weaponize now not time

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">9/20  ok i have used the term myself for rw taking something good/true/benign and pervert/evil it for political gain, going on offense in an unfair way</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">but now they are mirroring/co-opting our term, just like Fake News, an applying it to any (scientific evidence, in this case wildfires, maybe the most in your face of AGW, eg Australia, amazon rainforest</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">this may be extension of th<b>oughts and prayers <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">now is not the time in our grief over mass shootings we cannot be rational</span> in our decision (to increase gun control regulations)</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">how sleazy is the left that they would use the lives of children and grief of parents to score political points</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/send/house-republicans-shooting/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx vid twt an 3 23
Watch: Here’s how 5 House Republicans are responding to the TN school shooting that left 6 dead

WASHINGTON,

DC - JANUARY 06: U.S. Rep.-elect Andy Ogles (R-TN) casts his vote in

the House Chamber during the fourth day of elections for Speaker of the

House at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 06, 2023 in Washington,

DC. The House of Representatives is meeting to vote for the next Speaker

after House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) failed to earn more

than 218 votes on several ballots; the first time in 100 years that the

Speaker was not elected on the first ballot. (Photo by Win

McNamee/Getty Images)
David Badashand</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The New Civil Rights Movement</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">March 29, 2023</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>There

are 535 seats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and

another six non-voting seats for delegates. After Monday’s horrific mass

shooting at a private Christian elementary school, where three

nine-year olds and three adults were shot to death, very few Members

appeared on-camera to talk with reporters about the tragedy.</b>

The

Democrats who did advocated for various gun control measures, including

reinstating the federal assault weapons ban signed into law in 1994 by

President Bill Clinton that Republican lawmakers and President George W.

Bush refused to renew in 2004, after which mass shootings and gun

violence skyrocketed.

President Joe Biden this week repeatedly

called on Congress to pass an assault weapons ban, a call he has made

over and over again.

In addition to calling for an assault

weapons ban, House and Senate Democrats responded to the mass shooting

at Covenant Presbyterian Elementary in Nashville by calling for tighter

gun control measures including implementing red flag laws.

READ

MORE: ‘Troubling Questions’: Experts Slam Ginni Thomas’ Group That Waged

Cultural War Against the Left via Web of Dark Money Orgs

The

parents of the Nashville shooter have said their child had an emotional

disorder and should not have had any firearms. Three were used in the

assault and another four were found at the shooter’s home.<b> Tennessee has no red flag law so police were not legally allowed to take the guns away.</b>

After

last year’s school mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children

and two adults were shot to death, some states took action. Tennessee,

where the Nashville school shooting became the nation’s 130th this year,

did little.

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“We’re not looking at gun restriction laws in my administration right now,”<b> Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, a Republican</b>,

said after the tragedy. “Criminals don’t follow laws, criminals break

laws. Whether they are a gun law, a drug law, criminals break laws.”</span>

“We can’t control what they do.”

But in a sense, Governor Lee did control what they do.

READ MORE: Tennessee Governor Slammed After ‘Praying’ for Nashville School Community Without Mentioning Mass Shooting

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">In

2021 ago he signed into law a permit-less open-carry law: no permit

required, no training required, no background check required.</span>
<b>
A Tennessee Republican U.S. Congressman, Tim Burchett this week repeatedly decreed there’s nothing that can be done.</b>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
Echoing

almost word-for-word Governor Lee’s remarks from three years ago, in

now-viral video, Rep. Burchett infamously on Monday declared, “We’re not

gonna fix it. Criminals are going to be criminals.”

He did,

however, invoke religion, calling for a Christian revival, and declaring

that was the answer to fixing mass shootings and gun violence.</span>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Tuesday Rep. Burchett was back in front of the cameras, furthering his call to do nothing.

“I don’t know what law we could pass,” he said. “Evil people are going to do evil things.”</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">

<b>U.S. Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO)</b>

appeared on CNN this week and responded to the Nashville slaughter by

defending his threat to President Biden to try to take his AR-15 away.

