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The fossil fuel industry is effectively a public-private partnership. It depends on generous subsidies in the form of long-standing tax breaks and preferential leasing, but also on all manner of infrastructural support and diplomatic maneuvering to make the world friendly to U.S. fossil fuels. The concept of energy independence is itself the result of dedicated, state-led industrial policy first unveiled by the Nixon administration in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis, meant to boost domestic energy production. Even the ownership of the Colonial Pipeline itself shows just how much public capital makes oil flow. Shell and Koch Industries are both major owners, alongside private equity firms. Yet also behind the pipeline are companies that manage public pension funds in Australia and Quebec, as well as South Koreas state-run National Pension Service.

If energy independence were McCarthys real concern, it would make sense for him to favor temporarily halting fuel exports, which he instead wants to expand. It would make sense for him to urge refinery operators to invest more in being able to process the light, sweet crude flowing out of the Permian Basin. Needless to say, the Midwestern Keystone XL pipeline expansion McCarthy and other Republicans have used the cyberattack to pitch would not have either prevented a ransomware attack or alleviated fuel shortages among the East Coast gas stations the Colonial Pipeline supplies.

While the industry has cast just about any climate policy as a radical intervention into the economy, most of what Democrats have proposed so far amounts to either withdrawing some small portion of the mountains of state support oil companies currently enjoy or providing similar, much more modest benefits to the clean energy sector. The fossil fuel companies have trained plenty of attack dogs to make their case.

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The Republican Response to the Colonial Pipeline Hack Is Bananas - The New Republic

Update, May 10: Businessman Glenn Youngkin has won the Republican gubernatorial nomination.

GALAX, Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Kirk Cox was several minutes into a wonky election security answer at a diner when January 6 came up again.

Did President Joe Biden win the election? Cox avoided directly answering the question at this recent event, though he had previously acknowledged that reality, the one GOP frontrunner willing to do so.

Instead, he refocused on proposals like voter ID requirements, which are popular with lots of voters. But now Lin, a Trump supporter who had posed the Biden question, had another one. She wanted to know whether he agreed with the Virginia Senate censuring one of its members, Amanda Chase, after she called the people who stormed the US Capitol that day in January patriots.

Did Cox support the freedom of speech of Chase, now one of Coxs competitors for the Republican nomination?

Im very much for freedom of speech, Cox answered.

So you were against [the censure vote]? asked Lin, who supports Chase in the race. I dont want to put words in your mouth, but I need a yes or a no.

This narrow line on the 2020 election and cancel culture is one Republicans have had to dance along for months in courting voters before Saturdays Virginia GOP gubernatorial convention.

The GOP has had a tough go of it statewide in the past few years in Virginia, with demographic changes helping push the state to become reliably Democratic. The partys response running further and further to the right has only exacerbated the problem. But Virginia might not be lost to the right kind of Republican. At least not yet.

Republicans will choose their nominee in an unassembled convention; nearly 54,000 Republicans who successfully applied to be a delegate will be able to cast ranked-choice ballots at 39 drive-up locations around Virginia. Its a process that has had more than a few bumps along the way, including Chase alleging the party chose a convention over a primary to prevent her from becoming the nominee. It could also take several days to know the results candidates have already sown doubt about the race.

Its going to make the Iowa caucuses look like a well-oiled machine, a Democratic operative said, with a touch of hopeful glee.

Virginia last chose a Republican in a statewide election in 2009. Since then, the GOP has run candidates that its own insiders say dont appeal to the states growing suburban population. Theyre going to have to make inroads back into those communities to have a hope of winning, says Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabatos Crystal Ball at the Center for Politics.

I always look at, in the 2016 primaries, places where candidates like John Kasich and Marco Rubio did well against Trump: Those are the areas that have moved more toward the Democrats since places like Loudoun County, Hanover County, Chesterfield County, Coleman said. Maybe those voters are still open to the right type of Republican after voting for Hillary [Clinton] and Biden.

But can they do that while turning out the 44 percent of the state that went for Trump?

The mix of contenders has been revealing.

