Senior Trump Official: We Were Wrong, He’s a ‘Fascist’

Intelligencer- The Swamp

Senior Trump Official: We Were Wrong, He’s a ‘Fascist’

The 11th hour. Photo: AFP via Getty Images

On Friday afternoon, 48 hours after the U.S. Capitol was stormed by violent insurrectionists encouraged by Donald Trump in an attempt to overthrow the government in protest of his election loss, a senior member of his administration spoke to me while he was driving to work.

“This is confirmation of so much that everyone has said for years now — things that a lot of us thought were hyperbolic. We’d say, ‘Trump’s not a fascist,’ or ‘He’s not a wannabe dictator.’ Now, it’s like, ‘Well, what do you even say in response to that now?’”

For four years, people like this official — lifelong Republican operatives — have convinced themselves that Trump’s obvious faults were worth tolerating if it meant implementing a conservative policy agenda. These officials believed the benefits of remaking the courts with conservative justices, or passing tax reform, outweighed the risks that a Trump presidency posed to democracy and to the reputation of the country in the world. Now, at the 11th hour, with 12 days left before Joe Biden is sworn into office, it’s clear to some that it was always a delusion.

“This is like a plot straight out of the later, sucky seasons of House of Cards where they just go full evil and say, ‘Let’s spark mass protests and start wars and whatever,’” the senior administration official said.

“I went through Access Hollywood, Charlottesville — all of these insane things. There’s some degree of growing accustomed to the craziness. It’s not like my heart is racing, like, Oh God, how am I supposed to react to this? It’s just more that I’m depressed. For people who devoted years of their lives to dealing with the insanity in an attempt to advance a policy agenda that you believe in, all of that has been wiped out. The legacy of the Trump administration is going to be that the president sparked an insurrection and people died because he tried his best to not abide by the Constitution and the tradition of a peaceful transition of power that’s been the norm since our founding. Nothing else is even going to be a side note.”

Trump’s world has grown ever smaller as the damage he inflicts on the United States continues to swell. Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol, which left five dead, including a police officer, prompted resignations in the administration and calls for Trump to do the same and threats — from Democratic and Republican lawmakers — of a second impeachment as well as vaguer discussions about the 25th Amendment. Trump is an increasingly symbolic figure — Norma Desmond with the nuclear codes and sycophantic butlers in his ears on a West Wing Sunset Boulevard soundstage. With no power left to grab, many staffers spent the weeks following November 3 making themselves scarce, plotting their post-White House careers, avoiding the president’s calls.

But many others are keeping their heads down and keeping their jobs, citing, among other self-serving interests, a desire to remain on their health-care plans, according to my interviews with staffers. Others justify their continued employment by citing the demands of the continuity of government.

“There’s not a single person I have talked to at any level, from 23-year-old assistants to members of the Cabinet, who are not disgusted and ashamed with what has happened,” the senior administration official said, adding that the conversations among remaining officials were about how to handle the next 12 days before Joe Biden’s administration — and whether to continue to be a part of the transition of power at all. “It’s different for everybody. If you’re a regular domestic-policy staffer in the West Wing or the EEOB, the implications of you quitting are different than if you’re a senior national security official, or you’re tasked with contributing to the continuity of government.”

“We are in a terrible spot,” the official said. “You can’t just say, ‘Well, this is outrageous and I quit’ in this situation.”

Trump’s inner circle has contracted amid the self-created chaos and carnage. For this reason, resignations have not had much of an effect on him directly. “He may not even notice,” one adviser said. “People aren’t around to begin with. There aren’t policy meetings with the president and eight or ten people in there anymore.”

Advisers have expressed concern and anger over Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, whose actions have been perceived as an effort to secure employment with Trump in his post-presidency, perhaps at the Trump Organization. “Jared has been telling people, ‘Don’t even deal with him anymore,’” one adviser said. “Mark’s responsible for bringing kook after crazy after conniver after Rudy into the West Wing.” (“This is completely false,” Avi Berkowitz, Jared Kushner’s spokesman, said in a tweet responding to this article, “Jared has never said that.”) A former senior White House official said, “Morale plummeted under him, huge mistakes were made — and now he’s scrambling to stick around after. He’s a dishonest asshole who pretends to be this religious Southern gentleman. Fuck that.”

