Around the table: featuring more garden-variety Congressional corruption.

Surprise, surprise, Business Insider finds nearly 50 Congressfolk have violated the STOCK Act -- law and order, people! -- while almost 75 held stocks in the three big COVID vaccine-manufacturing corporations in 2020, over a dozen have invested in big defense contracting corporations, and another dozen or so Democrats who pride themselves on their greenness have invested in big fossil fuel corporations. In order to influence these corporations' decision-making toward the good? I kid, of course -- you and I might more credibly make that claim than the people we charge with policing these corporations. Searchable database coming Friday, apparently.

From Mike Ludwig at TruthOut we learn that the third-biggest source of methane emissions in America (after fossil fuel and agricultural operations) is the American landfill, and not even our EPA can tell us how much methane our landfills belch forth. Which is to say, their way of measuring landfill emissions is two decades old and doesn't actually measure emissions at the source. The good news? Our laws mandate that our EPA review its emissions-measuring model (and update it as need be) every three years, but guess which American President didn't bother complying with the law? That means a forthcoming lawsuit will likely force our EPA's hand here. Also too, the Biden Administration has committed to fighting environmental racism, and most landfills are guess where? Near Black and Brown neighborhoods, of course. You probably didn't really need to guess.

The New York Times finds that some of the worst of the internet lies can be found in politicians' fund-raising emails, but I have to say I was taken aback by the news that Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) sent out a fundraising email saying the Build Back Better Act has Medicare-for-All in it. Maybe right-wing media have trained some of his constituents well enough to have a stroke when they read the words "Medicare for All," but, ah, is he aware how broadly popular Medicare-for-All is with conservatives and liberals? All I'm saying it that particular untruth might have backfired on him, which, sadly, makes it the exception to the rule. (As an aside: if Republicans are going to fundraise off the lie that our Justice Department wants to "label parents terrorists," when are Democrats going to fundraise off the actual death threats spewed forth by some of these parents?)

Ho hum, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) approves of federal disaster aid for Kentucky after tornadoes devastated the state, after a decade of opposing federal disaster relief for other states. I was about to say "so he'll respond by saying he always opposed deficit disaster relief those other times and not the principle of federal disaster relief," but his spokeshack's statement to Newsweek didn't even try that, instead saying leave us alone, we're suffering and grieving today. And, you know, I'm willing to discuss taking the money from somewhere else! Somehow I think Mr. Paul would oppose taking it from corporate welfare tax breaks, though.

The headline reads "Trump Says Netanyahu 'Never Wanted Peace' With the Palestinians," but the article (based on an interview with Mr. Trump) actually goes rather deeper than that: Mr. Trump apparently liked both Mahmoud Abbas and Benny Gantz, and really, really didn't like Mr. Netanyahu's attempts to annex even more of Palestine in early 2020, though if you were tempted to call no-shit-Sherlock on his claim that Mr. Netanyahu was just "tap(ping) us along," I wouldn't blame you. And though my initial reaction to the headline was "I think he's right!", my next reaction was "then why did you enable him?" History may yet record that Mr. Trump was little-if-any worse than the last five or so U.S. Presidents on Israel/Palestine policy, though that's a hell of a thing to bring to the Pearly Gates.

Finally, a right-wing pollster puts out a poll finding that two-thirds of West Virginians oppose the Build Back Better act, but I doubt Joe Manchin has been "listening" to that finding so much as rejoicing that all his hard work linking the Build Back Better Act to inflation has finally paid off! Just a few months ago 70% of West Virginians approved of the Build Back Better Act; I'd still trust that finding more than this one, since that one wasn't created by two months of media hysteria over inflation (and flew in the face of general negative or non-coverage from our "liberal" media). Also, too, most West Virginians like paid family medical leave; I wonder how they feel about the fact that their senior Senator killed it.