Three weeks left until the November midterms.
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Today’s comic by Jen Sorensen is Voter purge surge:
• Some researchers upset over “vast blind spot” in climate report: They say the failure of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to take into account the “decades-long misinformation campaign” of fossil fuel interests and right-wing think tanks slowed progress in addressing the climate crisis and educating the public and policy-makers about it. “This is an important barrier to climate action, but it is never addressed,” according to Professor Robert Brulle of Drexel University, who has published research on the funding and political clout associated with climate science denial propaganda. “A large existing literature on this was ignored by the IPCC,” he told Graham Readfern at DeSmog. Timmons Roberts of Brown University in Rhode Island, one of more than 50 contributors to chapter four of the report that discussed the influences on policy makers and the public’s response to climate change, said the “highly organized misinformation campaign funded by the fossil fuel industry” was a “main factor driving inaction,” he said, calling it a “vast blind spot” in the report.”
• Idaho Fish and Game Commissioner forced to resign after boasting of killing a family of baboons. He and his wife also killed more than a dozen other animals in a hunting trip to Namibia, including a leopard and a giraffe. Blake Fischer, who was appointed to be one of the state’s seven fish and game commissioners by the governor in 2014, emailed a photo of himself grinning ear to ear over the bodies of four propped-up baboons he had shot. Other photos were also included. After the Idaho Statesman acquired the email via a public information request, people on social media were appalled and called for Fischer’s resignation. Among the many critics was Steve Alder, executive director of the pro-hunting group Idaho for Wildlife. His organization opposes the reintroduction and continued spread of wolves in Idaho. He said:
"The biggest thing is the baboon thing. I was really troubled. That's my biggest issue. He killed the whole baboon family and you've got little junior laying there in mom's lap. You just don't do that. I hate wolves as much as anyone, but I'm not going to take a wolf family and put it on display and show the baby wolf."
• Paul G. Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, dead at 65: His family said in a statement that he died from complications of a recurrence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphona, a disease that had been in remission for several years. He, along with Bill Gates, was a force at Microsoft in the company’s first seven years, but left in the early 1980s. The software the two developed formed the operating system of the IBM personal computer in 1981 and the foundation of a gigantic business empire. The Verge discusses his legacy.
MIDDAY TWEET
• Court artist Art Lien has drawn everyone from Paul Manafort to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but will his craft survive?
The pace of courtroom sketching is very different from that of other types of art. Lien usually needs to crank out at least three or four pieces by the end of an hour-long hearing. The TV networks that air them almost always require a wide shot: a scene-setter with the judge and a full view of the courtroom. Then there are individual portraits of the major players: the prosecutor, the defense lawyer and, most important, the defendant. And if it’s a full-on trial, Lien usually needs to draw each witness who takes the stand. He remembers a day during the McVeigh trial when the prosecution called in more than 30 witnesses, one right after another, and Lien drew them all.
Trials like that one can be challenging, Lien says, and not just because of wrist pain. His job requires him to analyze and depict people at what very well could be the lowest moment of their life, whether it’s defendants facing decades in prison or victims facing their tormentor in open court.
• Getting out the vote on Arizona Indian reservation no easy matter. And lack of help in improving matters on the Tohono O’odham Nation extends to the Democratic Party. Gabriela Cazares-Kelly, who leads the Indivisible Tohono group told Tim Murphy at Mother Jones magazine what a party representative told her when she asked about voter registration efforts: “‘I didn’t know that you needed to do voter outreach on your reservation—I thought people had to register to vote when they applied for food stamps.’” Said Cazares-Kelly: “That’s problematic in so many ways!”
• Secretary of State of largest recognized Cherokee tribe criticizes Elizabeth Warren DNA test:
"Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong," Chuck Hoskin Jr., the tribe's secretary of state, said in a statement on Monday. "It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven."
"Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage," Hoskin added.