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.
Robert De Niro arrives for the world premiere of his film The Irishman in New York this week.
Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters
The actor and longtime Trump foe Robert De Niro has hit back against his critics at Fox News, saying “Fuck ’em” – live on CNN.
Speaking to Reliable Sources on Sunday morning, De Niro said Donald Trump “should not be president, period”.
“And when you say that, folks on Fox come after you,” said host Brian Stelter.
Stelter brought up De Niro’s famous “fuck Trump” speech at the 2018 Tony Awards – delicately describing the incident as “when you got up there and cursed”.
De Niro said: “Fuck ’em.”
“Fuck ’em,” he repeated.
Someone off-screen seemed to shout: “Whoa!”
“Sorry,” De Niro said. “Sorry.”
—@BrianStelter asks Robert De Niro about criticism he gets from Fox for speaking out against Trump.
"Fuck em," De Niro replies. "Fuck em."
Stelter reminds him, "This is cable, so it's not an FCC violation, but it is still a Sunday morning."
“Well, you know, this is cable, so it’s not an FCC [Federal
Communications Commission] violation, but it is still a Sunday morning,”
Stelter said, before asking: “Why do you choose to go that way?”
“We are in a moment in our lives, in this country, where this guy is
like a gangster,” De Niro said. “We say over and over again, ‘This is
terrible, we’re in a terrible situation, we’re in a terrible situation,’
and this guy just keeps going on and on and on without being stopped.”
Amid social media uproar, one Twitter user wrote: “He was all of us in that moment.”
Another wrote “My manz” and posted a gif from the movie Casino, in which De Niro’s character stoically places a cigarette in his mouth.
CNN and Fox News did not comment. Robert De Niro: ‘I’d like to punch Donald Trump in the face’
De Niro is a longstanding critic of the 45th president.
In August 2016, before Trump won the White House, De Niro described him as “totally nuts”.
De Niro also released a video expressing his wish to punch the
then-candidate in the face, describing him as “an idiot, a national
disaster, an embarrassment to this country … this fool, this bozo”.
After Trump was elected, De Niro walked back his pugilistic posture, telling Jimmy Kimmel: “I can’t do that now he’s president … I have to respect that position.”
This year’s annual minimum of the Arctic sea ice tied with the second-lowest extent on record.
Photograph: Chase Dekker/Getty Images
The loss of Arctic
ice from glaciers, polar land and sea is declining faster than many
scientists expected, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s
(IPCC) report on oceans and the cryosphere said this week.
That’s bad news for polar bear populations, a top expert involved in
field studies on the endangered animals has told the Guardian.
This year’s annual minimum of the Arctic sea ice tied with the
second-lowest extent on record, a mere 1.6m sq miles, and badly affected
polar bear populations that live and hunt on the north slope of Alaska,
plus those that live on the ice floes in the Bering Sea.
“Now the ice has gone way offshore we know that the bears aren’t
feeding, and the bears that are forced on to land don’t find much to
eat. The longer the sea ice is gone from the productive zone the tougher
it is on the bears,” said Polar Bears International’s Steven Amstrup.
In
2015, the group reported that the polar bear population in the Beaufort
Sea had declined by 40% over the previous decade. “We can only
anticipate that those declines have continued,” Amstrup said.
The loss of sea ice this year was so pronounced early in the season
that tagging crews from the US Geological Survey (USGS) concluded that
the sea ice offshore in the western arctic was too thin and unstable to
be able to conduct their studies – the first time the team have pulled
their studies because of safety issues.
That’s a far cry from the two decades to 2010 when Amstrup did two two-month field studies a year.
In recent years, the spring season has also been severely hampered by open water, fog and bad weather.
This year, the trends were repeated. Amstrup said: “The ice in the
spring … was really tough this year. What ice was there was thin and
rough this year. That’s part of progressive trend that we’ve seen over
several years.”
The circumstances of global heating in the Arctic region, from record
heatwaves in Alaska to the loss of more than 60bn tons of ice from
Greenland’s ice cap during a five-day heatwave this summer, including
the biggest loss in a 24-hour period since records began.
For both polar bear populations, the circumstances are grim. Those
that live on shore aren’t finding much to eat, says Amstrup, and those
that live permanently on the pack ice don’t appear to be feeding much
either.
“They’re having a long fast in the summer and there’s a limit to how
long that fast can last. We’re already seeing indications in terms of
poorer cub survival in the Beaufort Sea. An adult bear has a lot of body
mass, and maybe can get through a long summer fast, but young bears
don’t have the body mass or hunting skills to survive,” he said.
But because 2019 did not set a record in terms of sea-ice loss,
Amstrup stressed, we should not be fooled into thinking that, short of
an extreme event, circumstances have stabilized or improved.
Amstrup said funding cutbacks and the fact that biologists cannot
get out and study the bears means it may never be able to collect the
necessary data to assess “just how bad this year was”.
Instead, Amstrup says this bad ice year and record warm summer are
symbols of what the future will bring. Bad years like this will be
increasingly frequent and the bad years will be increasingly worse – as
long as we allow CO2 levels to continue to rise.
“We know that as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise it’s
going to be warmer and we’re going to have less and less sea ice until
polar bears disappear,” he said.
