riversedge
riversedge's JournalE.P.A. to Lift Obama-Era Controls on Methane, a Potent Greenhouse Gas
Source: nytimes
The reversal is the latest move in the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to weaken environmental rules, but it could be quickly undone after the November election.
By Coral Davenport
Aug. 10, 2020 Updated 4:58 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is expected in the coming days to lift Obama-era controls on the release of methane, a powerful climate-warming gas that is emitted from leaks and flares in oil and gas wells.
The new rule on methane pollution, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, has been expected for months, and will be made public before Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke anonymously to avoid publicly pre-empting the official announcement.
The rollback of the methane rule is the latest move in the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to weaken environmental standards, which has continued unabated during the coronavirus pandemic.
In April, the E.P.A. weakened rules on the release of toxic chemicals from coal-fired power plants, loosened curbs on climate-warming tailpipe pollution and opted not to strengthen a regulation on industrial soot emissions that have been linked to respiratory diseases, including Covid-19.
In July, President Trump unilaterally weakened one of the nation’s bedrock conservation laws, the National Environmental Policy Act, limiting public review of federal infrastructure projects in an effort to speed up the permitting process for freeways, power plants and pipelines...............................
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A gas flare in Loving County, Texas. By some estimates, methane has 80 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide, though it dissipates faster.Credit...Angus Mordant/Reuters
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/climate/trump-methane-climate-change.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20200810&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=headline®i_id=22098736&segment_id=35715&user_id=8cbf35c306e720c7e6384d1bf32ec141
I will once again call my senators and Rep!
.............Several of the biggest oil and gas companies have called on the Trump administration to tighten restrictions on methane, not loosen them. Larger energy companies have invested millions of dollars to promote natural gas as a cleaner option than coal in the nation’s power plants, because natural gas produces about half as much carbon dioxide when burned. They fear that unrestricted leaks of methane could undermine that marketing message and hurt demand.........................
Swan outlines how easy it will be for Democrats to win Trump's game of chicken on the COVID stimulus
Seems simple but nothing is simple anymore.
https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/1292656919459573761?s=20
Axios reporter outlines how easy it will be for Democrats to win Trump’s game of chicken on the COVID stimulus
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/axios-reporter-outlines-how-easy-it-will-be-for-democrats-to-win-trumps-game-of-chicken-on-the-stimulus/
Published 16 hours ago on August 9, 2020 By Sarah K. Burris
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“There is a real problem here, which, you know, we’ve sort of talked around a little bit but haven’t addressed directly which is, if you actually think about it, it’s not that complicated an argument for Democrats to make,” said Swan. “Their argument is this is a crisis. This is a pandemic and more money is required. We need the $600, you know, extended into next year via unemployment boost and vastly more money to the states, et cetera, et cetera. ”
He noted that Republicans could try and make the argument that it’s fiscally irresponsible, but it’s not likely to be an argument that could work for Republicans since they’ve ballooned spending with a tax cut that failed to deliver what the GOP promised.
“Deep down in his core, he’s not really animated by fiscal restraint or fiscal conservatism,” said Swan. “You have this situation where his team knows that if left on his own in a room with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin would quite happily go along with a huge deal, a massive deal they could tote as the biggest deal ever. It’s actually Mark Meadows as an avatar for Republicans on the Hill that are getting squeamish about massive spending and finally saying enough is enough. That’s where the blockage is.”
Swan went on to say that Trump’s biggest problem is that he’s not making the argument as to why his proposal is bigger and better than the Democrats and why what the Democrats are proposing is unacceptable. Democrats have said that they’re willing to cut a deal and they’re willing to eliminate many of the things in their bill, as have Hill Republicans. It’s the White House that seems unwilling to negotiate, with Mark Meadows slamming his hands on the table and walking out last week.
See Swan’s explainer below:..................
