WASH STATE 2

11/18

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Washington residents are arguing that Big Oil’s “coordinated and deliberate scheme to hide the truth about climate change and the effects of burning fossil fuels” has led to escalating home insurance costs, according to a _recently-filed lawsuit_. The federal class action lawsuit is the first of its kind, aiming to hold oil companies accountable not just for their decades of climate deception, but for the resulting insurance crisis that has stemmed from more frequent and severe weather disasters.

We may know as early as Monday whether the U.S. Supreme Court will grant Big Oil’s pleato review the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision in Boulder's climate deception lawsuit. Keep an eye out on our socials for timely updates.

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inspired by President Donald Trump’s call to round up immigrants who are in the country illegally, Republican governors would send their National Guard troops into Democratic-led states without those leaders’ permission.

It’s a scenario that was so concerning to Washington state Rep. Sharlett Mena that she introduced legislation that would make uninvited deployments of out-of-state troops illegal. Her bill cleared a committee last week and has the backing of Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson, who pushed for the proposal in his inaugural address last month.

The legislation is about maintaining the state’s autonomy and authority, Mena, a Democrat, told her colleagues during last week’s hearing. “Without this bill, there’s nothing on the books to prevent this.”

Later, she added, “Other states may take matters into their own hands when they want to enforce federal laws.”

In December, 26 Republican governors — all but Vermont Gov. Phil Scott — vowed to assist Trump with deportations of immigrants “who pose a threat to our communities and national security.” Their pledge included the use of National Guard troops.

Mena has reason to be concerned, said Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a left-leaning New York-based pro-democracy institute.

“The Trump administration has made it quite clear that they intend to use the military to assist with immigration enforcement,” he said. “States who are opposed to that would be wise to take what measures they can to protect themselves and their states.”

This week, Texas signed an agreement with the Trump administration giving the state’s National Guard troops law enforcement powers to arrest and help detain migrants. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s four-year Operation Lone Star program has until now used the National Guard only for surveillance and logistical support for federal agents.

Other states opposed to Trump’s deportation program could be inspired by Washington’s legislation and introduce similar measures in the months ahead, Nunn said. And Mena pointed out that Idaho, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Texas have laws that prevent other states’ National Guard troops from entering without permission.

‘Anything we can do to help’: This Texas county is poised to play a key role in deportations

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But, as she noted to her colleagues last week, if Trump were to federalize National Guard units, there’s nothing the state could do to prevent it; a presidential order preempts state authority.

Republican state Rep. Jim Walsh dismisses Mena’s concerns.

“I believe that legislation is unnecessary,” he told Stateline in an interview. “I think it’s what is generally considered a statement bill, but you have to treat it seriously. I’m not sure what they’re getting at here other than a swipe at Donald Trump.”

Washington state law prohibits state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement — which Walsh described as “horrible” public policy. Mena’s legislation would only add to that “dumb” approach to immigration enforcement, he said.

Federal law

While the National Guard is generally organized at and operates under state command using state funding, it can be called into federal service, operating with federal funding and placed under the president’s control. But there’s a murky middle ground in federal law that would make a measure like Washington’s relevant.

Under one federal statute, Title 32, a state’s National Guard can be commanded by the governor but operate using federal funding on a federal mission at the request of the president. While the policy was originally crafted in the 1950s as a way for Congress to pay for extensive training requirements, presidents have since expanded its use.

Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump, in his first term, all deployed National Guard troops to the southwestern border to assist with migration deterrence.

Trump’s mass deportation plan could rely on state cooperation

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Trump also used the statute in 2020 to request that states send National Guard units to Washington, D.C., when he wanted to suppress the Black Lives Matter protests happening there. Eleven governors voluntarily sent troops, despite objections from the district’s mayor. The district does not enjoy the sovereignty of states.

“No state is more sovereign than another state, and their sovereignty is also territorially limited,” Nunn said. “Illinois’ sovereignty stops at the Indiana state line and vice versa. Indiana cannot reach into Illinois and exercise governmental power there without Illinois’ consent, even if the president asked Indiana to do this and even if Congress is footing the bill.”

Put simply: No state can invade another state.

‘An insurance policy’

Because of this, Washington state’s legislation might be redundant, said William Banks, a professor emeritus at Syracuse University College of Law who has studied and recently written about National Guard deployments and Trump’s rhetoric of a migrant “invasion.”

“It’s like an insurance policy,” he said of the bill. “It may be a very good idea to call attention to the independence of the state government and its perspective that they’d very much like to be in charge of their own internal affairs, including migration or whatever else might be going on.”

Banks said the measure, if passed as expected, could be something that state leaders point to if, for example, Idaho or Montana were considering deploying their National Guard units to Seattle to carry out Trump’s immigration enforcement.

However, he said, the whole discussion becomes irrelevant the moment Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, which would allow for federal military intervention in a nonconsenting state.

State, local officials plan for potential immigration enforcement at schools

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The 1792 law has been used occasionally in response to unexpected crises that overwhelmed civilian authorities or when a state was obstructing federal civil rights laws or other constitutional protections. In theory, though, the president could frame one of his policy priorities, such as immigration, as a national emergency in need of a massive troop mobilization. Trump has already asked his deputies to study the use of the law.