“Scott Morrison’s meeting Donald Trump truly was the apprentice genuflecting to the master.”
Photograph: John Minchillo/AP
We
are at a two-fold tipping point on climate change – the point at which
afterwards there is no return. The two tipping points are, first, for
action to ameliorate climate change, and second, to report on it with
credibility.
You could argue the final year at which action to prevent serious
damage from climate change can occur without horrendous upheaval to our
economy and society is 2020. If Trump is re-elected the likelihood of
the USA doing anything to reduce emissions will be gone – lost amid the
demented ramblings of an insecure sociopath whose main concern will be
to stay out of jail and to hide his insecurity with insane blather about
how great he thinks he is and truly weird tweets mentioning his daughter.
For Australia perhaps the tipping point is already passed.
After
this year’s election we remain saddled for three years with a federal
government laden with climate-change deniers and charlatans who may or
may not accept the science, but who sure as heck accept the political
opportunity from scaring people about pursing action.
This is what the ALP is currently wrestling with. Yes, at a minimum
we need to reduce emissions by 45% below 2005 levels, but to do that in
eight years will require a much more severe effort than it would have
had the ALP been able to enact policies now.
So you can see some political reasoning for the ALP to think it is
better to focus on reducing emissions to net zero by 2050 rather than
the 45% cut by 2030. Because, as was made clear again this year, the LNP
is more than willing to smash the fear button during an election.
It is why the prime minister’s committed the most contemptible kind
of hypocrisy when he suggested in his speech at the UN this week that
“we must respect and harness the passion and aspiration of our younger
generations, we must guard against others who would seek to compound or,
worse, facelessly exploit their anxiety for their own agendas”.
Someone should introduce Scott Morrison to the disingenuous fear
monger who during the election campaign went around the country telling
everyone that “Bill Shorten wants to end the weekend”.
If this year’s election has shown us anything there is no advantage
at all from being the only major party with an emissions policy that
supports the science.
We spent six weeks with far too many journalists losing their minds
trying to discover a middle ground between logic and lies, and so ended
up arguing the big issue on climate change was the cost of the ALP’s
policy on the economy, rather than the manifestly inadequate cuts being
proposed by the LNP.
And that brings us to the second tipping point.
Scott Morrison’s meeting Donald Trump
truly was the apprentice genuflecting to the master. Morrison has
demonstrated a Trumpesque ability to fudge, mislead and obfuscate, and
to also suggest things are the opposite of reality.
With Trump there is no ulterior motive – his total lack of
introspection combined with total ignorance leads him to lie and believe
his own reality; for Morrison however the application is much more
tactical.
So we saw him telling journalists that the argument on climate change has been “settled in Australian politics”
– that there is agreement on the action: “The action that meets, that
we meet our 2020 targets and we meet our 2030 targets. And that we have a
$3 billion climate solutions fund, a policy for meeting our 2030
emissions reduction targets.”
What bullshit.
Those targets themselves are pathetic – a climate-change pea and thimble trick involving dodgy accounting of land-use
and carry-over credits. Even with this the targets are well below what
is argued as needed by scientists. If we excluded land use our emissions
would have risen 7% above 2005 levels, rather than fallen by 11%.
Our government is so useless, they are essentially cheating in order to underperform.
As for that $3bn climate solutions fund: does any sentient being
truly believe $3bn over 10 years is enough to adequately reduce
emissions?
The government brings in $505bn a year in revenue, so spending less
than half a percent of that each year over 10 years will do the trick?
If that were so then we would not be worrying about climate change –
every nation in the world would have signed that pitifully small cheque
and gone on their merry way.
And so we are at a tipping point.
The prime minister of this country is now suggesting the media are lying about the government’s climate change efforts.
He told reporters in New York last week,
“See what I’ve found in engaging with neighbours, and even here, is
often times the criticisms that have been made about Australia are
completely false and they’re completely misleading and people have had a
prejudiced view about what Australia is actually doing. They get their
information now, where do they get their information from? Who knows?
Maybe they read it, maybe they read it. But from what’s come out in the
media and other things like this, how they get their information…”
I don’t know about the prime minister, but I get my information from
the Department of the Environment and Energy, which shows that annual
emissions have risen every quarter since the government introduced its “emissions reduction fund”.
The transformation into Ocker Trump (“Who knows? Maybe they read it,
maybe they read it”) is now so obvious that no journalist or media
company can miss it.
The tipping point is here.
After looking across the Pacific and raising eyebrows at how the US
media has covered Trump, now Australian journalists have our chance to
demonstrate how they would do it.
The tipping point is here. Falter now and there is no going back –
not only for our climate, but also the credibility of journalists and
our media organisations.
‘At close range, you can actually see method in Trump’s shtick.’
Photograph: UPI/Barcroft Media
At
a refuelling stop in Honolulu on our way to Washington, a fellow
reporter and I, trying to distract ourselves from the Cat Stevens
ukulele covers wafting through an empty airport terminal, wondered what
could happen over the coming week to disrupt Scott Morrison’s first
visit to Washington as prime minister.
