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Kudlow, Larry

primary ez 4 26 also tariff 2x}:}:

SEE MOORE CUP DONORS TRUST HERITAGE CSE CITS SOUND ECON CATANZARO DETOQ EMPWR AM

see ben stein award liz truss fan? LAFFER

VOUGHT IMPOUNDMENT

SUPPLY SIDE

THIEL

DENIAL SNOWBALL API EEI FOF ENERGY CORPS HAMM

HILLARY THE MOVIE?

bad econ trump trinity stephen moore and navarro

FOUNDER AFPI FUNDER DUNN VIA ROLLINS

Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council during the first Trump administration, co-founded AFPI with Rollins.

NO MERRI

pow sadly gotta bump to primary as he's often on

trade advisor (180 on tariffs // navarro) so how big in covid issue?

paleo-catholic? OPUS DEI CATH INFO CTR LEO?

see fox biz

energizer bunny of econ BS (energy too) thus denial

new nafta 818, no details yet

html Squawk

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MMA

Fox is using climate denial to undermine bipartisan support for AI safeguards

Fox personalities and guests compare AI warnings to supposedly discredited climate predictions, drawing on decades of attacks on climate science to cast widely supported protections as another bid for power and control

*Special* ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Evlondo Cooper

Published 10/08/26

In September, former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon announced his resignation from the company, issuing a stark warning that increasingly powerful AI systems could threaten human survival. To date, his September 9 interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper has received nearly 10 million views on YouTube, and industry insiders are calling for stronger safeguards and increased government involvement. As those warnings drew wider attention, Fox News and Fox Business hosts and guests dismissed them as the next manufactured panic from people they claimed were already proven wrong about global warming.

In addition to portraying climate change as a political hoax that has run its course (with AI now supposedly taking its place), both Fox networks have characterized calls for safeguards as an election-year scare tactic, a pretext for government control, and a threat to innovation — even as polling shows broad support for AI oversight among Republicans as well as Democrats.

Fox has already cast local opposition to data centers as a threat to American competitiveness, with many network personalities crediting foreign influence for the backlash, even as resistance has spread through Republican communities and divided conservative media. By associating AI warnings with climate “alarmism,” Fox draws on the distrust it spent years cultivating in order to now discredit calls for limits on an industry it has championed.

Warnings about catastrophic AI risks are drawing national coverage and calls for safeguards

Climate “alarmism” has become a recurring reference point for dismissing AI warnings

Fox is recycling climate denial to discredit cross-partisan concern about AI

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Fox Business is framing local data center opposition as a threat to America in the AI race

06/11/26

Data center fight forced right-wing media to cover environmental justice

07/24/26

FOXLEAKS: Fox boss ordered staff to cast doubt on climate science

12/15/10

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Column: Britain's prime minister followed the GOP's economic plan. She lost her job in record time.

Kudlow, Laffer and Moore were spectacularly wrong about Truss and her policies. If they were honest analysts, they’d admit it. Supply-side economics has been a failure for most Americans. They and their GOP followers should stop clinging to the wreckage.

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MMA TRUMP MANTRA ECON NEVER BETTER EVER; FOX BRIEFLY HONEST ON JOB #?

Fox argues the Trump economy is “booming” as many indicators show otherwise

Trump has overseen multiple months of job losses, slower economic growth, and higher inflation while also kicking millions of Americans off their health insurance and food assistance

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 08/11/26

Many on Fox News and Fox Business are arguing that the economy under President Donald Trump is “booming” and “going gangbusters,” even though many months of the Trump administration have included job losses, inflation remains elevated, wages are stagnant, and economic growth remains below the second half of the Biden administration. Fox is also pushing for Republicans to run on the economy during the upcoming midterm elections, even though many policies supported by Trump and other Republicans are making food, healthcare, prescription drugs, and other necessities more expensive or harder to access.

Fox argues that the Trump economy is strong, urges Republicans to message on “how good this economy is”

Yet multiple economic indicators during the second Trump administration have been poor

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Column: Britain's prime minister followed the GOP's economic plan. She lost her job in record time.

By Michael Hiltzik

Business Columnist Follow

Oct. 24, 2022

Fox Business talking head Larry Kudlow was over the moon on Sept. 23.

“The new U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss has laid out a terrific supply-side economic growth plan, which looks a lot like the basic thrust of Kevin McCarthy’s ‘Commitment to America’ plan,” he told viewers of his daily program that day.

What got Kudlow vibrating was Truss’ release of a budget plan that included cutting corporate taxes and slashing the top tax rate on the wealthiest Britons to 40% from 45%.

It’s just very exciting that we finally got Thatcher back in Britain under the name of Liz Truss.

— Economist Arthur Laffer, shortly before Truss was ousted as Prime Minister

Kudlow, a former economic advisor to former President Trump, was correct that the Truss plan closely resembled Republican economic orthodoxy, which begins and ends with tax cuts for the rich.

What prompted him to mention House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), was a bit of a mystery, however, since the published version of McCarthy’s program is devoid of the details needed to make the comparison.

Get the latest from Michael Hiltzik

Commentary on economics and more from a Pulitzer Prize winner.

No matter, no matter. The point is that far from being “terrific,” the Truss economic plan was a disaster from the start. The United Kingdom bond market plummeted, sending officials at the Bank of England scurrying to try to rectify the damage.

Britain’s entire political establishment, from right to left, was aghast at Truss’ proposal to pare the country’s tax revenues by about $3.4 billion a year without offering any clue to how she would make up the deficit. The idea that the largest tax cut since 1972 would inspire a wave of entrepreneur-driven growth was widely derided.

Truss and her then-Chancellor (or treasury chief) Kwasi Kwarteng reversed course on the tax cut plan on Oct. 3, nine days after they proposed it. Truss fired Kwarteng 11 days after that. And on Oct. 20, a mere 44 days after taking office, Truss herself was forced to resign, marking the shortest tenure of a prime minister in British history.

If there’s a lesson in all this, Kudlow hasn’t voiced it. Whether he has commented at all on the fall of Liz Truss isn’t clear — no clip of him doing so turns up in a search of the Fox Business channel website. (Fox Business did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Voices

Hiltzik: A billionaires tax is a necessity. Even the White House knows it

March 28, 2022

But the Fox Business archives are chockablock with praise for Truss by other right-wing economic pundits, all aired in the first days of her premiership.

Here’s economist Art Laffer on Kudlow’s show on Sept. 28: “Now you’re going to watch Britain perform — outperform — the rest of the world year-in, year-out going forward,” Laffer exulted. “It’s just very exciting that we finally got Thatcher back in Britain under the name of Liz Truss.”

On Kudlow’s Sept. 26 show, Stephen Moore, senior economist at the right-wing think tank FreedomWorks and another former member of the Trump economic brain trust, anointed Truss as a “hero” and a “superstar.” Moore said, “It’s hard to find anything not to like about what she has done so far.”

All this cocksure commentary was accompanied by smirking sideswipes at what Kudlow called “business lefties” who were sounding the alarm about Truss at the outset.

We’ve reported before on the unerring talent of Laffer and Moore for being wrong about economic policy. The burst of praise for Truss and the rapidity with which her program collapsed is something new, however.

To paraphrase the late Joan Didion, they were offering analysis in which “measurable cerebral activity is virtually absent.” The great press critic A.J. Liebling might have described it as “the futility of flapdoodle.”

Didion was taking a swipe at Bob Woodward’s vacuous books, Liebling at the lengthy period of uninformed speculation about the health of Joseph Stalin while he lay on his deathbed in 1953.

The wrong calls on the Truss program reflected a knee-jerk impulse of supply-siders to react to anything even remotely resembling the policies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan with sedulous adoration.

Voices

Hiltzik: GOP promises to gut your Social Security, Medicare if it takes power

Oct. 19, 2022

This is a habit that only the most rock-ribbed conservatives in Britain itself continued to display, until “a new generation” of Conservative Party members of parliament, including Truss and Kwarteng, “called for a return to the free-market Thatcherite principles of low tax and supply-side reforms,” observed the Financial Times, which no one would mistake for a liberal newspaper.

Their thesis, as it was under Thatcher and Reagan, was that “tax cuts would pay for themselves if they enabled the economy to grow.”

The truth is that the Thatcher and Reagan revolutions did not allow the British and U.S. economies to grow in a way that benefited everyone. Their policies benefited only the rich. Moreover, today is not the 1980s and Truss is not Thatcher, whose nearly 12 years in office made her the longest-serving prime minister since 1885.

Among British economic observers, there were widespread doubts that the Truss tax cuts would have any measurable effect on growth, especially given the self-imposed head winds facing the British economy. Comparing the impact of Thatcher’s tax cuts to Truss’ was sheer folly.

“Under Thatcher, the top rate was slashed from 80 percent to 40 percent,” recalled Martin Wolf, the chief economics commentator of the Financial Times. “It is debatable whether even that improved performance significantly. This mouse of a change surely cannot do so.... For economic performance, these changes are totemic, not real. For income distribution, however, they will be perfectly real, not totemic.”

Added Paul Johnson, head of the London-based Institute for Fiscal Studies, “It is a lack of productivity growth that has led to the stalling of earnings and living standards.... To a large extent, that lack of growth has been a choice. We have chosen not to invest in education, liberalise the planning system or stay in the European single market. The combined cost of this is huge.”

Voices

Hiltzik: Proof the IRS targets the poor for tax audits while leaving millionaires alone

March 14, 2022

Truss and Kwarteng surely knew that their policy would be ineffective and ruinously expensive. Days before announcing their plan, they fired Tom Scholar, the top civil servant at the Treasury, presumably because they knew he would speak out against the tax cuts. They refused to allow the Office for Budget Responsibility, an independent government fiscal watchdog akin to our Congressional Budget Office, to examine the plan.

As a result of these maneuvers and its basic structure, the Truss plan almost produced an immediate political pushback. The reduction of the top tax rate would directly affect only about 600,000 Britons with annual incomes over about $170,000 — almost exactly the top 1%.

As Johnson calculated, the very richest households, the 0.1% with incomes over about $680,000, would get a tax cut of about $22,500 each. Everyone else would see their basic tax rates cut only to 19% from 20%.

Meanwhile, most Britons would face cuts in government services as the government struggled to cover its increased deficit.

There are lessons in all this for the U.S., particularly for Republican policymakers. One is that clinging to Reagan-style economic policymaking won’t help create growth. It didn’t do so in the past and won’t do so now. Another is that continuing to feed fat cats with tax cuts while impoverishing the rest of America has limited appeal, and eventually the public will get wise.

A third is that serious political leaders admit their mistakes. Truss did so, telling the BBC, “We went too far and too fast.” (Not that her confession was enough to save her job.)

Kudlow, Laffer and Moore were spectacularly wrong about Truss and her policies. If they were honest analysts, they’d admit it. Supply-side economics has been a failure for most Americans. They and their GOP followers should stop clinging to the wreckage.

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Column: Stephen Moore's ranking of states’ economies has been wrong for 12 straight years

By Michael Hiltzik

Business Columnist Follow

April 24, 2019

If you happened to check out the latest ranking of states for their “economic outlook” published last week by the right-wing political group ALEC, you would be excused for concluding that California is deep in an economic hole and digging itself deeper.

ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, has updated these rankings every year or so since 2008. They’re prepared by economist Arthur Laffer, Heritage Foundation fellow Stephen Moore and Jonathan Williams, ALEC’s chief economist, under the title “Rich States, Poor States.”

We’ve examined “Rich States, Poor States” in the past and found its ability to actually predict states’ economic growth prospects to be essentially nil. But this year’s edition is especially notable because of Moore’s role, since he’s been nominated by President Trump for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board, one of the nation’s premier economic policy bodies. “Rich States, Poor States” probably shouldn’t be seen as a feather in his policymaking cap.

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The ALEC economic outlook ranking is, in my assessment, a manifestation of faith-based economics.

— Menzie Chinn, University of Wisconsin

The rankings are based on 15 “policy variables” such as tax rates, anti-union policies and the minimum wage. In the latest edition, the 12th, California ranks 47th overall in its economic outlook.

Among the components of this figure are the state’s top marginal income tax rate of 13.30%, tops in the nation (rank: 50th), its steep tax progressivity (rank: 50th) and its high minimum wage of $12 an hour (rank: 48th). California also gets a black mark for not being a right-to-work — that is, anti-union — state. On the plus side, it doesn’t levy an estate tax. But that’s the only silver lining Laffer, Moore and Williams could find in a jungle of negatives.

IFrame Content

Indeed, California has been ALEC’s whipping boy since the rankings first appeared in 2008. In all but one of the 12 editions of “Rich States, Poor States,” California has ranked 43rd or below — including 47th six times, and 46th twice. The state’s high point came in 2012, when it ranked 38th.

Under the circumstances, then, one has to wonder why in recent years California has turned in the most consistently glittering economic performance in the nation. Its growth in real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product since the 2009 recession has handily outstripped that of several states with top-flight ALEC rankings, such as Utah (ALEC’s No. 1), Nevada (4), Indiana (5), North Carolina (6), Tennessee (7), Florida (8) and that veritable laboratory of tea party tax-cutting, Kansas (27).

One might almost think that the ALEC rankings are based not on actual economic potential, but on adherence to right-wing shibboleths such as favoring the wealthy and suppressing the income of rank-and-file workers.

Moore told me by email, “I’m not at all optimistic about the economic future of California, but I hope I’m wrong.” He didn’t address my questions about the mismatch between the ALEC rankings he co-authored and the facts on the ground, but noted that “California has lost almost one million net residents to the rest of the nation over the last decade,” adding, “People don’t leave places that are prosperous.”

Yet that’s just another example of beside-the-point reasoning that permeates the ALEC rankings, since California manifestly is prosperous, even if its wealth is not evenly distributed. Moore’s figures derive from a Census analysis for the period 2007 to 2016, not the last decade. In any event the net loss of 1 million residents over a decade is minuscule, considering that California’s population is 39 million. The bulk of the out-migration is among residents without bachelor’s degrees. California has experienced net gains in population among people with graduate degrees and income of more than $110,000.

Laffer, the rankings’ chief author, says he isn’t discouraged by the empirical figures on growth. “California is so magical,” he told me (he should know—he got his economics doctorate from Stanford and taught at USC for eight years before hanging out his shingle as an economic consultant in Nashville). “It’s got so much going for it that can’t be measured in terms of policy variables. I think California grows in spite of its policies.”

An original promoter of Proposition 13, Laffer asserts that the tax-cutting initiative spurred the state’s growth for years, and that even now it would be growing faster if it didn’t saddle itself with high taxes and tolerance for unions.

Yet there’s still reason to ask why the “pro-growth” policies that are advocated by the ALEC team don’t reliably translate into growth. And the evidence is strong that they don’t. That was the conclusion of economist Menzie Chinn of the University of Wisconsin, who in 2015 went hunting for some correlation between states’ economic growth and their rankings in “Rich States, Poor States,” and found none.

If anything, Chinn wrote, there was a negative correlation. As his home state of Wisconsin rose in the ALEC rankings — from 33rd in 2008 to 17th in 2014 (a period that overlapped the election of tea party favorite Scott Walker as governor) — Chinn noticed that the state’s growth rate fell relative to the rest of the country.

“This is not the direction that ALEC-Laffer-Moore-Williams posit,” Chinn observed. “Hence, the ALEC economic outlook ranking is, in my assessment, a manifestation of faith-based economics.”

That’s true of many, if not most, business climate rankings purveyed by business lobbies. They tend to give states demerits for regulations, for the “cost of doing business” (generally taxes and wages and government generosity) and for their cost of living.

Yet many of these categories aren’t drags on a state’s business climate, but reflections of its appeal. Sure, California is an expensive place to live, but that’s because it’s a desirable place to live. The state with the lowest cost of living is Mississippi, but who wants to live there? Yes, there are lots of regulations in California, but that’s because some of the features that draw people in, such as its natural beauty and its climate, need safeguarding.

Some factors measured by ALEC and other business groups have a narrow allure to executives and the rich, but no relationship with broader measures of the quality of life. Laffer and Moore, in their 2014 book “The Wealth of States,” reported on research findings that “industry is strongly attracted to states with … relatively little union activity.”

No kidding? CEOs naturally gravitate toward states where their employees have no voice in workplace policies or the ability to bargain collectively for higher wages. Is this necessarily an unalloyed blessing for anyone but management? Does it ensure a well-financed public sphere, including good schools, clean air and clean water? Hardly.

The most confounding case is Kansas, which for a time was a beacon of ALEC-friendly policymaking. That was during the tenure of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, who came into office in 2011 intent on creating a low-tax nirvana that would turbocharge economic growth.

It didn’t happen. Laffer maintains that the reason was partially a pushback by an anti-Brownback cabal in the state Legislature that obstructed his tax plan. But in reality, Brownback’s policies blew such a hole in the state budget that the courts had to order higher spending on schools and other expenses. The state, moreover, was left without adequate resources to manage a rural recession. By 2017, the state’s growth rate was down to 0.2%; the U.S. average that year was 2.2%.

None of this guarantees that California will continue to outpace the nation in economic growth. The state faces not a few headwinds, including a lack of affordable housing and an excessive reliance on capital gains taxes. But these aren’t factors in the ALEC rankings, which are focused almost exclusively on policies that enable the rich to get richer while the working class struggles. Is that a formula for growth? Judging from California’s record, the answer is no.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

Return to Michael Hiltzik’s blog.

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GGL 6 26

AI Overview

Larry Kudlow is an American supply-side economist and media commentator known for his staunch support of tax cuts, deregulation, and free-market capitalism. While he champions similar laissez-faire policies, Kudlow is fundamentally a Reagan supply-sider, diverging from the pure theoretical frameworks of the Austrian School of Economics established by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Key Comparisons

For deeper academic dives into Austrian theory and its original founders, explore the Mises Institute or read the Austrian Family Album to understand the school's historical development and its foundational opposition to Keynesianism. [1]

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LEANED ON DOD TO APPROVE TRUMP KID DRONE DEAL 5 26

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MMA “Live with it”: Fox Business host Larry Kudlow has repeatedly dismissed high prices weighing on Americans | Media Matters for America

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MMA

Asked how long American consumers can weather higher energy prices and inflation, Fox's Larry Kudlow says "How about a year" | Media Matters for America B 5 26

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MMA

Fox’s ”nuke” justification for the Iran war — and the higher prices it's wrought — has collapsed

Is it a small price to pay if you get nothing in return?

Written by Matt Gertz

:{:{Published 05/05/26}:

Fox pundits have repeatedly argued that the Iran war’s costs are “a small price to pay” for its supposed prevention of the imminent threat posed by Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

But a new U.S. intelligence assessment reportedly found that after two months of war, “the time Iran would ​need to build a nuclear weapon has not changed since last summer, when analysts estimated that a U.S.-Israeli attack had pushed back the timeline to up to a year,” according to exclusive reporting from Reuters.

Trump’s war of choice against Iran is now in its third month and headed for strategic defeat. While U.S. and Israeli strikes have killed Iranian leaders and severely damaged their military, the regime is intact and has established control over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital channel for global trade. Americans are seeing gas, diesel, and fertilizer prices soar as a result, and the direct cost of the war continues to grow.

Some Fox pundits, in the face of plummeting support for the war, have argued that these costs are relatively small compared to the benefit of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon — but according to the new U.S. intelligence assessment, there was and remains no imminent threat of that happening.

Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, a former Trump economic adviser, argued in a Monday Fox appearance that skyrocketing fuel costs are “a small price to pay to stop the nuclear activity” from Iran, which he described as “the most gruesome regime we’ve seen in a hundred years” (note that this period includes Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung’s China).

After Kudlow went on to say that “four and a half dollars gasoline — it's not a great idea, wouldn't want it forever, but it really isn't doing all that much harm,” Fox Business contributor Marcus Lemonis added, “I think you said it right, Larry. We don't want it forever, but this short-term pain has a big, big benefit to it.”

Fox host Sean Hannity, a close ally of the president and major supporter of his war, similarly claimed last week that skyrocking gas prices are merely “short-term pain” justified by preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb.

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Citation

From the April 30, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity

“It certainly is short-term pain,” Hannity told a guest during his April 30 broadcast. “Nobody wants to pay more for gas. Diesel is even more expensive, as you point out.”

“However, in exchange for not giving our children and grandchildren nuclear weapons, again, in the short term, I think I’d take that deal every day of the week,” he added.

And Fox host Todd Piro, during a rare mention of the $25 billion estimate a Pentagon analyst gave last week for the early cost of the war, said of that price tag, “If we are dead because Iran strikes us with a nuke, all these economic discussions are moot.”

But as Reuters reported on May 4, U.S. intelligence agencies did not assess that Iran could quickly obtain a weapon before the 2026 war began — or even before striking nuclear facilities last year — much less that the country could deploy it on U.S. soil:

U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that the time Iran would ​need to build a nuclear weapon has not changed since last summer, when analysts estimated that a U.S.-Israeli attack had pushed back the timeline to up to a year, according to three sources familiar ‌with the matter.

The assessments of Tehran's nuclear program remain broadly unchanged even after two months of a war that U.S. President Donald Trump launched in part to stop the Islamic Republic from developing a nuclear bomb.

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U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded prior ⁠to June's 12-day war that Iran likely could produce enough bomb-grade uranium for a weapon and build a bomb in around three to six months, said two of the sources, all of whom requested anonymity to discuss U.S. intelligence.

Following the June ​strikes by the U.S. that hit the Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan nuclear complexes, U.S. intelligence estimates pushed that timeline back to about nine months to a year, said the two sources and a person familiar with the assessments.

This new assessment further demolishes arguments for the war that Fox propagandists like Hannity offered after U.S. strikes began in late February.

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, who negotiated on behalf of the U.S. in talks with Iranian counterparts in the lead-up to the war, helped fuel those arguments by claiming on Hannity’s Fox show that Iranian negotiators had admitted possessing a uranium stockpile that could be weaponized “in roughly one week” and used to build 11 nuclear bombs. Witkoff lacks prior experience in nuclear diplomacy — but he does have sizable business interests in the Gulf region, at times partnering with Trump’s family business.

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  1. ### Tulsi Gabbard just shattered Sean Hannity’s case for the Iran war

03/19/26 12:56 PM EDT

  1. ### In Iran, the most consequential test of the Fox-Trump feedback loop yet

03/02/26 1:12 PM EST

  1. ### Dire Strait: Trump’s Fox Cabinet ignored Hormuz in the month before the U.S. attacked Iran

03/13/26

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mma

  1. ### Fox Business' Larry Kudlow: Gasoline price spike “really isn't doing all that much harm”

05/04/26

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Larry Kudlow says the Iran war “hasn’t hurt our economy” | Media Matters for America

April 23, 2026, edition of Fox News' America Reports

LARRY KUDLOW (FOX BUSINESS HOST): I don't know how long this is going to go. My view is president is right. Just keep the blockade on. The economic and financial pressure is going to squeeze them down and squeeze them down and squeeze them down. If they don't come up with some kind of deal, if they can't get together with some kind of agreed upon deal, really, it's unconditional surrender if you ask me. You know what? They will be taken out. They will be taken out by U.S. and/or Israeli intelligence. That's what -- we've taken out the top three layers. This is a fourth layer. They'll be taken out. They know they'll be taken out. So I think the end game is coming.

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It hasn't hurt our economy. Look at the numbers today. S&P Global manufacturing up again. ISM manufacturing up. Retail sales is up. We're probably running about 3% economic growth despite $4 gasoline. It's not our problem. We are economic and financial starvation. That's what it is. And I think -- I have no idea about combat, it's not part of my portfolio. All I know is Trump's right, they're going to fold. This game is over, they don't even know it. It will be over before long.

MMA TRUMP SAYS WE WIN B/C #1 PRODUCER

As gas prices go up from the Iran war, Fox News celebrates the “biggest payday in history” for oil companies

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is straining the American and global economies

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 04/23/26

Fox News is embracing the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to President Donald Trump’s war against Iran as an economic boon for U.S. petroleum exports — even though the closure will further increase American gasoline prices. Fox has already tried to downplay the increasing fuel prices that have resulted from the closure, which is currently straining both the U.S. and global economies in numerous ways, including threatening famine and global recession.

Fox’s embrace of Trump’s disastrous war echoes how the network previously supported the president’s illegal tariffs scheme — with full-throated backing of the policy and claims that it would help the U.S. economy, even though in reality the tariffs resulted in further job losses for the industries they were intended to support, higher inflation, weaker economic growth, and, ultimately, effectively zero revenue due to court-mandated refunds.