“The Insurrection Act is a euphemism for when all hell breaks loose,” Banks said. “It’s an extreme measure for extreme times.”

Until that occurs, Washington lawmakers would be wise to adopt preventive measures, said Nathan Bays, deputy policy director for Washington’s governor. He told committee members during the bill’s hearing that it is “precautionary” and would not harm the readiness or training of the state’s National Guard.

“Washington will continue to be a strong partner with our other National Guard units across this nation,” he said.

But Republican state Rep. Rob Chase told Stateline that the legislation is a solution looking for a problem — wasting time when the legislature should be focused on real issues, such as public safety, homelessness, a housing shortage, fentanyl and education.

“This seems like more fear mongering by the ruling party in Olympia over what they perceive to be happening in the other Washington,” he wrote in an email.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

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"trump’s REVENGE as Ultra MAGA Candidates DOMINATE Primaries,” exulted far-right Christian nationalist Steve Turley in his Wednesday newsletter. Indeed, Tuesday’s primary elections in several states gave major wins to Big Lie-promoting allies of former President Donald Trump, though there were exceptions to the Trumpist wave.

In a major defeat for anti-abortion activists, Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejected a referendum to remove abortion rights from the state constitution, which would have given legislators the ability to pass the kind of outright ban anti-abortion forces have put into place in other states. The huge margin of victory and massive voter turnout suggest that the Supreme Court’s recent decision overturning Roe v. Wade could be a powerful motivator for pro-choice voters this fall. Pundit Todd Starnes called the Kansas vote a “crushing defeat” for anti-abortion forces. Anti-choice activist Lila Rose called it a “tragic setback.”

Here are some highlights:

Arizona was a blowout win for Trumpism,extremism, and threats to elections. Election conspiracy theorist and Oath Keeper Mark Finchem won GOP primary for secretary of state. Blake Masters, backed by anti-democracy billionaire Peter Thiel, won the Senate primary and will have unlimited funds to attack incumbent Mark Kelly.

In very close race for governor nomination, Trump’s candidate Kari Lake pulled ahead of Mike Pence-backed developer and former member of the Arizona board of regents Karrin Taylor Robson. Lake has claimed victory even though news organizations have said the race is too close to call. Like Finchem, Lake is a hard-core promoter of lies about election fraud and says as gov she will refuse to “take orders” from the “illegitimate” Biden; she has said if she wins she will direct the attorney general to seize election equipment from 2020. “We have God on our side,” she declared.

Rep. Paul Gosar and state Sen. Wendy Rogers, associates of white nationalist Nick Fuentes, won their primaries.

House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who testified before the Jan 6 committee about the abuse he faced for resisting Trumpists’ demands to try to overturn the election, was defeated in his bid for state senate. Former state AG Tom Horne has won the primary for state superintendent of education, an office he has held previously and used to push hard-right agenda such as a ban on ethnic studies; he has pledged to ban bilingual education and create a hotline for reporting suspected teaching of critical race theory.

In the U.S. senate primary in Missouri, scandal plagued Eric Greitens and Rep. Vicky Hartzler were defeated by Erick Schmitt, who ran on “America First” themes; as state attorney general he had led the state into legal challenges of the 2020 presidential election results. Schmitt has pledged not to support McConnell for Majority Leader.

In Michigan, Trump and his allied successfully targeted Rep. Peter Meijer, who had backed Trump’s impeachment;Meijer was defeated by former Trump official John Gibbs. Winning the gubernatorial nomination was Tudor Dixon, who had been backed by the DeVos family and endorsed late in the race by Donald Trump. During the campaign, Dixon vowed to sign legislation “that creates severe criminal penalties for adults who involve children in drag shows.” A “no exceptions” supporter of abortion bans, she made a national media splash when she insisted that a 14-year-old raped by her uncle should be forced to carry the child to term. Kristina Karamo, who hopes to become the GOP nominee for secretary of state, is among the Big Lie promoters hoping to be in positions to run elections in 2024.

In Washington state, Trumpists did not fare so well. They targeted two incumbent Republicans who had voted for Trump’s impeachment, Jaime Herrera Beutler [lost] in 3rd CD and Dan Newhouse in the 4th. Their races have not been called, but both incumbents appear set to make the runoff in WA’s top-two all-party primary, while their Trumpist challengers Joe Kent and Loren Culp are currently trailing.

Tags: Anti-Abortion Anti-Choice Donald Trump Election 2022 MAGA

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/19/mask-mandate-midterm-elections/

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Military

Building on anti-mask activism, far-right groups pivot from mandates to midterms

Energized by their fight against government coronavirus restrictions, far-right activists are rallying supporters to engage in politics and show up to vote.

By Hannah Allam

March 19, 2022

A person holds a sign advocating for the recall of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee during a protest against coronavirus vaccine mandates and other issues, on March 5, 2022, at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash. (Ted S. Warren/AP)

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Melanie Gabriel became the teen idol of Washington state’s anti-masking movement last fall when she showed up to school and, claiming a medical exemption, marched barefaced to class.