But regardless of how candidates are positioning themselves, there are certain issues that keep coming up on the trail: support for law enforcement, the eradication of critical race theory from schools, and election integrity, to name a few.

And for some voters, like Heather, who attended Coxs event in Galax, the last on that list is most important or, more specifically, its the question of whether Joe Biden won the 2020 election that matters most.

Thats a huge one, she said. Thats first and foremost for this election or any election.

The future of the GOP after Trump is an open question. And barring disputes like the one playing out between US Rep. Liz Cheney and the bulk of the House GOP right now, Virginia might be the best glimpse we get before the 2022 midterms.

Heres what it looks like: There are seven candidates running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, with four in real contention (Youngkin, Chase, Cox, and Snyder). All of them tout their traditional conservative bona fides being pro-Second Amendment, anti-abortion, pro-business, and the like. Many of them rail against Covid-related closures, praising Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for keeping schools and businesses open throughout the pandemic.

All across Virginia on day one, we are going to get every single school open five days a week, every single week, with a real, live, breathing teacher in every classroom, Snyder told a crowd at a brewery in Wytheville last weekend. And folks, getting the schools open is only the beginning. We need to break the backs of this special interest monopoly of the teachers unions and bring real change to our schools.

Given the countrys rate of vaccination, decreased community spread, and reopening, those pandemic issues might not be as relevant come November or in 2022 and beyond. Trump, though, still will be.

At Snyders event, an emcee opened the afternoon by asking, How many of you wish Donald Trump was president right now? and a one-time Trump operator told the crowd they had to get to work to defeat the socialists, who might even be worse than socialists, theyre bordering on communists.

Youngkin, for his part, makes sure to note in his stump speech that hes won praise from Trump, but he was also willing to criticize the former presidents tone as a bit harsh at a campaign event in northern Virginia.

Loyalty to Trump isnt the key thing, argues Peter Doran, a former think tank CEO and one of the other three candidates recognized by the state party. (The others are former Roanoke Sheriff Octavia Johnson and retired Army Col. Sergio de la Pea.)

Most Virginia Republicans are painted as these big hard-right, hard-conservative voters who only care about Donald Trump. Thats not true, Doran said. They care about their job. They care about whats happening to their kids in this past year, and their education. And they care very deeply about the Republican Partys failure to win over the past decade.

Wilma, a mother of four and delegate in the convention, agreed, saying the GOPs future relies on getting young people to understand conservative values like small government, constitutional rights, and concern about the deficit.

My kids all look at the stimulus it might be nice to get that money, that cash, she said. But eventually they know in the long run, theyre the generation thats going to have to pay it back.

Still, its no longer enough to tick the fiscal conservative, Christian, gun owner, and anti-abortion boxes. There are new ones on the list keywords of the culture war issues the former president helped animate.

Take critical race theory, which Chase says is part of the reason she decided to homeschool her children.

As Voxs Fabiola Cineas explained, critical race theory is a framework for grappling with racial power and white supremacy in America. But its also become a catch-all term for what the Trump administration thought was an effort to indoctrinate American students and workers with divisive and harmful sex- and race-based ideologies:

Theyve lumped everything together: critical race theory, the 1619 project, whiteness studies, talking about white privilege, Kimberl Crenshaw, a founding critical race theorist and UCLA and Columbia University law professor, told Vox. What they have in common is they are discourses that refuse to participate in the lie that America has triumphantly overcome its racist history, that everything is behind us. None of these projects accept that its all behind us.

Its not just Chase using the term frequently: Almost all the candidates make sure to highlight their opposition to it; six have signed a pledge opposing critical race theory. As journalist Dave Weigel pointed out on Twitter, Youngkin went so far as to upload multiple video clips of him criticizing it.

Trumps impact, though, is perhaps most evident in the obsession with election security.

On one hand, Amanda Chases stance on the 2020 election sets her apart from the rest of the party so much so that she, her supporters, and some outsiders claim the state party chose a convention rather than a primary to mitigate the risk of her ending up at the top of their ticket.

Last month, in an interview with the AP, Chase even questioned whether Biden won Virginia. (He carried it by 10 percentage points, as official election results show.)