Our musing wasn’t malicious. It was recognition that Big Overseas
Visits™ by Australian leaders, and this was certainly one, have a habit
of colliding with major geopolitical events. John Howard was in America
on 9/11 and during the London bombings. Malcolm Turnbull was in Berlin during the Paris terror attacks. We wondered – in a bout of long-haul flight inspired free-floating trepidation – what might lie before us.
It turned out the wildcard was impeachment.
Questions about Donald Trump
and a call he made to Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine,
were coming thick and fast from the moment we were wheels down in
Washington at Andrews airforce base. Morrison arrived in a febrile
atmosphere in the American capital.
At the root of the gathering storm was a complaint from a whistleblower – believed to be an intelligence official – that Trump was using the power of his presidential office to solicit interference from a foreign country
in the 2020 election. Extraordinary doesn’t even begin to describe that
behaviour by the president of the United States, even if the president
we happen to be talking about is Trump.
This scandal rolled in over the course of the week as Morrison gave
practical effect to one of his most significant judgments in his still
new prime ministership – the decision to lean into the US alliance, and
to the relationship with Trump specifically, at this moment in history, a
moment when much appears to be running off the rails.
The
Australian prime minister is deepening the relationship with America at
a time when many world leaders are keeping their distance from Trump
and the circus of his presidency.
Quite frankly, in assessing this trip and its consequences, we need
to dwell less on the pomp and circumstance of the visit, less on the
South Lawn and the great honour of the state dinner and Trump graciously opening Anthony Pratt’s new paper business in woop woop Ohio, and think more about this risk, and why Morrison is taking it.
I sought to try and get to the bottom of this question on the road
with the prime minister this week, and I also sought to try and get some
insight into Trump by watching him during our short windows of direct
exposure.
In terms of the why for Morrison, I think the answer to that is
relatively simple. When he looks at Trump, he sees someone different to
him, but someone he can work with.
Trump looks less chaotic to Morrison than he does to the rest
of us because, unlike us, the Australian PM comprehends at a deeper
level how the Americans are thinking – on trade, China, the tension with
Iran, and a host of other issues relevant to Australia.
Understanding where the Trumpites are coming from – insofar as that
can be understood when you are dealing, fundamentally, with a loose unit
in the Oval Office – allows Australia to separate the signal from the
noise.
Given Trump specialises in misdirection and distraction, if you are a
partner and an ally, and you can get close enough to find a tethering
point, then it becomes easier to screen out the chaos and focus on the
transactions – what are the common interests, and how can they be
advanced.
Trade is an obvious case in point. Australia’s position on
Washington’s trade dispute with China is more complex than it seems.
Australia has been a loud diplomatic voice urging Trump and the Chinese
president, Xi Jinping, to come to terms and desist from the retaliatory
behaviour that is imperilling global growth. But the government also
hopes Trump will be able to crash through on this issue and reset the
rules of the road, because if he does that will benefit Australia.
Morrison is trying to craft a position with Trump where he counsels
both restraint and persistence in the trade war, which takes a certain
amount of diplomatic deftness. I think the prime minister pulled that
off this week.
The other insight that I gained, apart from a better understanding of
why Morrison was taking the risk of leaning in to a president others
are stepping back from, was about Trump himself. At close range, you can
actually see method in his shtick.
It was fascinating to be with Trump in the Oval Office
so I could see the way he operates. From a distance of only a couple of
metres, I could see the mental calculations he was making
second-by-second. He had a simple objective: stonewall, redirect and
destabilise the room. It was stream of consciousness insanity, no doubt,
but what I learned by watching him over half an hour was it was
calculated stream of consciousness insanity – at least in that outing.
When I saw that, I gained a better understanding of why Morrison was
taking the risk. Fundamentally, Morrison sees a rational actor lurking
behind all the demagoguery. Because I was there, I could put the two
elements of the equation together – Morrison’s core calculation and
Trump’s method – and better understand the building blocks of the
judgment.
To be clear: I’m not at all sure Morrison has made the right judgment
here. I’m not sure I would be confident enough, in his position, to
back myself as a Trump whisperer, given the person occupying the
presidency is not only unpredictable but in many respects absolutely
reprehensible. We are going to have to watch and wait to see whether
Morrison is correct to take this calculated risk.
The other big issue of the week in the states for Morrison was climate change, and that was a hot mess.
Morrison used the trip to telegraph that Australia now wants China to
be considered a developed (rather than developing) economy for the
purposes of global climate agreements, and that is a significant
departure from recent convention.
This argument was also framed simplistically. By inference, China was
painted as a destructive free rider in the global climate effort.
That’s not actually right. China is taking steps to reduce emissions,
and in a much more comprehensive way than Australia currently is.
To be clear. The world needs China to reduce emissions, and it
desperately needs the US not to be plonkers, because these two
countries, more than others, will play a major role in determining the
fate of the planet.
But while the actions in Washington and Beijing are critical, the
world also needs Australia not to be a plonker as well. Australians need
a government prepared to face up to the transition that the country
needs to make.
Morrison is trying to lull voters into thinking the government has an
acceptable climate policy and any view to the contrary is just noisy
progressive activism.
