Today’s comic by Mark Fiore is Undo-ocracy:
What’s coming up on Sunday Kos:
- Yes, Trump cares about that Supreme Court double jeopardy case. A lot … by Rebecca Pilar Buckwalter Poza
- Feeling 'regrexit,' the UK needs a Brexit exit, by Sher Watts Spooner
- How to win in social media political groups, by David Akadjian
- What Trump doesn't know about the Border, Immigration and Humanity is Everything, by Frank Vyan Walton
- Here's a new way to visualize how much ground we gained in the House, by David Jarman
- Cut and gut: How Republicans helped the rich raid the U.S. Treasury, by Jon Perr
- Progressives: Be careful of the comfort of placating the privileged at the expense of the afflicted, by Egberto Willies
- Progressive prosecutors are not 'cops.' They are needed to enact criminal justice reform, by Denise Oliver Velez
- Dear Republicans, we need to talk ... by Mark E Andersen
- Republican sore loser power grabs corrode our democracy so badly because they have no limits, by Ian Reifowitz
• Open enrollment in the Affordable Care Act ends in most states on Saturday, December 15: Today and Saturday are your last two days to enroll if you need health insurance! Free help is available. Answers to your questions about signing up and trained professionals who can talk you through your options are just a phone call or click away. Call 1-800-318-2596 or visit localhelp.healthcare.gov to make a one-on-one appointment now.
• Congressman repeats lie about Planned Parenthood in hearing on funding for research using fetal tissue: Doctors and scientists testified Thursday about whether use of fetal tissue is necessary for certain kinds of research. Anti-abortion witnesses at the hearing of a subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee said, of course, that it isn’t. Among those who said it is was Dr. Sally Temple, who spoke for the International Society for Stem Cell Research and has earned a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” for her research findings: “Fetal tissue is an essential resource for studying and developing therapies for cancer, HIV, Zika, Tuberculosis, and other devastating diseases. Fetal tissues have unique properties. The alternatives mentioned may be useful at times but cannot fully replace fetal tissue.” The Republicans ignored her. And Georgia Rep. Jody Hice asserted that Planned Parenthood profits from selling “body parts.” That false claim is based on a highly edited video that spurred hysterical responses from lawmakers and others who initially accepted the video as something other than forced-birther propaganda.
MIDDAY TWEET
• Jazz singer Nancy Wilson dead at 81:
Nancy Wilson, whose skilled and flexible approach to singing provided a key bridge between the sophisticated jazz-pop vocalists of the 1950s and the powerhouse pop-soul singers of the 1960s and ’70s, died on Thursday at her home in Pioneertown, Calif. She was 81. [...]
In her long and celebrated career, Ms. Wilson performed American standards, jazz ballads, Broadway show tunes, R&B torch songs and middle-of-the-road pop pieces, all delivered with a heightened sense of a song’s narrative.
• Federal district judge calls halt to Keystone XL pipeline because Trump regime gave the project the go-ahead with “complete disregard” for its impact on climate.
• Bill naming Virginia post office for Muslim Army captain heading for White House: The bill, sponsored by Republican Tom Garrett, names a post office in Charlottesville for Humayun Khan, a Muslim Army officer who was killed in a suicide attack in Iraq in 2004, age 27. At the 2016 Democratic National Convention, his father, Khizr Khan, gave a speech excoriating Trump for his statements about Muslims and his proposed policies regarding them. Trump was later condemned for his response, which included saying that Humayun Khan’s mother, Ghazala, may not have been allowed to speak at the convention. She wrote a subsequent deeply personal op-ed for The Washington Post saying, among other things:
Donald Trump has asked why I did not speak at the Democratic convention. He said he would like to hear from me. Here is my answer to Donald Trump: Because without saying a thing, all the world, all America, felt my pain. I am a Gold Star mother. Whoever saw me felt me in their heart. [...]
Donald Trump said he has made a lot of sacrifices. He doesn’t know what the word sacrifice means.
• Evidence shows EPA was right in 2009 to declare that greenhouse gas emissions endanger people’s health: The “endangerment finding” was made in the wake of a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that said the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases if the agency finds their release into the atmosphere risks public health and welfare. The Trump regime would like to dump the finding, but that would spark a huge legal fight that, short of overturning the 2007 precedent, would not likely be successful. Instead, the effort has been directed at weakening Obama era rules to regulate emissions. In the near-decade since the EPA decision, say the authors of a peer-reviewed report published in Science this week: "New evidence about the extent, severity, and interconnectedness of impacts detected to date and projected for the future reinforces the case that climate change may reasonably be anticipated to endanger the health and welfare of current and future generations.”
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Today's Trump rumors: "speed freak”; Jared for CoS. Not a rumor: Investigators probe inaugural funds. Several Trump self-dealing stories to ponder. Don't pity Cohen, he was dirty before Trump. ИЯA nest of spies. WI & MI Gop power grabs unconstitutional?