Happy Thursday! We hope you’re staying cool and keeping hydrated during this nationwide heatwave. This week’s roundup of our work includes stories on how fossil fuel donors are behind the GOP efforts to shield their industry from climate litigation and expand criminal penalties for climate protests. Have someone who you think would like to get updates from CMD? Feel free to forward this newsletter or send them this link to sign-up: TinyURL.com/CMDEmails We hope you enjoy! | |
Here’s the Latest From CMD | |
Big Oil Backs GOP Effort to Shield the Industry from Climate Litigation Where does RAGA get most of its funding? From the very same fossil fuel industry interests that its suit seeks to defend. In fact, the industry has pumped nearly $5.8 million into RAGA’s campaign coffers since Biden was elected in 2020. Read the full story here. | |
Recent State Legislative Primaries Reveal a GOP at War with Itself In Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, and South Carolina, obstructionists who are part of the State Freedom Caucus Network (SFCN) have fielded Republican primary candidates to oppose not just state legislative leaders, but also the candidates they backed. Read the full story here. | |
Big Oil’s Plan To Criminalize Pipeline Protests We republished an investigation carried out by The Lever and ExxonKnews that exposed how, at the urging of their fossil fuel donors, lawmakers are quietly working to expand criminal penalties against people who protest pipelines as part of negotiations over essential new federal pipeline safety regulations. Read the full story here. | |
Extreme Right State Freedom Caucuses Create Big Headaches for Republicans In states throughout the country, extreme right-wing lawmakers are derailing what would normally be unremarkable legislation — to the chagrin of their centrist conservative colleagues. In Idaho, members of its Freedom Caucus ousted the Republican House Majority Leader in February for being insufficiently conservative. In Wyoming, a far-right faction of GOP state legislators split with the rest of the party in unsuccessfully fighting to prevent the families of slain police officers from receiving an increase in death benefits — because it cost too much. Read the full story here. | |
The Big Money Behind Chris Rufo’s Right-Wing Agitating Chris Rufo has been racking up wins lately. Fresh off of tanking the tenure of Harvard’s first Black—and first Black woman—president, Claudine Gay, with a scandal over alleged plagiarism, the far-right activist has set his sights on National Public Radio. Read the full story here. | |
Our research has recently been cited by or featured in the following publications: - U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary: “Unsustainable and Unoriginal: How the Republicans Borrowed a Bogus Antitrust Theory to Protect Big Oil”
- Media Matters: “Project 2025 partners want to make divorce a lot harder”
- Progressive Magazine: “Two Visions of a Populist Education System”
- The Guardian: “Far-right US groups coalescing to stoke unfounded fears of non-citizens voting”
- WhoWhatWhy: “Climate Scientist Leaves ExxonMobil’s Board With Little To Show for It”
- DeSmog: “Climate Scientist Leaves ExxonMobil’s Board With Little to Show for It”
- The Bail Project: “Bail Bond Industry Chooses Profit Over People and Policy”
- The Nation: “How Oil Companies Manipulate Journalists”
- Jewish Currents: “The Anti-Union Lobby’s Newest Weapon”
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That’s all for this week. Thank you for following our investigations and for your continued support! Team CMD | |