The senior administration official put it this way: “The only way it gets to this point are a thousand really bad small decisions. The first time Sidney Powell calls the White House switchboard and is allowed to speak to the president, the next thing you know she and others are in the West Wing — these are areas where the chief of staff has unilateral authority to do what he wants to do.” Instead, the official said, Meadows tells Trump what he wants to hear, and often calls whomever Trump has directed him to call, repeats what Trump told him to say, and then apologizes, explaining that he just needs to be able to tell the boss that he followed his orders.

Meanwhile, the yes-men are countered mostly by the lawyers, who have tried to convey to Trump that he has put himself at risk of prosecution, not just by inciting Wednesday’s riot — for which the Justice Department is reportedly open to pursuing charges — but for his phone call to Georgia election officials, in which he attempted to pressure them to overturn the results, as well as in the many ongoing investigations related to his businesses and finances.

“It’s a lot to adjust to. If you think you’re going to be there for four more years, it’s a bit jarring,” the adviser said. “The smart lawyers have gotten to him. It’s all hit him since yesterday: You may have legal exposure from yesterday. You definitely have legal exposure from other things. You have less than two weeks to remain ensconced in here with executive privilege.” 

This adviser, who spoke to Trump on Wednesday amid the siege, said Trump watched the events on television intently. CNN reported that he was so excited by the action, it “freaked out” some staffers around him. The adviser told me that Trump expressed disgust on aesthetic grounds over how “low class” his supporters looked. “He doesn’t like low-class things,” the adviser said, explaining that Trump had a similar reaction over the summer to a video of Brad Parscale, his former campaign manager, shirtless and drinking a beer in his driveway during a mental-health emergency in which police tackled him and seized his weapons. “He kept mentioning, ‘Oh, did you see him in his beer shirt?’ He was annoyed. To him, it’s just low class, in other words.”

The adviser said that Trump recently offered them a pardon, although they have not been charged with any crime. The adviser “politely declined.” Others are taking Trump’s pardon offers more seriously, whether they’ve been investigated or are at risk of jail time or not. “He’s just talking up a storm about giving pardons to allies: his kids, and their significant others, and staffers. He’s pretty generous with the offers. When you’re offered one, it’s like, Should I take it? Is it like insurance?”

One person close to Trump’s legal team told me that the lawyers have struggled to get his attention. “He’s sort of turning on everybody. The president is so visceral, he just can’t hear people unless he can respect them. And he thinks everybody’s a traitor, even the people who got him through impeachment. It’s just nuts.”

Lost Cause marches on, 1861 to now

Chicago Suntimes

Lost Cause marches on, 1861 to now

Futile open rebellion goes back to the Confederacy. Trump will also lose, but will also keep fighting.

Donald Trump campaign rally In Jacksonville, Florida in 2016.
Trump flags and Confederate flags are often seen side-by-side, which is fitting, since both represent futile rebellions by weaker parts of the country against dominant American principles and government. Getty 

 

The South was never going to win the Civil War.

If you consider the resources of the North, the moment the first Confederate cannon fired on Fort Sumter, the South’s doom was sealed. A week later, the Chicago Tribune ran a prescient editorial explaining why.

“It is a military maxim of modern war that the longest purse wins,” it begins, outlining the North’s advantages in manpower, manufacturing, maritime strength and, most of all, money. “The little State of Massachusetts can raise more money than the Jeff Davis Confederacy.”

The conclusion may have been foregone, but it took four years and 620,000 American lives to play out.

It’s still unfolding. The Confederacy lost the war, but never gave up the fight — its baked-in bigotry, the proud ignorance required to consider another human being your property, marches on, from then to now. Manifesting itself plainly in the Trump era, his entire political philosophy being the slaveholder mentality decked out in new clothes, trying to pass in the 21st century. They even wave the same rebel flag. Kind of a giveaway, really.

The Lost Cause marches on, as we will see Wednesday, when Congress faces another ego-stoked rebellion: Donald Trump’s insistence that his clearly losing the 2020 presidential election in the chill world of fact can be set aside, since he won the race in the steamy delta swampland between his ears.

No way. Not as long as there are Americans, like the Chicagoans rushing to sign up to fight in April 1861, who are true patriots and willing to stand up for democracy.

A supporter of President Donald Trump walks with a confederate flag during a protest on December 12, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Urged on by the president, Trump supporters have been showing up to protest in Washington, D.C. ever since the November election. This group with a Confederate battle flag were there in December. Trump has called for his backers to rally near the White House on Wednesday, the day Congress meets to count the Electoral College votes that gave the win to President-elect Joe Biden. Getty

 

While trying to thwart the will of the people, the president has, for the past two months, ignored a lethal pandemic raging across the country — one whose toll over two years may match the Civil War’s over four. Aided by Republican politicians in open rebellion to the Constitution and the laws of this country. And millions of Americans who support him because, like the slave-holding South, they have made a fundamental error in judgment. They believe their own self-aggrandizing delusions, convinced their opponents will collapse at a touch.

