Today’s comic by Ruben Bolling is Visit the Trumpiest place on Earth, Mar-a-Lago Theme Park!
If Donald Trump manages to complete his term, he has 1398 days to go.
• Study finds natural gas plants emit up to 120 times as much methane as was previously estimated:
Researchers at Purdue University and the Environmental Defense Fund have concluded in a recent study that natural gas power plants release 21–120 times more methane than earlier estimates.
Published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, the study also found that for oil refineries, emission rates were 11–90 times more than initial estimates. Natural gas, long touted as a cleaner and more climate-friendly alternative to burning coal, is obtained in the U.S. mostly via the controversial horizontal drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”).
• “We all know someone”:
There is no comprehensive data collection system regarding the number of missing and murdered Native American women and girls in the United States. Some reservations, however, report that women are murdered at more than ten times the national average, and a congressional study found that between 1979 and 1992 homicide was the third leading cause of death among Native American women ages 15-to-34, as reported earlier at Rewire and the Indian Country Media Network.
One has only to live on a reservation or speak to members of the communities to know that rates of missing and murdered women and girls are high. Nearly every Native family has a story of a female relative who is missing, murdered, or whose murder has gone unsolved.
• It’s National Puppy Day.
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• Burning books never a good idea: At least 10 homes in Nassau County, Florida, were destroyed in a wildfire caused by a man who was illegally burning books Wednesday. The first burned an estimated 350-400 acres, causing a few minor injuries. The man was burning paperback books as part of the trash and it got away from him, authorities say. He has been issued a notice of violation and will be sent a forestry bill for all the equipment and personnel used into fighting the fire. That could be several thousands of dollars. He could also be held civilly liable for the burned houses and any other damage.
• Wolves and bears—pups and cubs too—fair game as soon as Trump signs legislation:
The U.S. Senate used the Congressional Review Act Tuesday to strip away regulatory safeguards implemented by the Obama administration in 2016 to protect wolves, bears and other predators on national wildlife refuges in Alaska. In a strict, party-line vote, Senate Republicans approved today's measure, which will allow the unsportsmanlike killing of wolves and their pups in their dens and the gunning down of bears at bait stations.
• 19-year-old with dual U.S. and Israeli citizenship arrested in bomb threats to Jewish community centers.
• From Minneapolis to Decatur, Georgia, Americans set up “political salons” to fight Trump. They are one more element in the resistance:
Salons first gained fame in France during the Enlightenment, with citizens gathering to engage in political conversations and arguments; they acted as a place to plan revolution and discuss philosophy. The concept has continued ever since, with the author Gertrude Stein and the former secretary of state Madeleine Albright both known to have hosted them.
“I used the term salon to evoke old gatherings of artists and intellectuals in a hostess’s home,” said Mary Huber, founder of the Progressive Salon of Decatur. “Yep, Paris in the 1920s, recreated here in Decatur, Georgia,” she quipped.
• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, we were back live, and Greg Dworkin caught us up on the Gop health care bomb and the swirling Russia stories. Can the Gop sneak their bill past the Byrd rule? Gorsuch filibuster may be a go. Attacks in NY & London. And was Trump mysteriously right?
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