Coal phaseout brings tough choices to Germany

Published on Nov 30, 2019
In Germany, an ancient forest has become a symbol of the climate movement.

Environmentalists are at odds with a German coal company, which is trying to clear the land. But, with nearly 40 percent of the nation’s electricity coming from coal, it will take years to phase it out as a source of energy. CGTN’s Guy Henderson reports.

Climate Change Protesters Block Black Friday Sales in Germany

Published on Nov 30, 2019
Friday For Future protesters took on the Black Friday theme in Frankurt, Friday, November 29, demonstrating in the main shopping precinct and trying to block access to departments stores. Youths carrying banners reading “There is no planet B” protested in front of some of Germany’s biggest chain stores as shoppers walked past, carrying televisions and bags full of goods they had bought in the Black Friday sales. (Reuters)

Donald Trump Ethics Chief Resigns Sooner Than Most | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC

Published on Nov 28, 2017
Controversy surrounding Trump’s business empire grows. Former White House Ethics Chief Richard Painter on Trump’s financial secrecy and conflicts of interest. Hotels in Panama, and Toronto are ditching the Trump name. Painter says Congress needs to “get off their behind” and find out where Trump’s financial interests lie.

‘Devastating Loss’: Judge Orders WH Counsel To Testify Before Congress Amid Ukraine Scandal | MSNBC

Published on Nov 25, 2019
After defying subpoenas to testify before Congress, a federal judge has decided former White House Counsel Don McGahn must testify before Congress. Former Acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal argues the highly anticipated ruling is a “a complete win for Nancy Pelosi and the House of Representatives, and a very devastating loss for the President.” Aired on 11/25/19.

Black Friday | Many big bargains but also one HUGE carbon footprint

Published on Nov 30, 2019
After the traditional Thanksgiving feast, many Americans might feel a need to go exercise and burn off the extra weight: millions of shoppers across the world queued up for hours to get the best deals during the retail fest known as Black Friday. But despite being billed as a bargain extravaganza, the event has a dirty secret.

Malta PM Joseph Muscat ‘plans to resign’ over murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia

Published on Nov 30, 2019
Protesters blocked roads in Malta on Friday to demand Muscat’s resignation, holding placards reading “assassins” and “blood is on your hands”.…

Malta prosecutors charge businessman in 2017 murder of journalist

Published on Nov 30, 2019
One of Malta’s wealthiest men, Yorgen Fenech, was charged in a Valletta court on Saturday with complicity to murder in the car bomb killing of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017.

The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism: Theda Skocpol, Vanessa Williamson

On February 19, 2009, CNBC commentator Rick Santelli delivered a dramatic rant against Obama administration programs to shore up the plunging housing market. Invoking the Founding Fathers and ridiculing “losers” who could not pay their mortgages, Santelli called for “Tea Party” protests. Over the next two years, conservative activists took to the streets and airways, built hundreds of local Tea Party groups, and weighed in with votes and money to help right-wing Republicans win electoral victories in 2010.

In this penetrating new study, Harvard University’s Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson go beyond images of protesters in Colonial costumes to provide a nuanced portrait of the Tea Party. What they find is sometimes surprising. Drawing on grassroots interviews and visits to local meetings in several regions, they find that older, middle-class Tea Partiers mostly approve of Social Security, Medicare, and generous benefits for military veterans. Their opposition to “big government” entails reluctance to pay taxes to help people viewed as undeserving “freeloaders” – including immigrants, lower income earners, and the young. At the national level, Tea Party elites and funders leverage grassroots energy to further longstanding goals such as tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of business, and privatization of the very same Social Security and Medicare programs on which many grassroots Tea Partiers depend. Elites and grassroots are nevertheless united in hatred of Barack Obama and determination to push the Republican Party sharply to the right.

The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism combines fine-grained portraits of local Tea Party members and chapters with an overarching analysis of the movement’s rise, impact, and likely fate.

See related:

• Theda Skocpol | Department of Sociology

   

as well as:

• How to Revitalize America’s Local Political Parties Strategy Brief, January 2019

and

• Theda Skocpol – (OpenScholar)

• Scholars Strategy Network (SSN)

With related papers:

• Making Sense of the Koch Network  Basic Facts Brief, October 2015
• Conservative and Progressive Trans-State Policy Networks  Visual, October 2015
• How Mobilized Small Businesses – Real and Disguised – Tilt the Partisan Playing Field on Tax Cuts  Key Findings Brief, October 2015
• The GOP Civil War over Medicaid Expansion in the States  Key Findings Brief, October 2015
• Why U.S. Conservatives Shape Legislation across the Fifty States Much More Effectively than Liberals  Key Findings Brief, April 2015
• Why a Supreme Court Decision to Restrict Health Reform Subsidies Would Backfire on Republicans  Basic Facts Brief, February 2015
• Why Congressional Budget Office Reports are the Best Evidence of Congressional Intent about Health Subsidies  Basic Facts Brief, January 2015
• What to Look for After November 4  Memo, October 2014
• Tea Party Forces Still Control The Republican Agenda  Memo, June 2014
• How Health Reform Makes the Job Market More Flexible and Unleashes Entrepreneurs  Basic Facts Brief, February 2014
• Debunking Myths about Medicaid – And Its Expansion  Basic Facts Brief, January 2014
• The Best Way to See That Affordable Care is Moving Ahead  Basic Facts Brief, January 2014
• A Field Guide to the Politics of ObamaCare Implementation  Basic Facts Brief, November 2013
• Albert Hirschman – A Life of Courage and Creativity in the Service of Progressive Possibility  Civic Engagement Brief, August 2013
• Why Now is the Time to Build a Broad Citizen Movement for Green Energy Dividends  Key Findings Brief, August 2013
• What Does Health Reform Do for Americans?  Basic Facts Brief, June 2013
• What Americans Really Think about Health Reform  Basic Facts Brief, June 2013
• The Tea Party Lives On – And Pulls Republicans to the Right  Key Findings Brief, February 2013
• What the Ryan Budget Means for Missouri Families   Basic Facts Brief, September 2012
• The Ryan Budget and Michigan: A Few Win, but Millions Lose  Basic Facts Brief, July 2012
• The Truth about the Individual Mandate in Health Reform  Basic Facts Brief, July 2012
• The High Stakes for Health Care in Election 2012  Basic Facts Brief, May 2012
• Social Security is in Good Shape – And Does Not Drive the Deficit  Basic Facts Brief, April 2012
• Making Sense of the Tea Party  Key Findings Brief, October 2011

Contact

Email: skocpol@fas.harvard.edu
Phone: 617-496-0966 (office)
Mail: Harvard FAS Govt Dept; CGIS Knafel K416; 1737 Cambridge Street; Cambridge, MA 02138

Staff Assistant:
Mary Abigail Peck (Abby)
Email: peck@wjh.harvard.edu
Phone: 617-496-0966 (office)
Mail: Harvard FAS Govt Dept; CGIS Knafel K418; 1737 Cambridge Street; Cambridge, MA 02138

Young People Gravitate To Socialism As Capitalism Keeps Failing Them

The Ring of Fire

Nov 30, 2019

According to a new round of Gallup polling, Socialism is now as popular among Millennial voters as Capitalism. The main reason for this, which the poll did not get into, is that this age group has seen nothing but failures from capitalism for most of their lives, and they want a better system. Capitalism, in its current form, is not working for any age group, but older voters are still able to look back fondly at what once was. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what’s happening.

Climate Tipping Points Are Closer Than We Think, Scientists Warn | InsideClimate News

From melting ice caps to dying forests and thawing permafrost, the risk of ‘abrupt and irreversible changes’ is much higher than thought just a few years ago.

By Bob Berwyn, InsideClimate News Nov 27, 2019

“What we’re talking about is a point of no return, when we might actually lose control of this system,” said Will Steffen, a coauthor of a paper released ahead of the annual UN climate summit. Credit: Ian Joughin/University of Washington APL Polar Science Center

Humans are playing Russian roulette with Earth’s climate by ignoring the growing risk of tipping points that, if passed, could jolt the climate system into “a new, less habitable ‘hothouse’ climate state,” scientists are warning ahead of the annual UN climate summit.

Research now shows that there is a higher risk that “abrupt and irreversible changes” to the climate system could be triggered at smaller global temperature increases than thought just a few years ago. There are also indictations that exceeding tipping points in one system, such as the loss of Arctic sea ice, can increase the risk of crossing tipping points in others, a group of top scientists wrote Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature.

“What we’re talking about is a point of no return, when we might actually lose control of this system, and there is a significant risk that we’re going to do this,” said Will Steffen, a climate researcher with the Australian National University and co-author of thecommentary. “It’s not going to be the same conditions with just a bit more heat or a bit more rainfall. It’s a cascading process that gets out of control.”

…(read more).