Almost exactly 160 years ago, the smaller, weaker South thought it could impose its will on the whole country by military force. During the past four years Trump, who received 10 million fewer votes than his opponents in two presidential elections, served not America, but only his fanatical base. Never forget the Trump administration initially tried to shrug off COVID as a blue state problem.

The South expected the Northern population to rebel with them, against their own government. Like today, their warped worldview was stoked by the media.

“This preposterous idea has been instilled into their noddles from reading such satanic and tory sheets as the New York Herald and Chicago Times,” the Trib editorialized, “which they were led to suppose reflected Democratic opinion in the Free States.”

(The copperhead Chicago Times, I hasten to point out, is no relation to the paper you’re reading now. It folded in 1901. Our forefather, the Chicago Daily Times, began in 1929.)

The South figured out how, in losing, to win, after a fashion. They waited out the federal troops of Reconstruction, then returned to slavery, barely altered and under a new name, keeping Blacks down in economic and legal bondage. For 100 years. First slaves couldn’t vote. Then Blacks in the South were kept from voting. And today the president tries to bat Black votes away, if not for him.

The fight continues. In the spring of 1861, the Tribune called the Southern secession “the most senseless and causeless rebellion of all history.” Until now. We may have surpassed it with Trump’s frantic tearing at our democracy, supported by a cast of cowards and traitors, hailed by the eternally duped. And for what? Lower taxes? A wall? Their fetus friends? An embassy in Jerusalem? I will never understand it.

No matter. They’re losers. They lost in 1865, lost in 2020. Evil always loses, eventually. Since they continue to fight, desperate to go back to the plantations of their dreams, they’ll continue to lose. Not every battle. But their war against the future is futile, doomed. Drowned out by the swelling ranks of diverse, accepting Americans, facing actual problems with courage and candor, dedicated to helping our nation become what she is destined to be.

Fact check: Denmark is among world’s happiest countries, but it’s not No. 1

Fact check: Denmark is among world’s happiest countries, but it’s not No. 1

The claim: Denmark is ranked the happiest country in the world; 33 hours work in a week, $20 minimum wages, free university, medical and child care

Every year ahead of the United Nations’ World Happiness Day, on March 20, a report is released that ranks 156 countries on their happiness based on income, life expectancy, freedom, social support, trust and generosity.

According to one social media post, Denmark has turned up at the top of list.

“Denmark is ranked as the happiest country in the world with 33 hours work in a week, $20 minimum wages, free universities and medical care, free child care and low level of Corruption,” reads a Dec. 30 Facebook post to the group Mysterious Facts which has since been deleted. The user who posted it did not have a way to be contacted.

Fact check: Clinton, Obama left federal government with a lower deficit than when they arrived

Nordic countries ranked high in reports, but Denmark isn’t first now

This year, the Gallup 2020 World Happiness Report rated Finland as the world’s happiest country for the third year in a row, with Denmark in second and Switzerland third.

The report rates the countries based on different aspects of social environment, such as having someone to count on, having a sense of freedom to make key life decisions, generosity and trust.

Considered risks are ill-health, discrimination, low income, unemployment, separation, divorce or widowhood and safety in the street. The “happiness costs of these risks are very large,” according to the report.

The meme provides no source of information or date; it is possible the first claim could have been true at the time the meme was created, as Denmark has been previously ranked first in World Happiness Reports.

A search of the text included in the post results in a blog post with an almost identical version of the claim from 2016, a year when Denmark was ranked first. Denmark also made the top of the list in 2012 and 2013.

Nordic countries, including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, have appeared on the top 10 of the World Happiness Report since it started publishing its annual rankings in 2012. In 2017, 2018 and 2019, Nordic countries occupied the top three spots.

The report found that Nordic citizens are exceptionally satisfied with their lives because of reliable and extensive welfare benefits, low corruption, well-functioning democracy and state institutions and small population.

Fact check: Over 159 million people voted in the US general election

Work hours, university, medical and child care

Beyond overall happiness, the post makes claims — some true — about why Danes might be so happy.

While the post states an average workweek in Denmark is 33 hours, a full-time workweek in Denmark is typically 37 hours distributed over five days, according to the city of Copenhagen. It/ notes that workweeks can be longer for those in a managerial position or self-employed.