As Gabriel’s protest continued and she was barred from campus, she drew support from self-styled militia groups and other far-right extremists who saw theanti-mandate movementas a chance to rally conservatives toward more-militant stances. Members of the Proud Boys offered to escort Gabriel to class, prompting a security lockdown of three schools.

Now, with the lifting of most mask and vaccine requirements, Gabriel and her far-right backers are mobilizing the networks they’ve built over the past two years toward a new goal: November’s midterm elections.

Gabriel spoke this month at a gathering that was emblematic of the increasingly blurry lines on the right — it was organized by the far-rightWashington Three Percent and sponsored by a conservative student group, Turning Point USA. With the state Capitol dome in the background, speaker after speaker told supporters not to get complacent with mandates gone.

“Just because they’re lifted doesn’t mean they’re going to stay that way, and that’s why we’re all here,” said Gabriel, a striking figure in a bright crimson bob, cat-eye makeup, and a T-shirt with the anti-Biden slogan “Let’s Go Brandon.” Her bullhorn was decorated with stickers that read “Say No To Critical Hate Theory” and “Allergic to socialism.”

A man in the audience yelled that Gabriel should run for governor.

“I will!” Gabriel replied. “I will run for governor. And I’ll run for president. And I’ll run for everything!” She waited a beat before adding: “Once I’m of legal age.”

That’s the kind of youthful energy far-right movements are working to harness across the country as they teach the pandemic’s newly minted activists how to get out the vote.

A school board race in Washington state shows how far-right groups are thinking locally

Extremism trackers say the past two years of fighting pandemic restrictions have given far-right groups a new generation of recruits and a blueprint for taking the lead in conservative organizing. The midterm season, they warn, brings a heightened risk of political violence, as armed groups build on those gains to push deeper into the mainstream.

“In Olympia today, we saw paramilitary groups and a range of other anti-democracy activists aggressively working to recruit young people and making pledges of unity against what they see as their common enemies,” Eric K. Ward, executive director of Western States Center, a regional extremism watchdog, said in a statement after the event where Gabriel spoke.

Anti-mandate activists galvanized a broad cross section of political conservatives by melding disparate agendas into one fuzzy call to “fight tyranny.” By now, most of their big demonstrations look like a right-wing soup, featuring Trump and MAGA logos, self-styled militia insignia, Confederate flags, references to the debunked QAnon movement, and Christian nationalist prayers.

Researchers say connections forged early in the pandemic allowed once-fringe groups to take on more visible roles in other kinds of organizing, such as the “Stop the Steal” effort to overturn the 2020 election results, or the campaign to whitewash U.S. history by attacking the teaching of racism and its impact.

New laws on teaching about race have teachers scared, confused and self-censoring

The nonstop focus on grievances, researchers say, has created a tinderbox of disenchanted Americans who view themselves as foot soldiers in a struggle against mandates and other perceived attacks on personal liberties. Many right-wing politicians and media personalities are stoking the outrage in pursuit of a “red wave” in November.

“The grievances are there as a reservoir for mobilization, but they still have to be triggered.They have to be activated towards specific action,” said Robert Pape, a University of Chicago professor leading an in-depth study of the rioters who violently breached the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “And it rarely happens spontaneously.”

The event where Gabriel spoke was called GRIT, for Government Resistance Impedes Tyranny. Several hundred people participated, along with a convoy of big rigs, part of the U.S. version of the Canadian trucker demonstrations that united a variety of conspiracy-minded protesters.

Unlike at previous far-right gatherings in Olympia, no leftist counter protesters showed up, and the event was peaceful.Journalists were encouraged to refer to it as a “freedom festival,” not a rally. On the damp statehouse grounds, leather-clad bikers chatted about gas prices with khakis-wearing politicians. Gun rights activists told college students that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an example of why they consider the Second Amendment untouchable. A voter registration table sat next to a self-styled militia’s information booth, a reminder that, in this milieu, there are two paths to making change.

Organizer Matt Marshall, founder of the Washington Three Percent and a member of his local school board,called the rally “a networking event” to connect pandemic-era upstarts with more established groups and reliable donors. A dozen or so Republican candidates for congressional and local races worked the crowd, urging constituents to serve on precinct committees as a first step into politics.

Some had clear-cut ties to extremism, with documented support for and interactions with parts of the anti-government movement. Take, for example, a former police chief named Loren Culp, a failed gubernatorial candidate now running to unseat U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, one of 10 members of the House GOP who voted to impeach President Trump after the Capitol riot. Culp has close ties to a far-right sheriff’s organization that believes local authorities have the power to decide whether state and federal laws are constitutional; in 2018, he pledged he wouldn’t enforce a statewide gun-control law.

Many other candidates, however, fall into a gray area. They espouse views or cultivate relationships that only a few years ago would have put them on the far-right fringe, but which are now broadly shared, or at least tolerated, by Republican leaders. Extremism researchers say it’s startling how quickly it became socially acceptable for relatively mainstream groups like Turning Point USA to provide funding and speakers to an event led by the anti-government Washington Three Percent.

