Contraceptives? Oh, No, They Don’t Work.

In this March 21, 2017, file photo, President Donald Trump, followed by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, leaves Capitol Hill Washington after rallying support for the Republican health care overhaul with GOP lawmakers. CREDIT: AP/J. Scott Applewhite.

Here’s one for the How Much Can We Fuck Women Up files. Teresa Manning has been tapped to be Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services. She’ll be responsible for administering federal Title X family planning funds. The problem? Not only is Ms. Manning rabidly anti-choice, she’s a contraception denier. She doesn’t think anyone needs contraception. I really didn’t think anything else today could make my bad mood worse, was I ever wrong.

Manning is currently listed as deputy assistant secretary for the office in the HHS staff directory.

Manning has worked for the National Right to Life Committee and Family Research Council. She has a long history of making inaccurate statements about contraception, like saying that it doesn’t work, and falsely claimed there was a link between breast cancer and abortion, according to Mic.

In 2001, when Manning worked for the Family Research Council, which has fiercely opposed LGBTQ rights, she said that it was “immoral” and “medically irresponsible” to ensure that women can buy emergency contraceptives over the counter.

Part of Manning’s role is to administer $286 million in federal Title X family planning funds, which benefit low-income populations. Title X is a competitive federal grant program that provides family planning and other health services to an estimated four million low-income uninsured and underinsured people each year. Providers have to demonstrate a capacity to meet needs in community before receiving funds.

Manning would have a role in setting national policy on issues of family planning and contraception and advises the secretary and assistant secretary for the department on a “wide range of reproductive health issues,” according to the HHS website.

[…]

Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, released a statement on the appointment.

“It is a cruel irony to appoint an opponent of birth control to oversee the nation’s only federal program dedicated to family planning,” Laguens stated. “We are at the lowest rate of unintended pregnancy in 30 years and a historic low for teen pregnancy because of access to birth control. Someone who promotes myths about birth control and reproductive care should not be in charge of the office that is responsible for family planning at HHS.”

Think Progress has the full bad news.

A Legion of Dictator Superheroes and A Good Shutdown!

Spider-Gwen.

Today’s round-up of awful. More people are bringing up the Tiny Tyrant’s mental state, and it’s not any sort of shady speculation, this is not something we can afford to ignore, and I’m past tired of all the left-sided prim of “you can’t do that, it’s not nice.” It’s not nice, or healthy to have an unstable wannabe tyrant in charge of the country, with access to military and nuclear weapons, either. Trump’s narcissism is bad enough, but his continued disconnected rambling, temper flare-ups, and decision making based on whims in increasing, and it continues to be clear that exactly no one has a leash on the Tiny Tyrant. Trump admires Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’ for fuck’s sake. Wake up.

Howard Fineman said President Donald Trump seems to be under the impression that he can meet with the world’s worst dictators and “cut a deal” with them like it was a business transaction.

On a day when Trump said he would be “honored” to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un –and a day after he extended an invitation to Philippines strongman Rodrigo Duterte to visit the White House — Fineman said that Trump thinks dealing with dictators is like making a real estate deal.

“Donald Trump is analogizing world affairs to a real estate deal in New York,” Fineman explained. “He’s trying to get everybody in the room, however much he dislikes them, however much it’s like the unions he didn’t like or politics he had to donate to or whatever, and he’s creating in his own mind a legion of dictator superheroes of some kind because he thinks it’s a jungle out there.”

“He was put off by what he regarded as Barack Obama’s overweening idealism and he’s going to go in just the opposite direction and he will literally go to every bad actor in the world,” Fineman continued. “He thinks he’s creating — will get all the bad guys in the room at the same time and somehow cut a deal. I think that’s his mentality.”

Fineman has a very good point here. That point is validated by the fact that Trump is up to his neck in a lucrative deal with Duterte in the Phillipines, so why wouldn’t Trump view everything in terms of business which is good for him? He has no interest in what is good for America, let alone the rest of the world. I don’t think Trump is even capable of understanding the world as a connected, cohesive whole. He only sees one bit at a time, and primarily those bits which can make him money. Full Story Here.