Staying extra hours is discouraged, and most employees leave the office around 4 p.m. to pick up their children and begin preparing for dinner, according to the official website of Denmark. In the last weeks of July, offices are shut down as Danes take time off to enjoy a short summer and every employee is legally entitled to five weeks of paid vacation per year.

Employees are also not allowed to work more than 48 hours per week on an average of a four month period due to the EU’s Working Time Directive, which was implemented in Denmark’s Working Enviornment Act in 2017.

The post states the nation’s minimum wage is $20 an hour. But Denmark lacks a federally mandated minimum wage, according to Investopedia. However, trade unions work to ensure that workers are paid a reasonable rate and try to keep the average minimum wage at $20 per hour. As of 2020, minimum wages in the country hover around $16.60 per hour, according to Check In Price.

Minimum-wage.org, says Denmark’s average minimum wage is $18 per hour and annual minimum wage is $44,252.00. A November 2020 article from Market Watch says wages in Scandinavia are among the highest in the world at $17.69 per hour.

Schooling is largely free, as the post claims. Higher education in Denmark is free for students from the European Union or European University Association and for students in exchange programs, according to the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science. Education is also free for students who have a permanent residence, a temporary residence with possibility of obtaining permanent residence or a resident permit.

It is also worth noting that every Danish student receives a rough estimate of $900 per month, the Washington Post reported.

In Denmark, the health care system is financed through an income tax of 8% and provides universal access to citizens and legal residents, USA TODAY reported. So while the post states medical care is free, it lacks the context that taxpayers do cover the cost.

The public child care system in Denmark is based on a partially free system, and some day care institutions have waiting lists. However, most guarantee a place for children from the age of 1, according to Work in Denmark. The child care facilities receive financial support from the state and the most payable out of pocket amount by parents is 30% of the cost. Child care is not free, as claimed.

The reason Denmark can afford to provide these services is because it has one of the highest tax rates in the world, with the average Dane paying a total of 45% in income taxes, according to BBC. In fact, most Scandinavian countries offer higher education, child and medical care, and parental leave due to their high levels of taxation. In 2018, Denmark’s tax-to-GDP ratio was 44.9%, Norway’s was 39% and Sweden’s 43.9%, which compares to a ratio of 24.3% in the U.S., according to the Tax Foundation.

The post is accurate in claiming that Denmark has low corruption. The 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Denmark as the least corrupt country in the world for the fifth year in a row due to its degree of press freedom, access to information, independent judicial systems and strong standards of integrity for public officials.

In 2018, New Zealand and Denmark were both ranked as the least corrupt, according to World Population Review, which notes that there is no exact way to measure corruption but many use the Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International.

Our ruling: Partly False

The claim that Denmark is ranked the happiest country in the world due to its short workweeks, high minimum wage, and free university and health and child care is rated PARTLY FALSE, based on our research. Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world for the last three consecutive years, with Denmark holding a spot in the top three. Denmark also has 37-hour workweeks, not 33, and there is no minimum wage. Services of higher education, child and medical care and parental leave are available due to their high levels of taxation; they’re not offered for free.

Our fact-check sources:

Last-minute White House decision opens more Arctic land to oil leasing

NBC News

Last-minute White House decision opens more Arctic land to oil leasing

The decision, which will open up more land in the western North Slope, is one of a number of pro-drilling actions taken by the Trump administration in its final days.
Drilling operations in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

Drilling operations in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Judy Patrick / AP file

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration announced on Monday that it has made final its plan to open up vast areas of once-protected Arctic Alaska territory to oil development.

The decision, which will open up more land in the western North Slope, is one of a number of pro-drilling actions taken by the Trump administration in its final days. It comes just before a scheduled auction of drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) on the eastern North Slope on Wednesday.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management released its plan for the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A), a 23 million-acre (9.3 million-hectare) swath of land on the western North Slope. The plan, signed by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on Dec. 21, allows lease sales to proceed under relaxed standards. The NPR-A is Alaska’s primary locale for the state’s daily oil production, which averaged 466,000 barrels per day in 2019, according to U.S. Energy Department data.

The plan allows oil development on about 80 percent of the reserve. Under Obama-era rules, about half of the reserve was available for leasing, with the other half protected for environmental and indigenous people reasons.

It is unclear whether making this acreage available will boost Alaskan oil production, which peaked more than 30 years ago at 2 million barrels per day. Legislation passed in 2017 opened up the ANWR, which borders Canada, for oil leases.

