Monday 31 July 2017

Al Gore: 'The rich have subverted all reason'

Extract from The Guardian

With the sequel to his blockbuster documentary An Inconvenient Truth about to be released, Al Gore tells Carole Cadwalladr how his role at the forefront of the fight against climate change consumes his
life

Al Gore
Champion of the world: Al Gore. Photograph: Christopher Anderson/Magnum

In the ballroom of a conference centre in Denver, Colorado, 972 people from 42 countries have come together to talk about climate change. It is March 2017, six weeks since Trump’s inauguration; eight weeks before Trump will announce to the world that he is withdrawing America from the Paris Climate Agreement.
These are the early dark days of the new America and yet, in the conference centre, the crowd is upbeat. They’ve all paid out of their own pockets to travel to Denver. They have taken time off work. And they are here, in the presence of their master, Al Gore. Because Al Gore is to climate change… well, what Donald Trump is to climate change denial.

House crumble amid the destruction in the wake of Superstorm Sandy in New Jersey.
Disaster zone: destruction in the wake of Superstorm Sandy in New Jersey. Photograph: Mike Groll/AP
It’s 10 years since the reason for this, the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, was released into cinemas. It was an improbable project on almost every level: a film about what was then practically a non-subject, starring the man best known for not winning the 2000 US election, its beating heart and the engine of its narrative drive a PowerPoint presentation.
When the filmmakers approached him, he explains to the room, “I thought they were nuts. A movie of a slideshow, delivered by Al Gore, what doesn’t scream blockbuster about it?” Except it was a blockbuster. In documentary terms, anyway. The careful accretion of facts and figures genuinely shocked people. And it’s a measure of the impact it had, and still continues to have, that Gore delivers this vignette to a rapt crowd who, over the course of three days, are learning how to be “Climate Reality Leaders”.
It’s the reason why we are all here – his foundation, the Climate Reality Project, an initiative that grew out of the film, provides intensive training in talking about climate change, combating climate change denial – and the tone might be described as “activist upbeat”. This is a crisis that is solvable, we’re told. Trump is just another hitch, another hurdle to overcome. And it will be overcome. Only occasionally does a sliver of despair leak around the edges. You have to stay positive, a man called David Ellenberger tells the audience. Though sometimes, he admits: “There’s not enough Prozac to get through the day.”
It’s almost a relief to hear someone acknowledge this. Because before there was “FAKE NEWS!!!” and the “FAILING New York Times!” Trump was tweeting about “GLOBAL WARMING hoaxsters!” and “GLOBAL WARMING bullshit!” The war on the mainstream media may capture the headlines currently, but the war on climate change science has been in play for years. And it’s this that is one of the most fascinating aspects of Gore’s new film, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. Because if the US had a subtitle at the moment, it might be that, too, and the struggle to overcome fake facts and false narratives funded by corporate interests and politically motivated billionaires is one that Gore has been at the frontline of for more than a decade.

Breaking point: a huge crack in the Larsen C ice shelf in the Antarctica.
Breaking point: a huge crack in the Larsen C ice shelf in the Antarctica. Photograph: Nasa/John Sonntag/EPA
The film runs through a host of facts – that 14 of the 15 hottest years on record have occurred since 2001 is just one. And the accompanying footage is biblical, terrifying: tornadoes, floods, “rain bombs”, exploding glaciers. We see roads falling into rivers and fish swimming through the streets of Miami.
The nightly news, Gore says, has become “a nature hike through the Book of Revelations”. But what his work has shown and continues to show is that evidence is not enough. The film opens with clips from Fox News ridiculing global warming. In recent weeks, the New York Times has started describing the Trump administration as waging a “war on science”, a full-on assault against evidence-based science that runs in parallel with his attacks on evidence-based reporting. And Gore is in something of a unique position to understand this. What becomes clear over the course of several conversations is how entwined he believes it all is – climate change denial, the interests of big capital, “dark money”, billionaire political funders, the ascendancy of Trump and what he calls (he’s written a book on it) “the assault against reason”. They are all pieces of the same puzzle; a puzzle that Gore has been tracking for years, because it turns out that climate change denial was the canary in the coal mine.
“In order to fix the climate crisis, we need to first fix the government crisis,” he says. “Big money has so much influence now.” And he says a phrase that is as dramatic as it is multilayered: “Our democracy has been hacked.” It’s something I hear him repeat – to the audience in the ballroom, in a room backstage, a few weeks later in London, and finally on the phone earlier this month.

