Denise Scheberle

Act on climate. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” M. Mead

[IPCC @IPCC_CH]

Marking World Environment Day #IPCC’s Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report highlights:

Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming.

🔗 https://t.co/sp4Sk0Xbxl

#NowForClimate

[Christopher Webb @cwebbonline]

Whoa! The West is a brutal reminder that you can’t negotiate with climate change.

70% of the West’s water supply depends on mountain snowpack. This year, record warmth and the “March Meltdown” turned that natural reservoir into a trickle.

Farmers are leaving fields unplanted, cities are imposing restrictions, and wildfire season is here.

All that while Trump and Republicans not only pretend climate change isn’t real, their policies are making it worse.

[Anderson Cooper 360° @AC360]

Watchdog group Public Citizen found that White House ballroom donors won more than $50 billion in government contracts after giving to the project. One of the authors of the report says, "the donations from these companies... are no gift, they're a grift."

[Mike Hudema @MikeHudema]

BAM! Colombia has announced a historic ban on all new oil and large-scale mining projects in its part of the Amazon Rainforest, protecting an area roughly the size of Sweden. 🌿

Experts say the move could help protect one of the planet’s most important ecosystems—often called the “lungs of the Earth.” 🌎🌳

Nature is amazing. Protect it.

#ActOnClimate #nature

[Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders]

This week, my amendment to ban billionaire-funded super PACs received unanimous support from my Democratic colleagues.

The momentum is growing. It’s time to repeal Citizens United, ban super PACs and move to the public funding of elections NOW.

[Team Ossoff @TeamOssoff]

Ossoff: Last September, the President of Kazakhstan calls Donald Trump and says he wants to grant tungsten mining rights to an American company. And the very next month, Eric and Don Jr. get a stake in the American company pursuing the mining deal.

Six days later, six days after Prince Eric and Prince Don get their stake, Kazakhstan announces this company will get, “The largest known undeveloped tungsten resource in the world.” A few more weeks go by, and then the U.S. government, run by their father, sets aside 1.6 billion of your tax dollars to fund and finance their mining project. In Kazakhstan.

All this while you pay more for gas, for groceries, for health care, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

[Senator Patty Murray @PattyMurray]

Instead of doing ANYTHING to help families afford the health care or groceries, Republicans forced a marathon voting session to send ICE a $70 billion check.

No reforms, zero accountability, and they rolled over for Trump—again.

Make sure everyone knows it.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

In 2016, candidate Donald Trump promised to eliminate the national debt within eight years. It stood at roughly $20 trillion when he took office in January 2017.

Now, it has crossed $39 trillion.

The debt has roughly doubled, and the pace is accelerating: the most recent trillion dollars was added in less than five months.

To be clear, this debt wasn’t created by one party alone. It reflects years of decisions by both parties to spend more than we collect in revenue.

But one fact is difficult to escape: in 2017, Republicans enacted trillions of dollars in tax cuts without paying for them. Independent budget analysts projected the law would increase deficits by trillions of dollars, and subsequent analyses found that it did. Many supporters argued that economic growth would offset much of the lost revenue.

It didn’t.

And instead of changing course, Republicans doubled down with the One Big Ugly Bill, which those same analysts project will add trillions more to the deficit over the next decade.

Today the national debt exceeds $39 trillion. Interest costs are approaching $1 trillion annually and are projected to become one of the largest items in the federal budget. That means more taxpayer dollars going to interest payments and fewer available for priorities like veterans’ care, Social Security, Medicare, infrastructure, and national security.

Math doesn’t care whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican.

If Washington keeps borrowing faster than the economy grows, interest costs will consume an ever-larger share of the federal budget, and the room to make different choices will keep shrinking.

I’ll keep fighting for a budget that pays its bills, protects what families depend on, and leaves the next generation with more opportunity, not more debt.
https://t.co/dLfW6qVDTl

[António Guterres @antonioguterres]

The past eleven years have been the hottest on record.

Every fraction of a degree brings greater harm – especially to the most vulnerable.

This #WorldEnvironmentDay, warning signals are everywhere.

This is the moment to act for our environment & for our future.

[Gavin Newsom @GavinNewsom]

Ruining our democracy wasn’t enough for Trump.

Now he’s destroying our planet, too.

Welcome to the Stone Age!

[Mike Hudema @MikeHudema]

IKEA has installed 935,000+ solar panels and is on track for 100% renewable electricity.

This isn’t a future idea. It’s already happening.

We have the solutions. Implement them.

#ActOnClimate #climate #energy #renewables

[Michael T. Lester @MichaelTLester]

Yesterday I told you the government is pulling 900 ocean monitoring instruments out of the water.

Here is the part that should make every American angry, regardless of where you stand on climate.

Congress voted to fund this network. Not once. Twice. The Trump administration proposed cutting it by 80 percent in 2025. Congress restored the money. Proposed the same cut in 2026. Congress restored the money again.

So the administration labeled it a "descope" and ordered the instruments pulled anyway.

That is not a budget disagreement. That is an executive branch telling the legislative branch that its votes do not matter. The public paid for this infrastructure. Congress protected it. One office in Washington decided the public should not have it.

