How is your June 31 going? This is the day that MTG is going to own Dr. Fauci. Nail him for his lies. NO WAIT! It isn’t June at all today. It’s July 1. Too late Madam Big Mouth Dumbass. Maybe you can try again on the 31st of September.
How about some good news? As everybody is burning up about now, let’s start with the environment.
Good News about the upcoming wildfire season
I don’t think any president has thought proactively about wildfires before. It has always been about approving disaster funds after the fact. Why not plan for this in advance? Let’s start by paying the firefighters more.
Biden Plans Wage Hike For Firefighters As Wildfire Season Looms Forbes, Jack Brewster
Every year, the sitting president meets with governors to discuss how the federal government can support states dealing with hurricanes. This year, the president asked to do the same thing for states who are expecting wildfires. (Why has no one thought of this before?) He got his eyes opened.
“I just realized...that federal firefighters get paid $13 an hour,” Biden said during a meeting with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell last week. “That’s going to end in my administration. That’s a ridiculously low salary to pay federal firefighters.”
Federal firefighters had been making considerably less than their state counterparts. A California firefighter makes $20,000 more than a federal one does. Biden is immediately raising their pay to $15/hour. Firefighters who stay on the job after a year will also get a 10% retention bonus. Safe to say they won’t be raking the forests.
Good environmental news
I put this up high in the Roundup because it is personal to me. I remember in years past, driving through Culver City and noticing the terrible smell of oil constantly, everywhere. YUCK! No longer. It never seemed to be worth it, anyway. Many years ago, I had an acquaintance in that area who had a rocking oil derrick in his backyard, in fact it could be the one in the picture below. He told me at the time that it pumped about 2 barrels a month, earning him about $50. Seriously?
Canada is giving up on oil, too.
Happy Canada Day!
Canada Will Ban New Gasoline and Diesel Car Sales in 2035 The Drive, Chris Tsui
The government of Canada has announced its intention to ban the sale of any and all fuel-burning new cars and light-duty trucks from the year 2035, according to Reuters. This would outlaw hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and, of course, regular gas-only cars. It's all part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's goal to get the entire country to net-zero emissions by 2050.
...
The Canadian provinces of Quebec and British Columbia have already laid out goals to eliminate combustion car sales by around the same time. Late last year, the state of California announced an identical deadline on the sale of internal combustion vehicles. Overseas, the United Kingdom wants to ban gas cars by 2035 while Japan is aiming for something similar by "the mid-2030s."
Democrats are Awesome
Democrats are going ahead with a Jan 6 investigation
And hooray for Reps Cheney and Kinzinger. Our government is now the Democratic Party, the Republican Party which consists of a handful of members in Washington, and the Sedition Party.
From Axios:
- The panel, which will have the power to subpoena witnesses, will investigate the "domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex," as well as security failures and the transfer of power, according to the legislation. Pelosi will designate the committee chair.
Did you know that slavery is still legal in this country?
There is an escape clause in the 13th amendment. Here it is in the first section of the amendment:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
The Dems are dealing with that.
Dems introduce Abolition amendment to scrap Constitution's 'slavery clause' Raw Story, Julia Conley
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Rep. Nikema Williams (D-Ga.) led two dozen of their colleagues in introducing the Abolition Amendment, which would strike the "slavery clause" from the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Adopted in January 1865, the amendment bans enslavement in the U.S., except as a form of punishment for criminal activity.
...
"The loophole in our Constitution's ban on slavery not only allowed slavery to continue, but launched an era of discrimination and mass incarceration that continues to this day," the senator added. "To live up to our nation's promise of justice for all, we must eliminate the slavery clause from our constitution."
The Trump Organization is getting indicted and it’s going to be bad for the company
Not exactly Democrats acting, but without Democrats in charge, does anybody think this would be happening?
If the Trump Organization is convicted, it will likely mean bankruptcy for all the holdings. Here is Aaron Parnas talking about it. Yes, he’s the son of Lev Parnas the Ukrainian goon who was trying to do something with Giuliani until he got arrested. Then, like Michael Cohen, he flipped hard. He credits his son for his seeing the light. Anyway, here is Aaron telling us what the indictment means for Trump, Inc.
Even just getting indicted will likely cause business partners to flee and it could bring down the company just on that. (His delivery is rather dull, but the gist is that no matter what happens, Trump, Inc is screwed. Bigly.)
*** LATE BREAKING NEWS ***
This came in after I had finished editing this diary, but I couldn’t wait to announce — The first shoe has dropped!
The Trump organization has been subpoenaed and Allen Weisselberg is on his way to the booking desk!!!
New York grand jury returns criminal indictments against Trump’s company and its CFO, the first from prosecutors probing the former president’s business dealings Washington Post, Shayna Jacobs, Josh Dawsey, David A. Fahrenthold, Jonathan O’Connell
The indictments against the Trump Organization and its CFO, Allen Weisselberg, will remain sealed until Thursday afternoon, leaving the specific charges against them unclear. Earlier Wednesday, people familiar with the case said the charges were related to allegations of unpaid taxes on benefits for Trump Organization executives.
Weisselberg is expected to surrender Thursday morning at the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D), two people familiar with the plan said. He is expected to be arraigned later in the day in front of a state court judge. The Trump Organization will also be arraigned, represented in court by one of its attorneys.
