Monthly Archives: May 2021

He said he welcomed the change. If it makes consultants nervous, Mr. Rubin added, its meant to.

People who say, I cant control it, I dont understand it, well, thats the whole point you cant control it, Mr. Rubin said. If youre good on the issues they care about, theyre going to be with you. If youre not, theyre not.

That became clear last week when the Markeyverse went on the offensive.

Their target, this time, was Mr. Markey himself, who on Tuesday had put out a carefully worded Twitter thread on the mounting violence in Israel, apportioning some blame on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides.

This was a disappointment for many of the young progressives, who had been hoping for a sharp rebuke of Israel, like the ones that came from Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren, or from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Though Mr. Markeys voting record on foreign policy was no secret he voted to authorize the occupation of Iraq in 2002, for example it had faded into the background in their embrace of his candidacy, which focused heavily on his record on climate. Now, the group chats and Slack channels that comprise the Markeyverse were flooded with emotion, disappointment and betrayal.

Its horrible to watch, and its disappointing, said Emerson Toomey, 21, one of the authors of Eds Reply Guys, a Twitter account that helped establish Mr. Markey as a progressive star.

Ms. Toomey, a senior at Northeastern University, was computing, with some bitterness, the hundreds of thousands of hours of unpaid labor she and her friends had provided to the senator. It made her question the compact she had assumed existed, that, in exchange for their support, he would accommodate their views on the issues that mattered.

Maybe he just said those things to us to get elected, she said.

They had shifted into full organizational mode, circulating a letter of protest that, Ms. Walsh hoped, could induce Senator Markey to revisit his positions on the conflict.

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An Army of 16-Year-Olds Takes On the Democrats - The New York Times

Republicans have a new ally to help deliver their global warming message. He's an environmentalist who likes to apologize for the "climate scare."

Meet Michael Shellenberger.

He's a pro-nuclear, pro-fracking former Democratic gubernatorial candidate from California who says he has seen the truth about climate change. A former Time magazine "Hero of the Environment," he argues that nuclear energy and natural gas are the path to an improved future and that renewables will lead to more ecological devastation.

If a story about a redeemed activist who regrets his role in "climate alarmism" seems straight out of Fox News, it's because it is. The network has repeatedly booked Shellenberger to air his views.

Yet he differs from the energy lobbyists and climate denialists who have contributed to far-right Republican climate politics for years. He has never rejected the scientific underpinnings of climate change.

In that way, he echoes the emerging Republican position that acknowledges the presence of a warming world without committing to reducing fossil fuels.

"The fact that he is not just left of center, but far left of center, that he came from the same pedigree as many of our Democratic colleagues, is why [Democrats] hate him so much," said a Republican Hill staffer on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

Last year, Shellenberger wrote a book titled "Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All," which downplays the risks of climate change and points at environmentalists as a growing risk to society.

Republicans have eagerly embraced him as a recovered climate acolyte.

Shellenberger said in an interview with E&E News that his views should not be reduced to his most bombastic comments, which can at times be seen scrolling across a Fox News chyron.

"You may want to go and find something that I know that a lot of progressives are butt-hurt about, a lot of climate alarmists are butt-hurt about," he said. "That would be cherry-picking one particular thing in my nearly 20 years of writing on this topic and trying to suggest that it stands for the whole."

Shellenberger's rise among conservative media and lawmakers comes as some Republicans try to soften their image on climate. Last month, a group of Republicans introduced a package of bills that would increase tree planting and investments in carbon capture and would ramp up domestic production of critical minerals.

The legislative package recognizes the reality of human-caused global warming but does not restrain the use of fossil fuels, the dominant driver of rising temperatures. More legislative efforts are expected to be released as the party heads toward midterm elections next year that will, in part, feature suburban swing districts where climate change is a concern for voters.

That's where Shellenberger's message might make a difference. He has never denied the reality of climate science and has previously worked with Democrats on climate policy.

It makes him a measured messenger compared to the outright denial that flourished under President Trump.

Ted Cruz. Photo credit: Jabin Botsford - Pool/Getty Images

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) promoted Shellenberger's book. Jabin Botsford - Pool/Getty Images

Shellenberger has testified in congressional hearings six times since January 2020, often at the invitation of Republican committee members. (Shellenberger claimed he was invited by both parties because the official invitation he received was signed by the Democratic committee chair as well as the ranking Republican.)

