Stay Outa The Rain

Great - now we're learning that we've fucked up the planet to the point that even the rain is trying to kill us off.

EcoWatch:

Most Rainwater on Earth Contains PFAS Exceeding Safe Levels, Study Finds

New research from Stockholm University shows that PFAS in rainwater around the world are exceeding safe levels. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are chemical pollutants, often called “forever chemicals” present in many everyday items, like food packaging and clothing. The chemicals leach into the environment, affecting everything from the air we breathe to even rainfall.

The study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, tested four selected perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs): perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorohexanesulfonic acid (PFHxS), and perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) in rainwater, soil, and surface waters in different locations globally.

The researchers concluded that PFOA and PFOS levels in rainwater “greatly exceed” the Lifetime Drinking Water Health Advisory levels from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The study also noted that all four of the tested PFAAs in rainwater were often above the Danish drinking water limits, and PFOS levels were usually higher than the Environmental Quality Standard for Inland European Union Surface Water.

Rainwater wasn’t the only problem, either. “Atmospheric deposition also leads to global soils being ubiquitously contaminated and to be often above proposed Dutch guideline values,” the study said.

As such, the authors said there is really no way to avoid these chemicals on Earth anymore.

“We argue here that we’re not within this safe operating space anymore, because we now have these chemicals everywhere, and these safety advisories, we can’t achieve them anymore,” said Ian Cousins, lead author of the study and professor at Stockholm University. “I’m not saying that we’re all going to die of these effects. But we’re in a place now where you can’t live anywhere on the planet, and be sure that the environment is safe.”

PFAS earned the name “forever chemicals” due to their inability to break down in the environment. The CDC noted that these pollutants move through soils and waters in the environment and can bioaccumulate in wildlife. Humans can also breathe in PFAS, and the pollutants can also get into the bloodstream.

While more studies on the effects of PFAS on human health are needed, existing studies suggest there could be links between “forever chemicals” and certain types of cancer, reproductivity issues and developmental delays.

Scientists are concerned that the increasing amounts of PFAS in drinking water could show an increase in health complications in the future, though.

“In this background rain, the levels are higher than those environmental quality criteria already. So that means that over time, we are going to get a statistically significant impact of those chemicals on human health,” Crispin Halsall, a professor at the University of Lancaster who was not involved with the study, told the BBC. “And how that will manifest itself? I’m not sure but it’s going come out over time, because we’re exceeding those concentrations which are going to cause some harm, because of exposure to humans in their drinking water.”

Some governments are creating more relaxed PFAS limits as well. With the prominence of PFAS, strict limits on PFAS levels have halted construction projects, leading some places to loosen the guidelines to avoid impacting economic activities.

The other option is to remove these pervasive pollutants from water and soil. Current methods of removing PFAS are expensive, although some scientists are developing sustainable, low-cost ways to remove PFAS from the environment.

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Also EcoWatch:

Scientists Develop New Material to Clean Up Forever Chemicals

Researchers from Texas A&M AgriLife of Texas A&M University have developed a new bioremediation technology using plant-based material and fungi that could take care of cleaning up per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. These pollutants, also called “forever chemicals” or PFAS, are found in soil, water, and even human and animal blood and may be harmful to humans and other species.

PFAS are found just about everywhere, from food wrappers and dental floss to clothing and electrical wire insulation. While more research is needed on health implications from PFAS exposure, the CDC notes that these chemicals may affect development, reproduction and the immune system and may cause liver damage. Extremely high exposures of PFAS may also be linked to cancer.

“PFAS do not degrade easily in the environment and are toxic even at trace level concentrations,” said Susie Dai, associate professor in the Texas A&M Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology. “They must be removed and destroyed to prevent human exposure and negative impacts on the ecosystem. PFAS are so stable because they are composed of a chain of carbon and fluorine atoms linked together, and the carbon-fluorine bond is one of the strongest chemical bonds. They can occur in water at a very low concentration and you have to concentrate them and then destroy them.”

The only way to actually get rid of these “forever chemicals” is by burning them, which is a lengthy and expensive process. After incineration, other products, like active carbon, are used to finally clean up the PFAS.

