What’s coming on Sunday Kos:
- Just who exactly were these "very fine people?" by Frank Vyan Walton
- Climate change emerges as top issue for Democrats in 2020, by Sher Watts Spooner
- Remember, Trump beat Hillary from the working class left, by David Akadjian
- Democratic candidates have a bully pulpit. They should use it more, to help Puerto Rico, by Denise Oliver Velez
- Democrats must nominate a populist if they are to win the White House and Congress, by Egberto Willies
- Did 80% of GOP corporate tax cut benefits go to workers? Try 6%, by Jon Perr
- Scott Walker has a new job, by Mark E Andersen
- The Trump cover-up is now in plain sight. Will the press say so, by Eric Boehlert
- “You beat my Jews, I'll beat yours,” by Ian Reifowitz
- International Elections Digest: Spain's Socialists surge to biggest victory in a decade, by Daily Kos Elections
• Clarence Thomas’s moment may now have come, says Jessica Gresko at the AP:
More than 20 of the men and women Thomas mentored as law clerks have gone on to hold political appointments in the Trump administration or been nominated to judgeships by Trump . Thomas and his wife, Virginia, herself a well-known conservative activist, have dined with the president and first lady.
Elizabeth Wydra, president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center, acknowledged that Thomas’ views may now have more sway, something she described as “terrifying to many progressives.”
Makes me terrified and infuriated and an even stronger believer in a Supreme Court with more than nine justices.
• Exhibits tell stories of students killed 49 years ago today at Kent State University.
MIDDAY TWEET
• New York Times greets Pyongyang’s latest launch of projectiles with this wacky headline—New North Korea Weapons Test Threatens Trump’s Diplomatic Achievement. And what exactly would that achievement be? Telling the world that Kim Jong-Un is a swell guy? What exactly the projectiles were that North Korea launched into the sea has not yet been determined, but they were short range. The furthest reached out 124 miles. But these launches could, some longtime observers say, be another indication that Kim plans to lift the moratorium on test-launches of intermediate- and intercontinental-range missiles that the North Korean dictator announced last year. Trump has trumpeted that moratorium as his greatest diplomatic achievement since taking office in 2017. On Saturday morning, he tweeted that Kim “fully realizes the great economic potential of North Korea, & will do nothing to interfere or end it. He also knows that I am with him & does not want to break his promise to me. Deal will happen!”
• Trump regime worked to keep any mention of climate change out of Arctic policy statement: When is that small cohort of Republicans who now say they accept climate science going to speak up forcefully in opposition to Trump and his minions pushing lies at home and abroad when it comes to the climate crisis?
The Trump administration sought to remove references to climate change from an international statement on Arctic policy that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to endorse next week, leading to sometimes testy negotiations over how much to emphasize an issue considered a crisis for the region.
The Arctic Council declaration is an affirmation of goals and principles among the eight Arctic nations, which meet every two years. The Trump administration’s position, at least initially, threatened a standoff in which the United States would not sign onto a statement that included climate discussion and other members would not agree to a version that left it out, according to senior diplomats and others familiar with the discussions.
• Meanwhile, Democrats skeptical about Kelly Craft’s climate “skepticism”: That term, of course, has been the choice of climate science deniers who want to pretend their views on the subject actually have some credibility. Craft has been nominated to be the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.:
Three Democratic senators wrote Craft a letter on Friday seeking assurances that she “will put our nation’s interests ahead of your personal financial interests,” citing the work of her husband, Joe Craft, CEO of Alliance Resource Partners, one of the largest U.S. coal producers.
The letter reveals that Craft’s financial disclosures show $63 million in personal investments in oil, gas and coal assets, according to a copy obtained by McClatchy.