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has cited Shellenberger's work as informing the party's climate policy. Last month, Shellenberger was invited to speak at a Republican retreat in Florida, where he told lawmakers that renewables would increase energy prices and lead to more blackouts.

The party is embracing Shellenberger with glowing testimonials from lawmakers, media figures and climate denial groups.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has held congressional hearings to attack climate science, promoted Shellenberger's book on Twitter and said it was "worth reading." Climate misinformation groups, including the CO2 Coalition and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, also praised the book. Breitbart News trumpeted the reformation of a "climate alarmist," and the Daily Caller regularly touts Shellenberger's public claims with headlines such as "Here's How Renewable Energy Actually Hurts the Environment."

Outside of that, Shellenberger has credited climate denial groups such as the Heartland Institute, which has spent years pushing climate disinformation on the public, for telling the "truth."

"Thank you, guys, for sounding the alarm on these issues for longer than I have, and I'm sorry it took me so long to basically get into a position where I could tell the truth," Shellenberger said on a Heartland Institute podcast last year.

Shellenberger said he appears on conservative outlets because progressive media figures won't engage with his ideas for fear of upsetting their audience.

"The question you should be asking is: Why won't Rachel Maddow have me on her show; why won't Anderson Cooper have me on his show; why won't Stephen Colbert have me on their show?" he said. "Many other media have me on their show, and so I get excluded by progressive media."

Shellenberger disputed the notion that his message has special appeal to Republicans. He claimed that the Biden administration is doing more to boost nuclear energy because of his work. He said he has a track record of working with politicians from both parties and that he has spoken at Democratic retreats, though that occurred before he started apologizing for the climate movement.

But his arguments fit into the Republican orthodoxy on climate change with one difference. He's not a Republican.

"There's nothing he's saying or doing that's new to us; it's just a different voice than Heritage, and he comes at it a different way," the GOP staffer said. "He comes at it as a liberal from California."

Richard Muller. Photo credit: Eddie Moore/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom

Richard Muller, a Berkeley physics professor, recanted his climate skepticism after reviewing the science. Eddie Moore/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom

The idea of climate converts, whether they are following the science or distorting it, has long been an irresistible political narrative in Washington. Just as Republicans are embracing Shellenberger now, Democrats have touted scientists, politicians and climate skeptics who pushed past partisan blinders and publicly admitted they were wrong.

Richard Muller is one of the most pronounced converts. A physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who had long been skeptical of global warming research, he was invited to testify at a climate hearing by Democrats after he published an essay in The New York Times in which he declared himself a "converted skeptic."

Then there's Jerry Taylor, who sowed doubt about climate science for years at the conservative Cato Institute, before launching the Niskanen Center to promote carbon taxes.

Shellenberger's conversion is less distinct. He has long been a critic of environmental groups for what he claims is their unwarranted assault on nuclear power as a carbon-free fuel source.

He delights in Twitter takedowns of those who question his motives. Shellenberger has billed himself as an expert reviewer of the assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The position is open to anyone who signs up.

He also seeks bipartisan affirmation.

He claimed that Biden's plan to support nuclear energy was influenced by his years of work on the issue. He said climate envoy John Kerry contacted him to arrange an hourlong meeting last summer after reading his book. They talked about climate change, nuclear energy and renewables, Shellenberger said.

"I just had a bestselling book on this translated into a few languages where it makes the case for saving existing nuclear plants. My TED talks have been viewed like 6 million times on this issue, but you're saying I didn't have anything to do on this issue," he said, suggesting that Biden adopted some of his views.

Shellenberger's op-eds and right-wing media appearances are littered with cherry-picked statistics and bold claims that don't all stand up to scrutiny, according to climate scientists, including one of his own advisers.

In an op-ed for The Australian headlined "On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare," Shellenberger claims, "Climate change is not making natural disasters worse."

Kerry Emanuel. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Kerry Emanuel, a climate scientist with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Shellenberger isn't following the science. Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Kerry Emanuel, an atmospheric scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told E&E News that Shellenberger is spreading misinformation about the risks of climate change and natural disasters. Emanuel, an expert on climate change and hurricanes, is a science adviser for Shellenberger's pro-nuclear group Environmental Progress.

