Politicians who support “fueling” the Ukraine conflict risk losing the younger generation of voters, Marjorie Taylor Greene has warned Read Full Article at RT.com

The German authorities spent $7.3 billion on welfare payments for Ukrainian refugees in 2024, according to the government data Read Full Article at RT.com

The European Commission president was allegedly worried the US could stop military aid to Ukraine or even pull out troops from Europe Read Full Article at RT.com

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has condemned Washington’s attempt to use political pressure to impose economic punishment Read Full Article at RT.com

US fighter jets were scrambled to intercept a plane that violated restricted airspace over President Donald Trump’s golf club in New Jersey Read Full Article at RT.com

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division had brought lawsuits accusing Louisiana of confining prisoners longer than they should and South Carolina of keeping mentally ill people in unreasonably restrictive group homes. Both cases are now on hold. By Corey G. Johnson for ProPublica The Trump administration has halted litigation aimed at stopping civil rights abuses of prisoners in Louisiana and mentally ill people living in South Carolina group homes. The Biden administration filed lawsuits against the two states in December after Department of Justice investigations concluded that they had failed to fix violations despite years of warnings. Louisiana’s prison system has kept thousands of incarcerated people behind bars for weeks, months or sometimes more than a year after they were supposed to be released, records show. And the DOJ accused South Carolina of institutionalizing thousands of people diagnosed with serious mental illnesses — sometimes for decades — rather than provide services that would allow them to live in less restricted settings, as is their right under federal law. Federal judges temporarily suspended the lawsuits in February at the request of the states and with the support of the DOJ. Related | The Justice Department has turned into a raging dumpster fire under Trump Civil rights lawyers who have monitored the cases said the move is another sign of the Trump administration’s retreat from the department’s mission of protecting the rights of vulnerable groups. Since January, President Donald Trump’s DOJ has dropped racial discrimination lawsuits, abandoned investigations of police misconduct and canceled oversight of troubled law enforcement agencies. “This administration has been very aggressive in rolling back any kind of civil rights reforms or advancements,” said Anya Bidwell, senior attorney at the public-interest law firm Institute for Justice. “It’s unquestionably disappointing.” The cases against Louisiana and South Carolina were brought by a unit of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division tasked with enforcing laws that guarantee religious freedom, access to reproductive health services, constitutional policing, and the rights of people in state and local institutions, including jails, prisons and health care facilities for people with disabilities. The unit, the Special Litigation Section, has seen a dramatic reduction in lawyers since Trump took office in January. Court records show at least seven attorneys working on the lawsuits against Louisiana and South Carolina are no longer with the DOJ. The section had more than 90 employees at the start of the year, including about 60 front-line attorneys. By June, it had about 25, including around 15 front-line lawyers, according to a source familiar with its operation. Sources said some were reassigned to other areas of the department while others quit in protest against the direction of the office under Trump, found new jobs or took early retirement. Similar departures have been seen throughout the DOJ. Related | Justice Department smothers Biden-era police reform deals The exodus will hamper its ability to carry out essential functions, such as battling sexual harassment in housing, discrimination against disabled people, and the improper use of restraints and seclusions against students in schools, said Omar Noureldin, a former senior attorney in the Civil Rights Division and President Joe Biden appointee who left in January. “Regardless of your political leanings, I think most people would agree these are the kind of bad situations that should be addressed by the nation’s top civil rights enforcer,” Noureldin said. A department spokesperson declined to comment in response to questions from ProPublica about the Louisiana and South Carolina cases. Sources familiar with the lawsuits said Trump appointees have told DOJ lawyers handling the cases that they want to resolve matters out of court. The federal government has used settlement talks in the past to hammer out consent decrees, agreements that set a list of requirements to fix civil rights violations and are overseen by an outside monitor and federal judge to ensure compliance. But Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, Trump’s appointee to run the DOJ’s civil rights division, has made no secret of her distaste for such measures. Donald Trump is greeted by Harmeet Dhillon in Sept. 2019 as he arrives for a fundraiser in Mountain View, Calif. In May, Dhillon announced she was moving to dismiss efforts to impose consent decrees on the Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis police departments. She complained that consent decrees turn local control of policing over to “unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.” A DOJ investigation in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer accused the department of excessive force, unjustified shootings, and discrimination against Black and Native American people. The agency issued similar findings against the Louisville Metro Police Department after the high-profile killing of Breonna Taylor, who was shot in 2020 when officers forced their way into her home to execute a search warrant. Noureldin, now a senior vice president at the government watchdog group Common Cause, said consent decrees provide an important level of oversight by an independent judge. By contrast, out-of-court settlements can be subject to the political whims of a new administration, which can decide to drop a case or end an agreement despite evidence of continuing constitutional violations. “When you have a consent decree or a court-enforced settlement, the Justice Department can’t unilaterally just withdraw from the agreement,” Noureldin said. “A federal judge would have to agree that the public interest is served by terminating that settlement.” “I Lost Everything” In the case of Louisiana, the Justice Department issued a scathing report in January 2023 about the state confining prisoners beyond their sentences. The problems dated back more than a decade and remained widespread, the report said. Between January and April 2022 alone, more than a quarter of everyone released from prison custody was held past their release dates. Of those, 24% spent an additional 90 days or more behind bars, the DOJ found. Among those held longer than they should have been was Robert Parker, a disc jockey known as “DJ Rob” in New Orleans, where he played R&B and hip-hop music at weddings and private