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This Impeachment Is Different—and More Dangerous

This Impeachment Is Different—and More Dangerous

by | Jan 24, 2020 | Government & Law, Politics, Society and Culture | 0 comments

Americans haven’t been this siloed since the Civil War. Here’s how to prevent a bigger breakdown.

By LAWRENCE LESSIG, Via Politico. (Orig. published 12/7/19. First paragraph excerpted for context.)

…it’s easy to assume this is a path the nation has walked before. After all, impeachment is outlined in the Constitution, and we’ve lived through one as recently as 1999.

But that’s the wrong way to see it. Impeachment is a profoundly disruptive event, and when we think about what could happen to the country, we need to recognize just how different this time is. The nation has never entered impeachment proceedings in a media environment—and hence a political environment—like the current one. That difference will matter profoundly to our democracy. And as the process unfolds, it’s not just elected leaders but our media institutions that need to consider how to limit the potential damage.

When Republicans impeached Andrew Johnson for obstructing Reconstruction in 1868, there was no broadcasting. There was no polling, at least not in the scientific sense of today. “Media” in America meant newspapers, which were largely partisan, but whose effect on the public was hard for politicians to gauge. The trial of Johnson was thus conducted by a relatively small political elite that, because they focused on the crisis, at least understood the facts.

The impeachment of Richard Nixon a century later was critically different, in part, at least, because the technology of culture had become importantly different. Democracy had become what Markus Prior calls “broadcast democracy,” with an astonishing 85 percent of Americans tuning into at least part of the impeachment hearings via the three major broadcast networks and PBS. And the public had become persistently polled, meaning that politicians in Washington knew what voters were thinking.

As the Watergate hearings progressed, Americans weren’t just focused on the story: They were focused on the same story. The networks were different in how they broadcast news, but not much different. And thus, as widespread polling would reveal—to the public and the administration—views about the president were highly correlated across a wide range of America. When support for Nixon fell among Democrats, it also fell among Republicans and independents at the same time. America had heard a common story, and what it heard had a common effect.

The impeachment of Donald Trump will happen in a radically different media environment — again. (In Clinton’s impeachment, standing between Trump’s and Nixon’s, the effects were consistent but muted relative to today.) Polling persists, indeed it has expanded, and so politicians will know how the proceedings are playing among their own voters. But as information channels have multiplied, real “broadcast democracy”—the shared and broad engagement with a common set of facts—has disappeared. An abundance of choice means fewer focus on the news, and those who do are more engaged politically, and more partisan. No doubt, there is more published today about impeachment across a wide range of media than before, but it lives within different and smaller niches.

That division will have a profound effect on how this impeachment will matter to Americans. In short, it will matter differently depending on how those Americans come to understand reality. In a study published last month, the research institute PRRI found that 55 percent of “Republicans for whom Fox News is their primary news source say there is nothing Trump could do to lose their approval, compared to only 29 percent of Republicans who do not cite Fox News as their primary news source.” That 26-percentage-point difference is driven not just by politics but by the media source.

This means that as the story of impeachment develops, it will be understood differently across the network-based tribes of America. The correlation among conservatives and liberals alike that drove Nixon from the White House won’t be visible in 2020—because it won’t be there. Regardless of what happens, on one side, it will be justice delivered. On the other, justice denied.

That difference, in turn, will radically constrain the politicians who Americans have entrusted to render judgment on the president. The reality of Fox News Republicans will be persistently visible to red-state representatives. More idealistic, less inherently partisan senators, such as Ben Sasse of Nebraska, might have a view of the “right” thing in their heart of hearts, but they will be forced to choose between what they know and what they know their very distinctive voting public believes. So far, few have faced that choice with courage.

Though the president was wrong to invoke it in this context, the Civil War may well have been the last time we suffered a media environment like this. Then, it was censorship laws that kept the truths of the North separated from the truths of the South. And though there was no polling, the ultimate support for the war, at least as manifested initially, demonstrated to each of those separated publics a depth of tribal commitment that was as profound and as tragic as any in our history. That commitment, driven by those different realities, led America into the bloodiest war in its history.

We’re not going to war today. We are not separated by geography, and we’re not going to take machetes to our neighbors. But the environment of our culture today leaves us less able to work through fundamental differences than at any time in our past. Indeed, as difference drives hate, hate pays—at least the media companies and too many politicians.

In a nation dedicated to freedom of the press, it’s impossible—not to mention undesirable—to legislate limits on political speech. That cannot be the role of government if democracy is to remain free of state control.

But the nation could use some temporary, if voluntary, restraint. The business model of hate may well pay for both politicians and the media. But the cost to the republic of this profit will be profound. This is a moment to knit common understandings, not a time to craft even more perfectly separated realities.

That knitting could begin with both networks and digital platforms asking not what is best for them, individually, but what would be best for us all, together. Which network or platform strategies will enable a more common understanding among all of us? And which strategies will simply drive even more committed tribe-based ignorance? The norms should be different in the context of impeachment, even if that means networks and platforms would be less profitable. Not because this president, in particular, must be respected, but because any president charged with impeachment deserves a nation that at least understands the charge. If we as a people are to be persistently polled and our views so persistently legible to our representatives, then at least we should know enough in common to make judgments in common.

That would mean that television networks take impeachment as seriously as a civic matter as they now treat it as an entertainment matter. Fox, MSNBC and the others should push opinion-based reporting to the side and place journalism-based news in prime time. They all must take responsibility for their audience understanding the facts, more than simply rallying its side to its own partisan understanding. Partisan networks may not be a bad thing in general. They are certainly a bad thing in moments like this.

Social media platforms have responsibilities here as well. We don’t yet know the consequences of those platforms forgoing political ads in the context of an entire election season—even as some experiment with doing so. But impeachment could be an important moment to experiment even more fully. This is precisely the kind of question for which we do not need interested ad-driven spin. It is precisely the moment when Facebook and Twitter together could take the lead in turning away ads aimed at rallying a base or trashing the opposition. Whether or not political ads make sense on social media platforms during an election—at least for races not likely to be targeted by foreign influence—there is no reason for them here. America’s understanding of this critical event could come through the organic spread of the views of Americans—and it is just possible that the organic spread alone is not as poisonous as the spread spiked by advertising.

More fundamentally, platforms could block falsity better. Intellectual property on the internet has long been protected by a notice-and-takedown regime. If a platform gives copyright owners an easy way to tell it about copyright violations, and if it removes those violations quickly, then the platform is not liable for the infringement. It is time we extend a similar mechanism to defamatory speech. If a platform has been shown the falsity in what it continues to publish, its continued publication should be considered “actual malice,” and thus no longer immune from liability. It’s unclear that the Supreme Court would accept a legislature redefining the scope of this constitutional privilege alone—it should, but the court has been jealous about guarding its jurisdiction before. But at least the court could acknowledge the difference between an initial publication and a continued publication and focus immunity on the former. Let the platforms establish the mechanisms against malicious claims of falsity. The law might even allow the platform to demand a bond that the person complaining would lose if an independent process determines the complaint was baseless. But platforms without editors cannot be immune from responsibility—especially when the incentives of clickbait become so central to the business model of online publishing.

None of this, of course, is likely to happen anytime soon, even with an impeachment crisis standing right in front of us. But we should not underestimate the potential for leadership here. There is an equivalent to peaceful nonviolent protest—to an act that so surprises the other side that it forces a recognition that otherwise would be missed. Any prominent actor in the midst of this mess who stepped above the common play might surprise enough to trigger a change. Or even prominent actors not in the midst of this mess—here, at least, is a role for former presidents. Why don’t we see George W. Bush and Barack Obama standing together on this, not by directing a result but by counseling the process?

No doubt, all this is a big ask—lucrative networks and social media platforms unilaterally disarming or agreeing to a new set of rules. But there’s another way to look at it. Businesses succeed by managing risk, and the risk of a truly destabilizing event here—a fractured America because of siloed information—is much greater than the risk of losing some ratings for a few weeks or months.

Because impeachment is different, we cannot take for granted that the nation will get through it unharmed, regardless of what anyone does. There is no mechanism that guarantees a democracy’s safety. There is only, and always, the courage of individuals to be better than anyone expects. We saw that with the first witnesses who were called to testify publicly. We need to see it with politicians, ordinary citizens, and corporations as well.

Lawrence Lessig is Roy L Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, and author of They Don’t Represent Us, from which this essay is partly adapted.

Who Controls Trump’s Environmental Policy?

Who Controls Trump’s Environmental Policy?

by | Jan 15, 2020 | Environment & Ecology, Government & Law, Politics | 0 comments

By Lisa Friedman and Claire O’Neill

Jan. 14, 2020

A small number of people at a few federal agencies have vast power over the protection of American air and water.