But none of the candidates can distance themselves too far from Trumps lies and doubt-sowing about the 2020 election. They need only look to the US House to see the consequences of doing so.

Neither Youngkin nor Snyder will say Bidens presidency is legitimate. Cox appears willing to do so (at least when hes not at a diner in southwest Virginia).

And everyone has plans to improve election integrity. Youngkin promotes his election security task force, one plank of which is updating voter rolls monthly. He and Cox talk about making the state election commission nonpartisan. Snyder wants to make Virginia No. 1 in ballot integrity.

Theyre all fairly anodyne-sounding proposals, but talking about things like that is a requirement for securing the nomination, says Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington.

While they may not support what happened on January 6, they do want to offer a position that shows some sympathy to the position of Trump supporters, Farnsworth said.

That doesnt necessarily mean the rhetoric will dog them during the general election Youngkins spokesperson said they believe election security isnt a partisan issue, its a democracy issue.

And Kirk Cox is an example of a candidate who accepts Biden as a legitimate president but nevertheless speaks in ways that gives some solace to Trump supporters, Farnsworth pointed out, adding its likely that voters in November will not be dramatically impacted by whats said in May.

Still, the insistence on making Americas elections more secure helps perpetuate a world in which seven out of 10 Republican voters still say per a recent CNN poll that Biden didnt win enough votes to be president.

And the continued questioning of elections has applied even to their own partys choices. Some of those choices, admittedly, merit scrutiny from candidates extolling the importance of signatures on absentee ballots. But it also led Youngkin, Cox, and Chase to write to the party, demanding it not use untested and unproven software that creates uncertainty, lacks openness and transparency, and is inconsistent with our calls as a party for safe and secure elections.

Now, every ranked-choice ballot will be counted by hand, at a ballroom at the Richmond Marriott, race by race. Chair Rich Anderson detailed to the Virginia Scopes Brandon Jarvis the lengths the Republican Party of Virginia is going to try to instill confidence in the process:

Theyve also set aside money to livestream the counting process, because, Anderson said, I just dont want to repeat what was done in different places around the country where people were concerned about it being an opaque process.

Thats left no room for any conspiracy theories about the counting to crop up, says John March, the state party communications director. Even so, there are bound to be some dissidents, and if it takes days, Coleman says he can see the conspiracy theories now.

When you have a multi-candidate field in a multi-round election, Farnsworth said, the only sound bet is expecting that the party wont get together and sing kumbaya when this is all over.

Virginia, once home to the capital of the Confederacy, has moved left enough in presidential races that on election night in 2020, the forecast group Decision Desk called it for Joe Biden right as polls closed. Trump ended up with just 44 percent of the vote here, Biden with 54.

But the GOP argues the state is not lost to them just yet.

In recent decades, Virginia had a peevish streak, electing a governor from the opposite party that just won the White House. The candidate to break that trend was former Gov. Terry McAuliffe whos running again this year.

And March points to the unprecedented level of interest in the convention as a sign of whats to come: 54,000 people are getting involved on the grassroots level. ... You dont really see that, and that just shows how excited Virginia Republicans are.

Without Trump on the ballot this year, there might be an opening a slim one for the governorship, but a bigger one to flip competitive state House districts. The person Republicans choose on Saturday will matter a lot.

One thing I do think that could bode well for them is even though he lost, in 2017 Ed Gillespie got more votes than any previous Republican nominee for governor, Coleman pointed out. So maybe if Youngkin or whoever else can get that type of Gillespie turnout, which is definitely a question mark, and Democrats cant get that anti-Trump turnout, maybe its going to be closer.

Even so, its going to be an uphill battle for the GOP to narrow margins in some areas, let alone retake them. Take Chesterfield County, which Republicans easily won for decades. In 2020, it went for Biden by more than 6 percentage points.

Going forward, Coleman says, this may be the last potential cycle where the Republicans could win a county like Chesterfield, and that may not even be enough it may be necessary but not sufficient.

Democrats seem to think it wont be.