parties. Parker, 55, was arrested in late 2016 after violating a restraining order brought by a former girlfriend. He was supposed to be released in October 2017, but a prison staffer mistakenly classified him as a sex offender. That meant he was required to provide prison authorities with two addresses where he could stay that complied with sex offender registry rules. Prison documents show Parker repeatedly told authorities that he wasn’t a sex offender and pleaded to speak to the warden to clear up the mistake. But nobody acted until a deputy public defender contacted state officials months later to complain. By the time he walked out, Parker had spent 337 extra days behind bars. During that period, he said, his car was repossessed, his mother died and his reputation was ruined. “I lost everything,” he told ProPublica in an interview from a nursing home, where he was recovering from a stroke. “I’m ready to get away from Louisiana.” Louisiana’s detention system is complex. Unlike other jurisdictions, where the convicted are housed in state facilities, inmates in Louisiana can be held in local jails overseen by sheriffs. A major contributor to the so-called over-detentions was poor communication among Louisiana’s court clerks, sheriff’s offices and the state department of corrections, according to interviews with attorneys, depositions of state officials, and reports from state and federal reviews of the prison system. Related | Red states are embracing all the evil policies of Trump Until recently, the agencies shared prisoner sentencing information by shuttling stacks of paperwork by van or truck from the court to the sheriff’s office for the parish holding the prisoner, then to corrections officials. The document transfers, which often crisscrossed the state, typically happened only once a week. When the records finally arrived, it could take staff a month or longer to enter the data into computers, creating more delays. In addition, staff made data errors when calculating release dates. Two years ago, The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Parker could pursue a lawsuit against the former head of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, James LeBlanc. That lawsuit is ongoing, said Parker’s attorney, Jonathan Rhodes. LeBlanc, who resigned last year, could not be reached for comment, and his attorneys did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill acknowledged that the state’s process to determine release dates was unreliable but said the issue had been overblown by the Justice Department’s investigation, which she called “factually incorrect.” “There were simply parts of it that are outside state control, such as clerks & courts,” Murrill stated. Murrill said correction officials have been working with local officials to ensure prisoner releases are computed in a “timely and correct fashion.” Louisiana officials point to a new website that allows electronic sharing of information among the various agencies. “The system has been overhauled. That has dramatically diminished, if not completely eliminated this problem,” Murrill stated. She did not address questions from ProPublica asking if prisoners were being held longer than their release dates this year. Local attorneys who are handling lawsuits against the state expressed skepticism about Murrill’s claims. William Most, an attorney who filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of incarcerated people who had been detained past their release dates, noted that as late as May 2024, 141 people who were released that month had been kept longer than they should have been, 120 of them for more than 30 days. “I have seen no evidence suggesting the problem in Louisiana is fixed,” Most said. “And it seems unwise to dismiss any cases while that’s the situation.” Trapped in Group Homes South Carolina’s mentally ill population is grappling with similar challenges. After years of lawsuits and complaints, a DOJ investigation determined that officials illegally denied community-based services — required by the Americans with Disabilities Act and a 1999 Supreme Court decision — to over 1,000 people diagnosed as seriously mentally ill. Instead, the state placed them in group homes that failed to provide adequate care and were overly restrictive, the department alleged. The DOJ report didn’t address why the state relied so heavily on group homes. It noted that South Carolina’s own goals and plans called for increasing community-based services to help more people live independently. But the investigation concluded that the availability of community-based services varied widely across the state, leaving people in some areas with no access. And the DOJ said the state’s rules for deciding when someone could leave were too stringent. South Carolina funds and oversees more than 400 facilities that serve people with serious mental illness, according to a state affidavit. Kimberly Tissot, president of the disability rights group Able South Carolina, said it was common for disabled adults who were living successfully on their own to be involuntarily committed to an adult group home simply because they visited a hospital to pick up medicine. Tissot, who has inspected hundreds of the adult facilities, said they often are roach-infested, soaked in urine, lacking in adequate medicine and staffed by untrained employees. Her description mirrors the findings of several state and independent investigations. In some group homes, patients weren’t allowed to leave or freely move around. Subsequently, their mental health would deteriorate, Tissot said. “We have had people die in these facilities because of the conditions,” said Tissot, who worked closely with the DOJ investigators. Scores of sexual abuse incidents, assaults and deaths in such group homes have been reported to the state, according to a 2022 federal report that faulted South Carolina’s oversight. South Carolina has been on notice about the difficulties since 2016 but didn’t make sufficient progress, the DOJ alleged in its lawsuit filed in December. After two years of failed attempts, state lawmakers passed a law in April that consolidated services for disabled people into a new agency responsible for expanding access to home and community-based treatments and for ensuring compliance with federal laws. South Carolina’s attorney general, Alan Wilson, has argued in the DOJ’s lawsuit that the state has been providing necessary services and has not been violating people’s constitutional rights. In January, his office asked the court for a delay in the case to give the Trump administration enough time to determine how to proceed. His office and a spokesperson for the South Carolina Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities declined to comment, citing the ongoing DOJ lawsuit. Tissot credits the federal attention with creating a sense of urgency among state lawmakers to make improvements. While she said she is pleased with the latest progress, she warned that if the DOJ dropped the case, it would undermine the enforcement of disabled people’s civil rights and allow state abuses to continue. “It would signal that systemic discrimination will go unchecked and embolden institutional providers to resist change,” Tissot said. “Most importantly, it abandons the people directly impacted.”