Fox celebrates the Strait of Hormuz closure and blockade of Iranian ports for accelerating U.S. petroleum exports

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Costs from Trump's tariffs, Iran war fallout, and benefit cuts amount to much more than the roughly $350 average Americans reportedly receive from his signature legislation

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 04/16/26 mma

Fox News and Fox Business personalities were hyping the supposed benefits of President Donald Trump's signature 2025 legislation known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on Tax Day, in part by pointing to Americans’ higher average tax refunds compared to the previous year. But the average tax refund increased by roughly $350, according to the most recent IRS data, a sum dwarfed by the additional costs imposed on Americans from Trump’s tariffs, increased gasoline prices stemming from his unauthorized Iran war, and cuts in government benefits that were also included in the OBBBA.

Fox celebrated Trump’s tax cut legislation on Tax Day

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  1. ### From tariffs to war, Fox demands Americans sacrifice their well-being for Trump's agenda

:{04/08/26

  1. ### The US economy has lost jobs since Trump’s “Liberation Day.” Fox is still celebrating his destructive import taxes.

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  1. ### Fox contributor Newt Gingrich organizes MAGA attacks against Congressional Budget Office

05/21/25

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MMA

Right-wing media distract from GOP sabotage of the Affordable Care Act

Trump's media apologists praise his lackluster replacement health care proposal

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 02/03/26

After Republicans let enhanced premium tax credits for Affordable Care Act Marketplace plans lapse at the end of 2025, health insurance premium costs for many Americans have risen significantly — and are projected to more than double for those who received those subsidies — and the number of signups has plummeted.

Now that Trump has announced his “Great Healthcare Plan” — a vague set of health care policies — and a rural hospital fund established by Trump’s tax cuts announced its first round of funding, right-wing media have jumped on board, ignoring Republicans’ long history of sabotaging the ACA in favor of claiming that the program is unaffordable and praising Trump’s policy ideas, which fail to address the problems he and Republicans helped to create.

Analyses predict massive spikes in insurance premiums and millions losing their insurance from the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits

Trump’s proposal includes a mix of initiatives that are already underway, such as Trump’s push to cut U.S. drug prices by linking them with the lower cost of drugs sold abroad, and some of his stalled ambitions, such as his desire to redirect billions of dollars in federal funding away from health insurers and toward average Americans. Trump also called to restore funding for the ACA’s cost-sharing reduction program, an insurance subsidy program that he ended in his first term, and to institute “maximum price transparency” by requiring hospitals and insurers to make more information available to consumers.

The proposal does not include new ideas to expand health coverage or simplify America’s often-byzantine health care system.

Additionally, other existing Republican policies stemming from their latest tax cut for the rich are estimated to cause up to 15 million Americans, and possibly more, to lose their health insurance. Other experts said Trump’s plans are so vague that it is unknown what effects they may have but they put people with preexisting conditions at risk and don’t reestablish the expired subsidies:

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  1. ### Fox misleadingly claimed that a government shutdown would impede relief for winter storms, glossing over the real threat to disaster-stricken communities

02/03/26 1:38 PM EST

  1. ### Fox won’t tell viewers that the UAE bought off Trump

02/03/26 11:00 AM EST

  1. ### Border Czar Tom Homan in resurfaced Fox interview: “We need a judicial warrant for a search”

02/03/26

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MMA

  1. ### Fox's Larry Kudlow urges Jeanine Pirro to drop the investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell

01/15/26

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vs employment ?

mma

November 12, 2025, edition of Fox News' America Reports

SANDRA SMITH (HOST): What does that mean for the economy?

LARRY KUDLOW (GUEST): It's fabulous, okay? 135 million some-odd people in the market through brokerage accounts, 401(k)s, IRAs, even union pension funds. Notice, by the way, the Democratic unions who are against the shutdown, okay, how's that? That's the guts of the Democratic Party.

SMITH: So what's the market cheering on right now?

KUDLOW: So, the market is telling you that there is an economic boom brewing. Profits are soaring.

SMITH: But that's not the messaging right now. The messaging that you're hearing in the mainstream media is that Trump said -- he'd bring prices down and prices are not down across the board. To those critics you say what?

KUDLOW: Prices aren't doing bad. I mean, listen, did we forget prices went up 20% under Biden? And real wages declined by about four or five thousand dollars under Biden, okay? That was Biden economy, okay. Trump's been in office, what, nine months? 10 months now? So, take a look. The stock market is booming, the inflation rate under Trump is 2.5 percent annually on the CPI, okay?

SMITH: Which is half what it was under Biden.

KUDLOW: Biden -- yes. Biden's was averaging about 5.5, that's true. And we hit nine percent. No such thing is happening. Gasoline prices, I mean, Trump was right about this. There's a two handle on over half the country. I'm not saying $2 a gallon, but $2.50, $2.75. Take a look at the AAA map, put your cursor on it, and you'll see exactly how many states are experiencing $2 plus gasoline, not even $3 anymore.

SMITH: Okay.

KUDLOW: This is -- look, all this is an attack on the Trump boom. The stock market is telling you that there is a boom going on, okay? And this -- people ignore the stock market in politics, I understand that. But, the reality is all these people, their 401(k)s are exploding upward and creating a lot of wealth.

...

SMITH: When we had a stock market roaring to record highs and headlines were that there's, you know, a bust happening and that the bubble's going to burst. So, to those folks, you say what?

KUDLOW: I don't -- I don't talk to those folks.

SMITH: It's the prices.

KUDLOW: I think that is a made up issue. Again, it's an attack on Trump's economic success that he's had in just a few months.

---

---

aha hmmn do they look for cidgel before cop eg UK server -gate?

mma

Ahead of COP30, right-wing media misrepresented Bill Gates' memo to declare climate change is over

Climate scientists question why Gates is pitting poverty reduction against climate action

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Allison Fisher

Research contributions from Ilana Berger

Published 11/14/25

Bill Weir, CNN’s chief climate correspondent, correctly predicted how right-wing media would respond: “This will be used by detractors and denialists to say that the story is shifting.”

On *CNN News Central’*s day one coverage of COP30, Erica Hill laid out some of the impact of Gates’ memo at a time when the United States is already turning its back on the “world’s largest climate summit”:

But there it seems Gates was wrong. Right-wing media figures, who regularly downplay the climate crisis are likely among those who “think climate is not important,” and they are not disagreeing with the memo. They have celebrated it and used it to further downplay the climate crisis, attack climate science as “fraudulent,” and advance right-wing narratives and misinformation related to global warming, including denying sea level rise, suggesting that current climate change is unremarkable because the climate has been changing for billions of years, and pushing the “global cooling” myth.

6/22/22]

10/29/25]

10/30/25; Washington Post, 9/16/16; Media Matters, 12/17/12; 5/22/19]

Newsmax host Rob Finnerty falsely claimed that Gates is “saying that it’s [climate change] not real.Finnerty said, “Now think about what Democrats have done to all of us in reaction to the climate hysteria created by people like Bill Gates over the last five decades: wind farms, electric cars, carbon footprint, bike lanes, electric buses, eating less meat, renewable energy. We could go on all night and all of it was total garbage. … Bill Gates, who's been right there with always-wrong Al Gore warning us of impending doom for years now, saying that it's not real.” Newsmax, *Finnerty*, [10/31/25]

Right-wing streamer Zack Hoyt, known online as Asmongold, told his audience that Bill Gates no longer believes in climate change and quotes Trump’s Truth Social Post.“You know who else doesn't believe in climate change recently? Bill Gates. Bill Gates has dramatically changed his position on climate change, acknowledging for the first time that there is no doomsday risk for, of global warming. … We just won the war on the climate change hoax. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely wrong on the issue.” [YouTube, AsmongoldTV,

11/1/25]}:

3/25/24]

Additionally, The Guardian pointed out that a number of climate scientists have criticized Gates for using “‘straw man’ arguments about the threat to humanity and ‘false dichotomies’ between spending on climate or aid for the poor.”

---

10 25 mma shutdown

fox Business host Larry Kudlow urges Trump to seize on the shutdown to fire up to 500,000 more federal workers 10/07/25

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-business-host-larry-kudlow-urges-trump-seize-shutdown-fire-500000-more-federal-workers)

---

MMA 10 25

Frequent Fox appearances are central to the Trump administration's climate and energy misinformation strategy

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Evlondo Cooper

Research contributions from Harrison Ray

Published 09/29/25

Fox News and Fox Business have not simply covered President Donald Trump’s destructive climate and environmental agenda — they have served as the administration’s preferred vehicles for selling it to the public.

Since late July, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have made dozens of appearances across Fox News and Fox Business programs to defend the proposed repeal of the EPA’s endangerment finding, shift blame for soaring electricity bills away from fossil fuel volatility, and portray offshore wind projects as both unreliable and dangerous.

By turning to Fox networks, senior Trump officials gain a platform where destructive environmental deregulation is framed as common sense and basic policy questions are never asked. What emerges from these appearances is not legitimate debate or accountability journalism, but a symbiotic relationship that allows the Trump administration to launder harmful misinformation through Fox’s news and opinion programming — leaving viewers with a distorted picture of climate science, energy policy, and the real stakes of the administration’s environmental rollbacks.

Topline findings

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin

Zeldin has leaned on Fox’s coverage to launder claims that climate regulations are illegitimate and that reliance on renewable energy is driving economic pain.

During the August 13 episode of Fox Business’ Kudlow, Zeldin argued that the endangerment finding — a 2009 scientific determination that provided the legal framework for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions — rested on “a lot of mental leaps” and claimed that “the Clean Air Act doesn’t make any reference to the greenhouse gases.” (In reality, the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. EPA ruling explicitly found that greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants under the Act.) He paired that dismissal with charges that Obama-era scientific findings were exaggerated and “pessimistic,” and closed the segment by promoting natural gas pipelines as the only path to affordable energy and job growth.

Video

Citation

From the August 13, 2025, episode of Fox Business' Kudlow

Energy Secretary Chris Wright

Wright has similarly leaned on Fox to attack renewable energy as too costly, unreliable, and an obstacle to America’s economic and technological ambitions. He also used his appearances to make sweeping claims that fossil fuel expansion is the only realistic path forward and to blame renewable energy for electricity price increases.

During a segment about the “importance of unleashing U.S. energy” to meet growing demand from artificial intelligence on the September 4 episode of Fox & Friends, Wright told viewers that artificial intelligence represents “perhaps the highest use of electricity.” Later that day on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, Wright described offshore wind projects as a “guaranteed” driver of higher electricity costs, telling host Laura Ingraham that wind and solar are “variable, parasitic sources” that make the power grid less reliable and more expensive. He also claimed that by adopting offshore wind, the United States would be “competing for the most expensive electricity in the world.” Ingraham did raise the issue of higher electricity costs during the Trump administration but allowed Wright to spin, evade, and double down on falsely blaming renewable energy.

Video

Citation

From the September 4, 2025, edition of Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum

Burgum has also used Fox appearances to promote the administration’s fossil fuel expansion agenda while attacking renewables as unreliable and costly.

During the August 2 episode of Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street, Burgum defended the administration’s proposed rollback of the endangerment finding, agreeing with Zeldin and Wright that the EPA had overstepped its authority. He also blamed increased energy costs on Obama- and Biden-era climate regulations, pushed deregulation as a way to unleash economic growth, and attacked offshore wind.

Video

Citation

From the August 2, 2025, episode of Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street

For example, on Kudlow, after Zeldin dismissed the endangerment finding as “a lot of mental leaps,” Fox host and former Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow never pointed out that it was grounded in the Supreme Court’s 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA decision and decades of scientific consensus. Nor did viewers hear that it has prevented hundreds of thousands of premature deaths and delivered billions in net economic benefits.

And when Wright insisted that renewables drive up electricity prices on The Ingraham Angle, the Fox host did not mention that analysts instead point to fossil fuel volatility, surging demand from AI data centers, and Trump’s own decision to roll back and cancel renewable energy projects as the primary drivers of increased electricity costs.

On Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, as Burgum railed against offshore wind energy and celebrated coal and gas as the foundation of energy dominance, Bartiromo never noted that solar energy combined with battery storage is now the cheapest and fastest-to-build source of new power, or that clinging to coal plants saddles consumers with higher bills while increasing pollution. Instead, the segment cast fossil fuels as the only reliable option, ignoring the economic and health benefits of renewables.

The Trump administration’s reliance on Fox News and Fox Business is not incidental; it is a core communications strategy. By prioritizing their appearances on Fox networks, officials like Zeldin, Wright, and Burgum gain access to a powerful megaphone while shielding themselves from scrutiny or accountability. Fox’s “straight news” programs give their talking points the appearance of neutrality, and its opinion hosts repeat and amplify those same claims until they harden into conventional wisdom.

The result is the laundering of misleading talking points: Administration officials feed misinformation into Fox, the network recycles and legitimizes it, and audiences are left with a propagandistic narrative that obscures the public health costs of climate change and environmental deregulation and dismisses the economic benefits of clean energy.

---

GIBNEY DOCU LEO FED SOC CATH INFO CTR PALEO?! OPUS DEI

IA Religious Conversion: Raised in a Jewish family, Kudlow converted to Catholicism in the 1990s after seeking recovery from substance addiction.

===

GUKFEB 2024

trump-economist-stephen-moore-us-treasury-project-2025

Stephen Moore, a conservative economist whose controversial remarks about women cost him a seat on the Federal Reserve board in 2019, is now co-author of a plan to radically reform the US treasury as part of Project 2025, a vast rightwing effort to advance radical policy proposals for Donald Trump’s possible White House return.

“Project 2025 is all about forcing a far-right agenda on to everyday Americans,” said Tony Carrk, the executive director of the progressive watchdog Accountable.US, which produced an extensive report on Moore’s views and positions.

“So it’s no wonder they tapped a notorious social security opponent like Stephen Moore to help write their policy schemes.”

Moore, Carrk said, had “dedicated his career to slashing social security benefits and taxes for billionaires”.

Like other welfare programmes such as Medicare, social security is a longstanding target of the US right but also something of a third rail for politicians of either party, given public support. Recognising such support, Trump has pledged to “always protect social security” should he return to power. His last opponent for the Republican presidential nomination, the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, says she wants to reform it.

Joe Biden has said he “will not cut a single social security or Medicare benefit”.

Moore remains loyal to Trump but in the past hasadvocated for privatising social security, which he has called a “Ponzi scheme”, and told students they should march on the Capitol and burn their social security cards.

Responding to Carrk, Moore said by email: “Actually I favor higher social security benefits with personal accounts. That would give seniors benefits that would net three to five times higher.”

Moore advocates mandatory 401k accounts, in place of social security.

He added: “Yes, I am strongly in favor of cutting tax rates to make [the] American economy No 1.”

By its own description, Project 2025 is the work of “a broad coalition of over 70 conservative organisations”, brought together by the Heritage Foundation and aiming to shape the presidential transition should a Republican win election this year.

In the words of Paul Dans, its director, Project 2025 aims to prepare “a new army, aligned, trained, and essentially weaponised conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state”.

According to a conspiracy theory championed by Trump’s ally and adviser Steve Bannon – though Bannon reportedly said the “deep-state conspiracy theory is for nutcases” – the deep state consists of bureaucrats, government functionaries and intelligence operatives, all working to thwart Trump’s agenda.

Legal sources and sources close to the presidential transition have said extreme actions proposed under Project 2025 are unlikely to happen swiftly, should Trump or another Republican take office, given existing guardrails in and around the federal bureaucracy.

Nonetheless, as other chapters recommend rolling back LGBTQ+ rights or dismantling climate policy, so the chapter co-authored by Moore says a Trump treasury should eliminate policies attributed to Biden including the “racist ‘equity’ agenda” and the “economically destructive and ineffective climate-related financial-risk agenda”.

Moore’s co-authors are William L Walton, a private equity investor, and David R Burton, an economic policy expert. The three authors identify social security as a program relevant to treasury reform, including it in “issues of concern” that “cut across multiple parts of treasury or other governmental agencies”.

Elsewhere, Jonathan Berry, who was chief counsel to the Trump transition in 2016-17 and led the regulatory section of the Department of Labor in the Trump administration, notes the potential for privatisation of social security, writing: “Existing statutory language in the Social Security Act does not prohibit non-public organisations from administering the programme.”

In his statement, Carrk also accused Moore of “belittling women and people of color”.

In May 2019, Moore withdrew from consideration for a seat at the Fed. Amid intense media scrutiny, the Guardian reported tax and legal issues affecting Moore including underpaying alimony to his ex-wife. Columns written by Moore also came under scrutiny, unearthed sexist remarks including complaints about women in sports and asking whether there was anywhere in life “men can take a vacation from women”. Moore also wrote that Black families were replacing men with “a welfare check” and that increased earnings for Black women would make Black men “financially expendable”.

Withdrawing from consideration for the Fed, Moore said that the “unrelenting attacks on my character have become untenable for me and my family” but told Trump he would “continue to be a loud economic voice advocating your policies” and would “always [be] at your disposal”.

Moore went on to advise Trump during the Covid pandemic. Now, as well as writing books and providing analysis for Fox News, he is attached to a range of rightwing groups – he is a Heritage Foundation fellow; the senior economist at FreedomWorks; and chair of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity (CUP).

Moore co-founded CUP in 2015 with the billionaire Steve Forbes, the economist Larry Kudlow (later Trump’s chief economic adviser) and Arthur Laffer, an economist and pundit who advised Ronald Reagan and Trump and to whom Trump gave the presidential medal of freedom.

The Accountable.US report details donations of at least $1.77m to CUP from DonorsTrust, a rightwing group not required to reveal the names of its donors.

“A principled philanthropic partner for conservative and libertarian donors” in its own words, but “the right’s dark-money ATM” in the words of Mother Jones magazine, DonorsTrust has links to the Koch network and Leonard Leo, two dominant figures in rightwing political funding.

Carrk said: “With extremists like Moore calling the shots, Project 2025 may not have any credibility, but unfortunately they have limitless resources from the dark-money Leonard Leo network to undermine the health and retirement security of millions of Americans.”

---

sorta random on trump slump mma

  1. ### Sean Hannity downplays stock market upheaval and then blames the “Biden-Harris economy”

03/11/25 4:45 PM EDT

  1. ### “I’m not worried about this at all”: MAGA media shrug off concerns of recession

03/11/25 3:38 PM EDT

  1. ### Daily Wire host says “Trump is wrong” to attack Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)

03/11/25 2:42 PM EDT

  1. ### “You need to cut Medicaid”: Right-wing pundits call to gut health coverage for the poor

:{03/11/25

Larry Kudlow: Why shouldn't the President “be able to impound on behalf of the taxpayers?”5. ###

03/11/25 1:11 PM EDT

  1. ### Three ways MAGA media are responding to Trump's tariffs crashing the stock market

03/11/25 12:58 PM EDT

  1. ### Benny Johnson: “There's gonna be some turmoil, some ups and downs, as we exorcise the demons out of this economy”

03/11/25 12:21 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News outstripped CNN and MSNBC in first month covering Trump's anti-trans executive orders

03/11/25 12:02 PM EDT

  1. ### Newsmax host: “Perhaps stocks need to take a nosedive so the working man can get a little relief from all of this inflation”

:{03/11/25

  1. ### Larry Kudlow: “I don’t think there’s a strong recession case to be made”

03/10/25

---

===

EARTH2 BEN STEIN WINNERS:

MMA

As Trump wrecks the economy, Fox News pivots to blaming Biden

Fox personalities are blaming worsening economic indicators on the previous administration to absolve Trump of responsibility

Written by Zachary Pleat & Craig Harrington

Research contributions from Lis Power

Published 03/04/25

Even though President Donald Trump’s administration has taken multiple actions that have effectively weakened the economy, Fox News is helping Trump prepare to place the blame for worsening economic indicators on former President Joe Biden, who handed off a strong and stable economy to Trump less than two months ago.

Trump reportedly plans to blame Biden for his own economic turmoil

---

DESMOG 1 25 NO PNX GRF

America First Policy Institute (AFPI)

Background

The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) is a nonprofit group (501(c)(3)1) founded in 2021 by two senior advisors to Donald Trump to promote Donald Trump‘s ongoing policy agenda following his departure from office.2The AFPI argues for expanded fossil fuel production by “removing undue regulatory constraints”3 and criticizes the Paris Agreement, describing it as “lopsided” and “unenforceable.”4

It counts among its staff individuals who have expressed doubt about the causes and severity of climate change, including Heritage Foundation senior visiting fellow Stephen Moore,5 who once described global warming as “one of the greatest propaganda campaigns in world history,”6 among others.7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

White House domestic policy adviser Brooke Rollins and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow initially developed AFPI.15 Rollins and Kudlow had worked together in early 2020 to create a second-term policy agenda for the Trump administration. When Trump lost the election, they continued to work together to develop the AFPI.16 According to the New York Times, they approached Timothy Dunn, an American billionaire and CEO of an oil and gas company, who Rollins had worked with at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Dunn and two other Texas Public Policy Foundation directors, Cody Campbell and Tim Lyles, subsequently registered the AFPI in April 2021.17 Kudlow consulted Donald Trump in the development phase for the AFPI and described him as “very enthusiastic” about the concept.18

After the AFPI’s launch in April 2021, Rollins became the president and CEO, Kudlow vice chair,19 and Tim Dunn, a board member.20 Linda McMahon, a member of Trump’s Cabinet as the administrator of the Small Business Administration, joined as chair, along with various other individuals affiliated with Trump.21

The AFPI has an “advocacy arm,” America First Works.“22 America First Works is a 501(c)(4) organization, which means that it can engage in some partisan politics.23 The AFPI itself, by contrast, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which by law should be nonpartisan.24 The AFPI also has an affiliation with America First Action, a super PAC dedicated to supporting federal candidates who back the policy agenda of Donald Trump.25 26

2025 Transition Plans...

===

mma

December 9, 2024, edition of Fox News' Outnumbered

LARRY KUDLOW (CO-HOST): I just want to go back inside the church for a minute, Molly. Take a careful look at that. That wasn't a nice conversation. That was outright flirtation. It was almost —

HARRIS FAULKNER (CO-HOST): Oh my goodness!

KUDLOW: That was almost heavy — that was almost heavy-duty petting at the G7 level. I've been there. I've seen these things before. So I'm just saying the evidence is mounting.

...

KAYLEIGH MCENANY (CO-HOST): Trump said, Harris, his response was that she could not have been nicer. I would also note, to Kristen Welker, he said that he has not interest in putting a prosecutor on the Bidens. He wants to look forward, not the past. He is magananimous.

FAULKNER: Look, I mean, politics is a blood sport. And Larry what you were pointing out, you know, outside of some of the extracurricular activity you described, I do believe that in these moments you do want to gravitate — I mean clearly she gravitates to power. You're not in a White House with a husband who really could have sat down long before that debate on June 27. Yeah, I'm just going to say it, because it's the truth. So she's gravitating to power and the shiniest object in the room at that moment, the one with the really good lighting, Molly, is Donald Trump. So she goes over and kind of soaks that lightning up.

KUDLOW: This fondness for power is what I metaphorically called heavy-duty petting at the G7!

===

mma

November 5, 2024 edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

STEVE BANNON (HOST): They still use the term all votes. OK, all votes don't count. Only certifiable, chain of custody votes from American citizens and these guys continue -- their mantra is all votes, the tell is right there.

...

They only win if they cheat like in 2020.

//

  1. ### Steve Bannon says that Trump will appoint Fox host Larry Kudlow as Treasury secretary or head of the National Economic Council

11/04/24

===

bitch ABOUT LEG IRONSNOPE THAT WAS NAVARRO

===

MMA

Fox News is the loudest voice in media promoting trickle-down economics

Fox News personalities were the only prominent proponents of trickle-down policies in the second quarter of the year

Written by Craig Harrington

Research contributions from Zachary Pleat

Published 10/28/24

Nearly a quarter of Fox News’ prime-time economic news coverage in the second quarter of 2024 espoused or promoted so-called “trickle-down” economic theory, a discredited economic model that advocates for reduced tax and regulatory burdens at the upper end of the income, wealth, or profit spectrum in order to induce economic growth. A Media Matters analysis of three months of economic news coverage from April through June 2024 from broadcast evening and prime-time cable programs revealed that Fox News was by far the leading vector by which trickle-down talking points were injected into the news ecosystem.

In addition to advocating, in essence, that society should prioritize the top of the income, wealth, and profit spectrum in order to induce broader economic benefits that supposedly “trickle-down” to the rest of the economy, Fox's trickle-down proponents often also argued that fewer benefits should be provided to those at the bottom, inverting the logical fallacy at the center of trickle-down theory.

Of Fox’s segments espousing trickle-down, 12 included discussion of tax policy, and 12 also covered inflation. Wages were discussed in 10 of these segments. The following chart shows the economic topics Fox personalities were discussing when they espoused trickle-down economics.

The leading trickle-down misinformer in Fox’s prime-time lineup was frequent guest, Fox Business host, and former Trump administration official Larry Kudlow, who peddled trickle-down theory while slamming the economic agenda of the Biden-Harris administration and puffing up the accomplishments (and future promises) of disgraced former President Donald Trump.