The Trump plan allows leasing in vast Teshekpuk Lake, the largest lake in Arctic Alaska and a haven for migrating birds and wildlife. Teshekpuk Lake has been off-limits to leasing since the Reagan administration.

“We are expanding access to our nation’s great energy potential and providing for economic opportunities and job creation for both Alaska Natives and our nation,” said Casey Hammond, principal deputy secretary for the Department of the Interior.

The NPR-A decision got a swift response from environmentalists, who have already sued to overturn the plan.

“This flawed management plan will create more conflict and a less-stable business environment for companies operating in the region,” David Krause, assistant Alaska director for The Wilderness Society, said in a statement.

The New Year’s resolutions that could save the planet

The New Year’s resolutions that could save the planet

How could your 2021 resolutions help the environment? (Annie Spratt/Unsplash)
How could your 2021 resolutions help the environment? Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash

 

Nearly a fifth of Brits (19%) have protecting the environment in mind when making their New Year’s resolutions for 2020.

But it’s not just those actively seeking to make greener resolutions who are helping the planet — many are unknowingly making resolutions with unexpected carbon benefits, research by OVO energy found.

High on the list of 2021 resolutions is drinking less alcohol, with a quarter (23%) of Brits pledging to do this in 2021.

If these people kicked off the year by partaking in Dry January, this alone would collectively save about 39,457 tons of carbon dioxide. This is roughly the same amount emitted from over 37,000 flights from London to New York.

What’s more, if the one in five planning to eat less meat next year completely ditched meat for Veganuary alone, they could save just over 67 metric tons each — 288,000 in total. This is the same carbon emitted from 271,036 flights from London to New York.

If the fifth (22%) of people who have resolved to reduce their screen time in 2021 watched just one less film a week, they could save over 12,000 tons of carbon over the year. This equates to over 6,000 flights from London to Tokyo, the research found.

Not to mention the hours they would gain to dedicate to more planet and mind friendly resolutions — nearly a third of Brits (32%) said they want to spend more time in nature in the upcoming year.

Meanwhile, a fifth (21%) are keen to “practice mindfulness” and 13% want to do more cooking from scratch.

“Many people may be surprised to see the different positive and negative carbon impacts of their resolutions,” said Marta Iglesias, associate director at the Carbon Trust.

“We understand people want to make plans for 2021, enjoy new experiences or find ways to better themselves — and we hope by having more information about the carbon emissions of their resolutions, people will be encouraged to make more sustainable choices.”

What’s more, many alternative green resolutions can be easily adopted from home and could help reduce the UK’s carbon footprint by up to 1.34 million tonnes a year, according to OVO Energy’s carbon expert partners.

The study found that just a quarter of Brits skipping one hair wash a week could save about 98,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year — the same amount as planting 16 million trees.

Additionally, each household could see monthly carbon savings of 4.2kg by switching off all their appliances instead of leaving them on standby, and 0.49kg by only boiling enough water for one cup of tea.

As one in five (19%) struggle to find resolution staying power beyond a month, those alternatives may be just what they need.

Nearly half (48%) of these people said they would be more likely to keep their resolutions up if they were simple and easy.

Meanwhile, a quarter would be more incentivized if they understood how their resolutions benefited the environment, the research found.

More than half (53%) of Brits said they’d like to make their home “more energy-efficient” and nearly half (47%) noted carbon emissions are “more important than ever before.”

This means those that feel the need to exaggerate their resolutions to seem like a “better person” (27%), impress others (37%) or sound like they care about the planet (33%), may have no need for such embellishments.

“So many actions that are good for the planet are also good for us all as individuals,” said Kate Weinberg, director of sustainability at OVO Energy.

“It’s useful for everyone to know that making even one easy adjustment to your everyday activity can help to reduce your carbon footprint.

“If we all make small adjustments they add up and have a meaningful impact.”

Corporate America should torpedo the Republican party

Corporate America should torpedo the Republican party

Rick Newman, Senior Columnist                
Imagine buying a stock, then learning the seller changed his mind and canceled the transaction, without consequence.

Imagine running a storefront with a landlord who raised the rent whenever he felt like it, regardless of what the lease stipulated.

Imagine receiving a patent for a new invention that competitors could copy anyway, cashing in on your breakthrough without investing any of the hard work.