Under the Trump administration, the people appointed to those positions overwhelmingly used to work in the fossil fuel, chemical and agriculture industries. During their time in government they have been responsible for loosening or undoing nearly 100 environmental protections from pollution and pesticides, as well as weakening preservations of natural resources and efforts to curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

Of 20 key officials across several agencies, 15 came from careers in the oil, gas, coal, chemical or agriculture industries, while another three hail from state governments that have spent years resisting environmental regulations. At least four have direct ties to organizations led by Charles G. and the late David H. Koch, who have spent millions of dollars to defeat climate change and clean energy measures.

Gretchen Goldman, research director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, noted that many Republican administrations had brought in people from regulated industries. “There’s nothing inherently wrong with hiring people from the private sector. But we need to make sure they are making decisions in the public interest,” she said.

The Trump administration has said it is focused on ending government overreach, and agency officials said it should be no surprise the administration has tapped people who have dealt first-hand with regulations and share President Trump’s deregulatory goals. Administration press officers added that top agency officials had spent years in public service as well as in the private sector; that all agency officials undergo ethics training; and that those who have worked for industry had signed recusal statements.

“Senior administration officials, an overwhelming majority of whom the Senate has given their advice and consent to, understand that economic growth and environmental protection do not need to conflict,” Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, said in a statement.

The Environmental Protection Agency

When Cleveland’s heavily polluted Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969, it galvanized the nation and helped lead to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Since then, the E.P.A. has tracked pollution and enacted regulations to guide clean air and water laws and reduce levels of toxic substances. The Trump administration has argued the agency’s rules have become too onerous — particularly for the fossil fuel and agriculture industries.

Andrew R. Wheeler
Head of the E.P.A.

Former fossil fuel lobbyist. Now in charge of regulating (and deregulating) industry.

PAST LIFE
As a lobbyist, Mr. Wheeler represented an electric utility, a uranium producer and, most significantly, a coal magnate who paid Mr. Wheeler’s former lobbying firm more than $2.7 million over eight years to loosen restrictions on coal companies.
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE
Mr. Wheeler’s job is to enforce clean air and water laws. During his tenure, he has rolled back regulations and made it easier for highly polluting coal plants to keep operating.
Peter Wright
Head of land and emergency management

Previously represented Dow Chemical in the cleanup of toxic Superfund sites. Now oversees E.P.A.’s Superfund cleanup program.

PAST LIFE
Mr. Wright spent 19 years as an attorney at Dow, one of the world’s largest chemical makers. He fought to lessen Dow’s responsibility to contribute to the cleanup of a toxic waste site in Midland, Mich.
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE
Mr. Wright oversees the E.P.A.’s ongoing cleanup of thousands of Superfund sites, as well as emergency response and waste programs.
Anne Idsal
Head of air office

Former attorney at Texas environment agencies that fought federal regulations. Now oversees regulations that limit air pollution at the E.P.A.

PAST LIFE
Ms. Idsal worked at Texas state agencies that sued the E.P.A. over a plan to reduce air pollution in the state and require new controls on coal-fired power plants. In 2017 she told the Texas Observer she wasn’t sure whether humans had an effect on climate change.
WHAT SHE GETS TO DECIDE
As head of E.P.A.’s air office, Ms. Idsal now oversees decisions on regulating air pollution and climate change, including whether to impose controls on coal-fired power plants.
Alexandra Dapolito-Dunn
Head of chemical safety

Former attorney and law professor at nonpartisan state environmental organizations and universities. Now oversees chemical regulations at the E.P.A.

PAST LIFE
Ms. Dapolito-Dunn spent several years working in nonpartisan organizations focused on the environment, including as executive director and general counsel for the Environmental Council of the States and the Association of Clean Water Administrators.
WHAT SHE GETS TO DECIDE
Under Ms. Dapolito-Dunn, the E.P.A. has decided not to ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to impaired brain development in children, and has proposed new restrictions on asbestos that agency scientists said did not go far enough.
Nancy B. Beck
Principal deputy head of chemical safety

Previously worked in the chemical industry against regulations of chemicals. Now in charge of chemical regulations (though currently in a temporary position at the White House).

PAST LIFE
Ms. Beck ran the E.P.A.’s chemical office for the first two years of the Trump administration but is now temporarily at the White House Council of Economic Advisors. Before joining the E.P.A., she served at the American Chemistry Council, which lobbies to weaken regulations on chemicals.
WHAT SHE GETS TO DECIDE
At the E.P.A., Ms. Beck pushed to weaken rules on toxic chemicals like the pesticide chlorpyrifos, as well as the review process for other toxic substances like the paint stripper ingredient methylene chloride. David Fischer is filling in for her at the E.P.A. while she advises the White House.
David Fischer
Deputy head of chemical safety

Previously helped chemical companies navigate chemical safety laws. Now oversees federal implementation of chemical safety laws.

PAST LIFE
Mr. Fischer held several positions over a 10-year span at the American Chemistry Council, including serving as senior director in the chemical products and technology division. He later joined a public relations firm.
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE
Mr. Fischer has stepped into Ms. Beck’s previous E.P.A. role during her temporary move to the White House, and is now a top policy adviser on chemical regulations.
David Ross
Head of the water office

Previously sued to block an E.P.A. clean water rule. Now runs the Office of Water.

PAST LIFE
Mr. Ross represented industry clients like the American Farm Bureau against E.P.A. water regulations before entering state government. As an assistant attorney general of Wyoming, he challenged the E.P.A.’s clean water rule.
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE
Mr. Ross has led efforts to restrict the scope of the Clean Water Act and to weaken an Obama-era clean water regulation known as the Waters of the United States.
Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta
Head of research and development

A career E.P.A. scientist, who now serves as E.P.A.’s top science adviser.

PAST LIFE
Dr. Orme-Zavaleta has been with the E.P.A. since 1981, working with Republican and Democratic administrations on a range of issues including water pollution and chemical exposure risk.
WHAT SHE GETS TO DECIDE
Her office is in charge of a proposed new regulation that would restrict the use of scientific studies the E.P.A. can use when creating or modifying pollution regulations.
David Dunlap
Deputy head of science policy

Former chemicals expert for Koch Industries. Now oversees federal research on toxic chemicals that will determine if more regulations are required.

PAST LIFE
Mr. Dunlap previously served as a policy chief at Koch Industries, focusing on water and chemical management. Earlier, he served as a vice president of the Chlorine Institute, which represents producers and distributors.
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE
Mr. Dunlap is the top political deputy overseeing E.P.A.’s pollution and toxic chemical research at the Office of Research and Development. Mr. Dunlap helps to review chemicals to determine if they require new restrictions. He has recused himself from work on one particular chemical, formaldehyde, because Koch Industries is a major formaldehyde producer.
∴

Department of the Interior

The Interior Department manages more than 500 million acres of land and 1.7 billion acres of ocean floor, as well as the plants and animals living there and the oil, gas and other minerals that lie below. Under the Trump administration, the agency has removed regulatory obstacles to fossil fuel development.

David Bernhardt
Head of the Department of the Interior

Former lobbyist for oil, gas and farming interests. Now oversees all federal land and natural resource use.

PAST LIFE
Former lawyer and lobbyist for oil and gas companies including Halliburton, Cobalt International Energy, Samson Resources, and the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE
Mr. Bernhardt leads the Interior Department, overseeing millions of acres of federal land and waterways. Under his tenure, the agency has weakened protections for endangered species, rolled back regulations on methane fought by the oil and gas industries, and weakened protections for fish in order to divert water to California farmers.
Douglas W. Domenech
Oversees oceans, coasts and American territories

Previously worked as an oil lobbyist and on lawsuits to weaken environmental policies. Now oversees policy decisions over oceans and in U.S. territories.

PAST LIFE
Mr. Domenech was the director of the Fueling Freedom Project of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a Koch-funded group that promotes fossil fuels. Before that, he was the secretary of natural resources in Virginia, where he supported oil drilling off the state’s coastline.
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE
Mr. Domenech has been closely involved in most major policy decisions at the Interior Department, including scaling back national monuments in Utah and reversing endangered species protections.
William P. Pendley
Acting chief, Bureau of Land Management

A conservative attorney who has advocated selling off public lands. Now oversees 250 million acres of public lands.

PAST LIFE
Mr. Pendley has long been critical of public lands and the environmental movement, and has compared government regulation to tyranny. He once compared climate change to a “unicorn” because “neither exists.”
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE
Mr. Pendley is in charge of all federal public land across 12 western states, and decides whether or not to grant leases to fossil fuel companies for oil exploration and mining. He currently is overseeing the move of the Bureau of Land Management’s headquarters to Colorado.
Scott A. Angelle
Head of offshore safety and enforcement

Previously opposed former President Barack Obama’s halt on drilling after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Now oversees safety measures put in place after disasters.

PAST LIFE
As Louisiana’s secretary of natural resources, Mr. Angelle pushed to lift the Obama administration’s moratorium on Gulf Coast drilling imposed after BP spill. Shortly after being appointed to the Interior department, he told a group of oil and gas executives, “Help is on the way.”
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE
Mr. Angelle has overseen efforts to roll back Obama-era offshore drilling regulations, including safety requirements on blow-out preventers and real-time monitoring.
Aurelia Skipwith
Director of Fish and Wildlife Services

Previously worked for the agrochemical giant Monsanto. Now oversees the recovery of threatened and endangered species.