During the 4 appearances in which he peddled trickle-down economics during the second quarter — Kudlow was the only guest to appear more than once in a segment identified as promoting trickle-down economics — he fearmongered about how future tax increases on the wealthy could undermine job creation and slow down economic growth and warned that increasing government spending would imperil the economy.

Fox News and Fox Business personalities Brian Brenberg and David Asman, Fox News host and former Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee, celebrity chef Andrew Gruel, South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott, and Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson were among the other prime-time Fox News guests who peddled trickle-down talking points during the second quarter, warning about looming tax increases, clamoring for renewed income tax cuts from a second Trump administration, or warning about the supposed threat posed by stricter government regulations or elevated minimum wages.

Media Matters identified multiple instances in which Fox's prime-time hosts themselves served as the vector peddling trickle down.

Fox prime-time star and informal Trump adviser Sean Hannity led the way with 4 instances of him promoting trickle-down talking points, followed by one instance apiece from hosts Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld....

mma

Fox falsely linked Harris and Walz to socialism or communism over 460 times in just 50 days

Fox News and Fox Business figures have repeatedly and falsely linked VP Harris and Minnesota Gov. Walz to socialism and outright communism

Written by Harrison Ray

Research contributions from Tyler Monroe

Published 09/12/24 mma

The obvious smears have been repeatedly debunked.

The attacks extended to Walz when Harris selected him as her running mate, with Fox connecting him to China to claim he’s a communist candidate. And the attacks ramped up significantly following an economic policy speech from Harris, with Fox repeatedly mischaracterizing her proposals.

Fox networks' hosts and anchors most often pushed the claims of socialism, led by Maria Bartiromo (32 claims), Sean Hannity (31), Elizabeth MacDonald (20), Larry Kudlow (19), Jesse Watters (17), and Stuart Varney (15).

Mornings with Maria Bartiromo (63) had the most claims of any individual program over the period, with Hannity (49), Kudlow (44), and The Evening Edit (40) close behind. Many of Fox News' so-called “news” programs also repeated the ginned up attack, with at least 52 claims over the period.

Fox News and Fox Business parroted the narrative on 49 of the 50 days reviewed by Media Matters.

Former President Donald Trump repeated Fox's fabricated narrative during the September 10 presidential debate, falsely insisting, “She's a Marxist. Everybody knows she's a Marxist.”

===

===

mma

Conservative economic commentators have been “sanewashing” Trump’s incoherent tariff proposals

After economists explained Trump’s tariff ideas would raise inflation and cost families thousands annually, Trump’s allies began claiming it has always been a bluff

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 09/12/24

Following the example of mainstream news organizations covering for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s incoherent policy proposals, conservative economic commentators have spent the past week “sanewashing” Trump’s calls to drastically raise tariffs — potentially up to 100% in some cases — to do everything from replacing income taxes and combating China to reviving American jobs, funding universal child care programs, and even financing a sovereign wealth fund.

All of this follows months of economists warning that Trump’s tariff proposals (which functionally amount to tax and price increases) would hike inflation and costs for American families by thousands of dollars a year.

Former Trump Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross on CNBC’s Squawk Box: “You have to remember, Donald Trump occasionally speaks in metaphors.” Ross elaborated on his claim that Trump is bluffing about his extremist tariff proposals: “When he talks about gigantic tariffs, which he did before the first administration as well, what he really means is, ‘I’m going to be very tough on the foreign companies. I’m going to be very tough on their subsidized exports.’ You shouldn’t take it all that literally because he likes to use slogans, as do all politicians, that convey a message. And talking about gigantic tariffs on everything sends a message.” CNBC, *Squawk Box*, [9/10/24]|}:

Fox business host and former Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Trump’s tariff policies: “He’s a consummate negotiator.” Kudlow continued: “I’m sitting there listening to this speech thinking to myself, he's negotiating right now. He's starting his negotiations right now. I don't know if he's going to win. I think he's going to win. I mean, I think his polls are the best polls he's ever had at this stage of the game. He's already negotiating. That's the way I read this.” Fox Business, *Kudlow*, [9/5/24]

===

mma

Right-wing media claimed a downward jobs revision indicated recession. A new GDP revision shows the economy actually grew more than expected.

08/30/24

Right-wing media claimed a downward jobs revision indicated recession. A new GDP revision shows the economy actually grew more than expected.

Right-wing media have been quick to catastrophize every hiccup in the economy this election cycle, ignoring many of the facts

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 08/30/24

After the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report on August 21 showing that 818,000 fewer jobs than initially estimated were created between March 2023-March 2024, right-wing media falsely claimed this report showed that the U.S. is in recession. Fox Business was particularly loud in proclaiming the downward jobs revision was a recession indicator.

However, an August 29 release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed that the real gross domestic product (GDP) of the U.S. increased at a 3% rate in the second quarter of this year, an upward revision from an initial estimate of 2.8% and more than double the first quarter GDP growth of 1.4%.

Although it’s not the official definition, recession is generally understood to begin after two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. Economists take a more holistic approach to determining when the economy is in recession. Given the positive GDP growth over the last two quarters, even this oversimplified yardstick did not indicate the U.S. economy was in recession, and these revised BEA numbers are further proof of the current strength of the economy.

Discussing his analysis of the new BEA release, Bobby Kogan, the Center for American Progress senior director of federal budget policy, gave context on just how strong this data shows the U.S. economy is:

IFrame Content

In a separate post, Kogan noted that the “US GDP growth has outpaced all other G7 nations” and “wages at the bottom rose so much, income inequality is down, undoing 1/3 of its growth since Reagan.” Ernie Tedeschi, economic director of Yale’s Budget Lab, also noted that “3% is a very good number.”

These facts did not deter right-wing media however — misleading economic doomsaying about the BLS report from Fox News and others is the latest in a series of false attacks on the economy this year.

Right-wing media falsely claimed the downward jobs revision meant the U.S. is in recession

* Daily Caller cited a Heritage Foundation economist to claim the BLS report shows a “recession may have already begun.” E.J. Antoni told the Daily Caller, “Wall Street is increasingly waking up to the fact that the economy post-covid has never been as good as the government bean counters claimed, and a recession may have already begun. These revisions are a violent shove in the direction of reality.” The Heritage Foundation is the leading organization behind Project 2025. Daily Caller, [8/21/24; Media Matters, accessed 8/30/24]

:{*:{ Fox Business host Larry Kudlow cited Hassett to say “we could be on the front end of a recession” because of the BLS revision. Fox Business, *Kudlow*:(style="background-color:#ffbb16"):}:, [8/22/24]}:

Fox News host Jesse Watters and Fox Business host Stuart Varney used the BLS report to claim the economy is in bad shape. Watters said, “The economy’s check engine light has been blinking for three years and Biden and Harris have been ignoring it. They say the economy is great. Just look at the job numbers. Well we did, and they disappeared.” Varney chimed in: “It’s going to be interesting to see how Kamala pivots on this. How do you reverse the idea — oh, we have got a great booming economy, but you don't. … How is she going to pivot with these lousy jobs numbers?” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [8/21/24]

This follows many other false right-wing media attacks on the Biden-Harris economy

* Fox News attacked a blockbuster inflation report that showed the first decline in prices since May 2020. Media Matters, [7/11/24; Market Watch, 7/11/24]

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8 24 mma

on August 15, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris began outlining her economic agenda, which includes fighting excessive prices by enacting a federal ban on price gouging.

Most states already have some kind of law banning price gouging in at least some circumstances, but Harris’ new proposal would create the first ever federal ban on price gouging on groceries and empower the Federal Trade Commission to enforce these new consumer protections.

Yet Fox News and others in the media reacted by falsely mischaracterizing Harris’ proposal as setting price controls, denying that price gouging exists in the food industry, and ranting about communism.

* ## An FTC investigation revealed price gouging by major supermarket chains, and there have been many cases of price fixing in the food industry

{ Fox guest Kevin O’Leary: “It's been tried before in countries like the Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba. Doesn't work. So obviously that's not going to happen.” Fox News, *The Story*, [8/15/24]}:

* Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones: “This has always been the plan. You will eat the bugs! Kamala Harris’ Proposed Price Controls May Lead to ‘Communism, Mass Starvation, End of America.’” Twitter/X, [8/18/24]

related

  1. ### Fox goes to bat for supermarket price gouging as VP Harris prepares to call out corporate greed

08/15/24 11:20 AM EDT

  1. ### Conservative media defend Trump’s corporate tax cuts and make false claims about Kamala Harris’ proposed 28% rate

08/20/24 4:33 PM EDT

  1. ### Economists blame the Fed for jobs report missing expectations. Trump sycophants instead blamed Kamala Harris.

08/02/24

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:

mma 7 24

During the June 27 CNN presidential election debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, Trump made false and misleading claims about immigration and migrants seemingly drawn straight from the right-wing media echo chambers.

Trump falsely claimed that Biden “wants open borders” and “wants our country to … be destroyed,” as migrants are supposedly violent criminals stealing American jobs. He also pushed the “great replacement” theory, saying Biden wants to import migrants to vote Democratic.

Below are some of Trump’s debate claims and recent instances of right-wing media making the same points.

In the debate, Trump claimed that migrants “are taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs. And you haven’t seen it yet.” The New York Times, [6/27/24]|}:

x

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omg trio consistently, spectacularly and devastatingly WRONG! punditry at worst/lethal

jon chait

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/arthur-laffer-lawrence-kudlow-stephen-moore-public-health.html}:

no lnx

THE NATIONAL INTEREST APR. 25, 2020

The Fatal Calculations of the Economists Steering Our Public Health

By Jonathan Chait

One night in late March, President Trump, seized by one of his periodic bouts of dismay with his public-health officials, sought out a second opinion on how to handle the coronavirus pandemic. He called Arthur Laffer. After missing the president’s first three calls, the 79-year-old Laffer finally answered, and the two men connected for what Laffer described as “a very serious conversation,” shortly after which Trump tweeted, “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.”

Trump gravitated back to his public-health advisers, but he is again lurching toward the opposite pole — one anchored by Laffer and his close allies: National Economic Council head Lawrence Kudlow and economic adviser Stephen Moore. They have seized on their historic role as the antagonists to the administration’s public-health wing because they have a particular competence of their own, honed over decades: persuading Republican officials to ignore experts.

Even before his current role, Laffer was perhaps the most successful policy entrepreneur in modern American history, at least if measured by political influence.In the 1970s, as an economics professor who had served in Nixon’s Office of Management and Budget, Laffer developed a friendship with Wall Street Journal editorial writer Jude Wanniski, whose job had previously included defending Richard Nixon’s conduct in the Watergate scandal. The two came to believe that Laffer had developed a blinding insight with world-historical ramifications. A tax rate of either zero or 100 would yield no tax revenue at all, Laffer posited. Drawing a sloping, sideways curve between those points, he further hypothesized that reducing tax rates might increase revenue.

The “Laffer curve,” which at one point Laffer drew on a cocktail napkin for an impressed Dick Cheney (the Smithsonian now claims to display the original), formed the basis of what became known as “supply-side economics.” The doctrine held not only that tax cuts could increase tax revenue, but that changes in tax rates were the primary driver of all economic events. Republican economist Herb Stein coined the name as a term of derision, intending to highlight the absurdity of building a model entirely on one side of the economy instead of considering both supply and demand. Economic experts mocked Laffer’s notion that reductions in tax rates at existing levels could produce anywhere close to enough new economic growth to pay for itself.

And the experts … were completely right. After supply-siders converted Ronald Reagan and promised his tax cuts would pay for themselves, revenue hemorrhaged. Reagan’s non-supply-side advisers prevailed upon him to sign a series of tax increases for the purpose of “reducing the size of the nation’s fiscal disaster,” his budget director later admitted. When Bill Clinton raised the top tax rate from 31 percent to 39.6 percent, supply-siders insisted he would kill the recovery and reduce tax revenue. Instead, revenue soared far higher than anybody had forecast.

Kudlow and Moore began ascending in the 1980s, shuttling between right-wing think tanks and media — especially the Journal editorial page, which remained the high temple of the supply-side cult. I first came across Moore when he was writing Journal columns arguing that the supply-siders had been right to predict Bill Clinton’s tax hike would reduce revenue. (A hallmark of supply-side thought has been to refuse to concede any error or complication in its analysis.) The supply-siders went on to insist that George W. Bush’s tax cuts would produce untold prosperity. Moore wrote a book called Bullish on Bush, and Kudlow wrote the foreword to The Bush Boom and a series of columns dismissing “pessimistas” who detected economic turmoil. “There’s no recession coming. The pessimistas were wrong,” he wrote in December 2007.

In the spring of 2016, just after Trump had sewn up the nomination, Laffer, Kudlow, and Moore set out to meet the candidate at Trump Tower. Like many members of the conservative elite, they initially harbored reservations. But unlike foreign-policy hawks or social traditionalists, their concerns were devoid of any moral component, like a suspicion of dictators or philanderers. Their sole misgiving concerned Trump’s populist rhetoric and occasional campaign vows to raise his own taxes. The troika wanted to find out if he really meant it. To their relief, he didn’t. “He wanted tax cuts. He wanted to deregulate, he wanted to get the government out of the way,” Kudlow recounted in the foreword to Laffer and Moore’s laudatory book, Trumponomics. “The three of us saw Trump in a whole new light.”

We’ll come out of this soon, the economy will reopen, the economy will restart. It will, I hope, take care of itself. Markets will take care of themselves over time.

— Larry Kudlow, optimistic as oil prices tanked, on April 22

Kudlow joined the administration as Trump’s chief economic adviser. Trump announced he would nominate Moore for the Federal Reserve Board, but the Senate killed Moore’s bid over a combination of embarrassing ignorance of the subject — just two years before, he’d admitted on a panel, “I’m not an expert on monetary policy” — and years of sexist comments, including an obsessive hatred of women working as play-by-play commentators on basketball games. He and Laffer instead served as outside advisers and allies to Trump, who last summer bestowed a Presidential Medal of Freedom on Laffer.

Trump rewarded their confidence by implementing a large corporate tax cut, which was intended to encourage more corporate investment and therefore “would yield about the same revenue — and possibly more — than the current system,” Laffer and Moore wrote in Trumponomics. Naturally, it failed. Business owners got a windfall, but there was no corporate-investment boom and corporate-tax revenue fell by more than a third. Just as naturally, they acted as if events had proved them right.

And so, when the coronavirus struck, Trump had on hand a coterie of loyalists who would not hesitate to question legitimate experts.Kudlow forcefully endorsed Trump’s optimism that the virus would never spread. On February 25, Kudlow said it had been “contained … pretty close to airtight.” Even two weeks later, he was insisting, “I would still argue to you that this thing is contained.”

When public-health officials persuaded Trump to abandon his denialism, the supply-siders formed the resistance. Applying Laffer’s old dictum, “All economic problems are about removing impediments to supply, not demand,” they reasoned that the problem facing the economy was not a deadly pandemic but, as ever, bad incentives imposed by government — in this case, restrictions on business and excessively generous unemployment benefits that “discourage work.” If the government just stopped suppressing incentives, the economy would spring back to life.

The Journal editorial page published some of the first pushback against the wisdom of lockdowns. As early as mid-March, Moore denounced on Fox News the first closings, in California, as “a very dangerous, almost Orwellian situation.” Trump began repeating the supply-siders’ warnings that he had ceded too much authority to scientists (“If it was up to the doctors,” he mused, “they might say shut down the entire world”). Trump relented to his public-health experts but, by early April, was again listening to the supply-siders. Moore began proposing May 1 as a deadline to reopen the economy, a timeline Trump endorsed soon thereafter.

The supply-siders’ struggle to tug Trump away from his medical experts has both public and private facets. Laffer and Moore promoted a new administration task force to focus on economic reopening, a counterweight to the coronavirus task force led by doctors Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx. Moore encouraged anti-shutdown protests in several states to pressure governors to speed up their timetables for reopening businesses. “I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks,” he explained, “They are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties.”

In their book, Laffer and Moore fondly recall Kudlow’s instructing Trump to ignore budget forecasts that tax cuts would reduce revenue. “Don’t get stressed out by the phony numbers of Washington’s bean counters,” he said. “They are always wrong.” The message today is largely unchanged. The main difference is that the experts they are urging the president to dismiss are counting lives. We’re the beans.

This article appears in the April 27, 2020, issue of New York Magazine

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:

mma 7 24

During the June 27 CNN presidential election debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, Trump made false and misleading claims about immigration and migrants seemingly drawn straight from the right-wing media echo chambers.

Trump falsely claimed that Biden “wants open borders” and “wants our country to … be destroyed,” as migrants are supposedly violent criminals stealing American jobs. He also pushed the “great replacement” theory, saying Biden wants to import migrants to vote Democratic.

Below are some of Trump’s debate claims and recent instances of right-wing media making the same points.

In the debate, Trump claimed that migrants “are taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs. And you haven’t seen it yet.” The New York Times, [6/27/24]|}:

===

fox Business’ Larry Kudlow claims Biden tax policy is “DEI” and "racial warfare against white folks”](https://www.mediamatters.org/larry-kudlow/fox-business-larry-kudlow-claims-biden-tax-policy-dei-and-racial-warfare-against-white)

04/30/24

an 2 24

Larry Kudlow, who served as director of the National Economic Council (NEC) in then-President Donald Trump's administration, recently acknowledged that President Joe Biden is overseeing a strong economy.

In a Fox Business appearance on Thursday, Kudlow pointed to the news that the US economy grew by 3.3% in the 4th quarter of 2023 as evidence of the strength of the economy heading into an election year. That increase is much higher than the projected 2% growth forecasted by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. While that level of growth could be partially attributed to higher than average spending in a holiday season, the fact that expectations were shattered is a byproduct of other positive factors, like higher wages, lower costs and a decrease in the rate of inflation.

"Yes, I'm an honest broker, he got a good 3.3% for the fourth quarter, following a good 4.9% in the third quarter, OK?" Kudlow said. "If I were he, I would be bragging about it too. And inflation has come down. All's fair in love, war and politics. Brag when you can. I get it. I've been there."

While his term began with a rocky start given the mass layoffs and broken global supply chains as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, Biden has presided over a massive turnaround after his first three years in office. As NEC director Lael Brainerd stated in December, the US unemployment rate has remained under 4% for the longest stretch in more than five decades, and wage growth is outpacing inflation, meaning more workers have more money in their pockets.

Costs are also coming down for many Americans. Bloomberg reported on Monday that median rents — typically the biggest monthly expense for millions across the country — have declined for eight consecutive months. A gallon of gas costs roughly 34 cents less today than it did at this time last year. And while food prices have gone up, the rate at which they've increased is far lower. Nerdwallet found that while groceries went up in price by more than 2% between December of 2022 and December of 2023, that pales in comparison to the 10% increase that happened during that same window between 2021 and 2022.

The stock market has also fared well under Biden's leadership, in spite of Trump's October 2020 prediction that markets would crash. In fact, the S&P 500 closed at an all time high of over 4,839 last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 38,000 this week for the first time in history. Biden's economic performance has also been touted by his fellow Democrats in the House of Representatives, who will be sharing a ballot line with him this November. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pennsylvania) pointed out that a side-by-side comparison of the Trump and Biden economies shows Biden's has been more prosperous.

"The 3.3 percent GDP increase in [the fourth quarter] of 2023 caps off a year of exceptional growth for our economy," Boyle stated. "With last year’s numbers, average annual GDP growth for the first three years of the Biden administration comes in at 3.4 percent, far outpacing the 2.6 percent during the first three years of the Trump administration."

READ MORE:'Longest stretch in 50 years': Unemployment historically low despite experts' predictions

Watch the video of Kudlow's comments below, or byclicking this link.

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2 24

larry Kudlow, the Trump White House’s Director of the National Economic Council, on Thursday admitted on Fox News he was wrong about the Biden economy and all the predictions of an economic slowdown and impending recession that turned out to be false.

“Mea culpa,” said Kudlow, who has an extensive financial background including being the chief economist and senior managing director for Bear Sterns, the once powerful but now-defunct investment bank.

“I was wrong about the slowdown and the recession,” Kudlow continued. “So was the entire forecasting fraternity.”

“I don’t think you were wrong,” a Fox News on-air host responded.

“The Fed, everyone was wrong,” Kudlow insisted.

READ MORE: ‘You Bend the Knee to the Orange Jesus’: Democrat Blasts House Republicans in Fiery Takedown

For nearly two years many economists predicted a recession was imminent, and when it never came some continued the warnings.

But the United States never entered a recession under President Biden, and now economic experts have praised the U.S. economy as having performed the best post-COVID.

“The United States economy grew faster than any other large advanced economy last year — by a wide margin — and is on track to do so again in 2024,” Axios reported Wednesday. “America’s outperformance is rooted in its distinctive structural strengths, policy choices, and some luck. It reflects a fundamental resilience in the world’s largest economy that is easy to overlook amid the nation’s problems.”

“All countries were dealing with the same problems of post-pandemic inflation and high interest rates meant to combat it. But the U.S. managed to achieve solid growth in spite of those headwinds,” the report adds.

READ MORE: ‘Slave Trade’: House Republican Makes Wild Allegations Accusing Biden of ‘Traitorous’ Acts

Axios also notes that “White House economic adviser Lael Brainard, speaking to reporters last week, cited ‘strong policy actions that were designed to lead to a strong and broad-based recovery faster than we have seen previously in the U.S. — and faster than we saw in other countries.'”

Watch Kudlow’s remarks below or at this link.

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mma 2 24 LNG export freakout

The fossil fuel industry and right-wing media are losing their minds over Biden's decision to pause part of a dangerous LNG buildout | Media Matters for America

...

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mma 1 24

As many regions of the country experienced dangerously low temperatures, right-wing media used the cold weather to push climate change denial, delegitimize climate protesters at Iowa caucus events, and gripe about supposed bias toward science-based climate reporting.

Millions of Americans were under wind chill advisories and winter weather advisories this January as an arctic blast brought subzero temperatures, snow, and ice across the Northeast, Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and South. At least one power company made an appeal for energy conservation.

Amid the cold weather, figures across right-wing media have yet again been making claims that global warming is a “hoax,” and that the scientists and politicians who discuss it are part of a “cult.” Several influencers and climate scientists debunked the claim that cold weather means global warming is not occurring, and pointed out its absurdity.

Substack author Andrew Wortman called the conflation of cold weather with the absence of climate change “hopelessly stupid.”

“We will always have winter even as our climate continues to warm,” wrote meteorologist Marshall Shepherd in a Forbes article explaining how we can have a polar vortex in a warming world. Former columnist for The Boston Globe and Union of Concerned Scientists fellow in climate and energy Derrick Z. Jackson. also amplified this message:

"Despite the skepticism from those Republicans that cold weather and climate change can co-exist, it’s important to remember that, for many of us, the cold snap is just a moment of discomfort, while climate change is a long-term disaster. … All signs point to an overall trend of warmer winters."

Right-wing media falsely claimed that the spate of cold weather discredits global warming

The drumbeat of climate change denial during cold weather persisted this winter, as right-wing media figures conflate day-to-day weather with long-term changes to the climate.

Right-wing media targeted bundled-up climate protesters disrupting Iowa caucus events

This year’s Iowa caucuses were the coldest on record. Climate protesters interrupted several campaignevents to voice their opposition to the candidates’ climate change denial or refusal to address the climate crisis.

Mainstream media were baselessly accused of downplaying coverage of the Arctic blast to push a “green agenda”

Even though the cold weather was widely covered, right-wing media complained that coverage of extreme heat has been purposefully exaggerated in comparison. Some figures also suggested that reporting on a wide range of extreme weather events in the context of climate change, including winter storms, somehow made media outlets dishonest.

But as some mainstream media outlets are correctly reporting, cold weather doesn’t mean climate change isn’t happening. A warming winter looks different in different parts of the world. Even if there are some unusually cold days, overall, temperatures are trending upward. Other countries, such as Oman and Argentina, have seen record-high temperatures in January.

As The New York Times explained, “Global climate change unfolds a history of extremes: Historically wet areas are likely to experience increased precipitation (sometimes in the form of snow), while historically dry areas may see more drought.”

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Fox Business host Larry Kudlow claims climate change is a hoax | Media Matters for America

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mma1123

Right-wing media lavish praise on Argentina’s newly elected far-right president | Media Matters for America

argentine President-elect Javier Milei is becoming a right-wing media darling in the U.S. due to his austere proposed economic policies and conservative ideology. Right-wing media figures have reacted to Milei’s electoral success by praising him, comparing him to former President Donald Trump, and attacking mainstream media for their critical reporting.}:

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an 12 22

When the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren handed down its unanimous decision in New York Times v. Sullivan back in 1964, it established a tough standard that plaintiffs have to meet in defamation lawsuits. Plaintiffs, according to the Warren Court, have to prove “actual malice.” And that is what Dominion Voting Systems is trying to prove in the defamation lawsuits it filed against Fox News, Newsmax TV, One America News (OAN) and others in response to the false claims they promoted about the 2020 presidential election.

After Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to now-President Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes, many far-right MAGA Republicans at Fox News, Newsmax and OAN promoted the false claim that Dominion’s voting equipment was used to help Democrats steal the election — a conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked. Fox News, in response to Dominion’s defamation lawsuit, has maintained that its hosts weren’t saying the claims about Dominion were true, and that they were just asking questions.

Dominion, meanwhile, is trying to show, in its $1.6 billion lawsuit, that hosts at Fox News acted with actual malice and promoted claims they knew were nonsense. And on Wednesday, December 21, attorneys for Dominion pointed to Fox News host Sean Hannity as an example of someone who knew that the Big Lie was a lie but promoted the claims of Trump attorney Sidney Powell anyway. Powell, who is also facing a defamation lawsuit from Dominion, falsely accused Dominion of helping Democrats steal the election from Trump. Another MAGA Republican who made that false claim and is being sued by Dominion is MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Dominion has sued former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani as well.

READ MORE: **Supreme Court allows Dominion’s $1.3 billion defamation suit against Mike Lindell to go forward**

Reporting for the New York Times on December 21, journalist Jeremy Peters explains, “On November 30, 2020, Sean Hannity hosted Sidney Powell on his prime-time Fox News program. As she had in many other interviews around that time — on Fox and elsewhere in right-wing media — Ms. Powell, a former federal prosecutor, spun wild conspiracy theories about what she said was ‘corruption all across the country, in countless districts,’ in a plot to steal reelection from the president, Donald J. Trump. At the center of this imagined plot were machines from Dominion Voting Systems, which Ms. Powell claimed ran an algorithm that switched votes for Mr. Trump to votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. Dominion machines, she insisted, were being used ‘to trash large batches of votes.’”

But when Hannity gave a deposition two years later on Wednesday, December 21, 2022 and was under oath, he admitted, “I did not believe it for one second.”

According to Peters, “The hearing was called to address several issues that need to be resolved before the case heads for a jury trial, which the judge has scheduled to begin in April. Mr. Hannity’s disclosure — along with others that emerged from court on Wednesday about what Fox News executives and hosts really believed as their network became one of the loudest megaphones for lies about the 2020 election — is among the strongest evidence yet to emerge publicly that some Fox employees knew that what they were broadcasting was false.”

Under the New York Times v. Sullivan standard established by the Warren Court 58 years ago, defamation is very difficult to prove. An honest mistake doesn’t fit the definition of defamation — the plaintiff has to show actual malice. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin filed a defamation lawsuit against the Times and lost because Palin and her attorneys couldn’t prove actual malice.

READ MORE:**Fox News chief Lachlan Murdoch to be deposed in $1.6 billion dominion defamation case**

“The high legal standard of proof in defamation cases makes it difficult for a company like Dominion to prevail against a media organization like Fox News,” Peters notes. “Dominion has to persuade a jury that people at Fox were, in effect, saying one thing in private while telling their audience exactly the opposite.And that requires showing a jury convincing evidence that speaks to the state of mind of those who were making the decisions at the network. In Delaware Superior Court on Wednesday, Dominion’s lawyers argued that they had obtained ample evidence to make that case.”

Peters adds, “One lawyer for Dominion said that ‘not a single Fox witness’ so far had produced anything supporting the various false claims about the company that were uttered repeatedly on the network. And in some cases, other high-profile hosts and senior executives echoed Mr. Hannity’s doubts about what Mr. Trump and his allies like Ms. Powell were saying, according to theDominion lawyer, Stephen Shackelford. This included Meade Cooper, who oversees prime-time programming for Fox News, and the prime-time star Tucker Carlson, Mr. Shackelford said.”

Citing Cooper and Carlson as examples, Shackleford told the court, “Many of the highest-ranking Fox people have admitted under oath that they never believed the Dominion lies.”

READ MORE:**Right-wing media outlets continue to rage against Dominion’s defamation lawsuits: report**

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mma 12 22 ted mcd

2022 was a banner year for the fossil fuel industry. Fueled by the rise in energy costs due in part to the war in Ukraine, major oil and gas companies brought in massive profits. By the end of 2022, the net income of the seven largest oil corporations is projected to hit a record high of $4 trillion.

Yet Fox News used major events in 2022 to claim that the industry is suffering under a vicious “war” on energy waged by the Biden administration.

Fox defended the industry’s profits and ran cover for its role in limiting oil production, on many occasions advancing the idea that the world needs to invest more heavily in oil and gas. This latter point flies in the face of what the global climate scientific community is saying about climate change: Emissions from fossil fuels are rapidly altering the Earth’s temperature, and the only way to stop this from worsening is to rapidly reduce our dependence on these fossil fuels. And it advances the wrong takeaway from the energy crisis resulting from Russia’s aggression. Rather, moving toward clean energy is the only way to shield the U.S. from the vagaries of the global oil and gas market.

Throughout the year, Fox used the same debunked narratives to both defend and promote the fossil fuel industry

One of Fox’s main narratives in 2022 has been that the Biden administration is crippling or trying to destroy the fossil fuel industry through burdensome climate regulations. This talking point does not reflect reality. Just last year, the U.S. set a record for natural gas production. Meanwhile, U.S. crude oil production has steadily risen under Biden, and there is expected record oil production in 2023. And instead of the administration telling companies not to drill, oil producers are holding back from even more drilling primarily due to Wall Street pressure.

As part of this contrived “war on fossil fuels” narrative, Fox has been pushing the Biden administration to allow companies to drill more in the U.S. to help alleviate high domestic energy prices. But since oil prices are set on the global market, the Biden administration’s energy policies make little impact on what we pay at the pump.

With each major climate and energy-related event this year, these narratives got recycled as Fox doubled down on its longstanding defense of the fossil fuel industry.

A timeline of major 2022 events which saw Fox defend the powerful fossil fuel industry

The Russian invasion of Ukraine

Fox News was quick to blame the Biden administration’s climate policies for emboldening Putin in his decision to invade Ukraine. As the invasion roiled global energy markets, the network launched a full-throttled defense of the fossil fuel industry and attacked the administration for its supposed crippling regulations on the industry.

In March, the administration banned Russian energy imports to the U.S., and Biden critiqued the industry for not drilling enough after finding out that companies are sitting on thousands of untapped oil leases. In response, Fox defended the industry and gave a platform to its biggest boosters:

Gas price spikes and efforts to reduce the pain at the pump dominated energy news during the spring and summer

Month after month, Fox hammered Biden’s policies as supposedly the primary reason gas prices were increasing. A number of events during this time period saw Fox trot out such claims as that the fossil fuel industry is being unfairly maligned and that increased production would help alleviate high energy prices.

In April, the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee held a hearing on Big Oil’s record profits and its role in driving high gas prices. In response, Fox carried the industry’s water:

In May, Biden suggested that high gas prices, which had reached a record high, are part of “an incredible transition that … when it's over, we'll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels.” In response, Fox came out firmly on the side of fossil fuels:

In July, in an effort to stabilize global oil supplies, the administration conducted an entirely noncontroversial sale of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a move that actually helped temporarily alleviate gas prices. Additionally, Biden visited top oil producer Saudi Arabia in order to strengthen diplomatic ties. Fox responded with attacks:

Finally, in July, Biden made a major climate announcement in Massachusetts.

Extreme weather and OPEC+ oil cuts pushed gas prices back into the headlines in early fall

Punishing extreme heat, fires, and drought affected vast swaths of the globe during the summer, with climate scientists saying that these events were made worse by the burning of fossil fuels, and a major hurricane hit the U.S. in September. Additionally, a major OPEC oil decision roiled gas prices again. Fox once again defended and promoted the fossil fuel industry.

In September, as Hurricane Ian hit Florida, Biden warned oil companies not to use the storm “as an excuse to raise gasoline prices or gouge the American people.”

In October, OPEC+ cut oil production.

The COP27 climate negotiations and oil sales to Venezuela in November provided fodder for Fox to boost the fossil fuel industry

The United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP 27, yielded an agreement for a global fund in which richer nations, which are vastly responsible for climate change, would contribute money to poorer nations to help the latter rebuild from climate-fueled extreme weather disasters. Fox heavily criticized the plan, instead claiming that more fossil fuel usage is the way to move forward. Additionally, the Biden administration allowed Chevron to resume drilling operations in Venezuela.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/trump-linked-think-tank-scrambling/

tom b raw an 11 22

According to an examination of its most recent tax filings, a think tank stocked with former Donald Trump White House advisors and supporters is falling way short of reaching its financial goals and bills are starting to pile up, reports the Daily Beast.

As Roger Sollenberger of the Beast is reporting, the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) was created to establish policies for a 2024 Trump presidency as well as plan to quickly staff a new Trump administration that can hit the ground running.

However, with the former president now struggling to maintain support in light of a disastrous midterm election that was blamed in part on him, AFPI is facing a cash crunch.

"Formed last year by a cadre of Trump administration officials and known informally as a 'White House in waiting,' initially announced a first-year operating budget of $20 million. But according to its 2021 tax statement, the group raised less than three-quarters of that amount, reporting about $14.9 million in total contributions," Sollenberger wrote before adding, "That may sound like a decent haul, but more than $10 million of that amount came from 10 anonymous donors, with the largest single source giving $3 million. (AFPI is not required to make the names of its contributors public.) Trump donors accounted for $1 million, in the form of a transfer last June from his Save America leadership PAC."

"The filing also reveals about $10.8 million in expenses. Around $4.4 million went to costs associated with sustaining its sprawling staff—[Brooke] Rollins raked in about $417,000 in salary, more than double the second-highest paid official. The second-largest single line item was $2 million to a vague “other program expenses.” AFPI also dropped a little more than $600,000 on lobbying, and the group shelled out more than $2 million combined for fundraising and events," the report continued.

The report notes that the staff of AFPI is loaded with Trump hangers-on including former White House adviserKellyanne Conway, "former acting head of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf,former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, former Small Business Administration chief Linda McMahon, former director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow and former Trump spiritual adviser Paula White-Cain."

Sollenberger adds "the news of AFPI’s shortfall comes as Trump himself struggled to gin up small-dollar donor support in the months ahead of his 2024 announcement. And if the former president can’t consolidate power within MAGA world, this White House in waiting may have to wait a little longer."

You can read more here.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/mike-pence-freedom-from-religion/

an 10 22

Former Vice President Mike Pence claimed during a Wednesday appearance on Fox Business that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution does not protect Americans from having other people's faiths forced upon them.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," it states.

In fact, there are no references to a supreme being anywhere in the Constitution, because the Founding Fathers were adamantly opposed to centralized religious power as well as requiring individuals to subscribe to any particular denomination.

READ MORE: 'God's gonna cut you down': How Republicans conspire with churches for power

The concept of separation of church and state was sacrosanct to men like President Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in his 1776 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom that "setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time" and that "to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."

Jefferson's condemnation of forced faith in the document was unambiguous, further affirming that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."

President James Madison, in whose hand the Constitution was penned, concurred with Jefferson.

"The settled opinion here is that religion is essentially distinct from Civil Government, and exempt from its cognizance; that a connexion between them is injurious to both; that there are causes in the human breast, which ensure the perpetuity of religion without the aid of the law," Madison explained in an 1819 letter, noting that "a legal establishment of religion without a toleration could not be thought of, and with toleration, is no security for public quiet and harmony, but rather a source itself of discord and animosity."

READ MORE: White men refusing to share power is a silver stake piercing the heart of American democracy

Benjamin Franklin took it one step further, arguing in 1780 that any religion that seeks to impose itself is simply "bad."

Yet Pence and host Larry Kudlow share an interpretation that strays wildly from what Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison clearly spelled out more than two centuries ago.

"These lefties want to scrap religion, Mike Pence, and I think it's a terrible mistake," Kudlow griped.

"Well, the radical left believes that the freedom of religion is the freedom from religion. But it's nothing the American founders ever thought of or generations of Americans fought to defend," Pence said.

As mentioned, that statement is completely false. Jefferson even concluded in his treatise that "such act will be an infringement of natural right."

But Pence was not finished. He also suggested that the Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority has a duty to side with one faith over another. Today, that means the GOP's embrace of Christian nationalism.

"You know, I said today here in Houston that the source of our nation's greatness has always been our faith in God, our freedom, andour vast natural resources.And the good news is, that after four years of the Trump-Pence administration, I'm confident that we have a pro-religious freedom majority on the Supreme Court of the United States. And I'm confident that come Election Day, November the 8th, you're gonna see that freedom majority around the country turn out and vote pro-freedom majorities in the House, and in the Senate, and in statehouses around the country," Pence said. "So stay tuned, Larry. Help is on the way."

Watch below or at this link.

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ref  no twt

http://churchandstate.org.uk/2019/03/opus-deis-influence-on-the-u-s-judiciary/

"leonard Leo can take credit for installing four Supreme Court justices” – John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. “As executive vice president of the Federalist Society, Leo has been the quiet architect of a pivotal shift to the right throughout the federal judiciary” including “dozens of lower court federal judges across the country.”

It was Leo who prepared Trump’s “list of judges and the people that he’s put on the bench.”

Leo is on the board of directors of Opus Dei’s Catholic Information Center located at 15th and K Street, two blocks from the White House. The Center is “a rallying point for ultra-conservative Catholics eager for a voice in the secular halls of government power” and “advances a hard-right political agenda,” according to Church and State, Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s magazine.

Other members of the Catholic Information Center’s Board of Directors include:

Opus Dei

Opus Dei is a secret society and an official arm of the Catholic Church. Its roots are in fascist Spain.

In 1982, Pope John Paul II designated the group as a “personal prelature,” that is, they are under the sole jurisdiction of the pope and no other prelate. Its website states, “Opus Dei’s mission is to spread the Christian message that every person is called to holiness and that every honest work can be sanctified.” As of 2017 there are 92,892 lay members and 2,212 priests worldwide.

Non-Catholics are welcomed as “cooperators” who “assist the educational and social undertakings promoted by the Prelature.” Priests not ordained into Opus Dei can be a member of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, “intrinsically united to the Prelature.”

Only the identities of Opus Dei priests are public. Members of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross and all lay members’ and cooperators’ names are secret unless self-disclosed, such as being openly affiliated with the Catholic Information Center.

At the top:

“Opus Dei is an efficient machine run to achieve worldly power,” wrote investigative reporter Penny Lernoux in her book, People of God.

“Opus Dei pursues the Vatican’s agenda through the presence of its members in secular governments and institutions and through a vast array of academic, medical, and grassroots pursuits. Its constant effort [is] to increase its presence in civil institutions of power. [T]heir work in the public sphere breaches the church-state division that is fundamental to modern democracy,” noted Gordon Urquhart, author of The Pope’s Armada: Unlocking the Secrets of Mysterious and Powerful New Sects in the Church(1995).

“Opus Dei uses the Catholic Church for its own ends which are money and power …. Its members form a transnational elite. They seek to colonize the summits of power. They work with stealth – ‘holy discretion’ – and practice ‘divine deception,’” declared Robert Hutchison in the introduction to his book, Their Kingdom Come: Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei.

“Opus Dei is mostly middle- and upper-class businessmen, professionals, military personnel and government officials. Its members control a large number of banks and financial institutions,” according to Martin A. Lee, author and activist who has written books and articles on far-right movements.

For example, Opus Dei also operates the Leonine Forum, “Cultivating Catholic Professionals for Lives of Virtuous Leadership.”

Among the 2017-2018 New York City Fellows are those employed in Wall Street brokerages, law firms, leading publications, universities, medicine, industry and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of N.Y.

The 2017-2018 Washington D.C. Fellows include those employed in the federal government: White House, State Department, the House of Representatives, U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Federal Communications Commission, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, prestigious law firms, conservative think tanks, higher education and medicine.

As an example of “military personnel,” veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh “claimed that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Vice Admiral William McRaven and others in the JSOC were members of the Knights of Malta and Opus Dei.” JSOC is “the elite Special Ops force” who killed Osama bin Laden. “We’re gonna change mosques into cathedrals … This is not an atypical attitude among some military — it’s a crusade, literally,” Hersh reported. “He added that members of these societies have developed a secret set of insignias that represent ‘the whole notion that this is a culture war’ between religions.”

In government, Larry Kudlow is Trump’s director of the National Economic Council. Plutocracy is “just what America needs,” Kudlow wrote in December 2016. “Putting the incredibly wealthy in charge of the U.S. government” is described as Kudlow’s great idea.

Kudlow is one of Fr. John McCloskey’s notable converts to Catholicism. McCloskey was director of Catholic Information Center from 1998-2002.

Another McCloskey convert is former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, now Trump’s Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.

Mick Mulvaney will serve as Trump’s acting White House Chief of Staff, beginning in 2019. He remains as director of Trump’s White House Office of Management and Budget and interim head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Mulvaney “has reportedly met with a long list of lobbyists, corporate executives and wealthy people with business interests before the government.” His meeting with Opus Dei’s Jeff Bell, architect of Reaganomics, covered “religious and political matters.”

Trump appointed C-Fam (formerly known as the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute), the “intensely anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ group” headed by Opus Dei’s Austin Ruse, to the U.S. delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

As to members who “control a large number of banks and financial institutions,” Pope Francis has appointed many of them to the Vatican.

Secrecy prevents certainty

Due to Opus Dei’s secrecy, we can only guess about non-disclosed membership. Some have done so anyway.

“It’s widely known that Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas belong to Opus Dei – and that Chief Justice John Roberts may also be a member,”stated Matthew Fox, a former priest, progressive theologian and author of more than 23 books.

Others have also identified Scalia as a member, perhaps because his wife attended Catholic Information Center events and his son has spoken there.

Scalia’s influence, however, is not in doubt. The Federal Society “really grew up as a organization that promoted Antonin Scalia’s conservative judicial philosophy.” On Nov. 10, Trump awarded Scalia the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the U.S., for his “especially meritorious contribution” to this country.

Alito has been also been described as to close to Opus Dei by Church and State Magazine.

Some are linked by association. “Leo has been a longtime friend and champion of Justice :{Clarence Th}:omas.”

When John Roberts was nominated for the Court, Opus Dei’s Austin Ruse said his fellow conservative Catholics could “breathe easy” and Leonard Leo “also assured conservative Catholics that Roberts will not follow the same path as Anthony Kennedy.”

“Leo, perhaps the most integral private individual in the selection of Kavanaugh” was present at the White House ceremony when Trump announced Kavanaugh’s nomination. Kavanaugh’s legal thinking is “shaped by Scalia.”

Gorsuch, was raised Catholic, went to the same elite Catholic prep school as Kavanaugh, but is now Episcopalian. He did his doctoral study on “natural law,” a theory asserting that certain rights are inherent by virtue of human nature that can be understood universally through human reason, first taught by the Catholic monk, St. Thomas Aquinas. On Oct. 19, Gorsuch spoke “at a conference of Catholic legal scholars seeking to expand Christian influence on public policy” which was closed to the public.

During his time at the U.S. Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit, Gorsuch took a “strong stance” for “religious freedom” in the Little Sisters of the Poor case. He also concurred in the Hobby Lobby case in favor of the Green family.

Pope Francis met with the Little Sisters of the Poor while in the U.S. in support of their lawsuit. The year before, the pope granted a private audience to Hobby Lobby’s Green family, asking them “how their Supreme Court fight against President Obama’s contraception mandate was progressing.” They won.

The nuns’ lawsuit was against the Obamacare provision that those seeking the same religious exemption to providing contraceptive health care coverage to their employees as “houses of worship” must fill out a two-page form explaining why. The nuns’ argued that filling out the forms “makes them complicit in providing women with contraception.”

This became a cause célèbre for conservative Catholics and may well have tipped the Electoral College total in favor of Trump.

In September 2016, Trump promised that “If I am elected president, [t]he Little Sisters of the Poor, or any religious order for that matter, will always have their ‘religious liberty’ protected on my watch and will not have to face bullying from the government because of their religious beliefs.”

In October, Trump sent a letter to the Catholic Leadership Conference: “I will make absolutely certain religious orders like the Little Sisters of Poor are not bullied by the federal government because of their religious beliefs.”

In the final days of the campaign, Trump gave an interview on the Catholic EWTN, “the largest religious media networkin the world.” Trump again sympathized with the Little Sisters of the Poor. “Religious liberty” was in “tremendous trouble” and “the biggest issue right now is the Supreme Court judges,” he said.

Trump won all the rural and Southern Evangelical-majority states, as expected. But, “his victory in the Electoral College came down to a razor-thin edge of only 77,744 votes across three states: Pennsylvania (44,292 votes), Wisconsin (22,748 votes), and Michigan (10,704 votes). These votes represent a Trump margin of 0.7 percentage points in Pennsylvania, 0.7 percentage points in Wisconsin, and 0.2 percentage points in Michigan.”

There are more Catholics than Evangelicals in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. While there are more Evangelicals in Michigan than Catholics (25% v 18%), the Evangelical vote alone wasn’t sufficient to give Trump a win.

Trump won60% of white Catholics while receiving only 46% of the national popular vote. As public opinion seesawed during 2016 campaign, every poll that included the respondent’s religion showed Catholics choosing Trump at percentages higher than the general electorate. (See also here, here and here.)

“Both white and Latino Catholics cast more ballots for Trump than for Romney in 2012.” Evangelicals “went overwhelmingly for Trump, but that was also true in 2012 when they weren’t even sure Romney was Christian. They aren’t the swing voters. Catholics, on the other hand, were plus-2 for Obama in 2012 and plus-7 for Trump.”

Now the Justice Department, too

Last week, Trump nominated William Barr as Attorney General. Described as a “committed Catholic,” Barr was “highly recommended” for the position by Leonard Leo. As a former U.S. attorney general, Barr “will enter the Justice Department with an awful lot of credibility and respect for the role he previously played,” Leo said.

Trump’s choice of Barr has been widely criticized.

Barr has publicly defended Trump on several of his pet issues. He endorsed the firing of James Comey, called for investigation of the Clinton Foundation, impugned the neutrality of Robert Mueller’s investigators, and defended Trump’s practice of demanding investigations of his enemies. Barr has a record as one of the members of the Republican legal Establishment most indulgent of Trump’s conspiratorial mafia ethos.

But a new report in the Wall Street Journal suggests more complete answer. Earlier this year, Barr wrote a lengthy memo excoriating Mueller’s investigation of Trump for obstruction of justice. Mueller’s investigation was “grossly irresponsible,” had “potentially disastrous implications,” and other choice descriptions spread over 20 pages culled from public reports. This memo was completely unsolicited.

It was reported on Oct. 18 that for the first time ever, the U.S. Department of Justiceopened an investigation into clerical sex abuse of minors. Seven of the eight Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania received subpoenas and the U.S. attorney in Buffalo, NY, also served the diocese there. Until now, only state officials have conducted such probes. Washington D.C. and 19 states have also begun new investigations.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia “issued subpoenas that seek years of internal records, including any evidence of Church personnel taking children across state lines for purposes of sexual abuse, any evidence of personnel sending sexual material about children electronically and any evidence that Church officials reassigned suspected predators or used Church resources to further or conceal such conduct. Any of these could be the underlying crimes for RICO,” the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act originally designed to target the Mafia.

As journalist Patricia Miller noted, any federal investigation “could be impeded by higher-ups in the Justice Department.”

So with five Supreme Court justices, the Attorney General, and who knows how many other officials installed by Leonard Leo, we have much to worry about.

Reprinted with permission from the author.

Betty Clermont is author of The Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America (Clarity Press, 2009).

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/magazine/trump-government-heritage-foundation-think-tank.html

nyt

heritage, demint dunlop:

Today it is clear that for all the chaos and churn of the current administration, Heritage has achieved a huge strategic victory. Those who worked on the project estimate that hundreds of the people the think tank put forward landed jobs, in just about every government agency. Heritage’s recommendations included some of the most prominent members of Trump’s cabinet: Scott Pruitt, Betsy DeVos (whose in-laws endowed Heritage’s Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society), Mick Mulvaney, Rick Perry, Jeff Sessionsand many more. Dozens of Heritage employees and alumni also joined the Trump administration — at last count 66 of them, according to Heritage, with two more still awaiting Senate confirmation. It is a kind of critical mass that Heritage had been working toward for nearly a half-century.

