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Showing 1,268 posts and replies from Sheldon Whitehouse.
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- SW
Trump’s Truth Social scheme is obviously corrupt.
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- SW
Trump must envy Putin’s power to just shut down a political party that challenges him. That, plus whatever Trump/Russia is (one day we’ll know).
link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/08/12/putin-just-showed-world-how-afraid-he-is-his-own-people/
- SW
- SW
When alarms are ringing, always best to just turn them off. Makes corrupt fossil fuel donors happy.
link:https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2026/08/11/noaa-ends-support-for-arctic-report-card-01031276
- SW
Lake Mead lowest ever. Siberia hits 90. Vienna 105. Northwest on fire. Ocean heat record. Nothing to see here folks.
link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2026/08/07/lake-mead-nations-biggest-reservoir-hits-lowest-level-record/
- SW
Reminiscent of Demotech in the homeowners’ space, whose rated insurers were 30 times as likely to become insolvent as those rated by legit companies.
link:https://www.wsj.com/finance/ratings-firm-accused-of-grade-inflation-vouched-for-40-billion-of-insurer-debt-f26600a7
- SW
Here, it’s a double burn. Your taxpayer dollars — $4 billion so far — go to pay corporations to walk away from low-cost clean energy, so that you pay more electricity consumer dollars. You lose at both ends; corrupt fossil fuel donors win. It’s a racket.
- SW
YOUR excess costs to run those expensive fossil fuel units (which set the price for the whole grid btw, so it’s big bucks) go into THEIR fossil fuel pockets — yep, the pockets of Trump’s big fossil fuel donors. YOU pay off HIS donors.
- SW
Why do Trumpsters hurt consumers? Follow the money. YOUR rates go up because your electrons cost more, because without the low-cost clean energy, the grid had to dial up expensive fossil fuel plants. There’s the trick.
- SW
When clean power comes in at a lower cost, the grid doesn’t need higher cost plants, so they’re idled and don’t sell electrons. So they don’t get paid for electrons. They lose money. But you save money. Consumers win.
- SW
How do we know this? Ask any grid. They run the lower-cost stuff first, and the lower-cost stuff is clean energy. An example? New England offshore wind comes in at around 9 cents/kwh on an 18-cent/kwh grid. Literally half-price.
- SW
Let me explain further. However Trump blocks clean energy — with corporate payoffs, clean energy bans, regulatory blockades — the effect is the same: costs go up for consumers.
link:https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-energy-projects-fossil-fuels-d39aaf20d259d15d0777dcaec7aa3524
- SW
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- SW
Tenant. Public is owner; Congress is landlord; you are tenant.
link:https://www.huffpost.com/entry/live-updates_n_6a705787e4b07f03214394c9/liveblog_6a766ce2e4b06ed7068207ec
- SW
Buckle up.
link:https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/todd-blanche-narrowly-confirmed-as-trumps-attorney-general-in-overnight-vote
- SW
Stupid tariffs bang the economy. Great Climate Insurance Collapse bangs the economy. Botched Iran War bangs the economy. Clean energy ban bangs the economy. Behind it all is incompetence, corruption, and a mad fixation on gilding things.
link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/08/07/economy-shed-23000-jobs-july-labor-market-weakened/
- SW
To Republicans claiming they want to save Social Security: put up or shut up.
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- SW
An interesting side-by-side in the news...
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- SW
:-)
link:https://www.eastbayri.com/stories/editorial-climate-change-has-its-benefits-apparently,141696
- SW
The record of misconduct in this case clearly justifies further inquiry. This is no “Hail Mary.” Pirro is now caught between two fires: the fire of Trump’s incontinent rage, and the fire of judicial proceedings into professional misconduct.
- SW
They alleged ethics violations by Pirro and her office, both in what she said in the press about the case and in the conduct of the case, as “bad faith” and “politically motivated.” That’s a harsh challenge, but well-founded.
- SW
They asked for access to the grand jury transcript, arguing that there was so much prosecutorial misconduct in the case that it justified the opportunity to look for further misconduct by prosecutors in the grand jury.
- SW
They pounced hard, with LOTS of evidence the government had about the “botched” installation BEFORE the charges were brought, rebutting the claim that it was a big surprise to DOJ’s prosecutors. Even that a contractor cut the lining with a knife!
- SW
That dismissal “without prejudice” I’d say was a mistake, as it teed up this motion, to dismiss his charges “with prejudice” so he cannot be charged again. That response was foreseeable, and now the defense lawyers have pounced.
- SW
Latest on Reflecting Pool Debacle: The falsely-charged “vandal” has just filed an important motion in the case after the U.S. Attorney dismissed his felony charges “without prejudice” — meaning they could charge him again.
- SW
This is what happens when fossil fuel gets to fix prices around their international cartel.
link:https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2026/aug/04/revealed-major-oil-firms-make-93bn-profits-amid-war-and-climate-crisis
- SW
When even Trump thinks Big Oil is “making too much money” off American consumers, you know it’s reached barf-worthy levels of excess profit.