PAST LIFE
Ms. Skipwith co-founded, with her fiancé, and served as general counsel of an agricultural consulting company, AVC Global. She previously worked for agricultural companies like Monsanto.
WHAT SHE GETS TO DECIDE
The Fish and Wildlife service oversees most wildlife protection in the United States as well as 150 million acres of land conservation and development projects on the nation’s wildlife refuges.
James F. Reilly
Director, U.S. Geological Survey

Used to be a geologist for an oil and gas company. Now he oversees an initiative to restrict the way the government uses climate change models.

PAST LIFE
Dr. Reilly worked for 15 years as the chief geologist for Enserch Exploration, an oil and gas company based in Dallas. He also worked at NASA and was an astronaut for 13 years.
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE
Dr. Reilly has ordered that scientific assessments from the U.S. Geological Survey focus on climate models that project the effects of climate change through 2040, rather than 2100, which had been the previous standard. Federal scientists say that would be misleading because the major impacts of current emissions may be felt after 2040.
Daniel Jorjani
Solicitor of the Department of the Interior

Formerly an adviser to organizations led by the Koch brothers. Now a top attorney overseeing President Trump’s policy of encouraging fossil fuel production and development.

PAST LIFE
Mr. Jorjani served in the Interior Department under George W. Bush, and then worked for three different groups connected to the billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch, who have spent millions opposing efforts to fight climate change.
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE
Mr. Jorjani provides legal advice and oversees legal opinions regarding all Interior Department regulatory policies, including the decision to end criminal penalties for the “incidental” killing of migratory birds in the course of business activity.
∴

Department of Energy

In addition to overseeing the country’s nuclear arsenal, the Energy Department helps to develop energy from fossil fuels as well as renewables like wind, solar and geothermal power. Under the Trump administration it has rolled back energy efficiency measures for appliances and light bulbs, and promoted the export of coal and liquified natural gas.

Dan Brouillette
Head of the Department of Energy

Former lobbyist for the insurance industry and for Ford Motor Company. Now secretary of the Department of Energy.

PAST LIFE
Mr. Brouilette was senior vice president of the United Services Automobile Association and at the Ford Motor Company. He has lobbied for the Business Software Alliance, Lockheed Martin, Time Warner, Entergy & Verizon.
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE
Mr. Brouillette oversees the country’s nuclear energy stockpile and the national laboratories conducting energy research and development. In December, one of his first acts as secretary was to roll back Obama-era energy efficiency standards for light bulbs.
Neil Chatterjee
Chairman, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Formerly coordinated opposition to climate regulations as an energy adviser for Republican Senator Mitch McConnell. Now serves as the country’s top energy regulator.

PAST LIFE
As the energy policy adviser to Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, Mr. Chatterjee helped fight regulations Mr. McConnell considered cumbersome, like the Clean Power Plan rules restricting coal-fired power plants.
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas and oil. Recently the commission ruled that wind, solar and other clean energy sources can be assessed a surcharge when bidding into the country’s largest power market, a move aimed at propping up fossil fuels and potentially discouraging new investments in renewable power.
Daniel Simmons
Assistant Head of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Used to work for an organization that called for the elimination of the Department of Energy’s office of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Now he runs that office.

PAST LIFE
Mr. Simmons was vice president for policy at the Institute for Energy Research, which is funded by fossil fuel interests, including Koch Industries. He held the same position at the group’s advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance, which once called for the elimination of the office of energy efficiency and renewable energy.
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE
The department’s mission is to help support the development of clean, renewable and energy efficiency technologies and support a global clean-energy economy.
∴

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

Any agency that writes a regulation — or rolls back a regulation — works with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. This obscure but powerful division of the White House Office of Management and Budget performs cost-benefit analyses on all regulatory actions before they are finalized. Some examples include the E.P.A.’s plan to weaken regulations on coal plants and the Interior Department’s plans to loosen protections for endangered species.

Paul Ray
Head of Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

Former corporate attorney who represented Exxon and other companies that fought environmental regulations. Now he runs the agency that oversees every regulation.

PAST LIFE
As a corporate attorney, Mr. Ray’s clients included chemical, oil and gas, and pharmaceutical companies as well as the paper and wood industry.
WHAT HE GETS TO DECIDE

He will review every major regulation that the Trump administration proposes, and is responsible for carrying out Mr. Trump’s executive order directing agencies to repeal two regulations for each significant one they issue.

Environmental Rules Rolled Back Under Trump

Environmental Rules Rolled Back Under Trump

by | Jan 15, 2020 | Environment & Ecology, Government & Law, Politics | 0 comments

I try not to get too upset at this President, or his supporters anymore. I’ve had to stomach three years of this mess in our government, and by extension, the social fabric among its citizens. It hasn’t been good for any part of my physical constitution, stress levels, and pretty much, my entire well being. Sure, I have tried to ignore it for awhile, or get on to other things to preserve my sanity, but, as anyone who feels oddly strange running from everyday news, and world events around us can say, that strategy doesn’t work for sustained levels. And really, even if you can get by removing yourself for a few days, or even weeks, how much net benefit does it really yield, if you ramp up stress levels the minute you turn on the news, or read a newspaper again? Living in isolation is not normal unless you want to pursue a monk’s life. And then, you are a monk.

Unlike many of the loudest voices following politics today, who feel the compulsion to stay fully attached to daily antipathy to opposing voices, I resist the fray. That part is not as difficult. Engagement in this climate has little to offer. Even on a contrarian level, opposing views have no intellectual stimulation for conversation as they once did, because opposing views, have no interest in compromise, nor truly understanding fundamental differences without harboring fear and resentment of one another.

The argument of each sides failings are well traversed. The conservative side is formed of racial divisions, tax avoidance, corporate dominance, and perfunctory government. The progressive/liberal side focuses on universal equality, government oversight on big business, a practical tax system, and environmental laws.

I get no satisfaction from entering an echo chamber, and even less from trying to make a point to someone clearly unreachable. I’m not looking for a fight, and I don’t need any more reasons to stake my claim. It’s just boring now. It’s been long realized that a majority of us, aren’t budging from our current head spaces.

But, once in a great while, I just have to let it out. Herewith, the one point that irks me more than so many others. Our precious environment.

There is no way on this still green earth, that any Trump supporter, or Conservative/Republican can convince me they care all that much about the environment. Either that, or they are hopelessly naiive, misled, and grossly uninformed. That’s not a great excuse. For the others, which I suppose is a large enough group in its own right, they all but ignore the disgraceful actions of this administration under Trump’s directions. These are the Trump supporters who place environmental concerns so far down on their list of priorities, it really is the equivalent of not caring. There’s just no way around this conclusion. That is the true sad state of our Union. In the end, its not one man who’s going to do in this planet. Its the people.

95 Environmental Rules Being Rolled Back Under Trump

By NADJA POPOVICH, LIVIA ALBECK-RIPKA and KENDRA PIERRE-LOUIS

President Trump has made eliminating federal regulations a priority. His administration, with help from Republicans in Congress, has often targeted environmental rules it sees as burdensome to the fossil fuel industry and other big businesses.
A New York Times analysis, based on research from Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School and other sources, counts more than 90 environmental rules and regulations rolled back under Mr. Trump.

Our list represents two types of policy changes: rules that were officially reversed and rollbacks still in progress.

The Trump administration has often used a “one-two punch” when rolling back environmental rules, said Caitlin McCoy, a fellow in the Environmental and Energy Law Program at Harvard Law School who tracks regulatory rollbacks. “First a delay rule to buy some time, and then a final substantive rule.”

But the process has not always been smooth. In some cases, the administration has failed to provide a strong legal argument in favor of proposed changes and agencies have skipped key steps in the rulemaking process, like notifying the public and asking for comment. In several cases, courts have ordered agencies to enforce their own rules.

Several environmental rules — summarized at the bottom of this page — were rolled back and then later reinstated, often following legal challenges. Other regulations remain mired in court.

All told, the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks could significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions and lead to thousands of extra deaths from poor air quality every year, according to a report prepared by New York University Law School’s State Energy and Environmental Impact Center.

Are there rollbacks we missed? Email climateteam@nytimes.com or tweet @nytclimate.