Were ready for a fight; we expect a fight. We expect a tough race, said David Turner, the communications director for the Democratic Governors Association. But what I would say is you cant report accurately on the state of Virginia without acknowledging theres pre-Trump and theres post-Trump, and were still post-Trump.

Read this article:
Glenn Youngkin wins Republican nomination for Virginia governor: Inside the Trumpy governors race - Vox.com

WASHINGTON (AP) What insurrection?

Flouting all evidence and their own first-hand experience, a small but growing number of Republican lawmakers are propagating a false portrayal of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, brazenly arguing that the rioters who used flagpoles as weapons, brutally beat police officers and chanted that they wanted to hang Vice President Mike Pence were somehow acting peacefully in their violent bid to overturn Joe Bidens election.

One Republican at a hearing Wednesday called the rioters a mob of misfits. Another compared them to tourists. And a third suggested the sweeping federal investigation into the riot which has yielded more than 400 arrests and counting amounts to a national campaign of harassment.

Its a turn of events that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, another target of the rioters, called appalling and sick, and it raises the possibility that the publics understanding of the worst domestic attack on Congress in 200 years an attack that was captured extensively on video could become distorted by the same kinds of disinformation that fueled former President Donald Trumps false claims of a stolen election. It was the lie about the election that motivated the rioters in the first place.

I dont know of a normal day around here when people are threatening to hang the vice president of the United States or shoot the speaker, or injure so many police officers, said Pelosi, who has pushed for a bipartisan commission to investigate the riots.

The hearing Wednesday was supposed to be the latest dive by congressional investigators into the chaos of Jan. 6 the missed warning signs, confusion and delays that allowed the rioters to terrorize the Capitol for an entire afternoon. But several Republicans used their rounds of questioning not to pepper the witnesses with questions but to downplay the brutal assault on Americas seat of democracy.

Lets be honest with the American people it was not an insurrection, and we cannot call it that and be truthful, said Rep. Andrew Clyde, a Republican from Georgia serving his first term.

Clyde said one video feed of the rioters looked like they were on a normal tourist visit. Those in the video, taken in Statuary Hall, were able to enter the building after rioters broke through glass, pummeled officers and busted through the doors as lawmakers were frantically evacuated. They were headed to the House chamber where they tried to beat down the doors with lawmakers still inside.

Clyde wasnt the only Republican making that argument. Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar portrayed a woman who was shot and killed by Capitol Police as she tried to break through a door next to the House chamber as a martyr. He said Ashli Babbitt was executed and noted she was an Air Force veteran who was wearing an American flag. The Department of Justice decided after an investigation not to charge the police officer who shot her.

The Justice Department, Gosar said, is harassing peaceful patriots across the country as federal prosecutors file charges against hundreds of people who stormed the Capitol and participated in the riot. The massive investigation, one of the largest in American history, remains ongoing with federal agents continuing to serve search warrants and attempting to locate dozens of other people still being sought for questioning.

Georgia Rep. Jody Hice also painted the rioters as the victims, noting that they were four of the people who died, including Babbitt. The other three suffered medical emergencies while part of the crowd laying siege to the Capitol. It was Trump supporters who lost their lives that day, not Trump supporters who were taking the lives of others, Hice said.

A fifth person, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, collapsed immediately after the insurrection and died the next day. Video shows two men spraying him and another officer with a chemical, but the Washington medical examiner said Sicknick suffered a stroke and died from natural causes. The men have been charged with assaulting the officers.

Two other officers took their own lives in the days afterward, and dozens more were hurt including one officer who had a heart attack and others who suffered traumatic brain injuries and permanent disabilities. The union that represents the Capitol Police said some of the officers may never return to work.

The attempt to defend the insurrectionists came on the same day that House Republicans voted to oust Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney from their leadership team for repeatedly rebuking Trump for his false claims that the election was stolen. Cheney voted with Democrats to impeach Trump for telling his supporters hours before the Jan. 6 attack to fight like hell to overturn Bidens win. Trumps lies about widespread election fraud were rebuked by numerous courts, election officials across the country and his own attorney general.

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, who led the Democrats impeachment prosecution and sits on the Oversight Committee, said after the hearing that he believes that Republicans were emboldened and emancipated by Cheneys ouster earlier in the day.