A cartoon by Clay Jones. Related | Trump has Epstein files on the brain as presser goes off the rails

Injustice for All is a weekly series about how the Trump administration is trying to weaponize the justice system—and the people who are fighting back. Eighth Circuit keeps vying to be the worst circuit For years now, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has been known as the most conservative appeals court in the country. But with 11 of its 12 members being GOP appointees, the Eighth Circuit is making a run for the title. This time around, it’s holding that private citizens and groups cannot sue under the Voting Rights Act for disability-based discrimination. Instead, only state attorneys general can sue to enforce the Voting Rights Act. This follows on the heels of a 2023 decision from the same court saying that there was no private right of action under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racially based gerrymandering.   While this might sound arcane, what it means is that groups like the NAACP could no longer sue to challenge a redistricting decision, or a disability advocacy group could not sue over laws that restricted their access to voting. If only state attorneys general can do it, you’re just guaranteed that conservative attorneys general are never going to sue to enforce the civil rights of voters in their state when they agree with the restrictions passed by the state legislature. The federal courts have been relentlessly chipping away at the Voting Rights Act for years. And everyone knows that Chief Justice John Roberts is no fan of the law. It’s going to be hard to watch decades of progress being unwound.  Democrats sue DHS over law that says exactly what it says  Twelve Democratic members of Congress have been forced to sue the Department of Homeland Security over its restrictions on access to immigration detention facilities. Though Trump signed the 2019 law explicitly allowing members of Congress to inspect Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities without prior notice, DHS has provided “guidance” that says just the opposite.  First, the policy stated that members of Congress had to provide 72 business hours’ notice to visit and 24 hours’ notice before entering a detention facility. The administration later bumped that visit notice requirement to seven days.  Detainees walk toward a fenced recreation area during a media tour at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Tacoma, Washington. The explanation for defying the law is the same one that the administration always offers, which is that no one can stop the president from doing whatever he wants. Per Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, “Requests should be made with sufficient time to prevent interference with the President's Article II authority to oversee executive department functions—a week is sufficient to ensure no intrusion on the President's constitutional authority.” This stance, of course, means that Congress can never pass any law that in any way affects the executive branch, which is a very … interesting … view of the separation of powers. Now, as with so many other things these days, the only way that the law will be enforced is if someone can successfully sue the Trump administration, a thing which is less and less likely with a Supreme Court that really loves to give Trump his way.  Eric Tung is the perfect example of a second-term Trump judicial pick, and that’s not a compliment  Trump has tapped Eric Tung for a lifetime seat on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Tung brings the qualifications we’ve come to expect from a Trump judicial nomination, which is to say that he has never been a judge, has never served as lead counsel on a case, has never tried a case to verdict, and has spent about 10% of his time on criminal cases. Well, it’s not like the Ninth Circuit hears a lot of criminal cases. Oh, wait.  Tung wasn’t selected for having any relevant experience, though. He was selected for his worldview. Tung clerked for Justices Antonin Scalia and Brett Kavanaugh, then took a job at  Jones Day, the law firm that is a breeding ground for hard-right lawyers. He hates unions, doesn’t believe there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, and thinks striving for racial equity is bad.  He has a history of misogynistic remarks complaining about “radical feminists try[ing] to blur gender roles, but refused to answer questions about that during his confirmation hearing. His logic? Because things like gender roles are “the subject of wide debate,” and therefore as a nominee, “I cannot answer under judicial canons.” He also wouldn’t answer questions about whether a minor who is sexually assaulted or the victim of incest should be forced to give birth.  Given that the Senate Republicans confirmed Emil Bove, the former Trump criminal defense lawyer who told DOJ attorneys they should disobey court orders, Tung is a shoo-in.  Another court order broken. Weird how that keeps happening Judge Royce Lamberth told Trump officials on Wednesday it was likely the administration violated his order to restore news programming at Voice of America. He also said they are violating numerous other statutory provisions, provided misleading info to the court, and flip-flopped in sworn declarations. So, business as usual for the administration, basically. Can’t wait to hear how Lamberth is a wild-eyed commie as opposed to an 82-year-old Reagan appointee. Administration does nomination shenanigans for not one, not two, but three U.S. attorneys The administration has a problem. Trump keeps tapping objectively unqualified people to serve as U.S. attorneys, people so unqualified he knows they won’t get through the Senate, which is saying something, given this Senate. So, the administration has to stitch together various types of temporary appointments that don’t require Senate confirmation, nor the approval of the judges in the district.  Alina Habba That’s why Alina Habba, one of Trump’s numerous personal attorneys, is now the acting U.S. attorney, which doesn’t require confirmation and allows her to serve for 210 more days. Same thing for Bill Essayli, who is now the acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California for another 210 days, even though the district’s judges declined to name him to the post.  Enter Sigal Chattah, who is only hanging onto the U.S. attorney job in Nevada because Trump was willing to do the same thing he did for Habba and Essayli—roll her expiring interim job into an acting job, so she gets, you guessed it, 210 more days. It’s unknown whether the Nevada judges would have rejected Chattah as they did with Habba and Essayli, as Trump changed her status before that happened.  But it’s not like Chattah is a stellar candidate. She’s an election denier who, when running for Nevada attorney general in 2022, said her Black opponent “should be hanging” from a crane, which she insists is not actually racist to say. She also doesn’t appear to have any background in criminal law, but she did represent conservative churches that didn’t want to observe COVID-19 restrictions, which is what counts for qualifications these days.

