Last Call For All Oiled Up In Cali

California Dem Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Dem AG Rob Bonta announced over the weekend a major lawsuit against major energy companies, claiming their fossil fuels products were knowingly sold while being detrimental to the climate, and the state is seeking tens of billions in damages for a fund to alleviate the massive and growing cost of California's climate disasters. 

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a lawsuit Saturday against five major oil companies and their subsidiaries, seeking compensation for damages caused by climate change.

The suit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court by Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta, accuses the companies of knowing about the link between fossil fuels and catastrophic climate change for decades but suppressing and spreading disinformation on the topic to delay climate action. The New York Times first reported the case Friday.


The suit also claims that Exxon, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP — as well as the American Petroleum Institute industry trade group — have continued their deception to today, promoting themselves as “green” with small investments in alternative fuels, while primarily investing in fossil fuel products.



It seeks to create a fund that oil companies would pay into to help the state recover from extreme weather events and prepare for further effects of climate change. It argues that California has already spent tens of billions of dollars on responding to climate change, with costs expected to rise significantly.

“The companies that have polluted our air, choked our skies with smoke, wreaked havoc on our water cycle, and contaminated our lands must be made to mitigate the harms they have brought upon the State,” the suit says.

Shell and API said the question of how to address climate change should be dealt with in the policy arena.

“We do not believe the courtroom is the right venue to address climate change, but that smart policy from government and action from all sectors is the appropriate way to reach solutions and drive progress,” Shell spokesperson Anna Arata said in an email.

“This ongoing, coordinated campaign to wage meritless, politicized lawsuits against a foundational American industry and its workers is nothing more than a distraction from important national conversations and an enormous waste of California taxpayer resources,” API Senior Vice President and General Counsel Ryan Meyers said in a statement. “Climate policy is for Congress to debate and decide, not the court system.”

California’s legal action joins dozens of similar lawsuits brought by seven other states and many municipalities seeking to hold major polluters accountable for allegedly lying about their role in causing climate change.

So far the US Supreme Court has passed on turning any of the state cases into federal ones, but I suspect that it may not have a choice here given the size and scope of what this suit represents.

Still, good for Bonta and Newsom. This needs to happen in all states.

Shutdown Countdown, Clown Town Edition, Con't

House Speaker and Clown Town Ringmaster Kevin McCarthy is running out of time to make a spending bill deal with Democrats before the clowns do him in. WaPo's 202 crew:

Tell us if you’ve heard this one before: The deadline to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month is fast approaching with little sign of how differences will be resolved.

Here’s where things stand in both chambers:

In the House: A half-dozen House Republicans on Sunday proposed a deal to temporarily fund the government until Oct. 31 to buy time for a broader spending agreement.
But it’s far from certain whether the proposal will unite the fractious GOP conference and secure the votes needed to send the bill to the Senate, where it is expected to be rejected, Leigh Ann and our colleague Marianna Sotomayor report.

The tentative agreement is an attempt to appease the conservatives, who held up all progress on government spending until they received assurances on deep spending cuts and other policies, including border restrictions.

But many in the hard-line House Freedom Caucus immediately lambasted the proposal even though Freedom Caucus leaders, Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Chip Roy (R-Tex.) and Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), negotiated the proposal with Reps. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), Stephanie I. Bice (R-Okla.) and Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) of the Republican Main Street Caucus, whose members don’t want to shut down the government.

The proposal would lead to immediate, dramatic spending cuts across the federal government, with agency budgets being slashed by 8 percent, except for the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which would be funded at current levels.

The continuing resolution to keep funding the government temporarily would also include a border security bill that House Republicans passed through their narrow ranks in May, while excluding the divisive E-Verify work requirement provision to check immigration status that is opposed by some Republican moderates, especially in New York and California.

If this bill gets a vote and moderates accept it, they are likely to face the possibility of campaign ads highlighting that they voted for deep cuts to programs such as education, food safety and environmental protection.

The goal is to vote on the bill Thursday.

If the proposal makes it through the House, it has zero chance of passing the Senate, and it’s unclear how the two chambers will strike a deal to avoid a shutdown.