“This kind of meshing of people is typical of the landscape we’re seeing right now — the blurring of the line with an extremist host and mainstream sponsor,” said Carla Hill, associate director of the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism, which is tracking more than 100 political candidates who have documented ties to extremist groups or conspiratorial movements.

Black, brown and extremist: Across the far-right spectrum, people of color play a more visible role

Rachel Anderson, 29, head of Lewis County Young Republicans in the western part of the state, told the crowd how in the space of a year she went from being politically unaware to joining other nascent activists in “taking over” the county party. She said she has helped four Young Republicans get elected and contributed to a threefold increase in local GOP fundraising — work she calls vital to electoral success next fall.

“We can’t be complacent anymore,” Anderson told the crowd, to cheers. “We have to go out there. We have to canvass our voting rolls, make sure that every single vote counts and we elect proper, conservative patriots into office.”

As they stump for votes, some Republican hopefuls are encountering a problem of their party’s own making. After two solid years of being fed lies about a stolen election, a bloc of Republicans no longer see the point in voting and refuse to participate in what they regard as a corrupt system.

“We still get a lot of people who say, ‘Nah, I just don’t believe it matters,’” said Joe Kent, a former Green Beret trying to oust Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R), whose vote to impeach President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot made her a pariah within much of the GOP. “And there’s where we’ve got to come back, to tell people we’re taking real stands.”

When asked whether he had qualms about appearing at an event alongside groups like the Washington Three Percent, Kent looked puzzled and said he didn’t know the organizers.

“All I know is that there’s a bunch of people with flags,” he said.

[How the Jan. 6 Capitol riot happened: A Washington Post investigation

Within days of the event, Kent was under scrutiny again for another far-right link: a phone call with white nationalist Nick Fuentes in which the two discussed working together on social media strategy for Kent’s campaign. In an interview, Kent told Oregon Public Broadcasting that he had no association with Fuentes beyond the conversation last spring.

Federal authorities are careful to say they don’t police protected views, including the racist or anti-government stances often articulated at anti-mandate events, and don’t want to overhype a fringe threat. The problem is, violent messaging is now laced throughout the planning for big gatherings, making it difficult to separate “keyboard warriors” from real-life provocateurs.

John Cohen, the top Homeland Security counterterrorism official, said in public remarks last month that the current threat environment is “more volatile and even more dynamic than it was even back in December.” A recent report from the global nonprofit conflict-monitoring group known as ACLED said current trends in guns and violence at U.S. protests “raises the specter of further escalation in armed demonstration activity going into the upcoming midterm elections.”

At the Olympia gathering, guns were concealed, in accordance with a recently changed law that bans open-carry near protests and the state Capitol grounds. The event was legally permitted, and organizers had asked participants not to display hateful imagery. Three Percenter logos, a few Confederate flags and a Proud Boys shirt were visible, but most of the participants wore generic MAGA, anti-Biden, or red, white and blue attire. Families brought their dogs. Children blew soap bubbles on the lawn.

Speakers repeatedly invoked civil rights language to refer to their perceived persecution, a common theme throughout the anti-mandate movement. Online and at rallies, protesters regularly compare themselves to enslaved Africans, dispossessed Native Americans, Jewish victims of the Holocaust, the Founding Fathers, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi and Jesus.

“It’s about trying to give themselves some historical cache, and it’s remarkable how they do this,” said terrorism analyst Juliette Kayyem, a former Homeland Security official now at Harvard’s Kennedy School. “It’s not like, ‘We’re just upset about vaccines.’ It’s ‘This is the arc of history, and we’re on it with all of these other quote-unquote freedom fighters.’”

The idea of historical significance resonated with Don and Carol Moody, a married couple in their 60s who were eating smoked-pork sandwiches in side-by-side lawn chairs at the Olympia event. Speaking over loud honking as another trucker convoy arrived, Don said that this was a moment, “to make a stand with what you believe in your heart.”

The couple said they’re confused and frightened by the bloodshed in Ukraine; the right-wing news outlets they watch tell them it’s a precursor to World War III. They worry about whether their unvaccinated grandkids will be cleared to play sports. They said they’ve heard that the government might introduce a “vaccine passport.”

They still plan to vote in the midterms — it’s worth a try, they said — but they firmly believe lies about the “stolen” 2020 election and suspect the Biden administration is already cooking up new ways to disenfranchise the right.

“Everything they do seems to be poking us to be more angry,” Don said.

Carol said that’s why she’s suspicious of the lifting of mandates. In her conspiratorial world, it’s not the time to celebrate.

“They’re thinking up something next,” Carol said. “And that’s what scares me.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/prepare-for-war-gop-official-pushes-dangerous-conspiracy-theories-over-election-outcome/

It has been three days since the Electoral College confirmed President-elect Joe Biden's victory, but an overwhelming number of Republicans are still refusing to accept the outcome of the election. Propaganda articles and infotainment videos on conspiracy theories are still circulating as Trump supporters continue their fight to "stop the steal."

