Social
Showing 959 posts and replies from Sheldon Whitehouse.
Verified handles only, confirmed via senate.gov footer link, .senate.gov domain handle, or appearance in two or more independent curated starter packs. Republican accounts that meet that bar are eligible; almost none currently exist on the platform.
- SW
“Nothing to see here, folks,” says corrupt fossil fuel industry.
images:1
- SW
The problem is some justices’ aversion to factfinding about their misconduct, even though factfinding is foundation of law.
- SW
Some easy starters: inbox for ethics complaints; screeners to sort; lawyers for fact-finding. Nothing there is hard. Indeed 50 for 50 every state supreme court has figured out how to do it, so it’s quite obviously not that hard. www.ms.now/connect/watc...
link:https://www.ms.now/connect/watch/above-the-law-scotus-can-t-seem-to-figure-out-a-basic-ethics-code-2506956867968
- SW
PolluterPage gets one right! www.wsj.com/opinion/dona...
link:https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-save-america-act-elections-voting-7cc3fe5b
- SW
images:1
- SW
images:1
- SW
The AI data center “race to the bottom” worsens our real climate perils. In a decent world, the industry would agree on safety standards. The billionaires and putative billionaires behind these projects could easily afford to be responsible. They choose not to be.
images:1
- SW
Oh, really. Corporate propaganda has polluted judicial retreats for decades, but when it’s climate science, PolluterPage objects. www.wsj.com/opinion/judi...
link:https://www.wsj.com/opinion/judicial-impartiality-is-under-threat-5ee0de72
- SW
Senate Rs backing Blanche will have more egg on their face than a McMuffin.
video
- SW
We will be ready. We have systems to protect the vote and lawyers to defend those systems. The important thing right now is for the public to see and understand what this lawless and increasingly unhinged president is trying to do.
- SW
We are witnessing a failed, unstable president now trying to misuse the powers of the federal government to taint an American election, backed by his coterie of creepy billionaires.
- SW
Tonight seems to be the ceremonial kickoff of President Trump’s campaign to interfere in the November election. Trump has badly lost independent voters, even MAGA is disheartened; he is failing and unpopular, and he’s dragging his party down with him in the midterms.
- SW
In the recent heat domes, wind and solar saved the day. Trump’s attacks on wind and solar aren’t for you, they’re for his big corrupt fossil fuel donors.
link:https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/grid-edge/clean-energy-grid-heat-wave
- SW
National Geographic does Rhode Island. Well done!
link:https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/summer-road-trip-rhode-island
- SW
images:1
- SW
Senator Banks objected.
quote:at://did:plc:qqixzm5pwprzdnkbh2hglpax/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqppoc6fqc2e
- SW
Blanche showed complete blindness to the MAGA DOJ’s misconduct.
video
- SW
I’m headed to the Senate Floor to ask my colleagues if we can all agree on this one, simple truth: Florida’s insurance market is gravely stressed by climate risks.
- SW
Trump blocking low-cost solar drives grids to higher-cost fossil fuel units, so Americans pay billions more for power. But those excess billions go to Trump’s big fossil fuel donors. It’s a corrupt scheme to fleece ratepayers to pay off donors.
link:https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/solar-costs-jump-18-remain-cheapest-generation-build-lazard-says-2026-07-13/
- SW
Blanche claims to “welcome our questions.” Well, maybe he should try answering them.
video
- SW
- SW
By forcing votes on nominees like Blanche, Trump is dragging Senate Rs down with him.
video
- SW
23 zettajoules is the latest measure of excess heat into oceans caused by fossil fuel: 23,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules Entire human energy production = 1/2 a zettajoule.
link:https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-ocean-temperatures-are-entering-uncharted-territory-climate-scientists-say/
- SW
Blanche’s word has no credibility with me.
video
- SW
All that extra money Trump is making families pay by stomping on low-cost-to-drive EVs (never mind the damage to U.S. auto industry in international competition, where EV sales are soaring and China dominates).
link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2026/07/13/heres-how-much-money-ev-drivers-are-saving-your-state/
- SW
Good TACO, this time.
link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/07/14/oil-prices-jump-after-trumps-threats-strait-hormuz/
- SW
Rubio, three weeks ago: “No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway.” Trump, yesterday: the U.S. will charge a 20 percent fee on maritime cargo through Strait of Hormuz. So much for the principle of freedom of navigation. China is watching.
- SW
images:1
- SW
The action now moves to the Bar examiners in New York and whatever investigation they choose to pursue now that they have this stunning and unprecedented federal court reprimand before them.