This is the pattern I document in 𝑾𝒆 𝑨𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑩𝒂𝒅 𝑮𝒖𝒚𝒔. It is not about left or right. It is about who decides what Americans are allowed to know about their own planet.

Who should make that call?

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

President Trump just repeated his lie that China only builds windmills to export them to "stupid people from the United States, the suckers."

Reality: China has installed by far the most wind turbines of any country and is installing more of them far faster than any other country.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

This is so insanely corrupt, I can’t even believe it.

More than half the donors to Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom just won over $50 billion in new federal contracts in six months.

And here’s the part that should make your blood boil.

Sixteen of these 27 donors were facing federal enforcement actions, antitrust reviews, labor cases, securities charges. Many of those cases have been quietly dropped or scaled back since Trump took office. You write a check, your legal problems disappear. That’s not a coincidence.

The White House won’t even release the full donor list. They’re hiding it on purpose, because daylight is the one thing pay-to-play can’t survive. A federal judge already ruled ballroom construction has to stop until Congress authorizes it.

Government is supposed to serve the people, not auction itself off to the highest bidder. When access goes to whoever pays the most, working families always end up paying the price.

We either end the corruption, or the corruption will end us.

https://t.co/4MGFzSseFl

[Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders]

In America today, we rank 34th out of 35 countries in childhood poverty and millions of children are food insecure.

Maybe, just maybe, my Republican colleagues would consider holding a single hearing about how we improve the lives of American kids.

[Miles Taylor @MilesTaylorUSA]

Yesterday Donald Trump tripled the size of his personal political army inside the government. Illegally. And almost no one noticed.

Here's what happened:

He signed an order converting ~8,000 of the most senior career officials in government into employees he can fire for any reason, or no reason at all.

These aren't rando's. They're the directors, chiefs of staff, and the people who write the rules or decide who gets federal money, i.e. the lieutenants right below his political appointees.

Until yesterday, they answered to the law. Now they answer to him.

A president normally gets ~4,000 political appointees. People he can bring into government and fire at will. I was one of them at DHS. You serve at his pleasure, full stop -- so if you're gonna speak truth to power, you're prepared to quit (or get fired if he doesn't like it).

The rest of the federal government is PROTECTED from firing if they tell the truth.

But Trump just stripped those protections. Adding 8,000 more people to his personal army. Overnight. Without asking Congress.

With the stroke of a pen, those people now serve at the pleasure of the president. They're "his" people, whether they like it or not.

And the chilling effect is real. An official who can be fired this afternoon for "subversion of presidential directives" (the order's own words) doesn't need to be hand-picked to know what's expected of him or her.

The threat does all the work.

By the way, this order is illegal. The law only lets Trump reclassify jobs when "necessary" in exceptional circumstances. And this blows an 8,000-person hole in the merit hiring / firing system created by Congress.

Without permission, Trump has created a whole new category of stormtroopers inside the Executive Branch.

If this doesn't get challenged in court, you're going to see the U.S. government become a very different place.

Here's the full story: https://t.co/mJzrvzhxGR

[Judd Legum @JuddLegum]

2. My report on the protests, an the corruption probe: https://t.co/SguSN5EPtv

[Mark Warner @MarkWarner]

It seems there is an entirely different set of rules for Republicans and Democrats.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Pete Hegseth has never been fit to run the Pentagon. This week proves it again.

He just blocked nine Navy officers from promotions they earned. A board of senior admirals picked them on merit.

Three are women.

Two are Black men.

The result is a 22-person admiral list with zero women, in a Navy that’s 21% women and 38% sailors of color.

Pentagon rules are clear. A Secretary can only pull an officer for serious failings of character, conduct, or competence. These officers had none. Their crime?
Attending a diversity event years ago. One was flagged for recruitment outreach she did TWENTY YEARS AGO.

Nearly 60% of the senior officers Hegseth has fired are women or Black.

He purged a chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

He pushed out the first woman ever to lead the Navy.

And he won’t explain himself. Not to Democrats. Not even to Republicans.
Then he reportedly tried to muscle his own aide onto the list. A guy who didn’t even qualify.

So let’s be honest about what this is.

He isn’t raising the bar. He’s rigging it.

He isn’t picking the best. He’s picking his own. Every officer who serves with honor now has to wonder if merit even matters anymore.

This man should never have been confirmed. He should not be Secretary of anything. He is gutting the finest military on earth to fight a culture war. Our service members will pay for it. So will our security.

He should resign in disgrace. https://t.co/PMUJ3UtrCW

[Greta Berlin @Truegreta]

I stood at this pool, at both monuments and saw both reflections…
He’s a God damn idiot, as are the fools that support him. The “Reflection Pool” wasn’t designed by American architect Henry Bacon a hundred years ago to look like a swimming pool. It’s designed to have a darkened characteristics that has reflective qualities to reflect the monuments.
That way, the Washington Monument is reflective to you when at the Lincoln Memorial, and when at the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial is reflective to you.
It’s designed to enhance the grandeur of monuments, create an illusion of reflection, and inclusion of expansive space of unity.
He’s a tacky vulgar person that vulgarizes everything he touches. America isn’t becoming great, it’s becoming vulgar.

Credit - Mathew Reed