Bracing for Climategate 2.0, remember (let's say it all together): Every word out of the mouth of every right-winger is a lie

Here's Jon Stewart a couple of weeks back reporting on the story we covered as well, about the Koch-funded project that carefully rechecked the data and found that the climate-change data supposedly "disproved" in Climategate 1.0 were, in fact, correct -- and "global warming is real," as study director Richard Muller reported in a WSJ op-ed that somehow never found its way into the U.S. print edition.

"This is clearly an attempt to sabotage the international climate talks for a second time, and there has not been enough attention paid to who is responsible for these illegal acts. If this happened surrounding nuclear arms talks, we would have the full force of the Western world’s intelligence community pursuing the perpetrators. And yet, with the stability of our climate hanging in the balance with these international climate treaty negotiations, these hackers and their supporters are still on the loose. It is time to bring them to justice."

-- Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), in a statement yesterday

by Ken

Ohmygod, it's Climategate 2.0. And now the cadre of sociopathic liars like those we see in the above Daily Show clip, instead of apologizing for having been born, and maybe doing something to rectify the error, can be expected to trumpet -- ta-da! -- another bunch of conveniently stolen and no doubt even more conveniently doctored e-mails.

I feel as if I've never escaped from last night's post, in which I succumbed to hopelessness over the fact that Orly Taitz's psychotic birther lies not only got a hearing before New Hampshire's Ballot Law Commission but continue to be denounced by practically nobody in the GOP (or on the Right, if that's different) and endorsed in life-or-death terms online by sad souls who have allowed their brains to be used for mulch.

When it comes to science, I imagine the Demon Disinformers of the Right have the obvious advantage that Americans by and large hate science, very likely because it makes them feel dumb. Oh, that attitude extends to pretty much all forms of knowledge, I suspect for the same reason, but science takes it especially hard on the chin because it's so damn, you know, scientific (translation: "hard"). And you know it's all only a theory anyways.

Our friend A Siegel, in a "Get Energy Smart! NOW!" post, "'Climategate' redux: An opportunity to show learning . . .," after tracing for us the useful distinction between "lessons learned" (by and large, a pipe dream) and "lessons identified" (and subsequently forgotten, only to be reencountered later, usually when it's too late to do much good), and recalling the sad story of the right-wing hoax that was Climategate 1.0, notes:

Earlier today, another batch of stolen emails were released (notice passive voice … who released them?) and the disinformation machine is already spinning up to foster continued and deepened global confusion about the status and quality of climate science. As climate scientist John Abraham put it

While Texas experiences record droughts that cost $9 billion and while the evidence of climate change becomes more clear, the denialists quit discussing the science. Instead, billionaire oil tycoons continue their personal attacks against scientists.

These emails are, reportedly, all from prior to 2009. E.g., those electronic thieves seeking to foster confusion about climate science held back this material for several years seeking an opportune moment to seek to create noise. That the world community is gathering in Durban, South Africa, to discuss climate issues creates an eerie similarity to the 2009 release just prior to the Copenhagen climate summit.

The question, this time around, is whether “the” media and journalists have actually learned a lesson from 2009 and will actually engaged in truthful reporting rather than providing stenographic services to truthiness and lies.

Oh, I think AS would make the same guess that we would as to whether the infotainment noozers "have actually learned a lesson." The Fox Noisers and their kind, after all, aren't interested in learning, of any kind. Consider Jon Stewart's point above about the massive Fox Noise "coverage" of the release of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project findings. The Right, we have to remember, has no interest in truth -- only the swirl of malignant delusions in their muddled brains, which by unearthly coincidence so often happen to coincide with massive profit-making opportunities for their megacorporate paymasters.

AS, by the way, has a nicely linked bibliography of Climategate information sources in the post. Read them and pass them on, because unless I'm much mistaken, it's going to be another bumpy ride. It might help, though, if we make some noise of our own -- in the interest of reality and truth.

Here's yesterday's statement by Rep. Ed Markey, the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee. (Click to enlarge.) Isn't it interesting than when WikiLeaks publishes carefully preserved actual documents, it's treason and amber alert, if not the end of the world, but when right-wingers produce their carefully doctored stolen documents, they're hailed by the infotainment noozers as heroes and truth-tellers.

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It's important that everyone associated with George Mason U. suffer the stigma of the Koch Bros.' Mercatus Center

At the intersection of far-right ideological wackitude and stinking right-wing corruption, why should we be surprised to find the wife of former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, Wendy Gramm? Our Wendy, subject of an astonishing accusation concerning her tenure as CFTC chair, "is listed as a distinguished senior scholar at George Mason University's [and the Koch brothers'] Mercatus Center."

by Ken

I don't want to keep writing about the wave of right-wing cash flooding the election any more than you want to keep reading about it. In fact, I started stockpiling new and cumulatively ever more horrifying links, which I just haven't had the heart to write about. But there's one piece I don't think we can pass over. Kate Zernike's Tuesday NYT report, "Secretive Republican Donors Are Planning Ahead," attracted a fair amount of attention, but not nearly enough, I think. It lays out the gridwork of the once-ridiculed Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Here's just the tip of what she reported:

A secretive network of Republican donors is heading to the Palm Springs area for a long weekend in January, but it will not be to relax after a hard-fought election — it will be to plan for the next one.

Koch Industries, the longtime underwriter of libertarian causes from the Cato Institute in Washington to the ballot initiative that would suspend California’s landmark law capping greenhouse gases, is planning a confidential meeting at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa to, as an invitation says, “develop strategies to counter the most severe threats facing our free society and outline a vision of how we can foster a renewal of American free enterprise and prosperity.” . . .

Koch Industries, a Wichita-based energy and manufacturing conglomerate run by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, operates a foundation that finances political advocacy groups, but tax law protects those groups from having to disclose much about what they do and who contributes. . . .

The Koch network meets twice a year to plan and expand its efforts — as the letter says, “to review strategies for combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it.” . . .

The Kochs insist on strict confidentiality surrounding the California meetings, which are entitled “Understanding and Addressing Threats to American Free Enterprise and Prosperity.” The letter advises participants that it is closed to the public, including the news media, and admonishes them not to post updates or information about the meeting on the Web, blogs, social media or traditional media, and to “be mindful of the security and confidentiality of your meeting notes and materials.” . . .

There's an increasingly serious question as to what even the best efforts of policy-making and communication (not to be confused with what the Obama administration and congressional leaders have actually done) might accomplish against a corporate oligarchy determined not just to retake control of the country, but to assert that control to an extent without parallel in the modern American era. This is roughly the ground I covered, or re-covered, in my post last night, referencing among other sources Bill Moyers's extraordinary speech at the 40th-anniversary gala of Common Cause, including his heroic evocation of Theodore Roosevelt's exhortation:

It is not a partisan issue; it is more than a political issue; it is a great moral issue. If we condone political theft, if we do not resent the kinds of wrong and injustice that injuriously affect the whole nation, not merely our democratic form of government but our civilization itself cannot endure.

I explained at the end of last night's post that what I really wanted to talk about was some of the specific ways the oligarchy is tightening its chokehold -- "this process of right-wing moguls spending huge quantities of money on ideology for profit." The specific case I had in mind was --

the billionaire Koch brothers' funding of a right-wing think tank, the Mercatus Institute, at a public university, Virginia's George Mason. I will be expressing the sincere hope that everyone connected with the once-reputable George Mason U be tarred with the brush of the Kochs' power-mongering corruption.

I think most of us have been aware in a general way that Mercatus has in a remarkably short time emerged as the most vocal and muscular of the extreme-right-wing think tanks, a role we might until fairly recently have attributed to the Cato Institute. A lot of gaps were filled in for many of us, and whole new areas of the right-wing financial network laid open to scrutiny, in Jane Mayer's still-indispensable New Yorker "reporter at large" survey, "Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama," of the Wichita-based Charles Koch's empire and sphere of influence. (David Koch, who's New York-based, seems to function mostly as a front man, burnishing the family name by spreading zillions of dollars to cultural and other charitable institutions.)

