Today’s comic by Mark Fiore is The Kremlin convention:
What’s coming up on Sunday Kos …
- FLOTUS, slavery and Washington, by Denise Oliver Velez
- Barack Obama has fundamentally transformed how we understand our national identity. For the better, by Ian Reifowitz
- Donald Trump will always go too far, then keep going, by Mark Sumner
- Trump shows torture unpunished means torture repeated, by Jon Perr
- Black Lives Matter in public health, too, by Sher Watts Spooner
- Trump perfects the ‘Gish Gallop,’ leaving media overwhelmed in trying to correct his many whoppers, by DarkSyde
- The first lady gives a speech, by Susan Grigsby
- Retracing Cold War memories: Part Five, Berlin, by Mark E Andersen
• It’s Day 167 of the GOP’s stubborn refusal to hold a hearing on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland: It’s Friday, July 29, and Day 167 since Justice Antonin Scalia died and Mitch McConnell decided no SCOTUS nominee would get any Senate attention: No meetings, no hearings, no votes. It's also Day 130 since President Obama named Merrick Garland to be Scalia's replacement. So what is the Senate doing instead of holding hearings? Recess. Help turn the Senate blue with your donation and get all branches of government working again.
• Ship to be named after Harvey Milk: The U.S. Navy plans to name a ship after gay rights leader Harvey Milk, according to a July 14, 2016, congressional notification signed by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. The ship is the second of John Lewis-class oilers being built under contract by General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego, California. Mabus has previously said this class of ships—named for civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis of Georgia—would all be named after civil rights leaders.
• Court rejects Sen. Robert Menendez’s attempt to get corruption case thrown out:
A federal appeals court in Philadelphia has let stand the charges against him, rejecting his claims that his constitutional protections as a senator were violated.
The ruling is a serious blow to Menendez, who was hoping to have all or most of the case against him thrown out.
Menendez was indicted in April 2015 for allegedly accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in improper gifts and campaign contributions as bribes in exchange for using his office to help Dr. Salomon Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist and longtime friend and financial backer.
• George Takei takes on Donald Trump … in Spanish: The video has been viewed 12 millions times so far.
• The Commerce Dept. reports far lower than expected growth in gross domestic product for the second quarter of 2016: The economy grew at an annual rate of just 1.2 percent from April through June, less than half what a consensus of experts surveyed in advance by Bloomberg had thought would be the case. In addition, the government revised the growth rate in GDP in the first quarter from 1.1 percent to 0.8 percent and in the fourth quarter of 2015 from 1.4 percent to 0.9 percent. Some of the details of the current GDP report are not as disturbing. See here. Consumer spending was up, for example. Although the Great Recession ended seven years ago, the average annual growth rate since then has been just 2.1 percent, the lowest showing since 1949. This is the first of three GDP reports that the department will release for the second quarter, with the others coming in August and September. Significant revisions are often made in these subsequent reports.
• Ukrainian officials ponder turning Chernobyl into giant solar farm: The Kiev government says the radioactively contaminated land around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant— damaged by a meltdown in 1986—could host enough solar panels to generated a third of the electricity the still lethal reactor produced when it was operational. The Guardian reports that it has seen a copy of a government proposal sent to major banks that could convert nearly 15,000 acres into a site generating electricity with solar and biogas. Total capacity would be about 1.4 gigawatts. Before the accident, the four reactors at Chernobyl had a capacity of 4 gigawatts. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has hinted that it might be lend money for the renewable energy plan. So far, the EBRD has provided more than $500 million to build a stainless steel “sarcophagus” over the destroyed Reactor No. 4. The unmovable 2,000-ton radioactive mass of 2,000-ton radioactive mass of metal, concrete and uranium from the meltdown of the reactor core will remain dangerous for at least 3,000 years.
• Oil prices have fallen 20 percent in the past six weeks.
• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Armando joins in wrapping up the festivities in Philly. Even Snowden thinks Wikileaks overdid it. Melania memory-holes her college degree. Trump soaked up that 9/11 cash Hillary mentioned. And we’ve reached the insiders’ oppo dump stage on DWS.
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