WolfeNotes.com

Supreme Irony?

Extraordinary Hypocrisy?

Or Farce?

Christian fascists understand the deep sickness that infects American society. They know how to exploit the moral and physical decay, as well as the despair it causes, to lure its followers towards their brand of tyranny. They are not wrong when they lambast the cruelty, corruption, emptiness and hypocrisy of the ruling elites, especially the liberal elites. They are not wrong when they mock cultural relativism, the idea that good and evil, right and wrong, truth and untruth, do not exist. It is part of the sad irony that the Christian Right effectively exploits this cultural relativism to seize power. The failure of the liberal Christian Church to denounce the Christian Right as heretics, in the name of tolerance and cultural relativism, has given the Christian fascists religious legitimacy. ~~~ Chris Hedges

[Update below]

As the Cold War was emerging, in 1952, theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote an influential book: “The Irony of American History”.

Among many other things, that book provided an historical and ethical framework for understanding the operation of power, particularly salient were definitions and distinctions between tragedy, irony, and farce.

It speaks to us today, as some argue that we are on the verge of a coup after 4 years of unprecedented abuses of power by President Trump.

If that happens, would that be ironic or farcical? Niebuhr wrote:

The ironic nature of our conflict with communism sometimes centers in the relation of power to justice and virtue. The communists use power without scruple because they are under the illusion that their conception of an unambiguously ideal end justifies such use …. Sometimes it verges on that curious combination of cynicism and idealism which characterizes communism, and is prepared to use any means without scruple to achieve its desired end.

No doubt, Trump has and is “prepared to use any means without scruple to achieve its desired end.”

But is Trump alone in that corruption? No.

So, perhaps an even larger irony stems from the fact that the feared and now widely reported strategy Trump is set to deploy – i.e. pressuring Republican State legislatures in swing states to over-ride the electoral results and select a slate of Trump electors to the electoral college – was originated by the Democrats and liberal Harvard Professor Larry Lessig in response to the 2016 election! (as we wrote):

Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig makes the case that electors are not legally bound to honor their state vote, that the ethical obligations are complex, and that they should instead vote their conscience.

Contrary to Naomi Klein’s claim, David Sirota was not the first to report this scheme (even we wrote about it on Election Day). Sirota was only the first to report on the prescient law review article.

I’ve not seen it reported anywhere that, in December 2016, Democrats held protests in State Capitols across the country. The slogan and demand was thus: “Electoral College Do Your Job, Don’t Elect a Demagogue!”

We repost this December 19, 2016 report on the Trenton protest:

“Electoral College Do Your Job – Don’t Elect A Demagogue!”

Federal and State Laws Protect Polluters More Than People And Allow Secrecy

Environmentalist And Media Miss The Chemical Forest For The Solvay Tree

photo: Bill Wolfe

NJ Spotlight wrote another story today on the toxic chemicals PFAS, this one is based on a new Natural Resource Damage (NRD) lawsuit filed by AG Grewal on behalf of DEP against Solvey Specialty Polymers chemical corporation, see:

• State lawsuit targets South Jersey chemical company and its predecessor

No mention of the fact that Solvay is one of NJ’s “Fatal Fifteen”. The significance of that is suggested in point #3 below. Briefly, NJ’s suite of chemical safety State laws, the “Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act” (TCPA), Pollution Prevention, Right To Know, and Spill Acts, have huge loopholes and the federal law under The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is far worse, and it pre-empts the flawed but still stronger NJ State laws.

[Update: 11/13 – while we’re on the topic of PFAS, consider this:

Biden’s environmental team is infested with industry hacks, like Michael McCabe, a former EPA official and aide Biden, who led DuPont’s defense of the toxic PFAS chemical PFOA, and is now  once again advising Biden on the EPA… ~~~ end update]

Once again, the coverage ignores the legal and regulatory framework that allows individual cases of abuse to occur and relies heavily on DEP and AG press releases.

Those major journalistic flaws mislead readers on important issues and let polluters, regulators, and legislators off the hook.