To appreciate not just the importance but the brilliance of Mercatus as the Koch's policy shop, we have to go back to Mayer (the boldface emphasis added):

In the mid-eighties, the Kochs provided millions of dollars to George Mason University, in Arlington, Virginia, to set up another think tank. Now known as the Mercatus Center, it promotes itself as "the world's premier university source for market-oriented ideas—bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems." Financial records show that the Koch family foundations have contributed more than thirty million dollars to George Mason, much of which has gone to the Mercatus Center, a nonprofit organization. "It's ground zero for deregulation policy in Washington," Rob Stein, the Democratic strategist, said. It is an unusual arrangement. "George Mason is a public university, and receives public funds," Stein noted. "Virginia is hosting an institution that the Kochs practically control."

The founder of the Mercatus Center is Richard Fink, formerly an economist. Fink heads Koch Industries' lobbying operation in Washington. In addition, he is the president of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the president of the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, a director of the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation, and a director and co-founder, with David Koch, of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.

Fink, with his many titles, has become the central nervous system of the Kochtopus. He appears to have supplanted Ed Crane, the head of the Cato Institute, as the brothers' main political lieutenant. Though David remains on the board at Cato, Charles Koch has fallen out with Crane. Associates suggested to me that Crane had been insufficiently respectful of Charles's management philosophy, which he distilled into a book called "The Science of Success," and trademarked under the name Market-Based Management, or M.B.M. In the book, Charles recommends instilling a company's corporate culture with the competitiveness of the marketplace. Koch describes M.B.M. as a "holistic system" containing "five dimensions: vision, virtue and talents, knowledge processes, decision rights and incentives." A top Cato Institute official told me that Charles "thinks he's a genius. He's the emperor, and he's convinced he's wearing clothes." Fink, by contrast, has been far more embracing of Charles's ideas. (Fink, like the Kochs, declined to be interviewed.)

At a 1995 conference for philanthropists, Fink adopted the language of economics when speaking about the Mercatus Center's purpose. He said that grant-makers should use think tanks and political-action groups to convert intellectual raw materials into policy "products."

The Wall Street Journal has called the Mercatus Center "the most important think tank you've never heard of," and noted that fourteen of the twenty-three regulations that President George W. Bush placed on a "hit list" had been suggested first by Mercatus scholars. Fink told the paper that the Kochs have "other means of fighting [their] battles," and that the Mercatus Center does not actively promote the company's private interests. But Thomas McGarity, a law professor at the University of Texas, who specializes in environmental issues, told me that "Koch has been constantly in trouble with the E.P.A., and Mercatus has constantly hammered on the agency." An environmental lawyer who has clashed with the Mercatus Center called it "a means of laundering economic aims." The lawyer explained the strategy: "You take corporate money and give it to a neutral-sounding think tank," which "hires people with pedigrees and academic degrees who put out credible-seeming studies. But they all coincide perfectly with the economic interests of their funders."

Mayer goes on to describe, as an example of the way having your own think tank can work, the successful efforts of economist-turned-Mercatus-hotshot Susan Dudley in conning the courts into overturning the EPA's 1997 move to reduce surface ozone ("a form of pollution caused, in part, by emissions from oil refineries") on the ground that the agency had "explicitly disregarded" the "possible health benefits of ozone." ("The EPA," Mayer says Dudley argued, "had not taken into account that smog-free skies would result in more cases of skin cancer. She projected that if pollution were controlled it would cause up to eleven thousand additional cases of skin cancer each year.")

Now, given the heavy concentration of energy businesses in Koch Industries, it's not surprising that Charles Koch (right) assigns a high priority to preventing any more meaningful environmental regulation and dismantling as much as possible of what exists. As Mayer also pointed out, though, energy isn't the only area of environmental degradation that's big business for Koch Industries. For example, its 2005 acquisition of Georgia-Pacific made it a leading producer of formaldehyde.

Koch’s corporate and political roles, however, may pose conflicts of interest. For example, at the same time that David Koch has been casting himself as a champion in the fight against cancer, Koch Industries has been lobbying to prevent the E.P.A. from classifying formaldehyde, which the company produces in great quantities, as a “known carcinogen” in humans.

Scientists have long known that formaldehyde causes cancer in rats, and several major scientific studies have concluded that formaldehyde causes cancer in human beings—including one published last year by the National Cancer Institute, on whose advisory board Koch sits. The study tracked twenty-five thousand patients for an average of forty years; subjects exposed to higher amounts of formaldehyde had significantly higher rates of leukemia. These results helped lead an expert panel within the National Institutes of Health to conclude that formaldehyde should be categorized as a known carcinogen, and be strictly controlled by the government. Corporations have resisted regulations on formaldehyde for decades, however, and Koch Industries has been a large funder of members of Congress who have stymied the E.P.A., requiring it to defer new regulations until more studies are completed. . . .

David Koch did not recuse himself from the National Cancer Advisory Board, or divest himself of company stock, while his company was directly lobbying the government to keep formaldehyde on the market. (A board spokesperson said that the issue of formaldehyde had not come up.)

James Huff, an associate director at the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, a division of the N.I.H., told me that it was “disgusting” for Koch to be serving on the National Cancer Advisory Board: “It’s just not good for public health. Vested interests should not be on the board.” He went on, “Those boards are very important. They’re very influential as to whether N.C.I. goes into formaldehyde or not. Billions of dollars are involved in formaldehyde.”

Harold Varmus, the director of the National Cancer Institute, knows David Koch from Memorial Sloan-Kettering, which he used to run. He said that, at Sloan-Kettering, “a lot of people who gave to us had large business interests. The one thing we wouldn’t tolerate in our board members is tobacco.” When told of Koch Industries’ stance on formaldehyde, Varmus said that he was “surprised.” . . .

There seems no end to the nasty businesses Koch Inidustries is heavily invested in, businesses that turn out to reap huge financial rewards for the humongous amounts of money its proprietor invests in the "charitable" side of his operations. Our friend A Siegel has gathered some relevant links on his Get Energy Smart Now blog. A post called "unKnown Koch Kourage" (lots of links onsite) begins:

Koch Industries … one of the wealthiest businesses in the world, privately owned by a far-right libertarian klan who are spending furiously to undermine the very concept of representative democracy. The Koch brothers have their hands (filthy) dirty in funding global warming denial efforts (with Koch funding skewing even Smithsonian museum halls into climate skeptic deceit), attacks on science that shows Koch businesses threatening Americans’ health, Koch efforts to dupe hundreds of thousands (millions) of outraged Americans into anti-Obama/anti-Democratic mania with funding of astro-turf groups like Americans For Prosperity, and have been funding (heavily) campaign efforts to even further open the floodgates to profiting off polluting the air we breathe and water we drink.

Koch Industries is (and the Koch Brothers are) one of the major funders behind Proposition 23 in California, which would seek to kill off California’s innovative approach to tackle climate change mitigation imperatives and opportunities. The all-out attack on Californians has created a serious backlash -- with investors, newspapers, politicians, and myriads of citizens reacting with strong outrage to opposed Prop 23. (Even to the extent that the fossil-foolish funders of Proposition 26, which should also be voted down, are trying to distance themselves from Proposition 23.) . . .

Americans for Prosperity, as Jane Mayer reported, "has worked closely with the Tea Party since the movement’s inception." Although the Kochs have tried to deny that they're behind AFP, they're just kidding; the financial links have been well established, and Charles Koch doesn't give that kind of money to organizations he doesn't control. By all evidence, AFP is now the lobbying muscle of Koch's political organization -- having been created for that purpose, it appears, to take over from Citizens for a Sound Economy (which, Jane Mayer reported, "was accused of illegitimately throwing its weight behind Bush’s reëlection" in 2004) in much the way that the Mercatus Center think tank was spawned to take over the Koch-think role from the no-longer-favored Cato Institute.

