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the _{industry-backed}_ climate deniers at the Heartland Institute held their big climate disinfo conference last week, with hours and hours of mostly old, almost exclusively white, and predominantly male _{free market fundamentalists}_ talking to each other. While Heartland's weekly climate _{newsletter claimed}_:{ to have gotten over 100,000 views on the stream, the YouTube videos from the 2-day denialfest struggle to }
Even more pitiful is that they brag about getting coverage, but all they can point to _{are three stories}_, two of which are very critical of Heartland's conference. Scott Waldman at _{E&E}_ described it as "who’s who of climate deniers," and focused on _{Trump election denial lawyer }_(_{detained pantless}_) Jeffrey Clark, who "held up a piece of cardboard on which he had written 'meta control'" to illustrate his discussion of the "communistic purposes" and the "self-interested… dark forces" behind climate change.
the second story Heartland had to promote (because there was nothing kinder) was from _{Inside Climate News}_, where Kristoffer Tigue covered the conference in the context of how it disproves the propaganda about the GOP's _{supposed climate conversion}_. He described Heartland as having "a long history of spreading misleading and false claims about global warming" and being "widely viewed by climate advocates as a disinformation machine." (Fact check: true, but it's not just climate advocates! _{Journalists}_ like Emily Atkin have _{referenced Heartland}_ as being part of _{the disinformation machine}_, author Shawn Laurence Otto _{called it back in 2012}_, as have _{professors}_ and scientists like _{Michael Mann}_, and Duke historian Nancy MacLean even listed Heartland in an Orion Mag piece headlined "_{The Disinformation Machine}_.")
Somewhat disappointingly, by comparison, the _{third link Heartland had to show for its work}_ was from fringe right-wing blog Ace of Spades HQ, which is only worth mentioning for the sake of acknowledging the disinfo conference’s third media hit. We'll just mention that this post praising Heartland's conference ends with an old song about spring being a little late this year, which is funny, because it was in the 80s in February when Heartland held the conference in Orlando, _{a cool 20°F above average}_.
But those articles actually weren't the only coverage that Heartland got! It received a second favorable write-up from _{Cowboy State Daily}_, another right-wing blog. There's little worth saying about it, except that itfocused on comments by Alex Epstein, the_{Big Oil whipping boy}_ who was Heartland's keynote speaker.
It was interesting to see the Cowboy State's reporting that Epstein, in addition to his standard spiel, also said that conservatives need to reframe the climate and energy issue. Specifically, Epstein turned to none other than "Martin Luther King" to support his case, because the Reverend/Dr./Nobel laureate — supposedly — just reframed "the issue of civil rights around the idea that people should be judged by the content of the character and not their skin color" and found success by linking policies "to a goal people agreed with."
While white people have exploited, appropriated and bastardized King's advocacy for years, this is a particularly egregious example when you know about Alex. Not only is Epstein invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to sell a product that _{disproportionately}_ _{hurts}_ _{Black communities}_, in a way that shamelessly invokes King's "Dream" as though it were merely a marketing gimmick or crisis communications trick, but also it's not even an intellectually honest speech by Epstein, because Alex has a history of trashing the very legacy that he now co-opts for his fossil fuel propaganda.
Epstein's racist history was covered by _{The Washington Post last year}_, and _{his reaction}_ didn't exactly _{clear him of the allegations}_. Back in college, _{**Epstein argued**}_against recognition of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a federal holiday.He noted that "Black crime has increased steadily since King’s time," and then wrote, and published, on purpose, in a college newspaper, that "because of the bad ideas he promoted, Dr. King is responsible for a great part of the destruction that has occurred in America today, especially among black Americans."
Yes, demonstrating his early adeptness at disinformation, a young Epstein blamed Martin Luther King Jr.'s "bad ideas" for causing the Black struggle, as though campaigning against about structural racism is what actually somehow caused the symptoms of that structural racism decades later.
Alex Epstein is on the record, in writing, of disapproving of Martin Luther King Jr's "bad ideas" about race. So why is Epstein invoking those very ideas now, to sell fossil fuels?
Because _{that's how propaganda works}_, and this is as hamfisted as it gets.
Epstein’s hypocritical past might just be why Heartland chose to promote two stories embarrassing them, instead of the one that let Epstein embarrass himself.
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Former Democratic U.S. Congresswoman **Tulsi Gabbard** stunned a far-right Fox News host Friday night, falsely claiming President Joe Biden has chosen his cabinet members based solely on factors of "genetics" and "race" – while comparing Biden to Hitler.
In a segment attacking President Biden's cabinet, as The Daily Beast reported, Gabbard, a Fox News contributor, suggested he was "proud" to be "hiring people, selecting people…based on genetics, race, based on your blood, your genes. And where do we see that connection? Well, these are the very same geneticist core principles embodied by Nazism and Adolf Hitler."
President Biden put together one of the most qualified Cabinets in history. He also promised his Cabinet, unlike his predecessor's, would be as diverse as America itself.
"President Biden's proposed cabinet would be the most diverse in U.S. history," The New York Times reported one day after his inauguration, "comprising more women and people of color than any cabinet before it — which, in many ways, fulfills Mr. Biden's campaign promise to select a team that 'looks like America' and modernizes the predominantly male, white institution."
"'Building a diverse team will lead to better outcomes and more effective solutions to address the urgent crises facing our nation,' he said in a speech in December when announcing some of his cabinet nominees."
The Times also pointed to some "notable firsts" in Biden's Cabinet:
"In addition to the barrier-breaking Vice President Kamala Harris, there will be America's first female Treasury secretary (Janet Yellen), its first openly gay secretary (Pete Buttigieg, for the Department of Transportation), its first Native American secretary (Deb Haaland, for the Department of the Interior), the first woman to serve as director of national intelligence (Avril Haines) and the first immigrant to lead the Department of Homeland Security (Alejandro Mayorkas), to name just a few."
Gabbard shared with Fox News host Jesse Watters her theory that "what we're seeing here is [Democrats'] philosophy, identity politics. And this is one of the main reasons why I left the Democratic Party because you seeing how their agenda of identity politics is directly undermining the traditional Democratic values that were expressed so beautifully and clearly, by Dr. Martin Luther King, that we should judge each other not based on the color of our skin, but based on our character."
It's demonstrably false to claim President Biden considered only diversity factors to build his Cabinet, which is comprised of people with tremendous experience and accomplishments. A look at their extensive biographies exposes Gabbard's claim as false.
Watch Gabbard below or at this link.