Sorry, but this is crap. Facts are facts, and the facts are emissions
are rising, and there is no coherent plan to stop them rising, and if
you listen carefully to what Morrison is saying about this, increasingly
he’s saying don’t worry everyone, this is all fine, and technology will
sort it.
In New York, Morrison also introduced another thought, perhaps
inspired by watching Trump’s utter contempt for the media during their
half hour together in the Oval Office. He suggested people were being
misled about Australia’s wonderful record on climate change because
they’d read something to the contrary somewhere.
“Now, where do they get their information from,” he wondered
rhetorically, while inspecting a recycling plant in Brooklyn. “Who
knows. Maybe they read.”
He was trying to do fake news without doing fake news.
Now, I imagine people do read, yes. Perhaps they read the
government’s regular forecasts that confirm the trajectory of rising
emissions. Maybe they’ve heard one or two (hundred) of the many hostile
interventions by Morrison’s colleagues to renewable energy and to
policies driving any meaningful abatement.
Maybe they watched when the Liberals tried to kill the same renewable
energy target that they now claim, warmly, like a long lost relative.
Perhaps they read George Christensen’s Facebook page, or heard Matt
Canavan blasting resources companies for talking about climate risk.
Perhaps they watched a government yank Malcolm Turnbull out of the
prime ministership when he tried for a second time to legislate an
absurdly modest mechanism to reduce emissions in electricity. Maybe they
heard Tony Abbott’s former chief of staff Peta Credlin fess up that they’d invented a “carbon tax” in order to hammer the last nails into Labor’s electoral coffin.
I actually think Morrison is capable of repositioning the Liberal
party on climate change and not blowing the government sky-high. I think
it’s possible he could do it, and frankly, the country needs him to do
it, but right now he’s showing every sign of pulling in the opposite
direction.
I’ll dare to hope the policy wheels are turning behind the scenes. But in the meantime, I’ll persist with keeping him honest.
Democrats waited for their moment and, when the president started to
believe he was secure, they struck. Will his complacency fell him?
Donald Trump stands accused of using US aid to try to get Kiev to investigate presidential rival Joe Biden
Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
Nancy
Pelosi’s decision to begin a formal impeachment inquiry against Donald
Trump, following reports that he used the power of his office to solicit
interference by a foreign government in the 2020 US election, makes him
only the fourth president in US history to have this notable
distinction, with Bill Clinton in 1998, Richard Nixon in 1973 and Andrew
Johnson in 1868. The picture changes by the hour, but the main story
concerns Trump’s apparent offer to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy,
to unfreeze $40m in (Congress-approved) military aid if he would
investigate Joe Biden, the current frontrunner in the Democratic
primaries.
The conversation so shocked a member of the intelligence community that they filed an official whistleblower complaint.
The White House then appears to have engaged in a cover-up, in part by
keeping these conversations from officials who would normally have
access to them, as well as allegedly moving the transcript of the call
to a secret computer system (the Presidential Records Act of 1978,
passed in response to the Watergate scandal, mandates that all
presidential records must be officially preserved).
Since
the Democrats took majority control of the House of Representatives in
January, Pelosi’s caucus has been under intense pressure from some to
impeach Trump, based on his first two years in office, beginning with
his firing of James Comey
as FBI director to thwart investigations into his own activities.
Others urged caution, for several reasons. Some pointed out that article
II of the US constitution specifies impeachment requires “treason,
bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” and that what
constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors” remains a subject of debate.
In practice, the House gets to decide, but it must tread warily. For
example, in 1868 it charged Johnson with 11 articles of impeachment,
including contempt of Congress, and “bringing disgrace and ridicule to
the presidency”. While it is tempting to ponder Trump being impeached
for bringing disgrace and ridicule to the presidency, it is hard to see
the Senate being convinced. Historically, other impeachment articles
have included abuse of power, lying under oath, and obstruction of
justice, all of which are likely to hold more sway with both the Senate
and the American public.
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi after
reading a statement announcing a formal impeachment inquiry into
President Donald Trump Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP
Nor does impeaching Trump guarantee his removal: Clinton
and Johnson were both impeached by the House but acquitted by the
Senate. (Impeachment works like a trial, with the House prosecuting, the
chief justice of the supreme court presiding, and the Senate as jury
voting whether to convict.)The House only needs a simple majority to
pass articles of impeachment, but conviction requires a two-thirds
Senate majority: 67 votes. No US president has ever been removed by
Senate vote, and Mitch McConnell’s Senate has, thus far, implacably voted along party lines to protect Trump.
Many have concluded that impeachment would be at best pointless, and
at worst destructive, when the Senate seems all but guaranteed to
acquit. They also point to Trump’s near 90% approval rating among
registered Republicans, as well as Fox News’s dominance over the narrative that conservative Americans encounter.
One obvious rebuttal to this line of reasoning is that upholding the
rule of law matters in principle, as does accountability. Nor is public
opinion fixed. It could easily shift toward removal as hearings brought
wrongdoing to light; this is what led to Nixon’s resignation.
Senators in close-fought seats who voted to acquit a president widely
viewed as guilty might also find themselves paying the price in next
year’s elections.