Which brings us back to Mercatus, and a fairly eye-popping story that appeared in yesterday's Washington Post. David S. Hilzenrath reported that one of the two administrative law judges who presides over investor complaints at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), upon his recent retirement, made a request so extraordinary that, assuming it's all true (and I haven't seen any contradiction), still has my head spinning. He asked that the cases he still had pending await [sorry, I originally wrote "not await," turning the meaning upside-down!] the appointment of a new administrative judge rather than being turned over to the other current one.

In a notice recently released by the CFTC, Painter said Judge Bruce Levine, his longtime colleague, had a secret agreement with a former Republican chairwoman of the agency to stand in the way of investors filing complaints with the agency.

"On Judge Levine's first week on the job, nearly twenty years ago, he came into my office and stated that he had promised Wendy Gramm, then Chairwoman of the Commission, that we would never rule in a complainant's favor," Painter wrote. "A review of his rulings will confirm that he fulfilled his vow," Painter wrote.

Painter continued: "Judge Levine, in the cynical guise of enforcing the rules, forces pro se complainants to run a hostile procedural gauntlet until they lose hope, and either withdraw their complaint or settle for a pittance, regardless of the merits of the case."

The CFTC oversees trading of the nation's most important commodities, including oil, gold and cotton. The agency's administrative law judges handle cases in which investors allege that trading professionals or financial firms violated the rules.

I imagine the mention of Wendy Gramm's name got the attention of lots of DWT readers. Yes, we're talking about that Wendy Gramm, the wife of former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm -- two of the most ideologically whacked-out and corrupt people to infest the federal government. But it gets even more interesting.

Wendy Gramm is listed as a distinguished senior scholar at George Mason University's Mercatus Center, but a spokeswoman for the center, Catherine Behan, said Gramm is not active there.

Gramm was head of the CFTC just before president Bill Clinton took office. She has been criticized by Democrats for helping firms such as Goldman Sachs and Enron gain influence over the commodity markets. After leaving the CFTC, she joined Enron's board.

Ohmygosh, we even get an Enron linkage!

For the record:

[Wendy] Gramm could not be reached for comment. Her husband, former senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), said he would pass along a message but added, "I doubt she's going to want to get involved in this."

Sounds like an ace prediction, senator. But don't you think she's now kind of "involved in this"?

Now I have every reason to believe that there are many fine people at George Mason University doing serious work in the areas of education and all the other things a major university does. It hardly seems fair to tar them all with the brush of Kochian cooptation. Unfortunately for them, however, that's just what their university leadership did to them when it not only took the money but allowed its name -- the name of a public university, remember -- to be pasted onto a think tank whose orientation is entirely ideological and political.

Well, maybe not entirely ideological and political. As I think we've seen, where the Kochs are concerned, ideology is big business. Really big business.

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Is there any chance of a cease-fire in the right-wing War on Science -- and knowledge and reality generally? (A: Not that I can see)

“The four corners of deceit: government, academia, science and media. Those institutions are now corrupt and exist by virtue of deceit. That's how they promulgate themselves; it is how they prosper.” It is tempting to laugh off this and other rhetoric broadcast by Rush Limbaugh, a conservative US radio host, but Limbaugh and similar voices are no laughing matter.

There is a growing anti-science streak on the American right that could have tangible societal and political impacts on many fronts — including regulation of environmental and other issues and stem-cell research. Take the surprise ousting last week of Lisa Murkowski, the incumbent Republican senator for Alaska, by political unknown Joe Miller in the Republican primary for the 2 November midterm congressional elections. Miller, who is backed by the conservative 'Tea Party movement', called his opponent's acknowledgement of the reality of global warming “exhibit 'A' for why she needs to go”.

The right-wing populism that is flourishing in the current climate of economic insecurity echoes many traditional conservative themes, such as opposition to taxes, regulation and immigration. But the Tea Party and its cheerleaders, who include Limbaugh, Fox News television host Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin (who famously decried fruitfly research as a waste of public money), are also tapping an age-old US political impulse — a suspicion of elites and expertise.

-- start of the editorial "Science scorned"
in the September 9 issue of Nature

by Ken

We've talked often enough (or maybe not enough!) about this singular feature of moderm conservatism: the war on knowledge and indeed reality in all its forms, coupled with an unabashed fetishized worship of ignorance. And in no arena is it more conspicuous or more virulent than in the ongoing War on Science. Different as the various Far Right ideological cliques may be, they seem united in their belief that "reality" is nothing more or less than the lies and delusions polluting their disused brains.

I mentioned this editorial last night, which goes on to cite "denialism over global warming," "religious oppositon to Darwinian evolution and to stem-cell and embryo research -- which Glenn Beck has equated with eugenics," aversion to science-based regulation." It notes the complication: "President Barack Obama's promise to 'restore science to its rightful place' seems to have linked science to liberal politics, making it even more of a target of the right."

I heartily urge everyone to read the editorial. The problem as I see it is that the people who read it are the ones who don't need to, and the ones who do need to appear unreachable by any appeal to reason or sense. Of course there are a lot of people -- the non-Fox Noise media, for example (and of course in reality most of the people at Fox as well; it's just in their economic interest to pretend not to know) -- who are aware of the bedrock of lies and delusions of the right-wing charlatans. They just don't do anything about it. It doesn't seem to be in their interest to.

Our energy-and-environment go-to guy A Siegel dreamed a lovely dream yesterday in his post in response to the Nature editorial: "An election about science?" He began:

When it comes to the November 2010 elections, few people identify science as the core issue. Economic concerns (JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!), fossil-foolish fueled anger at government, passions over the role of government, and otherwise are among the many reasons why the current vogue is to predict a Republican wave come November. A hidden element of the election, for most Americans, is that this election is fundamentally about science.

Very simply, while most Americans continue to hold science and scientists in high regard, an increasingly large share of the Republican Party’s elite, office holders, candidates, and mouth pieces are taking seriously anti-science positions.

I love the idea that the right-wing jihad against reality and understanding could become an election issue. I don't see any indication that it can. None of the segments of our political society which seriously influence the agenda -- the Village infrastructure, the punditocracy, the consulting class -- seems to give a damn, or at least judges the issue of truth and knowledge a political winner.

Nevertheless, I want to indulge A Siegel his little fantasy:

It is hard to understate the damage that anti-science syndrome suffering ideologues could create. The achievements of science are core to our existence, from medicine that saves our lives to analytical tools that enable speed-of-light communications to … Demonization of science fosters, in the near and long-term, a weakened economic competitiveness for the United States. And, it will lead to a much weaker nation in the decades to come due to climate chaos in addition to a weakening of America’s position in the sciences.

Few Americans put ‘respect for science’ and basic scientific knowledge at the top of the list when they go into the poll booth. Considering the stark contrast between the parties and the serious negative consequences of having a governing elite ignorant of and disdainful for science, perhaps it should make it higher up the list.

The idea has my vote. As the Nature editorial concludes:

US citizens face economic problems that are all too real, and the country's future crucially depends on education, science and technology as it faces increasing competition from China and other emerging science powers. Last month's recall of hundreds of millions of US eggs because of the risk of salmonella poisoning, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, are timely reminders of why the US government needs to serve the people better by developing and enforcing improved science-based regulations. Yet the public often buys into anti-science, anti-regulation agendas that are orchestrated by business interests and their sponsored think tanks and front groups.

In the current poisoned political atmosphere, the defenders of science have few easy remedies. Reassuringly, polls continue to show that the overwhelming majority of the US public sees science as a force for good, and the anti-science rumblings may be ephemeral. As educators, scientists should redouble their efforts to promote rationalism, scholarship and critical thought among the young, and engage with both the media and politicians to help illuminate the pressing science-based issues of our time.

