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BY BRIAN BEUTLER, PRIYANKA ARIBINDI & CROOKED MEDIA Tuesday, August 27, 2019 |
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| —Bret “Bedbug” Stephens |
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| TRUMPSTER FIRE |
| The right-wing president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, would rather let the Amazon rainforest burn, than take a relatively small amount of money to fight the fires from foreign democratic leaders. And he’ll only reconsider if he gets an apology from French President Emanuel Macron.
If this strikes you as strange and reckless behavior, follow along for an introduction to Bolsonaro, and a warning about how the right-wing leaders around the world stand poised to doom the planet unless we stop them (Captain Planet style).
Who is Bolsonaro? Critics refer to him casually as “Tropical Trump” but he actually has a much longer authoritarian streak than the U.S. president. He is a notorious bigot and homophobe who came up through the Brazilian army and has repeatedly waxed nostalgic about the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964-1985. He won the 2018 election in Brazil with 55 percent of the vote, but only after the government prohibited Lula da Silva, the popular favorite Workers’ Party leader, from running on the basis of a contested corruption conviction. It all makes America look squeaky clean!
Ok, so just another far-right goon who hates democracy? Yes, except this one has the power to destroy the planet without dropping a single bomb. For all their problems, Brazil’s past governments had done a pretty good job protecting the Amazon, which stores 25 percent of the world’s carbon—so long as people don't burn it down, releasing catastrophic volumes of greenhouse gases. Bolsonaro, on the other hand, likes to be called “Captain Chainsaw”—as soon as he took office, he set about undoing decades of progress.
Can we really blame him? Yes! There are fires in the Amazon every year, but the ones this year are much worse than normal, in large part because, with Bolsonaro’s blessing, people cut down portions of the forest for timber, and set fire to the land so it could be repurposed for agriculture. You know, some real Captain Chainsaw shit.
What is this spat with Macron about? It’s nominally about Brazilian sovereignty, but it’s also about the fact that Bolsonaro, like many prominent right-wingers, is a thin-skinned asshole. Because of its impact on climate change, the health of the rainforest is a global concern. Macron led an international effort this past weekend to induce Bolsonaro to take the fires seriously. This included an offer to spend $20 million to help Brazil fight the fires. Brazil initially rejected the offer as an affront to Brazil’s sovereignty, but Bolsonaro has since reversed course, and said he’ll consider the money—if Macron apologizes for calling Bolsonaro a liar. (Bolsonaro separately insulted Macron’s wife—he’s quite a guy!)
Bottom line: As soon as Bolsonaro became the frontrunner for his country’s presidency, environmentalists understood he represented an existential threat to the planet. The only surprise is how quickly that threat materialized. But he enjoys the backing of many right-wing governments, including ours, which insulates him from the immediate consequences of endangering humanity. It’s a reminder that addressing the climate crisis won’t just require countries to adopt more sustainable environmental policies—it will require defeating all authoritarian, anti-science leaders who have the power to doom us all for profit.
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| Thanks to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the agency that oversees America’s federal campaign finance system, the Federal Election Commission, will no longer be able to perform its basic functions, including making rules, conducting meetings and audits, issuing fines, and initiating investigations. You gotta be FEC-king kidding me.
The FEC is set up as a group of no more than three Democratic commissioners and no more than three Republican commissioners appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for single six year terms. The terms are staggered so two commissioners (one from each party) are up every two years. The issue? McConnell hates campaign finance laws, and hasn’t allowed a single commissioner to be confirmed since he became Senate majority leader in 2015.
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| The Trump administration intends to take $271 million in Department of Homeland Security funding (including from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund) to pay for immigrant detention space and temporary hearing locations for asylum seekers awaiting processing in Mexico. The funding would allow the administration to detain more than 50,000 immigrants at once, which is probably why Congress didn’t authorize it and why Trump has resorted to breaking the law (again). It’s like the only thing he’s good at.
Puerto Rico has declared a national emergency ahead of Tropical Storm Dorian, which could strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane before Tuesday, when forecasters say it will likely make landfall. Puerto Rico is still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island in 2017, and Dorian’s heavy rains and strong winds threaten to harm the country’s infrastructure and set back recovery efforts. Will Trump have any paper towels to throw their way this time?
Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, which owns Purdue, have offered to settle over 2,000 lawsuits, which allege they are responsible for the opioid crisis, for $10-12 billion. At a recent meeting between the company’s representatives and the plaintiffs’ attorneys and state attorneys general seeking recourse against it, the company reportedly presented a plan to declare Chapter-11 bankruptcy and have the Sackler family give up ownership of the company. The company would then be restructured into a for-profit “public benefit trust.”
A federal judge blocked an eight-week abortion ban in Missouri on Tuesday—one day before the law was scheduled to take effect. Two other federal judges have blocked similar restrictions in Arkansas and Ohio.
At last night’s MTV Video Music Awards in Newark, NJ, Missy Elliot accepted the VMA Video Vanguard award commemorating her two-decades-worth of hits, Taylor Swift called out the White House while accepting her Video of the Year award, and protestors implored the world to pay attention to Newark’s ongoing water crisis (more on this below).
Attorney General William Barr booked President Trump’s Washington, DC, hotel for a $30,000 holiday party he'll reportedly pay for out of pocket. Apparently career ethics official saw no issues with the county’s top law enforcement official, who serves at the pleasure of the president, lining the president’s pockets, but for the record, these people are gross.
Speaking of gross, Trump blamed “Radical Left Democrats” for spreading a “rumor” that his Doral golf club—where he hopes to profit from next year’s G7 summit—is infested with bed bugs. (Spoiler: In 2017, Trump Doral settled a lawsuit with a guest who sued after bed bugs bit the crap out of him.) Between Trump and Bret Stephens, bed bugs are having the Best Week In Washington!
Scientists have discovered eight new repeating radio signals coming to Earth from different locations in the universe. Just another reason to storm Area 51. |
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| Officials in Newark, NJ voted today to borrow $120 million to dramatically reduce the time it will take to replace the pipes that are causing elevated lead levels in the city’s drinking water. The 18,000 lead line replacements, which were previously estimated to take 10 years to install, could be completed in under two and a half years with the funds. The vote comes two weeks after the city started distributing water bottles to residents, because the water filters that officials had provided residents beginning in 2018 failed to filter out the lead. |
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| Gina Ortiz Jones is a Democrat running for Congress in TX-23, the most competitive seat in the country. Be on the right side of history and join Team GOJ today! |
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| Redistricting U, a group backed by President Obama, will deploy experts to teach people in dozens of cities across 10 states about the redistricting process as part of an effort to build a grassroots movement against partisan gerrymandering, before the next round of redistricting in 2021.
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