Bill McKibben at The New Republic writes—The New Nation-States: How Trump’s rejection of the Paris accord is reshaping the political landscape. An excerpt:
When Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris climate accord, he may have achieved something few presidents ever manage: changing the way the world works.
Actually, he may have done it twice.
The first way is both deceptively simple and monumentally damaging. By slowing the global momentum toward renewable energy, Trump has guaranteed that the Earth will become a hotter place to live—which means less ice and coral, more drought and flood. The last presidential decision to show up on the geologic record was the atom bomb: Testing the giant weapons has left a layer of cesium and plutonium on the planet’s crust that will last for millions of years. Assuming Trump refrains from dropping a nuke himself, it’s his climate policy that will leave a permanent mark.
But the Paris decision may also reshape the world for the better, or at least the very different. Consider: A few days after Trump’s Rose Garden reveal, California Governor Jerry Brown was in China, conducting what looked a lot like an official state visit. He posed with pandas, attended banquets—and sat down for a one-on-one meeting with President Xi Jinping, which produced a series of agreements on climate cooperation between China and California. (Trump’s secretary of energy, Rick Perry, was in Beijing the same week: no pandas, no sit-down with Xi.)
It was almost as if California were another country. Call it a nation-state—a nation-state that has talked about launching its own satellites to monitor melting polar ice. A nation-state that has joined New York and a dozen others in a climate alliance to announce they will meet the targets set in the Paris accord on their own. [...]
All told, 27 cities in 17 states have pledged to go 100 percent renewable—a move that puts them at direct odds with federal policy. Call them “climate sanctuaries.” San Francisco, Boulder, and Burlington won’t surprise you—but Atlanta and Salt Lake City and San Diego have done the same. [...]
For years, whenever we’ve thought about politics and public policy, our heads have swiveled automatically in the direction of Washington. Now, as with so much else, Trumpism is changing that tropism in unpredictable ways.
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"Summer, after all, is a time when wonderful things can happen to quiet people. For those few months, you're not required to be who everyone thinks you are, and that cut-grass smell in the air and the chance to dive into the deep end of a pool give you a courage you don't have the rest of the year. You can be grateful and easy, with no eyes on you, and no past. Summer just opens the door and lets you out."
~Deb Caletti, Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, 2004
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2012—This week in the War on Workers: How can what you say on Facebook get you fired?
Can you be fired for what you say on Facebook? Sometimes. But when? No one is really sure yet.
The emergence of social media platforms that potentially give people the chance to speak to audiences beyond their close friends and co-workers, and where lines between more or less idle chatter and intentional organizing can be blurred, complicates the question of what's protected, and makes companies care a lot more since criticisms of them can be so much more public than water cooler talk. The National Labor Relations Board is taking up a few social media-related cases, and Josh Eidelson looks at the issues involved.
Workers are generally protected when engaging in "concerted activity":
In earlier pre-Facebook cases, the NLRB considered several factors in deciding which speech counts as collective action: whether multiple workers were involved in the discussion in question, whether it related to work conditions, whether it was unacceptably disloyal or malicious, and whether it was intended to instigate activism. “Sometimes griping is the incipient stages of ‘Let’s do something about it,’ ” says former NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman. Other times, it’s “just griping.”
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On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Wandering around Poland, Trump pushes a “clash of civilizations.” Are we going in unarmed? Did Sater flip on Trump? Will McConnell flip on Trumpcare? Maddow issues fake news alert. Speaking of which, Trump claims a new charitable donation.
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