But there are other arguments against letting McConnell’s presumptive
support for Trump sway the decision about impeachment. One is that you
can’t end corruption by waiting for the corrupt to give you permission.
But it also simply isn’t true that Republicans in Congress are in thrall
to Trump personally. Most of them merely hitched their buggies to his
circus wagon.
McConnell almost certainly views Trump as a useful idiot, one to cut
loose the moment he becomes a liability. We might note, in this context,
the Washington Post’s report that McConnell seems to have
urged the White House to release the damning memo of Trump’s phone call
with Zelenskiy. Trump’s mental competencies are in serious question, but
McConnell is more than capable of the second-order thinking required to
convince Trump to incriminate himself. And there is another option,
unpalatable to many, but undeniably real: if McConnell decides that his
interests are best served by Trump’s removal, he can always offer Trump
and his family a full pardon from President Pence in return for
resignation.
But that’s all a long way off, while information emerges at dizzying
speed. The former special ambassador to Ukraine Kurt Volker just stepped down
amid rumours that he intends to reveal what he knows, while Congress
has subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, informing him that
failure to comply would constitute obstruction of Congress – which could
add to the articles of impeachment against the president. Once it
becomes clear that the Trump White House is a sinking ship, we should
expect to see more and more officials desert it. As for the supposedly
fearsome support of Trump’s oft-cited “base”, which has become something
of a political bogeyman, its ferocity is a function of its dwindling
size. A 2018 Rasmussen report
found that 40% of US voters identify as Democrat, 28% as independent,
and only 29% as Republican: increasingly, only diehard Trump supporters
will be left, and they are vastly outnumbered by his critics.
"Democrats have been pilloried for not impeaching, for impeaching, for impeaching the wrong way or for the wrong reasons"
The Democrats, meanwhile, have been pilloried from start to finish:
for not impeaching, for impeaching, for impeaching the wrong way or for
the wrong reasons. But the truth is that we are in uncharted seas, and
there is no easy way to remove a president. In hindsight, it is hard not
to conclude that in biding her time Pelosi was waiting to reel Trump in.
The timing of some of these meetings is striking, to say the least:
it was the day after Trump fired Comey that he met Russian leaders in
the Oval Office and allegedly told them how relieved he was Comey was
gone, while divulging highly classified information and informing them
he didn’t care if they attacked US elections. By the same token, it was
also the very day after Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony brought
no apparent repercussions to Trump on 24 July that he engaged in the
sensational discussion with Zelenskiy .
He appears to have been emboldened by feeling above the law, behaving
with ever greater abandon, while Pelosi waited patiently for him to
shoot that gun on 5th Avenue, as he kept threatening to do. Perhaps it
was just a happy accident that Pelosi gave Trump all the rope with which
he proceeded to hang himself, but her intention is now moot: that’s how
it has played out.
Trump’s pattern of grandiosity, delusions of superiority, profound
entitlement, desperate need for admiration, and bitter spite all but
guaranteed the outcome: he wouldn’t be able to resist abusing his power,
and didn’t. Trump loves to brag that he’s the most successful president
in US history – but if he is actually convicted by the Senate and
removed from office that will make him, officially, the least.
• Sarah Churchwell is author of Behold, America: A History of America First and the American Dream
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New
York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the
week’s political news, including the details of the phone call between
President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Speaker of
the House Nancy Pelosi’s decision to open an impeachment inquiry into
the matter and potential 2020 political reaction to impeachment.
Read the Full Transcript
Judy Woodruff:
And now back in Washington, fallout from the whistle-blower's complaint, as the formal impeachment inquiry picks up steam.
And
to help analyze this historic week, I'm joined by Shields and Brooks.
That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist
David Brooks.
Hello to both of you.
So much going on this week, but I think we know where to start.
And
that is — David, looking back at this conversation that took place in
July between President Trump, the president of Ukraine, the White House
continues to say this is perfectly appropriate, the president said
perfect, conversation with the leader of another country. Democrats are
saying it was a violation of his oath, an impeachable offense.
David Brooks:
Yes.
I'm a little mystified. I think they're
sincere. They thought it was exculpatory. But I don't see how they could
actually think that.
I mean, the crucial thing to do with that
transcript is to look at the logic chain of the thing. So Trump says, we
have been very generous to you. You haven't always been generous to us.
We have been more generous than the others.
And then — then that follows with, well, maybe you can do us a favor. And that favor is to investigate the Bidens.
So when you just break down the logic chain, it's a very clear, we did this for you, you owe us, here's what you can do for us.
And that is — it's not an explicit quid pro quo, but it comes pretty close, I think.
Judy Woodruff:
Are there shades of questions here about what happened in that conversation, Mark, or is it clear-cut for you?
Mark Shields:
It's clear-cut, Judy.
I mean, what it puts to rest is the lie about the confidence of the Trump campaign: We're leading in all polls. We're ahead.
He
was so terrified, so intimidated, the president of the United States
got on the phone with the leader of Ukraine to get dirt on the one
Democrat who in every major poll was beating him and that candidate's
son.
I mean, this shows the terror, the intimidation. And the
false bravado is just totally exposed. And it is — David — I think David
was more than kind. It is totally explicit.