 

In other words, McCarthy doesn't even have the votes for an opening offer, while Senate Democrats are hashing out the "real" bill, and the biggest reason is that the hardliner MAGA chuds think 8 percent cuts to the Departments of Education, Energy, Agriculture, Justice, State, and Homeland Security aren't draconian enough.

As to whether McCarthy survives the month without a deal, well, Hakeem Jeffries has some leverage now, doesn't he?

 

McCarthy's biggest problem is he's incompetent. But I don't see how Matt Gaetz is going to talk Jeffries into getting rid of McCarthy when that only makes the prospect of a deal worse. 

We'll see, but we're down to two weeks now, and the prognosis is still that McCarthy shuts down the government and the country will clearly be able to blame him for it, or that he folds and takes the Senate bill with Hakeem Jeffries's help and then gets run out of town like Boehner before him.

He loses either way.

The Meat, Pressed

NBC's Meet The Press celebrated new host Kristen Welker's arrival, replacing the dismal Chuck Todd, with Welker getting rolled hard by Donald Trump in one of the worst Gish Gallops in years. A sample from the full transcript:

KRISTEN WELKER:

There are a number of things that make your campaign unprecedented. You are the first former president to run for re-election in more than a hundred years. You are facing four indictments. You have an incredibly significant lead in the GOP primary polls. But I want to ask you this, Mr. President: Why do you want to be president again?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, it’s a very simple answer, and I can give it very easily. It’s called: “Make America Great Again.” Our country is in serious trouble. I don’t think we’ve ever been so low in terms of, certainly opinion, world opinion and country opinion. People are devastated. They look at what’s happening with millions of people coming in, millions of illegal immigrants coming into our country, flooding our cities, flooding the countryside. I think the number is going to be 15 million people by the time you end this — by the end of this year, I think the real number’s going to be 15 million people. They come from prisons. They come from mental institutions, insane asylums. They say, “Sir, please don’t use that term,” but it’s true. They’re terrorists at a level — you know, it was very interesting, on NBC, I saw a poll, and I saw some statistics, and it said in 2019, there were no terrorists. They caught no terrorists. There was nothing that they saw. There was no anything. And now, this year, it’s a record number like they’ve never seen before. So, we did a great job at the border. We did a great job with the military. We did a great job with inflation. We had essentially no inflation. We had a great economy. And, we didn’t have an Afghanistan disaster. We were getting out, but we were going to get out with dignity and pride, not the way they got out. That was a surrender, and an embarrassment, and horrible. We gave $85 billion worth of equipment to the Taliban. We had death, so much death, and so much horrible destruction. And it was a terrible thing. I think it was the lowest point in the history of our country. Now, with all of that, we can change it, and we can make America great again. And that’s why I’m doing this.

 

First question and she lets Trump flood the zone with bullshit.  It actually gets worse from there on the Bidens:

KRISTEN WELKER:

Well, of course, there’s no evidence that the president has any link to his son’s business dealings. Let me ask you, though —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, I don’t —

KRISTEN WELKER:

– about a second —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– necessarily agree.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Well, there is no —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

He called in. I mean, he called in to all these meetings. He was calling in on the meetings. He was put on speakerphone and — every single day and —

KRISTEN WELKER:

The witness who testified —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– literally many, many calls. And what about the fact that he got rid of the prosecutor for a billion dollars? They said —

KRISTEN WELKER:

Well, the witness who testified —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

“You don’t get rid of this prosecutor, we’re not giving you a billion dollars to Ukraine.” He said that. I mean, there are a lot of things here, Kristen.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Mr. President, the witness who testified though, said that he never heard any discussion of business when President Biden was put on the phone. But let’s —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

But, wait, wait. You saw the prosecutor —

KRISTEN WELKER:

– let’s talk about —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– thing on television, because I saw it on your network. He said, “You don’t get rid of this prosecutor, I’m not giving $1 billion.”

KRISTEN WELKER:

That was looked into, as well. And, as you know, there was never any wrongdoing —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Oh, come on.

KRISTEN WELKER:

– determined.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

If I ever said that —

KRISTEN WELKER:

Let’s move on —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– quid pro quo.                    