In

a rare example of excellent journalism, CNN’s Phil Mattingly pressed

Buck after the far-right Republican tried to change the topic.

“If

Joe Biden is interested in reaching a resolution on the issue let him

deal with the Southern border,” Buck defiantly declared, literally

blaming President Biden’s border policies for gun violence.

He

also tried to link the Nashville mass shooting to a mental health

problem and then tried to link that to drug laws and a lack of funding

for states for mental health services.

Rep. Buck last year voted

against two mental health bills, and since 2019 has voted against the

vast majority of 40 or so health care bills.</span>

“What’s the burden on you?” Matttingly asked Buck.

READ MORE: New WSJ Poll Is Devastating for DeSantis and His ‘Anti-Woke’ Policies
<b>
Unyieldingly,

Buck replied, “My burden is to follow the Constitution, and the Second

Amendment protects – there are more than two million AR-15s.”</b>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Republican

U.S. Congressman Andy Ogles, who represents Nashville, Tennessee and

came under fire again this week for his 2021 Christmas card showing him

and his family, including young children, holding assault weapons, was

asked about banning AR-15s.

Rep. Ogles’ response was to answer

the question with another question: “Why not talk about the real issue

facing this country?” which he declared, like Rep. Buck and others, is<b> mental health</b>. He then walked away.</span>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b>U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL</b>) took a different tact on the GOP’s do-nothing policy while supporting the GOP’s walk-away response.

He equated assault weapons with politics and emotions.

“If

you’re gonna talk about the AR-15 you’re talking politics now,” he told

CNN’s Manu Raju.<b> “Let’s not get into politics. let’s not get into

emotion</b>, because emotion feels good, but emotion doesn’t solve

problems.”</span>

He then just walked away.

But perhaps

the greatest example of the Republican response to gun violence and mass

shootings came from House Republican’s leader, Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

On Tuesday, McCarthy stood in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall to pose for photos with some tourists.

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">CNN’s

Manu Raju asked the Speaker about the “incredibly serious situation” in

Nashville, suggesting it required a response from the Speaker of the

House.

McCarthy’s response?

