Environment

Chickenhawk Republican Climate Deniers Just Killed Critical Military Funding

Posted by on June 25, 2016 at 3:42 pm. 1 Comments :

The Republican Party has distinguished itself for its shameless, knee-jerk opposition to anything with even a faint fragrance of liberalism. Their robotic rejection of any policy proposed by President Obama, or any other Democrat, is evidence of their acute aversion to critical thinking – or thinking period. And now they may have demonstrated that their assholiness even extends to weakening America’s national security.

Chickenhawk GOP

The Pentagon has long regarded Climate Change as a credible risk factor for international affairs. It is predicted that it will cause more severe natural disasters like hurricanes and drought, and multiplying refugee crises. All of this will profoundly increase the sort global tensions and conflict for which the United States must be prepared.

In response to these risks the Pentagon implemented a strategy (Department of Defense Directive 4715.21) for dealing with the consequences of a warming world. It was a fairly innocuous plan that mainly called for assigning specific people the responsibility of insuring that necessary measures were being taken to address potential problems. But even that plan was too much for the anti-science GOP, as reported by Politico:

“Last week, however, House Republicans voted to block it. By a 216-205 vote Thursday, the House passed an amendment prohibiting the department from spending money to put its new plan into effect. Not a single Democrat voted for the amendment, which was attached to the defense spending bill.”

The amendment was authored by Colorado Republican Ken Buck, who has no experience in either science or the military. His ignorance on the subject led to a defense of his amendment that makes little sense:

“The military, the intelligence community [and] the domestic national security agencies should be focused on ISIS and not on climate change. The fact that the president wants to push a radical green energy agenda should not diminish our ability to counter terrorism. […] The president has talked about an increase in the climate temperature on the planet. It is a fraction of a degree every year. How that is a current threat to us is beyond me.”

Indeed, this entire subject is beyond Rep. Buck. Apparently he thinks that the Defense Department, with 3.1 million employees and a budget of more $600 billion is incapable of concentrating on more than one thing at a time. Buck also believes that being prepared to respond to future military threats is part of a “radical green agenda.” His absurd position suggests that the U.S. should also drop any projects related to Russia, North Korea, NATO, cyber-warfare, or anything else not directly concerning ISIS.

Republican fear mongers, and their PR division at Fox News, are heavily invested in fighting a narrowly defined war on “radical Islamic terrorism” that mainly consists of reciting those three magic words and watching the bad guys dissolve into the ether. They have no affirmative suggestions for achieving victory, but they are overflowing with pointless criticisms. They mock those, including President Obama, who correctly assert that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than Climate Change.”

Conservatives who dispute the looming danger of a world with declining resources like water and arable land dismiss the warnings of 97 percent of the scientists who study the matter. They believe the whole crisis is a hoax that was invented to enrich greedy professors or, as Donald Trump laughably claimed, by the Chinese. However, the issue was laid out in stark detail by a Republican administration with an icon of modern conservative national security taking the lead:

“In 2003, under Donald Rumsfeld, former President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, the Pentagon published a report titled ‘An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.’ Commissioned by Andrew Marshall, who is sometimes jokingly referred to within the Pentagon as Yoda — and who was a favorite of Rumsfeld’s — the report warned that threats to global stability posed by rapid warming vastly eclipse that of terrorism.”

And Rumsfeld is not alone among security professionals in warning about Climate Change. The Politico article quotes several, with decades of military experience, who regard Buck’s amendment as foolish and more costly in the long run. In fact, four of the past Secretaries of Defense (Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta, Robert Gates, and Rumsfeld) all subscribed to the policy that Climate Change is one of America’s top strategic risks. And three of the four are Republicans. Those are the people Ken Buck and his fellow Republicans are overruling with this ill-considered budget cut.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

So why would the GOP advance this nonsense that is contrary to the non-partisan opinions of most experts? Because conservatives don’t really care about national security. What they want is to terrify people by focusing on the immediacy and bloodshed of incidents like the recent massacre in Orlando. Which is, ironically, the same thing the terrorists want. And that purely political, self-serving objective overrides any genuine interest in the welfare of the American people or the world.

John Kerry Rips Donald Trump’s ‘Unbelievable Contemptuous Ignorance’ On Climate Change

Posted by on June 2, 2016 at 1:45 pm. 1 Comments :

The Republican Party long ago committed itself to a position on climate change that is at odds with reality. The question is settled with 97 percent of the scientists who study the subject agreeing that climate change is occurring and that it is caused by human activities. But that hasn’t stopped faith-based GOP politicians, with help from the Fox News propaganda machine, from rejecting the voluminous data validating the unprecedented scientific consensus.