Politico has an in-depth look at the interviews, and the sheer amount of WTFuckery involved:

President Donald Trump questioned why the Civil War— which erupted 150 years ago over slavery — needed to happen. He said he would be “honored” to meet with Kim Jong-Un, the violent North Korean dictator who is developing nuclear missiles and oppresses his people, under the “right circumstances.”

The president floated, and backed away from, a tax on gasoline. Trump said he was “looking at” breaking up the big banks, sending the stock market sliding. He seemed to praise Philippines strongman President Rodrigo Duterte for his high approval ratings. He promised changes to the Republican health care bill, though he has seemed unsure what was in the legislation, even as his advisers whipped votes for it.

And Monday still had nine hours to go.

“It seems to be among the most bizarre recent 24 hours in American presidential history,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian. “It was all just surreal disarray and a confused mental state from the president.”

The interviews — published by Bloomberg, Face the Nation and the SiriusXM radio network — seemed timed to the president’s 100-day mark but contained a dizzying amount of news, even for a president who often makes news in stream-of-consciousness comments. Trump’s advisers have at times tried to curb his media appearances, worried he will step on his message. “They were not helpful to us,” one senior administration official said. “There was no point to do all of them.”

White House officials said privately there was no broader strategy behind the interviews. GOP strategists and Capitol Hill aides were puzzled by it all. “I have no idea what they view as a successful media hit,” said one senior GOP consultant with close ties to the administration. “He just seemed to go crazy today,” a senior GOP aide said.

Full Story Here.

And if all that isn’t worrying enough, the Fucking Idiot wants a shutdown, so he can change the rules of democracy. Wheeeeeee, you havin’ fun yet?

President Trump on Tuesday called for a “good shutdown” in September to fix the “mess” in government.

He also expressed frustration that legislation needs 60 votes in the Senate because of the filibuster, saying it would be necessary to elect more Republicans or “change the rules.”

“The reason for the plan negotiated between the Republicans and Democrats is that we need 60 votes in the Senate which are not there! We … either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good “shutdown” in September to fix mess!” he wrote in a series of tweets.

Full Story and Tweets Here.

Trump Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About. Shocker.

Donald Trump (CPAC)

Oh here’s a big ol’ shocker – the Tiny Tyrant is running his mouth without the slightest hint of knowledge behind it. Mr. Tweet had a Twitter frenzy this morning, screeching out “Obamacare is dead!” and other shite. He kept spewing shit in an interview, making it as plain as could be that he doesn’t have the slightest idea of what comprises his “great new healthcare plan”. Fucking idiot.

In an interview with Face The Nation’s John Dickerson that aired Sunday, it appeared that President Donald Trump did not fully understand what was in the latest version of the Republican health care bill.

When Dickerson pushed Trump to acknowledge why there are critics of the bill, noting higher premiums for older people, Trump interrupted him to say that issue was fixed. Throughout the interview, Trump insisted that the latest version of the bill addressed all of the problems Dickerson mentioned, even though the bill has only become worse for low-income people, older people and people with pre-existing conditions.

When Dickerson asked Trump explain how higher premiums were “fixed” under the new health care bill, he didn’t have an answer.

Think Progress has the full story. Honestly, this level of incompetence should be an automatic disqualification.

Yeah, That Will Make Us Great.

Ahhh, the oh fucks are piling up again, a brief roundup…

Reveal News reported Friday that Trump plans to cut $60 million from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs, which fights child labor, human trafficking and slavery around the world.

“The preliminary budget of President Donald Trump’s administration would eliminate $60 million in grants from the bureau’s budget, calling them ‘largely noncompetitive and unproven,’” wrote Reveal News’ Jennifer Gollan. “It suggested that the agency instead focus its efforts ‘on ensuring that U.S. trade agreements are fair for American workers.’”

The cuts would cripple the government’s ability to monitor child exploitation around the world and potentially interfere with tenets of 13 separate trade agreements. Furthermore, the measures would ultimately have the opposite effect of what the president intends. By allowing other countries to exploit child workers and other laborers, U.S. workers will be put at a disadvantage for using fair labor practices.

Full story here. Exploiting children, that’s sure to make Amerikkka Great Again, right?

