Looks like Trump is backing out of the Paris Climate Accord. I’m not very expert on climate change issues, so I’ll ask…I know this is bad, just how bad is it?
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
The revolution will be supervised.
Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.
“woke” is the new caravan.
They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.
JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?
I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.
…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.
… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop
There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.
Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.
SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.
The words do not have to be perfect.
Only Democrats have agency, apparently.
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.
The new republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.
The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.
“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”
Usually wrong but never in doubt
Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.
The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.
It’s a doggy dog world.
A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.
Burnspbesq
The word you’re looking for is “catastrophic.”
Hunter Gathers
Bannon’s going to be pissed off at Grandpa-Dad when Mar-a-lago is underwater in 30 years.
Corner Stone
Well, I can’t say for sure. But anytime you have a Professor Oppenheimer involved you know you’re in some serious shit.
Another Scott
It’s horrible, but mainly because of the optics. On a practical level, staying in the Accord won’t prevent Trump’s minions from trashing all of Obama’s initiatives to fight climate change and promote cleaner, sustainable, renewable energy. It’s a voluntary agreement with no legal consequences for not reaching the goals.
IOW, more of the same from Donnie. It’s all about trashing everything good that Obama tried to do.
Cheers,
Scott.
The Moar You Know
Ain’t gonna bring back King Coal, at least not in the US. Stuff is too expensive compared to natural gas.
A halt to fracking would change that equation very quickly. How’s that for a horrible choice?
Corner Stone
Now is the time we need to engage The Obama Switcher-Roo.
Have him come out to a large audience and forcefully state that after long thought on the matter, the Paris Climate agreement is bad for America and we should definitely withdraw ASAP.
Ipso facto cogito sum, Bob’s your Uncle and Trump declares we’re staying in the agreement Fur-evah!!
MomSense
But, but, but I thought Javanka totally believe in climate change and were going to be such a bigly influence on 45.
Thoroughly Pizzled
America’s 70+ years of Western leadership are over. Louis XIV beat us by a few months.
Spanky
Time to buy that beachfront condo on Hudson Bay. Don’t mind the polar bears, they’ll be gone soon.
Corner Stone
@MomSense:
What you’re not getting is the marketing angle, the ultimate brand tie-in opportunities. Think for a second about what most hyped movie is premiering this weekend. That’s right…Ivanka is… Wonder Woman!
She’s going to swoop in at the last minute and save the planet! In a divine outfit that can be purchased online for only $249, hoop earrings and lasso not included.
Betty Cracker
Repeating a thought from the thread below: I suspect it’s a PR stunt. Reporters are being fed info about Ivanka trying to get Trump to stay in the Paris Agreement. Trump head-fakes an exit and then says he’ll decide this week. Like the Syria courtesy bombing, he’ll decide to remain in the agreement after careful consideration of Ivanka’s pleas for his grandchildren’s future or some such shit. The media will lap it up with two spoons, penning paeans to Ivanka’s wisdom and goodness. That’ll be better than a climate agreement exit for sure, but the fact will remain that we’re at the mercy of a cabal of grifters who are running US policy as a brand-building operation.
randy khan
The report I saw says he’s going to try to renegotiate, which just demonstrates how little he understands what it’s about or what it took to get there. (And if the idea was to convince people he actually does care about climate change, but just thinks the deal needs to be tweaked, I doubt anyone will buy that.)
Burnspbesq
In 30 years, Syracuse will be the avocado capital of the world, and the best habanero chiles will come from Glens Falls, grown in the valley that used to be Lake George.
Kenneth R Ashford
From what I read, pretty bad, but maybe not as bad as it sounds. It takes four years to get out of the Agreement UNLESS he also is withdrawing from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (which was established under Bush Sr in 1992). Then it only takes one year. (Although, I suppose, if we refuse to comply with the Paris Agreement, what can anyone do?)
Mostly, I think, it is a willful abdication of US leadership role in the climate change area and conceding it to China, which is investing billions in alternative energy technology (and subsequent jobs). It’s putting us behind.
schrodingers_cat
Rs are taking a torch to the American reputation carefully built over 70 years for what exactly? More tax cuts? This is an own goal of epic proportions.
MomSense
@Corner Stone:
I’ll even go buy a pair of fucking hoop earrings if it means we don’t exit the Paris Accord.
I am soooooooooooooo fucking tired from all this winning.
Corner Stone
@randy khan: Reportedly he hates any kind of multi-party deal brokering. So getting six other nations to agree to any tweaks would be a real pain that could take years. But 195 other countries?
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: Hoop earrings are always in fashion, no need to buy them from a low rent Princess’s line.
Walker
Because we have to sell cars and other things outside of the US, it probably will not mean major changes in emissions. But this is the end of the US as a world leader and the rise of Asia.
David Hunt
Well, I’m glad I don’t have children…
Gravenstone
The day after the election, a couple of co-workers asked me what I thought of the outcome. I said it was an “extinction level event”, because I knew Trump would undercut the work towards addressing global climate change. Sadly, I have to stick with my comment from that moment. I only have one immediate family member younger than myself, a nephew who is in his mid-20s. These decisions will have minimal impact on me, but for him and his generation as well as those who follow, I am truly sorry.