You must watch Buttigieg break down Trump’s massive Epstein problem x x YouTube Video Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg clearly articulated why he believed the Trump administration’s refusal to release its files on accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein poses a political risk greater than that of Trump’s Medicaid-slashing “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Scots torment Trump on taxpayer-funded trip to his crappy golf courses x x YouTube Video Trump took a taxpayer-funded trip to Scotland, where he visited two of his golf properties, seemingly cheated on the links, and the Scots were not pleased, greeting him with protests and efforts to obstruct his media appearances. And when reporters pressed him about his relationship with Epstein, Trump said he never had the “privilege” of visiting the convicted sex offender’s private island, where he allegedly abused underaged girls. x x YouTube Video Watch Cory Booker's fiery 'wake-up call' for his fellow Democrats x x YouTube Video Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey called out his fellow Democrats, arguing that advancing a policing bill without proper scrutiny amounted to complicity in Trump’s anti-constitutional agenda. Trump has Epstein files on the brain as presser goes off the rails x x YouTube Video Trump couldn’t keep Epstein off his mind during a recent press conference, whiffing a softball question and veering into a rant about his own administration’s inability to release its files on Epstein. You'll never believe why Trump claims 'Obama owes me big' x x YouTube Video Before he jetted off to Scotland for his little golfing trip, Trump was asked whether the Supreme Court’s presidential-immunity decision applies to former President Barack Obama, whom Trump has baselessly accused of treason as the president attempts to distract the public from the ongoing Epstein scandal.  It’s been yet another chaotic week of Republican incompetence, and unfortunately, there are no signs they’ll learn from their mistakes anytime soon. For more video content, please check out Daily Kos on YouTube.