“Feulner’s first law is people are policy,”Ed Feulner, Heritage’s founder and former president, told me recently. Feulner was the head of domestic policy for the Trump transition, charting the direction of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture and several other agencies. We met late on a Friday afternoon, in a sitting room at the Metropolitan Club in Washington, a private social club founded by a group of Treasury Department officials during the Civil War. At his feet as we spoke sat a small box of table cards for a dinner he was hosting at the club that evening for the newly appointed director of Trump’s National Economic Council, the television personalityLarry Kudlow— another name on Heritage’s Project to Restore America list.Now 76, ruddy, white-haired and content, almost jovial, Feulner founded Heritage decades ago as an ambitious young legislative aide with a radical dream built on a simple concept. As he put it, sinking deeper into his club chair: “First, you have to have the right people.”

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-use-bidens-green-economy-comments-launch-full-scale-defense-fossil-fuels

at a joint press conference with the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo on May 23, President Joe Biden was asked by a reporter if Americans should expect a recession as gas prices currently remain high. After initially responding that he did not think so — as the U.S. is growing economically and unemployment is at a pandemic low — Biden then noted that when it comes to gas prices, “we're going through an incredible transition that … when it's over, we'll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels.”

The mere suggestion that gas prices are helping drive the transition away from fossil fuels was enough to send right-wing media into a frenzy,illustrating both the utter contempt they hold for a future that is not dominated by polluting industries and their penchant for falsely claiming Biden is responsible for high gas prices.

Right-wing media predictably twisted Biden’s comments to advance their attacks on the Biden administration’s climate agenda

The right-wing media backlash to Biden’s comments was swift. Predictably, conservative outlets and commentators zeroed in on the “incredible transition” phrase and disregarded his other comments, where he noted his concern for high gas prices and laid out some of the things the administration is attempting to do to alleviate them, including a release from the strategic oil reserve.

One common line of attack suggests that Biden is somehow celebrating high gas prices. Articles published by the Murdoch-owned outlets New York Post and Foxnews.com, as well as The Washington Times, Breitbart, and The Federalist, ran with this framing that Biden is celebrating high gas prices. Fox Business correspondent Charles Gasparino also suggested this on Twitter. Meanwhile, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner also led viewers to this conclusion on the May 24 edition of The Faulkner Focus, stating that "President Biden is getting called out for appearing to cheer on the high gas prices. While he says it's an incredible transition that would likely be going green faster.”

The framing that the Biden administration is somehow celebrating high gas prices is not new. For example, on the May 20 edition of Fox News’ America Reports, Fox anchor John Roberts said that there is “a growing sense out there among some people … the White House and people on the left are looking at these gas prices going, ‘This is great because it’s going to push people into the green energy sector. It’s going to get people buying electric cars.’”

Earlier, on the April 1 edition of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, host Tucker Carlson had pushed aconspiracy theorythat the Russian invasion of Ukraine is an excuse for theBiden administration to raise energy prices “to get a Green New Deal.”

In line with the “celebration” framing, right-wing media also twisted Biden’s comments to suggest that high gas prices are “intentional.” For example, the Daily Caller tweeted, “So the high prices are intentional, Joe?” while Glenn Beck’s website wrote, “Did Biden just let slip that record-high gas prices were PLANNED?” Paid polluting-industry shills and longtime Fox News guests Daniel Turner and Steve Milloy also insinuated the same on Twitter.

Right-wing morning news shows on May 24 also followed this line of attack — on Fox & Friends First, Fox News contributor Brian Brenberg stated in regard to gas prices that “higher prices are part of the plan. They have always been part of the plan for him. He wants you to pay for his green dream transition.” On Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria, host Maria Bartiromo stated that Biden “just admitted it … this is all intentional. It’s a plan.” Will Cain, co-host of Fox & Friends, stated that Biden’s transition comments were an “absolutely outlandish statement that we are going to be talking about more this morning. Because it also plants the idea, confirms the idea in many people's minds, that this isn't an accident.”

Right-wing media’s “intentional” framing is absurd given that the president has very little control over gas prices, which are high right now for a number of reasons, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rapidly surging demand for oil. It also contradicts Biden’s own position on the issue, as he recently promised to “work like the devil to bring gas prices down.” In fact, right-wing media have been making this claim even before Biden’s Tokyo comments. For example, on the May 20 edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy implied that Democrats “want to inflict some pain upon people” to get them to stop using fossil fuels. On the May 19 edition of Fox Business’ Kennedy, Fox Business host Lisa Kennedy Montgomery aired clips of Republican senators accusing Biden of deliberately raising gas prices to force a transition to clean energy.

As usual, right-wing media took Biden’s transition comments and used them to attack any and all efforts to transition to clean energy. Fox News anchor David Asman tweeted that “Nothing is more dangerous” than Biden’s goal to transition away from fossil fuels. Longtime climate denier and Fox News regular Marc Morano tweeted, “The climate policies of the Biden administration are not only disastrous to the economy and are imposing maximum pain on the American people, but they areanti-human and anti-freedom." On Fox News’ Outnumbered, Republican businessman John James stated, “This is the modern day equivalent to let them eat cake … the agenda that Biden is pushing forward that's crushing American jobs and crushing our wallets.”

Right-wing media are carrying water for the fossil fuel industry

In the wake of these comments, some right-wing media commentators defended the oil and gas industry and called for increased fossil fuel use in the future.

On Fox & Friends First, Texas Republican congressional candidate Wesley Hunt stated about Biden’s comments: “He's got his words wrong. It's not about energy transition; it's about energy addition. … The bottom line is this — it's an all-hands-on-deck approach to fulfill the energy needs of this country. … This administration is trying to kill our industry but we are not going to allow that to happen.” On Fox & Friends, Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney blamed Biden for high gas prices and admonished him for ending America’s so-called energy independence.

 On Fox Business’ Varney & Co., Fox Business anchor Larry Kudlow called the idea of transitioning away from fossil fuels “woke” and then made the baffling claim that “there's all kinds of new technology that makes fossils very low carbon — we have the lowest emissions in the world.” Immediately following this segment, investment portfolio manager and frequent Fox guest David Bahnsen stated “You could have an incredible transition, you could admit you need natural gas, you could … admit that wind, solar is not going to get it done. He said it's not going to happen overnight — he’s right about that. It is also not going to happen in the next 30 years.”

Any and all climate and clean energy issues are attacked with fervor across right-wing media, which have historically been staunch defenders of the fossil fuel industry and willing collaborators in promoting climate change denial. This defense of the fossil fuel industry has only worsened throughout the Ukraine crisis. Even though oil companies are making record profits, and refusing to drill for more oil because high oil prices allow them to return more money to shareholders, and oil and gas production is close to hitting all-time highs under Biden, right-wing media perceive any criticism of the industry or any comments on attempting to transition away from the industry (as Biden suggested in 2020) as an affront to all that is good and holy.

Transitioning to a clean energy economy is the only way for consumers, in the long run, to feel less pain at the pump

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is largely financed by fossil fuels, as Russia is a major exporter of natural gas as well as a global supplier of oil and coal. Luckily, there are many prominent voices pointing this out and saying that Russia’s invasion should hasten the transition to clean energy. The European Union is speeding up its plans to adopt renewable energy. The International Energy Agency is also calling for a transition away from a fossil fuel economy. And climate scientists are urgently spelling out the need to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels in order to stave off the worst effects of climate change.

Consumers will be more insulated from gas price volatility the less beholden they are to the global oil market. Rather than heeding right-wing media’s calls for increased drilling, and giving in to their fears that a clean energy economy will be devastating for the U.S. (quite the contrary), now is the time to begin the transition.

Related

Fox News dominated coverage of congressional hearing on Big Oil and gas prices

04/08/22

Fox News heaps praise on the fossil fuel industry as the Russian war in Ukraine rages on

03/17/22

Fox is using the Ukrainian crisis to suggest the Biden administration’s climate policies emboldened Putin

02/24/22

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the fossil fuel industry has been using the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine as a pretext to call for continued, and deepened, reliance on its dirty and dangerous products. Fox News’ coverage throughout the crisis has largely echoed the industry’s talking points, specifically the idea that America needs to drill and produce more oil. Critiques from President Joe Biden and his administration related to the industry's untapped leases and record profits have also prompted Fox and guests to leap to Big Oil’s defense in recent weeks. 

In the face of another onslaught of fossil fuel talking points from Fox News, other cable news networks have not held the industry accountable by reporting on its role in driving the climate crisis, polluting the environment, and exacerbating geopolitical conflicts. In pivotal moments like this, viewers deserve to learn how our reliance on fossil fuels is leaving us more vulnerable to crises ranging from climate change to foreign wars.

Fox News has absolved Big Oil of any responsibility for energy price increases, while accusing the Biden administration of scapegoating

The fossil fuel industry has waged a billion-dollar campaign to erode the public consensus on climate change, fool the public about its commitment to addressing the climate crisis, and thwart any climate action that could impact its bottom line. The industry’s spin campaign has continued as the crisis in Ukraine escalated, causing economic disruption around the world. Faced with public majorities that are outraged at Russian aggression against Ukraine and “favor developing alternative energy, including wind and solar, over increasing production of fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas,” the industry has instead chosen to obfuscate its refusal to produce more oil and gas, pad its record 2021 profits via anti-consumerist practices, and move to deepen the world’s reliance on its products.

And one of its biggest media cheerleaders has been Fox News.

As tensions between Russia and Ukraine ratcheted up, Fox has been nearly unrelenting in pushing a narrative that the Biden administration’s climate policies emboldened Russian President Vladmir Putin to invade. This push includesFox figures mentioning the canceled Keystone pipeline approximately 141 times in segments about the Ukraine crisis from February 22-28 and mentioning “energy independence” or “energy security” – industry talking points to promote more domestic drilling for oil and gas – at least 329 times from February 24 through March 9.

After Biden’s March 8 announcement that the United States was banning Russian fossil fuel imports, Fox News hosts and guests blamed him for instituting the same policy that they had previously demanded – all while praising oil and gas companies as “the greatest industry around the world,” deflecting criticism of them as “unpatriotic,” and arguing they are “basically our national defense.”

On the March 8 episode of :{**America’s Newsroom**:(style="box-sizing:border-box;background-color:#ff6600;"):}:, for example, anchor Sandra Smithparroted the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) debunked talking point about the Biden administration discouraging fossil fuel investment.Fox host and former Trump adviser Larry Kudlowattacked the Biden administration for criticizing the industry’s price gouging and record profits on the March 8 episode of :{**America Reports**}:. 

Later that evening on Hannity, host Sean Hannity amplified API talking points that the Biden administration is making it hard to produce more oil; allowed fossil fuel shillDaniel Turner to claim that the Biden administration “wants to send a message to the environmental left” by attacking the industry; and gave energy analyst Phil Flynn a platform to claim that “there’s absolutely no gouging” in gas prices and that the Federal Reserve has been “weaponized” against oil and gas companies. [vid 8th]

the drumbeat of Big Oil talking points continued in the ensuing days.

On the March 9 episode of :{**The Faulkner Focus**:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, anchor Harris Faulkner hosted API President Mike Sommersto blame Biden for high energy prices: “Some of the policies that are being pursued right now by this administration are putting us on a road to more dependence – not independence.”

Similarly, Fox host Jesse Watters hosted oil company CEO Dan Eberhart on the March 10 episode ofJesse Watters Primetimeto push for more domestic drilling and complained that the Biden administration has been treating the industry as “war profiteers.”

The narrative was still being pushed into this new week. On the March 15 episode of :{The Story with Martha MacCallum:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, Fox News anchor Sandra Smith suggested that the Biden administration should decrease energy prices for “the American family, the American consumer who is suffering right now” in part by taking a “friendlier approach to the oil and gas industry." Smith repeated this and other arguments to “increase and incentivize drilling” on the March 15 episode of :{**The Five**}:, citing API’s claim that the Biden administration should demonstrate it's not out to “demonize oil companies.” 

Fox personality Charles Payne echoed the idea that the Biden administration was “demonizing” oil companies during the March 16 episode of America Reports. [vid]

there is a desperate need for cable news to ramp up its accountability journalism

Despite not promoting these false narratives during the Ukraine crisis as much as Fox News, CNN and MSNBC have largely failed to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for exploiting geopolitical conflicts for profit while driving the climate crisis and degrading the environment for billions of people. The networks have also featured very little coverage about the myriad benefits of clean energy, which include economic stability and energy security (clean energy generation is more price stable and politically stable than fossil fuels).

There is a very clear story that needs to be told about the fossil fuel industry, especially in this moment of rising gas prices and wartime sanctions. As explained by the nonprofit environmental law organizationEarthjustice: “Gas prices are not dictated by White House policy, and the industry’s argument that federal leasing and permitting policies are the source of high gas prices is a flat-out lie crafted to deceive the American public.”

Chasing more fossil fuel leases on public lands and waters would increase industry profits but wouldn’t do anything to decrease today’s gas prices at the pump. It also would keep sending us down the same road of fossil fuel production that is the main driver of the worsening climate crisis. The industry gets the profits, and the American people get handed the resulting wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, and coastal flooding caused and exacerbated by climate change. There’s a better road to go down, and it’s the road of clean energy. For as long as we’re addicted to oil for energy, Americans will be subject to big cost increases when a foreign dictator decides to invade another country or there is a change in the world economy.

As a key cog in the fossil fuel industry’sdisinformation network, Fox News will never cover this reality. But CNN and MSNBC can no longer afford to miss opportunities to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable in favor of echoing and **amplifying**Big Oil talking pointswhile the window for meaningful climate action is rapidly closing.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-heaps-praise-fossil-fuel-industry-russian-war-ukraine-rages

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/2021-fox-news-still-spreading-dangerous-climate-denial

no vids

on a near-daily basis, Fox News hosts, anchors, and guests spew misinformation and false narratives aimed at tanking efforts to address the climate crisis. These tactics to delay climate action or downplay the seriousness of our warming planet have often been referred to as the new climate denial -- since the actual denial of the scientific consensus that climate change is happening has mostly been pushed to the fringes of both politics and the traditional media landscape.

Fox deploys the new denial so often, it’s easy to forget that the network is one of the few highly influential media outlets that still promote one of the most dangerous lies of our time: Human activity is not overheating our climate.

This lie has existed for over five decades and for five decades has been repeatedly debunked. Its origins and merchants have been exposed; those who have continued to perpetuate it have been discredited; and our own experience during each unprecedented storm, historical heat wave, and apocalyptic wildfire has proven again and again what science has told us to expect from a warming world.

But in 2021, you can turn on Fox News and watch prime-time host Tucker Carlson quip that “not even climate experts understand the climate” or watchFox contributor Dagen MacDowell suggest that climate change is a hoax because it is cold in April.

And in 2021, there is still no federal response to the climate crisis on the books, despite decades of warnings from scientists and with mounting support for climate action even among the largest companies and businesses in the U.S.

Fox is still fueling the lie that our planet is not warming

From insisting the science on climate change is not settled to deliberately misconstruing weather with climate, Fox News is still pushing the idea that human-made climate change is not real, despite overwhelming evidence and consensus in the scientific community.

In a segment on the April 28 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, host Tucker Carlson and Fox News contributor Sean Duffy discussed how the “critical environmental movement has infiltrated” schools and colleges, is scaring children about the climate crisis, and is convincing them to not have children. At the end of the segment, Duffy claimed that climate change is a “political movement, not a scientific movement” and that it is wrong to assume “the science is settled in climate”.

the segment aired just a week after Carlson and ultra-conservative political commentator and Fox contributor Mark Steyn mocked comments made by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) linking climate change and racism. (For the record, experts say the two are “inexorably” linked.) Steyn, not satisfied with mocking the relationship between climate and racism, went on to attack the scientific consensus that warming is human-made, by invoking a defamation suit filed against him by climate scientist Michael Mann:

MARK STEYN (GUEST): This is supposed to be science. I've been in a 10-year lawsuit in Washington, D.C., up against the guy who invented the climate change hockey stick, and he is a scientist and his position is that in the last millennium -- nothing happened for nine centuries and then you, Tucker, got into your SUV and fried the planet. And that is a completely idiotic theory. But at least he's not trying to sell the world on the idea that somehow climate change correlates to racism.

[vid]

not to be outdone, the following night, prime-time hostLaura Ingraham focused her April 22 monologue on “the big climate con.” Ingraham’s “climate con” list included misleading arguments against the benefits of climate action like job creation; attempts to discredit the role of -- and the need for -- global cooperation in dealing with the crisis; and false claims that the scientific warnings on climate are not sound or well understood. For good measure, Ingraham closed her monologue by mocking and attacking young climate activists.

in back-to-back shows on April 29 and April 30, Ingraham suggested that the climate crisis along with other pressing issues have been manufactured to “justify the left’s brazen efforts to take more of our money and more of our liberty” and they “only exist in the minds of leftists ideologues who hate America anyway.”

Denial paired with fear-mongering about the “left’s radical agenda” exemplifies the brand of climate denial Fox has peddled for years, and some network figures disingenuously equate weather with climate to push that narrative.

On the April 21 edition ofThe Five, Fox News contributor Dagen McDowell ended a rant against the Paris Climate Agreement by suggesting that abnormally cold April weather from Texas to the Great Lakes somehow disproves that global warming is occurring.

DAGEN MCDOWELL (CO-HOST): Here is your forecast today and why they stopped calling it global warming. April 21, 2021: Freeze warnings from Texas to the Great Lakes. Record low temperatures engulfing the heartland. Oh, and Indians/White Sox game in Cleveland had to be postponed for snow and cold.

This bit by MacDowell is both painfully stupid and reminiscent of a body of tweets by then-President Donald Trump, who conflated weather with global warming while suggesting that the term “climate change” was adopted by scientists and advocates to hide the incongruity between major winter storms and the idea of warming.

Interestingly, the term “climate change” was promoted by the Republican strategist Frank Luntz as part of the infamous 2002 memo advising the GOP on how to cast doubt on the scientific consensus that human activity was warming the planet.

Fox Nation host Lara Logan made the same inane claim on the February 19 edition of :{Outnumbered:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, in a segment about the winter storm that caused the deadly power failure in Texas:

“It's time for us to have an honest conversation about renewable energy and about global warming, climate change, whatever you want to call it,” said Logan. “This is the first time in Texas’ history that it has had a winter storm warning. So this is — this means that it is not getting warmer and warmer and warmer, simply.”

Fox has long been a platform for climate deniers

Fox News hosts and contributors not only push climate denial but regularly feature discredited deniers on their programs. Notorious climate denier Marc Morano -- who has no scientific background -- and Bjorn Lomborg -- whose spiel is dangerously claiming that climate change is happening, but not a big deal -- have both appeared on Fox for more than a decade. Just this year, both have appeared across Fox programming at least six times from January through April. Notably, Fox hosted both the day after President Joe Biden took office to attack his agenda on climate change.

Larry Kudlow, a long-time climate denier who formerly served as economic adviser to Trump and now hosts a show on Fox Business, has also been one of Fox’s go-to commentators on policies related to climate change across both the network’s so-called “news” and “opinion” programs.

But Morano, Lomborg, and Kudlow are far from the only climate deniers and contrarians on Fox’s roster. Over the past several yearsRush Limbaugh, Joe Bastardi, Steve Milloy, and Patrick Moore all appeared regularly on Fox to push climate denial and misinformation. (In 2019, Moore said on Fox & Friends that “the climate crisis ... is not only fake news, it’s fake science”, and the line was picked up by Trump and tweeted to his millions of followers.)

Importantly, like Morano and Lomborg, none of these commentators are climate scientists, many have strong financial ties to the fossil fuel industry, and all have made a living out of obstructing efforts to address the climate crisis. With the exception of the late Rush Limbaugh, none would have had a megaphone to spread their lies absent Fox News.

Supported by advertisers, Fox runs cover for climate inaction

Climate scientists have repeatedly warned that if immediate and bold actions are not taken, then we will face dire climate disruption -- ever-increasing extreme and abnormal weather that threatens our homes, our food, our livelihoods, our economy, and our lives.

The stakes could not be higher.

The purpose of Fox hosts’ and contributors’ climate denial is to maintain an air of doubt about the existence and reality of our dangerously changing climate to provide cover for Republicans, who actively work to do nothing to stop the climate crisis, and the Big Polluters that bankroll their campaigns. This climate denial is also the foundation of the network’s persistent attacks -- across “opinion” and “straight news” programming -- on any proposed actions to reduce our carbon emissions and transition to a clean-energy economy. By extension, companies that advertise on Fox are party to climate inaction.

Publicly, many of these companies that run ads on Fox, including big insurers Allstate and Liberty Mutual have acknowledged the severe threat of the climate crisis. While others like General Motors, which is also among the network’s biggest advertisers, are actively calling for significant reduction in climate pollution. On the same day Dagen McDowell mocked global warming because it was cold in Texas, General Motors, along with 407 other corporations and businesses, issued a press release for an open letter to Biden supporting his goal of reducing carbon emissions by 50% by 2030. By continuing to sponsor Fox, these brands expose the cavern between their words and actions and associate themselves with a dangerous hostility to facts and science.

To be sure, Fox News is an accomplice to the impending climate emergency we face as a country and as part of the global community -- and so are those that support its programming with ads.

mma

How broadcast TV news covered environmental justice over the past four years

05/06/21 11:10 AM EDT

Buoyed by Biden’s climate summit, broadcast and cable TV networks provided strong Earth Day coverage

04/28/21 12:24 PM EDT

How broadcast TV networks covered climate change in 2020

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https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/right-wing-media-are-having-field-day-physicist-steve-koonins-new-book-climate

on May 6, theoretical physicist and former Obama administration energy official Steve Koonin appeared on two Fox programs to discuss his recently released book Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters.

In a nearly 13-minute appearance on Fox Business’ Kudlow, Koonin pushed a number of claims from his book that contradict the established scientific consensus on climate change. Among other things, he stated that “we've seen hardly any change in most severe weather events”; that “in the U.S., the highest temperatures haven't gone up in 60 years and are the same as they were in 1900”; and that there’s been “no detectable human influences on hurricanes over the last many decades.” He also questioned why “somehow people don’t want to use” fracking and said the current situation around climate change is “misleading panic.”

Later that evening on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight,Koonin repeated the same statement on humans and hurricanes, and on hotter temperatures, he stated that “the incidence of heat waves across the 48 states is no greater now than it was in 1900, and the highest temperatures haven’t gone up in 60 years.” He also called climate models uncertain and claimed that climate science has become “immoral,” as “it's being used as a tool to scare young people, create depression.”

Koonin, who is not a climate scientist, has a controversial history within the scientific and political climate change community. He formerly served as chief scientist for BP (a company that has played an outsized role in both worsening climate change and delaying climate action). In 2017, he advocated for a “red team-blue team” approach to climate science, which would “put the ‘consensus’ to a test” and illuminate “differing perceptions of climate science.” This idea apparently caught the attention of then-EPA Administrator (and notorious climate change denier) Scott Pruitt. And in 2019, he reportedly tried to help former President Donald Trump create a “climate contrarians” panel with longtime climate denier Will Happer.

Given the content of his new book, it’s no surprise that Koonin appeared on Fox to discuss its key points. While those points are wrong and easily debunkable, they have been spreading across the vast right-wing media ecosystem.

Real climate scientists and experts have lambasted Koonin’s book

Some of the major claims Koonin made in his May 6 Fox appearances came directly from his book, which was reviewed in an April 25 Wall Street Journal piece that repeated a number of its claims. Climate Feedback, a website featuring climate scientists who review dubious climate pieces in the media, reviewed the article and estimated “its overall scientific credibility to be very low.”

Regarding Koonin’s misleading statement on human impacts on hurricanes, MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel said the “most up-to-date research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrates an increase in the proportion of hurricanes that become major hurricanes (Category 3-5) globally, supporting theoretical predictions that date back to 1987.” University of California, Los Angeles climate scientist Daniel Swain echoed this point, noting that “the most intense tropical cyclones are indeed becoming stronger in terms of maximum wind speeds and minimum central pressure and are producing more extreme rainfall.”

In his Kudlow interview, Koonin also downplayed the threat of melting ice and rising sea levels, stating that “people worry about the melting of the ice sheets, but that’s gonna take hundreds of years, if it happens.” This statement is remarkably wrong. Twila Moon of the University of Colorado stated that “over the last 20 years, ice loss has been rapid and large, creating measurable sea level rise.” Postdoctoral researcher Thomas Frederikse agreed, saying that “tide-gauge observations show that sea levels are persistently accelerating since the 1960s, and overall, the observed sea-level rise during the 20th century is higher than during any other century over the last 3000 years.”

Koonin’s claims downplaying the effectiveness of climate models are also wrong. Climate scientist Zeke Hausfather states that Koonin’s criticism “ignores the fact that climate models published since the 1970s were quite accurate in projecting the warming that actually occurred in the years after they were published, as we discuss in our recent paper.” (In fact, climate models have been so correct that even fossil-fuel giant Exxon’s own scientists accurately predicted the rate of global warming in the 1980s.)