Air pollution and emissions

Completed

1. Canceled a requirement for oil and gas companies to report methane emissions. Environmental Protection Agency | Read more
2. Revised and partially repealed an Obama-era rule limiting methane emissions on public lands, including intentional venting and flaring from drilling operations. Interior Department | Read more
3. Replaced the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which would have set strict limits on carbon emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants, with a new version that would let states set their own rules. Executive Order; E.P.A. | Read more
4. Revoked California’s power to set its own more stringent emissions standards for cars and light trucks. E.P.A. | Read more
5. Repealed a requirement that state and regional authorities track tailpipe emissions from vehicles traveling on federal highways. Transportation Department | Read more
6. Loosened a Clinton-era rule designed to limit toxic emissions from major industrial polluters. E.P.A. | Read more
7. Revised a permiting program designed to safeguard communities from increases in pollution from new power plants to make it easier for facilities to avoid emissions regulations. E.P.A. | Read more
8. Amended rules that govern how refineries monitor pollution in surrounding communities. E.P.A. | Read more
9. Stopped enforcing a 2015 rule that prohibited the use of hydrofluorocarbons, powerful greenhouse gases, in air-conditioners and refrigerators. E.P.A. | Read more
10. Weakened an Obama-era rule meant to reduce air pollution in national parks and wilderness areas. E.P.A. | Read more
11. Weakened oversight of some state plans for reducing air pollution in national parks. E.P.A. | Read more
12. Directed agencies to stop using an Obama-era calculation of the “social cost of carbon” that rulemakers used to estimate the long-term economic benefits of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Executive Order | Read more
13. Withdrew guidance that federal agencies include greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews. But several district courts have ruled that emissions must be included in such reviews. Executive Order; Council on Environmental Quality | Read more
14. Lifted a summertime ban on the use of E15, a gasoline blend made of 15 percent ethanol. (Burning gasoline with a higher concentration of ethanol in hot conditions increases smog.) E.P.A. | Read more
15. Changed rules to allow states and the E.P.A. to take longer to develop and approve plans aimed at cutting methane emissions from existing landfills. E.P.A. | Read more
16. Revoked an Obama executive order that set a goal of cutting the federal government’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent over 10 years. Executive Order | Read more

In process

17. Proposed relaxing Obama-era requirements that companies monitor and repair methane leaks at oil and gas facilities. E.P.A. | Read more
18. Proposed weakening Obama-era fuel-economy standards for cars and light trucks. E.P.A. and Transportation Department | Read more
19. Submitted notice of intent to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. The process of withdrawing cannot be completed until November 2020. Executive Order | Read more
20. Proposed eliminating Obama-era restrictions that in effect required newly built coal power plants to capture carbon dioxide emissions. E.P.A. | Read more
21. Proposed a legal justification for weakening an Obama-era rule that limited mercury emissions from coal power plants. E.P.A. | Read more
22. Proposed revisions to standards for carbon dioxide emissions from new, modified and reconstructed power plants. Executive Order; E.P.A. | Read more
23. Began a review of emissions rules for power plant start-ups, shutdowns and malfunctions. In April, the E.P.A. proposed reversing a requirement that Texas follow the emissions rule, with implications for 35 other states. E.P.A. | Read more
24. Proposed the repeal of rules meant to reduce leaking and venting of hydrofluorocarbons from large refrigeration and air conditioning systems. E.P.A. | Read more
25. Opened for comment a proposal limiting the ability of individuals and communities to challenge E.P.A.-issued pollution permits before a panel of agency judges. E.P.A. | Read more

Drilling and extraction

Completed

26. Made significant cuts to the borders of two national monuments in Utah and recommended border and resource management changes to several more. Presidential Proclamation; Interior Department | Read more
27. Rescinded water pollution regulations for fracking on federal and Indian lands. Interior Department | Read more
28. Scrapped a proposed rule that required mines to prove they could pay to clean up future pollution. E.P.A. | Read more
29. Withdrew a requirement that Gulf oil rig owners prove they could cover the costs of removing rigs once they have stopped producing. Interior Department | Read more
30. Approved construction of the Dakota Access pipeline less than a mile from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Under the Obama administration, the Army Corps of Engineers had said it would explore alternative routes. Executive Order; Army | Read more
31. Revoked an Obama-era executive order designed to preserve ocean, coastal and Great Lakes waters in favor of a policy focused on energy production and economic growth. Executive Order | Read more
32. Changed how the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission considers the indirect effects of greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews of pipelines. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission | Read more
33. Permitted the use of seismic air guns for gas and oil exploration in the Atlantic Ocean. The practice, which can kill marine life and disrupt fisheries, was blocked under the Obama administration. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration | Read more
34. Lifted ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Congress; Interior Department | Read more
35. Loosened offshore drilling safety regulations implemented by the Obama administration following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, including reduced testing requirements for blowout prevention systems. Interior Department | Read more

In process

36. Proposed opening most of America’s coastal waters to offshore oil and gas drilling, but delayed the plan after a federal judge ruled that Mr. Trump’s reversal of an Obama-era ban on drilling in the Arctic Ocean was unlawlful. Interior Department | Read more
37. Lifted an Obama-era freeze on new coal leases on public lands. But, in April 2019, a judge ruled that the Interior Department could not begin selling new leases without completing an environmental review. A month later, the agency published a draft assessment that concluded restarting federal coal leasing would have little environmental impact. Executive Order; Interior Department | Read more
38. Repealed an Obama-era rule governing royalties for oil, gas and coal leases on federal lands, which replaced a 1980s rule that critics said allowed companies to underpay the federal government. A federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s repeal. The Interior Department is reviewing the decision. Interior Department | Read more
39. Proposed revising regulations on offshore oil and gas exploration by floating vessels in the Arctic that were developed after a 2013 accident. The Interior Department previously said it was “considering full rescission or revision of this rule.” Executive Order; Interior Department | Read more
40. Proposed “streamlining” the approval process for drilling for oil and gas in national forests. Agriculture Department; Interior Department | Read more
41. Recommended shrinking three marine protected areas, or opening them to commercial fishing. Executive Order; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration | Read more
42. Proposed opening land in the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve for oil and leasing. The Obama administration had designated the reserve as a conservation area. Interior Department | Read more
43. Proposed lifting a Clinton-era policy that banned logging and road construction in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. Interior Department | Read more
44. Approved the Keystone XL pipeline rejected by President Barack Obama, but a federal judge blocked the project from going forward without an adequate environmental review process. Mr. Trump later attempted to side-step the ruling by issuing a presidential permit, but the project remains tied up in court. Executive Order; State Department | Read more

Infrastructure and planning

Completed

45. Revoked Obama-era flood standards for federal infrastructure projects, like roads and bridges. The standards required the government to account for sea-level rise and other climate change effects. Executive Order | Read more
46. Relaxed the environmental review process for federal infrastructure projects. Executive Order | Read more
47. Revoked a directive for federal agencies to minimize impacts on water, wildlife, land and other natural resources when approving development projects. Executive Order | Read more
48. Revoked an Obama executive order promoting “climate resilience” in the northern Bering Sea region of Alaska, which withdrew local waters from oil and gas leasing and established a tribal advisory council to consult on local environmental issues. Executive Order | Read more
49. Reversed an update to the Bureau of Land Management’s public land use planning process. Congress | Read more
50. Withdrew an Obama-era order to consider climate change in managing natural resources in national parks. National Park Service | Read more
51. Restricted most Interior Department environmental studies to one year in length and a maximum of 150 pages, citing a need to reduce paperwork. Interior Department | Read more
52. Withdrew a number of Obama-era Interior Department climate change and conservation policies that the agency said could “burden the development or utilization of domestically produced energy resources.” Interior Department | Read more
53. Eliminated the use of an Obama-era planning system designed to minimize harm from oil and gas activity on sensitive landscapes, such as national parks. Interior Department | Read more
54. Eased the environmental review processes for small wireless infrastructure projects with the goal of expanding 5G wireless networks. Federal Communications Commission | Read more
55. Withdrew Obama-era policies designed to maintain or, ideally improve, natural resources affected by federal projects. Interior Department | Read more

In process

56. Proposed plans to streamline the environmental review process for Forest Service projects. Agriculture Department | Read more

Animals

Completed

57. Changed the way the Endangered Species Act is applied, making it more difficult to protect wildlife from long-term threats posed by climate change. Interior Department | Read more
58. Overturned a ban on the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle on federal lands. Interior Department | Read more
59. Overturned a ban on the hunting of predators in Alaskan wildlife refuges. Congress | Read more
60. Amended fishing regulations for a number of species to allow for longer seasons and higher catch rates. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration | Read more
61. Withdrew proposed limits on the number of endangered marine mammals and sea turtles that can be unintentionally killed or injured with sword-fishing nets by people who fish on the West Coast. (In 2018, California issued a state rule prohibiting the use of the nets the rule was intending to regulate.) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration | Read more
62. Rolled back a roughly 40-year-old interpretation of a policy aimed at protecting migratory birds, potentially running afoul of treaties with Canada and Mexico. Interior Department | Read more
63. Overturned a ban on using parts of migratory birds in handicrafts made by Alaskan Natives. Interior Department | Read more

In process

64. Opened nine million acres of Western land to oil and gas drilling by weakening habitat protections for the sage grouse, an imperiled bird with an elaborate mating dance. An Idaho District Court injunction blocked the measure. Interior Department | Read more
65. Proposed ending an Obama-era rule that barred using bait to lure and kill grizzly bears, among other sport hunting practices that many people consider extreme, on some public lands in Alaska. National Park Service; Interior Department | Read more