Climate scientist Michael Mann called the report “a deeply misleading antiscientific narrative, built on deceptive arguments, misrepresented datasets, and distortion of actual scientific understanding.” By Dennis Pillion for Inside Climate News Several top climate scientists are weighing how to respond to a new climate report issued by the Trump administration that they are calling “deceptive,” “cherry-picked,” and “antiscientific.” The U.S. Department of Energy released a 150-page report Tuesday titled “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate,” which argues that human-caused climate change “appears to be less damaging economically than commonly believed,” and “aggressive mitigation strategies could be more harmful than beneficial.” That flies in the face of most published scientific research on the topic, as gathered in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment, the European Climate Risk Assessment, and the U.S. Government’s own Fifth National Climate Assessment, issued last year during the Biden administration. The DOE report states “the growing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere directly influences the earth system by promoting plant growth (global greening), thereby enhancing agricultural yields, and by neutralizing ocean alkalinity,” another way of saying ocean acidification. x Datawrapper Content NOAA’s page on ocean acidification states that lowering the pH of seawater makes it more difficult for animals like clams, oysters, corals and plankton to build and maintain their shells. The report then argues that climate model projections are overstating the risks from sea level rise and extreme weather events, and that efforts to decrease greenhouse gas emissions would have little impact. “The risks and benefits of a climate changing under both natural and human influences must be weighed against the costs, efficacy, and collateral impacts of any ‘climate action’, considering the nation’s need for reliable and affordable energy with minimal local pollution,” the report states in its conclusion. Michael Mann, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media, told Inside Climate News that the Trump administration report was typical of the relatively small number of scientists who deny the seriousness of climate change. ”All they’ve done is recycle shopworn, discredited climate denier arguments,” Mann said in an email. “They constructed a deeply misleading antiscientific narrative, built on deceptive arguments, misrepresented datasets, and distortion of actual scientific understanding. Then they dressed it up with dubious graphics composed of selective, cherry-picked data. “There is nothing scientific about this report whatsoever.” Related | Climate change helped fuel heavy rains that led to devastating Texas flood The report does open a 30-day public comment period, in which the Department of Energy says it is “seeking input from the public, especially from interested individuals and entities, such as industry, academia, research laboratories, government agencies, and other stakeholders.” Texas A&M climate scientist Andrew Dessler, who criticized the report extensively on social media, told Inside Climate News it’s important for mainstream climate scientists to participate even if the Trump administration seems unlikely to listen. “Many people I’ve spoken to recognize the need for a coherent response,” Dessler said in an email. “I think it’s important because this will certainly be litigated, and anything that is put out there could be used in the litigation. “There is no coordinated structure right now [to respond], but I’m hoping one comes together. The stakes on this are very high.” A spokesman for the Department of Energy said the department will “look forward to engaging with substantive comments,” after the comment period ends. “This report critically assesses many areas of ongoing scientific inquiry that are frequently assigned high levels of confidence—not by the scientists themselves but by the political bodies involved, such as the United Nations or previous Presidential administrations,” the spokesman said. “Unlike previous administrations, the Trump administration is committed to engaging in a more thoughtful and science-based conversation about climate change and energy.” Related | Trump issues executive order targeting 'unreliable' clean energy options Ben Sanderson, research director at the CICERO Centre for International Climate Research in Oslo, Norway, posted a thread critiquing the report. “Each chapter follows the same pattern,” Sanderson posted on Bluesky. “Establish a contrarian position, cherry pick evidence to support that position, then claim that this position is under-represented in climate literature and the IPCC in particular. Include a bunch