Today’s comic by Ruben Bolling is Please remember the 'concentration camp' victims:
• Maine’s new Democratic governor signs three energy- and climate-related bills: The state’s former Republican governor, an utter wackjob named Paul LePage, was a climate science denier who chalked up a dreadful environmental record over his eight years in office. Now Gov. Janet Mills is on the road to repairing some of that damage. This week she signed LD 1494, a bill that boosts the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard requiring 80% of electricity to be generated by clean energy by 2030 and 100% by 2050. Thus, Maine is joining California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington state, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and 130 U.S. cities pledging 100% clean electricity by or before mid-century. Another bill, LD 1679, creates a Climate Council to help Mainers engaged in “mitigating, preparing for, and adapting” to the climate crisis. She also put her signature on LD 1711, which mandates that the Public Utilities Commission increase distributed generation and seek bids for up to 400 megawatts of solar-generated electricity.
• Seven minutes were devoted to the climate crisis in the Democratic debate: Only five candidates actually got a climate question to answer after 80 minutes of talking about other issues, although others among the 10 on stage touched briefly on climate-related matters in answers to other questions. Sen. Elizabeth Warren did the most in that regard, touting her $2 trillion investment plan for clean energy, focusing on its power to create good jobs. "Tonight’s debate made it crystal clear that the media and the political establishment are out of touch with our generation," said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, the youth-led grassroots movement that has pushed the Green New Deal. "Our survival is worth more time than vague, irrelevant, and trivial questions posed 80 minutes into the debate to a few minor candidates."
• Right-wing internet trolls think Tulsi Gabbard won the Democratic debate:
High profile right wing and alt-right internet trolls like Jack Posobiec, fellow Pizzagater Mike Cernovich, and Infowars’s Paul Joseph Watson praised Gabbard on Twitter for her performance alongside nine other candidates on the Miami stage.
Users on 4chan affectionately referred to Gabbard as “mommy.”
Cernovich called Gabbard the “breakthrough star of the night,” while Posobiec retweeted a post calling for “a movement to push Trump to hire Tulsi Gabbard as Secretary of State.” (Documents leaked this week show that Gabbard, who served in Iraq, was considered by the Trump transition as a possible Secretary of Veterans Affairs.)
MIDDAY TWEET
• ACLU releases documents showing NSA has collected millions of private phone calls and texts since 2015: The civil liberties organization said the most recent instance of collecting such information took place in October 2018, because of an error. “These documents further confirm that this surveillance program is beyond redemption and a privacy and civil liberties disaster,” said Patrick Toomey, staff attorney with the ACLU. “The NSA’s collection of Americans’ call records is too sweeping, the compliance problems too many, and evidence of the program’s value all but nonexistent. There is no justification for leaving this surveillance power in the NSA’s hands.”
• Around the nation, hospitals sue thousands of poor patients over unpaid medical bills: According to a study published on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in 2017, there were more than 20,000 debt lawsuits filed by Virginia hospitals and more than 9,300 garnishment cases Nonprofit hospitals were more likely to garnish wages. And Virginia isn’t the only state where that happens. “If Warren Buffett walks in and needs a heart valve procedure and then stiffs the hospital, then yes, you should sue Warren Buffett,” said John Colombo, a University of Illinois College of Law professor emeritus who has testified to Congress about the tax-exempt status of nonprofit hospitals. “I can’t think of a situation in which thousands of your patients would fit that.”
• An experts’ backgrounder on domestic law and potential U.S. military action against Iran.
On
today’s Kagro in the Morning show: The NЯA den of thieves continues to collapse. (I thought those guys never got robbed, because guns.) Trump hates treaties (but loves treats). Joe (Biden) vs. the Fiscal Cliff. WTF with Jerry Falwell Jr. & the pool boy? WTF with Duncan Hunter & half of DC?