For many this may be lost in the shuffle of terrible actions. This is just petulant spite. The American people should not subsidize fossil fuels at $1 billion to stop safe renewable energy. It’s an unbelievable waste of money, forced on the American people, arbitrary & capricious, & deeply immoral.

Musk and his chainsaw may be last year's news, but Russell Vought is still ripping holes in the fabric of our society day after day. Let's make Vampire Vought as infamous for draining the government's capacity to meet people's needs and keep people safe as his brother in harms, Elon Musk.

“There was no way to say no. I thought well if I die, at least I’m with my mother, at least my mother won’t feel the loss of a child, and I said okay let’s go.” The director of an art center in Tehran on life under U.S.-Israeli bombardment, translated by @naghmehs.bsky.social:

Lighting taxpayer money on fire to keep our weather on fire

Squeezed by data centers' relentless demand for electricity, a Nevada energy company just said it's going to stop supplying energy to Tahoe. The city has a year to figure out how to meet 75% of its energy needs without it.

Tells you plenty that CERAweek, the world's biggest fossil fuel industry conference, has now become a fossil / tech industry conference www.ceraweek.com/en/program/a...

Everyone should read this new piece by @hannahstoryb.bsky.social for @slate.com that exposes how deep Justice Alito's fossil fuel ties go and shines a light on his decision no longer to recuse himself from cases in which he has a vested interest. slate.com/news-and-pol...

New from me in @slate.com: Justice Alito's failure to recuse from a case with—according to the oil industry petitioners—major stakes for the oil industry's future is inexcusable, given his investments in oil. But his financial holdings aren't even the only conflict of interest he has in this case.

As @hannahstoryb.bsky.social writes, "the deserved mistrust in the highest court to hold itself to the highest ethical standard will not diminish unless and until there is some actual lever for publicly elected officials to enforce that standard."

New for @slate.com: our @hannahstoryb.bsky.social writes that Justice Alito's conflicts of interest go deeper than we knew in an upcoming case. Alito recently broke from precedent and failed to recuse when granting oil companies' petition against Boulder in a long-running climate liability suit...

NEW: Dwindling home insurance availability and affordability is a clear manifestation of fossil fuel-driven climate chaos. Today, the Revolving Door Project published two tools to help illuminate aspects of this worsening crisis. 🧵⬇️

I know it’s apparently only salient to most American media outlets to talk about oil, but for the few remaining people left with a soul, thousands of people live on this tiny island in only 8 sq miles. This reads like a serial killer prison interview.

The first few days of Trump's war on Iran alone cost more than the annual budget for cancer research at the National Cancer Institute. Imagine how many lives could have been saved with the money used instead to take them. webuildprogress.org/unrig-the-ru...

That's about half of what it cost for USAID for a whole year www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...

A J6-affiliated event company is now making bank on government contracts: www.wired.com/story/they-h...

"A death count on par with the Oklahoma City bombing is relegated to the back page."

DHS is pushing to wall off Big Bend National Park, a crown jewel of America’s natural heritage. Yet across the 517-mile Big Bend Sector— an area larger than California—DHS apprehended just 151 migrants last month. The park itself is only a tiny slice of that vast, remote border.

I'm off this week and I wrote this before we got our war on this weekend. The Paramount-Warner merger is actually a private equity takeover. The amount of leverage used in the purchase rivals the PE deals for Toys "R" Us and Nabisco. Those ended with mass layoffs, and this will too—by design.

Nearly 60 years ago, Ohio's Cuyahoga River was so polluted it caught fire, galvanizing the environmental movement that gave us the Clean Water Act and other lifesaving environmental laws. The AI industry's vision of our future hinges on a return to an era of unchecked industrial pollution.

Billions of dollars in federal disaster money has been tied up by Noem's $100k grant approval rule. Now, Trump is releasing $5B in overdue aid, but not to CA, IL, MN, & CO—Democratic-led states w/ governors Trump has maligned. Using disaster relief as a political weapon is unconscionable. More ⬇️

Poison as policy... Was startled by the scale of the visible air pollution coming out of the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant from tens of thousands of feet in the air. TVA's fleet of coal plants cause hundreds of premature deaths every year.

Glad to see @emorwee.bsky.social's coverage of Alito's majorly unethical maneuver on the oil industry's behalf. As I explored for @prospect.org, Alito isn't the only Justice whose ties to the oil industry make a blanket recusal from these fossil fuel petitions the only ethical option.

Gas-powered AI data centers are creating new suburban sacrifice zones: "if diesel generators at Virginia data centers emit just 10% of what their pollution permits allow, costs from asthma and other respiratory diseases will total $50 million annually, affecting communities as far away as Florida."

Incredible threat to the integrity of the public comment process

Another example of why our highest court shouldn't have the lowest ethics standards. As our @hannahstoryb.bsky.social has covered in @prospect.org, Justice Alito's extensive oil holdings should have propelled him to sit out from considering this case. And he's not the only justice with such ties.