He refused to provide one, then walked away.</span>

Watch the videos above or at this link.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES
Watch: 'Furious' Gen Z lawmaker delivers blistering remarks to GOP following Nashville school shooting ›
'Absolutely repulsive': Some House Republicans are now wearing an assault weapon lapel pin ›
Some Democrats fear a mass shooting on House floor — by a QAnon-Republican ›
RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB
Pa. House votes against taking up gun bill after Texas school ... ›
These are the 14 House Republicans who voted to pass federal gun ... ›
House Republicans fail to override Biden's 1st presidential veto ... ›
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=
</font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-breaks-out-all-tools-denier-playbook-downplay-climate-changes-role-western-wildfires" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-breaks-out-all-tools-denier-playbook-downplay-climate-changes-role-western-wildfires</a></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>fox breaks out all the tools in the denier playbook to downplay climate change's role in western wildfires</b></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">09/17/20 12:15 PM EDT</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate denial, conspiracy theories, and misleading information -- Fox recycles old arguments year after year in wildfire coverage</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Special PROGRAMS</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CLIMATE & ENERGY</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WRITTEN BY TED MACDONALD</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PUBLISHED 09/17/20 12:15 PM EDT</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ignoring the clear scientific links between the climate crisis and this year’s apocalyptic wildfires on the West Coast, coverage on Fox News and Fox Business has downplayed and denied the role of climate change in these devastating fires, deflecting from climate science while pushing President Donald Trump’s perennial claim that forest mismanagement is to blame. <b>At least two Fox programs have even falsely suggested that an organized campaign of arson is responsible for igniting the fires in the Pacific Northwest -- a harmful conspiracy theory that has also quickly spread across social media platforms.</b></span></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fox shows are following a playbook that they have used with other major fire disasters linked to climate change, including last year’s catastrophic bushfires in Australia and previous catastrophic fires in California.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The goal of Fox’s coverage is always the same: deflect from the scientific reality of climate change and paint Democratic policies as the true culprits in worsening the wildfires.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Deny and downplay the climate crisis</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Fox News prime-time host Tucker Carlson is leading the network on denying the indisputable connection between climate change and the catastrophic fires burning on the West Coast</span>. On three recent episodes of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the host and his guests spread dangerous disinformation about the fires.</b></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On September 10, Carlson claimed that “there’s no evidence” climate change contributed to the western wildfires, instead arguing that state regulations and energy grid mismanagement were the real problems responsible for the blazes. Carlson took this a step further on September 11, when he called climate change “systemic racism in the sky” and stated with a straight face that “there is not a single scientist on Earth who knows whether or by how much these fires may have been, quote, ‘exacerbated’ by warmer temperatures caused by climate change.”</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">To top it off, Carlson invited <b>Marc Morano </b>-- perhaps the most notorious climate denier in the U.S. -- on the September 15 edition of his show to falsely claim that these fires are “not unprecedented” and that it’s really just <b>“climate ambulance-chasing at its core” and “weaponizing weather events” to link them to climate change.</b></span></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The exact same line of “weaponizing weather” was used on an episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight last year to dismiss climate connections during the Amazon fires. During a segment discussing those fires in August 2019, climate-denying meteorologist <b>Joe Bastardi claimed that “if humans are causing climate change, it's very, very slight,” and said that any attempts to pin the Amazon fires on climate change was “weaponization of the weather.”</b></span></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Carlson’s climate-denying rants fly in the face of well-established scientific evidence that climate change is both prolonging the fire season and intensifying the size and scale of the fires. Climate scientists have also called these wildfires “unprecedented” and linked a climate-fueled drought to conditions worsening the fires.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Additionally, Carlson’s claim that “not a single scientist” can link the fires to climate change is also demonstrably false -- and taken laughably out of context. Climate scientist Daniel Swain addressed this point on Twitter, noting that his featured quote from Carlson’s show was “fundamentally misrepresenting climate scientists' public statements on wildfires and climate change”:</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Carlson is no stranger to peddling dangerous climate misinformation. Just last year, he invited <b>Morano </b>to hype a silly, debunked document that claims clouds are responsible for global warming</span>. <b>In March 2019, he stated without evidence that if climate change is affecting natural disasters, “it might be making them in some ways better too.</b>” (Earlier that same month, the Fox host also baselessly accused undocumented immigrants of killing more people in the U.S. than climate change.)