of references, most of which don’t support the central argument.” Sanderson highlighted examples, such as the report’s claims of “global greening” and increased crop yields, for which the authors ignored impacts such as heat stress, increased drought, and nutrient limitations, which the IPCC factored in to determine that more atmospheric CO2 would have a negative impact on food security. Sanderson said the researchers had pointed to a flat number of fire ignitions in the U.S., “omitting that burned area, severity and persistence have all exceeded records.” “This is not a systematic or complete assessment of the report,” Sanderson posted. “But even a brief read is enough to understand what it’s doing—it’s selectively isolating particular studies and data to support the narrative that climate is less severe than assessed, whilst ignoring a much wider body of literature.” A “Red Team” Assembles The report relied on the Department of Energy’s new Climate Working Group consisting of five of the most prominent climate contrarians: John Christy, Judith Curry, Steven Koonin, Ross McKitrick and Roy Spencer. “The authors of this report are widely recognized contrarians who don’t represent the mainstream scientific consensus,” Dessler posted on social media. “If almost any other group of scientists had been chosen, the report would have been dramatically different. “The only way to get this report was to pick these authors,” Dessler said. A spokesperson for the Department of Energy said in an email that the department “intentionally selected individuals with expertise in climate and atmospheric science, economics, physical science, and academic research.” “The five experts represent diverse viewpoints and political backgrounds and are all well-respected and highly credentialed individuals,” the spokesperson said. x Datawrapper Content Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a former oil company executive, said in the report’s forward that he had not chosen the members because they would agree with him. “I didn’t select these authors because we always agree—far from it,” Wright said in the forward. “In fact, they may not always agree with each other. But I chose them for their rigor, honesty, and willingness to elevate the debate.” What the points of disagreement may be are unclear, but there are many connections among the five. Christy and Spencer have been a research team publishing together for decades at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Curry and Christy both testified in front of Congress on multiple occasions to advocate for a “red team” approach to climate science, seeking funding for research to challenge the scientific consensus. Koonin wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal advocating for the same. Christy and McKitrick have published multiple papers together challenging the accuracy of climate models. Mann said that the report does not break new ground and merely gives a larger audience to fringe voices in the climate science community. “It’s the usual mix of untruths, half-truths, and discredited if seemingly plausible claims we’ve come to expect from professional climate deniers and those who platform them,” Mann said. Climate Denial Is Now Trump’s Official Policy The report is one in a series of actions by the Trump administration to undermine climate science, regulations and mitigation efforts. It was issued the same day the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to revoke the agency’s “endangerment finding” on greenhouse gases, setting the stage for the federal government to cease regulating climate-warming emissions. “With this decision, climate change denial is now the official policy of the U.S. government,” science historian and author Naomi Oreskes said in an email. Dessler, from Texas A&M, said the report produced was more like a legal brief defending its client, carbon dioxide, than a scientific report, highlighting only the evidence that strengthens their case and ignoring the rest. “Scientists are obligated to engage with the full range of evidence, especially that which might contradict their hypothesis,” Dessler said on social media. “Ignoring contrary data is not just bad practice, in some cases it can rise to the level of scientific misconduct.” Mann said the administration’s actions will harm climate science moving forward. “Since actual scientific consensus behind human-caused climate change is both irrefutable and problematic to their fossil fuel agenda, the administration has chosen to simply reject the scientific consensus, defund the actual science, and literally stop the measurements from taking place,” he said. “Not since Stalin and Soviet Lysenkoism have we seen such a brazen effort to misrepresent science in service of an ideological agenda.”