Corner Stone
@Kenneth R Ashford:
I remember a few years ago we slapped China on the wrist because they were dumping solar panels on our markets. Does anyone know the status of that arrangement? IIRC, for a while US made solar technology was price competitive on the world market but with the outsized massive funding China has put in, not sure where we are today.
Shirt
Well, This’ll give them damn furriners another excuse not to buy American I mean, they are always looking for reasons to buy Perrier instead of North Caroline’s coal tailings flavored Hogs-water
Corner Stone
Acckk!! Krystal Ball!
Tom Levenson
It’s bad, but, as noted above, possibly more cosmetic than meaningful. Or rather, it’s largest impact will be to continue the trend of other Trump policy shifts: it will diminish the US’s ability to be a driver of international actions; it will isolate us further, with implications for lots of stuff behind climate change; and it will continue to push us further behind China and Germany and others in teh renewable energy economy. In other words — we’ll be weaker and poorer for the decision, but the impact on global climate policy will likely be muted.
I’d add that this is an area in which cities, states and regions have some real ability to do stuff more or less independently of the Feds. In some states (looking at you Florida, AZ et al.) that license may lead to more stupidity. But in places like CA and TX(!) and many others, the move to wind/sun and other moves will likely continue. Absent the Clean Power Plan and the rest of the Obama initiatives, we’ll miss the 2025 targets by a lot — a roughly 7 % emissions drop compared to 2005, instead of the promised 25-26%. (See this.) But as technologies change and the rate of adoption of many of them exceed even recent expectations, the gap may narrow, especially if enough states pursue their own climate change targets.
This isn’t to say that the whole Trump climate change regime isn’t stupid, dangerous as hell, and wholly in conflict with the science of the matter. It is true though, that there are still levers to pull, even within these disUnited States of Trump.
hovercraft
@Another Scott:
Actually the pundits are saying that this is terrible because of the symbolism, we are going to meet our targets because of fracking and the gas boom, which was the real death blow to coal, and also because of our fuel efficiency standards, car manufacturers aren’t going to produce less efficient because the only people who want that are the rolling coal assholes, everyone else wants greater efficiency. Pulling out reiterates Merkel and Macron’s point, America is no longer the leader, they are still the largest economy, the lone superpower, but not the world leader. Pruitt and the rest of them can pollute rivers and streams and destroy stuff, but the biggest drivers of our emissions are on auto glide. Hillary would have done more to drive renewable s, which by the way will still continue to grow, the solar industry is one of our fastest growing and where there’s money to be made, people will continue to invest. Tesla is worth more than Ford, who would have thunk it? ( I heard that somewhere, haven’t double checked).
Mike in NC
Trump is just getting some payback from when those Eurotrash heads of state laughed at his fat ass riding in a golf car. Maybe it was a coal-burning golf cart?
Corner Stone
Why does every business strategy today have to be “disruptive”? How can a bottled tea seller have a “disruptive” business strategy?
kindness
The optics of Trump backing out of the accord are worse than the consequences. I say that because US Industry has already attained much of what the accord was supposed to accomplish. It was able to do that not because it was legally bound to certain benchmarks but because attaining those benchmarks came along with decreasing the costs of production. So….while the Chamber of Commerce might like Republican leadership it will always prefer higher profits no matter what the subject.
The Moar You Know
@Corner Stone: Where we are is largely out of business.
Had I thought that Trump was ever serious about stopping China from torpedoing our industries via this kind of dumping, I would have voted for him, in spite of his obvious desire to enact Cleek’s Law as the new US Constitution. But what was obvious to me, and should have been obvious to everyone, is that he and the GOP would do nothing save embark on a massive orgy of theft – and that is exactly what they did.
gene108
@Kenneth R Ashford:
The entire Republican Party, right-wing media, think tanks, organizations and anything else associated with Movement Conservatism seems hell bent on making China the world’s superpower and having the U.S. play second fiddle.
I sort of understand the neo-cons, because after the USSR collapsed the U.S. was the sole superpower, so who would or should stop us from doing what we want? I don’t agree with it, but I can see where they were coming from in the 1990’s and early 00’s.
But now?
We know that attitude doesn’t work. The USA doesn’t have enough superpower juice to bend the world to our will.
But conservatives are still wedded to 20 year old ideas, which are proven wrong, along with their 40 year old economic ideas that don’t work, and the end result will be a diminished America. And an ascendant China.
It seems to me that the billionaires, who run the conservative agenda in this country, maybe think they can make more money with an ascendant China, which is why they are pushing Republicans and the conservative movement in this direction.
China’s economy grows at 10%, while ours grows at 2%, so ROI in China will be better than here.
Basically, the Koch’s, Mercer’s, et. al. are selling this country out to make a buck abroad.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: She’s on right now?
pablo
Your Great Grandchildren will not live to see the day.
The Moar You Know
@Corner Stone: Bottle Russian teen hooker urine and sell it as “Trump Tea”. You’re welcome.
NorthLeft12
@Another Scott: I agree. Staying in the accord is pretty much meaningless if the US does not make any effort to fulfill their commitment. And for the record, that goes double for my own country [Canada] which has done a lot of talking but has taken very little action towards meeting our promised goals.