At least 3 critical points are either completely ignored or spun.

First of all, one reason that AG Grewal filed a lawsuit is because a prior DEP Spill Act Directive – which was highly praised by prior media coverage –  is not enforceable.

We explained why that DEP Directive was not enforceable in this May 31, 2020 post:

• DEP Lacks Authority To Enforce Directive Against Toxic PFOA Polluters

According to numerous favorable media reports and praise by environmental groups, Murphy DEP Commissioner McCabe and Attorney General Grewal are, in AG Grewal’s words, “dropping the hammer” on corporate polluters. For the typical narrative and spin, see:

• NJ attorney general ramps up efforts to hold polluters accountable

One of the more widely reported alleged “hammers dropped” was a March 25, 2019 DEP Spill Act Directive against major corporate toxic polluters Dupont, Dow, and 3M.

The reality is exactly the opposite.

What AG Grewal describes as legal “hammers” are actually pillows.

Today’s Spotlight story misleadingly mentions that history in passing and fails to explain the significance:

The action follows a “Directive” issued by DEP in March last year against Solvay and four other chemical companies, demanding that they clean up widespread PFAS pollution. The DEP said in the new suit that Solvay has not met all the requirements of the Directive.

Like we said: the DEP Directive was unenforceable. Both AG Grewal and DEP Commissioner McCabe misled the public about that.

Second, NJ Spotlight once again provides a platform for AG Grewal and DEP Commissioner McCabe to spin, mislead readers, and exaggerate the strength of the NRD program:

The suit is the latest in a series of Natural Resource Damage actions in which the Murphy administration has been seeking compensation from polluters for damages to the natural environment. The agencies also announced a Natural Resource Damage suit against Honeywell International for environmental damage at the Quanta Resources Superfund Site along the Hudson River in Edgewater, Bergen County.

“The days of free passes and soft landings for polluters in New Jersey are over,” said Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. “The corporations we’re suing knew full well the potential harms they were inflicting on our environment but chose to forge ahead anyway. When companies disregard the laws meant to protect our environment, they can expect to pay.”

Thats way over the top. (and I get a kick out of the “soft landing” rhetorical echo of my prior “pillow” analogy!)

Polluters continue to get “soft landings”. They continue to pay pennies on the dollar of the cost of actual damages to natural resources.

This NJ Law Journal article explains why, see:(read the whole thing)

• Some Say NJ Had Little Choice But To Settle With Exxon

The [Exxon] settlement, for a century of pollution at Exxon’s Bayway and Bayonne refinery sites, has been attacked as a deal that would pay less than three cents on the dollar for natural resource damage the state’s experts valued at $8.9 billion, in the context of a case where liability was already decided and a ruling on a dollar figure, after months of trial, was imminent.

But some lawyers and environmental advocates said the state’s failure to adopt a methodology for calculating damages for harm to natural resources through the formal rule-making process—as it committed to do more than a decade ago when it settled another suit—may have weakened its negotiating position and led to a lower settlement in not just the Exxon case but in other natural resource damage suits it has brought. ...

Bill Wolfe, the director of nonprofit environmental advocacy group New Jersey Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said the issue is one he’s been raising since the SEED case.

Wolfe is not a lawyer but spent 13 years as a policy analyst and planner for the DEP, and was policy director for the Sierra Club’s New Jersey chapter for seven years.

Wolfe said the lack of valuation rules leaves the state vulnerable to challenges on the amount of damages. The state “knows it has a weak legal hand,” making it reluctant to push too hard and more willing to settle, Wolfe said, adding that Exxon’s lawyers are “sharp enough to know this” too. “There’s this wink and a nod going on where the DEP is saying, ‘We won’t squeeze you too hard if you just come to the table and settle,’” Wolfe said, adding that it’s been “a quiet little dance for 10 years,” with the state knowing it can’t get more than pennies on the dollar.

DEP still has not adopted regulations to enforce the NRD program. That failure continues to undermine the State’s legal hand and allow polluters to settle for pennies on the dollar.

