Phew!!! Government Shutdown Averted...narrowly.

As a teen in the 1990s, Zack was routinely abused by an older man affiliated with his Louisiana church. Zack, who asked that his real name not be used to protect his privacy, said his abuser often made him feel as though he was responsible for the molestation, despite the fact that he was a minor.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Joe Biden’s administration is coming under renewed pressure to escalate its curbs on the US’s booming trade in fossil fuels by halting new deepwater oil-export facilities, as well as entrenching its pause in gas-export licenses. A coalition of 20 environmental groups, sensing election-year traction with Biden as he seeks a second term as US president, has written to officials demanding a freeze on deepwater oil-export facilities, similar to the move announced by the Biden administration earlier this year when it paused new licenses for liquified natural gas (or LNG) exports. A letter to the US Department of Transportation asks for a re-evaluation of whether the crude oil exports are in the national interest, given they cause “disastrous climate-disrupting pollution and environmental injustices and would lock in decades of fossil fuel dependence that undercut the pathway to a clean energy economy”. This week, activists are also set to press the Biden administration to indefinitely extend its pause on new LNG export licenses, citing the industry’s huge emissions and impacts upon communities and fishers along the Gulf of Mexico coast, even though the administration has indicated the pause will end within a year. “Congress has coddled the fossil fuel industry for decades, scarring millions of acres of public lands in the process.” Meanwhile, a further 200 groups have called for congressional leaders to end all funding that supports fossil fuel extraction across federal lands and waters, citing the need to rapidly phase out oil, gas, and coal production to avoid disastrous climate change. “Congress has coddled the fossil fuel industry for decades, scarring millions of acres of public lands in the process,” said Ashley Nunes, public lands policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Given the bias of this judge for the prosecution and his overt antipathy for the defendant, Donald Trump, what explains his willing destruction of his own reputation as a justice?

What will we do about a nuclear-armed Iran? Nothing

So much for Joe Biden being a 'moderate.'

His admission of stealing from President Trump when the man was his employer looks like a slam-dunk for jailtime for Alvin Bragg's star witness.