Moving on to Health and Human Services, the Tiny Tyrant has appointed a vicious anti-choice activist. Well, as we all know, women don’t count for shit, so this certainly won’t downgrade that greatness, right?

President Donald Trump has tapped a well-known anti-abortion activist, Charmaine Yoest, for the position of assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Yoest is a senior fellow at American Values, a conservative group that says it opposes a “culture of death,” and the former president of Americans United for Life. AUL’s work has been key to moving anti-abortion bills forward on the state level, since it claims to have offered state lawmakers 32 different kinds of anti-abortion model legislation, according to its website.

Full story here.

And because destruction in pursuit of oil will certainly make everything great again, fuck the land, fuck the oceans, fuck the arctic, and there’s no climate change, either!

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday that seeks to increase offshore oil drilling in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico, the Arctic Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The order leaves out the Pacific Ocean and Eastern Gulf regions.

During the signing ceremony on Friday, Trump emphasized that the order will open the Arctic for drilling.

“It reverses the previous administration’s Arctic leasing ban,” the president said. “So hear that: It reverses the previous administration’s Arctic leasing ban, and directs Secretary Zinke to allow responsible development of offshore areas that will bring revenue to our Treasury and jobs to our workers.”

President Barack Obama protected 98 percent of the Arctic Ocean from oil leasing in December 2016, under Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. The new order directs all areas protected as of July 2008 to be preserved, but anything else — including broad swaths of the Atlantic and Arctic — has been reopened.

Full story here.

The Tiny Tyrant spoke to the NRA, pledging his undying love and sucking up so damn hard, I’m amazed he didn’t swallow himself. Odd how weapons weren’t allowed at his little suck up session. Of course, what Amerikkka really needs to make it great are more guns, more, more, more! They are now sacred. Yep. There’s one lobby that will get whatever the fuck it wants. Way to drain the swamp there.  :Spits:

Trump pledged his allegiance to the powerful National Rifle Association, the country’s leading gun-rights advocacy group, at a convention attended by thousands. Elected in part on a law-and-order platform, Trump was the first sitting president to address the NRA since fellow Republican Ronald Reagan in 1983.

“As your president, I will never, ever infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” Trump told thousands of people attending the NRA’s annual convention in Atlanta, Georgia.

[…]

“You have a true friend and champion in the White House,” he said. “We want to assure you of the sacred right of self defense for all of our citizens.”

Full story here.

Sham and Stupidity.

We’ll start with the whole healthcare snarl, and the ongoing attempts at passing the Fuck You Care Plan. There are many obstacles to that vaunted repeal ‘n’ replace, a good many of them republicans, who are smart enough to realize that if they push for a repeal, their careers will be over. Easy enough to call just what will win in that scenario. Turns out, most politicians don’t, and didn’t want to do the repeal business, in spite of talking nonstop about it. A good many of them made noises about it, in order to secure elections, but they’d be happier if it all just faded away at this point. Byron York at The Washington Examiner has the full rundown.

Now, with a president who would sign an Obamacare repeal, there’s no way Republicans could get as many votes as last year.

“A pure repeal would get less than 200 votes,” said the second member quoted above. “It really is one of the biggest political shams in history — many of these members would not have been elected without promising repeal, and now they are wilting. Some are even complaining that [the Rep. Tom MacArthur amendment] pushes the bill too far right — even though is it far short of a full repeal.”

When repeal first failed last month, a number of commentators blamed the conservative House Freedom Caucus. In the days since, caucus members have made the case, convincingly, that they have shown an enormous amount of flexibility in trying to reach agreement with the Tuesday Group, made up of House GOP centrists.

Now, the centrists — a number of Republicans refer to them as “the mods,” for moderates — appear to be moving the goalposts, even as the conservatives offer concessions. Conservatives suspect the centrists were perfectly happy for conservatives to take the blame for killing the first bill, but now are showing their true colors by rejecting compromise on the second version. Whatever the circumstances, they don’t want to vote to repeal Obamacare.

The reason is fear. When the lawmaker said colleagues don’t want repeal “because of their district,” that was another way of saying the members are all representatives, and the voters they represent don’t want repeal. From The Hill on Thursday afternoon: “Many vulnerable Republicans are running scared. One moderate Republican was overheard in a House cafeteria this week telling an aide: ‘If I vote for this healthcare bill, it will be the end of my career.'”