I guess I’ll give Deadbeat Donald some credit for not trying to make a show of doing something while actually undercutting any world progress against climate change. I have a feeling that a few of the US states will have something to say about their commitment to reducing carbon emissions, etc. If California continues on their path that will be a significant win in the climate change challenge.
Rob in CT
@The Moar You Know:
Wow, you’re a cheap date. Even if he had been serious about that stuff, there were a few other things that matter too…
Morzer
@Corner Stone:
When they piss in the bottles and tell their customers that it’s special covfefe tea that will make them great again.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
I truly cannot stand the woman, she’s almost as detestable as good ole Mudcat Saunders! Ugh.
Ian G.
My glass half full self says nothing Shitgibbon can do will change the economics of renewables, and how they’re becoming more cost effective by the day, and driving coal out of business. Add in an authoritarian government in China that could theoretically order the economy switched off of fossil fuel, and it’s another nothingburger from this administration.
I do love the irony of the infallible free market potentially dealing a death blow to wingnut’s precious fossil fuels.
nightranger
It could easily mean import duties on a lot of American made goods and raw materials, like, oil, coal, gas engine cars.
rikyrah
An unexpected problem: Trump handing out his cellphone number
05/31/17 10:57 AM
By Steve Benen
…………………………
And he still doesn’t. The Associated Press reported last night that Trump “has been handing out his cellphone number to world leaders and urging them to call him directly, an unusual invitation that breaks diplomatic protocol and is raising concerns about the security and secrecy of the U.S. commander in chief’s communications.”
At face value, it may seem as if the president is simply being collegial with foreign officials. It might even seem like a positive: Trump may alienate many world leaders, but here’s evidence of him trying to be friendly, giving allies such as Theresa May, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and French President Emmanuel Macron direct access.
But as the Associated Press report explained, the American president apparently doesn’t appreciate the details.
Shalimar
I am informed by the (edit, it is) CNN Headline News reporter in Portland that far right and far left groups there are known to be violent, because this man who stabbed 2 people to death may or may not be a member of a far right group, he isn’t saying he definitely is, but the far left blocked a presidential motorcade when George W. Bush was president.
I did not throw anything at the television, since I am a guest.
rikyrah
There’s no excuse for Trump’s ongoing confusion about NATO
05/31/17 10:32 AM
By Steve Benen
Donald Trump conceded last month that when he criticized the NATO alliance during the campaign, he did so despite “not knowing much about NATO.” It was an unflattering admission that the Republican is comfortable popping off on important subjects he doesn’t understand – because for Trump, knowledge is not a prerequisite to forming an opinion.
And while that was certainly a problem in 2016, it’s a bigger problem in 2017 that Trump still has plenty to say about NATO that doesn’t really make sense. On Twitter, for example, the president boasted the other day that “money is beginning to pour in” from NATO’s member nations.
…………………………………………………….
It’s the persistence of Trump’s ignorance on NATO that rankles most.
Last year, when he was wrong about the alliance, Trump was a first-time candidate, in over his head, struggling with issues he was considering for the first time. His confusion was problematic, but predictable. Now, however, he’s the sitting president – who has no excuse.
aimai
@Betty Cracker: Honestly I don’t think Trump is strategic enough for the head fake, at this point. I think he sincerely wants to pull out because Obama/hate foreigners and its a cheap way of satisfying his voters. He may change his mind because Ivanka and Jared persuade him that staying in will be good for him personally–but they may not be able to because of his sincerely limited mental and reasoning capacities. He simply can’t understand anything like long range strategy at this point. He is just a set of irritable, self involved, gestures aimed at quieting his internal feelings of shame and self loathing.
ET
@Hunter Gathers: Unfortunately most of the people trying to peddle the climate change is a hoax are likely to be alive to find out that it really wasn’t…….
I would say this is BAD! (to borrow from you know who) but as Trump has proven a president can spend the first several months undoing a lot of what the previous administration did. Of course when treaties and things are involved getting out is a bit easier than getting in.
schrodingers_cat
@Shalimar: Far left groups are cray cray, but the far right occupies all the positions of power in DC, that’s the god damned difference.
LevelB
Long term the crisis is climate change. In the short term, we are ceding our leadership in the world. I read somewhere that the Chinese premier is meeting with Merkel today or tomorrow. Bet he won’t insult her…
nightranger
@Betty Cracker: Doubt it. Every time you over think anything the tiny handed shit gibbon does you usually end up being wrong.
First and foremost he is against anything about climate change. Second, it’s always about ego and because he can’t say he made some sort of deal on climate change to stay in the deal, he won’t.
Shalimar
@schrodingers_cat: It isn’t even a good example that far left groups are crazy, at least not violently like all the various alt-right terrorists.
rikyrah
Putin, Republicans read from the same script in Russia scandal
05/31/17 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
The story may sound familiar: the president dismissed the importance of the Russia scandal yesterday, insisting it was nonsense made up by Democrats to justify their defeat.
Except in this case, it wasn’t our president making the argument. The Associated Press reported:
For the record, the “people who lost the vote” in the American presidential election were the people on the Republican ticket, which received nearly 3 million fewer votes.
