There’s a Nonzero Chance Trump’s Presidential “Library” Will Be a Theme Park With Rides Like “Witch Hunt Mountain”

In a call with reporters Monday, EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler claimed the agency’s decision came “after careful review of the most rigorous scientific evidence.” He added that “every scientist can take a look a this and reach a different conclusion,” and while that perhaps might, maybe be true, you’ll have to forgive people if they’re not willing to take the Trump administration’s word for it, which might have something to do with its insistence on choking people to death.

And in related news…

The administration is also trying to kill people in quicker ways than simply poisoning the air they breathe. Per the Associated Press:

As Donald Trump’s presidency winds down, his administration is ratcheting up the pace of federal executions despite a surge of coronavirus cases in prisons, announcing plans for five starting Thursday and concluding just days before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-Elect Joe Biden. If the five go off as planned, it will make 13 executions since July when the Republican administration resumed putting inmates to death after a 17-year hiatus and will cement Trump’s legacy as the most prolific execution president in over 130 years. He’ll leave office having executed about a quarter of all federal death-row prisoners, despite waning support for capital punishment among both Democrats and Republicans.

“It’s hard to understand why anybody at this stage of a presidency feels compelled to kill this many people…especially when the American public voted for someone else to replace you and that person has said he opposes the death penalty,” Robert Dunham, director of the nonpartisan Death Penalty Information Center, told the AP, noting that not since the final days of Grover Cleveland’s presidency in the late 1800s has the federal government executed inmates during a presidential transition.

Elsewhere!

U.S. COVID Deaths Match April Peak With Hospitals Still Filling (Bloomberg)

Canada Has Reserved More Vaccine Doses Per Person Than Anywhere (Bloomberg)

Congress aims to fund government for a week to buy time for spending, COVID relief deals (CNBC)

Biden Says He Will Reveal Defense Secretary Pick on Friday (Bloomberg)

California exits give Newsom rare chance to pick three high-profile leaders (Politico)

D.C. to give $1,200 stimulus payments to some jobless residents (Washington Post)

Defiant NYC Bar Shuts Temporarily, Co-Owner Claims Innocence in Deputy Leg Smash (NBC New York)

Home Alone house re-created in gingerbread for film’s 30th anniversary (NYP)

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