Popular backlash: protesters demonstrate against the Koch brothers, funders of climate change denial.
Popular backlash: protesters demonstrate against the Koch brothers, funders of climate change denial. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
What do you mean by it exactly? “I mean that those with access to large amounts of money and raw power,” says Gore, “have been able to subvert all reason and fact in collective decision making. The Koch brothers are the largest funders of climate change denial. And ExxonMobil claims it has stopped, but it really hasn’t. It has given a quarter of a billion dollars in donations to climate denial groups. It’s clear they are trying to cripple our ability to respond to this existential threat.”
One of Trump’s first acts after his inauguration was to remove all mentions of climate change from federal websites. More overlooked is that one of Theresa May’s first actions on becoming prime minister – within 24 hours of taking office – was to close the Department for Energy and Climate Change; subsequently donations from oil and gas companies to the Conservative party continued to roll in. And what is increasingly apparent is that the same think tanks that operate in the States are also at work in Britain, and climate change denial operates as a bridgehead: uniting the right and providing an entry route for other tenets of Alt-Right belief. And, it’s this network of power that Gore has had to try to understand, in order to find a way to combat it.
“In Tennessee we have an expression: ‘If you see a turtle on top of a fence post, you can be pretty sure it didn’t get there by itself.’ And if you see these levels of climate denial, you can be pretty sure it didn’t just spread itself. The large carbon polluters have spent between $1bn and $2bn spreading false doubt. Do you know the book, Merchants of Doubt? It documents how the tobacco industry discredited the consensus on cigarette smoking and cancer by creating doubt, and shows how it’s linked to the climate denial movement. They hired many of the same PR firms and some of the same think tanks. And, in fact, some of those who work on climate change denial actually still dispute the links between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.”

End of the road: the Gave de Pau river overflows after unseasonal storms in France.
End of the road: the Gave de Pau river overflows after unseasonal storms in France. Photograph: Laurent Dard/AFP/Getty Images
The big change between our first conversation in Denver and our last, on the phone this month, is the news that Gore had been desperately hoping wouldn’t happen: Trump’s announcement on 1 June that he was pulling America out of the Paris Agreement. The negotiations in Paris are right at the heart of the new film, its emotional centre, and when I watch it in March, the ending still sees Gore expressing guarded optimism.
So, what happened? “I was wrong,” he says on the phone from Australia, where he’s been promoting the film. “Based on what he told me, I definitely thought there was a better than even chance he might choose to stay in. But I was wrong. I was fearful that other countries for whom it was a close call would follow his lead, but I’m thrilled the reaction has been exactly the opposite. The other 19 members of the G20 have reiterated that Paris is irreversible. And governors and mayors all over the country have been saying we are all still in and, in fact, it’s just going to make us redouble our commitments.”
The film had to be recut, the ending changed, the gloves are now off. What changed Trump’s mind? “I think Steve Bannon and his crowd put a big push on Trump and convinced him that he needed to give this to his base supporters. He had blood in his eyes.” It’s instructive because Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, is also the ideologue behind Trump’s assault on the media. And Bannon’s understanding of the news and information space, and efforts to manipulate it via Breitbart News and Cambridge Analytica, both funded by another key climate change denier, Robert Mercer, are at the heart of the Trump agenda.
And what becomes clear if you Google “climate change” is how effective the right has been in owning the subject. YouTube’s results are dominated by nothing but climate change denial videos. This isn’t news for Gore. He has multiple high-level links to Silicon Valley. He’s on the board of Apple and used to be an adviser for Google. “We are fully aware of the problem,” he says with what sounds like resigned understatement. Gore has had more than a decade fighting climate change denial, and in some respects, the problem has simply worsened and deepened.
“On the other hand, two-thirds of the American people are convinced that it’s an extremely serious crisis and we have to take it on,” he says. “And there is a law of physics that every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. And I do think there is a reaction to the Trump/Brexit/Alt-Right populist authoritarianism around the world. People who took liberal democracy more or less for granted are now awakening to a sense that it can only be defended by the people themselves.”

