Barbara Bogaev

President Trump says negative economic forecasts are fake news, but he’s also making nervous calls to his friends in the business world to ask if they’re true.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller finally testifies before congress but did anything new come to light?

Where would America be without the muckraking journalists and the publications that champion their work?

Former special counsel Robert Mueller is appearing in two separate hearings before the House judiciary and intelligence committees.

Will mass shootings become part of America’s background noise?   That’s an ugly prospect raised by the deaths of 34 people this week in Texas, Ohio and California.

Filmmakers Abby Martin and Mike Prysner discuss the war crimes being committed in Gaza and how a resolution could be reached in the Middle East.

California’s relentless clean-air enforcer, Mary Nichols, has divided the automobile industry. After weeks of secret negotiations, the Chair of the State’s Air Resources Board has announced that Ford, Honda VW and BMW of America won’t go along with President Trump’s rollback of Barack Obama’s fuel-economy standards. Nichols claims it’s an “olive branch,” giving car makers the “flexibility” to clean up the air at the same time they continue to market vehicles that make the most money. Brady Dennis of the Washington Post calls it a “big deal,” even if Toyota, GM and 11 other companies revert to Trump’s new federal standards--at least for the moment. Alan Baum is a consultant for both the industry and environmental organizations. He says the four who made the deal with California have a slight lead on their competitors in developing the technology of the future, with China currently far ahead of them all. He says the western car makers are doing a poor job of educating consumers about the benefits of hybrids and electrics. Nichols’s history with the Air Resources Board goes back to the 1970’s. She was named Chair by Republican Governor Arnold Schwartenegger and reappointed by Democrats Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom. She made an international name for herself for years ago when she blew the whistle on Volkswagen for faking emissions tests on the diesel cars it sold for decades all over the world.

In its zeal to oppose President Trump at every turn, California risks becoming that the thing that it fears.

Teddy Roosevelt coined the term “Bully Pulpit.” Other presidents have used it to get the nation behind them. For President Trump, it’s an instrument of division.