Emanuel said he has tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shellenberger to follow the science.

"I think that he uses misleading facts to try to downplay the climate risks," Emanuel said in an interview.

He noticed that Shellenberger changed his rhetoric on climate around the time his book was published. He said Shellenberger needs to do "more homework" on climate risks. Instead of focusing on the low probability of minimal future impacts, he should look at the risks of more severe consequences, Emanuel said.

"Something did happen to him about the time he published the book or before that, that he never used to complain about risk estimates associated with climate change. Something changed," Emanuel said.

Shellenberger dismissed the criticism and then leveled his own.

"Kerry [Emanuel] makes a significant amount of money hyping climate risk. I've told him I thought that was a conflict of interest. When you look at the science, the science says what the science says," said Shellenberger, who has a master's degree in anthropology and worked in public relations for years.

As a Californian, Shellenberger has also diminished the effects of rising temperatures on wildfires.

"California's forest fires were due to the buildup of wood fuel after decades of fire suppression," Shellenberger wrote in a New York Post opinion piece last year with the headline "Climate change hysteria costs lives but activists want to keep panic alive."

Like other Shellenberger claims, saying that forest management played a role in the fires is not technically wrong, but it's misleading by omission, according to scientists.

"In California, observed warming and drying more than doubled the occurrence of extreme fire weather conditions between 1979 and 2018 a trend that is attributable to human-caused climate change," wrote Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, in a review of a Shellenberger article for Climate Feedback, a group of scientists that reviews articles for accuracy.

In his congressional testimony, Shellenberger has touched on many of the same things, oftentimes to receptive Republican audiences.

Democrats, meanwhile, have treated him as a hostile witness. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said in a hearing last year that Shellenberger "has spent his career creating, publicizing and monetizing a totally fake narrative."

Still, Shellenberger insists his message is for everybody.

That effort to appear bipartisan by insisting that climate change is real, but not real enough to prompt an existential crisis might be as damaging, or more, as overt denial, some scientists say.

"That message really resonates with Republicans. People like Shellenberger provide cover for the continued policies that really ultimately will do nothing to address the real climate problem," said Peter Gleick, a climate and water scientist and president emeritus of the Pacific Institute.

Excerpt from:

POLITICS: This Democrat is shaping the GOP's new climate narrative - E&E News

'Kudlow' host says progressives' movement against Israel is slowly taking over the party

Kudlow host Larry Kudlow slammed the Democrat party Wednesday for refusing to support Israel.

LARRY KUDLOW: There was a time in American politics, really stretching all the way back, I think, to Harry Truman, when political and financial leaders in the Jewish community were staunch supporters of the Democratic Party. Especially the national Democratic Party in presidential elections. And, this was principal because of solid Democratic support for Israel. Nice and simple.

As time went on and Democrats moved to the left with respect to higher taxing and higher spending and anti-business policies, the presidential coalition still held up because Jewish supporters of Israel stayed with the Democrats. In those days, Republicans were suspect because many of their old-line waspy backers belonged to country clubs and other exclusive groups that wouldnt accept Jewish members.

Even worse, there was a kind of unspoken, unholy subterranean view that the big oil companies were always in bed with the GOP while doing business with Israels Arab enemies in the Middle East. In my professional lifetime, going back all the way to the Reagan years when I served, I remember this scenario, and I remember these, shall we say, thoughts. I never liked it.

But now, I am happy to report, things are changing in a very big way. Yesterday, for example, the Democratic-run house blocked a bill, listen to this, they blocked a bill that would have imposed sanctions on foreign entities known to provide financial assistance to the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hamas.

WATCH LARRY KUDLOW'S FULL MONOLOGUE HERE

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Larry Kudlow: Democrats supporting Iran-backed terrorists rather than Israel - Fox Business

As Republicans in the Texas Legislature run roughshod over corporate opposition, public protests and Democratic objections to advance a voting restrictions bill to the brink of passage, State Representative Jessica Gonzlez, a two-term Democrat from near Dallas, has been at the forefront of the fight.

Ms. Gonzlez, the vice chair of the House Elections Committee, was the first lawmaker to challenge State Representative Briscoe Cain, the Republican sponsor of the voting bill and the chair of the committee, during the final debate over the bill in the chamber. She previously served as the Nevada voter protection director for former President Barack Obamas re-election campaign in 2012.