Nevertheless, just hours earlier, Donald Trump was making the same argument via Twitter, insisting that the scandal is “a lame excuse for why the Dems lost the election.”
Morzer
I think in some areas Trump and the GOP’s rage against climate reality just won’t matter. Renewables are destroying coal globally – China and India have just cancelled vast swathes of coal-fired power generation because the price is no longer right. Trump/Pruitt can attempt to pollute America’s living environment just because that’s what nihilist cretins do, but I suspect that’s not going to win them much affection from the nation overall. It’s certainly not going to win over anyone outside the nihilist cretin demographic and is likely to push people into getting off the couch to fight for such minor matters as clean air and drinkable water.
Overall, I think it’s possible that the Trump effect will be to give the GOP one last, ruinous hurrah and make the Democrats understand the necessity of learning to fight smart, actually talk to the people in Middle America who want a better offer from the party than they’ve received so far, and to run candidates who can win locally, rather than getting the approval of the failed Machiavellis who have clogged up the party’s national structure for the last couple of decades. If the Democrats learn the right lessons, they might be standing on the cusp of a new golden age. But then, the Democrats have a considerable capacity for learning exactly the wrong lesson.
Shalimar
@nightranger: Trump’s ego is bigger than the climate.
SatanicPanic
@rikyrah: I’m surprised anyone would give him their phone number. I wouldn’t want that dumb*ss to have my number. End up with him calling at 3 am to talk about his electoral college win. Hard pass.
rikyrah
Why Donald Trump is calling for the end of all filibusters
05/30/17 12:40 PM—UPDATED 05/30/17 12:58 PM
By Steve Benen
As things stand, the Senate has already eliminated filibusters on the budget, all judicial nominees, and all executive-branch nominees. Donald Trump, however, argued today that this isn’t quite good enough: he wants filibusters to be eliminated altogether, on everything.
It’s an important topic, so let’s unpack this a bit.
1. We already know that Senate Republicans will not do this, at least not anytime soon. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), among other GOP leaders, has said in no uncertain terms that the legislative filibuster isn’t going away, the president’s pleas notwithstanding.
2. Trump, who’s never demonstrated an even rudimentary understanding of the legislative process, may not appreciate these details, but both health care and tax cuts are being pursued through the reconciliation process – which means they already can’t be filibustered. If filibusters were eliminated entirely, it might be a little easier to pass these priorities, but Democratic opposition is not the source of the White House’s problem.
3. The president is apparently convinced that Democrats would scrap all filibusters, but it’s worth remembering that Dems had the Senate majority for eight years – January 2007 to December 2014 – and did not do what Trump claims.
So why is Trump pushing such an obviously deceptive message? Probably because he’s laying the groundwork for failure.
Patricia Kayden
@Hunter Gathers: Bannon is rich. What makes you think he’ll suffer along with the rest of us 99 percenters? He’ll be fine.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 5/30/17
Civil rights protections wither under Trump, Sessions
Vanita Gupta, former head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, talks with Joy-Ann Reid about the Trump administration’s dismantling of important civil rights protections that are the responsibility of the Justice Department.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 5/30/17
US sidelined as Europe rebuffs Trump
Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, talks with Joy-Ann Reid about Donald Trump’s poor performance dealing with European allies on his recent trip abroad meeting with NATO and G7 leaders.
Morzer
@rikyrah:
I think Trump has been told by McConnell that he will be handling public policy – and isn’t interested in what little Trump has put on the table in that area. It’s the Covfefe in Chiefy getting petulant and trying to threaten someone who doesn’t care what Trump thinks in the least.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
The media and Wall Street haven’t gotten beyond the efficiency experts who come in and disrupt the old ways of doing things, streamline production and voila, more profit! Every fucking time they say this shit, I wish someone would say streamlining means laying off people, a business is in business to make money, the government exists to provide services, those services cost money, the ROI for taxpayers is not a something that you walk out with like a car, it a myriad of things that you take for granted everyday, roads, schools, clean air, water, fire and police, and a million other things that if you actually took the time to tally you’d realize you are getting very cheaply. The people constantly demanding to pay less taxes while bemoaning the quality of government services are the true moochers, they want something for nothing.
Shalimar
@rikyrah: This is Trump’s message and reason for blaming House Democrats because no legislation gets passed.
Patricia Kayden
@Shalimar: Someone really needs to create a museum of Both Sides Do It so that all of the vignettes of “y’all are equally awful” can be highlighted and showcased in the same building. Good to see that the MSM will never call out Republicans (the right) without finding a way to simultaneously scold Democrats (the left) for something or the other. Fair and balanced, indeed.
trollhattan
@Gravenstone:
You have saved me from a bunch of pesky typing. All the asshole western farmers who supported Trump and depend on irrigation actually know better but don’t care what their kids face. Winning.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Drive through the northern panhandle of Texas. That’s the future, Trump can’t stop it.