This is a country,
Judy, that has a smaller army than that of Sri Lanka. I mean, it's
sitting on the doorstep of Russia, that has shown nothing but imperial
totalitarian impulses toward it, translated into physical action. It's
got an economy smaller than that of El Salvador. And we're holding $451
million?
And the president of the United States — it's a
supplicant, mendicant. It's the boss to the lowest employee. I mean, the
power is totally disproportionate. And anybody has to acknowledge that
who sees it.
Judy Woodruff:
And, David, you still have Republicans, though, saying,
highly appropriate for the United States to be saying to the leader of
Ukraine, we want you to clean up corruption in your country, that that
was what…
David Brooks:
Yes. Well, that is appropriate, I suppose, to say.
But
the Republicans are not going to break on this. And that's, I think,
when — as we look at impeachment — I vaguely remember Watergate. I was
young. But I remember a sense of gravity, a sense that we're stepping
outside our party lines. At least some people did that, Sam Ervin, other
people, Howard Baker. And we're going to weigh the evidence. And this
is so serious, we can't just play normal politics.
That's not
going to happen this time. To me, this is already feeling like very
normal politics, where the Democrats are going to be all here and the
Republicans will be all here, and the idea of stepping outside your
partisan affiliation for the sake of the truth, that's just not the way
the game is played anymore.
Judy Woodruff:
Well, I want to ask you both about the role that the whistle-blower played in all this.
We
learned several days ago that this is someone in the intelligence
community, in the last few days, Mark, reporting, that it's an analyst
at the CIA. We don't have the name. In fact, we're not supposed to have
the name. This person is supposed to be — identity is supposed to be
protected.
But the president is calling this individual a spy, in effect, saying, this is somebody who's disloyal to the country.
Mark Shields:
Last week, the president branded the person a partisan hack, you will recall. It's gone now to treachery.
I
mean, the person who did it, Judy, assuming that it's a person of
rational — and I think it's an intelligent and comprehensive and
well-written complaint — had to know what he or she was putting at risk,
in the hothouse in which we live here in Washington, that the identity
will eventually be made public.
And I think it can only be revealed and described as act of great — of great courage to do so.
Judy Woodruff:
And pulling in, David, a number of other administration officials, which is what's launching the congressional…
David Brooks:
Yes.
That was the big thing I took away from the report, that it was — it's bigger than just one phone call.
Mark Shields:
Yes.
David Brooks:
It's partly the cover-up, but he said it was over a series of months. There's a lot of people who were in a panic about this.
And
so it's not just that one phone call, and then he heard about it. But
there was a process. There were people who were freaked out about it.
And so there's a little more here than just one person who's going to be
involved in this.
Mark Shields:
David's right, Judy, that he laid out a blueprint.
That's what the letter does and the statement does. It's a blueprint to pursue investigation, to interview and expand.
Judy Woodruff:
And the fact that this person, what, spent four months, collected — talked to a number of different people.
Mark Shields:
Yes.
Judy Woodruff:
Didn't just rashly set this — set this out there and throw it out.
Mark Shields:
No.
Judy Woodruff:
But the question then comes down to is, David, the impeachment inquiry.
The
House is doubling down. We had Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House
Intelligence, on the program last night, saying, this is more serious
than the Mueller report, which they spent months and months considering.
David Brooks:
Yes.
It's certainly narratively cleaner. You can
understand it, where Russia was much more complicated. And, to me, the
decision to do impeachment is a mistake.
They — I do agree Trump
did something impeachable, but this is a political process, not a legal
process. There's no obligation to prosecute.
And, to me, it's a
mistake for a couple reasons. If your object is to get Donald Trump out
of the White House, impeachment doesn't get you there, because the
chance that you will get 20 senators, 20 Republican senators, to vote to
vote Donald Trump out of office seems to me so remote, it's minuscule.
So
the likely outcome of this is that Donald Trump will say, see, I was
acquitted in the Senate. I'm vindicated. I beat these people.
And so he will get a little victory. And then both parties will go into revolt. And so that's the way it likely looks to end up.
In
the meantime, you're trampling over your Democratic primary season.
You're not having the debate the voters want, which is about climate
change and health care and jobs and stuff like that.
You're
focusing all the attention on the Democratic side, or the bulk of it, to
the Congress, not to the presidential candidates. And, to me, so what
Pelosi has done, I think, here is taken a decision that has a very low
chance of succeeding, to get him out of office, but has huge risks in
ways we can't even imagine.
And so I'm a little nervous about where impeachment is going to get us.
Judy Woodruff:
You think the Democrats are doing the right thing, or not?
Mark Shields:
The Democrats are doing the only thing they can do.
I
mean, what this president has done is not outrageous. It's not
indefensible. It's criminal. And that's what he's done. He has totally
abdicated, abrogated and corrupted his oath of office.
So when it
comes to making this decision, I think the preeminent national American
political leader of the 21st century is the speaker of the House, more
so than any president. She single-handedly passed the Affordable Care
Act.
She is the one major figure in the national firmament of any
presidential candidate who opposed the folly and the debacle and the
tragedy of the war in Iraq. She put at risk her majority to pass the
Affordable Care Act, covering 17 million Americans, two million of whom
have lost their coverage as a result of Donald Trump's policies in the
last year alone.
