The court was considering the powers granted by the Clean Air Act, which was written decades ago before climate change became a worldwide crisis.
Thursday, June 30, 2022
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
The Cassidy Testimony
WASHINGTON — The surprise hearing on Tuesday of the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack lived up to the drama that preceded it, providing the most detailed and intimate picture yet of President Donald J. Trump’s actions as a mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name.
The explosive and cinematic firsthand testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a trusted longtime aide of Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, portrayed the president as almost unhinged with fury when his Secret Service detail told him he could not go to the Capitol as his supporters, many of them armed, descended on it. Ms. Hutchinson said Mr. Trump knew of the threat of violence by his supporters but was unconcerned by it, since they were not targeting him; and that he sympathized with them as they chanted for the execution of Vice President Mike Pence, who had refused his entreaties to overturn the election. And she testified that senior aides had tried in vain to persuade Mr. Trump to call off the mob, but he resisted for hours. Her testimony was replete with stunning revelations.
Here are six main takeaways:
‘They are not here to hurt me.’ Trump encouraged an armed mob to go to Capitol Hill.
Upset that the crowd at his rally on Jan. 6, 2021, didn’t fill the cordoned-off space on the Ellipse, a furious Mr. Trump ordered security officials to allow people milling outside the security perimeter into the space so the event would appear well attended. Informed that some of those people were standing outside because they had weapons and didn’t want to pass through metal detectors, the president urged that they be allowed in anyway.
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“They are not here to hurt me,” he said, according to Ms. Hutchinson, who was within earshot of the president at the time. Using a string of expletives, she testified, Mr. Trump said he wanted the security features removed. She also said the president had been told that the crowd of his supporters were threatening violence and had come armed including with guns, knives, spears and flagpoles, and wearing body armor. Mr. Trump encouraged them to go to the Capitol anyway, a detail that could prove legally problematic for him.
Trump refused to call off the mob.
Ms. Hutchinson provided sworn testimony of an accusation that the panel has alluded to previously — that, despite the violence at the Capitol and the threats to Vice President Mike Pence, Mr. Trump refused repeated exhortations from his staff to intervene. Responding to a series of appeals from Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, Mr. Meadows said that Mr. Trump was not inclined to try to call off the mob, according to Ms. Hutchinson’s account. “He doesn’t want to do anything,” Mr. Meadows told the White House lawyer when informed that violence was breaking out. Mr. Cipollone tried a second time, noting that the mob was chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”
“You heard him, Pat, he thinks Mike deserves it,” Ms. Hutchinson said Mr. Meadows responded. “He doesn’t think they are doing anything wrong.”
Trump had bouts of fury.
Mr. Trump was prone to rage as his attempts to get the election results overturned fell on deaf ears in his administration.
Upon learning on Dec. 1 that Attorney General William P. Barr had publicly declared the allegations of widespread voter fraud unfounded, Ms. Hutchinson said Trump slammed his lunch against a wall in his dining room in the White House, as she learned from the valet who cleaned up the broken china and ketchup dripping down the wall.
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“There were several times throughout my tenure with the chief of staff that I was aware of him either throwing dishes or flipping the tablecloth to let all the contents of the table go on to the floor and likely break or go everywhere,” she said of the president.
Ms. Hutchinson said she had been told that on Jan. 6, an irate Mr. Trump, when informed he could not go to the Capitol to join his supporters, sought to wrench the steering wheel away from the Secret Service agent driving him. He continued to press to head there even after they returned to the White House.
Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 Hearings
Two top Trump advisers sought pardons after Jan. 6
Mr. Meadows and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, both sought pardons from Mr. Trump before he left office in case they were implicated criminally in any events leading up to Jan. 6 or the assault itself. As she closed her testimony, Ms. Hutchinson stated very clearly that her former boss had joined Mr. Giuliani in asking for a pardon, though neither was granted one. Just their interest in obtaining clemency demonstrated they were worried about the potential consequences from their efforts on the president’s behalf.
She also testified that at one point, Mr. Cipollone said he had serious concerns about what Mr. Trump had planned that day, including his desire to march to the Capitol. “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable,” Ms. Hutchinson quoted Mr. Cipollone as saying.
Trump’s cabinet weighed removing him after Jan. 6
Members of the president’s Cabinet were distressed enough by the assault on the Capitol and the president’s encouragement of the mob and refusal to intervene that they quietly discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office, Ms. Hutchinson testified. The ignominious prospect of being the first president to be subject to the amendment was one of the reasons he agreed to record a video on Jan. 7 committing to a peaceful transfer of power.
The panel believes Trump is discouraging cooperation with its inquiry.
Members of the committee are hoping that Ms. Hutchinson’s willingness to come forward and provide such significant testimony will encourage others still holding back to do the same.
“To that group of witnesses, if you’ve heard this testimony today and suddenly you remember things you couldn’t previously recall, or there’s some details you’d like to clarify, or you discovered some courage you had hidden away somewhere, our doors remain open,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and chairman of the committee, said.
Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and vice chairwoman of the committee, suggested the panel had learned of attempts by Mr. Trump and his allies to influence witnesses and would be considering a response to such efforts.
Carl Hulse is chief Washington correspondent and a veteran of more than three decades of reporting in the capital. @hillhulse
The Greatest Scandal in American History
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Maybe
Maybe I'm making progress. Haven't had to secure a payday loan in at least 20 years. No overdue books at the library. The doctor says, "I'm amazed you've lived this long." But I'm still here. I used to be able to quote The Sermon on the Mount. I'm a little rusty on that, but I can hum along if you know it and I can certainly break into "Amazing Grace" at any time.
Monday, June 27, 2022
Saturday, June 25, 2022
The Right Wing Threat
-Max Boot in the WaPost
Friday, June 24, 2022
LBJ and Vietnam
The greatest catastrophe in my lifetime was Viet Nam. I've spent time today reading historian Michael Beschloss's account of Lyndon Johnson getting us into a war in Southeast Asia that everyone agrees in hindsight was a tragic disaster. How might history have turned out differently?
Wednesday, June 22, 2022
Rapunzel
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let your hair hang low, and I will pull myself up and see what is going on in the castle, for it is boring tonight in Shelby County, Alabama. Perhaps the King is having a feast tonight with lavish entertainment, fools making merry, and dancers everywhere while we stuff ourselves with the King's bountiful food. Let the party begin! Rapunzel, Rapunzel, I wait for you.
A Real Man
A real man should be able to balance a checkbook, butcher a hog, write a sonnet, give orders, take orders, build a fence, solve equations, work an honest 14-hr. day, cooperate, act alone, work with people smarter than him, and work with people dumber than him. I am still working on all of these things
Tuesday, June 21, 2022
MLB Standings
MLB Summary
Al East
The Yankees are 12.0 up.
My Red Sox are 13.5 down.
The Yankees look awful tough.
Al Central
Minnesota up 1.0 on Cleveland.
Looks a real race.
Al West
Houston up 10.0 on LA Angels and Texas.
NL East
The Mets up 5.5 on the Braves.
Tough sledding for the Atlanta.
NL Central
Milwaukee up 1.0 on St. Louis.
Who knows
My Cubs 13.5 behind. No chance.
NL West
The Dodgers and San Diego essentially tied.
Good to see the Padres having a good year.
My Giants hanging in there 3.5 out.
Sunday, June 19, 2022
Annette Gordon-Reed - Juneteenth-Notes
Professor Gordon-Reed, a proud native of Texas, is a professor of history at Harvard University. She is most well-known for her work on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. She is a recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for her work on the Hemings family.
This slim book is personal remembrance, an explanation of Juneteenth, and ultimately an explanation of why she still loves Texas despite its racial history. A hard row-to-hoe I'm sure.
She singly integrated her elementary school in Conroe, Texas.
White enslavers in Texas generally did not handle the emancipation announcement on 6/19/65 well. Resistance was huge and sometimes violent in Texas. This action was taken from Galveston, then the largest city in Texas, from the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln in 1863 not on the 13th Amendment which did not pass Congress until December of 1865,
The author talks about her family celebrating Juneteenth when she was growing up in Texas. I had no idea the celebrating has been going on so long in the Lone Star State. It was a tradition in her family to do fireworks which they did and to eat BBQed goat though she says it was not a common tradition with the BBQ in Texas. Her family did not honor that meat tradition.
The author has obvious affection for Texas with all of her memories but she doesn't shy away from proper criticism. After all, she is a meticulous historian. She finds a way to accept Thomas Jefferson without overlooking his many shortcomings.
Travis left a young wife with two young kids in Alabama. Bowie bought and sold slaves. All of the Texas heroes have serious flaws.
CODA
The author explains that despite the difficulties of racial history in this country with Texas being front and center for her, she still loves Texas because that is where she grew and hence her family memories. At the same time she is properly critical of both her country and her state of Texas. She refers to Jefferson's Notes and Jefferson's contentions that slaves could not love their country because of the way they have been treated. For this author, Jefferson was wrong.
Juneteenth
It must be remembered that Juneteenth did not happen without the bloodiest war in American history by far. Going into the Civil War it was widely believed by many including Abraham Lincoln that gradual compensated emancipation should be followed by expulsion of blacks to Africa. Lincoln did not give up on colonization (as it was called) until at least midway thru his presidency.
Saturday, June 18, 2022
Hillary Says
Towards the end of her interview, Clinton leaves Luce with an ominous parting sentiment saying: "We are standing on the precipice of losing our democracy, and everything that everybody else cares about then goes out the window." Following that up with "Look, the most important thing is to win the next election. The alternative is so frightening that whatever does not help you win should not be a priority."
