Today’s comic by Ruben Bolling is Donald Trump sweeps the Fake News Awards nominations:
• 2017 second hottest year ever recorded:
It’s official: 2017 was one of the hottest years ever recorded on Earth. On Thursday, NASA reported that only 2016 was warmer.
Every year, NASA collects data on the planet’s temperature record and releases a report that explains climate trends. On average, the planet’s surface temperature has risen about 2 degrees Fahrenheit during the last 100 years, a change that can be blamed on the increasing amount of human-made emissions, such as carbon dioxide. “[T]emperatures over the planet as a whole continue the rapid warming trend we’ve seen over the last 40 years,” Gavin Schmidt, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies that conducted the study said in a press release.
• Poll: World’s confidence in U.S. leadership hits record low:
Global confidence in US leadership has fallen to a new low, and the country now ranks below China in worldwide approval ratings, according to a new Gallup poll.
The survey of opinion in 134 countries showed a record collapse in approval for the US role in the world, from 48% under Obama to 30% after one year of Donald Trump – the lowest level Gallup has recorded since beginning its global leadership poll over a decade ago. [...]
In just under half of the world’s countries—65 out of 134—US standing collapsed, by 10 percentage points or more. Some of the biggest losses were among Washington’s closest allies in western Europe, Australia and Latin America.
• Rover Pipeline spills another 150,000 gallons of drilling fluid into Ohio wetlands:
Energy Transfer Partners' troubled $4.2 billion Rover pipeline has spilled nearly 150,000 gallons of drilling fluid into wetlands near the Tuscarawas River in Stark County, Ohio—the same site where it released 2 million gallons in April.
The 713-mile pipeline, which will carry fracked gas across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Michigan and Canada, is currently under construction by the same Dallas-based company that built the controversial Dakota Access pipeline.
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MIDDAY TWEET
• Republican activist from Northern Virginia quits party:
Kyle McDaniel, 28, served on the party’s State Central Committee for two years and has worked as a top aide for Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield), who said he had hoped McDaniel would eventually run for public office.
But McDaniel said he harbored increasing reservations over where the party has been heading. On Tuesday, he sent a letter of resignation to State Party Chairman John Whitbeck that described events he “could no longer stomach,” including Trump’s reported reference last week to Haiti as a “shithole” country and the defense by some party leaders of this summer’s rally by neo-Nazis in Charlottesville that led to the death of a 32-year-old woman.
• After 13 years, HuffPost ends unpaid contributions:
[T]he site’s days of encouraging everyday citizens to report on the news are over. On Thursday, it said it was immediately dissolving its self-publishing contributors platform — which has mushroomed to include 100,000 writers — in what is perhaps the most significant break from the past under its editor in chief, Lydia Polgreen, who joined the news site, which is now called HuffPost, a year ago.
The decision was rooted as much in a move to declutter the site as in Ms. Polgreen’s desire to focus on quality reporting and minimize unvetted stories at a time when there is so much misinformation online.
• Most recent law school graduates say it wasn’t worth it:
A majority of graduates who got their law degrees during or after the Great Recession say their degrees were not worth the cost, according to a new study.
The study released Tuesday by AccessLex and Gallup showed high student loan debt and increasing uncertainty about the legal profession have led more grads to say their law degree was not worth the cost.
Only 48 percent of all law school graduates interviewed for the report said they “strongly agree” that their degree was worth the cost.
• William Rivers Pitt’s love/hate relationship with “Fire and Fury”:
I hated reading it because it not only encapsulates the reality TV show our government has become, it expands upon it and in many ways, feeds it. Although there is merit to the book's publication, we should remember while reading it that there is no President Trump without the corporate news media's lavish assistance throughout the 2016 campaign. Candidate Trump was great TV; President Trump is even better. Throw a juicy scandal book onto the pyre and the ratings pop like a knot in the bark. [...]
I don't like Donald Trump. The Wolff book doesn't like Donald Trump. I was predisposed to enjoy it, and I did, because it is a peek at a wreck, and if some of the facts have a case of the wobbles, it's still difficult to look away.
Let's remember, though, that it is also a confection for the media, grist for the mill, cash money. Mainstream media outlets, clearly, are not at all tired of all this winning. We're trapped in a bad plot we didn't write, binge-watching history as the ratings soar
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Rare Greg Dworkin/Armando agreement episode! It’s hard not to agree the Gop owns the looming shutdown & Trump co-signed the loan. Dotard J. Trump isn’t just his fan club’s president. He’s also a client! Trump-RUS-NRA love triangle is news. Again!