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Would you believe that scientists looking into Jim Inhofe's bogus global-warming "Minority Report" find it "not credible"?

In his extended 2006 survey of Senator Inhofe's career, Dr. Steven Best observed of the "eco-barbarian": "To appease a handful of large energy and oil companies, Bush, Inhofe, and others in government have mortgaged the future of life on this planet."

"We think it is highly unlikely that a growing fraction of top climate scientists are becoming increasingly skeptical of human causation of global warming."

-- from the Center for Inquiry's report on its

"Credibility Project" (see below)

by Ken

If you were to draw up a list of Things We Survived While the Country Was Under Total Republcan Control During the Bush Regime, somewhere on that list -- I don't say necessarily in the Top 10, but somewhere on the list -- has to be:

We survived four years (2003-07) during which James Inhofe chaired the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Because Inhofe is not only a crusading global-warming denier but a rampaging fundy loon who believes the earth is man's playpen to befoul and exhaust while awaiting the Rapture. (It's actually an insult to God to try to extend the life of the planet longer than He means us to be here.) He has devoted his life to the promotion of ignorance and the forcible destruction of knowledge and honest inquiry in all known forms. He is a savage and a bully. And while he has championed pretty much the full range of dangerous and psychotic Far Right causes, he is known above all for his unwavering devotion to the pillaging and plundering of the environment.

And for four years he was chairman of the Senate EPW Committee. He remains ranking minority member. This God of his has one kinky sense of humor.

Perhaps the senator's most famous quote in the field of environmental "science" is:

"With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it."

For some time now, at taxpayer expense, the senator has had a pet project, which our environmental go-to guy A Siegel described in a recent Get Energy Smart Now post ("Scientific inquiry concludes: Inhofe list "not credible . . .") as --

the various incarnations of a “report” cobbling together statements from scientists that supposedly dissent from the scientific consensus on humanity’s role in driving accelerating global warming. This is a quite favorite ‘denier’ citation, the supposed 400 or 600 or 700 (depending on which version) number of scientists who have, supposedly, gone on record against the Theory of Global Warming. And, they like to cite this as from the “Senate Environment and Public Works Committee”, without mentioning that this is a Minority Report from global-warming denier, fossil fool James Inhofe’s staff.

Once upon a time, a senator named Joe McCarthy became famous for brandishing lists, usually lists of Communists in High Places, which unfortunately weren't subject to verification because he only brandished them -- for all anybody knew, they could have been his grocery list, or a quick-noted account of What the Voices Tell Me. Well, somebody has finally taken a look at Senator Inhofe's little list. On Friday, the Center for Inquiry issued a report based on what it calls "The Credibility Project," which declared the latest version of Senator Inhofe's list, in the form of a "Minority Report" from the EPW Committee, "not credible."

In its press release, the CFI reports:

In this Senate Minority Report, almost 700 individuals with implied scientific credentials are offered as evidence that measures to address climate change are premature, and that further research is needed. Sen. Inhofe has used this report to support the claim that there is an ever-increasing international groundswell of scientific opposition to the position of approximately 2,000 scientists whose work is the basis of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Science Report (IPCC) released in 2007. The Center for Inquiry maintains that the Senate Minority report fails to make a credible case that a large number of actual climate scientists take exception to the near-universal consensus of the research community.

“It is beyond question that the work of the U.N. scientists has survived the scrutiny of their colleagues, and that they constitute a significant majority of active researches addressing this problem today. This led us to take a careful look at the broad conclusions of the Senate Minority Report,” said Dr. Stuart Jordan, science policy advisor to the CFI Office of Public Policy and retired emeritus senior staff scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

“As a result of our assessment, Inhofe and other lawmakers using this report to block proposed legislation to address the harmful effects of climate change must face an inconvenient truth: while there are indeed some well respected scientists on the list, the vast majority are neither climate scientists, nor have they published in fields that bear directly on climate science.”

However,

After assessing 687 individuals named as “dissenting scientists” in the January 2009 version of the United States Senate Minority Report, the Center for Inquiry’s Credibility Project found that:

• Slightly fewer than 10 percent could be identified as climate scientists.
• Approximately 15 percent published in the recognizable refereed literature on subjects related to climate science.
• Approximately 80 percent clearly had no refereed publication record on climate science at all.
• Approximately 4 percent appeared to favor the current IPCC-2007 consensus and should not have been on the list.

Further examination of the backgrounds of these individuals revealed that a significant number were identified as meteorologists, and some of these people were employed to report the weather.

The CFI has published a brochure, downloadable as a PDF, summarizing the work and findings of "The Credibility Project." In his post, which provides a splendid summary of the report, A Siegel writes, "I have now read this multiple times and am more impressed, with each read, with how well done it is, powerful in how it is thoughtfully understated." He thinks that "every educated American should read and absorb" the brochure. "It is that thoughtful and that important."

The report concludes with a statement from the authors that they have "double-checked our results and are prepared to offer the following three conclusions":

1) We think it is highly unlikely that a growing fraction of top climate scientists are becoming increasingly skeptical of human causation of global warming.

2) We think that the title “Senate Minority Report” is technically appropriate, but grossly understated. That report’s list does contain the names of some outstanding scientists, including at least one distinguished meteorologist. However, when weighted against the much larger number of equally outstanding climate scientists, there is no doubt where the great majority of experts in this field stand.

3) Absent hard evidence that another likely candidate drives global warming, it is highly unlikely that man-made greenhouse gases do not play a significant and probably a major role in causing global warming. The authors of this Credibility Project assessment are not qualified to assess the engineering and economic questions associated with proposed legislation addressing climate change. However, we are disturbed by any document that may misrepresent the state of the global scientific effort to address this problem.

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Governor Rick finds a different loon for the Texas Board of Ed but affirms his support for "The Republican War on Science"

Gail Lowe, an "outspoken creationist" with no visible

educational credentials, is Texas Gov. Rick Perry's

choice to head the State Board of Education.

"The scientists identify poor media coverage of science as a key problem. And, journalistic analyses of media reporting on global warming agree with that. Thus, the challenge isn’t expert knowledge, but communicating that knowledge to the general public with a thick and confusing media filter while dealing with determined disinformation campaigns."

-- A Siegel, in a Get Energy Smart Now blogpost,
"Republicans reject Science; Scientists reject Republicans"

by Ken

This is what comes of setting the bar low. All laughingstock Texas Gov. Rick Perry had to do was get out the word that he was thinking of appointing a fugitive mental patient to chair the State Board of Education, and his actual designation of a merely unqualified intellectual hooligan becomes a sort of act of "moderation." At the same time, since there's nothing remotely moderate about the designee, it seems unlikely that he's risking fallout from the neanderthals whose hearts and minds he's wooing in his struggle to win renomination against the challenge of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

As our Capitol Annex colleague Vince Leibowitz noted in connection with the reports that certifiable wingnut loon Cynthia Dunbar was being considered for the job: "If Perry does this, it is part of his ongoing campaign to govern Texas solely for the amusement of one million Republican Primary voters who will likely decide between Perry and U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison next March. Perry’s got to shore up his rightwing base, and a Cynthia Dunbar appointment would no doubt earn him a lot of points in that camp."

Rachel Weiner reported yesterday on the Huffington Post:

Gail Lowe: Perry Picks Creationist To Run State Education Board

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has chosen Gail Lowe, an outspoken creationist, to run the state's Board of Education.

It was actually the less controversial choice. Cynthia Dunbar, reportedly under consideration for the post, believed government should be guided by a "biblical litmus test" and thought public education was a "subtly deceptive tool of perversion." (She home-schooled her own children.) She has also endorsed conspiracy theories suggesting President Obama is not a natural-born citizen.