Trump's Racist Appeal To The Suburbs Is Backfiring
Trump’s Racist Appeal To The Suburbs Is Backfiring
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/trumps-racist-appeal-to-the-suburbs-is-backfiring
Trump is trying, and failing, to build a new wall — between cities and their suburbs.
TPM Illustration/Getty Images
By Peter Dreier
|
August 6, 2020 4:55 p.m.
President Donald Trump has failed to build a physical wall between the U.S. and Mexico, but now he wants to build another wall — between America’s cities and their suburbs. In recent weeks he’s sought to stoke white resentment with inflammatory rhetoric directed at white suburbanites. But so far they don’t seem to be buying what Trump is selling.
In a speech on the White House’s South Lawn on July 16, Trump warned that if Joe Biden is elected president, he will “totally destroy the beautiful suburbs. Suburbia will be no longer as we know it.” Biden and the Democrats, Trump claimed, want to “defund and abolish your police and law enforcement, while at the same time destroying our great suburbs.”
The next day, in a remotely-televised “rally” with supporters in the key battleground state of Wisconsin, Trump said that Democrats wanted to “eliminate single-family zoning, bringing who knows into your suburbs, so your communities will be unsafe and your housing values will go down.” It was a statement that clearly played on racist fears.
On July 23, Trump tweeted a message targeted to what he called “The Suburban Housewives of America.” He warned that “Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American Dream. I will preserve it, and make it even better.”
He doubled down in another tweet on July 29: “I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood,” he ranted. “Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy!”
That last tweet referred to his decision to throw out an Obama administration rule, adopted in 2015, called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH). The policy had given muscle to the Fair Housing Act, which Congress passed in 1968, by requiring local governments to demonstrate that local policies — like zoning rules and the allocation of housing subsidies — don’t exclude low income housing or exacerbate racial segregation....................................
After White House reporters bow out of covering Mike Pence trip, Pence taps Some Guy to fill in
After White House reporters bow out of covering Mike Pence trip, Pence taps Some Guy to fill in
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/6/1967143/-Instead-of-a-pool-reporter-Mike-Pence-took-a-conservative-think-tanker-to-report-his-Florida-trip?detail=emaildkbow2
Thursday August 06, 2020 · 2:19 PM CDT
It turns out risking your life to listen to this puddinghead kiss Trump's ass for the hundredth time is not the hot ticket you might expect.
On Wednesday, Vice President and somewhat-sentient Trump skin tag Mike Pence flew to pandemic-awash Florida. Normally he would be accompanied by a pool reporter from the White House press corps, just in case something resembling "news" happened during his trip; this time, he was not. Instead, the position was filled by the vice president for communications of the Heritage Foundation, a "conservative" think tank that has become considerably more influential in White House staffing and policy than Donald Trump has been. Heritage Foundation executive Robert Bluey is also the "executive editor" of the Foundation's news site, The Daily Signal, and it was in that role that he played the part of a pool reporter during the trip.
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That's right, kids. It turns out taking a multi-hour flight to a pandemic hotspot next to the Mike Pence, the Tapioca Riefenstahl, a guy whose own office constitutes its own coronavirus hotspot, to hear him talk yet again about how Trump is absolutely the most God-fearing sack of crap he's ever known is not a hot ticket. The White House Correspondent's Association requested a volunteer to cover the trip, reports the Times, and got zero takers.
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The Trump Pandemic A blow-by-blow account of how the president killed thousands of Americans.
Lots of details.
https://twitter.com/nhdogmom/status/1292616001121656837?s=20
The Trump Pandemic
A blow-by-blow account of how the president killed thousands of Americans.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/trump-coronavirus-deaths-timeline.html
By William Saletan
Aug 09, 20207:00 PM
On July 17, President Donald Trump sat for a Fox News interview at the White House. At the time, nearly 140,000 Americans were dead from the novel coronavirus. The interviewer, Chris Wallace, showed Trump a video clip in which Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned of a difficult fall and winter ahead. Trump dismissed the warning. He scoffed that experts had misjudged the virus all along. “Everybody thought this summer it would go away,” said Trump. “They used to say the heat, the heat was good for it and it really knocks it out, remember? So they got that one wrong.”