President Donald Trump responded to a reporter’s question about Friday’s jobs report, which showed a terrifying slowdown in job creation, by claiming it was fabricated by bad actors in the Bureau of Labor Statistics in order to make him look bad.  “Why should anybody trust numbers?” Trump said before launching into a semi-coherent and fictional story about election interference by the BLS. “You go back to Election—Election Day. Look what happened two or three days before with massive wonderful job numbers, trying to get him elected or her elected, trying to get whoever the hell was running—because you go back and they came out with numbers that were very favorable to Kamala, okay. Trying to get him—trying to get her elected. And then on the 15th of November or thereabouts, they had it 8[00] or 900,000 overstatement reduction right after the election. It didn't work because you know who won, John? I won.” x x YouTube Video Trump’s convoluted claim is absolutely false. The “[800] or 900,000 overstatement reduction” he is yammering about was a preliminary downward revision (by 818,000) of job estimates that the BLS announced on Aug. 21, 2024—months before the election. The finalized revision, released in February 2025, was 589,000 fewer jobs—not 900,000, and certainly not part of a plot to elect Kamala Harris. Related | New jobs numbers hint at Great Recession 2.0 Because facts are not Trump’s friend, he fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on Friday after the woeful jobs report was released. Going forward, Trump will likely rant away and spew fabricated facts to make himself feel better whenever bad economic news rears its head.

A cartoon by Brian McFadden. Follow me on Mastodon, Bluesky, Patreon, or at my website. Related | Inside the Trump administration's deranged push to power AI with dirty energy

A daily roundup of the best stories and cartoons by Daily Kos staff and contributors to keep you in the know. Thanks, Trump: Stock market tanks amid new tariffs and crappy jobs report So. Much. Winning. Reporter speaks out about why The Washington Post is bleeding talent Yet owner Jeff Bezos keeps bending the knee to Donald Trump. Trump seeks to leave his gold-plated stain on the White House Let them eat cake, indeed. Cartoon: 90 denials in 90 days The president doth protest too much, methinks. Here’s how the Supreme Court is helping Trump put judges at risk The chief justice keeps looking the other way—and the consequences could be deadly. New jobs numbers hint at Great Recession 2.0 The last three jobs reports are the weakest since the COVID-19 crisis Click here to see more cartoons.