Man on a mission: Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth.
Man on a mission: Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth. Photograph: Paramount Pictures
And it’s in this, his belief in social progress against all odds, that he takes his lead from the civil rights movement. The cut of the film I see compares the climate change movement to the other great social movements that eventually won out: the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, civil rights. Something profound and disturbing is happening right now, though, he admits. “The information system is in such a chaotic transition and people are deluged with so much noise that it gives an opening for Trump and his forces to wage war against facts and reason.”
Is it, as some people describe, an information war? “Absolutely,” he says. “There’s no question about it.”
What there isn’t much of, in the film, is Al Gore, the man. In 2010, he split from Tipper, his wife of 40 years and the mother of his two grown-up daughters, and what becomes clear is just how much of his life the fight takes up. When I catch up with him next, he’s in London for a board meeting of his green-focused investment firm, Generation Investment Management, and I ask him to tell me about his recent travels.
“Two weeks ago, I had three red-eyes in five days. I’ve been in Sweden, the Netherlands, Sharjah, then let’s see, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles. Where else?” he asks his assistant.
“Vegas,” she says. “We did CinemaCon.”
“Vegas, we did that. And then, let’s see, Nashville, on my farm.”

Focus on facts: Al Gore in An Inconvenient Sequel.
Focus on facts: Al Gore in An Inconvenient Sequel. Photograph: Courtesy of the Sundance Institute
I assume this amount of travel is connected to the release of the film, but no. “I’ve been at this level for the past 10 years and longer.” He hesitates to use the word “mission”, he says, and then uses it. “When you feel a sense of purpose that seems to justify pouring everything you can into it, it makes it easier to get up in the morning.”
He does tell me a bit about his parents though. He describes his father, Al Gore Sr, who grew up poor then became a lawyer and a politician, as “a hero to me”. And it was at the family farm in Carthage, Tennessee, that he held the first Climate Reality training, an informal get-together of 50 people that has morphed into the event I witnessed in Denver. There’s no “type” or demographic, I shared a table with a disparate group – including a consultant for the aerospace industry, a French lawyer and an American chef. And they seemed to have almost nothing in common aside from their passion to do something about climate change. “I’m a gardener so I’m seeing what’s happening with my own eyes,” the chef, Susan Kutner, told me. “You can’t ignore it.”
In light of Trump’s fixation with fake news, it’s fascinating to see. Gore has been fighting disinformation for more than a decade. And, he’s developed his training programme counter to the prevailing ideology. The answer is not online. Social media will not save us. We will not click climate change away. The answer he’s come up with is low-tech, old-fashioned, human. He takes the time to talk to people directly, one to one, in the hope they will speak to other people – who will speak to other people.
The course is run by Gore. He is on stage almost the entire time over three intensive days. And the heart of it is still the slideshow. One of his aides tells me how he was up until 2am the night before. “He’s obsessed with his slides, he has 30,000 of them and he switches them around all the time.”

