Today’s comic by Matt Bors is The Green New Deal vs. logic:
• Top pick for panel to investigate whether climate change is a national security threat once said carbon emissions are demonized like 'Jews under Hitler':
The Trump administration is launching what the The Washington Post calls "the most recent attempt to question the findings of federal scientists and experts on climate change" by assembling a panel dedicated to determining whether or not climate change poses a national security threat.
It turns out that William Happer, President Trump's top choice to lead the panel, is quite fond of carbon emissions.
So much so, in fact, that he said that people deserve to learn "the scientific truth, that more CO2 is actually a benefit to the earth" rather than a pollutant. In a 2014 appearance on CNBC's Squawk Box, Happer told host Andrew Ross Sorkin the "demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler."
• Demand for Tesla’s popular Powerwall batteries is big, but few installers have them:
Twelve percent of U.S. companies that install solar panels and residential batteries carry the Powerwall, a study yesterday from Boston-based EnergySage and the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners found. Meanwhile, about 55 percent of customers shopping for home-storage systems want them, according to the 871 installers surveyed in the report. [...]
Tesla declined to comment. One reason independent installers who participated in the survey may have a hard time finding Powerwalls is that Tesla shifted its strategy last year to sell most of its systems through its website and stores rather than third-party channels.
• Trump chooses Jeffrey Rosen to fill Deputy A.G. Rod Rosenstein’s shoes after he leaves next month: The 60-year-old Rosen is a veteran litigator now serving as deputy transportation secretary, a post that makes him the Transportation Department’s chief operating officer. He served as general counsel and a senior policy adviser at the White House Office of Management and Budget from 2006 to 2009. Rosenstein took on the oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation. That investigation is now the bailiwick of the new attorney general, William Barr, who took the job on the provisio that he could choose his own deputy.
MIDDAY TWEET
• Stop with the crap about Malia Obama, okay?
On Sunday, The Daily Mail published photos of Malia Obama drinking an $80 bottle of rosé poolside with her friends in Miami. The following day, the tabloid published another article claiming they’ve found Obama's secret Facebook account where she’s been vocal about her gripes with President Trump. The whole saga suggested more people side with Obama than against her, as evident by the flood of responses in the Daily Mail's mentions, in which the obvious point was made over and over again that the former First Daughter is a college student. On vacation. Whomst among us?? Really, we just wish we were drinking rosé in Miami instead of defending her on the lord's day (also known as Toni Morrison's birthday).
• Survivor of newsroom massacre at Maryland’s Capital Gazette says Trump’s “media-bashing” makes her fear for her life and the lives of other reporters: Rachael Pacella responded to Trump’s tweet that “the press has never been more dishonest than it is today,” with tweets about her fears and the considerations she makes to protect herself. She writes:
It's snowing here, so I hopped up to shoot a video of snow falling over Annapolis from the window of our temporary office. It's gorgeous.
And then I realized I couldn't post it, because it would reveal our location.
These are the things I have to think about every single day.
On
today’s Kagro in the Morning show:
Greg Dworkin, Armando and Joan McCarter are all on hand today for the important task of sorting out Trump scandals, McConnell scandals, Chao scandals, DeVos scandals, Ross scandals and Armando scandals.