Happen to miss The Larry O’Connor Show today? Recap today’s program by checking out topics from the program below:




EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler moves to roll back coal-fired power plant rules (CBS News)

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler signed a final rule Wednesday that will undo Obama-era climate requirements for coal plants in a way the Trump administration insists will still reduce emissions.

The new rule gives individual states wide discretion in deciding whether to require limited efficiency upgrades at individual coal-fired plants. The rule amounts to one of the Trump administration’s biggest rollbacks of environmental rules, replacing a landmark Obama-era effort that sought to wean the nation’s electrical grid off coal-fired power plants and their climate-damaging pollution. [Read More]

Heckling, drama mark House hearing on slavery reparations as top Dem asks, ‘Why not now?’ (FOX News)

The question of slavery reparations for black Americans was the subject of a fiery and emotional House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday as Democrats called for measures to address America’s “original sin” — while Republicans described such payments as an “injustice” and “almost certainly unconstitutional.”

The Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties subcommittee held the hearing on H.R. 40 — a bill by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, to set up a commission to study and develop a response to the question of reparations for slavery. [Read More]

FBI, warned early and often that Manafort file might be fake, used it anyway (The Hill)

When the final chapter of the Russia collusion caper is written, it is likely two seminal documents the FBI used to justify investigating Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign will turn out to be bunk.

And the behavior of FBI agents and federal prosecutors who promoted that faulty evidence may disturb us more than we now know.

The first, the Christopher Steele dossier, has received enormous attention. And the more scrutiny it receives, the more its truthfulness wanes. Its credibility has declined so much that many now openly question how the FBI used it to support a surveillance warrant against the Trump campaign in October 2016. [Read More]

Biden: Segregationist Senator Never Called Me ‘Boy’ (The Daily Beast)

Joe Biden raised eyebrows on Tuesday night by citing his experience with two segregationist senators to call for more “civility” in politics. Speaking at a fundraiser in New York City, the 2020 Democratic front-runner said he had served with Sens. James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia, both Democrats who opposed desegregation, and still managed to find compromise with them despite disagreements. “I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” Biden said, before imitating a Southern drawl. “He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son.’” [Read More]