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Open in TheBrain

mandate

like "agenda" has bad connotation, tho not the mystery

merri ok

see control

see gas stove car BS

great scam because it allows trump-y opposition to rule/bill that is popular or needed, but you get to look like you're standing on principle/values

FOX LIKES TO CLAIM A RULE/REG A MANDATE WHEN IT ACTUALLY ISN’T, EG EV // GREEN TYRANNY NANNY STATE BS BULB?

// to tyranny, big in anti-mask vaxx fight liberty freedumb

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MMA

  1. ### Fox tries to sell Trump administration's claim that lower fuel economy will make car buying more affordable

:{:{12/10/25}:

Fox tries to sell Trump administration's claim that lower fuel economy will make car buying more affordable

Trump's auto tariffs are expected “to increase car prices by as much as $6,000”

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Allison Fisher

Published 12/10/25

Biden administration officials had estimated that the fuel efficiency rule, which required automakers’ new vehicles to achieve approximately 50 mpg on average by 2031, would “lower fuel costs by $23 billion while preventing more than 710 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere by 2050 — the equivalent of taking 165,000 cars off the roads.”

Fox’s coverage of Trump’s fuel economy rollback pushed White House talking points that it would make car buying more affordable and reverse costly Biden-era regulations, with Fox host Will Cain calling the move “a win for the American consumer.” But industry experts and at least one Fox Business host dispute the claim that lowering the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards will lower the price of cars for consumers.

Gas price expert Patrick De Haan did not mince words, calling the attempt to connect fuel economy to affordability “STUPID!”

“If you want to know why cars cost more, look at tariffs, commodity spikes, electronics, and supply chain changes — not long-established fuel economy rules,” he continued. “Weakening CAFE standards could backfire and lead to HIGHER gas prices if vehicles become less efficient.”

According to Kelley Blue Book, an American vehicle valuation and automotive research company, “Shoppers can expect the tariffs to increase car prices by as much as $6,000 on vehicles priced under $40,000. Higher car prices mean higher car taxes, financing, car insurance, and other ownership costs. This price pressure will make cars less affordable for consumers.”

And Bloomberg writes: “It’s not clear that relaxing the standard will result in lower sticker prices anytime soon — if at all — since carmakers plan their lineups years in advance. And it won’t do anything to address added costs from tariffs Trump has imposed on cars and car parts with the promise of reshoring domestic manufacturing.”

Nevertheless, here’s how Fox News and Fox Business are pushing the affordability narrative while pinning the high cost of cars on Biden in the wake of Trump’s announced fuel economy standard rollback:

Trump called on Americans to accept less this holiday season. Fox thought that was hilarious.

  1. ### Fox struggles to run cover for Trump calling affordability crisis a “hoax,” “scam,” and “con job”

12/10/25

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mma

Trump campaign echoes right-wing media’s lies about an EV mandate

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Ilana Berger

Published 09/10/24

Related

On Facebook, content trashing electric vehicles reliably draws engagement

07/03/24

  1. ### Right-wing media use Tesla strandings in Chicago to bash electric vehicles

01/19/24

  1. ### As a climate-fueled heat wave stresses California's electric grid, right-wing media are disingenuously attacking electric vehicles

09/02/22

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tom cat fox bs

*Former AG William Barr's free market group sues California over EV truck mandate

CALIFORNIA April 5

Former AG William Barr's free market group sues California over EV truck mandate

FIRST ON FOX: A free market business group advised by two-time former Attorney General William Barr is suing California over it aggressive mandate for electric trucks.

no lnx

CALIFORNIA

Former AG William Barr's free market group sues California over EV truck mandate

Barr: California's mandate 'is not only illegal but a threat to our American free enterprise'

Thomas Catenacci By Thomas Catenacci Fox News

Published April 5, 2024

How would EV rules hurt truckers?Video

"The Big Weekend Show" panelists break down the Biden administration's electric vehicle policies set to impact heavy-duty trucks beginning with 2027 models.

FIRST ON FOX: A free market business group whose legal arm is led by two-time former U.S. Attorney General William Barr has filed a federal lawsuit against California over its climate regulations for phasing out diesel-powered heavy-duty vehicles.

The American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce – which was launched in 2022 to fight government regulations – filed the lawsuit this week in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, naming California Attorney General Rob Bonta and California Air Resources Board (CARB) Executive Officer Steven Cliff as defendants.