Shalimar
@Shalimar: Senate Democrats. Should not get distracted by life. :P
Jeffro
@rikyrah:
I’d argue that his little pea brain can’t even comprehend how NATO works…he has it set in his mind that we provide the protection and NATO countries pay us for ‘services rendered’. A multi-lateral agreement? A time frame? That’s not how it works in Trumpov’s Protection Racket. He can’t even envision it working any other way.
tobie
@Morzer:
My sense is the Dems have been talking about issues that supposedly make a difference to middle Americans for some time. Like health care, how to revive manufacturing, improved education and educational opportunities, etc. It hasn’t made a damn bit of difference, and the real question is why. Partially the media ignores every positive message the Dems have and part of it is that middle America is motivated by an atavism we haven’t witnessed since 1877.
Jeffro
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: What’s up that way – a gazillion solar panels?
GregB
@Patricia Kayden:
The folks with lots of money forget that they do literally need the little people in order to live. From nannies, to limo drivers, butlers, farm workers, builders, pilots, security etc.
As one wise person pointed out when talking about the Thiel types who envision taking a helicopter to some safe house in New Zealand. So, you think your pilot will abandon his entire family to assure that you Mr. Billionaire get to your safe house while the pilots’ family gets eaten by wolves?
One good phrase to remember: It is a harder fall from the penthouse to the pavement than from the sidewalk to the the pavement.
Corner Stone
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Is that like, “Imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever” ?
Morzer
@tobie:
The Democrats seem to me to have been largely talking to themselves and hoping that other people will read their policy statements. They also tend not to communicate very effectively when they venture outside their own bubble. The potential for Democratic wins is there, but I don’t know whether the party is ready for the honest assessment of its flaws that it desperately needs.
Bruce K
America’s about to be relegated to the status of a third-world country with nuclear weapons. How’s that for making us great again? It’ll take a hundred years or more to rebuild the good will that’s been burned since 2000.
Corner Stone
@Jeffro: I’m sorry but now every time I see your nym I read it as “J-Rubs” and then I can’t read any of your comment.
SatanicPanic
Well Dougj you asked Balloon Juice for doom and gloom and you go it.
Immanentize
Orson Scott Card, who wrote, inter alia, “Ender’s Game,” is a world class RWNJ. But he did predict in his books a United States that would become isolationist and stop leading — or engaging — the world in any meaningful way. In his world, that lead to total chaos and warfare mostly at the tribal level. Until the aliens attacked!!!!!!!
Maybe Bannon is just getting his plans from sci-fi books, but without world unifying aliens?
tobie
@Morzer: I have no objections to the idea that the party needs to communicate its policies better. I disagree though with this idea that they’re only talking to themselves. This sounds like a regurgitation of the typical right-wing/left-wing critique of coastal elites. It fails to acknowledge what the party is up against. I didn’t accidentally say we’re witnessing an atavism in the US unlike anything we’ve seen since 1877. That was of course the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the Jim Crow era. From my perch in rural America, I can tell you that the only thing that would woo people to the Dems is if the party started picking on the usual suspects and that’s not a party I want to be a member of.
rikyrah
Muslim groups raise nearly $500,000 for families of ‘Portland heroes’
It only took 5 hours to shatter their initial $60,000 goal.
Respond to hate with love.
That’s the slogan of Muslim organizations that have raised nearly half a million dollars for the families of three Portland, Oregon men violently attacked when they tried to protect Muslim women being berated by a white supremacist.
The horrific encounter occurred last Friday, when two Muslim girls wearing hijab were allegedly accosted by Jeremy Joseph Christian while riding on a commuter train. The man, a known white supremacist, reportedly began screaming anti-Islamic slurs, catching the attention of three men who rose from their seats to defend the young women.
Then things took an even more harrowing turn: Christian allegedly pulled a knife and stabbed all three men, killing two and leaving a third hospitalized.
The tragedy has rocked Portland, where locals held vigils to mourn the victims of the attack — recent college graduate Taliesin Namkai-Meche, 23, and Army veteran Ricky John Best, 53, who were killed, and 21-year-old Micah David-Cole Fletcher, who was wounded.
American Muslims, however, felt there was more they could do. That’s why two Muslim groups —CelebrateMercy and the Muslim Education Trust — created a LaunchGood online fundraising campaign on Saturday that cited the Prophet Muhammad as inspiration to response to hate with compassion
SatanicPanic
@Morzer: Can you elaborate on those flaws?
hovercraft
@Jeffro:
I think it’s a combination of him being used to running a small family company where he got to call the shots, and him not knowing anything about anything except how to con people, but believing all the nonsense that FOX and right wing spew. We keep reading about all the people who are losing their minds because they watch FOX. We think about it, when he started the birther crap as a publicity stunt and became the recipient of fawning coverage on FOX as well as an open invitation to call in whenever the mood struck him, it became a vicious circle, they praised him so he came on then he watched and son on. Try convincing the average FOX viewer about anything, you cannot, they are brainwashed, Twitler is not even as smart as the average FOX viewer, and he is a petulant, narcissistic asshole, he cannot learn and doesn’t want to. He is what he is, and the sooner everyone just accepts that 40 % of the voters got exactly what they wanted in him, the sooner we can all just start working to elect people that can and will keep him in check, domestically, internationally, Mathis needs to make sure that everyone knows to run all orders by him before executing them.