-Hillary Clinton
Thomas Piketty
Thomas Piketty’s monumental “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” (2013) offered one of the most thorough and illuminating studies of capitalist economics since Karl Marx published the original “Capital” 150 years earlier. Despite the plainest of covers and roughly 700 pages of erudite and often dense analysis, Piketty’s “Capital” was a runaway hit — selling more than 2.5 million copies worldwide. The book appeared at a crucial moment. Economic discontent had been brewing since the financial crash of 2008-2009; many blamed economic elites and their allies in government for having pushed the world’s banking system (and the welfare of tens of millions) into an abyss. In 2011, Occupy Wall Street provided this anger with a focus and a movement, facilitated the emergence of political leaders such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and generated a hunger for understanding the mechanisms of capitalism capable of producing deep economic inequality and injustice. Piketty’s tome provided the insight into capitalism’s inner workings that many were so urgently seeking.
“Capital in the Twenty-First Century” focused most of its attention on the advanced industrialized world of Western Europe and the United States. Piketty’s even longer sequel, “Capital and Ideology” (2019), deepened that original analysis while expanding its scope to include much of the rest of the world, with a focus in particular on how slavery and colonialism abetted the triumph of the capitalist West. Piketty’s latest work, “A Brief History of Equality,” neatly summarizes the findings of his two original volumes in a “mere” 250 pages of text. Readers will find this work attractive for its brevity alone. But “A Brief History of Equality” is also a very different kind of book from the first two.
While not quite a manifesto, “A Brief History of Equality” offers a sustained argument for why we should be optimistic about human progress, which Piketty defines as “the movement toward equality.” Across the last 200 years, he notes, life expectancy has increased from 26 to 72 years. “At present,” he adds, “humanity is in better health than it has ever been; it also has more access to education and culture than ever before.” Piketty is acutely aware of the disparities in the welfare of individuals both within advanced industrial societies and between the Global North and the Global South. But his reading of the history of the 20th century allows him to think that these 21st-century inequalities can be narrowed, in part because “the march toward equality in all its forms” is irrepressible and in part because past generations of reformers lit a path that still illuminates the way forward.
Piketty focuses in particular on the revolution in government that liberal and left forces in the industrialized West propelled between 1910 and 1980. Across these decades, he writes, Western societies built robust welfare states, invested heavily in education and other public goods, and considerably narrowed economic inequality — and thus the gap in life chances — between rich and poor. Piketty calls this transformation an “anthropological revolution”; for him it represents a social democratic triumph. Taxation was the revolution’s key instrument. In country after country, total tax receipts exploded, from less than 10 percent of national income in 1910 to between 30 and 40 percent by the century’s middle decades. These tax regimes were highly progressive and redistributionist, with the United States (surprisingly) leading the way by imposing an average top tax rate of 81 percent on the highest-income earners between 1932 and 1980.
The triumph of social democracy in the 20th-century West has imbued Piketty with the confidence that humanity can transition to a new stage of equality. An engaged and clearheaded socialist thinker, Piketty sets forth in “A Brief History of Equality” one of the most comprehensive and comprehensible social democratic programs available anywhere. His proposals include public financing of elections, transnational assemblies to complement national legislatures, a global tax of 2 percent on all individual fortunes that exceed 10 million euros (about $10.4 million), involvement of workers in the management of large enterprises (to promote “participatory socialism”), and the revision of global treaties to ensure that the international circulation of capital will enhance rather than hamper the pursuit of key goals such as reducing greenhouse gases and easing economic inequality between the Global North and the Global South.
Piketty understands that none of his proposals will be easy to implement. But his reading of politics in the 20th-century West gives him reason to hope. Then, he argues, progressive movements — women demanding the vote, workers struggling for industrial rights, social democratic parties vying for victory at the polls, minorities fighting for civil rights — triggered a vast political transformation. Protest movements of this sort, appropriately adjusted for the needs of 21st-century citizens, can achieve similar results.
To make his case for the efficacy of progressive politics, however, Piketty ignores a sobering insight offered up in his “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.” In that work, Piketty argued that the 20th century’s social democratic triumph did not arise from the work of progressive movements alone. Equally important, and perhaps more so, was the destructive force of two global wars. “It was the chaos of war,” Piketty then wrote, “that reduced inequality in the twentieth century. … It was war, and not harmonious democratic or economic rationality, that erased the past and enabled society to begin anew with a clean slate.”
Hence a key question for Piketty’s 2022 book: Can reducing inequality in the 21st-century world on the same scale as in the 20th-century West be accomplished without another large war, or a pandemic far more destructive than the one we are living through, or a climate catastrophe of the first order? One certainly wants to answer with Piketty that it can. He has laid out a plan that is smart, thoughtful and motivated by admirable political convictions. But a plan of this sort, as Piketty himself showed in “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” may not suffice, even when backed by a phalanx of progressive movements. Vast and cruel destruction of life and property, Piketty once wrote, was the critical prelude to the 20th century’s social democratic triumph. Let us hope the world will not require similar death and despair to thrust into existence a 21st-century era of economic and social reconstruction.
Gary Gerstle is the Paul Mellon professor of American history emeritus at the University of Cambridge and the author, most recently, of “The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era.”
A Brief History of Equality
By Thomas Piketty
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