Trump’s account was completely backward. Redfield and other U.S. public health officials had never promised that heat would knock out the virus. In fact, they had cautioned against that assumption. The person who had held out the false promise of a warm-weather reprieve, again and again, was Trump. And he hadn’t gotten the idea from any of his medical advisers. He had gotten it from Xi Jinping, the president of China, in a phone call in February.
The phone call, the talking points Trump picked up from it, and his subsequent attempts to cover up his alliance with Xi are part of a deep betrayal. The story the president now tells—that he “built the greatest economy in history,” that China blindsided him by unleashing the virus, and that Trump saved millions of lives by mobilizing America to defeat it—is a lie. Trump collaborated with Xi, concealed the threat, impeded the U.S. government’s response, silenced those who sought to warn the public, and pushed states to take risks that escalated the tragedy. He’s personally responsible for tens of thousands of deaths.
This isn’t speculation. All the evidence is in the public record. But the truth, unlike Trump’s false narrative, is scattered in different places. It’s in emails, leaks, interviews, hearings, scientific reports, and the president’s stray remarks. This article puts those fragments together. It documents Trump’s interference or negligence in every stage of the government’s failure: preparation, mobilization, public communication, testing, mitigation, and reopening.
Trump has always been malignant and incompetent. As president, he has coasted on economic growth, narrowly averted crises of his own making, and corrupted the government in ways that many Americans could ignore. But in the pandemic, his vices—venality, dishonesty, self-absorption, dereliction, heedlessness—turned deadly. They produced lies, misjudgments, and destructive interventions that multiplied the carnage. The coronavirus debacle isn’t, as Trump protests, an “artificial problem” that spoiled his protests, an “artificial problem” that spoiled his presidency. It’s the fulfillment of everything he is..........................
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https://twitter.com/ErniesVetHooch/status/1292616263630495744?s=20
STEPHANOPOULOS: "In fact, the president doesn't extend the federal eviction moratorium. I looked at
Good gawd! This is so cruel--Trump broadcasting to folks in trouble who can not pay rent that eviction
notices would be on hold--and now we find out they are NOT!
STEPHANOPOULOS: “In fact, the president doesn’t extend the federal eviction moratorium. I looked at the executive order. It doesn’t do that.” …
KUDLOW: “Well, look, that’s not entirely true.”
STEPHANOPOULOS: “It is true. I just read it.”
https://twitter.com/DNCWarRoom/status/1292458155759345665?s=20
Confronted with the truth — that Trump’s bogus eviction executive order doesn’t actually freeze evictions like Trump said it would — Larry Kudlow can’t defend it.
https://twitter.com/DNCWarRoom/status/1292458820325773313?s=20
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1292457730607910913?s=20
https://twitter.com/MauraLeeLang/status/1292458437855653888?s=20
Trump has secured a key voting demographic:..........
I am sure he had them already.
BREAKING NEWS: After President Trump's visit to Bedminster yesterday his Campaign Team is doing a victory lap having all but secured a key voting demographic: TRUMP GOLF CLUB MEMBERS.
https://twitter.com/DorothyTweet1/status/1292022955183083520?s=20
My neighbor is a Trumpophile. She has been driving around all day with a Biden sticker on her car. A
lots of good comments
@Pelon
My neighbor is a Trumpophile. She has been driving around all day with a Biden sticker on her car. Apparently, someone stuck it on there at 5:05 am. Don't assume how I am sure of the time...
https://twitter.com/Pelon/status/1292242175594393600?s=20
https://twitter.com/rainmann251/status/1292253659061817344?s=20
Republicans--Sen Ron Johnson, R, WI are still trying to frame Joe Biden with Ukraine
Johnson rode into the Senate with Tea Party and has done NOTHING constructive for the people!
