"Blatantly unconstitutional"

PRESENTED BY A WEE LUMPFISH

“This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” said U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, as he blocked President Donald Trump’s blatantly unconstitutional order eliminating birthright citizenship.

No member of Congress has announced plans to impeach Trump for his day-one treasonous acts, which also include his pardon of the violent insurrectionists who attacked Congress and his attempted reversal of all efforts to protect the nation from fossil-fueled climate disaster.

The League of Conservation Voters and the Natural Resources Defense Council spent $1.7 million in 2020 to elect and $4.4 million in 2022 (and raised over $543,000 in grassroots donations) to re-elect Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) so that he could vote for climate-denier-for-hire Lee Zeldin to become Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in 2025. Kelly voted with all the Republicans on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works this morning to support Zeldin, whose nomination now moves to the full Senate.¹ Oops!

Yesterday, the House of Representatives moved forward with Rep. Bruce Westerman’s (R-Ark.) and Rep. Scott Peters’s (D-Calif.) “Chop Down The Forests So They Don’t Burn” Act (H.R. 471), with a party-line vote. The only amendments to the bill allowed are Rep. Scott Perry’s (R-Pa.) amendment to kill “carbon sequestration and ecosystem services prioritization” from biochar demonstration projects, and Rep. Salud Carbajal’s (D-Calif.) amendment to “allow the U.S. Forest Service to approve the removal of hazardous trees near power lines on federal land without requiring a timber sale.”

The GOP-run Rules Committee rejected a bipartisan amendment co-sponsored by Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.) to give federal wildland firefighters a pay raise, and also rejected Rep. Jared Huffman’s (D-Calif.) sane wildfire management legislation, the Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act. Yesterday’s House vote prevented those amendments from being considered on the floor.

The Egg's (aka techno-billionaire Marc Andreessen) life is a speed run from American liberalism through neoliberalism and into neo-fascism. He was educated at a land-grant college, which had connections to the nascent Internet thanks to Al Gore, profited mightily during the Bill Clinton presidency, and has now descended into the politics of eugenicist oligarchy. In an interview with the relentlessly smarmy concern troll Ross Douthat, Andreessen pulls a Principal Skinner to explain his devolution into Trumpism after young people acted like they didn’t like Trump being president: “And my only conclusion is what changed was basically the kids.”

One moment in the tedious, reality-challenged interview should be of interest to Hill Heat readers, where he admits that his techno-futurist profits require insane oil and gas production:

I reached out to a Gore spokesperson for a response, but he’s busy at Davos.

Extremist climate denier Brooke Rollins, the former CEO and president of the Koch-backed Texas Public Policy Foundation, had her confirmation hearing to be Secretary of Agriculture this morning. Her previous defense of fossil fuels includes this doozy: “We know the research of CO2 being a pollutant is just not valid.”

At no point in the hearing were her extreme anti-science, pro-polluter views challenged.

“Coming from Texas, I was a massive defender of fossil fuels,” she admitted, but only in the context of previous attacks on biofuels.

Sen. Ralph Warnock (D-N.C.) pressed her on equitable disaster relief for “natural disasters like Hurricane Helene,” but not on her climate denial.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) pressed Rollins on Forest Service wildfire response, but not on her climate denial. She replied: “To watch the devastation in your beautiful state has been heartbreaking for all of us.” She then admitted she knew nothing about the wildland firefighter pay issue.

Schiff also described the scene of farmworkers picking strawberries in the haze of the wildfires, noting that more than half of California’s farmworkers who toil in our increasingly unsafe climate to feed us are undocumented people living in fear.

In her defiant reply, Rollins was unequivocal in her support for mass deportation:

“Mass deportation, at a scale that matters, is something I support,” the virulent bigot repeated.

So, more expensive strawberries, I guess.

On the DNC elections front, the Western Caucus DNC candidates forum is ongoing. Tim Lim made his first appearance as a candidate for National Finance Chair, calling for an end to abusive email and SMS fundraising. Chris Korge defended his record as the strongest Democratic fundraiser in history.

The vice chair and chair candidates will be speaking later today.

Hearings on the Hill:

• 9:15 AM: Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
  Vote on nomination of Lee Zeldin to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

• 10 AM: Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee
  Nomination of Brooke Rollins to be Secretary of Agriculture

• 10 AM: House Natural Resources Committee
     Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee
  Water Conservation and Access Legislation

Climate Action Today:

• 2 PM: Democratic National Committee
  Western DNC Officer Forum

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@[email protected], @climatebrad on Threads, and @climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky.

1  The LCV Victory Fund also spent $3 million in 2022 to elect Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) so that he could vote for cloture on the Kavanaugh-wannabe Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense.