| Capitol rioters walked away. Climate protesters saw a double standard |
| John Schwartz, The New York Times |
You’ve been taking off your shoes in airport security and giving up your liberties for 20 years, and then terrorists just barge into your Capitol, take over the place, and walk out, free? One of the biggest stories of 2021 will be what the hell happened to enable this; especially following the show of force—troops, tear gas, helicopters, the sec of defense, the commander in chief, and the chairman of the joint chiefs in camo—during the unprovoked attack on peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square. Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund, House Sergeant at Arms Paul D. Irving, and Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael C. Stenger have all resigned. But there’s little chance the buck stops there. “‘You didn’t need intelligence. You just needed to read the newspaper,’ said Michael Chertoff, who served as Homeland Security secretary from 2005 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. ‘They were advertising, ‘Let’s go wild. Bring your guns.’ You don’t need to have an FBI investigation. You just need to be able to be able to read.'” WaPo: How the U.S. Capitol Police were overrun in a ‘monumental’ security failure.
+ Maryland Governor Larry Hogan describes how he was standing by with national guard troops, and standing by, and standing by. It took an hour and a half for the federal government to give Hogan authorization to send help. (Remember that the Pentagon’s top echelon had been filled with lackeys appointed by the Inciter in Chief over the past few weeks.)
+ AP: Capitol Police rejected offers of federal help to quell mob
+ “The U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement that Officer Brian D. Sicknick was injured ‘while physically engaging with protesters‘ during the Wednesday riot. He is the fifth person to die because of the Capitol protest and violence.”
NBC: Troubled by Capitol riot, Cabinet officials DeVos, Chao resign. (Is this really what happened? Or is the correct headline: Faced with Possible Vote on 25th Amendment, Trump Enablers Abandon Posts.) Their boss, however, is still on the job: Trump awards Medal of Freedom to three golfers after his supporters attacked U.S. Capitol.
We’ve been distracted by politics (and so have our leaders), but Covid-19 hasn’t been. We’re up to 365,170 American deaths. That includes more than 4,000, yesterday alone. In other words, it’s worse than ever.
Newark police: No officer fired a single shot in 2020, thanks to de-escalation program.
Mobilizing for a zero carbon America: Jobs, jobs, jobs, and more jobs
Full Title: Mobilizing for a zero carbon America: A Jobs and Employment Study Report
Author(s): Saul Griffith, Sam Calisch, Alex Laskey
Publisher(s): Rewiring America
Publication Date: July 29, 2020
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
From mass unemployment to the threat of climate change, the U.S. will face a number of seemingly unprecedented challenges even after the current public health tragedy has passed. Finding needed solutions won’t be easy and will require creative thinking, robust analysis, and political resolve. The good news is that these challenges also present opportunities, particularly in terms of the economic development and job creation associated with decarbonizing America’s economy.
Based on an extensive industrial and engineering analysis, our new report demonstrates that an aggressive national commitment to electrify all aspects of our economy would create up to 25 million good-paying American jobs over the next 15 years and 5 million sustained jobs by mid-century. This is the first analysis of the job opportunities that would result from a rapid and total decarbonization of the economy as a whole. Unlike other approaches, which tend to see climate change policy as primarily environmental in nature, the study also imagines the electrification of America as fundamentally infrastructure designed to power America and its economy in the 21st century.