If you’re planning a trip to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, make sure to check out “The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden,” which will teach you about all the presidents who were impeached or resigned in lieu of impeachment. So there’s Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and … huh, that’s it.  Yes, if you look for information on President Donald Trump’s two first-term impeachments, you won’t find it in this exhibit. The Smithsonian removed them in July. The renowned museum told NPR it would put them back one day. Sometime in the future. It wouldn’t share a timeline. It happened. Twice. Until that day, if it ever comes, the Smithsonian is a part of Trump’s rewriting of history, one that treats his presidency like an unvarnished success, a testament to the greatness of the man himself. Though the administration very likely forced this removal, the Smithsonian spokesperson is still obliged to pretend this is just a normal thing, no big deal, just regular museum stuff where you have to roll back history 18 years, you know?  “Because the other topics in this section had not been updated since 2008, the decision was made to restore the Impeachment case back to its 2008 appearance,” the museum said in a statement. You see, they can’t include Trump’s impeachments because it’s just so much work to update things, per the administration’s statement to NPR: “A large permanent gallery like The American Presidency that opened in 2000, requires [a] significant amount of time and funding to update and renew. A future and updated exhibit will include all impeachments.”  That explanation might be a little less transparently bullshit if Trump’s twin impeachments hadn’t been included in the exhibit since September 2021.  If you ask the White House, they will explain to you that this is really all about returning America to its former glory and, of course, eradicating forbidden diversity. Per White House spokesperson Davis Ingle, for too long, the Smithsonian “highlighted divisive DEI exhibits which are out of touch with mainstream America,” and that the White House is “fully supportive of updating displays to highlight American greatness.”  It’s not just that the administration wants to remove negative history about Trump, though that is a driving force. It’s also about wanting the Republican Party, the federal government, and everyone else to display constant fealty to Trump. That’s why you see GOP proposals to put him on the $100 bill and on Mount Rushmore, to rename parts of the Kennedy Center after him and his wife, and to rename the Washington subway system the “Trump Train.” But it also extends beyond Trump. They want to rewrite American history more broadly so that it panders to those like Trump and his ilk: white, straight, cis, conservative, rich. Vice President JD Vance has been empowered to purge museums of anything that doesn’t align with Trump’s view of American history as an unbroken success story. Trump’s team has demanded that museums and the national parks remove anything that’s supposedly divisive, which broadly translates to things that make white people sad.  It used to feel like saying Trump wanted to memory-hole the history he doesn’t like was a bit of a stretch. These days, though, if anything, it may be an understatement.

A cartoon by Mike Luckovich. Related | Federal employees can now be harassed about religion by their bosses

The new law came into effect on Friday in response to a rise in knife attacks and mounting public pressure Read Full Article at RT.com

Artists and judges from around the globe will take part in the song competition in Moscow this fall Read Full Article at RT.com

New Delhi has dismissed the US leader’s allegation, saying it is “unaware” of any halt in imports Read Full Article at RT.com

Even Donald Trump’s rivals would keep files related to the disgraced financier sealed, the X owner has said Read Full Article at RT.com

Sweden says Ukraine must allow same‑sex marriage to meet European Union standards Read Full Article at RT.com

What explains the global double standard on suffering? A timeless lesson in how pity is weaponized – or withheld. Read Full Article at RT.com

The US president has called FireAid a scam and claimed that victims never received the promised money Read Full Article at RT.com

His assault on anti-corruption agencies has opened the door to political revolt – and made his position look weaker than ever Read Full Article at RT.com

Turkish FM Hakan Fidan has praised the third round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul Read Full Article at RT.com

Democrats have their lowest approval in 35 years, with the GOP preferred even on issues where Trump polls poorly, a WSJ poll has shown Read Full Article at RT.com