Still bent on opting out of treaties and international programs that the United States initiated or in which it has been a key participant, Donald Trump plans to withdraw from the multilateral Treaty on Open Skies, according to senior White House officials. The treaty, which allows signatory nations to overfly each other for unarmed surveillance, was first proposed 65 years ago in […]
On May 11, a federal judge ruled that a federal Bureau of Reclamation water diversion and pumping plan, lethal to Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead and other fish species in the Central Valley and Delta, must temporarily restrict water pumping from the Delta. The order blocks the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation until May 31 from increasing […]
As first reported by Meridith McGraw and Hahal Toosi at Politico, Donald Trump has purged yet another inspector general, State Department IG Steve Linick. Like those forced out before him, Linick is being dumped for performing his watchdog job, which was causing discomfort in the White House where loyalty is only surpassed by flattery for anyone who […]
The new banner represents the first branch of the military initiated since the U.S. Air Force was separated from the Army in 1947. The new missile, Trump claims, will be 17 times faster than anything the Chinese or Russians have. As my colleague and civilian rocket enthusiast Mark Sumner wrote in January about U.S. research into […]
It’s nice to hear that groups protecting vulnerable populations during the coronavirus pandemic could potentially build on legal tactics employed in climate litigation, and (conversely) for those bringing climate lawsuits to learn from coronavirus litigation. By Climate Denier Roundup Last week, Dawn Reeves at InsideEPA reported that ExxonMobil’s lawyers attempted to convince the 10th Circuit Court of […]
COVID-19 has disrupted the state of the world. From country to country, the pandemic is affecting millions of lives. Part of this disruption comes from the virus’s ability to spread before people show symptoms. Now, with various environmental standards at stake, organizations and individuals are emphasizing the ways the environment can help fight pandemics. By Emily […]
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California has granted a preliminary injunction in the State’s lawsuit challenging the Trump Administration’s unlawful expansion of water export operations in the Central Valley. By Dan Bacher “We applaud the court for hitting pause on the Trump Administration’s reckless attempt to expand water export operations at […]
Monday, before leaving his outdoor press conference at the White House in a huff because of a couple of “nasty” women reporters doing their jobs, Donald J. Trump—flanked on both sides of the podium by signs claiming “America Leads the World in Testing”—said that “we have met the moment, and we have prevailed” on testing for the coronavirus. […]
Donald Trump’s recent rant about California water, based loosely on corporate agribusiness talking points, is one of the most strangest of his that I have listened to. I decided to transcribe the president’s musings from the below video, shared on Twitter by Aaron Rupar, an associate editor at Vox covering politics and policy, so people could see exactly what what Trump said. […]
Calvin Woodward and Hope Yen at the Associated Press introduced their updated fact-check story of the squatter in the White House Saturday morning with these words: “Truth can be a casualty when President Donald Trump talks about deaths from the coronavirus in the United States.” By Meteor Blades True enough, although they could have ended that […]
Eight weeks ago the first ripples of what would soon become a tsunami of new claims for unemployment insurance benefits began as the economy was shut down to keep the deadly coronavirus from spreading further. It was a weekly increase of about 70,000 from what had been new claims averaging around 215,000 for the past two years. […]
Earlier this year I wrote about Trump administration environmental deregulations, and our readers responded with their positions on which acts would have the most long-term harm. Who knew that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would be at it again, especially during the pandemic crisis? According to Nature, the EPA is pressing forward with controversial efforts to roll back […]
Though it wasn’t hard to see that the Trump administration’s justifications for replacing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan with its own deadly “Affordable Clean Energy” gift to the coal industry were faulty and deceptive way back in 2017, the actual wheels of the American legal system churn a bit more slowly. By Climate Denier Roundup But now, InsideEPA and Politico’s MorningEnergy report that […]
Drilling in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a longtime dream of the industry, with environmental advocates fighting the idea fang and claw through several presidential administrations. Activists are winning. Their strategy: strangle the financing. By Meteor Blades Refuge oil is estimated to be in the billions of barrels, but oil production has been […]
The Bellowing Bully in the White House is becoming more unhinged by the day as he continues to take a sledgehammer to traditional notions of governance, leadership, and common decency. He acts like an enraged bull or better yet, a crime boss in the tradition of Al Capone or John Gotti. Any slight must be […]