Surely, that is a “soft landing”.

Senate Environment Committee Chairman Bob Smith understood this DEP failure and formed a Legislative Taskforce charged with developing recommendations for legislation to mandate that DEP adopt regulatory standards, including methods to quantify and monetize natural resource injuries that formed the basis for NRD liability.

That Task Force never made recommendations and there has been no legislation.

Third, the Spotlight story reports – without connection to law or policy – great rhetorical umbrage that was taken by NJ environmentalists, particularly about secrecy and justice: (emphases mine)

“The secrecy that cloaks the truth about what Solvay has been releasing to the environment and exposing people to over the years is shocking,” she said. “That Solvay used the replacement compound without anyone, even DEP until recently, knowing it and without the toxicity known about the chemical and its properties, such as persistence in the environment and in people’s bodies, is nothing short of criminal.”

Delaware Riverkeeper Network and three other environmental groups welcomed the suit, and urged the DEP to halt the use of replacement chemicals until more is known about whether they threaten public health.

“People today may be drinking water that is contaminated but don’t know it,” the groups said in a statement. “The fact that these are the same people who were exposed to PFNA in the past is intolerably unjust.”

That’s bullshit. Federal EPA and NJ DEP knew all about the “replacement” chemicals and their toxicity.

What is “shocking” and “intolerably unjust” is the fact that federal law allows corporate polluters to manufacture, use, and discharge toxic chemicals that poison people and the environment.

This law allows chemical corporations to keep that information “secret”.

That same law prohibits federal and state government regulators from disclosing this information to the public and strictly limits government’s ability to regulate these toxic chemicals to reduce risks and impacts.

Remarkably, that disgraceful law was sponsored and negotiated by NJ’s US Senator Cory Booker, who bragged about the strength of and celebrated the passage of that weak law.

I have written NJ Spotlight reporter Jon Hurdle multiple times to explain that the source of these problems is the federal Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

Here’s my latest effort to prompt more aggressive and accurate coverage:

Jon – a couple of points on your Solvey NRD lawsuit story today:

1. While you did mention the prior DEP Directive, at the time it was issued, NJ Spotlight and other media gave it very positive (and misleading) coverage.

I noted at the time that it was unenforceable, see:

DEP Lacks Authority To Enforce Directive Against Toxic PFOA Polluters

http://www.wolfenotes.com/2019/05/dep-lacks-authority-to-enforce-directive-against-toxic-pfoa-polluters-dupont-3m-dow/

So, once again, DEP is not held accountable for their spin and NJ ENGO’s get away with false praise. This misleads readers.

2. You gave AG Grewal and DEP McCabe a platform to tout the NRD program.

But check out this NJ Law Journal story on DEP’s NRD program. It explains why it is seriously flawed and can only recover pennies on the dollar of actual NR damage:

Some Say NJ Had Little Choice But To Settle With Exxon

https://www.law.com/njlawjournal/almID/1202722481576/Some-Say-NJ-Had-Little-Choice-but-to-Settle-With-Exxon/?/&slreturn=20201012114256

DEP is under a judicial settlement agreement to adopt NRD regulations and has simply failed to comply with it. They should be held in contempt of court, not praised.

Senator Smith formed a legislative task force to address the DEP’s failure to adopt NRD regulations and recommend legislative standards, including regulations to quantify NR economic damage.

That Taskforce has not met or made recommendations as far as I know and there has been no legislation, as Senator Smith previously pledged.

The big polluters like it just like this – they can go on paying pennies on the dollar.

3. The “secret” alternative toxic chemical was not “secret” – it’s use was disclosed to EPA under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

Why not do a story on TSCA – especially since it was NJ Senator Frank Lautenberg’s baby and current US Senator Booker assumed his legacy and cut a very bad deal on “reform”.

What’s outrageous and unjust is the US law (TSCA) allows corporations to benefit from secrecy agreements with State and Federal regulators, who are prohibited from disclosing this information to the public, despite their knowledge that chemicals are poisoning people and the environment.

