tomorrow is First Contact:
What you may have missed at Sunday Kos…
• Sixteen of thirty survivors of immigrant-smuggling tragedy hospitalized in dire condition: Eight immigrants were discovered dead in a semi-trailer in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio over the weekend, and two more have since died. The trailer had no air conditioning and none of the smuggled immigrants had water. All the dead were adult men. While there were only 39 people on board when police opened the trailer, more than 100 may have been packed in it at one point. Some escaped or hitched rides to their next destination, according to authorities. The victims were found after one person in the trailer approached a Walmart employee to ask for water. The truck driver was arrested and has charged under a federal law, conviction for which could result in life imprisonment or the death penalty.
• Public comments reach 1.4 million on federal review of national monuments: Under executive order, Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke is reviewing 27 national monuments with an eye toward shrinking their acreage or rescinding their designations as monuments altogether. Most experts who have weighed in on the legalities of this say rescission is out of the question and downsizing may be as well. But a direct court test of these views has never occurred. As part of the government’s review, Americans have been asked for their own views, and so far 1.4 million public comments have been submitted. One advocate says that number is “phenomenal,” a level he had not seen in 25 years of environmental activism.
• Scarmucci’s gives appearance advice to Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: The new White House communications director said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that Sanders is doing “a great job” and is “incredibly authentic,” but that she can do better. “The only thing I ask Sarah—Sarah, if you’re watching, I loved the hair and makeup person we had on Friday, so I’d like to continue to use the hair and makeup person.” As Lauren Evans at Jezebel notes: “It’s long been apparent that in Trump’s world (of which Moochy is firmly a part), women are only as good as their appearances.” Scarmucci tried afterward to claim his comment wasn’t about Sanders’ looks but his own.
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• Robot video shows nuclear fuel melted into metal icicles in Fukushima reactor 2. After a 2011 tsunami wrecked the ability of coolant systems to control temperatures at three reactors on the coastal site of the Japanese reactors, fuel melted, burned through the reactor pressure vessels and collected in puddles on the floor of the reactor containment vessels. But until now finding any of the melted fuel had been hindered by the extreme conditions, including radiation, inside the reactors. The special robot that checked out reactor 2 has yet to visit the other two reactors. Time to clean up the contaminated reactors, buildings, and rest of the site is estimated at 30-40 years. But that’s just a guess given the state of knowledge about how extensive the damage actually is.
• On the Bernie Sanders Show, an interview with Al Gore: The former vice president talks about his new movie, An Inconvenient Sequel:
Sanders: It’s been 10 years since you released an Inconvenient Truth. What’s changed since then?
Gore: Two big things: number one: the climate-related extreme weather events are way more common now, and way more destructive. Here in the US in the last seven years, we’ve had 11 so-called “once-in-a-1,000 year” downpours.
The second change is: we now have the solutions! A decade ago, the solutions were visible on the horizon. Now they’re here.
• New study finds 40 percent of U.S. gun-owners have no formal firearms training.
• Baltimore plans to review 100 cases after body-cam video showed cop planting drugs.
• Check out how successful second-quarter fund-raising was for federal candidates:
Quarterly fundraising reports for federal candidates, covering the period from April 1 to June 30, were due at the Federal Elections Commission on July 15 at midnight. Below is our chart of fundraising numbers for House candidates in all key races this cycle. (Click here for our companion chart for the Senate.) That includes, among others:
- Races we expect to be competitive in this year's general elections
- Open seats in otherwise safe districts with contested primaries
- Under-the-radar contests where a candidate raised an unexpectedly high sum
- Incumbents who might face a credible primary challenge
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Kusher to testify, then immediately revise testimony. More on Trump-Russia: Lev Leviev. It’s a real name! Lots of questions on pardons & whether sitting presidents can be indicted. Zombie Treasoncare: it’s a reconciliation bill, but no one knows why.
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