The Trump administration has proposed curbing the government’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases by unwinding rules that control emissions from fossil fuel drilling, power plants, and cars.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Tuesday announced the proposed rollback of a 2009 declaration that determined carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are a danger to public health and welfare.

“With this proposal, the Trump EPA is proposing to end 16 years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers,” said Zeldin.

Earlier in the day, Zeldin said on the conservative “Ruthless” podcast that the rescission would be the “largest deregulatory action in the history of America,” which will “driv[e] a dagger into the heart of the climate change religion.”

The move is the latest effort by the Trump administration to pare back environmental standards, which it has framed as antithetical to economic growth and consumer choice.

Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump has withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement for the second time and ended all accompanying financial commitments. He has also suspended methane leak detection and cut electric vehicle incentives.

If you thought going to a Pride event or drag show was just another night out, think again. If you were in Florida, it might land your name in a government database.

That’s what’s happening in Vero Beach, FL, where the Florida Attorney General’s office has subpoenaed a local restaurant, The Kilted Mermaid, demanding surveillance video, guest lists, reservation logs, and contracts of performers and other staff—all because the venue hosted an LGBTQ+ Pride event.

To be clear: no one has been charged with a crime, and the law Florida is likely leaning on here—the so-called “Protection of Children Act” (which was designed to be a drag show ban)—has already been blocked by federal courts as likely unconstitutional. But that didn’t stop Attorney General James Uthmeier from pushing forward anyway. Without naming a specific law that was violated, the AG’s press release used pointed and accusatory language, stating that "In Florida, we don't sacrifice the innocence of children for the perversions of some demented adults.” His office is now fishing for personal data about everyone who attended or performed at the event. This should set off every civil liberties alarm bell we have.

Just like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and other bills with misleading names, this isn’t about protecting children. It’s about using the power of the state to intimidate people government officials disagree with, and to censor speech that is both lawful and fundamental to American democracy.

But Paramount’s future aside, the end of Colbert signals a dark new chapter in Trump’s authoritarian slide. Though his second term has already produced a string of stunning capitulations by some of the most powerful forces in the country, one could argue that Trump’s attacks had yet to take down our actual culture. I’m talking about the literal content we consume—the television, art, movies, literature, music—no matter how much Trump complained. That it remained protected and free-willed, a rare area of control for a public that otherwise feels powerless to take action. Clearly, that was magical thinking. If this can happen to Colbert and a storied franchise, this can happen to anyone.

The only upside is that Colbert will soon be free to go scorched earth against a president he detests. Every other network stands to gain enormously right now. Here’s to hoping a spine emerges.

WASHINGTON, July 15 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the removal of half of the 4,000 National Guard troops who had been sent to Los Angeles to protect federal property and personnel during a spate of protests last month, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

I added the bold

On 27 May, an official document calling for regime change in European countries was published in Washington DC.

It considers elections in Europe — recently in Romania and Poland, and soon in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and, as some speculate, France too — as an opportunity to get European countries governed by far-right leaders with Trumpian agendas.

With those leaders, it wants to forge a ‘civilizational alliance’, one “forged in common culture, faith, family ties, mutual assistance in times of strife, and above all, a shared Western civilizational heritage”.

The State Department document, however, goes a step further. It states that “Europe’s democratic backsliding” harms American security, economic interests and freedom of speech. Because of this, it implies it is time for the US to act: far-right forces in Europe must transform their political systems so that Washington can form an alliance of civilization with “Christian nations like Hungary”.

Hey Trump

JD Vance (Yale Law ‘13), has called university professors “the enemy” and suggested using Viktor Orban’s method for ending “left-wing domination” of universities. Vance laid it all out on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on May 19, 2024:

“Universities are controlled by left-wing foundations. They’re not controlled by the American taxpayer, and yet the American taxpayer is sending hundreds of billions of dollars to these universities every single year.”

I’m not endorsing every single thing that Viktor Orban has ever done [but] I do think that he’s made some smart decisions there that we could learn from.

His way has to be the model for us: not to eliminate universities, but to give them a choice between survival or taking a much less biased approach to teaching. [The government should be] aggressively reforming institutions … in a way to where they’re much more open to conservative ideas.”

Yet what, exactly, constitutes a “conservative idea?” That dictatorship is preferable to democracy? That white Christian nationalism is better than tolerance and openness? That social Darwinism is superior to human decency?

Why? Because the greatest obstacle to dictatorship is an educated populace. Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny.

The president’s budget proposal would also defund many other climate labs, including instrument sites comprising the US government’s greenhouse gas monitoring network, which stretches from northern Alaska to the South Pole.

But it’s the Mauna Loa laboratory that is the most prominent target of the President Donald Trump’s climate ire, as measurements that began there in 1958 have steadily shown CO2’s upward march as human activities have emitted more and more of the planet-warming gas each year.

In 1958, when the Keeling Curve began, the concentration of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere was 313 parts per million. In 2024, that had risen to 424.61 ppm, and this year, monthly average CO2 levels at Mauna Loa exceeded 430 ppm for the first time.

The proposal to shut down Mauna Loa had been made public previously but was spelled out in more detail on Monday when NOAA submitted a budget document to Congress. It made more clear that the Trump administration envisions eliminating all climate-related research work at NOAA, as had been proposed in Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for overhauling the government.

Edward Kelley was convicted of plotting to attack FBI office in retaliation for his Capitol riot charges

Nearly 500 employees of the Environmental Protection Agency have published a “Declaration of Dissent” opposing the actions of the current EPA head, Lee Zeldin, who is working to politicize the agency, ignore science, and spread misinformation.

Sucking the world into war. Again

There's a lot to think about with regard to the Golden Dome.

https://open.substack.com/pub/billhulet/p/trumps-golden-dome-versus-soft-power?r=4ot1q2&showWelcomeOnShare=true

#Trump #Carney #GoldenDome

American fascists eating their own.