AmFree Chamber and co-plaintiff Associated Equipment Distributors allege that California's Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) regulations violate the federal Clean Air Act since the state never obtained a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to pursue the plan. Under the ACF rules, which kicked in this year, trucking companies must rapidly transition their fleets from diesel-powered to zero-emissions vehicles.

"California’s attempt to effectively abolish the internal combustion engine by forcing Americans to buy EVs is not only illegal but a threat to our American free enterprise," Barr, who chairs the advisory board at AmFree Chamber's Center for Legal Action, told Fox News Digital. "This mandate is unlikely to produce any net reduction in carbon emissions, and even if it does, any benefit will be negligible in comparison to the massive costs these mandates impose on our economy and individual American families."

VULNERABLE HOUSE DEM BUCKS PARTY ORTHODOXY, BLASTING HIS STATE'S PROPOSED EV MANDATE

Bill Barr speaks at Federalist Society conference

Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr speaks at a meeting of the Federalist Society on Sept. 20, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

"We filed this suit to protect Californians from government overreach and to ensure they have continued access to affordable, reliable and accessible fleets," Barr added. "AmFree’s Center for Legal Action will continue to file state and federal suits that take on climate mandates that are only being implemented to move the liberal agenda forward but as a result have put a choke hold on our American economy."

In addition to arguing that California violated the Clean Air Act, the lawsuit further alleges the ACF regulations are preempted by the Energy Independence and Security Act and the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act. The former authorizes the federal government to set fuel economy standards and the latter seeks to preempt state trucking regulations with federal standards.

TRUCKERS CHALLENGE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION OVER CLIMATE CRACKDOWN ON ELECTRIC BIG RIGS

CARB adopted the ACF, the most aggressive truck electrification plan of its kind anywhere in the nation, in April 2023.

The regulations require operators who manage short-haul tractor trailers, government fleets and "high priority" fleets to begin transitioning to zero-emissions vehicles this year. "High priority" fleets are those with more than 50 trucks or are managed by private companies with at least $50 million in revenue.

California AG speaks to reporters wearing a suit

State Attorney General Rob Bonta speaks at a news conference in Sacramento, California, on Feb. 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

The new rules require fleets using drayage trucks – which are short-haul trucks that transport goods from ports and rail yards – to only buy zero-emissions alternatives starting this year and to fully be zero-emissions by 2035.

Fleets classified as "high priority" must either begin purchasing only zero-emissions vehicles this year or adhere to state targets, such as having a quarter of box trucks and vans to be zero-emissions by 2028.

And for fleets managed by state and local governments, 50% of heavy-duty vehicle purchases must be zero-emissions this year. That requirement increases to 100% by 2027.

Overall, the ACF requires all commercial truck sales for all fleets must be zero-emissions beginning in 2036.

FEDERAL COURT STRIKES DOWN BIDEN'S CLIMATE RULE FOR STATES

"If people want to buy electric vehicles, then they ought to be free to do so," AmFree Chamber CEO Gentry Collins told Fox News Digital. "The substance of our complaint here is not about being opposed to EVs. The substance of our complaint is about being opposed to the mandates."

Truck

Less than 1% of new truck sales in the U.S. are zero-emissions, according to the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association. (Graham Hughes/Bloomberg via Getty Images/File)

He noted the higher costs and lower range of electric trucks, which currently represent a tiny share of new truck purchases nationwide.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, CARB spokesperson Kate Lamb said the agency doesn't comment on pending litigation. However, she pointed to various figures showing the projected health and climate benefits of the ACF regulations.

"While trucks represent only 6% of the vehicles on California’s roads, they account for over 35% of the state’s transportation-generated nitrogen oxide emissions and a quarter of the state’s on-road greenhouse gas emissions," she said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Bonta's office didn't respond to a request for comment.

Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

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https://www.alternet.org/harriet-hageman/

an salon 1 23 no vids

Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., spewed conspiracy theories about an environmental plan to conserve 30% of US land and waters by 2030 ahead of her election last year.

Speaking at R-CALF, a convention for independent cattle producers, Hageman in August 2021 and 2022 baselessly claimed that conservation plans like the global initiative 30x30 are a government plot led by President Joe Biden to control Americans through starvation.

The congresswoman likened the environmental plans to African dictators starving their people to stay in power.

"Anytime their dictator needed to control the masses and needed to make sure that there would be no uprising, he just starves his people," Hageman said in the previously unreported video. "You can look at Somalia, you can look at the Congo, you can look at country after country after country after country, and what they've done is they control their people with food. That's what 30 x 30 is about. That's what the Green New Deal is about." [vid]

the-then candidate's statements are similar to a number of anti-government conspiracy theories shared by anti-public land extremists. Many of these conspiracy theorists have also equated 30x30 with the Holocaust and Stalin's genocide of Ukrainians in the 1930s.

"History repeats, and I think it's being done again," said one 30x30 conspiracy theorist on Facebook. "They did the very same thing in Ukraine, and they intend to do it to us."

In another video, Hageman claimed that 30x30 is the first step towards government-led "starvation" in order to "control" citizens.

"Whenever those leaders want to control the masses, they starve them. They kill them. And that's how they keep control. And that's where the 30 x 30 program is headed," she claimed.

"We need to stop looking at this as preserving the environment," she added. "We need to stop talking about protecting water and natural resources. That isn't what it's about, it's about control. It's about control of you." [vid]

this is not the first, or second, time that Hageman has boosted conspiracy theories: she has a long history of espousing misinformation and fighting against conservation and public lands. Hageman proudly bears the nickname "Wicked Witch of the West," which she earned after opposing the Clinton administration's roadless forest rule.

"Harriet Hageman's unhinged conspiracy theories show that her motivations for 'oversight' are completely unrooted in reality," Jordan Schreiber, director of the Energy and Environment program at the left-leaning watchdog group Accountable.US, said in a statement to Salon. "The next time she alleges wrongdoing remember that she subscribes to a set of falsehoods that would make Alex Jones blush. She cannot be taken seriously as a legislator or an investigator."

During her unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2018, Hageman suggested transferring one million acres of federal land to the state of Wyoming, which would have sold off significant hunting, fishing, and hiking areas, according to a report from The New York Times.

Two months before the midterm election in 2022, Hageman also claimed that the federal government controls too much land in the United States.

"Joe Biden has absolutely no authority whatsoever to try to take more private land out of production and use in this country," she said during a September R-CALF conference. "The federal government already has 612 million acres, and frankly, that's too many."

She further accused the World Wildlife Federation of trying to "destroy the livestock industry," calling them "evil people."

"They will put you out of business if you do not comply with their mandates that are going to be coming down the road,"she said of the environmental organization. "They want to either destroy the livestock industry or make sure that it is only the elite that are able to eat beef in the future."

In addition to conspiracy theories, Hageman has also previously shared that she believes regulatory agencies such as the United States Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Land Management are "destroying our republic."

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

wapo no lnx

Military

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

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

By Hannah Allam

March 19, 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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but recall exxon lobbyist who says safE to endorse carbon tax b/c politically impossible? [mcc, manchin...]

:{https://www.alternet.org/:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{2021/03/}::{fossil-fuels-and-climate-change/}:

American Petroleum Institute, a major fossil fuels lobby group that includes members of companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil, has beenopposed to setting a national price on carbon dioxide emissions in the United States. But this week, NBC News is reporting, API reversed that policy — and the group's CEO is acknowledging climate change as a reality.

NBC News' Josh Lederman reports that this change "follows a fierce internal debate within the organization over whether to embrace a carbon price, which several of the group's members had already publicly backed."

Many strident proponents of fossil fuels, from former President Donald Trump to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to Fox News pundits like Sean Hannity, are climate change deniers. But API CEO Mike Sommers, in an interview with NBC News, acknowledged climate change as a reality.

Sommers, discussing API's change of policy on a national carbon emissions price, told NBC News, "It's a recognition of the situation that we're in today and the importance of dealing with this important issue. This is a top priority of the Biden Administration, and we also know that climate change is real and that we need to be part of the discussion on one of the marquee items of our time."

Lederman, however, notes that API "is not endorsing a specific approach to putting a price on carbon." But Sommers, during his interview with NBC News, called for "investments in clean technologies."

Lederman explains, "Although major business and industry groups long fiercely opposed making emitters pay for their emissions, that opposition has ebbed as (the) industry has seen major government action as inevitable and began coalescing around a market-based approach that avoids the federal government issuing mandates. In recent years, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and other groups have voiced support for a carbon price."