But Texas A&M researchers have found a new way to use a plant-based material that adsorbs the pollutants. As explained by ScienceDirect, adsorption is “The use of solids for removing substances from either gaseous or liquid solutions.” The adsorbent material is then consumed by microbial fungi. The team recently published their findings for the process framework, which they call Renewable Artificial Plant for In-situ Microbial Environmental Remediation (RAPIMER), in Nature.

“The plant’s cell wall material serves as a framework to adsorb the PFAS,” Dai explained. “Then this material and the adsorbed chemical serve as food for a microbial fungus. The fungus eats it, it’s gone, and you don’t have the disposal problem. Basically, the fungus is doing the detoxification process.”

This sustainable PFAS clean-up system could scale for commercial use, leading to a better way to remove these chemical pollutants from the environment. It could also come in handy as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers creating PFAS thresholds to its water quality standards, which will require municipal water treatment plants to find cost-effective solutions to monitor and remove PFAS from the water if necessary.

Today's GIF

Please don't make me calculate the odds on this one.

Time For An Oldie

We are a species that's survived because we got very very good at pattern recognition.

And of course, eventually some asshole politician figured out how to manipulate us because of it.

Michael Schermer from about 9 years ago.

Today's Glenn

From Kirschner's lips to god's ear.

Glenn Kirschner breaks it down. He's betting his max that Trump's lieutenants are going to do some time in a federal lockup, and the only thing that might shorten their terms is how completely they roll over on Trump.

If Glenn turns out to right, I'll go out on a limb and say we'll see at least a couple of suicides.

They may even be legit.

Worst "POTUS" Ever

There's no intro for this. I can't. I Just fucking can't.

Insider:

Trump had the chance to kill Al Qaeda's leader but didn't because he didn't recognize the name, report says

President Donald Trump had the chance to kill the leader of Al Qaeda but didn't because he didn't recognize the terrorist leader's name, NBC News reported in 2020.

Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday, President Joe Biden announced Monday.

His death, which has been praised by many world leaders, is the biggest blow to Al Qaeda since its founder, Osama bin Laden, was killed by US Navy SEALs in 2011.

But plans for al-Zawahiri's execution could have been carried out far earlier, according to an NBC News report published in February 2020.

Intelligence officials briefed Trump many times about senior terrorist figures the CIA wanted to track down and kill, mentioning al-Zawahiri, NBC News reported.

Two people familiar with the briefings told NBC News that Trump chose not to pursue al-Zawahiri because he didn't recognize his name and instead suggested targeting bin Laden's son, Hamza bin Laden.

"He would say, 'I've never heard of any of these people. What about Hamza bin Laden?'" one unnamed former official told NBC News.

A Pentagon official also told the news outlet: "That was the only name he knew."

The Department of Defense and a spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

Even though bin Laden's son was widely seen as an emerging figure in the terrorist group, he was not believed to be planning any attacks at the time, NBC News reported.
'The president's preference for a "celebrity" targeted killing'

Trump confirmed in 2019 that the younger bin Laden had been killed in a US counterterrorism operation earlier on in his presidency.

"Despite intelligence assessments showing the greater dangers posed by Zawahiri, as well as his Iran-based lieutenants al-Masri and Saif al-Adil, and the unlikelihood Hamza was in the immediate line of succession, the president thought differently," the former CIA official Douglas London wrote in Just Security in 2020.

He added that Trump's "obsession" with bin Laden's son "is one example of the president's preference for a 'celebrity' targeted killing versus prioritizing options that could prove better for US security."

It's The Climate Change, Stupid

The US has seen three Once-In-A-Thousand-Years rain storms in the last 7 or 8 days.

Three of 'em.

I wonder if anybody's keeping track of how many of these we've see in recent years, and whether or not we can get a reasonable guess as to what we can expect - other than the usual "this is going to get worse".

So can we expect Republicans to get on board now? Or will they try to kick it around one more time- hoping to continue their political "success" by sitting on their asses bitchin' about wind mills and the price of electric cars, and taking every opportunity to block the actions that would help? The actions which btw, they've been actively sabotaging for 30 years - which, had they not been sabotaging every attempt, would be in place now making things just a tiny bit better.

It was pointed out years ago that Climate Change could be the perfect driver that causes such global upheaval that a situation is created to facilitate the movement towards authoritarianism.