 Lie after lie and she's all "Let's move on". And they do, to January 6th, and it's still lie after lie.

KRISTEN WELKER:

When you launched your campaign in March, you told the crowd, quote, “I am your retribution.” What does that mean? What does that look like?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I think retribution is talking in terms of I have to protect people. What they’re doing to people is so horrible. They’re putting people in jail for long periods of time, firemen, policemen, accountants, even lawyers. They’re in prisons for years now and don’t even have trials in some cases. And if you look at antifa and other groups, practically nothing happened to them. They burned down Portland. They burned down Minneapolis. They took over Seattle. I mean, they literally took over a big chunk of the city. People died, and nothing happened to them. We have to protect all people.

KRISTEN WELKER:

But when you talk about retribution, are you talking about directing your attorney general to try to go after your political enemies?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

When I talk about retribution, I’m talking about fairness. We have to treat people fairly. These people on January 6th, they went — some of them never even went into the building, and they’re being given sentences of, you know, many years.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Are you going to pardon those people —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

And nothing is happening.

KRISTEN WELKER:

– who’ve been convicted —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, I’m going to look at them, and I certainly might if I think it’s appropriate. No, it’s a very, very sad thing. And it’s — they’re dividing the country so badly, and it’s very dangerous.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Well, Mr. President, we’re going to delve into that a little bit later on, but I want to stay on this idea of what you mean by retribution. Are you looking to appoint an attorney general who will prosecute the people you tell them to prosecute?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I’m looking to appoint an attorney general who’s going to be tough on crime and fair. Very simple.

KRISTEN WELKER:

And go after your political enemies?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

No, no. I would never do that. But Biden has done that. Look, Biden — these aren’t indictments against me. These are Biden indictments. This isn’t God coming down and very fairly said, “Oh, you spoke badly about an election.” The election was rigged. There’s no question about that. There’s so much proof on it. Even if you go to the more modern-day proof with the — they call it Twitter Files, FBI and Twitter, or you take a look at the Amazon stuff or the Google stuff, or you take a look at “2,000 Mules,” you take a look at all of the ballot stuffing that’s on tape, you take a look at the fact that the legislatures didn’t approve a lot of the things that were done in the elections, and they had to approve. And we could go on forever. We could go on forever. But, but no. I want somebody that’s going to be strong, respected, tough, and fair.

This goes on and on and Tucker Carlson could not have done a better job here. Welker may have been thrown to the orange lying lions here, but she never should have been in the room in the first place. She screwed this up so badly that it was a matter of national security, interviewing an avowed domestic terrorist and allowing him to proselytize to the country and the world for almost an hour. The transcript sections here are all in the first eight minutes or so. It's that awful.

I actually wish Chuck Todd was back, that's how bad this was.

But as I've said before, every time Trump opens his mouth and lies in public, he adds to the body of evidence against him in his trials, and as Joyce Vance reminds us, that body of evidence continues to be overwhelming.

There is a raging debate over the wisdom (or lack thereof) of the media giving Trump a platform without real time fact checking. One things that is for certain is that every time the former president takes up the microphone, he makes prosecutors’ cases against him stronger. This weekend, it was Kristen Welker’s debut hosting Meet the Press on NBC. Trump told Welker that it was his decision to push the (of course, false) claim that he won the election and to try and overturn the results. “It was my decision, but I listened to some people,” he said. So much for any defense that Trump was relying on the advice of counsel.

To convict Trump, both Jack Smith and Fani Willis will have to prove that he knew he lost the 2020 election. January 6 committee reporting revealed that Trump was advised he’d lost by his lawyers, his campaign staff, and his numbers guy, to say nothing of every judge (including ones he’d appointed) who handled his many cases in court. His own appointees at the Department of Homeland Security said the election had not been tainted by fraud and was highly secure. But Trump insisted to Welker that in his mind, it all added up to the conclusion that “the election was rigged.” Trump continued, “You know who I listen to? Myself. I saw what happened.” The case gets stronger every time Trump opens his mouth.

Vance is right about this, but as Steve M. has said it only takes one juror to acquit Trump no matter how strong the case against him is.

We'll see.