Tinder dry: changing climate has seen an upturn in forest fires around the world.
Tinder dry: changing climate has seen an upturn in forest fires around the world. Photograph: Jae C Hong/AP
In the film, you see him perpetually hustling, calling world leaders, rounding up solar energy entrepreneurs, training activists. Hearing information from “people you know” is at the heart of his strategy. “You need people who will look you in the eye and say: ‘Look, this is what I’ve learned, this is what you need to know.’ It works. I’ve seen it work. It is working. And it’s just getting started. We’ve got 12,000 trained leaders now.”
How many people do you think it’s impacted?
“Millions. Honestly, millions. And a non- trivial percentage of them have gone on to become ministers in their countries’ governments or take leadership roles in international organisations. They’ve had an outsized impact. Christiana Figueres [the UN climate chief], who ran the Paris meeting, she was in the second training session I did in Tennessee. And, right now, people are getting really fired up.”
Al Gore shared the Nobel Prize in 2007 for his efforts in combating climate change, but in some ways it feels like he’s just getting started. The rest of the world is only now cottoning on to the enlightenment struggle that’s at the heart of it – a battle royal to defend facts and reason against people and forces for whom it’s a truth too inconvenient to allow. For Gore, the US oil companies are the ultimate culprits, but it’s only just becoming apparent that Russia has also played a role, amplifying messages around climate change as it did around the other issues at the heart of Trump’s agenda, and we segue into his visits to Russia in the early 90s, during one of which he met Putin for the first time.
What did you make of him? “I would not have thought of him as the future president of Russia. I once did a televised town hall event to the whole of Russia and Putin was the one who was in charge of making sure all the cables were connected and what not.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/30/al-gore-interview-our-crumbling-planet-the-rich-have-subverted-all-reason-al-gore#img-8
Revenge is tweet: an image of Trump is projected by Greenpeace on to the US Embassy in Berlin after he declared that America was pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Photograph: Michael Sohn/AP
What does he make of the investigations into Russian interference? “I think the investigation of the Trump campaign’s collusions with the Russians and the existence of financial levers of Putin over Trump is proceeding with its own rhythm beneath the news cycle, and may well strike pay dirt.” It’s also worth pointing out that when someone passed his campaign stolen information about George W Bush’s debate research, he handed it to the FBI.
And then he amazes me by pulling out a reference to an interview I conducted with Arron Banks, the Bristol businessman who funded Nigel Farage’s Leave campaign. He’s been reading up about the links between Brexit and Trump, and Banks’s and Farage’s support of Putin and Russia. “He told you: ‘Russia needs a strong man,’ didn’t he? And you hear that in the US, and I don’t think it’s fair to the Russians. I am a true believer in the superiority of representative democracy where there is a healthy ecosystem characterised by free speech and an informed citizenry. I really resist the slur against any nation that they’re incapable of governing themselves.”
Brexit, Trump, climate change, oil producers, dark money, Russian influence, a full- frontal assault on facts, evidence, journalism, science, it’s all connected. Ask Al Gore. You may want to watch Wonder Woman this summer, but to understand the new reality we’re living in, you really should watch An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. Because, terrifying as they are, in some ways the typhoons and exploding glaciers are just the start of it.
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is in cinemas everywhere from 18 August

The Observer Ethical Awards: how to enter

To vote, go to theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/25/vote-in-the-observer-ethical-awards-2017 or email ethical.awards@observer.co.uk with the category title in the subject header. Then tell us in no more than 200 words why you, or your nominee, deserves to be recognised. Feel free to attach pictures, a short film or relevant links. The closing date is 15 September. For more information, go to observer.co.uk/ethical-awards

The Day After, ABC News debate 1983 - Nuclear War

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3CLeA2bOKU

The Day After (1983) - Classic Movie Channel  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yif-5cKg1Yo 


Published on June 13, 2014
The Day After is a 1983 American television movie that aired on November 20, 1983, on the ABC television network. It was seen by more than 100 million people during its initial broadcast. It is currently the highest-rated television movie in history.

US flies B-1B bombers over Korean peninsula after missile test

Extract from The Guardian

Japanese and South Korean jets join US in fly-by as American ambassador to UN, Nikki Haley, calls on China to act

A B-1B bomber
Two B-1B bombers, pictured here in 2015, fly over North Korea after region claimed another test of intercontinental ballistic missile. Photograph: Osama Faisal/AP


The US flew two supersonic B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force on Sunday, as the US ambassador to the UN warned that China, Japan and South Korea needed to do more after Pyongyang’s latest missile tests.
North Korea said it had conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile on Friday that proved its ability to strike America’s mainland.
Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said on Twitter on Saturday that the US was “done talking” about North Korea, which was “not only a US problem”.
“China is aware they must act,” Haley said, urging Japan and South Korea to increase pressure and calling for an international solution.


Done talking about NKorea.China is aware they must act.Japan & SKorea must inc pressure.Not only a US problem.It will req an intl solution.
China, the North’s main ally, said it opposed North Korea’s missile launches, which it said violated UN security council resolutions designed to curb Pyongyang’s banned nuclear and missile programmes. “China hopes all parties act with caution, to prevent tensions from continuing to escalate,” its foreign ministry said on Saturday.
Early in his presidency, Trump met China’s president, Xi Jinping, and expressed hope Beijing would use its economic clout to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. But on Saturday, Trump said on Twitter he was “very disappointed in China” which profited from trade with the US but did “nothing for us with North Korea”.
The B-1B flight was a response to Friday’s missile test and North Korea’s launch of the Hwasong-14 rocket on 3 July, the Pentagon said. The bombers had taken off from a US airbase in Guam and been joined by Japanese and South Korean fighter jets during the exercise.
“North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability,” said Gen Terrence J O’Shaughnessy, the Pacific air forces commander. “If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing.”
Also on Sunday, the US Missile Defense Agency announced the US had successfully shot down a medium-range missile in the latest test of its THAAD missile defence programme, which is designed to protect the country against potential threats from countries such as North Korea and Iran.
The test was planned before the rising tensions with North Korea and involved a medium-range missile, not the long-range types being tested by the North Koreans. 