They have declared themselves to be on the side of Donald Trump and the big lie, and the big lie now has spread outwards to include denial of what happened on Jan. 6, Raskin said.

Timothy Naftali, a professor of history and public service at New York University, says it is deeply cynical to set aside the insurrection as if it didnt happen. He compares it to political elites in Southern states after the Civil War who failed to examine its causes, which he says prevented racial reconciliation and healing and still affects the country to this day.

Political amnesia never helps, Naftali said. Its a source of poison.

Given the extensive record of the attack, captured in video and photos seen the world over, defending the insurrectionists required some creative omissions. One point Clyde emphasized was that the rioters never made it to the House floor even though they tried, only to be held back by police officers with guns drawn. Some lawmakers were taking cover in the gallery of the chamber as they tried to beat down the doors.

I can tell you the House floor was never breached and it was not an insurrection, Clyde said. This is the truth.

The mob did break into the Senate minutes after senators had evacuated, some carrying zip ties and tactical equipment. They rifled through desks and hunted for lawmakers, yelling where are they? They walked into Pelosis office, stealing a laptop and calling out her name while some of her staff huddled quietly under furniture.

Other Republicans some quietly, some publicly have made clear they dont agree with their colleagues.

I was there, said Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who was caught in security video being diverted away from the rioters by a police officer. What happened was a violent effort to interfere with and prevent the constitutional order of installing a new president. And as such, it was an insurrection against the Constitution. It resulted in severe property damage, severe injuries and death.

Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley, another Democratic member of the Oversight panel, says the Republican denials are wishful thinking that reverberates with their most partisan voters.

These folks passionately want what they want to be true, Quigley said after the hearing. So its no longer Ill believe it when I see it. Its Ill see it when I believe it.

____

Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Michael Balsamo and Nomaan Merchant contributed to this report.

Read more:
What insurrection? Growing number in GOP downplay Jan. 6 - AP 16 hours ago - The Associated Press

Liz Cheney, the Wyoming congresswoman ousted this week from her House leadership position, is a voice of sanity in the wilderness of lies that is the current Republican Party.

The national party continues to kowtow to Donald Trump, who lost the election in 2020 and relentlessly perpetuates the false narrative that the White House was somehow stolen from him.

While the leadership of the GOP is unwilling to step out from under Trumps shadow and find its next path, the Cambria County Republican Party is positioned to take a higher road and divorce itself from the lies and dangerous tactics.

Step one: Ditch the Cambria County: Trump County slogan. Its at worst insulting, and at best outdated.

Step two: Embrace the long-held positive qualities of Republican politics fiscal responsibility, limited corporate taxes, military superiority and bring forth representatives and candidates who not only trumpet those values but who are unwilling to support strategies built on fear, dishonesty and blame over action.

The party locally and nationally needs to move in a new and better direction.

Cheney represents that there can be an alternative although she never stood a chance in the muck of D.C.

Even her blood ties to father Dick Cheney vice president under George W. Bush and former secretary of defense were not enough to save Liz Cheney from removal Wednesday from her status as the No. 3 GOP House member.

Instead, the national party tightened its hitch on the Trump wagon and the ex-presidents dangerous, divisive ways.

Some Trump backers are attempting to convince us that what we all saw play out on our television screens on Jan. 6 didnt actually happen. Right.

Former Vice President Mike Pence embraced his four years under Trump after literally having his life threatened during the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot when re-emerging politically in hopes of recapturing the spotlight. Apparently Pence doesnt believe he has enough juice to stand on his own.

So who does?

Come on, Republicans find an alternative that will bring the heat in the areas of business growth and jobs without burning down the entire house that is American politics.

Cheney ran afoul of Trump and his troops when she called him out following the January insurrection at the Capitol.

She voted with nine other GOP House members who supported impeaching Trump for inciting the violent assault on the halls of Congress even after he had reluctantly left office in defeat.

Among those leading the charge to knock Cheney down a notch were Trump lap dogs Kevin McCarthy of California and Steve Scalise of Louisiana both of whom stood to increase in stature with her demise.