Even among the more rabid contingent, King and Gohmert, et al., there’s an admission it most likely won’t happen. The Washington Examiner has the full story.

Moving on to another admission, about that stupid, fucking wall: “we know it’s dumb.”

The fact that few Republicans in the Capitol backed Trump’s strategy for the wall only strengthened Democrats’ resolve.

“Republicans in Congress don’t want the wall. And that is the most under-reported aspect of this whole skirmish,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). “Republicans in the leadership of both chambers actually hate that idea. They know it’s dumb.”

[…]

“The wall is broadly unpopular in the public. People would rather spend money on other priorities. And there’s unified Democratic opposition,” added Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “None of that changes in September.”

Politico has the full story.

One thing is more than clear: all the grass roots movements, all the protests, all the people demanding town halls, and showing up with questions? It’s working. Even the rethugs have gotten the message that in the current political climate, if you decide to ignore your constituents, your career isn’t going to flourish. Vive La Résistance!

Healthcare: A Congressional Exemption.

© nicolasjoseschirado, fotalia.

Rethuglicans are still hard at work, trying to figure out how to repeal the ACA, without working overly hard on the whole ‘replacement’ aspect. The more egregious parts of the repeal ‘n’ replace have kept some conservatives from getting on board, but Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) has come up with a cunning plan: we’ll exempt members of congress and their families! Now we can screw over all those peons and stay safe, yay! Disgusting asshole.

A new amendment to the Republican ObamaCare replacement bill exempts members of Congress and their staff from its effects.

The new changes to the bill would allow states to apply for waivers to repeal key ObamaCare provisions, such as the protection against people with pre-existing conditions being charged more and the requirement that insurers cover a range of health services, like prescription drugs and mental health.

The GOP amendment exempts members of Congress and their staffs to ensure that they will still be protected by those ObamaCare provisions.

The exemption was flagged by health law professor Tim Jost.

Democrats quickly jumped on the development, arguing that Republicans are willing to take away protections for the general public, but not themselves.

“The best evidence yet that the new GOP repeal plan is a disaster for people’s health care is that the GOP exempted Members of Congress from living under it,” said Leslie Dach, director of the Protect Our Care Campaign, one of the main groups fighting repeal.

The amendment is helping to woo some conservatives, who argue that the ObamaCare regulations are driving up premium costs, and note that high-risk pools would be able to fill the gap.

Via The Hill.

Caving On The Wall and Other Sundry Items.

Tucker Viemeister.

The Tiny Tyrant has backed off on the “fund my wall or else” threats, now saying it can wait until September. Think Progress has the full story.

In the meantime, in spite of the Tiny Toddlin’ Tyrant’s tweets about destroying healthcare, the ACA is becoming more and more popular. Rather funny how it took Trump to make people realize that the ACA is a good thing.  Raw Story has the full article.

Politico has an exposé on the white house fake war on fake news. It’s quite enlightening! Recommended Reading.

And, Amnesty International has compiled 100 human rights violations committed by the Tiny Tyrant in these first not-quite-100 days. A good illumination of just how much damage has been done in regard to human rights in a very short amount of time. Think Progress has the full story.

And then, there’s the trouble with Flynn. – Aaaaaand, the white house didn’t hire Flynn, oh no, no, no, nope, we didn’t!

Paranoid and Delusional.

Jim Cooke/FMG.

Doctors are speaking out, once again, about the Tiny Tyrant’s mental state. I don’t think it has escaped anyone’s notice that Trump is not exactly the most stable of individuals; nor that his ego is a monstrosity truly out of control. I have no doubt that even the Trump Faithful have noticed this, they just find justifications and rationalizations for it. The big problem here is power. The amount of harm Trump could cause outside of the political arena was high, on an individual level, however, the possibility for harm now is past the stratosphere. This is not someone you want in charge of a monstrously over-powered military and weapons. This is not someone who should even be close to knowing the nuclear codes. This is not someone who can pull off a brinksmanship game with nukes, because no sane person would even consider doing such a thing, the potential for catastrophe is simply too high. The other terrifying aspect to all that is that Trump has no resources other than his standby of bullying. He’s not knowledgeable, he’s not in the least shamed by his willful ignorance; he’s a 70something year old white man who relies completely on Fox News for his information. This does not make him different from all those other 70something white men who do the same, but they aren’t sitting in the perch of power, and no one really cares about whatever nutty stuff they might believe, thanks to Fox feeding.

As usual, there’s much talk about violating the Goldwater Rule, but we aren’t talking about someone who is campaigning anymore, we are talking about someone who has secured a position of great power, and someone who is not mentally or emotionally capable of handling such power. We should not be so cowed, as individuals or as a society, to hush everything up based on politeness, a la you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. There’s a time and place for such courtesies, but this is not one of them. There’s a maniacal, knowledge-deficient bully sitting in the white house, who is swayed by the last person to speak with him. This is not someone who is a thinker, let alone an independent thinker. This is a person who is utterly dependent on the thoughts and feelings of others, and does most things on a whim, much like turning into Mr. Tweet in order to parrot Fox and Friends on Twitter. There should be a discussion of Trump’s overall health, and that most certainly includes his mental health.

Donald Trump has a “dangerous mental illness” and is not fit to lead the US, a group of psychiatrists has warned during a conference at Yale University.

Mental health experts claimed the President was “paranoid and delusional”, and said it was their “ethical responsibility” to warn the American public about the “dangers” Mr Trump’s psychological state poses to the country.

Speaking at the conference at Yale’s School of Medicine on Thursday, one of the mental health professionals, Dr John Gartner, a practising psychotherapist who advised psychiatric residents at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, said: “We have an ethical responsibility to warn the public about Donald Trump’s dangerous mental illness.”

[…]

The doctors have said that even if it is in breach of tradition ethical standards of psychiatry, it was necessary to break their silence on the matter because they feared “too much is at stake”.

It is not the first time Mr Trump’s mental health has been called into question. In February, Duty to Warn, which consists of psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, signed an open letter warning that his mental state “makes him incapable of serving safely as president”.

The letter warned that the  President’s tendency to “distort reality” to fit his “personal myth of greatness” and attack those who challenge him with facts was likely to increase in a position of power.

The Independent has the full story.

Also see: Narcissist-in-Chief, A Psychological Take on a Political Reality.

4/20 Five Top Designs.

Dezeen is not neglecting 4/20, they have an article up with their 5 top picks in the burgeoning weed business. Just a few here, click on over to see them all, and read about them!

Snoop Dogg’s Leaf Collection.

US rapper Snoop Dogg launched his Leafs line of edible cannabis products with packaging designed by Pentagram to skirt around US laws on controlled substances. The collection encompasses a variety of products containing cannabis, including chocolate bars, drops and gummy sweets, as well as boxes of flowers from various strains of the plant.

Jamie Wolfond.

Canadian designer Jamie Wolfond designed this simple glass pipe for smoking accessory brand Tetra. Crafted from borosilicate glass that doesn’t conduct heat, the pipe features a short stem pointing downwards, a long stem from which the smoke is inhaled, and a shallow chamber to hold the user’s substance of choice.

Printabowl.

Seattle startup Printabowl intended these water pipes for smoking pot to be put on display rather than be hidden “in a shoebox under your bed”. Each 3D-printed bong features a designs that references organic forms, such as angular crystals and rippling liquid.

See more, and read all about them at Dezeen!

The Joy of Housing.

Rick Steves gets a hug.

Ricks Steves, author, and well known television travel guru, has his own idea of investing, and that investment hasn’t just grown over the years, it’s helped a tremendous amount of people.

Travel guide guru Rick Steves just gave a $4 million apartment complex to homeless women and kids who need housing.

Steves realized, early on, the importance of affordable housing, during his travel adventures (how else?) as a young man in Europe.

[…]

Twenty years ago, he devised a scheme where he could put my retirement savings not into a bank to get interest, but into cheap apartments that could house struggling neighbors.

“I would retain my capital, my equity would grow as the apartment complex appreciated,” Steves explained on his travel blog. “Rather than collecting rent, my “income” would be the joy of housing otherwise desperate people. I found this a creative, compassionate and more enlightened way to “invest” while retaining my long-term security.”

The 24-unit apartment complex became began housing single moms who were recovering from drug addiction and were now ready to get custody of their children back.

“Imagine the joy of knowing that I could provide a simple two-bedroom apartment for a mom and her kids as she fought to get her life back on track.”

There’s a nice little glow. Steves has now given the complex over to the Y.

Via Raw Story.

Art, Illness, and An iPad.

Three Dotty Foxes in the Pines.

The textural, nuanced scenes of brightly colored, frolicking creatures look collaged out of paper or brushed onto canvas, but in actuality, Michèle Brown paints with pixels on an iPad. A former art teacher and typography-trained artist who worked in fine art for most of her adult career, Brown was forced to pivot her professional and artistic goals due to an unexpected change in her health.

“I had to stop working because of a long-term illness,” Brown tells Creators, “which only allows me to be out of bed for about five hours a day. When the iPhone came out, I started playing and drawing on it while I was bed bound, and really got into it when the iPad first came out. I have tried all sorts of styles with it, but it really seems to suit my illustrative and imaginative side.”

Brown’s scenes evoke children’s book visuals are defined by an earth-toned texture and warmth. Her individual artworks often include imagery of wide-eyed animals that slice together large swaths of color, coming together in a scene that mimics a paper mâché or acrylic piece, but in reality, is a work of tablet and iPhone artistry. Brown’s fine art offerings are similarly immersive. Less amiable and imbued with their own unique texture, the artist’s fine art works possess a different lexicon of shape and form. Based in Cornwall, the British artist grew up both in France and the UK and has honed her bilingual skills and understanding of both cultures.

“I’ve created an imaginary world which I call Spottyland because of one of the first characters to come out of it, Spotty the fox. Nothing awful happens in Spottyland; the animals can be a bit naughty, but they are all vegetarian and underneath they have hearts of gold. Humor is a big part of what I do. I’ve been influenced by cartoon strips and dreadful puns, but only if it is kind. I like to make people smile and bring a bit of lightly mischievous harmony to the world. It is a place of safe retreat in an increasingly uncertain world.”

You can see and read more at The Creators Project. To see more works by Michèle Brown, visit her main Instagram, as well as Spotty the Fox’s website, and Brown’s fine art Instagram.

Dakota Access Allowed to Keep Risks Secret.

© Marty Two Bulls.

It’s not enough that the pipeline went through, and once again, drinking water is threatened (which is fine, of course, because Indians), but ETP can now keep risk information to themselves. Just keeps getting worse. And to those people who think they are helping through vandalism? You aren’t, so fucking stop it.

Despite concerns that the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline could threaten the primary source of drinking water for the Standing Rock Sioux, a federal judge ruled that the pipeline’s developer can keep some information about spill risks secret from the public.

The ruling — which would permit Energy Transfer Partners, the developer of the pipeline, to keep information about spill risks at certain points along the pipeline shielded from the public — comes after unknown protesters used a torch to burn holes in empty above-ground segments of the pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes had argued that information about spill risks could potentially strengthen their case for more environmental review of the project.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg rejected that argument, saying that shielding the information from public view would prevent vandalism of the pipeline.

“The asserted interest in limiting intentionally inflicted harm outweighs the tribes’ generalized interests in public disclosure and scrutiny,” Boasberg said in his ruling.

[…]

Pipeline spills in North Dakota are not uncommon — according to analysis from the Center for Biological Diversity, North Dakota has averaged four pipeline spills a year since 1996, costing more than $40 million in property damage.

Under the Trump administration’s proposed budget, the Environmental Protection Agency would face sharp cuts in its enforcement programs, limiting its ability to enforce and penalize companies that violate environmental laws. When pipeline operators, for instance, violate laws like the Clean Water Act by spilling pollutants into waterways, the EPA is normally the agency that imposes fines on those operators. Last week, for instance, the EPA and the Department of Justice issued a fine against a pipeline operator in Ohio that violated the Clean Water Act by discharging approximately 1,950 barrels of gasoline from a pipeline into nearby waterways.

Think Progress has the full story.