66. Proposed relaxing environmental protections for salmon and smelt in California’s Central Valley in order to free up water for farmers. Executive Order; Interior Department | Read more

Toxic substances and safety

Completed

67. Rejected a proposed ban on chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to developmental disabilities in children. (A European Union ban is to take effect in 2020.) E.P.A. | Read more
68. Narrowed the scope of a 2016 law mandating safety assessments for potentially toxic chemicals like dry-cleaning solvents. The E.P.A. said it would focus on direct exposure and exclude indirect exposure such as from air or water contamination. In November, a court of appeals ruled the agency must widen its scope to consider full exposure risks. E.P.A. | Read more
69. Reversed an Obama-era rule that required braking system upgrades for “high hazard” trains hauling flammable liquids, like oil and ethanol. Transportation Department | Read more
70. Removed copper filter cake, an electronics manufacturing byproduct comprised of heavy metals, from the “hazardous waste” list. E.P.A. | Read more
71. Ended an Occupational Safety and Health Administration program to reduce risks of workers developing the lung disease silicosis. Labor Department | Read more

In process

72. Proposed changing safety rules to allow for rail transport of liquefied natural gas, which is highly flammable. Transportation Department | Read more
73. Rolled back most of the requirements of a 2017 rule aimed at improving safety at sites that use hazardous chemicals that was instituted after a chemical plant exploded in Texas. E.P.A. | Read more
74. Announced a review of an Obama-era rule lowering coal dust limits in mines. The head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration said there were no immediate plans to change the dust limit but has extended an public comment period until 2022. Labor Department | Read more

Water pollution

Completed

75. Scaled back pollution protections for certain tributaries and wetlands that were regulated under the Clean Water Act by the Obama administration. E.P.A.; Army | Read more
76. Revoked a rule that prevented coal companies from dumping mining debris into local streams. Congress | Read more
77. Withdrew a proposed rule aimed at reducing pollutants, including air pollution, at sewage treatment plants. E.P.A. | Read more
78. Withdrew a proposed rule requiring groundwater protections for certain uranium mines. E.P.A. | Read more

In process

79. Proposed a rule exempting certain types of power plants from parts of an E.P.A. rule limiting toxic discharge from power plants into public waterways. E.P.A. | Read more
80. Proposed allowing the E.P.A. to issue permits for federal projects under the Clean Water Act over state objections if they don’t meet local water quality goals, including for pipelines and other fossil fuel facilities. Executive Order; E.P.A. | Read more
81. Proposed extending the lifespan of unlined coal ash holding areas, which can spill their contents because they lack a protective underlay. E.P.A. | Read more
82. Proposed a regulation limiting the scope of an Obama-era rule under which companies had to prove that large deposits of recycled coal ash would not harm the environment. E.P.A. | Read more
83. Proposed a new rule allowing the federal government to issue permits for coal ash waste in Indian Country and some states without review if the disposal site is in compliance with federal regulations. E.P.A. | Read more
84. Proposed doubling the time allowed to remove lead pipes from water systems with high levels of lead. E.P.A. | Read more

Other

Completed

85. Repealed an Obama-era regulation that would have nearly doubled the number of light bulbs subject to energy-efficiency standards starting in January 2020. The E.P.A. also blocked the next phase of efficiency standards for general-purpose bulbs already subject to regulation. Energy Department | Read more
86. Allowed coastal replenishment projects to use sand from protected beaches. Interior Department | Read more
87. Limited funding environmental and community development projects through corporate settlements of federal lawsuits. Justice Department | Read more
88. Announced intent to stop payments to the Green Climate Fund, a United Nations program to help poorer countries reduce carbon emissions. Executive Order | Read more
89. Reversed restrictions on the sale of plastic water bottles in national parks desgined to cut down on litter, despite a Park Service report that the effort worked. Interior Department | Read more

In process

90. Ordered a review of water efficiency standards in bathroom fixtures, including toilets. E.P.A. | Read more
91. Proposed limiting the studies used by the E.P.A. for rulemaking to only those that make data publicly available. (Scientists widely criticized the proposal, who said it would effectively block the agency from considering landmark research that relies on confidential health data.) E.P.A. | Read more
92. Proposed changes to the way cost-benefit analyses are conducted under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and other environmental statutes. E.P.A. | Read more
93. Proposed withdrawing efficiency standards for residential furnaces and commercial water heaters designed to reduce energy use. Energy Department | Read more
94. Created a product category that would allow some dishwashers to be exempt from energy efficiency standards. Energy Department | Read more
95. Initially withdrew then delayed a proposed rule that would inform car owners about fuel-efficient replacement tires. (The Transportation Department has scheduled a new rulemaking notice for 2020.) Transportation Department | Read more

10 rules were reinstated, often following lawsuits and other challenges

1. Weakened federal rules regulating the disposal and storage of coal ash waste from power plants. A court later ruled the administration was attempting to weaken rules that were not stringent enough. E.P.A.
2. Reversed course on repealing emissions standards for “glider” trucks — vehicles retrofitted with older, often dirtier engines — after Andrew Wheeler took over as head of the E.P.A. E.P.A. | Read more
3. Delayed a compliance deadline for new national ozone pollution standards by one year, but later reversed course. E.P.A. | Read more
4. Suspended an effort to lift restrictions on mining in Bristol Bay, Alaska. But the Army Corps of Engineers is performing an environmental review of an application for mining in the area. E.P.A.; Army | Read more
5. Delayed implementation of a rule regulating the certification and training of pesticide applicators, but a judge ruled that the E.P.A. had done so illegally and declared the rule still in effect. E.P.A. | Read more
6. Initially delayed publishing efficiency standards for household appliances, but later published them after multiple states and environmental groups sued. Energy Department | Read more
7. Delayed federal building efficiency standards until Sept. 30, 2017, at which time the rules went into effect. Energy Department | Read more
8. Reissued a rule limiting the discharge of mercury by dental offices into municipal sewers after a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group. E.P.A. | Read more
9. Re-posted a proposed rule limiting greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft, after initially changing its status to “inactive” on the E.P.A. website. In May 2019, the agency confimed it would issue the rule. E.P.A. | Read more

10. Removed the Yellowstone grizzly bear from the Endangered Species List, but the protections were later reinstated by a federal judge. (The Trump administration appealed the ruling in May 2019.) Interior Department | Read more

Note: This list does not include new rules proposed by the Trump administration that do not roll back previous policies, nor does it include court actions that have affected environmental policies independent of executive or legislative action.

Sources: Harvard Law School’s Environmental Regulation Rollback Tracker; Columbia Law School’s Climate Deregulation Tracker; Brookings Institution; Federal Register; Environmental Protection Agency; Interior Department; U.S. Chamber of Commerce; White House.

How to Manipulate Young Minds

How to Manipulate Young Minds

by | Jan 6, 2020 | Politics, Psychology, Society and Culture | 0 comments

I’ve heard many times how the young new age minds and voters ultimately triumph over the anachronistic old guard trying desperately to maintain power and political influence.

This may be true, in concept, without the substantial presence of other interference to subvert those younger minds.
But, as you read this article, consider how powerful a focused, deeply mission-based subversive campaign can actually be against any audience, from either direction. Most especially when that audience is the younger minds themselves at their most impressionable.

Sure, the young thinkers can, and could ultimately direct future trends, of all thoughts. But if those developing, newly growing thoughts are shaped by contrarian adults, aggressive enough to manipulate others by any means necessary, then, those young minds will not, in fact, direct future trends. They will merely be pre-conditioned messengers of the stauts quo old guard.

Young hearts and minds tend to have a promising outlook and view on life and humanity. Until they are messed with by adults who can’t imagine them growing up without following the same dogma and narrow, fear-based belief systems they did. In the past, the main reason for conservative triumph has been due to lack of resources and concerted financial backing behind mobilized young progressive voters. Recently, that metric seemed to be shifting with the advent of powerful social media technology at the hands of anyone, of any age. But, witness how that same technology can now be used by the same powers who have always resisted progressive thoughts in the past.

A cynic’s view of all this could very well be, that while youth can make a lot of noise and drama in the political and social arenas, and even affect some changes in large urban areas, they rarely affect “significant” full landscape change in politics or religion.  Great swaths of this country, if not all the great lands on our planet earth, are painted by adults. For better or worse, they are still holding the biggest paint brushes.

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Right-Wing Views for Generation Z, Five Minutes at a Time

Dennis Prager believes teenagers are more open to conservative ideas than millennials. With PragerU, he’s making a play to get around their professors.

Will Witt of PragerU conducting an interview at the University of California, Berkeley, on the topic of gender.

By Nellie Bowles
Jan. 4, 2020

BERKELEY, Calif. — Will Witt walked through the University of California campus doing what he does professionally, which is trolling unwitting young liberals on camera.