The Climate Feedback piece also addressed other misleading claims from Koonin’s book that he did not repeat in his Fox interviews, including misleading statements on global wildfires, the severity of droughts, global crop yields, and the economic impact of climate change. Overall, says Twila Moon, “many conclusions highlighted in this article are examples of cherry-picking information and failing to provide the context of change. In other instances, statements are fully wrong and unsupported by scientific research.”

Marianna Lavelle of Inside Climate News also addressed some of the claims Koonin made in his new book, including rebutting the statement he made on his Fox appearances about hot temperatures and heat waves in the U.S.:

The average annual temperature in the contiguous U.S. has increased from 0.7 degrees to 1.0 degrees Celsius (1.2 to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) since the start of the 20th century. The year 2020 was the fifth-warmest year in the 126-year record for the contiguous U.S. And the five warmest years on record have occurred since 2012, NOAA reports. There is a more marked increase in nighttime lows than in daytime highs (the “warmest” temperatures) because of factors like the cooling effect of daytime aerosol pollution and soil moisture evaporation.

She also countered his claim about a future minimal economic impact of climate change by noting 2019 research that found that “global warming has very likely exacerbated global economic inequality, including ∼25% increase in population-weighted between-country inequality over the past half century.”Multiple scientific studies have showed that the cost of climate inaction far outweighs the cost of climate action. Indeed, one analysis finds that climate change could cost nearly $70 trillion by 2100.

In the past several weeks, Koonin has been featured in numerous right-wing media outlets

In addition to his May 6 appearances on Kudlow and Tucker Carlson Tonight, Koonin has made a number of other television appearances, written op-eds, and given interviews promoting his book. The vast majority of these have been with right-wing media outlets, including sources that are climate deniers.

He appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s The First on May 6, Andrew Bolt’s show on Australia’s Sky News on May 5, CNBC’s *Squawk Box* on May 4, and Kudlow on March 19. O’Reilly, Bolt, Kudlow, and Squawk Box’s Joe Kernan are all climate deniers. He also appeared on the Outsiders* program on Sky News Australia on May 8. Here, he claimed that “modest” global warming will be beneficial for the planet, without noting that the negative impacts of climate change will far outweigh any positive ones. Sky News Australia, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, has a history of climate denial.

He has written pieces promoting his book for The National Review and the New York Post, given a print interview to The Wall Street Journal’s Holman Jenkins (who has a history of being wrong about climate issues), given interviews to conservative radio personalities John Gormley and Ross Kaminsky, and spoken to fossil fuel industry shill Alex Epstein, climate misinformer Rich Lowry of The National Review, and conservative Daily Beast writer Matt Lewis. His book and its climate misinformation have also been the basis of articles in Townhall and The Federalist. And along the way, he’s been promoted by notorious climate deniers Marc Morano and Steve Milloy.

Right-wing media propping up books that are skeptical of climate change is an all-too-familiar occurrence

If this all sounds familiar, that’s because it is -- this sort of thing happened just last summer, when climate contrarians Bjorn Lomborg and Michael Shellenberger both released books downplaying the seriousness of climate change within a month of each other. Like Koonin, they both appeared across the right-wing media ecosystem to promote their books. There are other similarities between these individuals as well -- all are highly controversial within the climate science community, while their major works have been fact-checked and discredited by actual climate scientists and experts. Additionally, none of them are climate scientists.

As the realities of worsening climate change become more and more apparent, it’s become more difficult for right-wing media outlets to continue unequivocally denying that climate change is even happening. This new type of climate denial espoused by people like Koonin -- who say climate change is happening but it’s not that big of a problem -- provides perfect cover for right-wing media outlets to act like they care about the issue while they continue helping polluting companies kick climate action down the road.

Koonin’s misinformation-filled book won’t be the last one to downplay the threat of climate change, but it’s becoming easier to spot books like these when right-wing media take an exclusive interest in promoting their false claims.

===

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/foxs-war-earth-day

It’s that time of year when for one day, network TV news outlets commemorate the birth of the modern environmental movement by airing climate and environment focused programming.

On and around April 22, designated as Earth Day, cable and broadcast news programs leveraged the day and the many related events -- including Biden’s two-day Climate Leadership Summit -- to articulate the scope and scale of the climate crisis, showcase solutions to this mounting global threat and feature some of the movement’s most prominent thought leaders, scientists, and activists.

But not Fox News.

Fox used this moment to, what can best be described in Fox terms, wage an all-out war on Earth Day.

Fox attacks any effort to act on the climate crisis

Coverage across Fox programming on and around Earth Day was rife with climate deniers pushing climate misformation and bad-faith arguments against efforts to decarbonize our economy and work collectively with world leaders to address the global climate crisis. The vast majority of coverage specifically focused on Biden’s summit -- which involved 40 world leaders and aimed at discussing stronger climate action -- was centered not on the need for climate action or good-faith critiques about how to achieve Biden’s ambitious goal to reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 50% by 2030. Instead, it focused on the well-worn myths that climate action will hurt the U.S. economy and its workers.

Representative of the false narrative that climate action will destroy our economy was Fox host Larry Kudlow’scomments on the April 22 edition of America’s Newsroom:

LARRY KUDLOW (FOX BUSINESS HOST): The so-called climate summit, which is today and tomorrow, is going to set strict, strict limits on carbon emissions within 10 years basically going to blow up the fossil fuel sector.This is going to cost a lot of jobs just as the business tax hikes are going to cost a lot of jobs, just as the capital gains tax hike is going to cost a lot of jobs -- because it’s all going to damage investment.

Kudlow, who formerly served as economic adviser to then-President Donald Trump, is a long-time climate denier who has often been Fox’s go-to commentator on policies related to climate change. His stock (bogus) response is climate action is bad for the economy.

In fact, Biden’s American Jobs Plan, which is at the core of his strategy to transition to a decarbonized economy, is lauded by labor leaders and economists who predict it will create 2.3 million jobs by 2024, injecting $5.7 trillion into the economy and raising per capita income by $2,400. Alternatively, not acting on climate change will devastate our economy and way of life.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/how-larry-kudlow-set-off-a-right-wing-anti-biden-smear-campaign/

How Larry Kudlow set off a right-wing anti-Biden smear campaign

Jon Skolnik and Salon April 26, 2021

Fox News host and former economic Trump adviser Larry Kudlow set off something of a right-wing smear campaign over the weekend when he went on a tirade against President Joe Biden's nonexistent plan to force "plant-based beer" upon the American public, calling Biden an "ideological zealot" intent on scrapping America's most cherished tradition of meat-eating.

In a Fox News interview on Thursday, Kudlow erroneously attacked Biden for putting forth a climate plan that calls for the elimination of meat, eggs, and dairy from the American diet. "There's a study coming out of the University of Michigan which says that to meet the Biden Green New Deal targets, America has to…stop eating poultry and fish, seafood, eggs, dairy, and animal-based fats," he started. "Ok, got that? No burger on July 4. No steaks on the barbecue. I'm sure Middle America is just going to love that. Can you grill those Brussels sprouts?"

Kudlow, notably livid over the thought grilling vegetables –– let alone foreign ones –– continued to rail against Biden's new climate action plan.

"You can throw back a plant-based beer with your grilled Brussels sprouts and wave your American flag. Call it July 4th Green. Now, I'm making fun of this because I intend to make fun of it. This kind of thing is stupid. It comes from a bunch of ideological zealots who don't care one whit about America's well-being. Not one whit."

It should be noted that beer, generally made from water, grain, hops, and yeast, and barley malt, is already, in fact, plant-based. Furthermore, nothing in President Biden's plan so far calls for a prohibition on meat consumption. The original culprit of this misinformation, a Thursday Daily Mail article headlined "How Biden's climate plan could limit you to eat just one burger a MONTH," speculated that Biden intends on "cutting red meat consumption by 90% and animal products by 50%."

The article, quickly feasted upon by Kudlow and amplified Fox News without the slightest fact-check, was then picked up by Republicans in government, including Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who spread the lies to their voting bases.

"Joe Biden's climate plan includes cutting 90% of red meat from our diets by 2030. They want to limit us to about four pounds a year," tweeted Boebert. "Why doesn't Joe stay out of my kitchen?"

"Not gonna happen in Texas!" Gov. Abbott tweeted, with a screenshot of Kudlow's broadcast.

Greene, posting a picture of Biden eating a hamburger with others a table, echoed: "The Hamburglar. No burgers for thee, but just for me."

The misinformation also came into the good graces of Donald Trump Jr., who declared most proudly, "I'm pretty sure I ate 4 pounds of red meat yesterday. That's going to be a hard NO from me."

On Saturday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman explained how Kudlow's remarks planted the seeds for a concerted misinformation campaign.

"If you read what Kudlow actually said,'' Krugman argued on Twitter, "he's cagey — doesn't say that Biden proposed this, only that some people say this is what would happen. But Fox viewers won't notice, which is the intention. This is what right-wing politics is down to. It's all false claims about evil liberals, which the base is expected to believe because it's primed to believe in liberal villainy. They're not even trying to engage on actual issues."

The White House has thus far released scant information about any formal plan to address emissions. According to the Washington Post, on Thursday, the President made vague remarks about investing in "American infrastructure and American innovation" in order to build "a critical infrastructure to produce and deploy clean technology."

The right's outrage was widely mocked online by the left, who were quick to point out that Biden's apparent political aversion to meat has no factual or historical basis at all. On Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., took a jab at his conservative colleagues . "Excited to be watching the Oscars with an ice cold plant-based beer," he tweeted, with a picture of himself holding a beer while watching the Oscars. "Thanks Joe Biden."

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cover for mcconn inaction on heroes?  bad economy trump covid in gen'l?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/trumps-millionaire-economic-adviser-celebrates-gales-of-creative-destruction-as-millions-lose-their-jobs-and-go-hungry/

no lnx twt

With millions of Americans out of work, struggling to afford food for themselves and their children, and facing the possibility of losing their homes, President Donald Trump's top economic adviser on Friday celebrated what he described as the "gales of creative destruction" supposedly unleashed by the U.S. economic system in the midst of the pandemic-induced recession.

"The talk is that a lot of folks who became unemployed, alright, most regrettably—but, they're sticking with it and they're going out and starting new businesses," Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, said in an appearance on Fox Business. "They're going to be small businesses."

"But that's the great part of American capitalism, gales of creative destruction," Kudlow continued, deploying a phrase popularized in the 1940s by economist Joseph Schumpeter. "I just love that new business start-up story."

Watch: fox biz

Critics immediately noted that the millions of people across the U.S. who are teetering on the brink of complete financial ruin are likely not impressed by the so-called "creative destruction" praised by Kudlow, who in June complained that the $600-per-week federal unemployment insurance boost many jobless workers were receiving at the time was excessive.

"Wonder how the 14% of households with kids who reported that they didn't get enough food to eat in the last seven days or the 32% of adults who are having trouble paying for usual household expenses feel about the'gales of creative destruction,'" tweeted Washington Post reporter Jacqueline Alemany, pointing to data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Kudlow's comments came a day after the Labor Department reported that an additional 1.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits, yet another indication that the strong economic recovery Kudlow has repeatedly predicted in recent weeks is not materializing.

"As American capitalism becomes even crueler, the rhetoric of its apologists will only grow more explicit," Jacobin's Luke Savage tweeted in response to Kudlow's remarks.

On top of being cold comfort for Americans struggling to get by as the prospect of another federal relief package before the November election remains uncertain, Kudlow's rosy insistence that the economic turmoil caused by the Covid-19 pandemic spurred a major new wave of entrepreneurship was also likely factually dubious.

"Self-employment is absolutely helping us to adapt to the pandemic," Adam Ozimek, chief economist at freelancing platform Upwork, told the Post's Jeff Stein. "But it's really nowhere near enough to make up for the massive shortfall in overall employment that we still have. Not even close."

==

an 820

Larry Kudlow decries a CNN anchor for ‘nitpicking’ when she details his disastrous record of coronavirus predictions

Alex Henderson

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/white-house-pushes-pure-giveaway-to-rich-investors-while-urging-cut-to-pandemic-unemployment-aid/

no lnx twt

White House pushes ‘pure giveaway’ to rich investors — while urging cut to pandemic unemployment aid

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams July 15, 2020

The Trump White House is publicly advocating a massive tax cut for wealthy U.S. investors while simultaneously urging Congress to pare back the expanded unemployment benefits currently serving as a financial lifeline for more than 30 million—and counting—jobless Americans.

In an interview on Fox Business Monday, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said President Donald Trump wants included in the next Covid-19 stimulus package “a payroll tax holiday”—which critics warn is a stealth attack on Social Security—and a reduction in the capital gains tax.

A levy on profits from the sale of assets, the capital gains tax disproportionately affects the wealthy and most of the benefits of any cut would largely be enjoyed by rich investors.

Slashing the capital gains tax is a longtime goal of congressional Republicans and Trump, who last year considered but ultimately abandoned a legally dubious plan to lower the tax with an executive order.

While stressing that formal talks with Congress on the next stimulus package have not yet begun, Kudlow said the administration is also pushing for “reforms” to the $600-per-week boost in unemployment insurance (UI) payments, which he characterized as excessively generous “disincentives” to work.

The benefits are set to expire at the end of the month without action from Congress.

“So the White House position is that we have to cut the incomes of 30 million people who lost their jobs or who lost hours, while also giving a giant tax cut to the biggest corporations and the richest people in the world,” tweeted Michael Linden, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank.

“Regarding the ‘capital gains holiday,’ remember this key stat: 82% of all capital gains tax is paid by the richest 1%,” Linden added. “A capital gains tax holiday is a pure giveaway to the rich.”

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that after previously urging complete expiration of the enhanced unemployment benefits, “Trump administration officials have begun opening the door to accepting a narrower version of what Congress previously approved.”

“One potential compromise discussed by Republican lawmakers would involve cutting the unemployment benefit from $600 per week to between $200 and $400 per week and making up at least part of the difference by sending another round of $1,200 stimulus payments,” the Post reported.

Trump spokesman Judd Deere told the Post that the White House is open to approving a reduction in the current weekly UI payments but remains opposed to extending the full $600-per-week.

“UI reform is a priority for this White House in any phase four package and we are in ongoing discussions with the Hill,” said Deere.

Julia Wolfe, state economic analyst with the Economic Policy Institute, warned in a blog post last week that if Congress fails to extend the enhanced unemployment benefits through next year, “it could cost us more than five million jobs and $500 million in personal income.”

“We should despair for the millions who have lost their jobs and for their families,” Wolfe wrote, “and our top priority as a country should be protecting the health and safety of workers and our broader communities by paying workers to stay home when possible, whether that means working from home some or all of the time, using paid leave, or claiming UI benefits.”White House pushes ‘pure giveaway’ to rich investors — while urging cut to pandemic unemployment aid

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams July 15, 2020

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/about-75-of-trumps-proposed-coronavirus-capital-gains-tax-cut-would-go-to-the-top-1-of-earners/

salon igor

Roughly three-quarters of the benefits from the capital gains tax cut floated by President Donald Trump as part of the administration’s coronavirus relief plan would go to the top 1% of earners, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Trump has repeatedly floated a cut to capital gains taxes, which are taxes paid by investors on profits made when an asset, like stock orreal estate, is sold. The capital gains tax rate is already 35% lower than the top income tax rate, and only about 6% of households in the bottom 80% of earners claim any capital gains, meaning the overwhelming majority of benefits would flow to the wealthy.

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett argued over Memorial Day weekend that the administration opposed extending enhanced unemployment benefits despite a quarter of the labor force losing their jobs since the pandemic hit the United States. Hassett told CNNthe administration would “consider” another round of $1,200 direct payments to Americans but is more focused on stimulating the economy through tax cuts.

“Right now, it looks like the economy’s picking up at a very rapid rate, in which case we could potentially move on to other things that the president has mentioned, like the payroll tax cut and potentially even a capital gains holiday,” he said.

the idea of a capital gains tax holiday was met with skepticism by economists.

“Capital gains tax cuts are poorly targeted benefits,” writes the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, which noted that 75% of tax filers who reported capital gains last year were in the top 1% of earners.

“About 6 percent of households in the bottom 80 percent reported any capital gains income at all, compared with 83 percent of those in the top 0.1 percent,” said Tax Policy Center co-founder Leonard Burman, who previously served at the Treasury Department and the Congressional Budget Office. “That elite group (incomes over $3.8 million) accounted for more than half of all long-term capital gains, reporting an average gain of $5.5 million.”

The analysis suggests the tax cut would do little to ease the pain of the economic shock caused by coronavirus-related lockdowns to the vast majority of Americans. But Burman notes that it would also “do little to boost the economy since rich people spend only a fraction of any additional income” and because “capital gains income may be hard to come by in the next few years given asset price declines.”

In other words, even the benefits to the wealthy would not fully kick in until well after the economic crisis has eased.

The cut would also do little to boost the stock market, which has been the president’s primary concern. Less than a third of corporate stock is subject to capital gains taxes, according to a Tax Policy Center report, and even stock in taxable accounts is often untaxed becausemany assets are held until death or donated to charity.And new investors would defer the taxes for as long as they want since they don’t kick in until the investment is sold.

The economic conditions do not warrant such a tax cut, argued Karl Smith, the vice president for federal policy at the business-friendly Tax Foundation.

“There is no [investor] shortage to be eliminated. Even modern supply-side models of the economy suggest that a capital gains tax cut would have a tiny effect on long-term GDP,” he wrote at Bloomberg, joking that “Republicans’ preferred solution to any problem, whether a recession or an alien invasion, is to cut the capital gains tax.”

Steve Wamhoff, the director of federal tax policy at the liberal-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), argued that “proponents of capital gains tax breaks have always offered a weak argument that they encourage investment” but Trump’s proposal is more dubious given that it is only a temporary cut.

A temporary cut “is supported by no argument at all,” Wamhoff said, since “it would only reward investments made in the past while doing nothing to encourage new investment.”

In other words, a capital gains tax holiday would allow investors to sell off decades of past investments without paying any tax while doing nothing to boost new investment.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., slammed the administration’s proposal for ignoring the needs of average Americans.

“If you want to compare the need for us to change the capital gains tax, which, once again, once again, ignores the fact that there are people in our country that are hungry, and that there is some equivalence to that, I respectfully disagree,” she told Bloomberg. “There are certain things that are urgent.”

The capital gains tax holiday is just one of several tax cuts the administration is considering as part of its coronavirus relief effort. While House Democrats proposed a $3 trillion bill that would provide aid to states and local governments, extend unemployment benefits, and issue a new round of $1,200 payments, Senate Republicans have said the proposal is “dead on arrival” as they focus on more pro-corporate policies, like protecting companies from liability from coronavirus-related lawsuits.

The Trump administration is pushing to include a payroll tax cut, which Trump has called for repeatedly in lieu of direct payments to no avail for months, in the upcoming legislation.

Like the capital gains tax cut, a payroll tax cut would overwhelmingly benefit the richest Americans while doing little to boost the economy in the short-term.

A study by ITEP estimated that two-thirds of the benefits from the tax cut would go to the richest 20% of taxpayers. The payroll tax cut would also do nothing to help the 40-plus million Americans who have lost their jobs.

By comparison, the poorest 20% of Americans would receive just 2% of the benefits and the next poorest 20% of Americans would receive just 6% of the benefits.

“A payroll tax cut would help those lucky enough to keep their job and would provide a bigger break to those with more earnings,” the ITEP analysis said. “Sending checks to every household would be a far more effective economic stimulus because it would immediately put money in the hands of everyone who would likely spend it right away, pumping it back into the economy.”

The payroll tax is also used to fund Social Security and Medicare, which would inevitably see cuts if the revenues are slashed.

“Make no mistake: by pushing to cut off the program’s funding stream, President Trump is taking the first step toward dismantling Social Security,” warned Max Richtman, the head of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. “The president’s campaign to eliminate payroll taxes is a violation of his patently false promises to seniors ‘not to touch’ Social Security… Choking off Social Security’s funding stream is an existential threat to seniors’ earned benefits.”

Larry Kudlow, the director of the White House National Economic Council, also floated lowering the corporate tax rate for companies that “onshore” their supply chains from 21% to “about 10.5%”

Economists rejected the idea that such a corporate tax cut would help amid the pandemic.

The proposal is “like trying to graft supply-side Reaganism onto conservative populism,” Samuel Hammond, a policy expert at the conservative Niskanen Center,told The Washington Post. “A lower corporate tax rate probably won’t suffice to build an entirely new factory within U.S. borders.”

“It’s ridiculous. Companies moving their supply chains back from China is not the crisis to address when 30 million people are unemployed,” added Adam Ozimek, the chief economist at the freelancing marketplace Upwork. “This is a distraction at best and could be destructive at worst.”

House Democrats likewise rejected the plan.

“The current health crisis produced by multiple Administration failures, said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Tex., who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, “hardly justifies another windfall for those at the top.”

The proposed tax cuts drew eye rolls from experts, who criticized Republicans for pushing tax cuts as a universal panacea.

“At this point it’s almost a pathology. Whatever the crisis, whatever the state of the economy, Republicans crave another tax cut for the rich,” wrote Washington Post economic columnist Catherine Rampell. “One possible explanation is self-interest: Some important Republican constituents live off their wealth rather than the sweat of their brows.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/turns-out-a-second-rate-celebrity-whose-only-skill-was-in-branding-was-not-qualified-to-handle-a-national-crisis-what-a-surprise/

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expertise; a-rod wolfgng p redo biz expense deduct; kudlow fail on china

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/turns-out-a-second-rate-celebrity-whose-only-skill-was-in-branding-was-not-qualified-to-handle-a-national-crisis-what-a-surprise/

expertise; a-rod wolfgng p redo biz expense deduct; kurlow fail on china

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Here are just some of the most notable examples of conservative media pushing this negligent narrative:

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**At CPAC, Ivanka Trump and Larry Kudlow Paint Democrats as Economic Threat**

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aha: basically spox spin for trump, ass clown cheerleader on covid tank stock mkt

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aha wow omg:

cfg big lobbyist on climate vs CoC? enforcer drives polarization, RINO hunters

Climate science skeptics grasp for power in changing GOP

Nick Sobczyk, E&E News reporter

Published: Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Skeptics of mainstream climate science and hard-line conservatives think they still have a hold on the GOP, despite a recent rhetorical evolution among congressional Republicans.

Climate science skeptics grasp for power in changing GOP

MARCH 10, 2020

As originally published in E&E News.

By: Nick Sobczyk

March 10, 2020

Skeptics of mainstream climate science and hard-line conservatives think they still have a hold on the GOP, despite a recent rhetorical evolution among congressional Republicans.

It’s part of a battle for the soul of the party between hard-right organizations, such as the Club for Growth, and the newfangled and well-funded ecosystem of conservative clean energy groups, led most prominently by ClearPath and Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions.

There are abundant signs on Capitol Hill that people who question climate science are losing clout with Republicans. But they are insistent that not much has changed, particularly with President Trump still in the White House.

“I don’t think we’re losing much ground,” said Myron Ebell, a prominent energy advocate with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a longtime opponent of the scientific consensus that greenhouse gases are warming the planet. Ebell helped lead Trump’s EPA transition team.

“I do think that there’s been more hand waving,” he added, “but I don’t think Republican voters have been influenced very much by the hand waving and the shouting.”

Party leadership on Capitol Hill would beg to differ. And even some Trump-loyal Republicans are happy to distance themselves from the climate science denial movement, even if they’re not willing to offer the kind of policies many experts say will be necessary to reduce the use of fossil fuels — the primary driver of climate change.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and his top energy deputies rolled out a package of small-ball climate change bills last month, pointing to polls that show younger voters increasingly worried about the issue.

None would reduce fossil fuel use, but they would aim to reduce emissions through carbon capture and sequestration (Greenwire, Feb. 12).

Meanwhile, Republicans on powerful committees such as Energy and Commerce have largely dropped outright climate denial for the kind of “energy innovation” talking points favored by CRES and ClearPath.

“Both sides now recognize climate is changing, temperature is increasing we need to do something about it,” said Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Greg Walden (R-Ore.). “We’re just speaking out and making our own views known better, and there is more evidence.”

Policywise, what they’re doing is phenomenal and unbelievable and beyond anything we could have hoped. It truly is.

Marc Morano, director of communications at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow]

The fact remains, however, that the Republican president frequently denies climate change and for a time employed a man — William Happer — tasked with performing a critical review of federal climate science.

For skeptics and libertarian ideologues alike who want to see the federal regulatory regime torn down, that’s an important audience.

“Policywise, what Andrew Wheeler is doing is phenomenal. Policywise, what Donald Trump is doing is phenomenal,” said Marc Morano, director of communications at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, who has questioned climate science for years.

“Policywise, what they’re doing is phenomenal and unbelievable and beyond anything we could have hoped,” he said. “It truly is.”