The criminal charges against the Trump Organization and Weisselberg are the first to result from the investigations by Vance and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) and represent a dramatic turn in the long-running probes.
Legal experts have anticipated the indictments as the Manhattan District Attorney's Office gave the Trump Org. an opportunity to reveal anything that could change the anticipated indictment. They provided nothing.
While Trump's lawyers have downplayed the indictments, other legal experts believe that this is the first shoe to drop from a grand jury that will meet for six months to review the evidence collected.
Late update:
*** Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming ***
Anybody else following @SeditionTrack?
It is very satisfying to receive notices that seditionists are being arrested every day.
So, who is chasing down those seditionists? Citizens.
‘Sedition Hunters’: Meet The Online Sleuths Aiding The FBI’s Capitol Manhunt Huffpost, Ryan J. Reilly
They call themselves sedition hunters, and they have receipts. They’re members of a loosely affiliated network of motivated individuals and pop-up volunteer organizations with names like Deep State Dogs and Capitol Terrorist Exposers that developed after the Jan. 6 attack to identify the Trump supporters who organized the Capitol riot and brutalized the law enforcement officers protecting the building.
The sedition hunters scour the web for any and all photographs, videos and posts from people at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack across well-known websites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter along with lesser-used sites and apps like Rumble, Gab and Telegram. They’ve got spreadsheets, Google Docs, links, bookmarks, unlisted YouTube backups, group chats and screenshots, as Joan puts it, “coming out the rear end.” They can uncover new evidence of conduct that’ll elevate a misdemeanor trespassing case into something much more serious; find the highest-quality image of a suspect that could generate new leads through facial recognition; and compile multimedia databases that turn the Jan. 6 attack into an interactive, high-stakes and soul-crushing edition of Where’s Waldo.
New York City just majorly screwed up their vote tallying
Why is this good news? Because it was caught. That is what certification and verification is all about. But now they have real-world proof that internal audits will catch anomalies way before any vote tally would be up for certification. Take that, ninjas.
Is the Trump mystique fading?
When you’ve lost the Southern Baptists ...
Why the Southern Baptist Convention finally rejected Trumpism
"The (Southern Baptist Convention) SBC has been going through something like an identity crisis this year," (Journalist Molly) Olmsted explains. "Southern Baptists, like most White evangelicals, voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, but in the run-up to the 2020 election, critics began to chafe at the frequently conspiracy theory-laden partisan politics within their churches. After last summer's racial unrest, many of the denomination's Black pastors — actively courted by a Convention uncomfortably aware of its overwhelming whiteness and deeply racist history — began to protest the SBC's unwillingness to recognize the extent of modern-day racism. At the same time, an organized group of Southern Baptists has pushed for a second conservative resurgence to correct what it sees as a loosening of the core Southern Baptist identity."
At Trump rallies, everybody seems to be asking — Where did we park?
And everybody has seen this video of people leaving Trump’s rally while he was still talking. It’s still good enough to include here. I especially like the part 20 seconds in when you can see the woman behind Trump clearly saying to her husband Are you ready to leave? And he says Yes. Then they make everyone get up so they can get out. And it’s all right behind Trump’s head.
I can’t embed the video, but it’s in this article:
Trump's Ohio rage rally speech was a flop with some of his fans -- and MSNBC has the video to prove it
From the Schadenfreude files
Failson Andrew Giuliani gets no votes for governor
Rudy Giuliani's son, Andrew, gets zero votes from GOP leaders in bid for New York governor The Insider, Charles Davis
In May, Andrew Giuliani announced he was seeking the GOP nomination for the 2022 contest, claiming he was a born politico. "I'm a politician out of the womb," he said. "It's in my DNA."
...
The New York GOP said more people chose to abstain — 10% — than vote for Giuliani, who has described his views as "very, very similar" to the former president's.
In France, the right wingers are failing, bigly. Buh-bye, Mme Le Pen and your cronies. She was the presumptive leader until just recently, so France dodged a Trump-sized bullet here.
Good News Confetti
Good news in small pieces. Enjoy!
Pfizer and Moderna Vaccines Likely to Produce Lasting Immunity, Study Finds New York Times, Apoorva Mandavilli
If you have your two-dose shot, you should be good for a few years, including Delta. If you got Johnson and Johnson, you may need a booster. But it’s all good.
Scientists Can Now Turn Used Soda Bottles Into Vanilla Flavoring Mother Jones, Damian Carrington
Start with old plastic bottles, add some mutant enzymes and genetically engineered bacteria and get, um, yummy vanilla flavoring? Yep.
Greece recovers Picasso years after gallery heist: officials Raw Story, Agence France-Presse
Greece on Tuesday said it had recovered a Picasso painting personally donated by the Spanish master to the Greek people, almost a decade after it was stolen alongside two other artworks in an audacious heist at the National Gallery.
Being pucklady, I had to mention this one.
They didn’t agree to terms, but the public has some ideas. Most of them involve Trump. Do yourself a favor and click the link for some chuckles.
Justin Trudeau Made A Sports Bet With Joe Biden And People Want It To Involve Trump Huffpost, Lee Moran
To close, here’s a good doggie with high hopes.
See you in August!