- SW
Republicans set their health care grenade to go off after the election. Don’t be fooled.
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- SW
How do they do it? Look at the little flotillas of right-wing dark money groups that file choreographed “amicus briefs” in cases the billionaire clique cares about. Look at the 100% success rate of the billionaire front groups in those cases.
- SW
Face it. The Court is captured by right-wing billionaire interests, just the way railroad barons used to capture the railroad rate commissions, or mining barons the mine safety commissions. Look up “regulatory capture” or “agency capture.” thehill.com/opinion/judi...
link:https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/supreme-court/6003166-public-distrust-scotus-partisanship/
- SW
Good. Leave them alone. Ban the practice. Pass my OCTOPUS Act.
link:https://www.seafoodnews.com/Story/1350168/Nueva-Pescanova-Scraps-Worlds-First-Commercial-Octopus-Farm-Plan
- SW
Senator Ron Johnson objected.
quote:at://did:plc:qqixzm5pwprzdnkbh2hglpax/app.bsky.feed.post/3msbv7glnfk26
- SW
I’m headed to the Senate Floor to ask my colleagues if we can all agree on this one, simple truth: climate change-driven extreme weather events are increasing at the same time that the government is dismantling weather monitoring and alert systems.
- SW
What’s clear is the discrepancy between what Trump officials say in places like Fox News where they are not accountable for lying, versus what they say when they get near a courtroom where they are accountable for lying. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/08/04/trump-attack-jeanine-pirro-over-reflecting-pool-was-unjustified/
- SW
It’s a sad day for the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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- SW
Gee, why might those insurance prices be going up? What might explain Oklahoma’s high volume of costly, destructive weather events, including heavy hail, high winds, and numerous tornadoes? Maybe a scientist might know? A CLIMATE scientist?
link:https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2026/07/31/oklahoma-republicans-attack-each-other-over-surging-insurance-prices-01018075
- SW
This is how the fossil fuel industry takes away places and activities you love. Who should pay for that?
link:https://coloradosun.com/2026/08/03/colorado-fishing-bans-high-heat-2026/#:~:text=Wildlife%20officials%20are%20banning%20fishing,species%20including%20highly%2Dprized%20trout
- SW
It’s basic hygiene, to know what “impeachment” baggage officers will carry into later testimony. Screwing that up now could blow up a real case later.
- SW
What’s next? Brady’s sibling, Giglio v. U.S., requires the government to disclose past dishonesty of anyone they offer as a witness. They are now obliged to determine who lied to make good on future Giglio disclosures.
- SW
They must have been seriously pissed off to use language like “botched” about the lining installation, and to give such detail putting DOI and its components under the bus for misleading them. They really wanted court to see “this wasn’t us!”
- SW
Prosecutors were headed for a huge Brady violation, with professional discipline to worry about; plus they’d been hornswoggled by Interior, Parks and Park Police. One thing for Burgum to lie on Fox News; not cool for prosecutor in court.
- SW
Why did the Reflecting Pool cases blow up? Thank Brady v. Maryland, a Supreme Court case requiring that any exculpatory information the government has be turned over to the defense. A Brady violation is a big deal at DOJ (See Justice Manual 9-5.001). ⬇️
- SW
Up against lawyers like that, the Trump lawyers are badly outmatched, as is DOJ’s crooked gangster gong show lurking in the shadows and filing no pleadings or appeal. “Fraud on the court” is deadly serious, and this ain’t over by any stretch.
- SW
Here’s the language from the judge’s minute order inviting the amici back:
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- SW
Their brief on that teed up further judicial inquiry, so Trump (and likely DOJ behind the scenes) withdrew the Trump complaint to get out of Dodge ahead of the sheriff, and then announced the “settlement” under the caption of the nonexistent case.
- SW
In a simple minute order, the judge just asked a panel of lawyers, including a former Solicitor General, to step in. Early in the case, the judge had asked them as amici to advise her on whether there was “adversity” between the parties.
- SW
Trump’s lawyers (one of whom was referred by the court for Florida Bar discipline) have appealed the decision finding collusion and misconduct by them and DOJ. Who will be on the other side, in a case of collusion, with DOJ in hiding?
- SW
Probably recognizing the rotten process of their rotten deal, DOJ never filed a pleading in the case. Weird. But maybe they thought by evading appearance in the case they could duck responsibility for possible fraud on the court.
- SW
Start by recalling that fraud on the court is really bad — worse than contempt; so bad that from our research no senior DOJ official in history has ever been accused of it, let alone subjected to a judicial inquiry. That fraud question remains pending in the court.
- SW
Interestinger and interestinger: Remember the Florida federal court inquiry into whether the crooked slush fund and sleazy Trump family tax fraud amnesty deal was a “fraud on the court”? Major development down there! 🧵