</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to outright denial, the network has regularly downplayed the connection between climate and the catastrophic fires. A Media Matters study from 2018 found that Fox ran only two segments on California’s wildfires in November of that year that mentioned climate; both of those segments downplayed the role of climate change.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In recent days, Fox shows have attempted to downplay climate’s role by politicizing the climate argument and purposely shifting blame for the fires to other issues. Neil Cavuto did just this on the September 10 edition of Fox Business’ Cavuto: Coast to Coast:</span></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>On the September 14 edition of Special Report with Bret Baier, correspondent John Roberts provided cover for Trump’s outright denial of climate change by calling it a “glaring difference of opinion” with California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom</b>. Later on in the show, Fox News politics editor Chris Stirewalt attempted to pass off Trump’s clear climate denial as a problem for both sides of the political aisle, calling his response an example of “why people hate our system, because when bad things happen, the two parties want to pick and choose what’s to blame. … Instead, what they hear is politicians picking and choosing the things they like from the menu.”</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This strategy of partisan obfuscation also has precedent on Fox: During California’s 2019 fire season, Fox & Friends responded to Newsom criticizing Trump’s assault on climate action by bringing a talk show host with no background in science, Mike Slater, to explain why “liberal policies are really to blame” for that year’s massive wildfires in California.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jumping to blame “forest management” practices for the fires, while generally ignoring the role of climate change</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the September 14 edition of Your World with Neil Cavuto, Cal Fire Assistant Deputy Director Daniel Berlant dropped a rare example of climate truth on Fox:</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DANIEL BERLANT (CAL FIRE): In California, there really is no debate that our fire seasons are getting longer. We are seeing larger fires and more explosive fires. In fact, on average right now, our fire season is on average 75 days longer than they were just four decades ago. And so, you know, we can debate all we want, but I can tell you here on the ground, we are seeing fires that are incredibly destructive and incredibly fast moving.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But right after this segment, guest host Sandra Smith interviewed Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR) to downplay climate’s role in the fires and instead promote “sound scientific management” of forests and his Trillion Trees Act, which climate scientists say is absolutely not a way of solving climate change, as the best solutions to worsening wildfires.</span></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Poor forest management has played a role in California wildfires along with climate change and the expansion of people moving into the wildlife-urban interface, which “has increased the likelihood that wildfires will threaten structures and people.” But from watching coverage of the fires in numerous Fox segments, one would probably come away with the idea that it’s been only California’s forest management policies driving the worsening fires.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The jump by Fox to assign blame to the state for poor forest management as a tactic to downplay climate change goes back to at least 2018, when Trump first blamed California’s forestry policies while touring the aftermath of the deadly Camp Fire that destroyed the town of Paradise. At the time, Trump’s response was parroted by Fox News host Sean Hannity, who stated that he was “right” to blame California wildfires on poor forest management, and Fox’s Laura Ingraham, who on her radio show cherry-picked a BBC article to claim that “Trump was right” about wildfires and forest management.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neither of these segments mentioned climate change. Even worse, Ingraham glossed over the major mentions of climate in the BBC article, which specifically stated that “many experts point out that climate change has made things worse” in relation to those fires.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This framing of the fires by zeroing-in entirely on forest management doesn’t hold up to what climate science is saying -- especially this year. Fire scientists have said that “climate change, not forest management, is a driving factor behind the state’s fires becoming worse and more deadly.” Wildfire expert Stefan Doerr has also stated, “The bottom line remains that the extreme meteorological conditions are the main drivers for these extreme fires,” and he specifically noted hotter, drier, and windier conditions with climate change “has now created a tinderbox of vegetation.” Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe also pointed out on Twitter that it’s a myth to suggest that “the only reason wildfires are burning more area is because of poor forest management.”</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fox’s attempts to cast blame solely on the state’s leadership for poor forest management also fall flat when you consider that the federal government owns the majority of land out west -- in California, 57% is owned by the federal government, while the state government only owns 3%.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The network’s discussion of forest management hit a high point during midday of September 14, when Trump visited California and once again blamed forest management for the wildfires, ignoring climate change. In one example on the September 14 edition of Outnumbered Overtime, Fox contributor Jason Chaffetz called Trump “absolutely right” and blamed the wildfires primarily on a lack of clearing brush, saying “Democrats have been the biggest impediment to doing so.” Later on The Five, co-host Greg Gutfeld stated that forest management is “the problem in California. It's not climate change. It’s forest management.”</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Other examples abound. On two separate occasions in the past week, Fox Business’ Varney & Co. hosted conservative talk radio host Larry Elder to talk up poor forest management.