Immanentize
Also, too, what are the generals saying about this? They recognize more than ever how climate change is seriously destabilizing an dis causing real threats to our national security?
rikyrah
Trump is angry about Germany’s trade surplus. Germans say they’re simply better at making thingshttps://t.co/JQWLBJO6JB?
— AP Business News (@APBusiness) May 31, 2017
Calouste
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Louis XIV started when he was five years old, America ends with a five year old.
The Moar You Know
@GregB: Oddly my wife and I have been talking much about this recently. Problem is, they don’t need eight billion little people. They don’t even need one billion.
A world in which over 9 out of 10 people are expendable to those who own everything is kind of a scary thought, is it not?
Another Scott
@hovercraft:
Yeahbut, history tells us that the automakers chase the latest sales fad – efficiency be damned most of the time. People are still buying too many giant pickups and SUVs.
Brookings says that the efficiency standards are almost impossible to reverse, but I’m not so sure. It seems to me that Donnie’s EPA and the Teabaggers can easily gut the standards through inaction or via refusing to spend the money on enforcement even if they can’t change the rules outright.
I fear that we’re more likely to make the Paris targets via destruction of the economy (via war on the middle- and lower-class) than via the luck of Donnie somehow not breaking things too badly…
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
It’s kinda like BREXIT. The long term implications of this action are hard to predict, but the fact that Trump is trying to re-invent the wheel in itself is troubling.
And as is becoming clear, Trump moves around in a cloud of confusion. No one knows whether he believes his own bluster that he will be able to negotiate something better, or whether he simply thinks that reacting to climate change is a waste of time.
And I think the consensus of many of the comments here is right in that the US is putting itself in a position where it cannot have any influence over the issue of climate change, but could still do harm to the environment.
rikyrah
How to Combat Right-Wing Spin on the Trump/Russia Probe
by Nancy LeTourneau
May 31, 2017 11:43 AM
As I mentioned yesterday, the story someone (probably from the Kushner camp) fed to Fox News about how the attempt to set up a back channel line of communication was simply a one-off might make some sense if you take it out of the context that the Trump transition team had been working on setting up a back channel from immediately after the election right up until January. But once you know the whole story, it becomes obvious that the Fox leak is a lie.
This is a problem that a lot of the American public is facing as items about the investigation are leaked in the slow dribble of one piece of the puzzle at a time. It order to get the significance of each bombshell, you have to put it in context of everything else we’ve learned. It’s also the case that those who want to discredit the leaks can often do so by by taking them one bit at a time and making a case without any reference to key contextual information.
An example of that would be the way that both the Trump administration and right wing news outlets are making the claim that setting up back channel access to foreign governments is normal, while omitting the fact that it is not normal to do so prior to inauguration or with the goal of bypassing the U.S. national security bureaucracy.
Today, Ross Douthat makes a case for a more innocent interpretation of the Trump/Russia connection by conveniently leaving out an awful lot of key information. Here is the basic case he makes:
…………..
In his attempt to provide a more innocent explanation for the Trump/Russia connection, Douthat also ignores the fact that all of this was happening at the same time that Russia was actively trying to intervene in the 2016 election to damage Hillary Clinton and support Trump. That is the enormous context that is often left out of attempts to explain away individual bits of this story as they are leaked.
One other item that slipped by me but could be important as this story progresses is the way in which both Comey and Rosenstein have characterized the investigation. Here is what Comey said when he testified before the House Intelligence Committee back in March:
chopper
burnsie got it in one. catastrophic.
Morzer
@Immanentize:
Card is a strange mixture of very socially conservative on gender/sexuality and often unusually leftist on economic issues. His social conservatism has got most of the headlines recently, but he’s not quite as easy to classify as people sometimes suggest. One of his more striking statements is:
hovercraft
@Jeffro:
Either that or wind turbines, I know that much of the plain states are dotted with them.
Yes I was correct.
Immanentize
@Morzer: The Presidential election really does look like a total 3 million plus vote failure on the part of Democratic messaging gurus…. And about the Democratic bubble, Epistemic closure is really more a right-wing-first phenomena (e.g. FOX). Or is this just another one of those, “we need to speak with and address the real needs of white working class guys better” ideas?
Immanentize
@Morzer: No THAT is a statement I can get behind!
The Moar You Know
@Immanentize: The DoD, oddly enough, have been some of the real thought leaders here on climate change. Their first publications/advisories/contingency planning came out in 1997, at least a decade before I ever heard climate change being discussed by the media.
Their problem is simple: trillions of dollars worth of assets on coastlines. Those assets will have to be moved and rebuilt if the warming process is not stopped.
Immanentize
@The Moar You Know: Also, at least two of the “hottest” wars right now — Syria and Yemen — have their roots in great part in drought (followed by famine and migration). The military MUST be getting the immediacy of our need. Or do they think that if we pull out, we get some tactical advantage? Unlikely.
Bill Arnold
@Gravenstone:
I’d put it at more like hundreds of millions (median) of excess human deaths, assuming serious push back from the rest of the world and within the US. Also, perhaps, the collapse of the US, which would mean much less carbon emissions (and consumption in general) by the US. This is on top of an already-baked-in threat of human gigadeaths or possible homo sapiens sapiens extinction. (E.g. the CO2 already in the atmosphere isn’t going anywhere without either expensive artificial removal, or centuries of time for natural removal.)