He approached students who seemed like good targets: people with political buttons on their bags, androgynous clothing, scarves. It was safe to say that the vast majority here in the heart of progressive culture would be liberal. Mr. Witt, whose bouffant and confident smile make him look like a high school jock from central casting, told the students that he had a question for them. If they agreed to answer, and they usually did, the game was on.

“How many genders are there?” Mr. Witt asked before turning and staring deadpan at the camera. Some people laughed and walked away. Most, knowing the camera was rolling, engaged.

“As many as you want?” a recent Ph.D. student responded, a little confused to be confronted with this question.

After some of the footage was edited in the back of an S.U.V. in a parking lot nearby, the video headed to Prager University, a growing hub of the online right-wing media machine, where Mr. Witt is a rising star and the jokey, Ray-Ban-wearing embodiment of the site’s ambitions.

Last year PragerU videos racked up more than one billion views, the company said. The Prager empire now has a fleet of 6,500 high school and college student promoters, known as the PragerForce, who host on-campus meetings and gather at least once a year for conventions. And this year, the company is expanding its scope. PragerU executives are signing stars of the young new right to host made-for-the-internet shows to fuel 2020 content, including a book club and a show geared to Hispanics called Americanos.

The goal of the people behind all of this — Dennis Prager, the conservative talk show host and impresario of this digital empire, and the venture’s billionaire funders — seems simple: more Will Witts in the world. More pride in American history (and less panic over racism), more religion (specifically in the “Judeo-Christian” tradition), less illegal immigration, more young people laughing at people on the left rather than joining them.

Mr. Witt, 23, said he was raised in a relatively liberal home by his mother, and when he arrived at the University of Colorado in Boulder, he was already leaning conservative. But he found his zeal for the culture war on campus. One of his classes offered students extra credit for going to a political protest. Mr. Witt submitted that he would go to a nearby speech hosted by the right-wing star Milo Yiannopoulos. The teaching assistant told him that would not count, he said.

He was frustrated, feeling lonely and at home watching videos on YouTube. The site prompted him with a bright animation made by PragerU. He can’t remember the first video he saw. Maybe railing against feminism, he said.

“I must have watched every single one that night,” Mr. Witt said. “I stopped going to class. Pretty much all the time I was reading and watching.”

He did not graduate from college.

The videos are five minutes each, quick, full of graphs and grand extrapolations, and unapologetically conservative. Lessons have titles like: “Why Socialism Never Works” (a series), “Fossil Fuels: The Greenest Energy,” “Where Are the Moderate Muslims?” and “Are Some Cultures Better Than Others?”

To the founders and funders of PragerU, YouTube is a way to circumvent brick-and-mortar classrooms — and parents — and appeal to Generation Z, those born in the mid-1990s and early 2000s.

Mr. Witt dropped out of college after watching PragerU videos that railed against campus politics.

Mr. Witt dropped out of college after watching PragerU videos that railed against campus politics.

Mr. Prager sees those young people as more indoctrinated in left-wing viewpoints than any previous generation, but also as more curious about the right. For these teenagers, consuming conservative content is a rebellion from campus politics that are liberal and moving left.

“We find more of them are open to hearing an alternative voice than many of their elders,” Mr. Prager wrote in an email. “Many suspect they have been given only one view, and suspect that view may often be absurd.”

The way PragerU presents that “alternative voice” is in the measured tone of an online university, carefully avoiding the news cycle and President Trump. That is part of its power.

“They take old arguments about the threat of immigration but treat them as common sense and almost normative, wrapping them up as a university with a neutral dispassionate voice,” said Chris Chavez, the doctoral program director at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication.

PragerU’s website has a fine-print disclaimer that it is not an actual academic institution.

“PragerU’s ‘5 Minute Ideas’ videos have become an indispensable propaganda device for the right,” the Southern Poverty Law Center warned on its blog, citing videos like “Blacks in Power Don’t Empower Blacks,” hosted by the Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley, who is black.

Lawrence Rosenthal, chair of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies, said he has noticed an impact from PragerU’s content. “It sits at this border between going off a cliff into conspiracy thinking and extreme kinds of prejudices in the name of anti-political correctness,” he said.

On PragerU’s website, there is little differentiation between its video presenters. So the late Pulitzer-prize winning Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer appears on the same page as Michelle Malkin, the commentator who has defended overtly racist elements of the right. There’s Bret Stephens, the New York Times Op-Ed columnist; Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host; George F. Will, the anti-Trump conservative commentator; and Nigel Farage, the Brexit Party leader. For a teenager approaching the site, each headshot in the same size circle, it would be hard to tell the difference between them all.

‘Give us five minutes’

PragerU began in 2009 as a nonprofit to promote the conservative religious values of Mr. Prager, a popular talk radio host and author of books on Judaism. Originally, the idea was to build an actual physical university. Allen Estrin, his producer, would spearhead it.

But a physical building was prohibitively expensive.

“Just to get started would be $250 million,” Mr. Estrin said recently while driving through Los Angeles. “You have to buy property, a building, do a faculty, years to start, years to raise money, and then at the end what do you have? One thousand students in the first graduating class?”

Allen Estrin getting his makeup done before taping a show at PragerU.

Allen Estrin getting his makeup done before taping a show at PragerU.

Mr. Estrin had another idea. He was obsessed with internet video. Mr. Estrin taught screenwriting, but the conservative content he saw online was rambling and baggy. The sets were bad (a lot of old men at whiteboards). He pitched the early PragerU group: They could make a right-wing university online, in tight five-minute courses.

“We used to say in the early days, ‘Give us five minutes, and we’ll give you a semester,’” Mr. Estrin said.

Marissa Streit, who had been a Hebrew tutor for another PragerU backer, joined as the company’s chief executive in 2011, and videos started going out.

“We released a video and had 35,000 views,” Ms. Streit said, “and I still remember Allen looked over to Dennis and said, ‘Can you imagine a classroom of 35,000 people?’”

Dan and Farris Wilks, hydraulic-fracturing billionaires from Texas, came in with donations. The conservative-leaning Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation joined, too — their goal in funding education is, in part, to “promote the teaching of American exceptionalism.”

PragerU started to spend on marketing on Facebook and YouTube.

“We just kept throwing more coal into the furnace,” Mr. Estrin said. “And we realized that we had created a distribution platform.”

In 2019, PragerU raised $22 million; next year, it estimates it will raise $25 million. Its budget comes almost entirely from donor contributions.

The ‘macro values’ of President Trump

PragerU has expanded Dennis Prager’s reach, but it has not fundamentally changed his days.

One recent morning, Mr. Prager was recording an “Ultimate Issues Hour” radio segment. He’s written eight books (one is “The Ten Commandments: Still the Best Moral Code”), and since 1999 has hosted “The Dennis Prager Show” on the conservative Christian radio syndicate Salem.

Mr. Prager is 6-foot-4 and imposing, in a white button-down shirt, hunched over the microphone.

He read some promos for his sponsor Blinds.com. He took calls from listeners. He talked about the importance of children respecting parents (very important) and about how parents should not want their children to be the smartest in the class, but rather the most moral.

He carefully threaded the needle for listeners as he made the argument for Mr. Trump as a values leader. There are two types of values, micro and macro, he argued. One seems to do with the minutiae of one’s life (marital fidelity, religiosity, respect); the other, he says, is more important and relates to the general effect of one’s life.

“Donald Trump may not have terrific micro values, but I think he has terrific macro values,” Mr. Prager said.

When it comes to politicians, he said he marks a sharp divide between political life and personal life, and he argues that the president’s personal behavior is irrelevant to his public message.

This is a new line of argument for Mr. Prager, who spent much of his career focusing on those micro values. He is a longtime opponent of same-sex marriage, which he considers an effort to “destroy the foundation of our Judeo-Christian civilization.” An episode in his “Same Sex Issues” collection is titled, “Love Is Not Enough.”

Former fans of Mr. Prager’s work say they are confused by his Trumpist turn.

“In terms of ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ of watching people become more Trumpian, these moral icons becoming shills, he is way up there,” said Charlie Sykes, the author of “How the Right Lost Its Mind,” and a former radio host who used to occasionally substitute on Mr. Prager’s show. “Now you have to put PragerU in the category of other very successful meme machines and low-rent conservative grifting.”

Mr. Prager’s desk is stacked with items including a refrigerated lunchbox, open and showing a slice of lemon cake, but he cannot eat it. He often fasts 20 hours a day. His back is bad, and he is in considerable physical pain as he moves through the world.

As he prepared to leave, he unzipped a large rolling suitcase. It was almost entirely full of old newspapers. He added the day’s Wall Street Journal and headed to the airport. He does not want to do an interview in person. He wants to email, and so he does. His answers are long and lucid and full of biblical references.

Mr. Prager, who is Jewish, sees his mission as spreading the message of one God, which he articulates as a cure for humans who are “basically not good.” He measures success in how well he spreads this cure.