</b> On the September 8 edition, he agreed with Trump’s comments and said, “You can’t do a whole lot about the weather but you can do something about the fuel that these fires feed upon that makes these fires so intense and so serious.” Again on the September 14 edition, he repeated that forest management is the biggest issue in fighting the fires and said that “Donald Trump does not believe in climate change alarmism.”</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Fox News, Environmental Progress president and climate contrarian Michael Shellenberger appeared on the September 10 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight to talk up the role of poor forest management at the expense of climate change, claiming that the media’s climate coverage of the fires “has been really irresponsible.” He largely dismissed climate change again on the September 14 edition of Fox News @ Night, when he falsely stated that saturated wood fuel “is driving the intensity of these fires. It's not climate change.”</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Later that night on Hannity, host Sean Hannity again made forest management the focal point of blame for the fires, calling it “an important piece of the puzzle.”</b></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Advancing the dangerous arson conspiracy theory</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the conspiracy theory that arson is behind the wildfires has not yet been as pervasive on Fox News as it was in January, when the network’s prime-time hosts pushed the debunked idea that arson was driving the Australian wildfires, it has already been pushed by at least two of Fox News’ shows covering the West Coast fires.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Media Matters reported on September 14:</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the month of September, record wildfires made worse by climate change have raged across California, Oregon, and Washington. As the fires have spread and officials have tried to contain them, a conspiracy theory claiming that “antifa” has been behind the wildfires has spread across major social media platforms. In reality, as NBC News noted, incidents like “lightning, faulty or knocked-down power lines and accidents” have been reported as the cause of many of the fires. Authorities, including the FBI, have been forced to rebut the false “antifa“ claim as people have refused to evacuate and militia groups are getting active.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The use of focus on arson as a counter-narrative to climate change follows the exact same playbook used during Australia's deadly wildfires from late 2019 into early 2020, when Murdoch-owned media and other right wing outlets peddled false claims that arsonists were to blame for the historic blazes, and not climate change. However, this talking point was debunked; as one study found, only a handful of blazes out of 11,000 were deliberately set. Notably, the arson conspiracy theory now not only distracts from the climate crisis, but is also an attempt to vilify activists protesting police brutality. For right-wing media, this false narrative is the proverbial killing of two birds with one stone.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the September 13 edition of Fox & Friends Weekend, co-host Jedediah Bila briefly discussed a story accusing a supposed left-wing activist of deliberately setting fires:</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JEDEDIAH BILA (CO-HOST): Another man is accused of setting a fire near a Washington highway. A report says he is a regular attendee of defund police rallies in Seattle. That last detail unfolding [is] pretty amazing. It is really incredible to see.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">…</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">WILL CAIN (CO-HOST): These arsonists, as of yet we do not know exactly their ties to any extremist organizations or what their motivations might be, but I think one thing is clear: We now know many of these fires in the West were set intentionally. What does that reveal, Pete?</span> What it reveals is the brazen political monopolization of a tragedy by people like Gov. Gavin Newsom who quickly jumped out and blamed these fires on climate change. There’s no tragedy, there’s no moment too soon to jump and advance your political agenda and pin awful events on your political opponents.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While discussing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s recent climate speech on the September 14 edition of The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham brought up arson unprompted, asking, “Did Biden anywhere in that speech lay out his solution to prevent any wildfires in the future or the people who are actually intentionally setting them in California, including antifa?”</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Her guest, Victor David Hanson, glossed over this comment and directed his ire at Biden for even considering to blame climate change for the fires.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The mentions by Fox hosts are particularly irresponsible and egregious given that several days earlier both The Intercept and The New York Times reported that these claims were unfounded and that local law enforcement were “pleading with the public to stop calling 911 to pass on unfounded rumors that antifascist political activists have intentionally set the blazes.” On social media, the arson rumors have been pushed by a number of far-right accounts and groups including QAnon, which the FBI identifies as a domestic terrorism threat. It is alarming that Fox is undermining law enforcement and continuing to align itself with dangerous factions in spreading such conspiracy theories.</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fox has, and continues to be, the main purveyor of climate denial in the United States. It’s no surprise that their minimization of climate change’s role in this year’s western wildfires is lazy, cheap, and similar to Murdoch-owned Australian media’s role in downplaying climate change from earlier this year; we can expect to see more of it in the future.</font></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></p></div>