Saturday Updates

• More from NY Times on Republican plans to let climate change wreck the planet;
• Updates on stories about DeSantis slitting throats and A.P. Psychology in Florida;
• Another story about a Republican claiming credit for a Biden initiative that he fought;
• How “Sound of Freedom” has the hallmarks of the modern right-wing worldview;
• How Trumps lawyers keep quitting, and the latest ones are dumb and dumber.

NY Times, 4 Aug 2023: A Republican 2024 Climate Strategy: More Drilling, Less Clean Energy, subtitled “Project 2025, a conservative ‘battle plan’ for the next Republican president, would stop attempts to cut the pollution that is heating the planet and encourage more emissions.”

During a summer of scorching heat that has broken records and forced Americans to confront the reality of climate change, conservatives are laying the groundwork for future Republican administration that would dismantle efforts to slow global warming.

The move is part of a sweeping strategy dubbed Project 2025 that Paul Dans of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank organizing the effort, has called a “battle plan” for the first 180 days of a future Republican presidency.

The climate and energy provisions would be among the most severe swings away from current federal policies.

The plan calls for shredding regulations to curb greenhouse gas pollution from cars, oil and gas wells and power plants, dismantling almost every clean energy program in the federal government and boosting the production of fossil fuels — the burning of which is the chief cause of planetary warming.

This is all about vested interests, and ideology over reality. Also this:

The blueprint said the next Republican president would help repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, the 2022 law that is offering $370 billion for wind, solar, nuclear, green hydrogen and electric vehicle technology, with most of the new investments taking place in Republican-led states.

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The Guardian, 4 Aug 2023: Outrage after DeSantis says he’d ‘start slitting throats’ if elected president, subtitled “National Treasury Employees Union president calls Republican’s remark on federal jobs ‘repulsive and unworthy’ of campaign trail”

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NY Times, 3 Aug 2023: The College Board Says A.P. Psychology Is ‘Effectively Banned’ in Florida, subtitled “The nonprofit said it would not remove a section on gender and sexual orientation, as Florida had requested, and advised districts not to offer the course.”

With this update the next day:

NY Times, 4 Aug 2023: In a Reversal, A.P. Psychology May Be Allowed in Florida Schools After All, subtitled “The College Board and the Florida Department of Education had been feuding over the inclusion of a section on gender and sexual orientation.”

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Not in the past few days, but we’ve heard this theme before:

Washington Post, Dana Milbank, 4 Aug 2023: Opinion | Republicans who fought Biden’s agenda now claim credit for it

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) visited the massive Tesla plant in his home state, met with the company’s raving CEO, Elon Musk, sat in a Tesla Cybertruck prototype and tweeted out the photos below.

“Everything is bigger in the Lone Star State including @Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas — the 2nd largest manufacturing facility in the U.S.!” he trumpeted. “Tesla’s impressive facility employs 10k Texans & is one of the many reasons why TX is leading in job creation.”

Omitted from Cornyn’s tweet: that he fought bitterly against the clean-energy tax credits that directly prompted Tesla to boost its U.S. manufacturing. Tesla’s current expansion in U.S. output includes a massive new investment at the very plant Cornyn toured and touted.

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Vox, 4 Aug 2023 updated from 14 Jul 2023: Sound of Freedom wants to raise awareness about child trafficking. Here’s what it’s really doing., subtitled “Is a movie still just a movie if it becomes a culture war battleground?”

Noted only for the apt description at the end of its opening paragraph:

Usually when the culture war comes to the movies, it’s in the form of conservative backlash to films they perceive as too liberal. Increasingly, however, conservative filmmakers, often working outside of Hollywood’s studio system, are grabbing the spotlight with unexpected hits, some packed with ideology and tinged with hallmarks of the modern right-wing worldview: moral panic, hints of vast leftist conspiracies, and a sense of persecution.

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How do Trump’s fans explain all the lawyers who used to work for him and who have quit in exasperation and disgust? (Well, Fox News doesn’t mention them.) Of course he keeps finding more.

The New Republic, 4 Aug 2023: Donald Trump’s Lawyer Is Dumber Than Donald Trump, subtitled “Yes, Alina Habba is out of her depth. But John Lauro takes the cake in the former president’s legal clown show.”

Lauro (I saw him on the Today Show the other morning, with Savannah Guthrie, but apparently he’s been making the rounds of media interview opportunities),  keeps claiming a first amendment defense for Trump in the insurrection case, an argument everyone outside Trump’s circle finds absurd. But I’m citing this mostly for the last paragraph.

They will say anything, do anything, attack anything, allege anything, lie about anything, repeat anything, proclaim anything, insinuate anything, and imply anything. Except of course anything that’s true. They are turning the country and its principles upside down. They are fomenting a furious army of acolytes who own a lot of guns. When Trump is convicted here, as it appears he will be, given that his lawyer just admitted to it, what will they do?

You can always find lawyers to say anything.