Sad. (Really, not entirely mocking Trump here.)
Immanentize
@hovercraft: I heard a Texas guy on the radio put it very simply (paraphrase): When I heard you could make money from the air, I said sign me up!
Morzer
@tobie:
That atavism has always been there – but we need to remember that a solid slice of people in those areas voted for Obama before they switched to Trump. These are not people who are ungettable or are irretrievably racist. The Democrats have lost ground across the nation over the last decade or so, to the point where their power at the local level is at the lowest ebb it has been in living memory. Part of it is down to the fact that the party coasted along, not realizing that it was losing voters and doing precious little to inspire new voters to trudge to the polls. If we just write off voters as unreachable because (racism/misogyny/ignorance), that might make us feel smug and superior, but it guarantees more defeats for the causes we supposedly care about. The Democrats need to leave their comfort zone, admit their flaws and find a way to talk about their policies in a way that motivates voters.
Wapiti
@The Moar You Know:
One of their problems. When I was in Europe, in 1992 or 1994, the senior staff was already talking about it, in terms of possible mass migration events caused by lands no longer supporting populations. It could be like the legions of Rome, trying to react to the flow of Germanic tribes.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Another Scott: I haven’t heard anyone else suggest this, so I may be wrong, but I think he’s decided to pull out of the Paris Agreement because he was humiliated by Macron. He doesn’t understand that being named ‘Paris’ agreement doesn’t mean it is French-y.
Morzer
@Immanentize:
We have our own version of epistemic closure too. It leads us to prefer moral victories to actual victories, while patting ourselves on the back for being enlightened, even if the ungrateful voters didn’t and don’t see it. The brutal fact is that we lost the election that counted. No amount of talking about the popular vote changes that.
Ghost of Fitzmas past
@Morzer: wow. A Berner is here to “show us the way” at last. Thanks Real Liberal! You can go back to making clever T shirt slogans again now.
Morzer
@Wapiti:
The recent consensus in studies of Late Rome is that the mass migrations probably weren’t mass migrations at all, but relatively small groups, just as the supposed Mongol hordes were actually relatively small armies. You simply can’t maintain vast cavalry armies in Europe – there isn’t the grassland for them, outside relatively restricted areas like the Hungarian plan. Similarly, the movement of vast peoples wasn’t logistically possible, because you just can’t feed them without much better logistics than anyone in the ancient world possessed. What does seem to have changed by the Late Roman period is that Rome had lost most, perhaps all, of its military advantage due to superior weapons, organization and discipline. At the same time, the elite refused to pay their taxes and realized that you could actually make an accommodation with the newcomers that would leave you with most of your estates and local power – and no need to worry about pesky emperors over the horizon in Rome.
hovercraft
@Another Scott:
Just as the nation is held hostage to Texas and their backwards text books because they have the largest market, California is the largest car market in the nation and the auto makers chase their emission standards. Add the North East and you are looking at something like half the cars in the country. Assholes like Christie not withstanding, the NE has emission goals that they want to meet. Like I said, this is damaging, but mostly in symbolic ways. I know for the people living near plants and other industries where emission standards are going to be relaxed this will be very harmful, but it could have been a lot worse, the two biggest emitters have been curbed and that would be very difficult to reverse. Yes people still but too many SUV’s but even they are becoming more efficient. For years Detroit chased bigger and less efficient, but that’s how Toyota became the world’s largest automaker, one of their big takeaways from the bankruptcy was that they had to do more long term strategic planning, less fads, which is why they are making more hybrids, even SUV ones. Remember when the Prius was an anomaly, now hybrids are everywhere. I am hopeful, cautious but hopeful. Just look at his promises about coal, the coal companies basically said to him sorry we aren’t making money, it’s the market not regulations that’s killing coal. They’ll take the relaxed regulations to reduce costs and dump more toxic waste in the streams for now, but they are still reducing their workforce and closing down mines, there’s just not enough profit. Much as they’d love to screw the environment more, the market right now is not allowing them to. Now when he orders tomahawks on Tehran, that may be another story. He can sell off pristine lands, allow drilling in previously restricted places, but remember of all the drilling rights oil companies have today, many of them won’t be touched for years, we are at pretty much maximum capacity, it would take years to build the infrastructure necessary to drill in all the places they want to. small comfort, but if we can survive another 44 months, we may yet survive.
Morzer
@Ghost of Fitzmas past:
I’ve said consistently that I think neither Clinton nor Sanders is the future and neither of them should be a candidate for 2020. I think the squabble between the two factions is a waste of time and stops both sides from recognizing that they agree on far more than they disagree. The Democrats need to unify the party, win locally and take back areas of America that should never have been lost to the GOP. They stand a better chance of doing so if the dead-enders on both teams recognize that the GOP are the enemy here, not fellow Democrats.
The Moar You Know
@Ghost of Fitzmas past: He sounds very much like like our brand-new arrival “Spider-Dan”, a Russian keyboard commando if there ever was one.
