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hedda_foil

hedda_foil's Journal
hedda_foil's Journal
June 30, 2022

Supreme Court Rules that EPA can't regulate emissions.


Supreme Court curbs EPA's ability to fight climate change
Source: CNN

The Supreme Court curbed the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to broadly regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants, a major defeat for the Biden administration's attempts to slash emissions at a moment when scientists are sounding alarms about the accelerating pace of global warming.

In addition, the court cut back agency authority in general invoking the so-called "major questions" doctrine -- a ruling that will impact the federal government's authority to regulate in other areas of climate policy, as well as regulation of the internet and worker safety.
The ruling was 6-3. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the conservative majority, with the three liberal justices dissenting.
This story is breaking and will be updated.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com
June 30, 2022

Supreme Court curbs EPA's ability to fight climate change

Source: CNN

The Supreme Court curbed the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to broadly regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants, a major defeat for the Biden administration's attempts to slash emissions at a moment when scientists are sounding alarms about the accelerating pace of global warming.

In addition, the court cut back agency authority in general invoking the so-called "major questions" doctrine -- a ruling that will impact the federal government's authority to regulate in other areas of climate policy, as well as regulation of the internet and worker safety.
The ruling was 6-3. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the conservative majority, with the three liberal justices dissenting.
This story is breaking and will be updated.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com

June 10, 2022

What is going on with the Illinois Secretary of State race?

I've been watching the ad war and can't figure out why Alexi Giannoulias didn't get the big endorsements. Somebody please fill me in.

February 24, 2022

Missile attacks in Kiev reported.

Per MSNBC UT it sounds well sourced by one of their reporters in Kiev.

February 10, 2022

Thank you, beloved DUers, for the hearts. You are all in my heart!

DU has been my online home since 2001, and my heart belongs each and every one of you ... old-timers to first-timers. You have kept me sane and moderately coherent through it all. Thank you!

February 9, 2022

Grrr!! GOP Bets on Black Conservatives As Key to Victory: 'We Change or We Die'

Ten years after its "autopsy" of Mitt Romney's 2012 loss to Barack Obama concluded that the Republican Party's biggest problem was its failure to appeal to voters of color, 2022 is shaping up as a breakthrough year for the GOP on at least one diversity front: Black candidates. From Georgia, where high-profile Black Republicans seek nominations for both governor and senator, to Michigan, where former Detroit Police Chief James Craig is the odds-on favorite to go up against Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, to a lineup of well-funded House and Senate candidates poised to break the record for the number of Black Republicans elected to Congress, a decade-long effort to broaden the appeal of the GOP is finally bearing fruit—and could play a pivotal role in determining the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections.

It remains to be seen whether the coming wave of Black conservative candidates can spur legions of Black voters, the Democratic Party's most loyal constituency, to vote Republican. But judging by recent races featuring a Black GOP candidate—lieutenant governor races in Virginia and North Carolina, a Kentucky attorney general campaign and the last two U.S. Senate races in Michigan—the party has reason to be hopeful. Exit polls showed these Black Republican candidates drew slightly larger, potentially decisive shares of Black votes compared to the white Republicans running alongside them for other offices in their states. Indeed, North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and unsuccessful U.S. Senate hopeful John James in Michigan were the top vote-getting Republicans in their states in their most recent races, indicating they both excited the GOP base and drew crossover votes.

"Some Republicans are savvy enough to understand that if they win 10 to 15 percent of Black voters in state and local elections, they can win—and there are ways to actually do this," says Johns Hopkins University political science professor Leah Wright Rigueur, author of the 2016 book, The Loneliness of the Black Republican.

One of the most important test cases this year may come in the Michigan governor's race. Craig's campaign to unseat Whitmer, Rigueur says, is "not about winning 100 percent of the Black folks, it's not even about winning 50 percent. It is about winning just enough to push them over the edge and make the difference." Craig echoes that, telling Newsweek his status as a native Detroiter and well-regarded tenure as the city's top cop grants him an authenticity with Black audiences that will "open some minds to what I have to say."

https://www.newsweek.com/2022/02/18/gop-bets-black-conservatives-key-victory-we-change-we-die-1677030.html


It's hard to believe any black American could vote for a party whose primary message is White Supremacy.
October 12, 2021

Do you think the Republicans in Congress WANT to start a depression on Biden's watch?

Yes, it's an odd question but listening today to Pelosi's description of the consequences of failure to raise the debt ceiling, I was struck by how easily the economy could be taken down by a combination of factors that we currently face.

- McConnell's pledge that his caucus will not vote to raise the debt ceiling again in December.
- Fuel shortages and shipping slowdowns around the world.
- Continuing supply line shortages and foul-ups.
- Manufacturing shortages leading to layoffs.
- Ongoing covid infections with the potential of further variants spreading.
- Continuing climate breakdown.
- Trumpists sweeping 2022 elections and paralyzing not only the Biden agenda but any
Democratic attempt to mitigate American suffering.

