Contemporary politics,local and international current affairs, science, music and extracts from the Queensland Newspaper "THE WORKER" documenting the proud history of the Labour Movement.
MAHATMA GANDHI ~ Truth never damages a cause that is just.
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
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.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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
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.
Japanese and South Korean jets join US in fly-by as American ambassador to UN, Nikki Haley, calls on China to act
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
Reuters
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.
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 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
Australian Associated Press
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.
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
‘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.”
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 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."
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.
...and a Great Leader. John has also done a spectacular job at Homeland Security. He has been a true star of my Administration
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.
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.