Lowe, on the other hand, thinks evolution should be taught and "kids ought to be able to hold religious beliefs and still study science without any conflict." But in 2008, she took the position that "biology textbooks which do not teach both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of the theory of evolution must be rejected by the board." She has voted against new textbooks that do not contain those "weaknesses." She is a newspaper editor, not a teacher.

Lowe will replace Don McLeroy, another self-described creationist and dentist whose reappointment was blocked by Democrats. He had been chairman of the board since 2007 and will remain a member.

Freedom of speech being a bedrock of American democracy, Gail Lowe is free to say anything she likes about the theory of evolution. But anyone who fantasizes a role for her in the education of American schoolchildren has an obligation to recognize that nothing she says about "the strengths and weaknesses of the theory of evolution" can be allowed to have any influence of any kind over educational policy because she gives no evidence of any knowledge of (a) the theory of evolution, (b) its "scientific strengths and weaknesses," or (c) anything else to do with science. She is simply spewing the reality-thumbing propaganda of Crap Christianity.

It is tiresome to have to say it yet again, and pointless too, because the people who need to grasp these simple realities have disconnected the batteries that power their brains. Still, actual scientists have been addressing the "weaknesses" of evolutionary theory since evolutionary theory was first formulated, which is why the theory has evolved to such a great extent. That's how science works. It's not like propaganda, which is simply concocted in the minds of people to suit their prejudices and agendas. So-called "creationism" bears no relation to science; it's just a facade invented to advance the Crap Christian agenda while pretending the motivation is something other than crap-religious.

Just the other day our colleague A Siegel was reporting on his Get Energy Smart Now blog ("Republicans reject Science; Scientists reject Republicans") on a Pew Research poll ("Public Praises Science; Scientists Fault Public, Media") that appears to document a more or less terminal divide between science and scientists on the one hand and The Republican War on Science on the other:

* “Both scientists and the public overwhelmingly say it is appropriate for scientists to become active in political debates about such issues as nuclear power or stem cell research.”
* While scientists self-identify as liberal, most American’s don’t see scientists as liberal. Thus, engaged experts might view themselves as politically liberal, the general public is likely not to view them in this way.
* Scientists are the third most respected profession (after the military and teachers)

These three combine to suggest that scientists could be strong spokesman for “liberal”, “progressive”, “science-based” policy.

As Stephen Colbert put it, “reality has a well-known liberal bias”. Scientists work in, specialize in understanding reality. Should it shock anyone that they have a liberal bias?

Now, disinformation on key issues clearly has had an impact. 87% of scientists state that evolution is the result of natural processes with just 32 percent public agreement.

[T]he near consensus among scientists about global warming is not mirrored in the general public. While 84% of scientists say the earth is getting warmer because of human activity such as burning fossil fuels, just 49% of the public agrees.

These sort of significant gaps between expert and informed knowledge and general, public view should be -- are -- troubling. The scientists identify poor media coverage of science as a key problem. And, journalistic analyses of media reporting on global warming agree with that. Thus, the challenge isn’t expert knowledge, but communicating that knowledge to the general public with a thick and confusing media filter while dealing with determined disinformation campaigns.

UPDATE: Battle For The Texas Governor's Mansion --
Conservative vs. Secessionist

Kay Bailey Hutchison, one of Texas' two far right senators, is making it official: she's in the race to win the governorship from lunatic fringe Texas Governor Rick Perry. She has $12 million cash on hand and he has $9 million. Both, of course, are 100% owned by Big Business special interests. And Perry, the further right of the two, claims that Sarah Palin will be in Texas campaigning for him. I think the Democrats are putting up Kinky Friedman. Why not? -- Howie

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Midyear snapshots of our glorious two-party system: (1) The Dems "in power" manage to get a crappy climate bill through the House

Is there more to governing than Rahm Emanuel?
Well, there could hardly be less!

by Ken

If by "power" you mean wheelin' 'n' dealin', crackin' heads, stabbin' backs, squeezin' balls, then I give you the Democratic Party at midyear 2009: Stand up, Master Rahm!

One of the big differences between our end of the political spectrum and theirs, as we've long known, is that they know how to enforce message discipline, whereas we tend to remain stuck on, you know, stuff we believe. Where a puling pile of puke could lead his sheeplike followers on a death march over the edge of the universe, it was only too predictable that there would be no such unanimity in a new Democratic administration, even with theoretically commanding Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress.

This extends to the respective media, of course. It was graceful of Rush Limbaugh to admit that for eight years he had been "carrying the water" for Little George, though naturally this admission didn't come till he was ready to publicly question the wisdom of all that water-carrying he had done. (This is the dark side of that sort of enforced unanimity. When the sheep turn on you, it can be as if you never existed. Try finding a Republican or a card-carrying right-wing extremist who even remembers the name George W. Bush, never mind acknowledges have shrieked his/her undying loyalty and screamed for the violent death of anyone who so much as questioned his sainthood for, oh, about seven years.)

At the same time, though, we knew that the reality-dealing anti-Bush media like The Daily Show and Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show would never give the new administration a new free ride. That's not how we do things on our side. This seems to have caught the Washington Post by surprise in the case of its best reporting, which for some years had been done -- only on the paper's website -- by Dan Froomkin in his "White House Watch." More than anything, Froomkin's axing seems sttributable to his scrupulously even-handed coverage of the Obamaadministration, which is ironic, because you know damn well that the Post, which hews to the straight Inside the Beltway line, will never hesitate to trash the president. But they'll always do it from the approved Village view. Obama isn't a Villager, and alas for Dan Froomkin, neither is he.

So here we are, nearing six months in, with a president who keeps showing us showing us in those special speeches that he can rise to the occasion, at least rhetorically, as he did again in his remarks at yesterday's East Room LGBT Pride Month reception commemorating the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. But as the president himself made clear, his record will be judged by actions, not words.

How's that working out?


YOUR TWO-PARTY SYSTEM AT WORK:
THE HOUSE PASSES THE 'CLIMATE' BILL

On Saturday, when I expressed my deep misgivings about Waxman-Markey, the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) bill, which narrowly passed the house Friday night, I went looking for a good summary of the environmentalist objections. I had only to go to a Friday post by my online energy-and-environment go-to guy A Siegel on his Get Energy Smart Now blog, and there was a clip and transcript of the remarkable comments made by Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett on the House floor early Friday.

The remarks began, you may recall:

In his comments, the President emphasized that this is a “jobs bill”, tying this quite directly to prospects to dig ourselves not just out of the climate hole, but our unemployment hole. The President’s statement is a strong one, a powerful discussion of the value of meaningful, strong climate legislation. And, it will (should) be hard for any Democratic member of the House to ignore his call for a yes vote.

I also noted that by the time of the ACES roll call, Doggett voted yes, saying (according to the Washington Independent) "he was tired of listening to the members of 'the flat earth society' across the aisle making 'inane' arguments."

Today Politico has an inside account of the behind-the-scenes arm-twisting that went on in the House on Friday. Of course the Politico writers basically view the day's activities as a knuckle-busting triumph for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- unconcerned, for example, that the screws were put to progressives, who were basically accused of trying to destroy the president, the party, and the country, while the muddled and gutless right-wing Dems, owing to their supposed electoral peril, were largely left to vote, well, not so much their consciences as what it's supposed to be necessary for them to vote to win reelection.

So instead of going to Politico, I think we should turn the reading of their report offered by our Firedoglake pal Jane Hamsher:

What happened? Why did members like Doggett and Tom Perriello, who had committed to vote against the bill, switch their votes? [See CORRECTION below; Perriello was not committed to voting against the bill.]

Now we know:

Pelosi and her top lieutenants would spend the next four hours whipping, cajoling, begging and browbeating undecided Democrats -- and triple-checking their whip lists to decide who was a solid “yes” and who was prevaricating on the cap-and-trade legislation.