Seems like we're watching that shit happen in real time right now.

WaPo: (pay wall)

More than 10 inches of rain falls in Illinois, another exceptional deluge

If it seems like a barrage of extreme rain events has been wreaking havoc across the country over the past week, you’re not imagining things. The latest resulted from an overnight deluge in central and southeastern Illinois, with some areas registering 8 to 12 inches of rain in less than 12 hours.

10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint

It’s the third 1-in-1,000-year rain event in the Lower 48 states in about a week.

The National Weather Service office in Lincoln, Ill., has received about 20 reports of flooding, mostly due to water inundating roads and intersections. Television affiliate WAND in Decatur, which is about 35 miles east of Springfield, reported cars submerged in high water with emergency crews involved in rescues. Minor flooding of several rivers has also occurred.

Flash-flood warnings have affected a large swath of central and southern Illinois from around Springfield to southeast of Effingham. That’s where months’ worth of rain has fallen because of a parade of thunderstorms. Many of them were “training” or repeatedly moving over the same neighborhoods.

Even after the overnight downpours, storms appeared once again around sunrise Tuesday morning, drifting back over hard-hit areas that bore the brunt of the nocturnal drenching. It continued raining in the region through midday, with flash-flood warnings extending into the afternoon. It’s probable some areas will see rainfall totals surpass a foot.

“We’re still kind of waiting to hear on reports from some of the heaviest-hit areas, but based on radar estimates, we are seeing amounts of 8 to 12 inches across Jasper County, Ill.,” said Alex Erwin, a meteorologist at the Weather Service in Lincoln. “Late last night, before midnight, we received a seven-inch report from West Liberty in Jasper County, as well as a 5.5-inch report near Dundas in Richland County.”

Erwin said rainfall rates reached at least 2 inches per hour at times.

A dangerous combination of ingredients

The stalled front responsible for the torrent in southern Illinois on Monday night into Tuesday is the same one that produced flooding in St. Louis and eastern Kentucky last week. The former saw its wettest day on record a week ago; the latter faced disastrous flooding Wednesday night; at least 37 people were killed.

Ahead of Monday night’s storms in Illinois, forecasts called for damaging winds, hail and the chance of an isolated tornado in the Midwest and Ohio Valley. At least one tornado did touch down from the same string of storms to the east near the West Virginia-Pennsylvania border.

Beneficial rainfall was mentioned ahead of the deluge by the Weather Service office in Lincoln, but a flood threat was not highlighted in its afternoon forecast discussion. “It could be a nice rainmaker for us in central Illinois, with [total precipitation] values ranging from a few tenths, while localized values could exceed an inch,” the office wrote.

However, stalled fronts can prove notoriously tricky for forecasters, the clashing air masses and convergence, or gathering of air, serving as a focal mechanism for storminess. To the south of the boundary, atmospheric moisture was pooling; a measure of that — known as precipitable water — climbing to around 2 inches.

It’s worth noting that precipitable water isn’t a limit to how much rain can fall, especially in situations where the moisture is continually being replenished by the wind flow. It’s akin to wringing a waterlogged washcloth into a bucket. Even though the washcloth can only carry a finite amount of water, if you keep wringing it out and then getting it wet again, eventually that bucket can overflow.

The moisture collected on the stalled front, which sat atop a heat dome sprawled over the southern United States. It was pumped northward into the area by a zone of high pressure offshore the Southeast United States.

How corn fields are about to make the Midwest unbearably humid

Monday night’s event fits into a pattern of ultrarare high-end rain events that have struck the United States in the past week. What happened in St. Louis and Kentucky both fall under the umbrella of 1,000-year rain events, meaning the amount of rain that fell during such a short window would have only a 0.1 percent chance of happening any year.

Similarly, Weather Service precipitation frequency charts for the zone southeast of Springfield, Ill., indicate that the foot of rain that fell in less than 12 hours from this event constitutes another 1,000-year event.

Human-caused climate change is likely playing a role in amplifying the severity and frequency of heavy rainfall events. For every degree Fahrenheit the air temperature increases, the atmosphere can hold about 4 percent more water. That disproportionately tilts the scales toward more exceptional events, and episodes like which have occurred in the past seven days will become more routine.