Court fight to release secret 'palace' letters about Gough Whitlam dismissal

Extract from The Guardian

Historian Jenny Hocking wants made public letters written between Buckingham Palace and Sir John Kerr during the 70s crisis

Gough Whitlam and his wife Margaret greet the Queen at the opening of the Sydney Opera House in October 1973.
Gough Whitlam and his wife Margaret with the Queen in October 1973. Two years later he was dismissed as prime minister by the governor-general Sir John Kerr. Photograph: National Archives of Australia


How much Queen Elizabeth knew about the unprecedented dismissal of the former prime minister Gough Whitlam has remained secret for more than 40 years.
Dozens of secret letters between Buckingham Palace and then governor general Sir John Kerr in the months before the shocking 1975 dismissal could hold the key, according to award-winning historian Jenny Hocking.
Her bid to have the so-called “palace letters” released by the National Archives of Australia is scheduled to be heard in the federal court in Sydney on Monday.
“It’s the nature of these, the timing of them and the fact that they appear to be prolific at the time of the dismissal, that makes them significant,” Hocking said ahead of the hearing.
“It will give us a real insight into what Kerr was thinking, what he was considering as his options in the lead-up to the dismissal.
“And I think more significantly, how much the palace knew about that aspect of Kerr’s entire thinking.”
The National Archives is refusing to release the letters because they have been deemed “personal” communications rather than official commonwealth records.
“It’s perverse to see them as personal letters given who they’re portraying,” Hocking said.
It is possible the public may never see them – the current embargo lasts until at least 2027 but the Queen holds a final veto over their release.
But Hocking said the documents were crucial historic records and Australians should know the full story.
“The dismissal is unusual because it’s been cast in so much secrecy at the time and since,” the academic said.
Other archival material that revealed Sir John consulted with high court judge Sir Anthony Mason before sacking Whitlam “totally changed the way we looked at the dismissal”.
“We need to know what else is there,” Hocking said.

Sunday 30 July 2017

'The president is a pyromaniac': the week Trump set fire to the White House

Extract from The Guardian

What went wrong? Take your pick: healthcare, transgender troops, the fallout from his savaging of Jeff Sessions, the Boy Scouts speech – it was the worst week in Trump’s short presidency

donald trump
‘Everything that has happened has been self-inflicted’: can Trump ever get out of his own way? Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

