Stephan: While America's democracy is under the greatest stress it has experienced since the 19th century, as hundreds of thousands are sick with Covid-19, our illness profit system healthcare is facing collapse, our vaccination rate is pathetic, as our economy for ordinary Americans is crashing, even in this cacophony of crises, we have yet another that will overpower all of those -- climate change. And this is what science is telling us about that.
One year after over 11,000 scientists from 153 countries came together to declare a climate emergency and urge ambitious action, the Oregon State University researchers who launched that effort said on Wednesday that an urgent massive-scale mobilization is necessary to address the human-caused global crisis.
“As we move into 2021 and beyond, we need a massive-scale mobilization to address the climate crisis.” —five scientists
Scientists’ renewed call for bold climate policies came just days after a new study in the journal Nature Climate Changewarned existing carbon pollution will cause global temperatures to rise about 2.3 degrees Celsius or 4.1 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels—with devastating consequences worldwide.
As Common Dreamsreported last year, William Ripple, distinguished professor of ecology in OSU’s College of Forestry, and postdoctoral scholar Christopher Wolf co-authored a paper in BioScience. Backed by thousands of scientists, they wrote that greenhouse gas missions “are still rapidly rising, with increasingly damaging effects on the Earth’s climate” and “an immense increase of scale in endeavors to conserve our biosphere is needed to avoid untold suffering due to the climate crisis.”
Ripple and Wolf—along with William R. Moomaw of Tufts University, Thomas M. Newsome of the University of Sydney, and Phoebe Barnard of […]
Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport Opinion Editor - DC Report
Stephan: It is my view that the real bottom-line about what happened yesterday is who is held accountable and how that accountability plays out.
If you looked at the election state certification last you saw that hours after the Capitol was violently assaulted, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and 10 other senators raised objections against Biden's certification, as did 147 Republicans in the House. We have a party that is openly against democracy and the question is what happens to those men and women? My view is they should all be ejected from public office and never allowed to run for public office again.
RepublicanSenator Josh Haley, a traitor to American democracy. Credit: Francis Chung/E&E News and Politico/Associated Press
The only good thing we can see in next Wednesday’s planned stage set of Trump vs. Democracy is that the challenge finally will put the names of Republicans who believe in a coup on the record.
In any normal world, that should mean that they have signed a political death warrant. Who wants to stand election in a world where elections are declared null and void?
But in these divided United States, these Republican plotters may well emerge as some kind of patriotic if zany Donald Trump loyalists worthy of a return to office. After all, it has been reported widely that most of the 74 million who voted for Trump believe without evidence the election for president was fraud-filled, and stolen by Joe Biden’s radical leftists. Almost five dozen court challenges later, there still is no evidence.
The only three election fraud cases to be prosecuted this year have involved individual Republicans seeking to vote for Trump.
Stephan: Ken Paxton is an incompetent ideologue and moron. The fact that this man is the Attorney General of Texas tells you something is deeply rotten in the Republican Party of Texas. And now we see him actively advancing the Big Lie being promulgated by Republicans. All those people you saw yesterday storming the Capitol were not right-wing thugs, they were really Antifa dressed like Trumpers. Saying that is proof that Paxton has no integrity, no honor, and no interest in democracy.
Republican public thug Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas
On Wednesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton promoted a tweet from far-right Investors Business Daily writer Paul Sperry, claiming that a “former FBI agent” has confirmed the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters was a “false flag” engineered by a “bus load of Antifa thugs.”
Paxton, who headed up the election group Lawyers for Trump, is currently under indictment for securities fraud and faces a federal investigation for bribery and abuse of power over his relationship with an Austin real estate developer who gave $25,000 to his campaign. He was also the architect of a well-publicized lawsuit to try to overturn the presidential election results of several states, which was soundly rejected by the Supreme Court.
Neither Sperry nor Paxton offered any evidence to support this theory.
Stephan: Ken Paxton, Texas AG, is far from the only Republican promoting the idea that the mob that took over the Capitol yesterday were not what they actually were -- Trumpers -- but, instead, that they were the mythical Antifa. It is my view these Congressional members should be expelled from public office and never allowed to run for office again.
“Some of the people who breached the Capitol today…are members of the violent terrorist group, Antifa.”
If were to call Matt Gaetz a fucking c*cksucker, would that make me a bad person or would I get more followers? https://t.co/XvvmzMIU7n
Most Americans clearly heard President Donald Trump encourage his supporters to march to Capitol Hill and demand the 2020 presidential election results be overturned in his favor. Shortly after Trump’s directive, his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol Building.
But despite all evidence to the contrary, several delusional Republican lawmakers and a disturbing number of Trump loyalists insist antifa is to blame for their own behavior. Hours after law enforcement managed to gain control of the chaotic situation, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) expressed outrage over what ensued. However, he did not hold the Trump supporters accountable, reports the Washington Post.
According to the Republican lawmaker, some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters. They were masquerading as Trump supporters and in fact, were members of the “violent terrorist group” antifa. Antifa, a left-wing anti-fascist movement, has been described by some on the […]
Stephan: Donald Trump and the Republican Party have utterly failed to competently deal with the pandemic causing hundreds of thousands of unnecessary illnesses and deaths; they have crashed the economy for millions of Americans; they have ruined America's relations with the other countries in the world, aligning us with authoritarian governments; and, now, they have smeared their feces across American democracy by encouraging a mass insurrection to the astonishment of the rest of the world.
Pro-Trump supporters on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6. Credit: Samuel Corum/Getty
World leaders reacted with horror after a pro-Trump mob assaulted American democracy and the peaceful transfer of power by storming the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, as lawmakers were attempting to certify President-elect Biden’s victory in November.
Why it matters: The U.S. government is typically a leading voice in condemning political violence all over the world.
What they’re saying
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson:“Disgraceful scenes in U.S. Congress. The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: “Canadians are deeply disturbed and saddened by the attack on democracy in the United States, our closest ally and neighbour. Violence will never succeed in overruling the will of the people. Democracy in the US must be upheld – and it will be.”