This is the sort of chaos the Republican party —once, supposedly, the party of business—now advocates in its effort to overturn the legitimate election of incoming President Joe Biden. When Congress counts the presidential electoral votes on January 6, at least a dozen Republican senators and more than 100 Republican members of the House plan to challenge the vote tallies in swing states that Biden won, giving him the presidency. Every state ran a free and fair election, with no meaningful disruptions or illegalities. Yet Republicans, led by a petulant President Trump, want to overturn the results anyway, because they don’t like the outcome. The rules don’t matter.

American capitalism works because rules, laws and customs dominate. Buyers and sellers in virtually every transaction know what to expect and have legal recourse if the other side cheats. Contracts force everybody to abide by predictable norms. There are flaws, but enforceable rules make the system better for everybody: Big firms, small businesses, workers and consumers.

Trump and his Republicans conspirators trying to overturn Biden’s win are saying, just this once, let’s break the rules. No biggie.

But it is a biggie. These Republicans are endorsing Venezuela-style ad hockery to keep their group in power illegitimately. Markets seem to be writing off the GOP insurgency as political shenanigans that are just for show. It’s way worse than that. The former “law and order” party has morphed into a crime and disorder party that cannot be business-friendly if its only priority is to retain power at any cost. This is a metastasis of the crony capitalism Trump has practiced for the last four years. It rewards only those on the winning side, while punishing those who play by the rules.

FILE - In this Dec. 16, 2020 file photo, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., asks questions during a Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee hearing to discuss election security and the 2020 election process on Capitol Hill in Washington. Walmart apologized on Wednesday, Dec. 30, for a tweet that called Hawley a sore loser for contesting the U.S. presidential election. The tweet from Walmart was in response to Hawley’s tweet announcing his plans to raise objections next week when Congress meets to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the election. (Greg Nash/Pool via AP, File)

 

The many businesses that keep politicians in power by funding their campaigns should stop donating to any candidate who doesn’t overtly support the rule of law, in business and politics, both. Here’s a starter list of the 12 seditious senators who want to overturn Biden’s election, along with some of the top corporate donors for each, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. There’s no simple list of corporate donors to politicians, because companies donate to both campaign committees and political action committees that campaign on behalf of a favored politician. Some “dark money” donations aren’t even public. This list represents a combination of corporate donations to PACs and companies with the employees who donated the most to each candidate.

Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee: Top donors: HCA, Southwest Family of Companies, FedEx, AT&T, Comcast

Mike Braun, Indiana: Jasper Engines & Transmissions, Reyes Holdings, Alliance Coal, Eli Lilly, Wabash Valley Produce

Ted Cruz, Texas: Woodforest National Bank, Lockheed Martin, Berkshire Hathaway, Sullivan & Cromwell, Delta Air Lines, Insperity, Stewart Title Guaranty

Steven Daines, Montana: Charter Communications, Langlas & Associates, Amgen, Microsoft, Berkshire Hathaway, FedEx, United Parcel Service

Josh Hawley, Missouri: Diamond Pet Foods, Emerson Electric, Herzog Contracting, Hunter Engineering, Charles Schwab Corp, Edward Jones, Alliance Coal

Ron Johnson, Wisconsin: Northwestern Mutual, Foley & Lardner, Koch Industries, ABC Supply, Honeywell, AT&T Jenmar Corp., Elliott Management, CSX

John Kennedy, Louisiana: Acadian Ambulance Service, Atco Investment, Morris & Dickson, Amway/Alticor, Central Management, Ochsner Health System

James Lankford, Oklahoma: Koch Industries, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Honeywell, Cox Enterprises, Ernst & Young, Devon Energy, United Parcel Service, Berkshire Hathaway

Bill Hagerty, Tennessee: Rogers Group, Apollo Global Management, FedEx, HCA, Cerberus Capital Management, Hall Capital, International Paper

Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming: Sinclair Companies, San Francisco Giants, Occidental Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Pinnacle West Capital

Roger Marshall, Kansas: Burns & McDonnell, Nuterra Capital, Poet LLC, Watco Companies, Bukaty Companies, Goldman Sachs, Spirit Aerosystems, Bristol-Myers Squibb

Tommy Tuberville , Alabama. Hometown Lenders, Drummond Co., Wellborn Cabinet, Collazo Enterprises, Proshot Concrete

Trump conspirators in the House say as many as 140 Republicans will join the 12 seditious senators to subvert Biden’s victory. There’s no full list of the plotters, yet, but 106 House Republicans signed on to a doomed Texas lawsuit that tried to overturn Biden’s victory in December, and failed. That’s likely the core group.