“Radio, writing, and now the internet have made making this cure known beyond my dreams,” he wrote. “Only God knows how successful I will have been; Moses did not get into the Promised Land, nor will I. But I am not naïve. I obviously recognize that a billion views a year means more influence than a million views.”

A billion views

The people chasing those billion views are in the PragerU headquarters in Los Angeles.

The office is typical millennial chic, full of midcentury modern sofas, standing desks and just a few hints at what’s made there, including a portrait of Ronald Reagan.

The team is about 50 people. The average staff member is about 30 years old. The site’s rapid growth puts desk space at a premium, but with a reporter visiting, few people were in the office.

“A lot of people stayed home because they were scared of being identified as working for Prager,” said the company’s chief marketing officer, Craig Strazzeri, laughing as he showed off another empty room.

Craig Strazzeri, PragerU’s chief marketing officer, in his office.

Craig Strazzeri, PragerU’s chief marketing officer, in his office.

By the reception desk is a bowl of Prager-themed buttons. One features the outline of a man’s hair, glasses, wide tie and cigar — enough to indicate it is Mr. Prager. Another features a small American flag. These few in the bowl are the last of the pins.

“The pin maker won’t make more,” said Ms. Streit, the chief executive. “Economic protest.”

This is an example of what the staff would call the intolerance of the left, a common theme of PragerU videos. But Prager leaders maintain that they are unfazed by it. For them, the work happens online, and it happens with people younger than the pin makers, younger even than their staff’s friends. The target audience is Generation Z.

“I feel somewhat sorry for millennials,” said Mr. Estrin. “They truly were indoctrinated. Now kids have access to a different point of view. It’s as close as their computer or their phone.”

He is right that Generation Z is a wary group. Young people are significantly less trusting of institutions and one another than older generations. About half are categorized broadly as “low trusters,” according to a 2018 survey by the Pew Research Center, while only 19 percent of adults 65 and older fall into that category.

“Our generation is whiny,” said Candace Owens, who is 31 — a millennial — and one of the right-wing stars who has found a home with PragerU. “We’re constantly complaining. Our generation is suffering from peace. We create meaningless problems.”

“Gen Z has a better sense of humor,” she said. “They love the memes.”

And the meme battle — the culture war — is where Ms. Owens sees her chance.

“If conservatives don’t jump into culture headfirst, we’re not going to make much of a difference,” she said, “and PragerU understands that.”

How Prager works

Prager leaders say many of their young fans come from liberal homes, and the key for their mission is to reach these people and rescue them from what they describe as liberal indoctrination.

Leaders in the Prager universe describe the current landscape like this: Young people in America today are being told that they need to learn to “check your privilege” — a phrase popularized by progressives. They are taught the bad parts of American history before the good parts.

Crew members preparing to film a new show at PragerU.

Crew members preparing to film a new show at PragerU.

The PragerU viewer is a young American who is vaguely annoyed by all of this — the trigger warnings or the female “Star Wars” heroine — and is sick of being told to apologize. PragerU validates those feelings.

“What they’re trying to do is get away from this narrative that’s really out there that America’s bad, and it’s just this negative thing,” said Trevor Mauk, a 19-year-old Cal-Berkeley sophomore from Barstow, Calif., and a fan of PragerU. “They give the reasons why it’s good to be proud of the country and proud of where you’re from and who you are.”

He added, “They’re talking about things I was never taught.”

Until PragerU came along, some of the biggest platforms for young conservatives looking for content were Fox News and online message boards, where fringe conspiracy theorists reign.

PragerU’s own experience with Big Tech has only fueled its fans’ perceptions that conservatives are the losers of the culture war. The company is suing Google, which owns YouTube, arguing that the platform is suppressing its content by marking some of its videos as restricted — and in doing so, lumping videos about the Ten Commandments in with violent or offensive content.

In PragerU’s corner is Zach Vorhies, a former YouTube employee turned whistle-blower who says liberal employees at YouTube had the ability to censor conservative content creators.

Mr. Vorhies has promoted conspiracy theories like QAnon and spread anti-Semitic messages, a pattern first reported by The Daily Beast. He is not an employee of PragerU, but they count him as a supporter, an example of the soft barrier between PragerU’s mainstream conservative allies and fans and the vast land of right-wing conspiracy.

“PragerU was one of the reasons I blew the whistle on Google,” said Mr. Vorhies, who attended a recent hearing in PragerU’s ongoing court battle against Google, which has said the allegations in the suit are without merit.

The campus fight

In the physical world, the battlefront of the culture war is almost always the quad. PragerU’s leaders hope to turn the PragerForce, their college clubs, into an on-the-ground college outrage content machine, making videos and working to organize on-campus conservative counterprogramming.

Those on the left at a place like Berkeley are largely unfazed by these skirmishes.

“Billionaires have spent a fortune to promote this group, and yet it’s completely marginal, at most an annoyance,” said James Kennerly, the Cal Young Democratic Socialists of America co-chair.

But PragerU is gaining traction.

Cody Thompson is a 26-year-old undergraduate at Augsburg University in Minneapolis. He considered himself such a strong social justice-oriented leftist, he said, that when he once saw someone walking around campus wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, he alerted student affairs, saying he felt unsafe.

As he tells it, Mr. Thompson was with a conservative childhood friend who showed him a 2017 PragerU video, “The Inconvenient Truth About the Democratic Party,” hosted by Carol Swain, who at the time was a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and is now retired.

Mr. Witt rallying with PragerU supporters after a hearing at the Santa Clara Superior Courthouse.

Mr. Witt rallying with PragerU supporters after a hearing at the Santa Clara Superior Courthouse

“The Democratic Party defended slavery, started the Civil War and opposed Reconstruction,” Ms. Swain, who is black, says in the video. She speaks slowly and straight to the camera as graphics flash by in the usual Prager style.

“I don’t know what it was, but when I watched that video I wanted to watch more,” Mr. Thompson said.

He talks about PragerU videos like a religious revelation. He said they opened his mind and repaired his relationship with his parents, made him anti-abortion and supportive of a border wall.

And when he went to see Mr. Witt speak, that sealed his new politics.

A few days after the Prager journey through Berkeley, the student Mr. Witt had buttonholed — the one who said there could be as many genders as he wanted — was still confused about the encounter.

“I was just hanging out on campus, getting the Berkeley energy,” said Pau Guinart, a 36-year-old from Barcelona who recently completed a doctorate in Latin American literature at Stanford. “When I started to sense what they were getting at, I was like, ‘Dude, you’re in the wrong place.’”

He hoped he had said the right thing, then asked: “Do you know where the video goes?”

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Americans Trust Local News. That Belief Is Being Exploited.

Americans Trust Local News. That Belief Is Being Exploited.

by | Oct 31, 2019 | Politics, Society and Culture | 0 comments

Americans express greater trust in news from local television and newspapers than national outlets, research shows. Credit: Etienne Laurent/EPA.

By Brendan Nyhan, Via NYimes
Oct. 31, 2019

The nature of the news misinformation problem may be changing. As consumers become more skeptical about the national news they encounter online, impostor local sites that promote ideological agendas are becoming more common. These sites exploit the relatively high trust Americans express in local news outlets — a potential vulnerability in Americans’ defenses against untrustworthy information.

Some misinformation in local news comes from foreign governments seeking to meddle in American domestic politics. Most notably, numerous Twitter accounts operated by the Russian Internet Research Agency were found to have impersonated local news aggregators during the 2016 election campaign.

A recent Senate Intelligence Committee report found that 54 such accounts published more than 500,000 tweets. According to researchers at N.Y.U., the fake local news accounts frequently directed readers to genuine local news articles about polarizing political and cultural topics.

Domestically grown dubious outlets are also proliferating. Last week, The Lansing State Journal reported the existence of a network of more than 35 faux-local websites across Michigan with names like Battle Creek Times, Detroit City Wire, Lansing Sun and Grand Rapids Reporter.

These sites mix news releases and town announcements with rewritten content derived from other sources, including the Mackinac Center, a conservative think tank in the state, and the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.

All of them originate with a company called Locality Labs L.L.C., which created similar networks of questionable local websites in Illinois and Maryland, and state and local business and legal sites around the country. There’s little information about these sites. They typically lack mastheads, local addresses and clear disclosure of their ownership or revenue sources.

Voters could easily become confused about the origins of information from these seemingly innocuous local-sounding outlets. In 2016, for example, websites in the Illinois network interviewed Republican candidates favored by a conservative state political committee, which then paid to mail print newspaper versions of the sites to voters without identifying them as political advertising.

A similar pattern cropped up in Tennessee, where a website called the Tennessee Star began publishing political news in 2017 without disclosing its funders or staff. One headline was featured in an ad by a member of Congress running for re-election. Readers and viewers had no way of knowing the Tennessee Star was actually a conservative site run by commentators and activists. This group has since started companion sites called the Minnesota Sun and Ohio Star; each draws heavily on syndicated content from conservative sources like The Daily Caller.