Yet no matter how many calls they made -- or how many times they checked and rechecked their list -- Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) kept coming up between 12 and 20 votes short of the 216 votes needed to win.

[]

Party leaders agreed to bring the bill to the floor during a meeting Monday night, even though some of the members present had reservations about forcing vulnerable Democrats to cast votes on a package that may not go anywhere in the Senate.

That's crap -- vulnerable progressive Democrats like Perriello were forced to vote yes against their conscience to give cover for safe Blue Dogs like Gene Taylor to vote "no."

One of Pelosi’s first targets was Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), a key fence-sitter who wanted more money generated from the carbon trading to be directed to the research and development of green technology.

Pelosi talked to him again and again, but he wouldn’t budge. Her message to him was the same as it was to others: It wasn’t worth voting against the bill because of what wasn’t in it.

According to witnesses, Pelosi perched herself on the arm of Holt’s chair and went nose to nose with him for a half-hour warning him that his no vote could scuttle the entire climate change effort — and that liberals would have another chance to make their case once the bill came back from the Senate.

Around 2 o’clock, he became a “yes.”

Next up was Austin, Texas, liberal Rep. Lloyd Doggett, who had seemed to be leaning toward the bill during a Thursday night visit with Obama in the Oval Office — but then infuriated the White House midday Friday by declaring the measure too weak on polluters to win his vote.

An exasperated White House staffer told POLITICO it was “stunning that he would ignore the wishes not just of his president but of his constituents and the country.”

This is exactly the argument that was made to progressives during the supplemental -- it turned into a loyalty test to the President.

Then Pelosi began working Doggett as the two stood in the back of the chamber near the railing, making the same perfect-is-enemy-of-the-good argument she had used against Holt. Doggett ended up voting “yes.”During the vote, Washington Rep. Jay Inslee, one of the taller members of the House, guarded the doors on the floor leading out to the Speaker’s Lobby, warning members not to leave the floor in case anyone needed to switch his or her vote. But that didn’t stop some Democrats, like Colorado Rep. John Salazar, from voting no early and sneaking out to avoid getting pressured by party leaders.

Leadership aides say Texas Rep. Ciro Rodriguez promised Pelosi he’d vote yes, but voted no and sprinted from the chamber. California Rep. Xavier Becerra tried unsuccessfully to flag him on his cell phone — and Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) bounded into the ornate Speaker’s Lobby off the floor shouting, “Rodriguez! Rodriguez!” as puzzled reporters looked on.

This is a picture of what will happen on the Public Option. Trial balloons are already being sent up about a sell-out, and the "co-op" plan is now the "liberal option" among the Villagers. Progressives (like Adam Green) who represent the feelings of 76% of the country are "extremists" who want to "kill health care reform."

CORRECTION: TOM PERRIELLO ALWAYS
INTENDED TO VOTE IN FAVOR OF ACES

There doesn't appear to be any doubt about Politico's report that Lloyd Doggett was one of the earnestly environmentalist Dems whose arms were twisted by Speaker Pelosi on Friday to support ACES. Apparently, though, Jane and I are mistaken in saying that Tom Perriello was among that group.

His office confirms that Congressman Perriello always intended to vote for the ACES bill, believing it represents a necessary starting point in taking action against manmade climate change, and despite my grave reservations about the bill, I understand that someone committed to protecting the environment could support it. After all, no less than the League of Conservation Voters has declared it "the most important piece of environmental legislation to ever come before the House of Representatives," adding, " The historic bill has the potential to transform America by creating clean energy jobs, improving our national security, and protecting our planet from global warming pollution," and taking the extraordinary step of promising to refuse endorsement in 2010 to any House member who votes against final passage of this bill." And my energy-and-environment go-to guy A Siegel allowed: "There are quite strong (and even compelling) arguments to vote for the bill despite its flaws. Honestly, in [Comgressmen Doggett and Pete DeFazio's] shoes, I don’t know what statement I would have made today."

Tom Perriello is one of the congressmembers we most admire, and we wouldn't want his position misrepresented. There is, apparently, some apprehension that he can be portrayed as a "tool" of Speaker Pelosi. Indeed, I've heard suggestions that the DCCC was actually pressing him to vote against the bill. It would be interesting to have confirmation of this. Is it really possible that, with both the White House and the House Democratic leadership supposedly all-out committed to the bill, the DCCC was actually lobbying against it?


NEXT UP: THE R's IN THE WILDERNESS

Howie already did some picking around in the ashes earlier today, but there's still more fun to be had.

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A homage to "Climaticide Johnny Rook": This may be the best, and most important, and most moving thing you've read in, well, in a while

A Siegel, as I've mentioned a number of times, is my online go-to guy on energy and environmental matters. Today he passed a post of his on to colleagues with a note that I'm trusting he won't mind my passing on. -- Ken

I don't know how many of you ever read his work, but "Johnny Rook" has been an increasingly powerful (on multiple levels) voice in the blogosphere discussion of climate issues. His illness is (I'm told) nearing his end. I believe that people merit attention and to hear what you think of them while they are alive rather than in an obituary.

His voice has been strengthening since he began blogging, becoming someone quite worth listening to.

It is rare for me to blog with tears in my eyes ...

He will be missed ... I will miss him ... even as I hope for a miraculous recovery.

Here's the post, just as he passed it on:

http://getenergysmartnow.com/2009/02/27/homage-to-a-hero-climaticide-johnny-rook/ (Slightly better version at DKos http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2/27/14152/4123/91/702666)

Homage to a hero: Climaticide Johnny Rook

February 27th, 2009 · No Comments

The reality of the web: anyone with access to a computer and a web link can become a near universally available resource. In many, even most, cases that click can end up being a waste of ones time. And, sometimes that click can end up eating up a tremendous amount of one’s time due to the strength and value of the discoveries that that click brings.

This is a challenge and a benefit of the web, but that benefit opens new horizons, creates new communities, and helps friendships / acquaintances that might (no, would) not have occurred otherwise.

For me, one of those clicks ended up with Johnny Rook’s Climaticide. In a variety of blogging environments, Johnny Rook has become an increasingly powerful voice in the domain of global warming moving from science to policy to, well, impressive passion about the issues and challenges we face.

What raises Johnny Rook to an even higher level, one that puts in a pantheon of heroes for me, is his personal circumstances. One might call his passion a death bed conversion as he was already ill with terminal cancer when he begin his voyage of discovery and writing on climate-change issues.

Several weeks ago, Johnny put out My doctor doesn’t think I’m going to die today–Updated (see comments here). From that discussion

Before I came down with [my illness] I’d never been in a hospital except to visit ill family members and friends. I spent hours in the gym working out, went on long hikes in the mountains and desert, bicycled and kayaked and ate a mostly organic, vegetarian diet. To say that I was surprised to discover that I had cancer would be the grossest of understatements.

My initial response to learning that my life was likely to be shorter than I had expected was, not surprisingly, rather selfish. I thought about the time that I would lose with my family and friends, of the traveling that I would not get to do, of the books that I would not get to read.

But something else happened too: the world became more poignant to me. I’d always thought of myself as a caring, empathetic, compassionate person, but now I found suffering, cruelty, and abuse to be intolerable regardless of the form it took. Debeaked hens crammed into tiny cages and stacked in factory-farm warehouses, infants shaken to death by their parents because they wouldn’t stop crying, genocide in Darfur, my countrymen in Appalachia and on the Gulf Coast treated as if they lived in a Third World Country, Iraqis bombed by us and by Al Qaeda… It was all too much. I was feeling the world’s pain.

And I realized, pardon my presumption here, that I didn’t want to die with the world in such terrible shape, which, finally, brings me to global warming. Of all the insanities that bedevil human beings on this planet none is greater than global warming. Only all out nuclear war poses as grave a danger to the planet and human civilization. Ironically, the former, if we fail to check it, may lead to the latter–a two-for-one sale at the Armageddon store, if you like.

