I'll start today with two activities in this second lame duck day of the House. Impeachment of Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegsmeth . Resolution filed by Kentucky Republican Rep Thomas Massie yesterday. Usually, the House would refer this matter to the Judiciary Committee for consideration, which could take weeks to investigate and debate. However, Massie brought it up as a question of privileges, which forces the House to vote within two days. Remember, Massie lost his primary to a candidate hand-picked by President Donald Trump. So far, Trump has stood behind Hegseth, posting on Truth Social on Nov. 9 that Hegseth gets an "'A' PLUS, PLUS, PLUS for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated, former Congressman," going on to call Massie a "total loser." Procedural vote will occur today at 5:30PM ET. If this motion to block or refer the resolution is defeated, the House can proceed to debate and vote later today. Chances are that this ...
There will be a focus on the environment today for two reasons. I'll be appearing on a podcast that wonders why you never hear much about global warming and clean energy anymore. This general subject matter was totally ignored as an issue in the recent mid-term elections. However, this article says climate was a factor. What should the new Democratic Congress do about the environment? Appropriately enough, the United Nations climate summit, known this year as the Conference of the Parties 31 , began meeting today in Antalya, Turkey. What is the Conference of the Parties? It is the supreme governing body of an international treaty Consists of 197 countries plus the European Union. There are 27 nations in the EU. The first gathering, COP 1, was held in Germany in 1995. A key summit was the 1997 COP 3 in Kyoto, Japan, where the Kyoto Protocol was signed. And I was there for that gathering. Agreement was reached for key nations to reduce greenhouse gas e...