SUGAR HILL, GA - JANUARY 03: U.S. Senator Ted Cruz waves to the crowd as he is introduced during the SAVE AMERICA TOUR at The Bowl at Sugar Hill on January 3rd, 2021 in Sugar Hill, Georgia. Cruz is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States Senator for Texas since 2013. He was also runner-up for the presidential nomination in the 2016 election. (Photo by David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire)
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz waves to the crowd as he is introduced during the SAVE AMERICA TOUR at The Bowl at Sugar Hill on January 3, 2021 in Sugar Hill, Georgia. (Photo by David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire)
Not the business-friendly party anymore

Republicans won’t be able to prevent Biden from taking office, since Democrats control the House and obviously won’t block the electoral vote counting. So corporate donors might think they should just hold their noses until the whole mess blows over. It’s probably worth supporting the Republicans’ low-tax, deregulatory agenda even if it means overlooking a few cranks in the party.

That view deserves a rethink. The Trump GOP did cut taxes and regulations, but it did so in a partisan way that was fiscally unsustainable and likely to be temporary. Trump, meanwhile, kneecapped free trade and declared war on companies he held personal vendettas against, such as Amazon, Time Warner, Facebook and Harley-Davidson. Out of spite, he wrecked the postal service, which many small businesses rely on.

There is no longer a business-friendly Republican party. The criminal attempts to prevent Biden from taking office are really a scramble among ambitious Republicans to claim the Trump base as their own in future elections, and keep feeding these voters the nativist lies and reckless populism that earned Trump four years in office. Business lobbies that support Republicans today are asking for more Trumpian chaos, which could backfire as the party rampages toward extremism and marginalization.

The Democratic party is not a comfortable home for corporate interests, either, though a stable Biden administration would be better for business than Trumpian turmoil. With the Republican party devolving into a gang of kooks and hoodlums, it may be time to draft whatever honest and ethical Republicans are left into a new party that can claim the rational middle and reinforce the rules of democracy. It can’t be worse than what the Republican party offers now.

Study: Warming already baked in will blow past climate goals

Associated Press

Study: Warming already baked in will blow past climate goals

 

The amount of baked-in global warming, from carbon pollution already in the air, is enough to blow past international agreed upon goals to limit climate change, a new study finds.

But it’s not game over because, while that amount of warming may be inevitable, it can be delayed for centuries if the world quickly stops emitting extra greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, the study’s authors say.

For decades, scientists have talked about so-called “committed warming” or the increase in future temperature based on past carbon dioxide emissions that stay in the atmosphere for well over a century. It’s like the distance a speeding car travels after the brakes are applied.

But Monday’s study in the journal Nature Climate Change calculates that a bit differently and now figures the carbon pollution already put in the air will push global temperatures to about 2.3 degrees Celsius (4.1 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times.

Previous estimates, including those accepted by international science panels, were about a degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) less than that amount of committed warming.

International climate agreements set goals of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, with the more ambitious goal of limiting it to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) added in Paris in 2015. The world has already warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit).

“You’ve got some … global warming inertia that’s going to cause the climate system to keep warming, and that’s essentially what we’re calculating,” said study co-author Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University. “Think about the climate system like the Titanic. It’s hard to turn the ship when you see the icebergs.”

Dessler and colleagues at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab and Nanjing University in China calculated committed warming to take into account that the world has warmed at different rates in different places and that places that haven’t warmed as fast are destined to catch up.

Places such as the Southern Ocean, surrounding Antarctica are a bit cooler, and that difference creates low-lying clouds that reflect more sun away from earth, keeping these places cooler. But this situation can’t keep going indefinitely because physics dictates that cooler locations will warm up more and when they do, the clouds will dwindle and more heating will occur, Dessler said.

Previous studies were based on the cooler spots staying that way, but Dessler and colleagues say that’s not likely.

Outside experts said the work is based on compelling reasoning, but want more research to show that it’s true. Breakthrough Institute climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said the new work fits better with climate models than observational data.

Just because the world is bound to get more warming than international goals, that doesn’t mean all is lost in the fight against global warming, said Dessler, who cautioned against what he called “climate doomers.”

If the world gets to net zero carbon emissions soon, 2 degrees of global warming could be delayed enough so that it won’t happen for centuries, giving society time to adapt or even come up with technological fixes, he said.

“If we don’t, we’re going to blow through (climate goals) in a few decades,” Dessler said. “It’s really the rate of warming that makes climate change so terrible. If we got a few degrees over 100,000 years, that would not be that big a deal. We can deal with that. But a few degrees over 100 years is really bad.”