Now, an article published by the Seattle Times highlights another problem with the spread of misinformation. The writer notes that it is one thing when dangerous falsehoods come from unknown websites that lack credibility, but some of the latest threats are coming from members of the Republican Party.

According to the publication, on Monday, Rep. Robert J. Sutherland, a representative of the 39th legislative district of Eastern Snohomish County along with Skagit County, took to Facebook with a number of dangerous claims about the election.

In multiple posts, he referenced reports and claims from right-wing influencers and propaganda sites as he said, "prepare for war. Joe Biden is not now, nor will ever be my President. Am I a sore loser? No. I'm pro-America and anti-communist. Joe Biden is a bought and paid for Communist China puppet. Stay tuned, big things happening soon at the Federal level."

In a series of other Facebook posts and discussions, Sutherland also insisted that he supported the idea of going to war over the so-called "coup against the sitting president."

"Is the 'coup' against the sitting President the start of a second 'Civil War' here in the USA?" Sutherland asked as he noted his support of Trump possibly using the military to maintain his presidential power.

"What good and decent person would not conduct a war to defend Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of happiness, their families, their neighbors?" Sutherland asked.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

why did portland get hit 1st by secret police vs seattle autonomous zone?

Washington enacted a measure in June 2019 in favor of sanctuary cities, similar to California and Oregon laws which are among the strongest statewide mandates in the nation.^[186]

Seattle^[187]

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/maga/

The pattern has become clear: Wherever pro-Donald Trump "Stop the Steal" rallies are organized, the thugs who come out in large numbers to participate wreak violence on anyone who comes out to protest them. This weekend, even as Proud Boys and other Trump supporters were bringing violence to the streets of Washington, D.C., a similar but much smaller group of MAGA fanatics was doing the same thing across the country in the Washington state capital.

And for the second week in a row in Olympia, a Trump supporter fired a gun at counterprotesters for a "Stop the Steal" event—this time, hitting and injuring a man who was wounded and hospitalized at the culmination of a running series of brawls. Police arrested the man, along with three other people at the event.

[vid]

The shooter, identified as 26-year-old Trump supporter Forest Michael Machala of Seattle, was charged with first-degree assault, the state's equivalent of an attempted-murder charge. The victim, a Black man who has not been identified, was transported by street medics to a local hospital with a stomach wound.

One week before, a Proud Boy named Christopher Guenzler, 27, marching in a similar event, pointed a gun at counterprotesters and fired, but only inflicted a graze wound. He was also arrested and charged with first-degree assault.

Saturday's rally began at the state Capitol campus, where it was mostly peaceful. According to the *Washington Post,*several "Boogaloo" civil-war movement members dressed in Hawaiian shirts were among them. Many of them came armed with guns and knives.

But when the crowd there to protest Trump's defeat in the November election—estimated at 50 to 80 people—began to march into downtown Olympia, the much larger crowd of largely antifascist counterprotesters greeted them with jeers, insults, and hurled objects. Brawls broke out in short order.

Olympia and state police forces numbering around 100 attempted to keep the sides separate, and began making arrests. One Proud Boy was arrested for brandishing a gun to threaten protesters. Two counterprotesters were arrested for allegedly assaulting police officers, one with a baton and the other with a piece of concrete.

The shooting occurred as the pro-Trump crowd attempted to make its way back to their cars and were pursued by counterprotesters. Videographer Robert Zerfing, a Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys supporter,told the *Seattle Times* that "pretty much all of the 'Patriot' crowd came up here into the parking lot, they were running into their cars, trying to get out." As they were pursued by antifascists, "that's when I heard the shot."

Afterward, state police reported they found an undetonated improvised explosive device near the location of the shooting. "Device had been lit and thrown, but failed to detonate," they reported. "Had the device detonated, it could have caused significant injury."

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/fox-news-fights-coronavirus-misinformation-lawsuit-first-amendment-protects-false-speec

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Fox News fights coronavirus misinformation lawsuit: First Amendment protects ‘false’ speech

Written by Igor Derysh / Salon April 16, 2020

Fox News has moved to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a Washington state group accusing the network of “deceptive” coronavirus coverage by arguing that the First Amendment protects “false” and “outrageous” speech.

The network’s lawyers said in a motion seeking to dismiss the lawsuit that the “First Amendment does not permit censoring this type of speech based on the theory that it is ‘false’ or ‘outrageous.’ Nor does the law of the State of Washington.”

The Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics (WASHLITE) filed a lawsuit in King County earlier this month seeking a court order barring the network from “interfering with reasonable and necessary measures to contain the virus by publishing further false and deceptive content.”

The suit accused the network of violating the state’s Consumer Protection Act by “falsely and deceptively disseminating ‘news’ via cable news contracts that the coronavirus was a ‘hoax’ and that it was otherwise not a danger to public health and safety.”

The suit specifically cited Fox News host Sean Hannity and former Fox Business host Trish Regan for having “acted in bad faith to willfully and maliciously disseminate false information denying and minimizing the danger posed by the spread of the novel coronavirus.”

Hannity downplayed the threat of the coronavirus and argued it was less dangerous than the flu. Regan was fired shortly after accusing Democrats of pushing a “coronavirus impeachment scam.”