Donald Trump began the week by turning a national scout jamboree into something resembling a youth rally. He ended it in front of more massed ranks in uniform, telling police officers “please don’t be too nice” to suspects they arrest in what sounded to many like an endorsement of police brutality.
And then, amid a blizzard of stories about White House infighting, chief of staff Reince Priebus resigned, becoming the shortest-serving occupant of the post in history. Though he seemed blithely unaware of it, it was a fitting finale to the worst week of Trump’s short political career.
In five torrid days, the US president alienated conservatives by savaging his own attorney general; earned a rebuke from the Pentagon over a rushed ban on transgender troops; watched impotently as the Senate dealt a crushing blow to his legislative agenda with the fall of healthcare reform; ousted Priebus; and threw a human grenade – the new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci – into his already dysfunctional White House.
“This is certainly the week in which the Trump administration went off the rails,” said Bill Galston, a former policy adviser to Bill Clinton. “And it’s going to require some heavy lifting equipment to get it back on the rails and off down the track.”
Where to start? The most tangible defeat was over healthcare. Trump had repeatedly promised during his campaign to repeal and replace Barack Obama’s signature law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But when it came to the tough part, arm-twisting members of Congress or making landmark speeches, the self-proclaimed deal-maker was notably absent.
In the early hours of Friday, after months of wrangling, senators voted on a bill to undo major parts of the ACA, popularly known as Obamacare. In a moment of reality TV suspense that Trump might otherwise have appreciated, John McCain of Arizona, who had returned to the floor after brain surgery, was decisive in sinking the bill.
McCain is an old adversary. The 80-year-old is a decorated navy veteran who was tortured during more than five years of captivity in the Vietnam war. Just over two years ago, Trump, who received five draft deferments, mocked him as “not a war hero”. McCain has become something of a conscience for his party, and nation, as Trump tramples and trashes every norm.
His vote – along with those of Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – left a seven-year Republican promise in ruins and Trump with zero legislative achievements after more than six months in office. The president had tried to intensify the pressure on Murkowski during the week, tweeting that she “really let the Republicans, and our country, down”.
His interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, phoned Murkowski and her fellow Alaska senator, Dan Sullivan, with a threat to withhold federal support for major economic development projects in the state. The dirty trick failed and Zinke may have cause to regret his actions: Murkowski is chair of the Senate energy and natural resources committee, with power over the interior department’s budget.
Meanwhile, poison was seeping in at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Scaramucci, a mouthy Wall Street financier, publicly declared war on Priebus and Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an expletive-laden interview with Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker magazine. He described Priebus as a “fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac”, and predicted his imminent demise as chief of staff. Yet far from being punished, “the Mooch” was vindicated on Friday when Priebus confirmed his exit. He will be replaced by Gen John Kelly, who moves over from leading the homeland security department.
The arrival of Scaramucci was, observers said, the moment the White House went full reality TV. Galston said: “It’s off the charts. Both the president and the communications director have really defiled the temple of our democracy.”
Dangerously for Trump, the critics of Scaramucci’s invective included loyalists such as the former House speaker Newt Gingrich, Fox News and Breitbart, which described the interview as a “rambling rant that was so outrageous and discordant that reporters wondered whether Scaramucci drunk-dialed Lizza, was drunk with power, or, reveal[ed] he was unqualified for his communications director job”.
The Trump base had another reason to be upset. The president spent several days publicly humiliating Sessions, his attorney general, over his decision to recuse himself from the investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia during last year’s election. Sessions refused to quit, perhaps consoled by conservative voices of dissent.
Kenneth Starr, a former US solicitor general who served as independent counsel in the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky investigations during the Clinton administration, wrote in the Washington Post: “Mr President, please cut it out. Tweet to your heart’s content, but stop the wildly inappropriate attacks on the attorney general.
“An honorable man whom I have known since his days as a US attorney in Alabama, Jeff Sessions has recently become your piñata in one of the most outrageous – and profoundly misguided – courses of presidential conduct I have witnessed in five decades in and around the nation’s capital.”
Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, told CNN: “If Jeff Sessions is fired, there will be holy hell to pay.” If Trump tries to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, Graham added, he will be crossing a “red line”. “Any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency unless Mueller did something wrong.”
Sessions, a hardliner on criminal justice and immigration, is seen as the most Trumpist member of the administration. Taking on the former Alabama senator could prove a huge political miscalculation.
Galston said: “He has managed to alarm and alienate a substantial element of his conservative base. Sessions is the conservative standard bearer in the administration.”

‘Retired sergeant says transgender ban hurtful’

Trump faced blowback on yet another front. On Wednesday morning he tweeted, out of the blue, that he plans to reinstate a ban on transgender people from serving “in any capacity” in the US armed forces. He claimed he had consulted his “generals” but the Pentagon was blindsided and a day later it pushed back, insisting the policy would not be overturned until it received formal direction.
In a sign of how much America has changed, a decision seemingly calculated to rally the base played badly in media outlets in socially conservative states. The TV station WCIV in Charleston, South Carolina, reported: “Lowcountry transgender veteran ‘stunned’ by President Trump’s transgender military ban.” The Rapid City Journal in South Dakota said: “Retired Ellsworth sergeant says transgender ban hurtful.”
There was also rare defiance from Republicans in Congress. Senator Orrin Hatch, up for re-election soon in Utah, hardly a liberal bastion, said: “I don’t think we should be discriminating against anyone. Transgender people are people, and deserve the best we can do for them.”