These three sites now attract substantial engagement on Facebook. CrowdTangle data shows they are frequently linked on public pages with millions of followers and have generated more than 100,000 interactions. In August and September, President Trump’s official Facebook page linked three times to the Minnesota Sun, which had published commentaries by the leader of the state’s Republican Party and the chief operating officer of the Trump re-election campaign.

As the tactic has become more common, political leaders have also created or promoted seemingly independent local websites. For instance, a website called the California Republican, which appeared in 2018, describes itself on Facebook as providing “the best of U.S., California and Central Valley news, sports and analysis.” But it was paid for by the campaign committee of Devin Nunes, a Republican congressman from California. Kelli Ward, a Republican representative from Arizona, promoted an election endorsement from the Arizona Monitor, another pseudo-local site. And in Maine, a website called the Maine Examiner, which published leaked emails from a Democratic candidate, was revealed to have been created by the state Republican Party’s executive director.

Covertly ideological local sources aren’t exclusively online. The media giant Sinclair has similarly blurred the lines between local and national journalism in television news. When local stations are acquired by Sinclair, a recent study shows, their news content becomes more nationally focused and more conservative. The company often issues so-called must-run national segments, such as a recent commentary that sought to blame illegal immigration for sexual violence against children. And in March 2018, Sinclair directed local stations to air a promotional clip in which anchors read a company script denouncing “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news” as if they were using their own words, a tactic that was exposed in a viral clip.

All of these outside groups seem to be trying to capitalize on people’s trust in local news. In the 2018 Poynter Media Trust Survey, the political scientists Andy Guess, Jason Reifler and I found that Americans express greater trust in news from local television and newspapers than from national outlets. This is especially true of Republicans, the partisan group that is most skeptical of the national media.

The differences in trust we observe translate into differences in interest and consumption preferences. First, a Pew survey found that three in four Americans say they follow local news somewhat or very closely — the same fraction as those who report following national news closely.

Moreover, what people say in surveys tracks their behavior under controlled conditions. In the 2019 Poynter Media Trust Survey (which found similarly high levels of trust in local news), we asked a representative sample of Americans to repeatedly indicate which of two articles they would prefer to read.

Each article summary included a randomly assigned headline, date, author and source type, which varied between a local television station, radio station or newspaper; national newspapers and broadcast networks; and national online-only outlets. This approach allowed us to account for differences in topics between national and local news.

Over all, we found that people preferred to consume local news most. Holding other factors constant, Americans were 11 percentage points more likely to choose articles from local news sources than ones from online-only national outlets — precisely why dubious websites might impersonate local news sources. This differential was largest among Republican identifiers and people with a negative view of the news media.

The prevalence of these impostors is likely to increase as the 2020 election approaches, threatening to mislead more voters and to promote greater skepticism toward all news media, including the local outlets that so many Americans rely on and trust.

Brendan Nyhan is a professor of government at Dartmouth College.

Why Congress Might Impeach Trump and Actually Remove Him From Office

Why Congress Might Impeach Trump and Actually Remove Him From Office

by | Oct 25, 2019 | Politics | 0 comments

On target reading.

Via New York Magazine, By Jonathan Chait

If you have seen the 1995 movie Casino, the fate of Joe Pesci’s character gives a fairly good sense of how Donald Trump might eventually be impeached and removed from office. If you haven’t seen Casino, Pesci’s character, Nicky Santoro, is basically the same as his GoodFellas character: a mobster so violent and erratic he scares the other mobsters. Throughout the film, the narrator tells us that the Mafia bosses disapprove of Santoro’s out-of-control behavior but let him operate anyway because he keeps sending suitcases full of cash back home every month. Their tolerance appears to be infinite, until eventually they reach a breaking point and bury him in a cornfield.

Throughout Trump’s presidency, I’ve dismissed the possibility that he could be removed from office. In all likelihood, the Senate will come nowhere close to mustering the 67 votes needed to do so. But over the past few weeks, the outline of a removal scenario has begun to take shape. The prospect is no longer a fantasy.

The Republican Establishment has largely submitted to Trump, and its acquiescence has come to seem like an immutable fact of this partisan age. But the alliance between Trump and the Republican Congress has visibly fragmented in recent weeks. Last week, the House voted 354-60 to condemn Trump’s Syria policy. Mitch McConnell has promised an even stronger resolution of disapproval in the Senate. Internal pressure from Republicans forced Trump to reverse his plans to hold the G7 summit at a Trump property, a crushing defeat for a president who despises both outward signs of weakness and missed chances to profit.

Senate Republicans may both fear Trump and use him for their own ends, but they have very little love for him. Almost all of them would privately vote for an act-of-God scenario where Trump drops dead — not violently but peacefully, without suffering, ideally surrounded in his bed by a loving retinue of Fox News personalities, Ivanka, and perhaps a tasteful array of magazine covers bearing his likeness. The trouble for the Republican Senate has always been how they get from here to there.

The near-certainty that the House will vote to impeach Trump this year sets in motion events that could lead to removal. Initially, many analysts predicted the Republican Senate would either do nothing in the face of an impeachment vote or hold a perfunctory vote to dismiss the charges. But McConnell has, somewhat surprisingly, announced his intention to hold a real trial. Either McConnell takes the charges against Trump seriously or, more likely, his hand has been forced by a small number of vulnerable or dissident members who are demanding serious proceedings. Whatever the explanation, McConnell is not going to simply ignore impeachment like it’s a Merrick Garland nomination.

As of now, Mitt Romney is the only Republican senator making a case for conviction. But his colleagues are mostly refraining from defending Trump’s behavior outright or echoing his ever-shifting lines of defense. McConnell has blasted the House investigation as a partisan process. “I don’t think many of us were expecting to witness a clinic in terms of fairness or due process,” he complained, “but even by their own partisan standards, House Democrats have already found new ways to lower the bar.”

Yet for all his typical disingenuous smarm, denouncing the process in the other chamber is much weaker brew than defending Trump’s conduct, which he has largely failed to do. Indeed, McConnell’s argument opens the door to finding guilt through a “fair” process McConnell runs. Even the sycophantic Lindsey Graham left the door open more than a crack when asked by Jonathan Swan if he could imagine voting to convict. “Sure. I mean … show me something that … is a crime,” he said. “If you could show me that, you know, Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo, outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing.” A “very well-connected Republican in Washington” estimated to Chris Wallace that there is a 20 percent chance the Senate votes for removal.

And what if it did? The power dynamic between Trump and Senate Republicans is oddly asymmetrical. Trump has the power to end the career of dissidents, and he has flaunted it, forcing once-safe figures like Jeff Flake and Bob Corker to retire when they defied him. But his power lies only in the ability to pick off heretics one by one. The Senate Republicans can band together to vote him out, and Trump would have little recourse.

Trump would, to be sure, rage furiously against a party that betrayed him and try to whip up his followers against them in 2020, perhaps even running an independent campaign. But his power relies on the support of the conservative media apparatus, which is loyal to the Republican Party. Fox News fell behind Trump because his interests dovetailed with those of the GOP as a whole. If the two began to work at cross-purposes, it would likely turn on him as rapidly as it fell in line after he won the nomination. The cult of personality around Trump is a creation of the party-controlled media. To assume Republican voters would remain loyal to a Trump who has turned against the party extends them too much credit. They will follow whomever they are told to follow. If that leader is Mike Pence, they will learn to adore his steadfast qualities of leadership, steely devotion to the timeless principles of Reaganism, and weird shoulder fetishism.

To be sure, throwing out Trump entails a lot of risk. To date, Republicans have taken the safer course of sticking with him despite all his counterproductively repellent behavior. To outsiders, their alliance with Trump appears immutable. But on the inside, the picture may be more fluid. The Republican Establishment took great comfort in the presence of John Kelly, James Mattis, H. R. McMaster, and other staid figures who quietly assured official Washington they could restrain the president’s destructive impulses. Their departure has given Trump a freer hand to seize the powers of his office and act out in ways that evade any means of control.

The Syria debacle is genuinely alarming to the party, because it shows Trump unleashing a strategic catastrophe, leading to thousands of escaped terrorists, through a simple phone call the implications of which he seems not to have understood. The up-front costs of ripping off the Band-Aid and removing Trump might seem less risky than allowing another year of a completely unconstrained toddler president.

In Casino, the bosses accepted a lot of erratic and risky behavior from Nicky Santoro because he was ultimately a useful ally. They didn’t care that he was a violent criminal — they were violent criminals, too. But they eventually decided that his flamboyant and uncontrollable behavior put their whole racket at risk. And when their calculation of his value tipped from acceptable risk to unacceptable risk, the end came swiftly and unexpectedly.

The Republican Establishment doesn’t have hit men, but it does have a constitutional process at its disposal that is being helpfully initiated by House Democrats. That its members would band together to cast out a president adored by their party’s base seemed until recently unthinkable. Now it is not.