Though there are numerous examples of Fox opinion hosts downplaying the threat posed by the virus, many legal experts have dismissed the idea that the network could be sued for its coverage of the pandemic. One of the lawyers involved in the lawsuit has since withdrawn from the case.

“It’s Constitutional Law 101: the First Amendment protects our right to speak openly and freely on matters of public concern,” Fox News Media general counsel Lily Fu Claffee said in a statement. “If WASHLITE doesn’t like what we said, it can criticize us, but it can’t silence us with a lawsuit.”

The network’s 76-page filing, which includes dozens of pages of show transcripts and examples of other media outlets purportedly downplaying the risk of the virus early this year, argues that the hosts “never described the Coronavirus as a ‘hoax’ or a ‘conspiracy,’ but instead used those terms to comment on efforts to exploit the pandemic for political points.”

The network’s lawyers argued that Hannity and Regan simply took part in an “intense public debate” over “how serious of a threat” the virus posed, noting that Hannity, in March, urged the elderly and people with compromised immune systems to take “extra, extra, extra caution.”

The motion also noted that when Regan wrongly argued that the “flu … can be even more deadly” than the coronavirus, she emphasized that she was “not saying that people should not take [the coronavirus] seriously.”

“Under the First Amendment and state law, the truth or falsity of this type of speech must be resolved through free and open debate in the marketplace of ideas — not through burdensome litigation seeking to impose legal penalties on political statements that a jury might deem ‘false’ or ‘outrageous,'” the motion said. “In addition, the Complaint also fails because the statements are constitutionally protected opinions. Again, even accepting the Complaint’s characterization of the speech at issue, the Fox commentators were expressing their view on the scientific question of how dangerous the Coronavirus is and how society should respond to it — including what type of governmental action should be taken.”

The motion went on to cite CNN and New York Times coverage that compared the coronavirus to the flu, arguing that “If this type of allegedly ‘false’ speech can be censored, then free and open debate on matters of public concern is a dead letter.”

The network added that WASHLITE’s bid to get an injunction preventing Fox News from expressing similar opinions in the future is an example of unlawful “extraordinary prior restraint.” The Washington CPA also “does not regulate political commentary … nor is such commentary the type of ‘extreme and outrageous conduct’ covered by the tort of ‘outrage,'” the motion said.

Legal experts largely agreed with the network’s position that the lawsuit was unlikely to succeed.

Catherine Clark, an attorney for WASHLITE, vowed to respond to the motion and told Variety that the suit “was not about prohibiting free speech, but making sure that news organizations convey accurate information.”

Legal culpability aside, media analysts have widely criticized Fox News for putting their viewers at risk by downplaying the threat posed by the virus, which has now killed 26,000 people in the United States.

“Fox failed its viewers and the broader public in ways both revealing and potentially lethal,” wrote New York Times columnist Ben Smith.

A letter signed by more than 70 journalism professors around the country criticized Fox News for spreading “misinformation” about the virus.

“Viewers of Fox News, including the president of the United States, have been regularly subjected to misinformation relayed by the network — false statements downplaying the prevalence of COVID-19 and its harms; misleading recommendations of activities that people should undertake to protect themselves and others, including casual recommendations of untested drugs; false assessments of the value of measures urged upon the public by their elected political leadership and public health authorities,” the letter said, pointing to a recent poll that found that 79% of Fox News viewers believed the media had overstated the danger posed by the virus.

The network’s competitors have seized on the criticism.

“There are surveys on this, showing a majority of people who get information from Fox still think the virus threat is overblown,” MSNBC host Ari Melber said last week:

They’re more likely to downplay it even compared to other Republicans. If you don’t get your information from Fox News or online conspiracy theories, you’re less likely to think it’s overblown because it’s not overblown. For Fox viewers, it’s especially perilous. The median age there is 67. That mostly older audience, especially vulnerable if they contract this virus. And as we just showed you, they’ve been told to basically downplay it.

Read the full Fox News motion below:

Fox News 2020-04-14 Motion … by Igor Derysh on Scribd

https://www.ecowatch.com/bottled-water-ban-washington-2645192473.html

Bottled water manufacturers looking to capture cool, mountain water from Washington's Cascade Mountains may have to look elsewhere after the state senate passed a bill banning new water permits, as The Guardian reported.

The state, with its glacier-fed springs and rainforests, will become the first state in the country to put a total ban on new bottling operations looking to plunder the state's natural resources. The proposal is one of several in the works in Washington to protect local groundwater and to fend off the growing bottled-water industry, as the Tribune News Service reported.

The bill, once signed into law, will go into effect retroactively and apply to all new permits filed after Jan. 1, 2019, according to The Guardian.

"Washington State is carving the path towards a groundbreaking solution," said Mary Grant, the director of Food & Water Action's public water for all campaign, in a statement, as The Guardian reported. "This legislation … would ban one of the worst corporate water abuses – the extraction of local water supplies in plastic bottles shipped out of watersheds and around the country."