Fighting over the details

There’s no meaningful debate among climate scientists about whether temperatures are rising because of man’s industrial activity.

A host of peer-reviewed studies warn of potentially catastrophic economic and environmental effects, many of which are readily apparent today, without dramatic changes to global greenhouse gas emissions. Most objections to the science have virtually zero credibility in the world’s scientific community.

Still, politically, Ebell doesn’t think it’s useful for conservatives to cede the debate because he said McCarthy’s efforts won’t convince voters who want the federal government to address climate change to vote Republican.

“If local environmental groups or local media in their districts start looking into these bills and start giving them publicity in the local media, they’re going to have a hard time explaining themselves because we’ve conceded that global warming’s a problem, and we’ve got a plan which will do nothing to address it,” Ebell said.

“So I think it’s not a well-thought-out way to proceed on this issue, and I doubt that they’re going to get very much positive spin out of it with voters,” he said.

Prominent conservative organizations, meanwhile, are making similar arguments with more subtle references to the science of climate change.

After McCarthy, Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves and other Republicans came out with their package of bills last month, the Club for Growth promptly blasted it, threatening to withhold endorsements from supporters.

“When you give an inch on principle, you concede a negotiating posture that has also led to devastating bipartisan agreements on bailouts, spending and regulation,” Scott Parkinson, vice president of government affairs for the Club for Growth, wrote in a subsequent letter to the editor in The Washington Post last month.

“Club for Growth will continue to work with principled conservatives who reject climate alarmism and fight for energy and environmental policies based on sound economic principles,” he wrote.

Despite those disagreements, the Republican efforts on climate aren’t actually all that new, and they’re generally more focused on repackaging GOP-backed policies through a climate change lens.

One of the bills they rolled out last month, for instance, would make permanent the 45Q tax break for carbon capture and sequestration, which a Republican-led Congress expanded in 2018.

Graves, the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis’ ranking member, is also leading a letter to National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, to be sent in the coming weeks, urging the White House to promote fossil fuel exports as a way to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

Top Republicans, including Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana and conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, are expected to sign.

The Trump administration, of course, is already gung-ho about exporting fossil fuels, but Republicans argue that it can help the fight against climate change because U.S. exports have lower life-cycle emissions than sources in the developing world.

The current backdrop, however, is that U.S. emissions are increasing, undermining Republicans who point to emissions reductions during the last 15 years. EPA’s most recent numbers found that greenhouse gas emissions rose 3.1% in 2018 — during Trump’s second year in office — despite the continued decline of coal (Climatewire, Feb. 13).

Meanwhile, the party as a whole still roundly rejects carbon pricing and regulations, tools that most climate experts say will be necessary to deploy clean energy technology to the market and reduce emissions fast enough to stave off the worst effects of climate change.

“Looking back over the last several years there have been policies that are entirely consistent with Republican ideology that we can continue doing that achieve multiple goals,” Graves said. “My whole thing is let’s not sit here and fight over the details of the science.”

Constituent services?

Ebell and other skeptics dismiss conservative clean energy groups as empty vessels with money but no loyal supporters, but they’re having an impact.

CRES alone spent nearly $500,000 lobbying on various energy issues in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to disclosure forms, including with several outside lobbying firms.

Much of the lobbying effort went toward getting clean energy priorities into the tax extenders package at the end of last year, according to CRES Executive Director Heather Reams, but CRES and ClearPath were enthusiastic about Republicans adopting their rhetoric in early 2020.

Still, Reams said she doesn’t see her group’s efforts as in direct conflict with those who question climate science. Rather, she believes she offers Republicans who want to talk about climate change a supportive landing pad.

“They’re responding to voters,” Reams said. “So I think it’s a very unfair position that some groups are putting Republican members in. These are complex problems and deserve complex solutions, and keeping your head in the sand is not a solution.”

And in a sign that the climate skeptic wing’s influence could be petering out, the Heartland Institute — a conservative think tank that has long dispersed debunked theories about climate change — laid off some of its staff last week amid reported financial woes (Greenwire, March 9).

Efforts to promote carbon taxes as a conservative solution to climate change have been less successful so far, however, showing the limits of the Republican transformation. Currently, the policy has only a small constituency.

Read the rest of the article here....e&e

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/trumps-lies-and-deception-are-catching-up-to-all-of-us-as-the-stock-market-posts-worst-point-drop-ever-on-record/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/trumps-lies-and-deception-are-catching-up-to-all-of-us-as-the-stock-market-posts-worst-point-drop-ever-on-record/

no lnx

Trump’s lies and deception are catching up to all of us as the stock market posts ‘worst point drop ever on record’

President Donald J. Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence, listens as Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar speaks to members of the press Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020, in the James S. brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

Written by David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement February 27, 2020

In a muddled, dishonest, rambling news conference from the White House press briefing room, President Donald Trump for over an hour talked to reporters Wednesday evening about coronavirus in an attempt to stave off three days of market near-collapse. He lied. He twisted the truth. He displayed little grasp of basic facts. He didn’t let the experts run the show.

He instilled no confidence Wednesday night. In fact, the DOW futures dropped as Trump began speaking:

Dow Futures dropped when Trump said the market fell 2k points because of the Dem debate pic.twitter.com/cvbviB2l9a

— Evan Siegfried (@evansiegfried) February 27, 2020

The markets on Thursday rewarded his efforts with the DOW posting the largest single-day loss in history.

BREAKING: Dow Jones Industrial Average records worst point drop ever on record, plummeting nearly 1,200 points https://t.co/T8yrpR8LHE pic.twitter.com/EaOeKgC34O

— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) February 27, 2020

Why?

The Trump administration has known about coronavirus since at least December 1, 2019. It did nothing until January 29, when the White House posted a memo announcing President Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force. The task force did not even include the surgeon general, making it clear the White House had little interest in communicating to the American people any sense of competence or delivering even an iota of public education.

Nearly an entire month went by. Trump and the First Family played in India, posing at the Taj Mahal, refusing to eat the specially prepared foods their hosts created just for them, and praising Prime Minister Modi as Muslims were being slayed just streets away from where the Trump family was staying.

The grandeur and beauty of the Taj Mahal is awe inspiring! ???? ???? pic.twitter.com/jcYwXHxf4c

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) February 24, 2020

“The losses mark the worse week for U.S. stocks since the financial crash of 2008. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq each also plunged by more than 4%,” reports ABC News, calling it the “worst week” since the 2008 global financial crisis.

This, as the First Family played, pretending to be on official business as the coronavirus outbreak exploded earlier this week.

Trump returned after two days of about 1000 point drops in the DOW each day. He hastily called a press conference for Wednesday at 6 PM. Just after it began at 6:30 PMit became clear there was not going to be a coronavirus czar, there was no real plan, other than to put in charge Vice President Mike Pence. Even a Fox News pundit eschewed that decision, noting Pence doesn’t believe in science, is not a doctor, and has a horrific record when it comes to public health – he oversaw an explosive HIV outbreak during which he decided to pray for guidance rather than listen to what experts told him he had to do.

And now, as the markets tumble, as Trump lies about the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. and pretends that there might not be “community spread” – the first case of which the CDC literally announced just after Trump’s news conference, it’s become even more clear Trump and his administration aren’t interested in protecting the American public, but rather, they are interested in appearing to be doing “things” that might make it appear they are protecting the American public – when their goal is to protect the markets.

That’s why Vice President Pence’s first act as head of the Coronavirus Task Force was to add top and Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to the Task Force, along with the surgeon general (finally).

Absent from the list: any public health experts, any crisis experts, anyone not from the Trump administration, the CDC, or the NIH. In other words, there is no one on the Trump Coronavirus Task Force the Trump administration cannot control.

That’s dangerous. It’s dangerous because the administration has already told the federal government all communication, to reporters and others, is to go through Vice President Pence, and it’s dangerous because there is no one who will tell Trump or Pence anything they don’t want to hear.

And what else is the Trump administration doing?

Campaigning at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Over the course of Thursday through Sunday, 21 top Trump administration officials, including the President and the Vice President, and a large number of Cabinet Secretaries, will all be attending and speaking at the far right-wing conference. CPAC over the years has hosted some of the most extreme groups and fringe elements in conservative America. Groups like the John Birch Society, and extremists like Milo Yiannopoulos — whose invitation was pulled when a vile video of him was released.

The Democratic primaries are just getting started but the markets have already voted. They have made clear they have no confidence in this President and this Vice President.

Unfortunately, those who will pay the price form that vote are, as usual, the Americans who can least afford a hit to their life savings – if they have any – or to their 401(k)s, or to the number of hours they work which will be cut so their bosses can save a few bucks when business gets bad.

The stock market has now plunged about 3200 points this week, and there’s no reason to suggest Friday will be any better, because there’s no reason to suggest this president will be any better.

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Top Trump economic advisor slammed for claiming coronavirus ‘contained’ after CDC warns of spread

David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement  February 26, 2020

Larry Kudlow, President Donald Trump’s top economic advisor, is falsely claiming the U.S. has “contained” the coronavirus, literally minutes after reports broke that the CDC is warning of a spread of the deadly virus that has killed 2600 people, mostly in China.

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Top Trump economic advisor slammed for claiming coronavirus ‘contained’ after CDC warns of spread

David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement  February 26, 2020

Larry Kudlow, President Donald Trump’s top economic advisor, is falsely claiming the U.S. has “contained” the coronavirus, literally minutes after reports broke that the CDC is warning of a spread of the deadly virus that has killed 2600 people, mostly in China.

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voodoo

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/trumps-plan-to-unveil-next-round-of-tax-scam-just-before-2020-election-slammed-as-another-political-ploy/

no lnx

Trump’s plan to unveil next round of ‘tax scam’ just before 2020 election slammed as ‘another political ploy’

President Donald J. Trump hosts a tax reform industry and business leaders meeting | October 31, 2017 (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Written by Jessica Corbett / Common Dreams February 14, 2020

The Tax March movement responded critically on Friday after National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow revealed that President Donald Trump has instructed him to unveil the second round of what opponents call the GOP “tax scam” ahead of the presidential election in November.

“Announcing an ambiguous set of so-called middle-class tax cuts just ahead of the November election is yet another political ploy,” Tax March executive director Maura Quint declared in a statement.

“We know the truth: the first punch of the Trump tax scam brought higher taxes on working people to pay for the massive giveaways to billionaires and corporations,” she said. “And now, to top it all off, Trump is trying to land a second punch to our pocketbooks. The only promise Trump is fulfilling with this second round of tax cuts is his commitment to enrich the rich at the expense of working people.”

When Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) into law in December 2017, he told reporters at the White House that “corporations are literally going wild over this, I think even beyond my expectations,” shortly after touting the legislation as “a bill for the middle class.”

The TCJA slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and included various other permanent benefits for companies and wealthy Americans. Although the legislation also included tax cuts for families and individuals, those benefits are set to expire after 2025.“And once the individual tax rates revert to their former levels, a stingier inflation gauge would raise taxes for most households,” CBS News noted in 2017.

Fox Business reported Friday that the next round of the administration’s tax agenda is “a middle-class tax cut plan,” and that Kudlow said the president recently told him to “get it out by September,” just two months before Trump will face off with the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.

According to Fox Business:

“It’ll come out sometime in September,” Kudlow told Fox Business‘ Maria Bartiromo.

The administration, he said, will likely use the Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought’s $1.4 trillion budget request to craft the package and make tax cuts permanent.

Kudlow said the administration plans to give the middle class a 10% tax cut in addition to strengthening and making permanent “some of the other tax cuts.”

Chye-Ching Huang, senior director of economic policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, tweeted Friday that reporting on Kudlow’s comments was “yet another occasion for a reminder that the 2017 tax law was costly, tilted to the top, and invites tax gaming by the wealthy.”

Chye-Ching Huang

@dashching

Yet another rumor of the Trump Administration working on "tax cuts 2.0" https://thehill.com/policy/finance/domestic-taxes/483087-kudlow-new-tax-cuts-will-probably-come-out-sometime-in …

Yet another occasion for a reminder that the 2017 tax law was costly, tilted to the top, & invites tax gaming by the wealthy -- & all attempts at "2.0" since then shares those flaws: https://twitter.com/dashching/status/1194368530088693760 …

Kudlow: New tax cuts will 'probably come out sometime in September'

National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow on Friday said that the White House hopes to introduce new middle-class tax cuts by the fall.

thehill.com

Chye-Ching Huang

@dashching

All of these things are pretty much just like the others, tax policy edition.

2017 tax law: tilted to the well-off.https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/2017-tax-law-tilted-toward-wealthy-and-corporations …

Tax March’s Quint said Friday that “if Trump had wanted to help the middle-class, he would have done so already. Instead, he continues to push tax giveaways to the wealthy and major corporations while also proposing massive cuts to services that everyday Americans pay into and depend upon.”

As Common Dreams reported Monday, just two days after promising that the White House “will not be touching your Social Security or Medicare,” Trump unveiled a budget blueprint for 2021 that calls for doing exactly that. Critics condemned the president’s proposal to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from those and other programs as “savage” and “shameful.”

In a floor speech this week, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) tied Trump’s proposed safety net cuts to the administration’s “tax scam” for corporations and the wealthy.

Sherrod Brown

@SenSherrodBrown

President Trump’s budget is his blueprint for how he wants to pay for his #GOPTaxScam - cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Embedded video

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c ded v an 120

...Is Mar-a-Lago a nexus for Trump’s apparent influence peddling and corruption?

Anywhere Trump shows up is a nexus for his influence peddling and corruption. It could be his golf courses or Mar-a-Lago or somewhere else. Gift-giving is a form of currency, influence-buying. Certainly Trump knows that he can buy loyalty from people. And what’s a better way to buy loyalty than if you’re president of United States and you know you’re going to assassinate the No. 2 guy in Iran and that it’s going to move markets.

On Jan. 2, the markets were up big. Soleimani was assassinated at one in the morning, Baghdad time, after the markets here had closed. There was some night trading, which was obviously going to make the markets go down the next day. Killing Gen. Soleimani was going to make the Middle East much more unstable. And what better way to reward your buddies — who were already your buddies, because they’re at Mar-a-Lago, to begin with, on New Year’s Eve — than with this little gift? It’s not hard to figure out what’s going on.

How would one send those signals? How does insider trading work?

Who are the people who know what is going to happen? Who knows about the trade docs? Steve Mnuchin, Robert Lighthizer, Wilbur Ross. Larry Kudlow, Donald Trump, Trump’s kids, Trump’s son-in-law. These people who do have knowledge of certain events are either giving gifts to friends or trying to continue to buy loyalty. What I think is more likely is that there are surrogate traders who are making these trades with inside information. They make the money and then stash it in some sort of account to be gotten back to after they leave office. But again, I don’t know. The people who would know are not cooperating. The head of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange said that my article in October should have been written in crayon because it was so childlike.

To reiterate: The people who were supposed to be watching and regulating are somehow complicit, looking away, indifferent, etc.?..

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npr mktwatch trump guy kudlow claims tax cut paid for itself, BS goes back to RR, deficit always goes up

https://www.marketplace.org/2019/07/11/how-tax-cuts-get-paid-for/

a year and a half ago, Congress passed one of the biggest tax cuts in history. Speaking at a CNBC event this week,Larry Kudlow, President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser, said this:

“I would argue strongly that the corporate tax cut has already been paid for and roughly two-thirds of the overall tax cut has been paid for.”

Back when the Republican tax plan was moving through Congress, proponents said it would “pay for itself.” We know it takes time for changes in the tax code to work their way through the economy, but we wanted to dig into that phrase “paid for.”

“So the thing about ‘paid for’ is that you’ve taken a verb ‘pay’ and you’ve gotten rid of all of the arguments,” said Jessica Rett, an associate professor of linguistics from UCLA. “We’re used to it in a sentence like, ‘Kai paid Jessica $10 for the beer.’ … When you say, ‘Kai paid Jessica $10 for the beer,’ you know exactly how much, and who is doing the paying, and who is receiving the paying. But if I just say, “The beer was paid for,” you just interpret the sentence as meaning, ‘OK, well, the beer was the thing that was paid for, and I’m just gonna have to assume that someone paid someone some amount,” she said.

Let’s take another look at what Larry Kudlow said:

“I would argue strongly that the corporate tax cut has already been paid for and roughly two-thirds of the overall tax cut has been paid for.”

In this case, “because there’s so many arguments missing, you’re not giving me any information about who’s paying for what. We tend to interpret it as meaning something like it’s self-funded,” Rett said.

So are these tax cuts being “paid for” like someone paying for a beer?

“These tax cuts are not being — I’m afraid to use the words now after this linguist — but they’re not being ‘paid for,'” said Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C. “There’s simply no evidence that the tax cut paid for itself or even paid for two-thirds of itself.”

The broader question though, is who pays for tax cuts?

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act included some provisions that lowered taxes and some that raised taxes. Gleckman said if you look at the net effect, you find that it reduced taxes by around $1.5 trillion. That means to “pay for” the tax cuts, someone has to pay the government $1.5 trillion.

“The only way you’re going to get this money, the only way you’re going to, if you will, ‘pay for’ this bill is through economic growth, which hasn’t happened, or through borrowing,” Gleckman said. “And if you borrow the money, you’ll eventually have to pay it back. And the people who are going to pay it back are going to be future generations who are going to pay higher taxes or receive fewer government benefits. That’s all there is.”

There is still a lot we do not know about the long-term impact of this tax law, but there is some historical context that’s helpful here. President Ronald Reagan cut taxes in 1981, and President George W. Bush cut taxes in 2001.

“Every time, the proponents of those tax cuts argued that they would pay for themselves, and every time, the deficit went up after the tax cuts were enacted and in fact went up a lot,” Gleckman said.

So the next time you hear someone say a tax cut will “pay for itself” or that a tax cut has been “paid for,” come on back to marketplace.org and read this again.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/trumps-cure-for-recession-woes-is-more-tax-cuts-for-the-rich-it-wont-work/

no lnx

Trump’s cure for recession woes is more tax cuts for the rich. It won’t work

Written by Igor Derysh / Salon August 21, 2019

The Trump administration has floated a new round of tax cuts for the rich and slashing the payroll tax used to fund Social Security and Medicare to ease worries of a recession, which the White House insists is not happening despite dire warnings from economists and the stock market.

Despite the stock market plummeting over concerns of a looming recession and a survey finding that 74 percent of economists expect a recession to hit in the next two years, President Trump and his aides have have flippantly dismissed concerns of an economic downturn.Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway called recession the “Sesame Street word of the day” and Trump himself has argued that the bad economic outlook is just a conspiracy by economists and the media to make him look bad.

The Washington Post reported last week that Trump aides “acknowledge that they have not planned for a possible recession” but The New York Times now reports that the president’s team is scrambling to come up with ways to alleviate the hit the economy has taken from Trump’s trade wars.

Top White House advisers, including National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, are pushing for acapital gains tax cut, which would allow investors to pay lower taxes on profits when they sell their shares, according to the Times. According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model, 86 percent of the benefits of such a cut would go to the top 1 percent while costing the government more than $100 billion in revenues.

Trump’s team is also considering a payroll tax cut, The Washington Post reported. The Obama administration also used a two-year payroll tax cut to help recover from the 2008-9 recession, but it was not until years after the recession ended. Such a cut could boost consumer spending, which is actually the only economic indicator still doing well, but would drain the revenue sources of Social Security and Medicare. White House officials denied that a payroll tax cut is “under consideration” but said that more tax cuts “were on the table.”

One thing not on the table is changing course in Trump’s trade war,the Times reported. Trump’s tariffs on China and other countries have not helped reduce the U.S. trade deficit but have contributed to manufacturing falling to a decade low, farmers in the Midwest going bankrupt at record rates, and consumers being hit with huge cost increases.

Instead, Trump is expected to go forward with a new round of tariffs on Chinese goods next month. JPMorgan Chase said the existing tariffs are already costing the average American household $600 more per year and the next round would increase that cost to $1,000 per year.

The Trump administration is giving farmers hit by his trade war a taxpayer-funded bailout (which will cost more than the revenue raised by the tariffs), and Kudlow floated the idea of a bailout for taxpayers hit by the trade war in an appearance on Fox News Sunday.

“Tax cuts 2.0, we are looking at all that,” Kudlow said. “By the way, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, very smart guy, made an interesting idea — a proposal on another network last week. He said, ‘Look, why don’t we take the tariffs from the China trade and turn those back to the taxpayers in the form of tax cuts?’ That’s an idea.”

Kudlow also said capital gains tax cuts were “good ideas,” though he insisted that the economy was in “pretty good shape” and that there is “no recession in sight.”

Kudlow made a similar prediction right before the recession hit in 2008.

“There’s no recession coming. The pessimistas were wrong. It’s not going to happen,” Kudlow wrote in an op-ed in December 2007. “The Bush boom is alive and well. It’s finishing up its sixth consecutive year with more to come. Yes, it’s still the greatest story never told.”

After joining the Trump administration, Kudlow denied that that the deficit was growing as a result of Trump’s tax cuts and bizarrely claimed that the deficit was “coming down rapidly.” The deficit is already higher this fiscal year than it was through all of last year.

Kudlow offered another can’t-miss prediction in an interview with NBC News Sunday.

“I sure don’t see a recession,” he told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd. “The second half of the economy is going to be very good in 2019.”

“OK, you say that, but you actually said that in 2007 right before the second-worst downturn in American history,” Todd replied. “I admire your optimism, but the data is pointing in another direction.”

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AN makes $ bet ~ kudlow 819

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Fox News’ Chris Wallace confronts Larry Kudlow over Trump’s bogus claim that China will pay for tariffs: ‘That isn’t true’

David Edwards / Raw Story

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/11/business/tesla-gm-electric-car-tax-credit/index.html

(CNN Business)

General Motors and Tesla sales could get a boost if a bill introduced this week by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to expand the electric car tax credit passes Congress.

Michigan Democrats Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Sen. Gary Peters and Rep. Dan Kildee joined with Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander and Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins to propose the legislation, which they say would increase production in electric vehicles and create jobs.

Currently, customers who buy electric cars receive a $7,500 tax credit. But it phases out after an automaker sells 200,000 vehicles.

Tesla (TSLA) was first to hit the cap last year, and responded by cutting the price of its cars by $2,000. GM (GM) exceeded 200,000 vehicles sold earlier this year, and has warnedthat sales of their plug-in cars, like the Chevrolet Bolt and Volt, could drop as the tax credit phases out.

GM's plug-in tax credit set to expire

The proposed legislation would raise the cap, so that another 400,000 vehicles sold by each manufacturer will be eligible for a $7,000 tax credit. It would start phasing out after 600,000 vehicles are sold.

"At a time when climate change is having a real effect on Michigan, today's legislation is something we can do now to reduce emissions and combat carbon pollution," Stabenow said in a statement.

"Our bill will help create American jobs and cement Michigan's status as an advanced manufacturing hub," she added.

Alexander applauded how far the electric car industry has come over the past decade.

"Investing in American research and technology for better electric vehicles is one way to help our country and the world deal with climate change," he said.

The proposal could get pushback from the Trump administration. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlowsaid in December that the president wants to end the electric vehicle tax credit, the Wall Street Journal reported.

"As a matter of our policy, we want to end all those subsidies," Kudlow said.

The comment came days after Trump threatened to end subsidies for GM, in response to the automaker's announcement that it would but cutting thousands of jobs.

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bk bs

Donald Trump promised the American people a transformative change in economic policy after eight years of stagnation under Obama. But he didn’t adopt a conventional left or right economic agenda. ...Google Books

Originally published: October 30, 2018

Authors: Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore

Review

"Stephen Moore and Arthur Laffer, two very talented men, have just completed an incredible book on my Economic Policies, or, as they call it, TRUMPONOMICS. They have really done a great job in capturing my long-held views and ideas. This book is on sale now―a terrific read of a really interesting subject!" ―President Donald Trump

About the Author

Stephen Moore and Arthur B. Laffer are the economists behind the job creation platform that brought Trump to victory. Stephen Moore is a former member of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board, and the Distinguished Visiting Fellow for The Heritage Foundation's Project for Economic Growth. Arthur B. Laffer, the Father of Supply-Side Economics, was a member of Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board. Moore and Laffer are coauthors of Trumponomics.

---

Product details

  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: All Points Books (October 30, 2018)

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rev ny mag

chait j

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/trumponomics-book-trump-tax-cuts-rich-deficits.html

Trumponomics is a damning exposé of the corrupt bargain between Donald Trump and the party’s wealthy insiders. The odd thing is that the book is not intended as an exposé at all, but as an auto-hagiography written by three Republican policy entrepreneurs who helped win Trump over and shape his program, and are so lacking in self-awareness that they earnestly believe they are defending both Trump and his partners.