I’m not confident that we are going to survive this. I’m positive that we won’t survive unscathed because the harm has already begun and we still haven’t done anything to reduce CO2 emissions. And here’s the question that keeps haunting me: If we won’t stop genocide in Darfur or provide universal health coverage in the United States, two horrible but much simpler cruelties, why should any one think that we will deal adequately with global warming?

I hear from mutual friends that Johnny Rook’s doctor might not think this today … that he might not survive the weekend.

Johnny Rook had wanted to be in Washington, DC, for Powershift 2009, to see the power of 10,000+ young people impassioned about helping bring about change in American (and global) policies on Global Warming. He has been thrilled to see that there is political change, that the Obama Administration is filling with people filled with understanding of global warming science and the need to act seriously even as he has serious concerns that President Obama will not (be able to) do enough to turn the tide on Global Warming’s rising seas. And, Johnny Rook had hoped to go to the Capitol Climate Action, to participate in a mass civil disobedience to end Congress’ use of coal to power itself. (Johnny, take a small solace, Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi ordered yesterday that the plant be shifted to natural gas ASAP.) Johnny Rook will not be there … while it is going on, rather than being buoyed by the passion of 10,000 around him, he might quite literally be on his dying bed. His teenage son will be in Washington, DC, in honor of his father who asked him to go, losing the opportunity for any last precious minutes with him but strengthened by knowing his son cares about humanity’s future as well.

Johnny Rook has become my friend and an inspiration. We will never meet in person but we have met through the web. He is a person well worth knowing. To honor him, to honor his passion, to honor his commitment, take a few moments to click to Climaticide Chronicles … Perhaps to begin with his first post at this site that he started just last June: Why call it climaticide? The power of calling things by their true names.

I use the term Climaticide because it is the true name of the crisis that threatens us. As the poet Thich Nhat Hanh has shown, calling things by their true names makes us aware of their complexity and wary of simplistic solutions.

NOTE: Johnny Rook: Apologies if this embarrasses you my friend. I much prefer, even at this last moment, to write a homage rather than obituary. And, as you wish, I would much prefer the honor of be able to use your real name rather than pseudonym.

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The coal industry is spending $35 million or more to try to persuade us that there is such a thing as "clean" coal. Unfortunately, there isn't.

"Most people know coal isn’t clean, but that hasn’t stopped the coal industry from trying to convince us otherwise."
-- Kevin Grandia of DeSmogBlog, introducing the website Coal is dirty!, a "Clean Coal Body Slam" created in collaboration with Greenpeace USA and the Rainforest Action Network to combat a massive P.R. onslaught from the coal industry

The magic words, it appears, are "carbon capture and sequestration." I don't think you want to know any more about them than I do, but I'm afraid we may be hearing them a lot, unfortunately from people who are trying to sell us bogus or at least wildly exaggerated science indicating that with these new technologies coal can be made clean and safe. It appears that they're prepared to spend tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars to sell their message.

This drives the folks we trust on environmental and energy issues bonkers -- naturally including our go-to webguy A Siegel, who's waxing rapturous today on his Energy Smart blog about the Coal is dirty! site and its star-studded roster of environmental researchers, activists, and journalists. As Siegel says, "Kevin might not have a $35 million budget but he has a team worth millions in terms of quality."

Kevin Grandia explains:

In essence, this site exists to sell the idea that coal is dirty. Pretty easy to do when you consider the facts and clear out the rhetoric. Like the fact that mercury emissions from coal fired-power plants continues to rise and that carbon capture and storage remains an elusive pipe dream that will take another 40 years to deploy on a commercial scale.

Siegel notes that the new site is already going gangbusters, with:

* a section of 10 Coal Hard Facts, starting with "Coal increases rates of disease" ("According to the American Lung Association, 24,000 people a year die prematurely because of pollution from coal-fired power plants. And every year 38,000 heart attacks, 12,000 hospital admissions and an additional 550,000 asthma attacks result from power power plant pollution")

* Ask Dr. Coal, with "straight talk about coal and your family's health"

* a section of Coal Myths (including "Carbon Capture and Sequestration Is a Myth")

* and a debut "top story," "How Clean Coal Cooks Your Brain," by Jeff Goodell, acontributing editor at Rolling Stone and author of Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future, from which Siegel highlights this "critically true point":

In the end, the “clean coal” campaign is about using the tools of the 21st century to keep us locked in the 19th century. Like other greenwashing campaigns, it’s about using the iconography of sexy technology and down-home Americana to maintain the status quo.

The goal is not to solve our problems, but to perpetuate our addiction …

After decades of stoking the engines of denial and obfuscation on global warming, it’s nice that Big Coal wants to be a good citizen. But just because your pusher decides to shower and shave, don’t delude yourself into thinking that he cares about your welfare.

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It's bare-knuckles time at the Bush EPA, which has no intention of being caught trying to, you know, do anything to protect the environment

EPA's Stephen Johnson with a couple of fans of the job he's done turning the agency into a clearinghouse for environmental degradation and rape

As regular DWT readers know, we're big fans of Al Kamen's "In the Loop" column in the Washington Post. (Confusingly, other people also write under the "In the Loop" heading--but if it's Wednesday or Friday, it's really in the loop.) Al and his no doubt gleeful network of spies and informants haunt the back alleys and especially the back channels of D.C. for an often-hilarious view of the way our gummint actually works.

But often what he turns up isn't so hilarious. Often, in the way that a person may be better informed watching The Daily Show than anybody's Evening News, Al's column serves as the primary source for news that should be on every front page. Like this item from today's column, which by the way comes with the urgent recommendation of our go-to webguy on energy and environmental matters, A Siegel (whom we still have to thank for honoring us with a visit and a comment the other day):

Don't Do Any Environment Stuff

Loop Fans know to be highly skeptical of those political announcements that a top administration official is resigning "to spend more time with the family," or maybe to "return to his first love," coin collecting or weight lifting. These phrases are almost always euphemisms for getting the boot or being squeezed out.

But there was even greater skepticism Thursday at the Environmental Protection Agency when deputy administrator Marcus Peacock circulated this e-mail to senior officials at 5:06 p.m. about the resignation of EPA's administrator in the Chicago region.

Subject: Region 5 Personnel Announcement

As of this afternoon, Thursday, May 1, 2008, Mary Gade has resigned her position as Regional Administrator for EPA Region 5. I want to thank Mary for her many years of service to the people and the mission of EPA.

She has worked hard to help protect human health and our environment.

Mary plans to return to private life and spend time with her family.

Bharat Mathur, the Deputy Regional Administrator, will assume the responsibilities of Acting Regional Administrator. I thank Bharat for his continued service and leadership.

Problem was, the e-mail came 1 1/2 hours after the Chicago Tribune posted a story online quoting Gade, who said she had been forced out of her job because of her aggressive stand on dioxin flowing from Dow Chemical's Midland, Mich., plant into Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron.

Gade said two political appointees at headquarters told her to quit or be fired by June 1. The EPA confirmed she was leaving but declined to discuss a personnel matter.

Gade, appointed by President Bush 18 months ago, told the Tribune: "There is no question this is about Dow. I stand behind what I did and what my staff did. I'm proud of what we did."

Gade had been trying to force Dow to clean up several inland hot spots contaminated by the cancer-causing chemical. She told the Tribune that top aides to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson repeatedly questioned her actions against the chemical giant.

Next thing you know, she "plans to return to private life and spend time with her family."

Now what makes this grim story all the more urgent is that we hear increasingly from environmentalists (including our environmental guru A Siegel) that the politicization of EPA, which not coincidentally has turned its mission upside down, from protecting the environment to presiding over assaults on it, is a scandal of every bit as vast proportion as that of the politicization of the Justice Department--or, rather, the scandal that the firing of all those U.S. attorneys (etc. etc.) should have been.