With her removal imminent, Cheney pushed back in a speech to almost no one at the Capitol:

I will not sit back and watch in silence while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former presidents crusade to undermine our democracy.

Today, we face a threat America has never seen before a former president who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol, in an effort to steal the election, (and) has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him. He risks inciting further violence.

Inciting violence and undermining democracy are strategies right out of the Trump playbook along with embracing racism and anti-Semitism, seeking support from Christian groups without actually sharing their beliefs, enacting policies that benefit himself and his enterprises, and exhibiting generally petty and unprofessional behavior. (Trump called Cheney a bitter, horrible human being.)

All this to set the stage for the 2022 mid-term elections and the next race for the presidency.

While in the meantime, the Republican Party is bleeding from a million self-inflicted cuts unified behind a dangerous authoritarian rather than positive conservative ideals.

Liz Cheney daughter of Dick Cheney, a disciple of Richard Nixon and architect of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now says she will prepare for a presidential run in 2024.

Liberals dislike Cheney because of her war-hawk lineage and her conservative views on social issues. But at least her stances represent traditional Republican values that can be debated and either backed or opposed.

Trump prefers a power grab without a hint of values and no debate.

As an alternative to the lies of Trump and the spinelessness of GOP leaders in the House and Senate, Cheney would make for a compelling option in a 2024 primary.

And hey, Cambria County: Cheney County would be an upgrade in character and integrity.

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

Chip Minemyer is the editor of The Tribune-Democrat and TribDem.com, and CNHI regional editor for Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio and West Virginia. He can be reached at 814-532-5091. Follow him on Twitter @MinemyerChip.

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Chip Minemyer | When Liz Cheney is the voice of sanity for the GOP ... - TribDem.com

The first Latino to be elected as mayor of a Georgia city is now turning his attention to the State Capitol.

Loganville Mayor Rey Martinez announced Wednesday that he will run for the Georgia House District 114 seat that long-time Republican state Rep. Tom Kirby currently holds. Kirby announced earlier this week that he plans to retire when his current term ends in 2022, after a decade in the General Assembly.

Martinez, who was elected Loganville's mayor in 2017, will run as a Republican for the legislative seat.

Id like to first thank Rep. Tom Kirby for his years of service on behalf of the citizens of the 114th District," Martinez said in a statement. "We need to continue to have conservative leadership under the Gold Dome, and thats why I am excited to announce my campaign. I am very much looking forward to the hard work ahead to earn the honor to serve you."

Martinez made state history when he was elected as Loganville's mayor in 2017 because he was the first Latino elected to lead a city in the state. Prior to that, he served on the Loganville City Council from 2010 until he was elected mayor.

The mayor is also a U.S. Navy veteran who was serving in the Navy Reserves when he first ran for a seat on the City Council.

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Although city elections are non-partisan affairs, Martinez is no stranger in Republican circles. During the 2016 presidential election cycle, he led the Georgia Hispanics for Trump Coalition. He also spoke at a rally headlined by Mike Pence, who was still just a candidate for vice president at the time, during that election cycle.

Im not running with a lot of empty promises," Martinez said. "As a lifelong Republican andPro-Trump Conservative, I vow to work hard and always fight for theprinciples that brought me into the Republican Party when I cast my firstvote in 1988: lower taxes, personal responsibility, individual freedoms andputting America and Georgia First.

"I am a battle tested fighter with thescars to prove it who is ready to work hard on behalf of the hardworkingpeople on the 114th House District.

Martinez is also touting his leadership in Loganville, including his support of the city's police and balancing the city's budget, something he said he did while keeping taxes low. He is also touting his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"When COVID-19 hit our community, I ensured wefollowed the science to keep each other safe, while also ensuring weprotected our small business owners from being crippled by overreachingmandates," Martinez said. "I was one of the few mayors that chose to safely reopen businessand hold community events like our Independence Day Celebration."

Photos of every 2021 valedictorian and salutatorian from Gwinnett County's public and private high schools. Click for more.

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Loganville Mayor Rey Martinez will run for seat in Georgia House of Representatives in 2022 - Gwinnettdailypost.com