‘Fake media. Fake news. Thank you’ - Trump at Boy Scouts jamboree

After months of bending over backward to accommodate Trump, Republicans gave other indications that they had run out of loyalty or fear. The Senate voted 98-2 to pass a bill increasing sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea, blocking Trump’s ability to cut a deal with Vladimir Putin. The White House bowed to political reality and announced that Trump intended to sign the bill.
Ever more isolated, with even Republicans turning against him, Trump went to feed off the dark energy of crowds. But his rambling speech at the National Scout Jamboree in West Virginia was widely condemned as inappropriate for its overt political content (along with a reference to a party with “the hottest people in New York”), prompting an apology from the head of the Boy Scouts of America.
And as all these dramas unfolded simultaneously, handing Trump a week of unmitigated disaster, North Korea conducted a new intercontinental ballistic missile test that landed in the sea off Japan. Experts have warned that North Korea will have the ability to strike the US mainland with a nuclear weapon as soon as next year. It was a sobering reminder of the high stakes facing a White House in disarray.
Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and strategist, said: “It’s fair to say Trump has lost control of the narrative. What I don’t know is how and when he can regain it.”
It might have been so different. Figures showed that US economic growth rebounded to 2.6% annual rate in the second quarter. Foxconn, an electronics manufacturer, announced plans to invest at least $7bn in the US and create between 30,000 and 50,000 jobs with a massive factory in Wisconsin. Trump buried his own good news.
Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster, said: “It could have been one of his best weeks with the Foxconn announcement. But this has been his worst week ever and everything that has happened has been self-inflicted.
“You have a White House in meltdown because the president is a pyromaniac. The thing that’s got to rattle Republicans is the damage he’s doing to the administration, to the party and to the country.”
Scaramucci is “Trump’s id”, Sykes said. “A friend said to me today, in a rational world, Scaramucci would have been fired for that interview. But in a rational world, Scaramucci would never have been hired. And in a rational world, Donald Trump would not be the president of the United States. We’re well past the rational world.”
It is far from certain whether Trump has actually hit rock-bottom. With Priebus’s departure, he appears to be severing his links to the Republican establishment, even though he will have to work with Congress on tax reform in the hope of a better result than was achieved on healthcare. The potential for conflict between Kelly, a career marine, and Scaramucci seems high. And Trump has not yet been tested by a major international crisis.
Rick Tyler, a political analyst, warned: “It could get a lot worse. North Korea just fired off a ballistic missile today that landed 230 miles from Japan.

“There could be a lot of worse things and we’ll be lucky if we survive them.”

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk claims underdog status in Queensland election race

Updated about 11 hours ago

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has tied Queensland's LNP and One Nation together and claimed underdog status, as she appealed for a "working majority" at the upcoming state election.
In her last speech to a Labor state conference before the next poll, Ms Palaszczuk ignored Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls' repeated denials of any intention to join forces with Pauline Hanson's party.
"We will face a mighty coalition between the LNP and One Nation — make no mistake, the LNP will enter into coalition with One Nation," she told the meeting in Townsville.
"Like [boxer] Jeff Horn, we will go into our coming election fight as underdogs."
After two and a half years in minority government, Ms Palaszczuk has started campaigning for a majority in her second term.
"The next election will test all of us here," she said.
"Last time, we climbed Mount Everest against all the odds.
"This time, with the LNP in partnership with One Nation, the battle will be just as hard.
"In the next term of Parliament I need a working majority — I can't have the LNP or One Nation standing in my way."
Mr Nicholls said he expected "the mother of all scare campaigns from the Labor Government".
"I've made it abundantly clear — time and time and time again — there will be no coalition with One Nation," he said.
"This is a dirty tactic by a Government that doesn't have its own record to run on and a Premier who doesn't have a vision for the state."

'Buy Queensland' policy unveiled

Ms Palaszczuk also used her speech to promote her new Buy Queensland policy, in a bid for business and union support.
Government agencies and corporations will give priority to local suppliers, even if the price is higher, and in defiance of Australian trade agreements.
"Our new procurement strategy is unashamedly a Buy Queensland one," Ms Palaszczuk said.
"No longer will we be constrained by free trade agreements that have seen jobs go offshore or interstate — we are going to go our own way.
"We are not talking about wholesale protectionism — we are talking about putting Queensland first."
Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland (CCIQ) voiced their support for the State Government's policy, despite acknowledging critics could view it as anti-competitive and restrictive.
CCIQ general manager for advocacy Kate Whittle said even if the Government paid more for a service, Queensland taxpayers would still be getting value for money.
"The chamber sees it as levelling the playing field, so that small businesses who employ over 2 million Queenslanders can compete on service and not just undercut on price," she said.
Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten also made an unashamedly Queensland pitch to the Townsville conference, with a reference to local hero Johnathan Thurston and a promise to increase statewide disaster recovery funding and build a flood levee in Rockhampton.
Mr Shorten also said north Queensland would benefit from $1 billion in tourism infrastructure from the Northern Australia fund under a federal Labor government.
"You are a beautiful, marvellous welcoming state," he said.
Federal Trade Minister Steven Ciobo said Ms Palaszczuk's plan to "buy Queensland first" would jeopardise the state's strong economic growth.
"You cannot open up international markets, you cannot boost export opportunities for Queensland products, you cannot do that and close off internal competition in Queensland," he said.
"It's just not possible and all it results in are fewer opportunities for our exporters.
"We want to make sure Queenslanders are getting best value for money — that's what government procurement is about."