I’m sure that’s a coincidence.
hovercraft
@Immanentize:
This would be very upsetting to Twitler, he hates wind farms, they are ugly and devalue the value of his property, oh and to all you tree huggers, they kill birds! Another one of the many reasons Scotland hate him, it’s astonishing that even before he became the Pustule in Chief, he was despised on both sides of the Atlantic by those who’d had the most dealings with him.
Chyron HR
@Morzer:
If the Democratic party promises to wholeheartedly embrace Bernie’s wonderful economic policy of “White lives are what REALLY matter!”, how many elections would we have to lose before you guys admitted you might be wrong?
The Moar You Know
@hovercraft: Add to that cars made for export (two of the “big three” are never going to be caught relying on the US again for most of their sales, and the third is no longer American at all) and fuel economy standards will continue, if not actually progress. We will still have giant pickups and SUVs, but they’ll now be driven by engines like Ford’s EcoBoost, little 4-cylinder jobbies that bash out more horsepower than my 454 Skylark ever could dream of, getting 25-30 mpg.
Immanentize
@Morzer: I really do not see things that way — but maybe we are talking about different things or the same things in different ways. I think that a 3 million popular vote advantage is hugely important — if not consequential in terms of the presidential victory. It is a demonstration that our core values and ideas prevail — equality, justice, anti-corruption, reason, reality-driven policies, etc. (It has also kept the Trump administration in a constant state of illegitimacy which has been one of the main reasons their agenda cannot get pushed through). I don’t think we ought to sacrifice any of those for any reason. I do think misogyny and racism have a huge amount of power in the electorate, but, as you point out, Obama was able to thread that needle. Clinton didn’t do it as well, and probably didn’t work as hard at Obama did in ’08 to try to. But our ideas are simply better than Republican ideas, or else I would switch parties.
Immanentize
@hovercraft:
Oh, so you know the rich people on Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Cape who (joined by some powerful Kennedys) kept fighting Cape Wind for decades…..
Stan
@Morzer
All due respect, but, I call horsefeathers on that. It’s not our side that’s living in a bubble. We are urban and diverse – worldwide, for centuries, that’s been the formula for openness to new ideas and innovation. The right is much more rural, isolated and traditional – again, something that is true worldwide. I realize I’m grossly oversimplifying but the point is, one side is living in a media and culture bubble and it ain’t us. Where is THEIR obligation to shut off fucking fox news and venture occasionally into a neighborhood that isn’t 100% white ?
Brachiator
@Morzer:
Interesting revisionism that I am not certain is supported as much by recent studies as you suggest.
The Huns were able to mobilize a sizable army to fight the Romans at the Catalaunian Plains (near present day Orleans) in 451, leaving the Romans crippled militarily. Also, by this time the Western Roman Empire capitals were at Milan and Ravenna or Constantinople (for the Eastern Empire), not Rome. And the Huns were able to exact enough loot through attacks or intimidation to be more than a minor nuisance to the elites.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Jeffro: Wind turbines for hundreds of miles in every direction. Community colleges with programs that train folks to install and maintain them.
hovercraft
@The Moar You Know:
As wages keep getting squeezed we want more for less, they I’m sure will try to eliminate all the federal rebates for fuel efficiency, but car dealers one of the biggest GOP constituencies with a very big lobby will have a shit fit, so they’ll be caught between a rock and a hard place. Also look at the rate at which people are adding solar to their homes, and the demand for efficient homes, saving money is not a partisan thing.
@Immanentize:
Yeah I was was thinking of that when I typed my comment. Being a rich asshole also not just a partisan thing, though most of ours are more willing to sacrifice for the greater good, but they too have their asshole moments.
Stan
@Kay (not the front-pager):
Macron did a masterful job insulting him. I don’t know if everyone caught his massive diss on the walkway when macron approached the rest of the group, and deliberately snubbed Trump while he greeted several other leaders. In the political arena that was HUGE bigly.
Ken
@Betty Cracker: exactly. In a previous post we were asked to think like actuaries, now we have to think like tv executives: The trump show is in the crapper and he needs a plot twist. The press and 1st world leaders will love him if he stays in the Paris accords…stay tuned.
quakerinabasement
Drum broke down the effect of pulling out of the Paris agreement yesterday.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Tax cuts, oppress the colored folks, barefoot pregnant women chained to the kitchen and the chance to make Bibles the official constitution.
What’s the future of the planet compared to important priorities like those?
EthylEster
@quakerinabasement: And did it very well IMO. So I guess DougJ does not read Drum. Sad.
EthylEster
@Immanentize:
So do cats.
Three Dots
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Yes, please explain. Are you saying there is something bad in northern Texas, or something good?
BruceJ
Pretty much this Because when we finally get stoopid enough to start fucking with the methane clathrates in the arctic and antarctic oceans it’s gonna be bad.
J R in WV
@Jeffro:
Windmills as far as the eye can see. When you drive through that country after a year or so away, there are thousands of new ones. I saw little red lights, hundreds of them, blinking in the night one trip, they were the warning lights, and the blinks were from the blades turning.
Jinchi
@Hunter Gathers:
You mean Barron? Although Bannon makes a funnier image.