We spoke to Ms. Gonzlez about the next steps in Texas and how she views the battle over voting rights writ large. The interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

OK, quickly: Whats next for the voting legislation in Texas?

So the House version of the election integrity bill was vastly different from the Senate version, indicating that both chambers had a different idea of what election integrity will look like. Whether both chambers come together and agree with what the final version looks like, I guess well just wait and see.

Businesses, election officials, faith leaders and Democrats have all opposed the voting restrictions. What else can opponents do to stop the legislation?

Well, were still in session, and so fighting against some of these suppression bills hasnt stopped. And if it goes to a conference committee [a panel of lawmakers who make final changes to legislation], we can be vigilant, and object to the changes made in conference if there are substantial differences, because they will move very quickly.

But I think that it was important and continues to be important for the business community and others to speak out in opposition. I think that definitely put some pressure on the folks that were supporting the bill.

This may be a bit of a hypothetical because we dont know what the final version of the bill will be. But on what grounds, or under what statute, would legal challenges be made once it passed?

Well, a lot of that Ill leave to the elections lawyers that have to lead litigation in these types of areas. But even just in being vice chair of the committee, there were lots of deviations from standard procedures and practices.

But its still a voter suppression bill. In my experience in working on Section 5 and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and obviously Section 5 doesnt apply anymore you can use those two standards on whether its the intent of the author to discriminate, or also the effect of it having a disparate impact on people of color who have historically been discriminated against.

And Texas has a long history of that. You cant deny that. So I think thats going to be where the strong argument is.

Looking at this bill and given your experience with the Obama campaign in 2012, what stands out here as something that could particularly restrict or limit voting?

Amid months of false claims by former President Donald J. Trump that the 2020 election was stolen from him,Republican lawmakers in many states are marching aheadto pass laws making it harder to vote and changing how elections are run, frustrating Democrats and even some election officials in their own party.

A lot of the changes that my Republican colleagues argue for are about having uniformity throughout the state. Whether that is the amount of polling machines in every county and you really cant have uniformity when every county is different. Harris County is different than Loving County.

And so, in my experience in doing voter protection work, its important that these elections officials are able to administer their elections, because theyre the ones who are actually on the ground and able to address those issues.

Gov. Greg Abbott has made an election overhaul one of his emergency priorities. So expecting that he will want fellow Republicans in the Legislature to give him something to pass, how do you plan for future elections?

This session overall, a lot of members who have been here for years are saying that this is the worst session that theyve served in. And I think people need to know that, and so messaging that to Texans Hey, this is whats going on in your Capitol I hope will mobilize people to get out and vote.

So itll be incumbent on us to message that if these laws are put into place before the next election cycle, that they know what these new changes are, and hopefully that motivates them. So we can say: Hey, this is what your vote means. If you dont go vote, these are the folks that are representing you in Austin that are not making it easier for you to vote.

Continued here:

Shes a Texas Democrat, Weighing How to Defend Voting Rights - The New York Times

Since Hamas began its rocket offensive last week, the Biden Administration has wisely refused to dictate the Israeli response. But the U.S. narrative war took a notable turn this week as Congressional Democrats demanded a cease-fire. We hope the President bucks his instinct to follow his party and leads it instead.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad have launched more than 3,000 rockets into Israel since last week, Jerusalem says, and Israel has been pummeling those groups in the Gaza strip to stop the attacks. Media and progressive activists blamed the Hamas-initiated war on Israel, as they always do, but the White House did not go along.

That position may not be viable for much longer on Capitol Hill. Now, after more than a week of hostilities, it has become even more apparent that a cease-fire is necessary, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy told Politico, If Israel doesnt believe a cease-fire is in their interest, that doesnt mean we have to accept that judgment. We have enormous persuasive power.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, reportedly floated an arms-sale delay on Monday, but backed off on Tuesday citing assurances from the White House.

With any luck Israel will soon inflict enough damage on Gazas terrorist stockpiles and leadership that it can negotiate a genuine cease-fire. Israel wants a swift end to the conflict, not a repeat of its 2014 Operation Protective Edge, which lasted 50 days and involved a Gaza ground incursion.

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Biden, the Democrats and Israel - The Wall Street Journal