Midday Open Thread: Nsa Domestic Spying Costs Us More Than Personal Privacy, No Hope From El Niño

Leading Colorado Democrats and the state’s oil and gas industry announced a preemptive armistice Monday — one that seeks to defuse the latest round of dueling ballot initiatives and legislation aimed at the industry and its environmental impacts. The proposals, described to reporters by Gov. Jared Polis and legislative leadership, include imposing a new per-barrel production fee on the industry and enacting new environmental standards.

Former Speaker of the House and all around badass had no time for Katy Tur's bullshit today. She joined her for a polite in studio interview at MSNBC and with the skill and bluntness that only Nancy Pelosi possesses, she put Tur in her place with on sentence. PELOSI: So there's nothing in his performance, if that's the word we'll use, what he has done, that would indicate that he cares, prioritizes, or ever valued or did anything to support a democracy.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has doubled down on her defense of murdering her 14-month-old puppy, Cricket, who, she said in her new book, she "hated." Noem didn't try to rehome Cricket to someone with a soul. She said she "hated that dog" and shot her dead by the gravel pit.

CNN reporter Donie O'Sullivan is working on a special investigation into the pervasiveness and perversity of Christian Nationalism and the misinformation it brings with it. In his latest segment, he shows an encounter he had with a woman named Julian Lightfoot, who was adamant that our Constitutional rights were God given rights because God is in the Constitution.

“As he awaits his turn to take the witness stand, Michael Cohen has discussed Donald Trump, the ongoing trial, and the testimony already underway during nightly livestreams on TikTok which appear to be earning him financial benefit through viewers’ donations,” ABC News reports. “And while the undertaking doesn’t appear to run afoul of any court order, experts say it hurts the already-blemished credibility of an essential witness in the case.”

“Chinese President Xi Jinping is heading to the European Union for the first time in five years with a clear message: Beijing offers much more of an economic opportunity for the bloc than the U. S. wants to admit,” Bloomberg reports. “The Chinese leader will begin his five-day trip to France, Serbia and Hungary on May 5, according to the Foreign Ministry in Beijing.