Across the country, local activists have warned that bottling companies are taking their water almost for free and then shipping it elsewhere, leaving local aquifers depleted.

"I was jolted to the core to realize the depth and breadth and magnitude of how they have lawyered up in these small towns to take advantage of water rights," said Washington state Sen. Reuven Carlyle, who sponsored the bill to ban bottling companies from extracting groundwater, as the Tribune News Service reported. "The fact that we have incredibly loose, if virtually nonexistent, policy guidelines around this is shocking and a categorical failure."

One of the jolting actions was revealed in leaked emails after Crystal Geyser planned to open a bottling plant near Mount Rainier. Locals feared that the company's plan to pump 400 gallons a minute from the site would lead to dry wells. In emails, Crystal Geyser mounted a legal campaign to sue the local subdivision opposing the plant and then it intended to conduct an underground public relations campaign to garner support for their proposal, as the Tribune News Service reported.

"Pumping water out of the ground, putting it in plastic bottles and exporting it out of the state of Washington is not in the public interest," said Craig Jasmer, a leader of the Lewis County Water Alliance, the group that sprung up to oppose the Randle plant and has pushed for the statewide ban, as the Tribune News Service reported.

Crystal Geyser has recently proven its disdain for public safety. Last month, the company pleaded guilty to storing toxin-laden wastewater in arsenic in eastern California, and then delivering the water to treatment plants without disclosing its hazard, as The Guardian rguk eported.

The Environmental Priorities Coalition, a network of groups including Americans Rivers, Audubon, and Sierra Club Washington State, advanced the legislation on its highest priorities list, saying it would stop "new water bottling plants from proliferating in Washington state, effecting small rural community water supplies necessary for both agriculture and threatened salmon species," as Common Dreams reported.

"Washington's waters belong to the people of Washington," said the Center for Environmental Law & Policy, according to Common Dreams. "There has been an increasing number of proposals to locate commercial water bottling plants in Washington. These plants would allow Washington's water to be taken for the benefit of corporations and users outside of the local area, perhaps out-of-state."

The Guardian noted that the tide is turning against bottle-water manufacturers, with bills also introduced in Michigan and Maine, and local measures introduced in Oregon and Montana.

bottled water water wastewater washington

desmog 719

oil industry in North Dakota and Montana — home to the prolific Bakken Shale Formation — faces an “impossible choice.” That's according to a new petition to federal regulators from the attorneys general of North Dakota and Montana, in response to a Washington state law that aims to prevent trains hauling oil through the state from derailing and exploding.

That choice is to either remove the volatile components, such as butane, from Bakken crude oil before being loaded into rail tank cars, or send the volatile oil to other, harder-to-reach markets because — as the petition argues — removing the butane would cut into oil producers' profits, and almost 60 percent of the crude leaving North Dakota by rail goes to Washington refineries.t

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/04/23/alecs-washington-state-chair-discussed-violence-surveillance-against-constituents/

ashington State Rep. Matt Shea (R-Spokane) has found himself back in the spotlight again, this time for messages sent and received through the Signal app discussing acts of violence against and surveillance of left-wing activists, as revealed by The Guardian.

Rep. Shea is the Washington state chair for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and has served on its Civil Justice Task Force.

In the private chats with far-right talk show host Jack Robertson and activist Anthony Bosworth, “The men proposed to confront leftists — whom they repeatedly refer to as ‘communists’ and ‘Antifa’ — with a suite of tactics, including violence,” The Guardian reported.[lnx]

The messages were exchanged in the heated lead-up to the alt-Right’s propaganda about an impending “Antifa revolution” on November 4, 2017 — something that in reality amounted to a handful of anti-Trump rallies.

According to the chat history, Robertson suggested extreme violence against a Spokane resident, one of Shea’s constituents, “Fist full of hair, and face slam, to a Jersey barrier. Treat em like communist revolutionaries. Then shave her bald with a K-Bar USMC field knife.”

Shea did not argue against torturing his constituent and instead offered to help with the effort by conducting background checks on Indivisible members and a professor, also constituents: “OK. What BG checks need to be done. Give me the list. All I have several names that have come up…Any info out there?”

The men also discussed civil war and “using symbols from what they understood to be Russian anti-communist groups as a way of spreading paranoia among their adversaries,” The Guardian found.

The Guardian report comes less than six months following the leak of Shea’s outline for holy war, entitled “Biblical Basis for War.”

As the Center for Media and Democracy reported, Shea’s manifesto advocated for the killing of all males if his radical agenda could not be achieved peacefully, the terms of which Shea laid out as a stop to all abortions, an end to same sex marriage, an end to idolatry, an end to communism, and replacing America’s current justice system with Biblical law.

Shea lost his position as Chair of the Republican Caucus after the holy war revelations, and many donors, including Avista, BNSF Railroad, and AT&T, cut ties with him.

ALEC, however, ignored calls for it to sever ties with Shea and, when he won reelection last November, renewed his post as its Washington state chair.

In addition to introducing bills this year to abolish abortion and deregulate firearms, Shea is sponsoring legislation to establish the new state of Liberty, formed by dividing the state of Washington east of the Cascade mountains. The goal of some white supremacist groups is to create a “white homeland” in the northwest states.