In addition, we learn from The Cunctator (noting that "eerie parallels between Alberto Gonzales and EPA's Stephen Johnson continue to grow"):

Yesterday, it was reported that EPA's Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett stepped down. Like John "Torture Memo" Yoo, the 31-year-old Jason Burnett is the author and advocate of a series of legal arguments that subvert the very purpose of his agency.
http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/05/07/burnett-yoo-of-epa/

Indeed Steve Johnson seems to have studied at the Idiot Al "The Torture Guy" Gonzales School of Government Accountability, learning how to shoulder the burden of oversight by duly constituted congressional committees. Which reminds us--

P.S.: BE SURE TO SEND ADMINISTRATOR JOHNSON A GET-WELL CARD

By way of a postscript, Al Kamen notes that EPA Administrator Johnson has had to postpone, no doubt with the greatest regret, a scheduled appearance tomorrow before Rep. Henry Waxman's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, because of back problems "stemming from a car accident years ago," according to EPA officials.

A cynic--and our Al is nothing if not a cynic--might point out, as he did: "Something like this happened another time he was to appear for a ritual pummeling--which is what happens when any administration official appears before Waxman (D-Calif.). No new date for a hearing has been set." In addition, Administrator Johnson apparently came down with a sudden urgent need to visit Australia for two weeks last month at the very moment that Sen. Barbara Boxer was expecting to have a crack at him on the Senate side.

Both Representative Waxman and Senator Boxer are reportedly standing by.

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Of course nothing is more important presidentially than keeping McCranky out of the White House. But isn't it clear who the better candidate is?

The other day I brought up the "gas-tax holiday" business, not for the issue's sake--since it seemed to me that Howie had been covering that perfectly well, and the bad things it told us about both holiday proponents, "Crazy" McCranky and our Hillary--but because of what was suggested to me by the way the Crankyman was making, or, rather, failing to make, his case, what it told us about the quality and condition of his "mind"--for want of a more descriptive word. (I did come up with a possibly more descriptive word: miasma.)

Which was not to dispute the dangerous foolishness of the proposals of the Tax Holiday Twins, Senators McCranky and Clinton. I have yet to hear a hint of disagreement on this point from anyone familiar with either the economics or energy impact of the subject. The only dissenters appear to be the aficionados of pandering to public ignorance.

I'm just catching up on yesterday's news, and in the pile I find breaking news (well, I guess it's broken by now, but still alarmingly pertinent) from A Siegel. In the way that Pastor Dan of Street Prophets is my go-to webguy on matters religious, A Siegel (of Energy Smart) is my go-to webguy on energy and environmental matters. (Please, no complaints about sexism. I have go-to webgals too--like Firedoglake's Christy Hardin-Smith and Marcy Wheeler on legal and governmental matters. I suppose we could make them all "go-to webgurus," but that seems somehow wrong as well as unnecessary.) And yesterday he was excited to report that Friends of the Earth has endorsed Barack Obama:

Until quite recently, those who focused primarily on energy and global warming issues could see reasons to be supporting Hillary Clinton and/or Barack Obama. In this arena, both have plans and records with strengths … and weaknesses. Both could learn from each other and strengthen their own programs. Thus, with real legitimacy, an “environmentalist”, those concerned about Peak Oil or Global Warming or related issues, could easily defend their position supporting either (or neither) of the candidates. And, again, their platforms/records are certainly light years ahead of this Administration’s and of McSame McCain’s, but have weaknesses and are ‘reasonably good’ but not the best that they could be. Thus, many of us were ’sitting on the sidelines’ when it came to the Presidential campaign.

Well, this has changed.

The precipitating event: Hillary Clinton’s determined foray into the Energy Dumb ranks with her vociferous and highly counter-productive calls for a gas tax moratorium.

Well, this morning, Friends of the Earth jumped off the fence and endorsed Barack Obama for President.

And, for FOE, the defining event, the precipating development: the gas tax holiday. . . .

A (if I may be so familiar) made clear: "[I]t was not just the gas tax holiday proposals from Clinton and McSame McCain, but Barack Obama’s forceful rejection of the idea as wrong-headed and counter-productive. -1 Hillary, +1 Barack. As far as FOE is concerned: Game, Set, Match for its endorsement."

And he concluded: "Again, let us not do things that dig our hole deeper, 'sham solutions,' but look forward to actually changing our path for the better."

I'm sure nobody's noticed that I haven't been writing much about the Obama vs. Clinton contest. I actually said pretty much everything I've (still) got to say on the subject in one of the less-noticed (which is saying quite a lot) pieces I've written here: "Sure, I'll vote for the monster, almost surely, if she's the Dem nominee--even though I don't think she and Bill will support the nominee if she isn't" early last month.

I know I'm far from alone in feeling that where the "major" contenders in the 2008 Democratic presidential field were concerned, it was a field of quite acceptable candidates--especially set alongside whatever life form the Republicans were likely to extract from their candidate freak show--but with no one to gladden a progressive's heart. (I made, and make, a slight exception for John Edwards, but even there, I remain unconvinced of what he would actually advance and fight for as president.)

And I know I'm far from alone in feeling that, since the Democratic field narrowed to the present two-horse race, the two candidates have been separating themselves to a near-astonishing degree--that Obama has emerged as steadily more sensible (as in the case of the gas-tax holiday) and committed to bringing people to his agenda, while Clinton has turned into a pandering horror show, trying desperately (and I don't think "desperately" is an exaggeration--just look at her, for goodness' sake) to be the centrist or even right-wing "strongman" that her low-life advisers (and again, her political advisers seem to me truly among the vilest people on the planet--and I don't see how we can ignore the implications of this for the kind of people she would surround herself with in the White House) tell her some deeply muddled and deeply moronic band of "centrist" voters want her to be.

Let me say again that I truly don't believe that this is what Clinton has always been, though of course in some form the potential must always have been part of her. No, I like my friend Peter's explanation: that she has turned into the monster that the sociopathic Clinton-haters of the '80s and '90s portrayed her as.

Which is why I've written so little about the race. I think any prospective voter to the left of, say, Richard Mellon Scaife needs to be prepared to support either Obama or Clinton unambiguously in November. (Oh wait, is Senator Clinton really to the left of her new booster RMS, one of the principal bankrollers of what someone once described as "a vast right-wing conspiracy" aimed at Bill Clinton and, er, someone else?)

A McCranky victory would be a horror of almost unimaginable proportions. After eight years of the Hurricane Katrina of presidential administrations, the next president has to deal with an executive branch in which nearly everything that hasn't been simply decimated is in an advanced state of corrosion. All the issues, great and small, that have been bungled or ignored these last eight years will have to be dealt with.

In addition, the next president has a backlog of judicial appointments to make. And while they will now have to be made over the veto power of the Senate's Right-Wing Obstruction Machine, would we rather that those appointments be made by a President Obama or Clinton or by Crazy McCranky? (Let me say again that in a sane world, all that would be necessary to make the point would be a big picture of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, whose replacement will all but certainly be named by the next president.)

It's clear already that whoever emerges with the Democratic nomination will have to deal with a large bloc of voters who think that not voting or even voting for McCranky is an acceptable or even somehow morally superior option. Well, that's a summer-and-fall discussion, though one that scares the daylights out of me.

If I may venture one further observation. In 2000, there were people who persuaded themselves they were taking the moral high ground by voting for Ralph Nader over either Al Gore or, um, the other guy (please don't make me say his name) and, when it was pointed out to them that they were effectively voting for, um, the other guy, they didn't care! They said something like: "Well, maybe that's for the best. Maybe what the system needs is to be thoroughly broken in order to build something better."

Well, I ask, how'd that work out?

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