Editorial: Plastic trash is not just litter. It’s a climate change problem, too

Editorial: Plastic trash is not just litter. It’s a climate change problem, too

The Times Editorial Board                             January 3, 2021
CLIFFE, KENT - JANUARY 02: Plastics and other detritus line the shore of the Thames Estuary on January 2, 2018 in Cliffe, Kent. Tons of plastic and other waste lines areas along the Thames Estuary shoreline, an important feeding ground for wading birds and other marine wildlife. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), at current rates of pollution, there will likely be more plastic in the sea than fish by 2050. In December 2017 Britain joined the other 193 UN countries and signed up to a resolution to help eliminate marine litter and microplastics in the sea. It is estimated that about eight million metric tons of plastic find their way into the world's oceans every year. Once in the Ocean plastic can take hundreds of years to degrade, all the while breaking down into smaller and smaller 'microplastics,' which can be consumed by marine animals, and find their way into the human food chain. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) ** OUTS - ELSENT, FPG, CM - OUTS * NM, PH, VA if sourced by CT, LA or MoD **
Plastics and other detritus line the shore of the Thames Estuary in Cliffe, England, in January 2018. (Dan Kitwood / Getty Images)

 

-elect Joe Biden will have a long to-do list the moment he takes over the White House this month. Plastic trash should be one of his priorities. Here’s why.

Single-use plastic is a climate change issue — as well as an observable, measurable menace to the environment that has only been exacerbated by the pandemic and the need for plastic protective gear. Most plastic is made from fossil fuels, and millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions are released from the extraction of these resources, and the manufacture and incineration of plastic.

The end life of plastic is just as concerning. Very little of the plastic produced has been recycled, less than 10%. Even more of it has been burned. But the vast majority has been left to molder in landfills and, increasingly, pollute the environment. We hear mostly about ocean plastic and the harm done to marine life that mistakes plastic bags and bits for food. But microplastic is even more worrisome. Plastic doesn’t biodegrade but instead breaks down into tiny particles, which have been found in every corner of the planet, on land and in the air, in drinking water and food sources, and, ominously, in the placentas of unborn fetuses.

We don’t yet have good data about what that means for human health, but considering the toxins used in manufacturing plastic — benzene, lead, endocrine-interrupting phthalates, just to name a few — it can’t be good.

Yet, frustratingly, Congress and past presidents have not given this global environmental disaster the attention it requires. Instead, they have viewed single-use plastic — which constitutes about 40% of plastic used each year — as a litter issue that local governments must solve through better recycling and waste management policies. That attitude must change, because the recent global breakdown of the market for recyclables has made it clear that recycling has never been, nor ever will be, able to keep up with plastic trash use.

What can be done?

That has long been on the minds of environmentalists, who have been lobbying for federal action to reduce disposable plastic for years. To that end, more than 600 environmental, social justice and community organizations have signed on to a sweeping plan that focuses on executive action that Biden can take immediately. So far, Congress has been unwilling to consider serious action on reducing plastic production, perhaps cowed by the powerful petrochemical lobby. The only significant plastic-reduction legislation last year, the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, could not even get a hearing in the Senate.

Meanwhile, things are about to get worse. The petroleum industry is pivoting to increased plastic production, with some 30 new plastic-making facilities in the works in the U.S., according to the Center for Biological Diversity. (Among the reasons community and social justice organizations have become involved is that industrial pollution disproportionately affects low-income communities.)

The plan outlines eight steps that include directing federal agencies to use the power of procurement to reduce the amount of disposable plastic they buy, denying permits for expansion of plastic-making facilities and joining international efforts with new or strengthened multilateral agreements aimed at reducing single-use plastic. It’s a good blueprint, but Biden’s team should also look to California for inspiration.

California has been the leader on reducing plastic waste and was the first state to ban single-use plastic bags (a ban that was temporarily rescinded last year as a pandemic measure) and may well be the first state to transform the way goods are packaged. The state Legislature came tantalizingly close to passing the groundbreaking California Circular Economy and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act in 2020, which would have required that products sold in plastic packaging in the state have a proven recycling or composting rate of 75% by 2032. The proposal is still very much alive, and if the Legislature doesn’t pass it in 2021 — though it should — a similar proposal is likely to be on the 2022 statewide ballot.

But California, while influential, can’t solve this crisis alone. The U.S. has been a leader in producing plastic trash; it should be a leader in reducing it as well.