Republicans are still trying to frame Joe Biden with Ukraine
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/06/republicans-are-still-trying-frame-joe-biden-with-ukraine/
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, on Thursday. (Toni Sandys/The Washington Post)
Opinion by Paul Waldman
C
August 6, 2020 at 4:59 p.m. CDT
President Trump had a plan. He would squeeze the president of Ukraine, a U.S. ally in desperate need of our help, to assist Trump in his reelection campaign. “I would like you to do us a favor though,” he told the Ukrainian, doing his best impression of a mob boss forcing a local shop owner to pay protection.
According to the plan, Ukraine would announce a blockbuster investigation of Joe Biden. Whether there was any evidence of wrongdoing mattered as little as the substance of Hillary Clinton’s email management practices. The goal was to create media stories linking Biden with payoffs and shakedowns in a foreign land, so voters would come to believe the Democrat was as corrupt and untrustworthy as Trump himself.
The plan fell apart, withering in sunlight and leading to Trump’s impeachment. But now, Trump’s allies in Congress are trying to revive it.
At a time when the country is dealing with some pretty serious problems, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, is relentlessly pursuing an investigation into … Hunter Biden and Burisma!
Johnson’s investigation is being propelled by a chain of information, if one can call it that, that begins with Russian-connected Ukrainians, runs through bonkers conspiracy theorist and presidential “lawyer” Rudy Giuliani, and is then delivered to Johnson. The obvious purpose is to make a case that when he was vice president and led an international effort to pressure Ukraine to confront its corruption problem, Joe Biden was actually trying to take the heat off the company that was paying his son.
If you thought this ridiculous allegation was comprehensively disproved during Trump’s impeachment, you’d be right. But Johnson is undeterred:
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One national security official told Politico that the Ukrainians feeding material to Giuliani and Johnson are so unreliable that it should be “out of the question to consider their information legitimate investigative material.” Additionally, the article reports, intelligence officials are so skeptical of his probe that “Johnson is considered ‘toxic’ by some members of the intelligence community.”
Even some Republicans such as Sen. Lindsey O. Graham have been skeptical of the information Johnson is getting from Ukraine; in February, Graham warned, “Russia is playing us all like a fiddle.”...................................
Nicolle Wallace suggests Sen. Ron Johnson is 'in cahoots' with Russia to hurt Biden
foxnews is tattling on msnbc. But, of course Johnson==and Nunes and Grassley ---? others??---are deep into using Russian intel to hurt Biden
Published 9 hours ago
MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace suggests Sen. Ron Johnson is 'in cahoots' with Russia to hurt Biden
US intelligence assessment indicates that Russia attempting to 'denigrate' ex-VP
https://www.foxnews.com/media/msnbc-nicolle-wallace-ron-johnson-cahoots-russia
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MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace suggested on Friday that Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., is "in cahoots" with Russia in order to defeat Joe Biden in the November election.
On Friday, Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center William Evanina issued a statement warning that multiple countries may attempt to put their thumbs on the scale in November, including Russia.
"We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia 'establishment,'" Evanina wrote. "This is consistent with Moscow's public criticism of him when he was Vice President for his role in the Obama Administration's policies on Ukraine and it's support for the anti-Putin opposition inside Russia ... Some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trump's candidacy on social media and Russian television."
Evanina also made mention of a "pro-Russian Ukrainian parliamentarian" who is allegedly "spreading claims about corruption" to undermine Biden's candidacy.
During a panel discussion, Wallace singled out Johnson, who has been looking into Biden's ties to the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma, while posing a question to MSNBC analyst Jeremy Bash.
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https://twitter.com/EddieZipperer/status/1291843020892114946?s=20
https://twitter.com/NancyLouMartin/status/1291970810564022272?s=20
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