Senate Oks Budget Plan, Sets Up Battle With Obama

New York prosecutors trying to convict Donald Trump for falsifying business records face a formidable challenge: They have to convince a jury to trust the word of a convicted perjurer. The credibility of Michal Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, dominated the fifth week of the former President’s trial. Cohen’s testimony lies at the heart of the charges that Trump allegedly directed a scheme to hide hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election and lied on business forms to conceal campaign finance violations.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A “deal” allegedly offered by Donald Trump to Big Oil executives as he sought $1 billion in campaign donations could save the industry $110 billion in tax breaks if he returns to the White House, an analysis suggests. The fundraising dinner held last month at Mar-a-Lago with more than 20 executives, including from Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Occidental Petroleum, reportedly involved Trump asking for large campaign contributions and promising, if elected, to remove barriers to drilling, scrap a pause on gas exports, and reverse new rules aimed at cutting car pollution. Congressional Democrats have launched an investigation into the “ethical, campaign finance, and legal issues” raised by what one Democratic senator called an “offer of a blatant quid pro quo,” while a prominent watchdog group is exploring whether the meeting warrants legal action. But the analysis shared with the Guardian shows that the biggest motivation for oil and gas companies to back Trump appears to be in the tax system, with about $110 billion in tax breaks for the industry at stake should Joe Biden be re-elected in November’s election. Biden wants to eliminate the tax breaks, which include long-standing incentives to help drill for oil and gas, with a recent White House budget proposal targeting $35 billion in domestic subsidies and $75 billion in overseas fossil fuel income. “Big oil executives are sweating in their seats at the thought of losing $110 billion in special tax loopholes under Biden in 2025,” said Lukas Ross, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth Action, which conducted the analysis. Sen.

If Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had any shame or scruples, he would have resigned already as a result of the corruption reported on by ProPublica. That’s not counting his refusal to recuse himself from cases that his coup-plotting wife has stuck her nose into. Nor the dark money she has received to promote causes he rules on. At the very least, Thomas now has some ‘splaining to do about that ultra-luxury RV he purchased with the help of one of his rich pals.

On this day in 1967, singer-songwriter Glen Campbell recorded one of his signature hits, “Gentle on My Mind” at Hollywood’s Capitol Recording Studio. John Pavlovitz: Not Voting For Joe Biden Isn’t Penalizing Joe Biden. Diane Ravitch's blog: Alexandra Petri: A Message from the Worm That Ate Part of RFK Jr.’s Brain. Lawyers, Guns, Money: The common clay of the swing state. Attention space nerds!

Donald Trump brain went into system overload yet again while on stage a few days ago; he slurred, made up nonsensical words and sounded like his cerebral cortex was shutting down. The man AIN'T WELL. Trump shouldn't be speaking in public, much less running to be leader of the free world (though, should he win, it'd be leader of the kinda, sometimes free world at best, totalitarian America at worst).

You’re not imagining it: Women are at the forefront of today’s leftist movement, accompanied by emasculated men. What’s going on?