While there have been numerous reports of flooding in Illinois, it has not been as severe as in St. Louis and eastern Kentucky. In St. Louis, the large amount of paved surfaces meant the water had few places to go and overwhelmed drainage systems, while the steep terrain of eastern Kentucky diverted vast amounts of water into vulnerable valleys. In southeast Illinois, the terrain is relatively flat and unpaved, and thus able to absorb more water.

COVID-19 Update

World

Cases:  579,037,848

Deaths:    6,404,552

USA

Cases:  91,558,112

Deaths:   1,030,796

WaPo: (freebie)

When you have covid, here’s how you know you are no longer contagious

You’ve got covid-19. When can you exit isolation? If you do resume activities outside your home, can you be sure you’re no longer contagious?

It’s complicated. Be forewarned: Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are nuanced but a little confusing.

Those guidelines are under review and may change. Several infectious-disease experts said they believe patients with covid should have a negative antigen test — which gives results within minutes — before exiting isolation. The CDC currently leaves that as an option and does not explicitly recommend it.

The important thing to consider, experts say, is that every person and every case of covid is unique. There is no hard-and-fast rule for how sick a person will get or how long a person remains infectious. The guidelines offer a general framework, but patients should take into account their different circumstances, priorities and resources to assess risk.

How long should I isolate if I have covid?

The coronavirus has the tricky feature of being transmissible even before the infected person has symptoms. In general, the peak period of virus shedding starts about a day or two before symptoms appear and continues two or three days after.

Even though a person is less likely to transmit the virus later in the course of illness, it’s still possible. Research shows that people continue to shed virus that can be cultured in a laboratory — a good test of the potential to pass along the virus — for about eight days on average after testing positive.

Experts say it is very unlikely to pass along the virus after 10 days even if a person still is testing positive.

The CDC calls for patients to isolate for at least five days. On Day 6, you can end isolation as long as your symptoms have improved and you have been fever-free for at least 24 hours without taking fever-reducing medicine. The CDC has a calculator on its isolation and quarantine webpage to help people figure this out.


A potentially confusing point: Day 1 of your isolation, according to the CDC, is the day after you start feeling symptoms or test positive. (So, if you have a sore throat on Monday afternoon, that is Day 0 and Tuesday is Day 1.)

Even if you test negative, wear a well-fitting mask through Day 10 if you must be around others at home or in public. Don’t travel.

If you decide to take a rapid at-home test several days into your infection, the best approach is to use it toward the end of the five-day period, the CDC says.

If it is positive after the five-day isolation period, you should continue to isolate for a full 10 days, according to the agency guidelines.

Wait. Shouldn’t I test negative on a rapid test before leaving isolation?

The CDC guidance on this is confusing. It does not explicitly recommend that you have a negative test to end isolation.

But many experts think rapid at-home tests, also known as antigen tests, should be used to exit isolation.

That’s what happened with President Biden, who tested negative twice before leaving isolation. (Biden, who was taking the antiviral Paxlovid, experienced a “rebound” infection, testing positive Saturday, and went back into isolation.) Also, experts point out that rapid tests are more readily available than last December, when the CDC released this guidance.

“Given that a substantial portion of people do have a rapid positive test after five days, I think an updated recommendation should include people having a negative rapid test before coming out of isolation for covid,” Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said in an email. He was the Biden administration’s senior adviser on testing from December until April.

“A negative antigen test is fairly reassuring that you are not able to transmit infection to other people anymore,” said Amy Barczak, an infectious-diseases expert at Massachusetts General Hospital who has researched how long patients with covid can shed virus. In a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, she and colleagues found that, on average, people infected with the omicron variant of the virus can shed virus that can be grown in a lab for eight days.

‘Rebound’ coronavirus cases: What to know after Biden tests positive again

Should I repeat the rapid test if it is negative?

Barczak says that for healthy people, if you test negative on a rapid antigen test on or after Day 5, “you are unlikely to be contagious to other people.”

For people with special concerns about passing along the virus, an extra test is not a bad idea. In symptomatic people, clinicians sometimes recommend a second rapid test to be sure. Biden, for example, tested negative last Tuesday evening, and again Wednesday morning, before leaving isolation.

