Crooked Media - What A Day: The Epps of hell

For some time now, we have been learning the hard way that the climate change-induced effects of extreme weather will reach much farther than continental coastlines. 
 

• Torrential rainfall and flooding are punishing the river valleys and mountain towns of Vermont and New York State, inviting comparisons to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Irene more than a decade ago. On Sunday, the storm poured eight inches of rain in the Hudson Valley, and caused at least one death. By Monday, the storm moved to Vermont, where rural towns along the landlocked state’s many rivers faced even greater flooding and fewer resources to address the storm. 
   

• Vermont officials have said that about 20 residents in the state have had to be rescued by boat, while many more have been forced to evacuate their homes. According to the National Weather Service, over the past two weeks, many parts of central and northern New England have been on the receiving end of 200-300 percent more rainfall than is typical for this period. 
   

• Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) toured the flood damage on Monday in a small village near West Point on the Hudson River, and said that area residents must “be prepared for the worst, because the worst continues to happen.” The governor made her way to the Finger Lakes later that day where she reported that over a dozen people and five animals had been rescued in the region. More than 13,000 homes in the state lost power because of the storm.

As Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, put it: “Sure, weather is weather. It’s going to happen,” but when it comes to extreme weather events like flooding and drought, climate change is “supercharging them.” 

• Flooding in Vermont and the Hudson Valley coincided with an expanding “heat dome” baking the American southwest. Temperatures in Phoenix, AZ, have been stuck at triple-digits for almost a month, and the city is on track to break or tie its record for most consecutive days at or above 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat advisories are in effect across the United States spanning the American South from Florida to Southern California. Ocean temperatures hit an unprecedented 90 degrees off the coast of Miami. All of these events are happening in the same week. 

• January through March was the hottest period on record in Georgia, and the state’s premiere crops like peaches, blueberries, and cotton have suffered greatly as a result. Even far north, Canada is experiencing its worst wildfire season on record, and the season is only half over. And temperatures the world over have made the early days of July some of the hottest, in global-average terms, since the Paleolithic period, 100,000 years ago.

Even with extreme weather events becoming increasingly frequent and affecting a broader swath of the American populace, Republican lawmakers not only oppose any proposed solutions, but many go so far as to even punish divestment from fossil fuels. This kind of maddening policy gridlock has made even voters for whom climate policy is a priority feel helpless. But fewer elected Republicans has to be part of the solution. Anyways! Get your tickets to Barbie while you still can!

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When Tucker Carlson still cursed us at Fox News (as opposed to now, where he curses us from some sort of a shed) he accused an Arizona man of inciting the January 6 insurrection while working as a covert government agent in order to discredit disgraced former president Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. In other words: A typical, defamatory right-wing media conspiracy theory. But there’s a wrinkle. The man in question is an avowed MAGA-head named Ray Epps, who was enthusiastically present at January 6, but never breached the Capitol and did not participate in the more violent aspects of the insurrection. For those reasons, federal prosecutors have not charged him with a crime. Instead of correcting the record, Carlson intensified his slanders. Carlson repeated Epps’s name in nearly 20 episodes, forcing him and his wife to sell their family business and flee the state after receiving a deluge of death threats from people who believed the conspiracy theory. The two are now in hiding(!) and Ray Epps is suing Fox News for defamation. This could be another landmark post-2020 defamation case against Fox News. Legal experts believe Epps has a viable case. Okay so this one doesn’t have a perfect victim like the Dominion case, but we can all agree that any loss for Fox is a win for humanity. 

The Justice Department has advised the judge overseeing E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against disgraced former president Donald Trump that it will no longer certify Trump was acting in his professional capacity when he defamed her, making him ineligible for immunity from civil claims. 

Trump asked the federal judge he appointed, Aileen Cannon, to indefinitely(!) suspend his trial on 37 federal charges of illegally retaining (stealing) classified documents after leaving the White House. Grifter season is upon us again!

Leslie Van Houton, the one-time follower of Charles Manson, was released on Tuesday after 53 years in prison. Van Houten was 19 when she participated in the infamous killings of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in 1969. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has reversed her parole approval three times since he took office, but said he would not do so this time. 

A federal judge gave Microsoft a huge victory on Tuesday by declining to block its $69 billion takeover of video-game giant Activision Blizzard, after the FTC tried to put the kibosh on the deal over monopoly concerns. 

Israeli authorities forcibly evicted a Palestinian family from their home in Jerusalem’s Old City on Tuesday. Earlier this year, the Israeli Supreme Court struck down the family’s final appeal, capping off a 45-year legal battle to try to stop the eviction. 

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Tuesday that there is no timetable set for Ukraine to enter the bloc until certain conditions are met, angering Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

Despite recovery efforts made to account for pandemic losses, test scores show that American students are slipping further behind. 

Newly-unsealed indictment drop!! Turns out that the guy who House Republicans pitched as their star informant they were going to use to nail Joe Biden against the wall was acting as an unregistered agent for the Chinese government. He was also charged with violating Iranian sanctions and making false statements to federal agents. Love that for him!

Two plaintiffs have asked the Supreme Court to overturn more than a century of tax law, and it’s getting a lot of heat from the world of Conservative American Villains™—tale as old as time! The lawsuit itself is relatively small in scope—a couple named Charles and Kathleen Moore want to dine and dash on a $14,729 tax bill—but its consequences would be far-reaching. The case has virtually no grounding in current law, but that hasn’t stopped the Supreme Court’s conservative majority before. Should the decision go the way conservative elites want, Democrats will be cut off at the knees from establishing the “billionaire taxes” they have expressed desire to pass. Such a decision would completely redefine what is “income” and corporations would receive a payout in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The fact that the Supreme Court agreed to even hear Moore vs. United States is not only troubling, it increases the odds of a cataclysmic decision from this 6-3 Court of our nightmares.

Bank of America will be forced to reimburse its customers to the tune of more than $100 million and pay another $150 million in fines for “double-dipping” on overdraft fees, withholding credit card reward bonuses, and opening accounts without customer consent. $250 million seems low, but it’s a start!

Vice President Kamala Harris announced a new Department of Housing and Human Services proposal aimed at lowering the cost of child care for American families.

President Biden approved the largest offshore wind project in American history last Wednesday. 

Comedian Sarah Silverman is suing the creator of ChatGPT for unauthorized use of her 2010 book, joining two class-action lawsuits against OpenAI and Meta for their AI products producing “derivative” versions of copyrighted work.