19 Comments
May 2Liked by Emily Atkin

John Kennedy, graduate of Vanderbilt and oxford, has played the down home boy to his advantage forever. No one realizes how corrupt he is because they think he's stupid with the southern accent. Every country on this planet has been corrupted with oil money and I don't know if any of our actions will help but I certainly support Climate Defiance doing what they're doing.

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Thank you for pointing out the Vanderbilt and Oxford pedigree. I was ready to do the same because it's shows that Kennedy could be serious if he wanted. But, he knows that his constituency buys into the aw shucks just fell off a turnip truck act.

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founding

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Senator Kennedy is even correct. I can only find Climate Defiance calling Joe Manchin a "sick fuck". Honestly I think calling Biden that is completely stupid and a mistake on Climate Defiance's part if they did, which is why I looked it up.

But the main point of the article is great. Instead of actually addressing the issue of climate disinformation, the strategy to deflect to tweets is really all Republicans and their fossil fuel funders, can do at this point.

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Yeah, Kennedy misattributed the comment by Climate Defiance as being directed towards Pres. Biden. The comment was directed towards Sen. Joe Manchin. Just another piece of disingenuous outrage by a fossil fuel financed shill of a politician aimed at muddying the waters.

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May 2·edited May 2

I watched this exchange and it was awesome. I am surprised by absolutely no attention paid in any of the newsletters I received to the two folks who appeared testifying on the panel who support methane gas. One of them publishes calling Bill McKibbon "left wing" and used whataboutism arguments on the panel. It's a little bizarre that was all woven into the hearing.

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author

Yeah, I decided to only give attention to one ridiculous debunk-worthy thing. But there were plenty other candidates; If I had a staff of 10 we could have covered them all!

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May 2·edited May 2Liked by Emily Atkin

Yes, totally. It mostly surprised me that it didn't appear in any of the newsletters. I just didn't understand why they had apparent supporters of fossil fuels on the panel alongside folks describing the corruption of the industry. It was kind of bizarre to me. Edmund Carlevale-- not sure if you know about him. He investigates Ernest Moniz. He seems to think this is all a distracting circus. He has a bunch of posts on LinkedIn and I started following him after Amy Westervelt cited him in her newsletter.

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author

The republicans are allowed to call witnesses, which is why there were there, I believe

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Ahhhh ok, that would explain it.

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May 3Liked by Emily Atkin

Thank you for your work, these quotes and response from both attacked, the climate activists and the researcher testifying, does show the tactics of Kennedy. He goes for the drama when he knows better. It's a distraction from the data and the reality. It's his MO.

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I love that the phrase "sick f*ck" had to be transcribed for the record.

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"Are you gonna call me a sick fuck?"

Well, Senator, if the shoe fits ...

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"I never gave anybody hell. I just told the truth and they think it's hell."

- Harry "Give 'em Hell" Truman

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Senator Foghorn Leghorn is, in fact, a sick f***.

He's also an a**hole.

I could continue describing him in similar terms all day, but that would be polluting the comments section.

Suffice it to say that I simply he should be removed from Congress, and never again heard from in the national discourse.

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This is the guy who wants to the leader of the free world. One again, the authoritarians are starting to show their true colors. They aren't trying to hide anything anymore because they see Biden and Co. as weak and now they figure they can get away with anything they want. It is only going to get worse from here. If you live in the U.S., you had better start preparing for a global depression within the next few years as the GOP and its coat riders try to strangle all opposition to anything they want. The U.S. is losing badly on the economic front worldwide now as countries increasingly de-dollarize, leaving all of those treasury bonds hanging in the wind.

Guys like RFK don't care as they have family money off shore to take care of their needs. But for the rest of us, it's crank up the smokestacks and the water runoffs as the government is too busy with genocides and figuring out how to save all of those executive salaries and stock options to do anything about it anymore.

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What a maroon

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BTW, do you happen to know the best way to download all the subpoenaed documents? Would be great to dig into them.

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author

We got them directly from the senate budget committee; you could contact them if they're not available on the website? We would share but we don't have the bandwidth to upload them all to an external site

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All I can say is that rank stupidity exists on both sides of an argument steeped in religion and not science....

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