Wolfe

Leadership And Values Matter – We Just Lost a Big Leader

Tom Gilmore speaks in Governor’s Office, when Corzine signed legislation establishing a moratorium on the harvest of horseshoe crabs. (March 2008)

[Update: 11/10/20 – Jeff Tittel of Sierra Club issued a very moving press release.  ~~~ end update]

Sadly, I just learned – ironically from the current CEO of NJ Audubon Eric Stiles – that former longtime head of NJ Audubon Tom Gilmore has died. (photo: March 25, 2008 post, originally published on my Star Ledger “NJ Voices” column).

I say “ironically” for a reason – because Tom and Mr. Stiles were very different people.

I did not know Tom very well personally.

When I first joined the NJ environmental community as a former DEP planner who was fired as a whistleblower back in 1994, Tom was a leader in the NJ conservation community.

I was told that he was a very progressive guy that the “Trenton radicals” in the pollution advocacy community could work with – facts you can’t read in current NJA CEO Eric Stiles’ self serving obituary I just read.

My brief encounters with Tom were very good and he was very supportive of me personally. There was not a lot of overlap in my professional environmental quality/pollution work and Tom’s conservation work at NJ Audubon.

Despite this, Tom went out of his way to welcome me into the community and to sympathize and understand my personal and professional challenges and support my integrity.

I particularly remember his support when I walked out of Mike “Ponzi Scheme” Catania’s State House meeting of the conservation community on Gov. Whitmans’s “million acre” open space initiative. Catania demanded that the meeting and his negotiations with the Gov. be kept secret.  Of course, as a matter of principle, I could not agree to that condition and left the meeting in protest. No one else joined. I think I said: “I’ll be damned – after being forced out of DEP for refusing to keep Whitman’s corrupt secrets – if I’ll keep this important public information secret“.  I then walked down the hall to brief the State House press corps. At the time, I was on very thin ice as temporary “Acting Director” of NJ Sierra Club (before Jeff Tittel’s tenure). Tom’s understanding and support, despite differences, was important.

Sadly, back in 1994, NJ Audubon was a very different organization than it is today.

Perhaps the best evidence of that is how, under Tom’s leadership, former NJ Audubon’s Director of Conservation – my good friend Bill Neil – was a fellow advocate and later chased out of NJA.

I worked closely with Bill Neil on the Hopewell Merrill Lynch, BMS, and ELSA sewer line land use battles. Tom supported Bill’s work.

In that battle, we very publicly:1) confronted corporate power, 2) criticized Republican Gov. Whitman, 3) highlighted DEP regulatory policy, 4) exposed the injustice of investing in a wealthy suburb like Hopewell instead of nearby Trenton (while exporting their water and consuming sewage capacity), and 5) built close relationships with aggressive local grassroots activists.

But no way NJ Audubon would engage in those kind of public activist political battles today.

Today, NJA does exactly the opposite: NJA: 1) collaborates with corporate power (“Corporate Stewardship Council”), 2) forms partnerships with Republican politicians (Trump), 3) takes billionaire money (Peter Kellogg), 4) engages in faux token EJ projects while protecting the backyards of their wealthy donors, 5) ignores or undermines DEP regulation, and 6) either fails to support and sometimes even attacks local grassroots groups (Sparta Mountain logging).

My former colleague and good friend Jeff Tittel, Director of NJ Sierra Club, wrote:

Tom was great environmentalist. Audubon was very different then. He started the battle to save the Highlands, save horseshoe crabs, red knots and so much more. Audubon in those days helped the grassroots in the battle to stop bad development. He came out and protested the Highlands Act signing because of fast tract and it cost him being on the Highlands Council. He always encouraged me forward. I received  NJAS Conservationist of the Year Award in 1993 from Tom.

The most important  point he clearly stated that environmental groups do not undermine groups that take a stronger position .

Tom was a good man.

I’m just saddened to hear this bad news.

I really hope that Tom’s media memorialization contrasts his work with what currently passes as leadership at NJ Audubon.

Reliance on Local And County Government For “Sustainable” Solutions Is Misguided

State Abdication Leaves Towns On Their Own Against Corporate Power

NJ Spotlight reports today on a planning study “Light Industrial Site Assessment” in Warren County, NJ – ironically funded by the NJ Highlands Council – that highlights threats of major warehouse development to rural NJ, see:

• ‘Warehouse sprawl’ has some NJ towns considering acting together on zoning

For critical sources, the story relies on a local “sustainable development” group and the corporate dominated planning group NJ Future.

Regular readers here know that for over a decade, I have strongly criticized those groups for abandoning effective state, regional and DEP planning and regulatory powers for reliance on local governments, private market solutions, and ineffective feel good voluntary individual measures, slogans, and token gestures (aka the Neoliberal corporate agenda).

Those criticisms have only grown more valid as the climate emergency highlights the need for and validates longstanding principles and practices of traditional regional land use planning and regulation (to reduce energy consumption, preserve prime agricultural lands/soils and forests, protect water resources, etc).

While we need planning, government intervention, regulation, and sound land use now more than ever to respond to the climate emergency, the environmental groups effectively have abandoned the “sprawl” issue and left the field to misguided groups and neoliberal strategies. (The notion of “planning” is largely foreign territory to most environmental groups, and “regulation” has almost become a dirty word. Similarly, as a result of vanishing advocacy, public support has waned and government capacity has been severely eroded.)

Without rehashing all that, for the context of this Warren County warehouse story, let’s just that that certain important dimensions of the story were left out, while the recommended solutions were completely wrong.

For example, right on page one of the Report, we find this statement:

Any Violence Will Be Fleeting

Protests Will Be Crushed

I Hope I Am Wrong

[Updates below]

[Update: 2/14/21 – Denoument: Trump coup defeated – will it be investigated and prosecuted? Listen to the best analysis I’ve seen:

• Trump’s Treason and McConnell’s Mayhem – Paul Jay ~~~ end]

I sense that Trump has already repeatedly laid the foundation for his claim of voting fraud and effectively labelled and demonized his opponents as either violent anti-fascists (ANTIFA), rioters, looters, BLM racists, Marxists or Socialists. He has also cultivated the institutional support of the police, the courts, and the US Justice Department, as well as the backing of violent militia’s, hate groups, and other Brownshirts. The military has been manipulated into a position where they have pledged that they would stand down in any “political” dispute and honor Constitutional outcomes (e.g. Supreme Court decisions, State Legislative actions, police deployments, etc).

The media has largely failed to be explicit about how all this is designed to steal the election and formally impose a Fascist State. They have been diverted by so many other Trump abuses and Tweets. So have the Democrats and most progressives. And very few have called out Trump as a Fascist or defended and supported the various street based protesters.

So, all that paves the way to 2 alternative coup scenarios:

1) The 12th amendment route: Swing States with Republican legislatures (e.g. Pennsylvania, et al) claim fraud, reject the vote counts for Biden, and select Trump electors. This results in neither candidate getting the necessary 270 electoral college votes, which throws the election to the House, where Republicans have 26 State delegations. TRUMP wins, and its all legal. (The Atlantic story outlined this scenario, while Greg Pallast has been warning about it for months). OR

2) Trump (using AG Barr, Republican Party lawyers, & loyal State Attorneys General & State officials) challenges state vote counts. The challenges wind up in the Supreme Court. Justice Kavanaugh has already laid the groundwork for relying on State LEGISLATURES over all other state powers (Courts, Governors). Chief Justice Roberts will defend the integrity and legitimacy of the Court, with Justice Barrett casting the deciding vote in a 5-4 decision. Trump wins, and it’s all legal.

The only way to stop this is for there to be massive and sustained nation-wide non-violent uprisings in the streets and general strike. Shut down the economy – as Mario Savio said “throw your body on the gears”.

I don’t think the Democrats and the general public have the spine for that.

There is no organized and powerful labor movement to make a general strike a reality.

