https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/17/politics/georgia-supreme-court-trump-fulton-county/index.html

Good news for the Georgia investigation/ likely prosecution of Trump for election interference. Of all the cases, this is the one I have the highest hope for, partly because in Georgia, governors do not have any power to pardon criminal convictions and presidents can't pardon for state crimes.

How Harlan Crow slashed his tax bill by taking Clarence Thomas on superyacht cruises

archive link

The rich, as we’ve reported, often deduct millions of dollars from their taxes related to buying and operating their jets and yachts. Crow followed that formula through a company that purported to charter his superyacht. But a closer examination of how Crow used the yacht raises questions about his compliance with the tax code, experts said. Despite Crow's representations to the IRS, ProPublica reporters could find no evidence that his yacht company was actually a profit-seeking business, as the law requires.

House Republicans propose planting a trillion trees as they move away from climate change denial (AP News)

The idea — simple yet massively ambitious — revealed recent Republican thinking on how to address climate change. The party is no longer denying that global warming exists, yet is searching for a response to sweltering summers, weather disasters and rising sea levels that doesn’t involve abandoning their enthusiastic support for American-produced energy from burning oil, coal and gas.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-target-jan-6-probe-jack-smith_n_64b694c2e4b0ad7b75f536d4?1es=

Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that “Deranged Jack Smith,” the special prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, sent his attorneys a letter saying he is “a TARGET” of the investigation and has “a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment.”

The new right's theory of power is insane (archive link)

In a sharp New York Times column, David French argues that Elon Musk’s problems at Twitter show how the “new right’s theory of power” has failed. The new right—culture war focused, often very online, rejects small government conservatism as weak—thought Musk buying Twitter would force their cultural preferences onto America, as they believe the old owners did for the left. But American culture is too much of a bottom-up process. Individual preferences and the market are bigger forces, which we’re seeing now as advertisers flee, and companies launch Twitter competitors that attract some interest, such as Threads.

It’s a good point, but I’m going to take it further: This theory of power is not just wrong, it’s insane. Nuts. A distortion of reality. More conspiracy theory than empirical assessment, based on a false premise that stokes feelings of victimization.

The idea that leftists executed a hostile takeover of all major institutions and now use them to persecute conservatives is a foundational truism for the new right. Feeling like a victim of that persecution, and justified in taking drastic action in response, might be the main thing holding the movement together.

(here's the NYT column he's responding to and an archive link)

New Florida teaching standards say African Americans received some ‘personal benefit’ from slavery / archive link

Some of the issues raised surrounded standards that include instruction on “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit” and lessons that touch on acts of violence perpetrated “against and by” African Americans.

Yikes on bikes. There's really no additional context that makes it better. From the official standards themselves:

Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).

Benchmark Clarifications:
Clarification 1: Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.

I'm not even sure how to word how deceitful this is. I can imagine plenty of people playing dumb, saying things like, "are you saying these skills (carpentry, blacksmithing, etc) aren't useful?" But obviously it carries with it the implication that slavery wasn't an unalloyed evil!

Nebraska teen sentenced to 90 days in jail for burying fetus she aborted

“The court specifically finds that while probation is appropriate, confinement is necessary because without this confinement, it would depreciate the seriousness of the crime or promote disrespect for the law,” the judge’s order read.

an infuriating detail I hadn't seen before, pointed out by a Substack article from last week:

A quick note about the way the media covers stories like this: You may remember that the pair were arrested after law enforcement got ahold of the teen’s Facebook messages. In this Associated Press piece—and in most of the articles I’ve seen about this case—it’s reported that the teen wrote in her Facebook messages “about how she can’t wait to get the ‘thing’ out of her body” and said “I will finally be able to wear jeans.” But here’s the thing: While she did say something about wearing jeans (which seems pretty on brand for any teenager), the teenager didn’t say she couldn’t wait “to get the ‘thing’ out of her body.” That sentence is nowhere in the Facebook messages; in fact, the language is actually a police officer’s interpretation of the teenager’s conversation.

So when media outlets had pages of messages to pick from, they both chose language meant to make the teenager seem callous and put words in her mouth that were actually those of a police officer—a police officer’s belief presented as fact. I don’t need to tell you why that’s so dangerous.

that was in an AP article about the mother's guilty plea. the AP is supposedly one of our gold standards for neutral reporting and journalistic integrity. and even they do this sort of copaganda bullshit.

Phoenix Breaks Record With 19 Consecutive Days 110 Degrees or Higher

Much of the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing withering high temperatures, which scientists warn are increasingly likely.

Less than two weeks after the Earth recorded what scientists said were likely its hottest days in modern history, Phoenix broke a 49-year-old record on Tuesday with the city’s 19th consecutive day of temperatures 110 degrees (43.3 Celsius) or higher, part of a punishing heat wave that spanned much of the Northern Hemisphere.

The record-breaking temperatures are being driven by emissions of heat-trapping gases, mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels and by the return of El Niño, a cyclical weather pattern.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/07/18/world/heat-wave-us-europe-weather/heres-what-to-know-about-the-heat-around-the-world

Texas women denied abortions give emotional accounts in court, ask judge to clarify law

tweet thread from a Politico reporter who was covering the hearing

(Crosscut) Why Washington State's gas prices are the nation’s highest / (archive link)
(Seattle Times) WA gas prices now highest in U.S.; some experts point to new climate legislation / (archive link).

West coast states are experiencing the highest gas prices in the nation, with WA leading the pack. Conservatives are pointing fingers at the new carbon pricing program. My personal bias is that this is not necessarily a bad thing (and I'm not alone; Seattle Times had an op-ed that was basically 'yeah, gas prices are up, and yeah Democrats probably undersold how much their policies were going to increase prices, but the bill probably would never have passed otherwise, and it's good the bill passed, even though gas prices are up')

Gas prices are still lower than the inflation-plagued summer months last year, but the spike has bolstered the arguments of conservative think tanks and trade organizations representing fuel companies that are running public-messaging campaigns calling the compliance fees a tax. Some are calling for the repeal of the climate legislation altogether.

It sucks if you drive a lot, especially for small businesses that need to drive for commercial reasons. There's apparently currently a bill (that didn't pass out of committee this past legislative session, but will almost certainly be reintroduced next year) that will provide fuel cost rebates for farmers.

Environmental policy groups point out that oil and gas companies are making bank:

In January, Reuters wrote that the oil industry had posted record profits in 2022. In February, Seattle-based liberal think tank Climate Solutions wrote that oil corporations posted in the Seattle area their second-highest profit margin in the nation — $1.09 per gallon.

WA earned about $300 million from the first auction, which will be added to the total budget of about $2 billion to cut greenhouse emissions.

Black man who says he was elected mayor of Alabama town alleges that White leaders are keeping him from position