And she knew she was losing the majority. And she
came back. She has not — she has avoided the rush to join the
pound-of-flesh club, let's get — get him for double-parking outside an
orphanage on the Capitol — on Christmas Eve.
This is just too
serious. You can't turn your back on it. I agree with David it may not
be politically good timing, expedient. It would be an act of total
irresponsibility not to act when you have the evidence given to the
Democrats.
Judy Woodruff:
How do you…
David Brooks:
Yes, there's this thing called the ethical responsibility. What's the actual outcome of the decision?
And maybe she couldn't act, but she said, I will not do impeachment unless there's a bipartisan upswell of support for this.
And there's not that. And that will never happen right now.
And
so I think she was — she was forced into it by the pressure in her own
party, their own caucus. But the House is not the central question here.
The Senate is the central question here. And it's the Senate that's
going to give Trump this victory.
And, in the meantime, I just
think she's given Trump the fight he wants, which is the fight against
the congressional Democrats, not about policy, not about things that
actually affect people's lives, but just a personality, reality TV role
with inside the Beltway.
And, to me, that's the fight he wants. I
don't know where it'll go. It'll spin wildly out of control over the
next several months. But it's — to me, it's not — the ethical
responsibility is, what can I do to get Donald Trump out of the White
House? And this is not the right path, in my view.
Mark Shields:
I would say this, Judy, that, unlike David and perhaps
Secretary Clinton, I do not believe people on the other side are
irredeemable.
I really do believe that, when confronted with the
evidence and the reality, and that this — we have seen just the
beginning. This is the tip of the camel's nose that we have seen.
I think…
Judy Woodruff:
You means in terms of…
Mark Shields:
Of what's gone on.
And I think, when people come
and are under oath and are sworn to testify, I think we will find more.
And I think Republicans, at the core, are Americans before they're
Republicans. And, yes, there's a herd mentality and a silo attitude
right now, but I do think that, when the — when the evidence becomes
overwhelming, which I think it will be, I think they will act.
Judy Woodruff:
What do you think, David? If not an impeachment inquiry, what should the — what should Democrats do?
David Brooks:
Well, they could have censured him and then say, let's
have an election. We're in an election year. Let's have an election
about this.
And then they can investigate and lay before the
American people everything that's happened. I think the inquiry is
totally fine. But let's not have this process swallow up an election
year.
We have elections for a reason. We happen to be in the
middle one. And let's do that. And I think this election was a — it's a
good moment for the Democratic Party. It's an exciting election, a lot
of ideas.
And to overshadow that, to me, a lot of people are going
to take a look at this and say, well, we could have settled this with
100 million voters around the country or 100 millionaires in the Senate.
Who should have the power here?
Mark Shields:
He — this is question, Judy, of, he is asking, if not
demanding and coercing, an ally, a subservient ally, let's be very frank
about it — I mean, in the relationship between the United States and
Ukraine, Ukraine is subservient to the United States on — in all candor.
He's asking them to interfere in an American election, to spill dirt on an opponent.
I
mean, we can't have that. I mean, we can't pretend that that's
tolerable at all and, oh, we will just wait until the Iowa caucuses and
the New Hampshire primary.
It's — I'm sorry. It's just too grave.
Judy Woodruff:
Is there — is there something, David, that would make an
impeachment inquiry the right thing to do, or is it — I mean, is there
anything this president can do?
(CROSSTALK)
Judy Woodruff:
Yes, are you saying there's nothing that…
David Brooks:
No, I'm not saying that.
But I agree with Mark on
the severity of what he did. I'm not saying that he — I think he did an
impeachable offense. I'm just saying, look at our context. And our
context is, we're in the middle of an election year. And we should not
walk down a path that will lead ultimately to failure in 99 percent.
I
really do not think — and Mark and I may disagree on this — that the
Republican senators who hung with Donald Trump through Charlottesville,
through three years of moral turpitude, of 1,000 outrages which we speak
about on every Friday, I just don't think they're going to break with
him.
And I don't think the Republican voters are going to break with him. They will find some way.
Judy Woodruff:
And, Mark, what about that?
Mark Shields:
I guess I have more confidence in the Republicans than David does.
But I'd say — and I don't argue.
Judy Woodruff:
But, Mark — but let me just…
Mark Shields:
This is totally disruptive. I mean, it's totally disruptive to the process.
David's
right. It totally intrudes and puts everything else aside. But I will
say this. If you're picking sides in the Democrats, you want the
Intelligence Committee. You want it to be Adam Schiff against Devin
Nunes. I mean, that's a mismatch in talent.
Judy Woodruff:
And in just five seconds, you're saying it's worth it to
go through with this even if the Senate does not vote to convict? You're
saying it's worth it?
Mark Shields:
Yes, it is.
I mean, we have — we cannot sit here
and pretend that this didn't happen and that it's not serious, what this
president has done. And it should be disqualifying.
Judy Woodruff:
Mark Shields, David Brooks, thank you.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has
taken to the global stage delivering a speech to the United Nations in
New York which was long on spin and short on fact.