The Left is small, disorganized, and has no discipline. The few real anti-fascist are local and similarly disorganized and their anarchist tendencies oppose discipline and organization. Many will be sucked right into street violence and spur police suppression or reaction by violent and murderous well armed Trump Brownshirts.

If there are sporadic uprisings, an already planned national coordinated campaign by local police, who clearly favor Trump, will crush local protests quickly, much like they crushed Occupy.

Trump will use militarized federal police forces (ICE, Border Patrol, DHS, etc) and maybe even nationalize the National Guard in a handful of states where protests last a week or so.

Pro-Trump Brownshirts will be deployed in some places and terrorize people while police stand down (just like the Trump Train in Texas and other weekend events).

Congressional Democrats will hold press conferences, but do nothing with legislative power.

The press will editorialize but be called Fake News by Trumpers.

Protests that are not violently crushed will fade out in 2-3 weeks.

There will be a huge  Pink Pussy Hat 2.0 protest in DC on Inaugural Day – it will be violently suppressed.

There will be no bottom to what Trump and fellow Republicans will do in second term. As they say, all options will be on the table.

Wolfe – 11/3/20

Flagstaff Arizona

PS – I wonder if this post will past through Twitter censors?

[Update – 12/28/20 – Technically, it ain’t over yet. Ted Rall’s scenario makes several of the points I made in the original post below, including the importance of a neutral (non-interventionist) Pentagon and US military, the role of local cops, Trump’s control of federalized police forces and the “MAGA goons”. There’s a Jan. 6 DC Trumper rally by “Women For America First” – which could be just an ironic spoof on the Pink Pussyhat Resistance, but one never knows. see:

• Trump Is Still Plotting a Possible Coup

[Update – 11/21/20 – This is the first time I’ve read of this July 2020 US Supreme Court unanimous decision, written by Justice Kagan, that absolutely destroys Trump’s strategy to flip Republican states by elector slates that contradict the popular vote (h/t/ Digby).

It is incredible that all the news coverage that has highlighted that possibility has failed to report this Supreme Court decision, which very clearly makes that strategy impossible.

In other words, the Trump coup via flipping Republican State electors was basically always bullshit that was hyped by the media (from The Atlantic article to Greg Pallast to The NY Times and WaPo).

I fell for it too, because I read that same media – without doing my own research.

How many times do we have to get duped by media? This nis actually worse than the reporting on Russia-gate. ~~~ end update.]

Update – 111/19/20 – I guess you could say we called this one! The NY Times reports today:

President Trump’s false accusations that voter fraud denied him re-election are causing escalating confrontations in swing states across the country, leading to threats of violence against officials in both parties and subverting even the most routine steps in the electoral process.

Update: 11/11/20 – NYT columnist Thomas Edsall identifies a third option to my prior two: under “continuity of government” law, Trump has extraordinary emergency powers he could invoke, including Marshall law. ~~~ end update]

Update: Tuesday AM, 11/10/20 – Just as we expected, the NY Times reports that Republicans and AG Barr are lining up behind Trump’s attempted coup:

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the top Republican in Congress, on Monday threw his support behind President Trump’s refusal to concede the election, declining to recognize President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory as he argued Mr. Trump was “100 percent within his rights” to challenge the outcome. ~~~ end update]

Update: Saturday AM, 11/7/20 – As the votes are still being counted and the planned massive street protests have gone the same way as the Blue Wave Trump-Republican repudiation, let’s do a quick update and see how my scenario below – written at 9 am Tuesday Election Day – has played out thus far.

We’ll rely on Paul Street’s superb “early reflections“ and declare considerable vindication, thus far.

The threat of judicial coup by Supreme Court al la Bush v. Gore 2000 remains, but is being either ignored or dismissed by mainstream media.

The threat of Republican State legislature’s defying voting results remains an outstanding threat, yet to be determined, a fact you can finally find buried in this underwhelming NY Times story – What Happens When the Election Results Are Contested:

A state legislature has the authority under the Constitution to appoint the state’s electors, regardless of the status of the popular vote.   ~~~ end update]