Reince Priebus ousted amid tumultuous days for Donald Trump's White House

Analysis
Updated yesterday at 3:55pm


A national security adviser, a communications director, a press secretary and now a chief of staff — all have come and gone in the first six months of Donald Trump's presidency.
The demise of Reince Priebus was announced in a series of Tweets from the President late on Friday afternoon DC time.


I am pleased to inform you that I have just named General/Secretary John F Kelly as White House Chief of Staff. He is a Great American....

General Kelly is a retired US Marine Corps four-star general who has led the Department of Homeland Security since Donald Trump's inauguration.
Mr Priebus, as the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, is a key establishment figure.


I would like to thank Reince Priebus for his service and dedication to his country. We accomplished a lot together and I am proud of him!
7:00 AM - Jul 29, 2017


His departure follows the resignation of former RNC spokesman Sean Spicer as Press Secretary just this time last week.
It may reflect Donald Trump's desire to disengage from the party, especially after it has repeatedly failed to implement his core promise on healthcare reform.

Scaramucci's foreboding message for Priebus

Mr Priebus is now the shortest-serving White House Chief of Staff in modern American political history.

He's said to have resigned on Thursday after a brutal attack from new communications director Anthony Scaramucci in a conversation with a reporter from the New Yorker.
Mr Scaramucci and Mr Trump are both proud New Yorkers and in part the latest news may reflect a split between them and the Washington establishment.
"Reince is a f*****g paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac," Mr Scaramucci told New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza.
He suspected Mr Priebus had leaked a publicly available financial document to get at him, telling the reporter he had contacted the FBI and Justice Department.
"He'll be asked to resign shortly," he said.
Lizza says the conversation took place after he tweeted that Mr Scaramucci was having dinner with the President, talk show host Sean Hannity and former Fox executive Bill Shine.

White House lost list:

Michael Flynn, former national security advisor, resigned over contact with Russia.

Reince Priebus, former chief of staff, fired and replaced by General John Kelly.

Sean Spicer, former press secretary, resigned reportedly after giving the President an ultimatum over Anthony Scaramucci's hiring.

Mike Dubke, former communications director, resigned after three months and gave no reason for leaving.

He says the Donald Trump loyalist called him, furious that the details of the dinner had leaked.
"Who leaked that to you?" he asked, according to the reporter who refused to answer.
"What I'm going to do is, I will eliminate everyone in the comms team and we'll start over," Mr Scaramucci responded.
The reporter writes that the leaking of the dinner was evidence to Mr Scaramucci that rivals in the White House, who opposed his appointment, were still plotting against him, particularly Mr Priebus.

End of another rough week

Mr Trump brought his Wall Street buddy and entrepreneur Mr Scaramucci into the White House team last week, to revamp the White House communications department.
The appointment was opposed by Mr Preibus and Mr Spicer, who quit in protest.
That day, Mr Scaramucci took to the podium himself and described his relationship with Mr Priebus as being like "two brothers who sometimes fight".
On CNN, he clarified the nature of that brotherhood comparing their friendship to the biblical sons of Adam and Eve.
"Some brothers are like Cain and Abel, other brothers can fight with each other and get along," he said.
In the Bible, Cain murders Abel.
It's been quite a week in the White House with the future of Attorney-General Jeff Sessions still in doubt after a series of Twitter attacks from the President.
The role of chief strategist may also be in doubt after comments from Mr Scaramucci in the same New Yorker article that Steve Bannon is trying to build his personal "brand off the f*****g strength of the President".
"I'm not Steve Bannon, I'm not trying to suck my own c**k," he's said to have told Lizza.