Michael Mina, a former Harvard University infectious-disease epidemiologist and immunologist who is an expert on rapid tests, said two tests 24 hours apart might provide extra security, like a double lock on your door. If people have access to tests, then “two tests in a row is just better form, better protection, than one negative test.”

When should you take a PCR test vs. a rapid at-home test?

A PCR test, a type of molecular test, looks for the virus’s genetic material. The tests can detect even the tiniest amounts of virus, before you have enough in your body to spread it to other people. They are more useful early on as a confirmatory test to see if you are sick with covid but are not useful to determine whether you are infectious to others, said Albert Ko, an epidemiologist and infectious-diseases physician at Yale University.

If you develop covid-like symptoms, the CDC recommends that you get tested immediately. A negative PCR test in a symptomatic person means it’s highly unlikely you have covid.

If you had close contact with someone with covid and then tested negative with a rapid test, you might want to get further assurance that you aren’t infected. In that case, you can take a PCR test, Ko said. Most PCR tests must be analyzed by a lab, and results can take a few days.

A PCR test after you’ve been sick is not really practical, because “for the average healthy person, the PCR test is going to stay positive for longer than they’re actually infectious,” Barczak said.

Rapid antigen tests are more practical than PCR tests for determining quickly whether you are capable of transmitting the virus. If you’re symptomatic, an antigen test will be more reliable, because your body is putting out a lot more virus to detect. But even without symptoms, people can test positive on a rapid antigen test and be a risk to others. Most at-home tests provide results in 10 to 20 minutes using samples collected with a nasal swab.

Because rapid tests provide results quickly and are essentially contagiousness tests, people should use them — even if they feel fine and have no symptoms — right before they plan to attend indoor events or large gatherings, especially if they expect to be around people more vulnerable to covid, including those with weak immune systems or others at higher risk of getting infected.

Today's Tweet

Dark money and billionaires in the shadows.

Anonymous right-wing special interests spent millions to put their Federalist Society justices on the Supreme Court. Who wrote those massive checks?

If they have business before the Court, can we really expect the justices will be impartial?

— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) August 1, 2022

A New High In GOP Lows

I think it's a real safe bet to say there's no such thing as Peak Republican. They will always always always find a way to get worse.

Say one thing in public to keep the rubes amped up and sending in their nickels and dimes, but then turn around and tell the truth in private.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Memo shows Wis. GOP lawyer privately opposed decertifying Biden’s 2020 win

Former state Supreme Court justice Michael Gableman had publicly called on lawmakers to take a ‘hard look’ at revoking the state’s electoral votes

It was an extraordinary public statement from a former state Supreme Court justice hired by Republican lawmakers to probe the 2020 election: Wisconsin should take a “hard look” at canceling Joe Biden’s victory and revoking the state’s 10 electoral college votes.

The comment in March drew applause from a packed hearing room in the state Capitol and praise from former president Donald Trump, whose allies have called for throwing out the results in Wisconsin and other battleground states even though constitutional scholars have scoffed at the notion as absurd.

But a newly unearthed memo shows that the former justice, Michael Gableman, soon afterward offered a far different analysis in private.

“While decertification of the 2020 presidential election is theoretically possible, it is unprecedented and raises numerous substantial constitutional issues that would be difficult to resolve. Thus, the legal obstacles to its accomplishment render such an outcome a practical impossibility,” Gableman wrote to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.

The contrasting public and private messages offer a glimpse into the dueling pressures facing Republicans in Wisconsin as they struggle to balance Trump’s baseless demands for reversing the election with the legal and political realities on the ground. With competitive races this year for governor and U.S. Senate, the party is seeking to excite Trump’s base, which is largely supportive of calls to revoke Biden’s win, while not alienating centrist voters turned off by the inability of some to let go of 2020.

Gableman and a spokeswoman for Vos offered no comment on the memo.

The move for decertification is not quieting in Wisconsin and in some ways has picked up steam, even as legal experts treat the notion with scorn.

State Rep. Tim Ramthun (R) is running for governor on a decertification platform, and last month he persuaded two other lawmakers to sign onto his plan after the state Supreme Court ruled ballot drop boxes can’t be used in future elections. One of them was Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R), the chairwoman of the state assembly’s elections committee.