Shea will be the master of ceremonies at a John Birch Society (JBS) dinner in Idaho on April 26, where right-wing conspiracy theorist William F. Jasper will deliver an address entitled, “No Borders, No Nation.” JBS — whose cofounders include the Koch Brothers’ father, Fred, and the founder of the Bradley Foundation — is an extremist group that viewed the Civil Rights movement and the Equal Rights Amendment as communist plots.

Washington Lt. Governor Cyrus Habib has asked Republicans to “do the right thing and eject Matt Shea from their caucus. Obtaining background checks on people for the purpose of planning violence against them is a crime, and even offering to do so is clearly 100% unacceptable in the Legislature.”

AT&T, the biggest telecommunications company in the world, has followed in the footsteps of Verizon and dropped its membership with ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) over its hosting of hate speech last summer.

My takeaway? Exposing ALEC works!:{

113 corporations worth trillions in market value have now dumped ALEC since we launched ALEC Exposed in 2012.

And exposing ALEC is only possible with your support.

While ALEC has been a tool of the Kochs and big business pay-to-play operations for decades, it has recently veered into alarming far-right territory, denying climate science, embracing racists, and using hatemongers like David Horowitz to whip up alt-right support for rewriting the U.S. Constitution.

CMD blew the whistle on Horowitz's wild anti-Islamic accusations at ALEC's annual meeting in August and joined 78 civil rights and reform groups in a letter of protest calling on ALEC's corporate patrons to stop funding ALEC extremism.

And earlier this month CMD exposed that Rep. Matt Shea, who was reported to the FBI for circulating a manual on how to wage a violent Christian holy war in the United States, is the chair of ALEC in Washington State. ALEC still has not removed Shea from his position.

AT&T's departure is the third major blow to ALEC this year, following Exxon-Mobil's decision to ditch ALEC in July.}:

desmog

Washington

In Washington state, Initiative 1631 was a high-stakes ballot measure proposing a first-in-the-nation fee on the state's major carbon polluters, including its oil refineries. Based on mail-in ballots counted so far, the measure appears to have been voted down by over 56 percent of voters.

The No on 1631 campaign, primarily financed by the oil and gas industry, including BP and Koch Industries, spent a record $31 million to oppose Initiative 1631. The measure's proponents also accused the No campaign of misleading Latino voters in the state with Spanish-language flyers that listed endorsements from a dozen Latino businesses that later said they did not understand or approve being listed.

Republican state representative in Washington, Matt Shea, is under fire for a four-page manifesto he distributed titled "Biblical Basis for War" that was posted online on Tuesday.

According to the *Spokesman-Review*, Shea took credit and defended himself against critics in a Facebook Live video, saying that it was just "a summary of a series of sermons on biblical war in the Old Testament" that his critics had taken out of context. He also said that America is a "Christian nation" — something that has been repeatedly debunked by reputable scholars and by the writings of the founding fathers — and that people offended by his views are part of a "Maoist insurgency" and a "counter state" of "Marxists" and "Islamists".

"Biblical Basis for War" is a theocratic call to arms. Among other things, the manifesto describes God as a "warrior," lays out the conscription of able-bodied men over 18 years of age into a "holy army," and instructs Christian warriors to be circumcised, take a holy vow, and refrain from scorched-earth tactics or killing "productive citizens" who will be their "base of support....

Perhaps the most chilling segment is the description of how to make peace with enemies. Any offer of peace, says the document, is "not a negotiation or compromise of righteousness" — the enemy must fully submit to "Biblical law," including "stop all abortions," "no same-sex marriage," "no idolatry or occultism," and "no communism."

If the enemy submits, according to the document, they "must pay share of work or taxes." If they do not submit, the holy army shall "kill all males."

The document contains similar rhetoric to the Marble Community Fellowship, a local sect in eastern Washington State that advocates an ideology of "Dominionism," or Christian theocratic rule. The group's leader, Barry Byrd, has condemned interracial marriage and called Jews "Anti-Christs." Shea has been a guest speaker at one of the group's Fourth of July events.

"The document Mr. Shea wrote is not a Sunday school project or an academic study," said Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, in an email to the Spokesman-Review. "It is a 'how to' manual consistent with the ideology and operating philosophy of the Christian Identity/Aryan Nations movement and the Redoubt movement of the 1990s." Knezovich added that he handed over the material to the FBI.

While Shea stands by his manifesto, the backlash in the local community has been swift. Some of his campaign donors are now expressing doubts about their support for him.

This is not the first time in recent months that a state lawmaker's extreme religious beliefs have come into question. In 2016, Kentucky elected state Rep. Dan Johnson, a self-styled " who ran a bizarre church complete with its own biker bar and "gun choir," and who shortly introduced a bill to outlaw miscarriages. Last December, Johnson committed suicide following accusations he molested a teenage girl.

Shea represents Washington House of Representatives District 4, which is centered in Spokane Valley on the border with Idaho. He won his last election by 29 points. This year, his Democratic opponent is local union leader Ted Cummings.