A combination of these circumstances could easily cause the national and global economy to fall off a very steep cliff. If that were to happen, Trump's reelection in '24 would be virtually assured, and that's all for Democracy, folks!

What do you think?

September 20, 2021

Peter Thiel Claimed Zuckerberg Agreed to Push 'State-Sanctioned Conservatism' Under Trump Deal, Book

https://www.thedailybeast.com/peter-thiel-claimed-mark-zuckerberg-agreed-to-push-state-sanctioned-conservatism-under-trump-deal-book-says/

During a meeting in Washington, D.C. in 2019, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg agreed to not fact-check political posts if the Trump administration would steer clear of any “heavy-handed regulations,” venture capitalist Peter Thiel told an associate, according to a new book. The associate alleged that at the meeting—which was also attended by Thiel, former President Trump, Jared Kushner, and their spouses—Zuckerberg essentially promised to champion “state-sanctioned conservatism,” The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power says. Zuckerberg denied the existence of a deal, saying that was “pretty ridiculous.”


There's an original article linked from The New Yorker of short piece here but I've used up my free articles for September.
September 12, 2021

The truth about Joe Manchin? He's a coal baron of the dirtiest kind. Literally.

There were a couple of articles about this last week but they were mostly ignored. Not this time, I hope.

First:https://theintercept.com/2021/09/03/joe-manchin-coal-fossil-fuels-pollution/

JOE MANCHIN’S DIRTY EMPIRE
Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, speaks to members of the media at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, July 28, 2021. Senators negotiating the terms of a $579 billion infrastructure plan chipped away at some of the issues that had been holding up an agreement but have yet to find a breakthrough on other differences that would seal an agreement and lead to a vote on legislation.

“If you’re sticking your head in the sand, and saying that fossil [fuel] has to be eliminated in America, and they want to get rid of it, and thinking that’s going to clean up the global climate, it won’t clean it up all,” Manchin told CNN after a private meeting with President Joe Biden and his fellow Senate Democrats. “If anything, it would be worse.”

Though Manchin’s motivations are often ascribed to the conservative, coal-friendly politics of West Virginia, it is also the case that the state’s senior senator is heavily invested in the industry — and owes much of his considerable fortune to it.

For decades, Manchin has profited from a series of coal companies that he founded during the 1980s. His son, Joe Manchin IV, has since assumed leadership roles in the firms, and the senator says his ownership is held in a blind trust. Yet between the time he joined the Senate and today, Manchin has personally grossed more than $4.5 million from those firms, according to financial disclosures. He also holds stock options in Enersystems Inc., the larger of the two firms, valued between $1 and $5 million.

Those two companies are Enersystems Inc. and Farmington Resources Inc., the latter of which was created by the rapid merging of two other firms, Manchin’s Transcon and Farmington Energy in 2005. Enersystems purchases low-quality waste coal from mines and resells it to power plants as fuel, while Farmington Resources provides “support activities for mining” and holds coal reserves in the Fairmont area. Over the decades, whether feeding tens of thousands of tons of dirty waste coal into the power plants in northern West Virginia or subjecting workers to unsafe conditions, Manchin’s family coal business has almost entirely avoided public scrutiny.
https://theintercept.com/2021/09/03/joe-manchin-coal-fossil-fuels-pollution/


Also https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3x8bw/joe-manchin-senator-millions-coal-grant-town-west-virginia

Joe Manchin Makes $500K a Year From One of the Dirtiest Coal Plants in West Virginia
That’s more than twice his salary as a U.S. senator

Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat from West Virginia who is the linchpin of his party’s climate agenda, made nearly $500,000 from one of the most polluting coal power plants in West Virginia last year alone.

According to his most recent financial disclosure, Manchin gained $492,000 last year due to his non-public shares in a coal company called Enersystems, which records show is a contractor for a power plant in the state’s north that burns waste coal.

Meanwhile, Manchin’s 2020 income for being a senator was $174,000. “He’s making more than twice as much selling coal as he is serving as a representative,” said Jim Kotcon, the conservation chair of the West Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club.

Due to impurities in the waste coal Grant Town Power Plant burns to generate electricity, it releases more sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide per unit of energy than any of the state’s coal plants, according to 2018 calculations from Kotcon.

“In terms of both of those pollutants,” Kotcon told VICE News, “it’s still the dirtiest plant operating in West Virginia today.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3x8bw/joe-manchin-senator-millions-coal-grant-town-west-virginia


Want more? https://www.google.com/search?q=joe+manchin+coal+mining&rlz=1C1CHZN_enUS956US956&oq=manchin+coal&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0i512j0i22i30l2.6730j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

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