Today’s comic by Ruben Bolling is Twitter bots sticking with Trump:
• Study of most sustainable cities put San Jose, Calif.; Provo, Utah; and Seattle at the top of the list:
Today, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which co-produces the Global SDG Index, released the first-ever U.S. Cities SDG Index. The Index ranks the 100 most populous U.S. cities, using Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), based on their performance on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Results show that all U.S. cities, even those at the top of the Index, have far to go to achieve the SDGs.
The U.S. Cities SDG Index uses 49 indicators from 16 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals – goals that were agreed upon by all countries at the United Nations in September 2015. The Index provides a more holistic and comprehensive assessment of sustainable development challenges faced by U.S. cities than available through other metrics.
• As transit ridership nationwide falls, Los Angeles is bucking the trend:
We’ve seen a general decline in transit riders around the country as the economy has improved, gas prices have fallen, and public transport systems have aged. But Los Angeles is bucking that trend.
Take the Expo line, which opened in May 2016 and runs from downtown L.A. to the beach. It carried an average of 64,000 riders each weekday in June 2017 — an increase of almost 20,000 riders from a year earlier. Officials had predicted the line wouldn’t get that popular until 2030.
•
• Elon Musk once fired his assistant of 12 years because she asked for a raise.
• Oh, thank goodness, a judge wants State Dept. to get to bottom of Benghazi emails:
Adding a new wrinkle to litigation over the 2012 U.S. consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, a federal judge put a spotlight Wednesday on emails sent by three aides to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“This matter is a far cry from a typical FOIA case,” the ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta says, abbreviating Freedom of Information Act. “Secretary Clinton used a private email server, located in her home, to transmit and receive work-related communications during her tenure as secretary of state.” [...]
He agreed with [the right-wing Judicial Watch] Tuesday that the agency must search the state.gov email accounts of three former Clinton aides: former chief of staff Cheryl Mills, former deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin, and former director of policy planning Jacob Sullivan.
• Trump’s having trouble keeping his promise to kill birth control benefit:
President Donald Trump boasted in Maythat the lawsuits challenging the birth control benefit accommodation in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) were over because the challengers, groups of religiously affiliated nonprofits, had “won.”
The basis of Trump’s claim? His religious imposition executive order, which he suggested had the force of statutory law and could relieve those groups of their obligations to comply with the ACA. Last week, a federal appeals court reminded Trump he doesn’t actually have the power to unilaterally change the birth control benefit, no matter how many promises he makes.
On Friday, a split panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Real Alternatives, a so-called crisis pregnancy center, must provide all employees with non-discriminatory health insurance benefits, including birth control. The ruling is the most recent in a series of cases stalled out in the federal courts while Republicans try to find a way—any way—to undo both the ACA and its corresponding reproductive health benefits.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Things may not be normal, but at least the polling is. And Greg Dworkin can prove it. Armando is bummed that the most stupid president is getting advice from the most stupid TV show. And even if we survive, will internal Dem tribalism cost us our bench?
YouTube | iTunes | LibSyn | Keep us on the air! Donate via Patreon or Square Cash