Do you trust your climate future to the heart of a CEO? (source; click to enlarge)by Gaius PubliusThere's plenty of political news these days, and it's being well covered in these pages.
Thom Hartmann on Donald Trump's other strong appeal to Republican voters (hint: Think Ross Perot). People who like Trump for this reason are potential Sanders voters. Mainstream Democratic trade policy, another party problem, is discussed below.by Gaius PubliusSchedule note: This will be the last piece for a few weeks from me. Writing will resume the third week of August.
This week, writing for the energy news site Oilprce.com, Dan Doyle tried to shed some light on the dozen media misconceptions about oil prices that have the public the most confused. Doyle penned his article for the sake of investors. But I wonder how many policy-makers have bought into these misconceptions as well.
A few weeks ago we met the young progressive Democrat Alex Law, taking on the corrupt Norcross Machine in New Jersey's First Congressional District. His opponent is George Norcross's younger brother Donald, whose first vote in Congress was to cross the aisle and vote with the Republicans to take decision-making for the Keystone Pipeline out of President Obama's hands. New Jersey environmental groups have long rated Donald Norcross as the worst Democrat in the state legislature.
Yesterday Gaius did a post about the rate of ice collapse in Antarctica. In light of that piece, I'd like to introduce you to an uncharacteristically good news post at Vice's Motherboard by Nafeez Ahmed, How Solar Power Could Slay The Fossil Fuel Empire By 2030.
Trouble for AmericaJohn Nichols post-election piece for The Nation, Democrats: The Party of Pablum, is pretty harsh... but completely on track, a track the geriatric, sclerotic Democratic congressional leadership is now utterly incapable of dealing with.
ManchinAccording to Pulitzer Prize winner Barton Gellman, author of Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, Cheney grabbed the Energy portfolio even before the Supreme Court halted the recount and handed the presidency to him and Bush. Since 1990, Big Energy has poured $445,583,154 directly into the campaign coffers of congressmen and congressional candidates-- $303,699,712 of it to Republicans.
Monday night I was at the Hammer Museum for a screening of Shaun Kadlec's and Deb Tullmann's fantastic new film, Born This Way, a documentary on the gay and lesbian underground in Cameroon. Afterwards I ran into Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti. Eric's an old friend and one of the smartest politicians I've ever met. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and he studied Urban Planning at Columbia. I doubt L.A. has ever elected anyone as qualified to be mayor in its entire history.