Gableman’s memo was released under the state’s open records law to the liberal watchdog group American Oversight, which shared it with The Washington Post.

Heather Sawyer, the group’s executive director, in a statement called decertification “a fiction designed to advance conspiracy theories and undermine confidence in our democracy.”

Recounts and court rulings upheld Biden’s victory in Wisconsin and independent reviews found no widespread fraud. Nonetheless, some Republicans contended the election was flawed because of changes election officials made during the coronavirus pandemic. They greatly expanded the use of ballot drop boxes, changed voting rules in nursing homes and accepted donations from the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life.

Facing pressure from Trump and grass-roots Republicans, Vos last year hired Gableman to conduct a review of the election. He made the announcement at the state Republican Party’s annual convention a day after Trump issued a statement claiming Vos and other GOP leaders were “working hard to cover up election corruption.”

Gableman, who claimed without evidence before he was hired that the election had been stolen, uncovered few new details about how the election was conducted. Instead, he incorporated the work of others to contend the results were questionable.

On March 1, Gableman issued a report and appeared before the Assembly’s elections committee to urge them to consider decertifying the election.

Vos was blindsided by Gableman telling lawmakers there were “very significant grounds” for decertification. Gableman had given Vos a draft of his report before he released it publicly, but the version he provided him didn’t include the section on decertification.

The report electrified election skeptics, who pressed Vos to take up decertification.

Their push led to Vos meeting privately two weeks later with John Eastman, the constitutional lawyer who advised Trump that Vice President Mike Pence could delay Biden’s certification on Jan. 6, 2021.

After his meeting with Eastman, Vos held fast to his view that decertification is impossible and called for defeating Gov. Tony Evers (D) in this year’s election. Evers has vetoed legislation to overhaul how elections are run. The three Republicans seeking to replace him — Ramthun, former lieutenant governor Rebecca Kleefisch and businessman Tim Michels — have promised to sign those bills if elected.

Some Republicans have not abided Vos’s stance on decertification. Vos faces a challenge in the Aug. 9 primary from Adam Steen, a candidate whom Trump said Sunday he might endorse.

“Robin Vos is sooo bad for the Great State of Wisconsin that I am seriously thinking of Supporting and ENDORSING his Opponent. Anyone would be better! STAY TUNED!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

The same day Vos met with Eastman, Gableman sent him his follow-up memo on decertification. In it, Gableman continued to maintain lawmakers have the legal authority to decertify elections but now argued they should abandon the idea because they don’t have the time or resources to pursue it.

Inevitable legal challenges would not be resolved by courts until after the 2024 presidential election, rendering any attempt to decertify the 2020 results “practically irrelevant,” Gableman wrote.

“The absence of precedent would require the legislature to ‘make it up as it goes along,’ as it considers the substantive question,” he wrote. “This will be tied up in court for years and will virtually paralyze the Legislature in terms of all other business and there is no possibility that anything will be achieved other than a de facto full employment program for election law lawyers.”

Vos and another legislative leader said Gableman had walked away from trying to decertify the election in a private meeting with them in May. The memo shows Gableman tossed aside the notion even earlier and for the first time spells out his rationale for giving up on it.

“My best advice to anyone whose paramount concern is ensuring fair, honest, and transparent elections in Wisconsin is to set aside any impulse to waste finite time, effort, and energy in pursuit of an end that, like Macbeth’s ruminations are, ‘full of sound and fury, signifying’ at best a symbolic result,” Gableman wrote.

Gableman’s review has moved slowly, in part because Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) sued him after he tried to interview public officials in secret. Gableman has brought his own lawsuit to try to jail election officials and three mayors who he argues have not complied with his demands. Those officials say they have cooperated with Gableman but believe any testimony they give should be made in public before a legislative committee.

Vos put Gableman’s review on hold in May while those two lawsuits, as well as four public records lawsuits brought by American Oversight, play out. Gableman’s probe has cost Wisconsin taxpayers more than $1 million.

The records lawsuits have gone poorly for Vos. In a pair of rulings on Friday and Monday, two judges ordered the state to pay about $260,000 in legal fees to American Oversight because the Assembly had not produced records it should have.

Today's Quote

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time, they create for themselves a system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.  -- Frédéric Bastiat