The authors of Trumponomics are Larry Kudlow (who left in the middle of its writing to accept a job as director of the National Economic Council), Stephen Moore, and Arthur Laffer. The three fervently propound supply-side economics, a doctrine that holds that economic performance hinges largely on maintaining low tax rates on the rich. In the 1990s, the supply-siders insisted Bill Clinton’s increase in the top tax rate would create a recession and cause revenue to plummet. The following decade, they heralded the Bush tax cuts as the elixir that had brought in a glorious new era of prosperity. Moore wrote *Bullish on Bush*: How George Bush’s Ownership Society Will Make America Stronger, and Kudlow wrote the foreward to *The Bush Boom*.

Their record of being wrong about everything is so incomprehensibly vast it is astonishing they have retained their positions of influence over a major party. Trumponomics inadvertently clarifies how an economist who was declaring the U.S. housing market to be perfectly sound and on its way up in July 2008 secured a job as chief economist to the president of the United States as a matter of course.

The supply-siders have maintained absolute faith in their dogma in the face of repeated failure by banishing all doubt. Laffer explains in the book that he believes economists must resist the temptation to “start ignoring simple truths in favor of complex falsehoods.” When I first encountered that sentence I assumed I had read it backwards, but no — Laffer believes on principle that economic truths are simple, and he must steel his brain against the seductions of complexity, which is rather the opposite of how normal economists think. This seems to be the method by which they have warded off all doubts their repeated errors might have sown.

Accordingly, they have confined their failed predictions to the memory hole. A brief economic history in Trumponomics touts the gains made from 1982 to 1999, and laments “those gains stalled out after 2000 under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.” Notice, in addition to starting the Reagan era in 1982, thus absolving him for any blame for the recession that began a year into his presidency, they have retroactively moved the hated leftist Bill Clinton into the right-wing hero camp and the beloved conservative hero George W. Bush into the failed left-wing statist camp. At no point do they acknowledge the contemporaneous arguments they made against Clinton or for Bush. This is a preview of the method they will one day use with regard to Trump if the economy fails to deliver on their predictions: They will dismiss him as a leftist in disguise, without ever admitting having endorsed or designed his program.

The extraordinary lack of self-awareness allows the authors of Trumponomics to record a series of predictions that have already failed even before the book’s publication. Describing their case for a huge tax cut, they recount convincing Republicans in Congress that cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent “would yield about the same revenue – and possibly more — than the current system with a 35 percent rate.” (It hasn’t — corporate tax revenue has fallen by a third since the passage of the Trump tax cut.) They show Kudlow assuring Trump his tax cut would not lead to deficits because “the phony numbers of Washington’s bean counters” are “always wrong.” (They weren’t wrong — or, to put it more precisely, the bean counters turned out to underestimate the deficit following the tax cut.)

They describe Trump demanding, “I want to make sure that this isn’t a tax cut for rich people like me” (it was) and that Trump “didn’t want the Trump middle-class voters to think that this plan was self-serving” (they did.) The three record that, after meeting the great man and noticing his skeletal campaign staff, supposedly for money-saving reasons, they marveled to each other that President Trump “would have a field day going through the federal budget and rooting out the rampant waste, fraud and redundancy.” (He wouldn’t.)

The three authors proudly retell their litany of errors with the satisfaction of conquering heroes taking credit for their triumphs. It’s as if Robert McNamara published a book in 1968 boasting of his successful efforts to persuade Lyndon Johnson that the Vietnam War would be won by 1967.

***

Like virtually all members of the Republican Establishment, Kudlow, Moore, and Laffer initially greeted Trump’s candidacy with skepticism. But their hesitation did not center on the candidate’s ignorance, bigotry, irrepressible lying, authoritarian instincts, criminal history, or general viciousness. Instead, they doubted his commitment to the cause of low taxes for the affluent and lax regulation of business. A meeting with Trump easily dispelled these concerns. “He wanted tax cuts. He wanted to deregulate, he wanted to get government out of the way,” they recall. This was all it took. “The three of us saw Trump in a whole new light.”

Their newfound appreciation for Trump quickly bleeds into other attributes. They report one touching episode, in which the candidate agrees to meet a paralyzed teenage fan backstage before a rally. They ask why he didn’t bring the wheelchair-bound boy onstage, a campaign staffer explains that Trump “didn’t want people to think he was exploiting this tragedy for political gain.”

Bear in mind that Trump constantly boasts not only about charitable donations he makes, but also donations he claims to make but doesn’t, and is also the only recorded presidential candidate in history tomock a disability onstage. While Trump may have had reasons to keep a disabled fan off stage, it seems a little hard to believe either modesty or sensitivity toward the disabled was the motivation. Yet the authors accept the staffer’s flattering explanation purely at face value, calling it “a side of Donald Trump that many people are unaware of.”

Soon they find themselves lavishing Trump with compliments. “When people ask us what Donald Trump is really like in person, the one word we have found best described him was ‘authentic,’” they write of a man who has been described by his own aides as a compulsive liar.

Kudlow, Moore, and Laffer are unusually fixated on tax cuts,but they are merely extreme examples of the entire Republican Establishment, which shared their broad priorities. “The consolidation of the party behind Trump was greatly facilitated by the attractiveness of the Trump tax plan,” they report.

Greed is the glue that holds their story together. A large segment of their narrative consists of Trump turning over control of his agenda to various plutocrats.They tell how they wrote a memo defining the administration’s energy strategy during the transition period, drawing on three sources: oilman Harold Hamm; the Institute for Energy Research (a “partner organization” of the American Energy Alliance, a fossil fuel lobby); and Jack Coleman, an oil and gas lobbyist. They do not report consulting on any information sources not controlled by the fossil fuel industry. They describe a coal executive advising Trump, “if you want to make America great again, put a muzzle on the regulators.” At another meeting, one energy executive suggests natural gas, coal, and nuclear power should each have 30 percent of the power grid, with renewables splitting the remaining 10 percent. “That sounds about right,” Trump replies, “except for the ten percent for renewable energy.”

The authors report that they abandoned the idea of creating a border-adjustment tax because some businesses opposed it. “The business community was completely divided,” they note. “As such, we agreed very early on that the BAT had to go.” Trump himself refused to accept an end to the deductibility of interest payments. “Look, I’ve spent my whole life doing real estate deals,” he tells them, “Every one of them was financed by debt. I hate this idea.” Here they reveal Trump killing a reform solely because it would negatively impact his own business. This scene comes just five pages after they credulously cite Trump promising that the tax cut won’t benefit him personally.

The authors seem oblivious to either the contradiction with Trump’s populist rhetoric, or the general idea that an administration outsourcing policy to wealthy people with a personal stake in the outcome is in any way suboptimal. If these scenes had been ferreted out by investigative reporters instead of blithely repeated by a trio of hagiographers, many of them would be damning exposés you could imagine on the front page of the New York Times or the WashingtonPost.

The bizarre shamelessness of these accounts is explained in part by their belief that Trump’s wealth proves his motives are pure. “We never believed for one moment that [Trump] was in this to further enrich himself. He was already rich,” they reason.

The notion that the rich would never engage in corruption is not a throwaway line, but a bedrock principle the authors have articulated before. “Why shouldn’t the president surround himself with successful people?”Kudlowwrote in 2016. “Wealthy folks have no need to steal or engage in corruption.” Trumponomics is an unintentionally persuasive argument for the exact opposite conclusion.

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fringe coming mainstream gop eg Kudlow

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/01/president-trumps-top-economic-adviser-calls-federal-minimum-wage-terrible-idea/

?dlbk&emc=edit_dk_20181102&nl=dealbook&te=1&utm_term=.601d3ccdd4ce

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Appearing on ABC's This Week on Sunday just moments after President Donald Trump's chief economic adviser and noted Wall Street stooge Larry Kudlow dismissed a new United Nations climate report showing that the world must cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 to avert global catastrophe, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) denounced the White House for its "dangerous" rejection of climate science and slammed Trump for working hand-in-hand with Big Oil to make "a bad situation worse."< The reason is simple: Almost no one believes there's much chance the United States has the political will to do anything substantial to combat climate change. Because as long as the Republican Party holds any bit of power in Washington, D.C., it will do whatever it can to thwart efforts to wind down greenhouse gas emissions

...?

In a new *New York Times* op-ed, economist Paul Krugman argued that the shifting responses Republicans — including now President Donald Trump — give in response to questions about climate change reveal that they are not reacting to the issue in good faith. They'll go from denying that climate change is happening, to denying that humans contribute to it, to denying that there's anything to be done about the issue — all without altering their fundamental assumption that there's no reason to impose any costs on the fossil fuel industry.

"Details aside, the very multiplicity of climate-denial arguments — the deniers’ story keeps changing, but the bottom line that we should do nothing remains the same — is a sign that theopponents of climate action are arguing in bad faith," Krugman wrote. "They aren’t seriously trying to engage with the reality of climate change or the economics of reduced emissions; their goal is to keep polluters free to pollute as long as possible, and they’ll grab onto anything serving that goal."

He added: "[We're] now ruled by people who are willing to endanger civilization for the sake of political expediency, not to mention increased profits for their fossil-fuel friends." // noam

The complete vacuity of their position has been clear for literally decades. Krugman continued:

These days, climate deniers seem to have temporarily backed down a bit on claims that nothing is happening. The old dodge of comparing temperatures to an unusually warm year in 1998 to deny that the planet is getting warmer — which is like comparing days in early July with a warm day in May, and denying that there’s such a thing as summer — has been undermined by a string of new temperature records. And massive tropical storms fed by a warming ocean have made the consequences of climate change increasingly visible to the public.

So the new strategy is to downplay what has happened. Climate change models “have not been very successful,” declared Larry Kudlow, the top White House economic adviser. Actually, they have: Global warming to date is well in line with past projections. “Something’s changing and it’ll change back again,” asserted Donald Trump on “60 Minutes,” based upon, well, nothing.

Having grudgingly conceded that maybe the planet is indeed getting a bit warmer, the climate deniers claim to be unconvinced that greenhouse gases are responsible. “I don’t know that it’s man-made,” said Trump. And while he has sort-of-kind-of backed down on his earlier claims that climate change is a hoax concocted by the Chinese, he’s still seeing vast conspiracies on the part of climate scientists, who he says “have a very big political agenda.”

Amazingly, even after the Republican Party has been proven wrong again and again on this issue, it has felt no need to reexamine its fundamental assumptions about the issue or admit error.

And in addition to the corrupt motive of seeking to please their fossil fuel industry donors, Krugman suggests another reason for ignoring the reality of climate change. As the party has continued to devolve and lost any stable values, it clings to theunifying joy of "owning the libs." As long as liberals think combatting climate change is an important issue, Republicans will be happy to ignore it.

But politics is not just a game, despite the cartoonish arguments that have become so common on the right wing. The right's terrible policy choices have real consequences.

"We have good reason to believe that Trump and his associates are selling out America for the sake of personal gain," concluded Krugman. "When it comes to climate, however, they aren’t just selling out America; they’re selling out the whole world."

==

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Washington Post reported that top Trump adviser Larry Kudlow hosted white nationalist publisher Peter Brimelow at his dinner party. A number of other notable GOP figures attended the party, including Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade. Brimelow is the editor of VDare, a white nationalist website that published a number of articles by the organizer of the Charlottesville rally.

Kudlow claimed to not know about Brimelow's white nationalism. Brimelow was an editor for the National Review and wrote racist commentary, before he was bootedfrom the publication in 1997. Kudlow has been an editor and writer for the National Review, including when Brimelow was still employed by the publication.

But as Eric Hananoki found, Larry Kudlow's white nationalist barbecue is not the only link between the Republican Party and VDare/Brimelow.

The Daily Caller has recently published Brimelow, and Ann Coulter has credited himas a major influence.

Also: Kansas GOP gubernatorial nominee Kris Kobach is still citing a made-up anti-immigration statistic. Kobach's source is a white nationalist writer who has been involved in Holocaust denial. That same white nationalist writer also held an eventfor a presumptive Republican nominee for a Florida state House seat.

==

laffer sidekick, BS chile miracle, lives on in

houst chron

Shiny SUVs and sleek sports cars spilled out of the River OaksCountry Club's parking lots on Thursday, lining the streets for blocks around Houston's most elite gathering spot. The draw: A talk by Arthur Laffer, the Reagan administration economist who is perhaps more strongly associated with the idea that tax cuts foster growth than anyone else.

Laffer is feeling pretty chipper these days. Back in July, when most pundits still considered Donald Trump a long shot for the presidency, Laffer put out a paper predicting he would win. It might have looked like wishful thinking: Trump's tax plans hewed closely towhat Laffer has recommended for decades. 

But Trump did win, and now trickle-down economics is back in the White House.Close Laffer associates Stephen Moore and Larry Kudlow are among Trump's trusted advisors.Laffer sees a lot of parallels between Trump and Ronald Reagan, whose own long-shot election he rehashed in detail. 

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https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/06/11/foxs-sebastian-gorka-accuses-canadian-prime-minister-really-childish-and-unprofessional-behavior/220408

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Larry Kudlow his new top economic adviser. Kudlow is a supply-side fanatic who has a record of being wrong about the economy. Not just a little wrong, but wildly, historically wrong. Here are some facts about Kudlow (there are many more):

Kudlow is also a climate change denier who once argued that the Keystone Pipeline would be good for the environment because animals would snuggle underneath it (The pipeline would be built underground). So what is Kudlow's qualification? According to Kudlow himself, Trump liked that Kudlow spent so much time on television

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cohn quit/fired on tariffs, kudlow big coke habit, routine hugely wrong on macro-economics, cheerleader for bush 43 right up to gt recession

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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/did-trump-pick-larry-kudlow-economic-adviser-because-hes-handsome-tv

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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trumps-new-economic-adviser-larry-kudlow-doesnt-actually-have-clue-about-economics

Donald Trump picked well-known CNBC personality Larry Kudlow to become director of the National Economic Council, a man with a storied history of being spectacularly and consistently wrong in his economic forecasting.

For starters, Kudlow has proudly proclaimed that he's been an advocate of the gold standard since the 1970s, a favorite proposal of economic cranks the world over. The gold standard just happens to be a terrible way to run a modern economy. Pretty much every respectable economist finds the idea laughable.

Unsurprisingly, a man who holds such a misguided view is actually pretty bad at making economic predictions.

In 2010, Kudlow warned that the choice of Janet Yellen to become vice chair of the Federal Reserve risked unleashing a devastating wave of inflation. Her focus on reducing unemployment risked letting the money supply rise uncontrollably, dooming the recovery from the Great Recession.

Of course, none of that happened. Inflation has been on average below target since 2009. Yellen became the Fed chair in 2014, and her policies helped spur the steady economic growth and low unemployment rate for which Trump thinks he deserves all the credit.

As Jonathan Chait explains, Kudlow was seeing signs of economic recovery in July 2008—after evidence of the housing crisis had long been apparent, but well before the country sank to the greatest depths of the recession.

Chait also chronicles Kudlow's long history of supporting the Republican dogma that all tax cuts are good, completely ignoring the reams of evidence to the contrary.

Kudlow doesn't get everything wrong. He believes Trump's tariffs are a dangerous move—but that's likely the one issue where he'll have the least influence, given that Gary Cohn, whom Kudlow is replacing, was unable to change the president's mind on the topic.

Noah Smith argues its little surprise that Trump has tapped Kudlow. The GOP's economic views are so divergent from both the average American's ideas and those of the professional economists, they need to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find advisers.

"Given that the GOP has committed itself to an unpopular policy program, why not hire a tax-cutting cheerleader and cable-TV personality to head the National Economic Council?" Smith writes. "The Republican bench of advisers is down to people like Kudlow because the Republican reserve of economic ideas is down to things that so many people—including most academic economists—don’t really want."

Cody Fenwick

==

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/12/16/trump-reportedly-considering-non-economist-cnbc-pundit-head-council-economic-advisors/214851

Donald Trump is reportedly considering CNBC financial pundit and conservative political commentator Larry Kudlow to replace economist Jason Furman as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA). Kudlow built his career in conservative media as an advocate of failed trickle-down economic policies, and he is notorious for making faulty predictions and sharing misleading analyses. He may soon be rewarded for those efforts with one of the most prestigious economic jobs in the United States.

According to a December 15 report from The Detroit News, discredited right-wing economic pundit and Trump adviser Stephen Moore told the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce that the president-elect planned to name Kudlow as the chairman of the CEA before the end of the week. Moore later told the paper that he “misspoke” and that Kudlow is “on the short list” for a CEA appointment, but it is not “a done deal.”

As The Washington Post pointed out, Kudlow’s rumored consideration for a key White House appointment is “another unorthodox pick” for the incoming administration because Kudlow “lacks a graduate or undergraduate degree in economics and has not written scholarly papers on the subject.” As has been the case with more than a dozen Trump appointees and rumored selections, Kudlow’s primary qualification for serving as the president’s chief economist is that “he plays one on TV,” as David Dayen explained in The Nation:

The overriding quality necessary for landing a position in Donald Trump’s administration is that Trump has to know you from TV. Most of his cabinet selections have logged plenty of time in cable-news green rooms.

[...]

So in that context, floating Larry Kudlow to run the Council of Economic Advisers is perfectly apt. Kudlow isn’t an economist, but he plays one on TV. And more important, he confidently (and usually wrongly) favors what has to be seen as the dominant economic gospel of the Trump administration: tax cuts.

Over the course of his long career as a right-wing media personality, Kudlow has become synonymous with the failed trickle-down economic agenda favored by conservative politicians. He has also established a track record of being “usually wrong and frequently absurd” with faulty predictions and analysis that could undermine the economic security of hardworking Americans. As outlined by The Huffington Post, Kudlow’s “spectacular record of wrongness” may be what makes him a “perfect” adviser for Trump.

Kudlow Totally Missed The Financial Crisis, Refused To Acknowledge Recession

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), an award-winning nonprofit research organization that is perhaps best-known for determining a chronology of American business cycles and recessions, the Great Recession began in December 2007. Yet Kudlow published blogs on December 5, 6, and 7 of that year titled “The Recession Debate Is Over,” “There Ain’t No Recession,” and “Bush Boom Continues,” in the conservative National Review. By July 2008, as the unemployment rate continued to balloon in the seventh month of recession, Kudlow was still arguing in National Review that there was no recession or housing crisis. In May 2016, having finally come to terms with reality of the housing crash, Kudlow co-authored an op-ed in the right-wing Washington Times blaming Bill and Hillary Clinton because of a legislative initiative in the 1990s that made lines of credit more accessible to low-income families.

Kudlow Is A Notorious Poor-Shamer

During a March 2016 appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Kudlow participated in a panel discussion where he lectured single parents in low-income families about poverty despite professing to have “virtually no knowledge in this field.” He bragged that he is "ignorant" of many issues facing such families, but said he felt he could speak to them because "there's enough documentation for ignorant people" to talk effectively about the supposed cause-effect relationship between poverty and single parenting. In November 2014, Kudlow spoke on the same subject at the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation. Kudlow also used his National Review blog to promote a column by right-winger Cal Thomas that praised his misleading remarks. Kudlow’s position that marriage is a silver bullet solution to poverty is common among right-wing media personalities and conservative politicians, but the idea has been completely discreditedby experts.

Kudlow Thought War In The Middle East Might Boost The Stock Market

In a June 2002 column, Kudlow lamented that “the economy is doing fine but the stock market is slumping” and argued that “decisive shock therapy to revive the American spirit would surely come with a U.S. invasion of Iraq.” Kudlow apparently hoped newfound wartime confidence and a surge of military spending would inflate the economy, but as economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) concluded in a May 2007 report on the economic impact of the Iraq War, “Military spending drains resources from the productive economy.” Kudlow’s views Middle Eastern warfare and the stock market were not isolated in Iraq, in an August 2006 column, he claimed that “global investors are cheering Israel’s advance” in a war against Lebanese fighters that left thousands of soldiers and civilians killed or injured.

Kudlow Is A Climate Science Denier

Media Matters conducted a study of CNBC’s coverage of climate change in 2013, finding that several CNBC figures, including Kudlow, denied the science of man-made climate change altogether. Kudlow attempted to further muddy the waters on climate science in an October 2014 blog by hyping a deeply flawed op-ed published by the conservative Wall Street Journal that misleadingly claimed “Climate Science Is Not Settled.” Kudlow’s continued aversion to the scientific consensus on climate change presents problems for U.S. economic stability, as dozens of business and industry leaders have already begun taking climatic shifts into account in their long-term planning.

Kudlow Actually Disagrees With Trump On Trade

One of the few economic policies at the core of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was his opposition to major international trade deals. He spent months attacking his opponents for their support of free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and promised to immediately withdraw from the deal after taking office. Kudlow has been a major TPP supporter and wrote in a May 1, 2015, column for National Review that “Obama deserves credit” for trying to get the deal signed and ratified. In a March 11 column for CNBC, in which he responded to severe criticism from fellow conservatives, Kudlow stated, “I continue to oppose Donald Trump’s trade policies.”

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The Trump Connection

Larry Kudlow was part of the Office of Management and Budget in Reagan’s first term, and is now a columnist and on-air personality for CNBC.Trump enlisted Kudlow (along with Stephen Moore) to work on changes to his economic plans.

What You Need To Know

Kudlow was a big supporter of George W. Bush’s economic policies and was infamous for missing the warning signs of the coming economic meltdown.

Kudlow dismissed people concerned about the real estate bubble in the mid-2000s as “bubbleheads who expect housing-price crashes.” In December 2007, as the National Bureau of Economic Research marked the beginning of the Great Recession, Kudlow wrote, “there’s no recession coming.”

Stephen Moore

Moore

The Trump Connection

Conservative economic columnist Stephen Moore was enlisted, along with Larry Kudlow, to tweak Trump’s economic policy in the general election.

What You Need To Know

Like Kudlow, Moore has a terrible track record when predicting the effect of both conservative and progressive policies on the economy. He also regularly makes false claims to attack policies like taxes, regulation, the minimum wage, and Obamacare.

The editorial page director of the Kansas City Star declared she “won’t be running anything else from Stephen Moore” after he used false employment numbers in a column attacking economist Paul Krugman.

In a column promoting Trump's candidacy, Moore wrote, "It is striking that Trump is the anti-Obama in every way."

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Kudlow And Kernen Still Undermine Climate Science. Several CNBC figures who have previously denied climate change science, including host Larry Kudlow and co-anchor Joe Kernen, stayed true to form during the surveyed period. Since the original report, Kudlow and Kernen cast doubt on climate change five and four times, respectively. They have previously referred to climate change as a "scam analysis" and a "bona-fide cult," and Kernen has devoted time on social media this year to inveigh against climate advocates, variously referring to them as "Eco Taliban" and comparing them to "end of days" evangelists.:{  }:*Media Matters*:{, }:[6/18/13:{] }:*Media Matters*:{, }:[8/20/13:{] DeSmog Blog, }:[7/24/13:{] Twitter, }:[7/11/13:{]}:

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CNBC's Larry Kudlow actually said on television that animals would "snuggle" underneath the Keystone XL pipeline. Is this how CNBC plans to discuss enviromental and energy issues?http://mm4a.org/1fhc3xO

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Lawrence A. Kudlow (also known as Larry Kudlow) studied at the University of Rochester and Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He was chief economist and senior managing director of Bear, Stearns & Co., Inc. where he was also chairman of that firm's Investment Policy Committee.

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However, this special programming has so far been limited to Worldwide Exchange, while CNBC's worst offenders are still misleading their audience on climate change.

Shortly after the petition was announced, Squawk Boxco-anchor Joe Kernen doubled down on climate denial, bashing his critics on Twitter and on the air. During aninterview with  John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil Company, Kernen complained about the "enviro-socialists," calling them a "bona fide cult." In response, Left Action created an additional petition to tell Kernen that "climate change is real, not a 'cult.'"

And Kernen's attacks on climate science have not abated. Recently, he suggestedthat insurance companies aren't "seeing" climate change. In fact, top reinsurance company Munich Re found in a study that there is "new evidence for the emerging impact of climate change" on increasing storm losses. According to consulting group Ernst & Young, the insurance sector is "going to be one of the hardest hit by climate change" -- and insurance companies must prepare for this to survive in the industry.

And preceding Obama's climate change speech, The Kudlow Report featured Steven Hayward of the fossil fuel industry funded American Enterprise Institute to "counter" Obama's "climate change confusion."

The Forecast the Facts petition can still be signed to tell CNBC: "Climate Denial Is Bad For Business."

UPDATE (8/21/13): On Squawk Box Wednesday morning, Joe Kernen confronted Carolin Roth about CNBC's climate week special. He mockingly asked whether she would cover how "climate warmers" are supposedly "predicting cold, wet, hot, dry summers," continuing hisrepeatedsuggestion that climate change advocates attribute everything, including cold weather, to climate change.

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