We're going regime villain deep-cut today with a look at Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Guess what: he's bad, in all the ways Trump cabinet members are bad: anti-science, pro-selloff of public resources, and sycophantic to an absurd degree. From our friends at @revolvingdoordc.bsky.social.

Our @toni-v-aguilar.bsky.social is out in @thenation.com today looking at Trump’s latest grift machine+the slate of far-right agitators, Christian nationalists, book banners, & more he's partnering with to takeover the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. More: tinyurl.com/vjwxbyjh

Out today: a look for @prospect.org with @toni-v-aguilar.bsky.social at Doug Burgum's catastrophic first year at the helm of America's public lands. The laundry list of Burgum's cruel and, frankly, embarrassing actions exceeds the word count of a Bluesky post, so check out the article below.

Amid all the coverage of the EPA abandoning the "endangerment finding" on greenhouse gases, I'm seeing very little mention that the Inflation Reduction Act explicitly said that GHGs were pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Why is no one mentioning this?

Minnesota still needs your attention

Absolutely delighted to write about the living legend that is Bad Bunny for @revolvingdoordc.bsky.social's Watchdog Weekly today.

NEW: Elon Musk's DOGE team officially disbanded last year, but its reactionary mission was being carried out in parallel—and continues to be executed today—by OMB Director Russell Vought, a far quieter, but no less villainous, figure. We explain in @prospect.org 🧵⬇️

In November, I went to East Palestine, Ohio, to understand how the "historic" $600 million settlement over the 2023 derailment has so badly failed residents, but made some lawyers and shady companies very rich. www.levernews.com/the-derailme...

Trump axed National Park Service staff by 25%. This is insane. When I worked for NPS from 2015-2017 we were backlogged, understaffed & visitor services slammed. I can't imagine working on the inside now. Not even America's best idea is spared from Trump's madness. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/u...

NEW: Marking DOGE's one-year anniversary, RDP has put together a report probing the origins, the personnel, and the harmful consequences of Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

MAGA, a movement of cynical cruelty that is fueled by atomization, has accidentally created the conditions for in person communities to be formed around resisting their repression bsky.app/profile/aaro...

It's the same people who are desperate for a technical solution to what is a social and political problem. "This new tech will solve the climate crisis." Except it won't and we know what will- ending fossil fuel use, which is a social and political project, not technical one.

A top priority for the U.S. oil lobby in 2026 will be trying to put an end to state laws and lawsuits that could make fossil fuel companies pay billions for their role in the climate crisis. It was happening behind the scenes, but now it's officially laid out in API's new policy agenda:

Globally, no single day in 2025 was cooler than its 1991-2020 average. climate.copernicus.eu/global-clima...

Senator Warren's speech this morning on the future of the Democratic Party is no holds barred. From Epstein's pals in the halls of power to the billionaires trying to buy the media and former Senate colleagues who sold out, Warren and took aim at those holding the party back

Scoop: The EPA will no longer estimate the lives saved by reducing air pollution when writing clean-air regulations, according to documents reviewed by @nytimes.com. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/c...

NEW: Revolving Door Project and 11 other organizations sent a letter to House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries expressing concern about his selection of co-chairs with ties to Big Tech for the new House Democratic Commission on AI and the Innovation Economy. www.axios.com/2026/01/08/d...

Trump’s wealth now directly linked to AI and data centers using more power and driving up our bills. “The deal underscores a bet on the energy demands from AI and data centers and the technologies that could prevail. TAE's backers include tech giant Google, Goldman Sachs, and oil major Chevron.”

"a cast of Trump’s lesser-known political appointees and DOGE operatives cut programs in ways that guaranteed widespread harm and death in some of the world’s most desperate situations...In some cases...by clicking through a spreadsheet or ignoring requests." www.propublica.org/article/usai...

The President has gotten very comfortable admitting that his policies are dictated by the powerful companies that stand to benefit.

NEW: Last year we found the acceptable level of exposure to formaldehyde set by the EPA left people at risk for cancer. Now the Trump administration has roughly doubled it www.propublica.org/article/epa-...

We're hiring a research intern! If you're interested in monitoring corporate influence on and within the federal government, oversight of state and federal disaster response infrastructure, ethics, and accountability in government, apply by January 9, 2026. Learn more:

The impact of the destruction of USAID is so wide-ranging. We got a field report from one of the poorest states in India, where foreign aid funded "TB champions" who educate and assist tuberculosis patients. Without their help, advocates expect a 36% increase in cases & 68% rise in deaths from TB.

Wrote about the need to loudly assert what we decide has value as "the onslaught of generative AI, which seeks to replace human capabilities—thought, connection, problem-solving, creativity—drives home that corporations have no intrinsic commitment to upholding the value of human life and labor."