Midday Open Thread: Hurricane Joaquin, A Big Sheep And A Raging Raccoon

Rep. Jamie Raskin slammed the petroleum industry yesterday as he pointed to experts who described Big Oil’s “pattern of lying and evasion” that has “set the country back decades” in its ability to address climate change. Not that the people who need to pay attention ever will, of course. Via HuffPost: “Instead of acting like Paul Revere and sounding the alarm about climate change, they acted like Maleficent the evil fairy in ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and cursed everyone to try to go to sleep for 100 years,” said Raskin during a Senate Budget Committee hearing. Raskin’s remarks came after that committee and the House Oversight Committee released a 65-page report following a three-year investigation into oil and gas companies’ “evolving efforts to avoid accountability for climate change.” The Maryland Democrat described calling a House Oversight hearing in 2019 where scientists and experts testified that the companies “knew” that burning fossil fuels caused climate change as early as 1959. read more

This article is raising the alarm about a disturbing failure of Facebook to enforce its own ban of paramilitary organizing -- in an election year, no less. Via Wired: “JOIN YOUR LOCAL Militia or III% Patriot Group,” a post urged the more than 650 members of a Facebook group called the Free American Army.

Watching this self-righteous ass get confronted with his own hypocrisy is a nice tonic to start the day. And that's it's delivered by Kaitlan Collins is even better. Vance was pontificating about campus protests when Collins asked, "So you agree that people who break in and vandalize a building should be prosecuted?" (I think you know where this is going, right?) Vance said yes. "Okay, I'm just checking because you did help raise money for people who did so on January 6, which was impeding an official proceeding, breaking into a building that they weren't allowed to be in, vandalizing the Capitol," she said.

Former President Donald Trump knows that the right to choose for women is popular. He massively fucked up when he appointed justices to overturn Roe while trying to kiss his evangelical supporters on their collective hypocritical butts. He knows. So, now that he's running to get the coveted keys to the White House again, but this time to stay out of prison, he's acting like a used car salesman trying his damnedest to sell a Ford Pinto to a car-savvy couple.

Lawyers, Guns and Money: When partisan hacks want to be philosopher kings. Mock Paper Scissors: How Trump spends his non-trial days. Rewire: If the Supreme Court upends the Emergency Medicine Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), people will die. Kevin Drum: Trump through conservative eyes. Everything Is Going to Be Okay: Well-behaved women. This installment by Batocchio.

It's no secret that Senator Ron Johnson (Q - Moscow) is a Russian ass(et). We knew that in 2018 when RoJo and seven other Republican lawmakers spent the Fourth of July with Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Ever since then, RoJo has been Putin's lapdog, regurgitating Russian talking points time and time again.