“Scott Morrison’s speech and his
claim that Australia was doing enough on climate change was colossal
bullshit,” said the CEO of the Climate Council, Amanda McKenzie.
“Over the winter we saw bushfires
burning across Australia while the Amazon rainforest and the Arctic were
on fire. A major new report shows that suburbs in Sydney, Perth and
Melbourne could experience serious sea level disasters every year on our
current trajectory. Meanwhile, on this government’s watch, Australia’s
pollution is rising year on year. To suggest we are doing enough is
ludicrous and dangerous,” she said.
“Mr Morrison is out of touch with
what is happening all around us. He is also out of touch with
Australians who are really worried,” said Ms McKenzie.
“Mr Morrison told the United Nations
that our children have a right to optimism. Perhaps they would feel more
optimistic if he started to take the problem of climate change
seriously,” she said.
FACT-CHECKING MORRISON’S SPEECH:
Morrison statement: “Now,
Australia is also taking real action on climate change and we are
getting results. We are successfully balancing our global
responsibilities with sensible and practical policies to secure our
environmental and our economic future.” Fact-check: Australia’s Paris target is to reduce our emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2030. This is one of the weakest targets amongst developed countries.
If other countries adopted Australia’s target the world would be
heading for catastrophic climate damage. Rising emissions and worsening
climate impacts are placing Australian lives, our economy and the
natural environment at risk. Morrison statement: “Australia
is responsible for just 1.3 per cent of global emissions. Australia is
doing our bit on climate change and we reject any suggestion to the
contrary.” Fact-check: Australia is the 17th largest polluter in the world, bigger than 175 countries. We are the third largest exporter of fossil fuels in the world. Morrison statement: “By 2020
Australia will have overachieved on our Kyoto commitments, reducing our
greenhouse gas emissions by 367 million tonnes more than required to
meet our 2020 Kyoto target. Now there are few member countries, whether
at this forum or the OECD who can make this claim.” Fact-check: The reason for this is that Australia’s Kyoto targets were the second weakest
in the world for the first commitment period (a target to increase
emissions by 8% above 1990 levels) and the weakest in the world for the
second commitment period (a target to reduce emissions by just 5% below
2000 levels by 2020). It isn’t hard to overachieve on dismal
targets. The reality is today our emissions are going up and up –
according to the government’s own data. Morrison statement: “Our
latest estimates show both emissions per person and the emissions
intensity of the economy are at their lowest levels in 29 years.” Fact-check:Australia has the highest emissions per capita in the developed world.
It is true that Australia’s emissions per capita have fallen more than
most countries, but this is from an extraordinarily high baseline, and
has largely been driven by rapid population growth. Even with this drop,
we still have the highest per capita emissions in the developed world.
Our emissions per capita are higher than Saudi Arabia, a country not
known for its action on climate change. Ultimately, our international
targets are not based on per capita emissions. Morrison statement:
“Australia’s electricity sector is producing less emissions. In the year
to March 2019, emissions from Australia’s electricity sector were 15.7%
lower than the peak recorded in the year to June 2009.” Fact-check: This is cherry
picking. There are 47 sectors in the Australian economy, almost all of
them are going up. This figure of 15.7% is only correct for the
electricity sector in the east coast of Australia, not all of Australia.
While emissions from electricity are down, and this is good news, this
is despite the best efforts of the Federal Government to undermine the
renewable energy sector. Also, emissions from electricity production account for only 33% of our total emissions.
Overall, there has been a rise in emissions from other sectors such as
transport. Australia’s emissions are increasing and have been for five
years in a row. Morrison statement: “…it is important to note that Australia only accounts for around 5.5 per cent of the world’s coal production.” Fact-check: This is spin,
as it makes Australia’s contribution to climate change seem much smaller
than it is. In reality, if you include Australia’s fossil fuel exports, we are the fifth largest emitter on the planet, after the US, China, EU and India. Australia is the world’s second largest coal exporter. Morrison statement: “We are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.” Fact-check: This is woefully inadequate and not aligned to what the science says is necessary to tackle climate change. Australia’s emissions have risen every year for the past five years, across almost every sector of the economy.
The Government’s commitment on paper might be 26-28%, but cheating with
Kyoto credits effectively reduces our emissions reduction target to
just 15%. Morrison statement: “And our
Great Barrier Reef remains one of the world’s most pristine areas of
natural beauty. Feel free to visit it. Our reef is vibrant and resilient
and protected under the world’s most comprehensive reef management
plan.” Fact-check: In 2016 and
2017, the Great Barrier Reef was severely damaged through back-to-back
bleaching events which killed half of all corals on the planet’s largest
living structure. Australia’s current goal, if followed by other countries, would sign the death warrant of the Great Barrier Reef.
– For interviews please contact Senior Communications Advisor, Lisa
Upton on 0438 972 260 or Communications Officer, Brianna Hudson on 0455
238 875.
The Climate Council is Australia’s
leading community-funded climate change communications organisation. We
provide authoritative, expert and evidence-based advice on climate
change to journalists, policymakers, and the wider Australian community.
For further information, go to: climatecouncil.org.au
Or follow us on social media: facebook.com/climatecouncil and twitter.com/climatecouncil