- SW
“[T]he Court may reasonably infer that the Government failed to defend this lawsuit or respond to the Court’s jurisdictional inquiry because its position would not withstand judicial scrutiny and because resolution … would not have favored its preferred outcome to this case.”
- SW
Postscript: in this case, “Defendants never appeared, never challenged Plaintiffs’ claims, and never filed a single pleading …. they actively avoided such an undertaking.” Did filing nothing show consciousness of the sham, hoping to avoid reach of the court?
- SW
The judge directed her order be sent “to the State Bar of New York, of which Acting Attorney General Blanche is a member,” having flagged what she called the “the stain of political interference” in reference to DOJ.
- SW
The finale: the Court found “‘this lawsuit non-adversarial, collusive, and jurisdictionally improper,’” and “‘part of Mr. Trump’s pattern of misusing the courts to serve political purposes.’”
- SW
No surprise, since she found collusion, and it takes two to collude: “the Parties worked in tandem and were never actually adverse.” Blanche’s conduct showed “only one party whose interests were being represented throughout this case.”
- SW
In her final round-up the blame fell on both sides: “the Parties and counsel” tried “to use the Court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity … and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law.”
- SW
“[T]he Government entered into a ‘settlement’ that deviated from its litigation posture in similar actions, disregarded DOJ policies, and accomplished objectives … specifically prohibited, by law.” Ouch.
- SW
As to the amnesty for Trumps, she said “acquiescing to any such demand is wholly incompatible with the duties of DOJ attorneys,” and may be an unconstitutional Emolument to the President, “a glaring omission.”
- SW
“Indeed, the DOJ seems to have purposefully adopted the strategy of creating a ‘slush fund disguised as a settlement, and then doling the money out to whatever constituency the Executive wants bankrolled.’”
- SW
On the defense side, DOJ did not get off much better: “Defendants’ conduct is equally untenable,” rooted in “obeisance to the mandate of [Trump’s] Executive Order,” and “abdicating its responsibility to zealously defend the interests of the United States.”
- SW
“Accordingly, the Court expressly finds that Plaintiffs [Trump et al] acted in bad faith,” and defined bad faith thus: “fraud has been practiced upon [the court], or that the very temple of justice has been defiled.” That’s the Trumps.
- SW
“[T]hey filed a multibillion-dollar lawsuit asserting claims that they knew, or should have known, were time-barred and for an amount of damages unsupported by facts or law.”
- SW
“Plaintiffs [Trumps] acted in bad faith and for an improper purpose by ‘collusively filing a lawsuit with claims subject to multiple dispositive defenses solely to provide cover for a collusive settlement.’”
- SW
Punchline: they did. “Plaintiffs [Trump et al] improperly employed this lawsuit to justify … access to taxpayer funds and exemption from audits and other investigations … accomplished by leveraging control over Defendants [Blanche et al].”
- SW
Whether Trump and the defendants “ignored ethical norms, court rules, and legal authority to manipulate the judicial process …. to gild their efforts to gain unprecedented access to the public fisc with the patina of legitimacy.”
- SW
Well, I told you to watch the Florida proceedings about whether a “fraud on the court” was committed in the slush fund case, and we now have the federal judge’s decision, and it’s a doozy. Here’s how she framed the question: 🧵
- SW
In the last week, Ukraine has “sanctioned” roughly 100 shadow fleet ships carrying Russian oil. Shadow ships are burning; Russians are seeing gas lines and fistfights for fuel. Ukraine is winning.
- SW
These Ukrainians are remarkable; they make me proud to be a human being — which is precious right now looking at our leadership.
link:https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraines-most-potent-weapon-is-the-soldiers-who-refuse-to-quit-bdd145fe
- SW
I am stunned and saddened to hear the news this morning. Lindsey was a giant in the Senate. No one loved being a Senator more, or was more energetic. The Senate will be a lesser place without him. I’ve lost a dearly cherished friend.
- SW
This fossil fuel stoogery won’t age well. The industry is betting its credibility on a proposition its own scientists thirty years ago told it was WRONG. There will be a reckoning. Shareholders should beware.
link:https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2026/07/07/can-you-help-us-us-oil-execs-turn-to-trump-to-topple-europes-climate-rules-00987782
- SW
Find this and more from my @epw.senate.gov investigation:
link:https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/8/5/85852c84-59f4-48b1-a9a6-13a091ec75aa/81F3FAD8622463D530F2A1B58848D11006736823EA15737224A29D0ACEBCE1AB.7.9.26-letter-to-kennedy-center-re-facilities.pdf