John Kerry

Leading the brigade of science deniers is the Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump. In a widely ridiculed comment he called climate change a hoax that “was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” He advocates anti-environment policies such as eliminating regulations on energy exploration and production, opening up federal lands to oil drilling, and building the KeystoneXL pipeline. He promises to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which he thought was called the Department of Environmental (DEP?). And most recently he said that he would rip up the United Nations’ historic Paris climate agreement that currently has 177 signatories.

Responding to Trump’s attack on the Paris accords, Secretary of State John Kerry was interviewed on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes (video below). He did not mince words when asked about Trump’s hostility toward the international effort to mitigate the catastrophic effects of climate change:

“Ripping up the climate agreement that was reached in Paris would be reckless, counterproductive, self-destructive. It would be an act of extraordinary danger to our country because of the path it would put us on both in terms of our global leadership on the issue as well as the actual policies we need to implement and it would in the end be an act of ignorance, of utter unbelievable contemptuous ignorance to get rid of something that the world has worked for since 1992 in Rio.”

Kerry didn’t stop there. He addressed the fact that each of the past years and decades marked record highs in global warming and were each hotter than those that preceded them, poignantly noting that “Somewhere people ought to be catching on to what is happening.” Along with the obvious and harmful impact of rising temperatures and sea levels, there is an alarming threat to national security. Kerry summarized this threat saying:

“Refugees that are being created in various parts of the world as a result of lack of water, or fights over food, or the fact that they have to move from where they live today. To talk about casually, without even understanding the work that has gone into it or the rationale for it, ripping it up would be one of the most reckless irresponsible, historically wrong acts I can think of.”

Conservative opponents of environmental reforms frequently try to belittle proponents as prioritizing climate change over terrorism. Of course, there is no reason why both issues cannot be tackled simultaneously. More to the point though, climate change actually is a more ominous threat that has the potential to instigate bloody wars and wipe out billions of people. Terrorism is unquestionably a tragic reality that requires a determined effort to defeat, but it does not approach the scale of climate change for global disaster. This was realized by no less a figure of right-wing stature than former George W. Bush defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. The Rolling Stone published a comprehensive examination of “The Pentagon & Climate Change: How Deniers Put National Security at Risk,” that cited Rumsfeld:

“In 2003, under Donald Rumsfeld, former President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, the Pentagon published a report titled ‘An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.’ Commissioned by Andrew Marshall, who is sometimes jokingly referred to within the Pentagon as Yoda — and who was a favorite of Rumsfeld’s — the report warned that threats to global stability posed by rapid warming vastly eclipse that of terrorism.”

OK? So now the climate-hoaxers cannot simply blame Obama and his socialist cabal of Sharia lawyers for inventing the crisis. Sources as deeply ingrained in the rightist dregs of warhawk free-marketism as Rumsfeld and Bush warned of the very same threat. In fact, four of the past Secretaries of Defense (Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta, Robert Gates, and Rumsfeld) all subscribed to the policy that Climate Change is one of America’s top strategic risks. And three of the four are Republicans.

That leaves Donald Trump and his ilk to be the standard bearers of an utterly delusional rejection of the dangers that face a planet that is rapidly heating up, both in terms of temperature and hostility. Kerry characterized Trump’s denialism perfectly by labeling it reckless and ignorant. Unfortunately the Republican Party is now Trump’s plaything and they can be expected to wholly embrace his ignorance with enthusiasm and obedient blindness.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Really? Fox News Debuts The Anti-Climate Change Armadillo

Posted by on April 24, 2016 at 1:28 pm. 3 Comments :

In its continuing effort to disinform its viewers on the indisputably real threat of climate change (as documented by 97% of the scientists who study it), Fox News invited the notorious climate denier, Marc Morano, to deliver one of the most absurd and dishonest arguments against the facts to date (and to plug his new propaganda film).

Fox News

On Fox & Friends Sunday morning, host Steve Doocy introduced Morano as an expert on climate science and took a swing at President Obama in the process (video below):

Doocy: The Obama administration bypassed Congress and signed a U.N. treaty on climate change. But many hailing the decision are the same people who swore doomsday was upon us decades ago and many of those scenarios never came true.

First of all, Doocy’s assertion that the Obama administration bypassed Congress is the sort of deliberate falsehood that Fox uses to smear the President as an out of control tyrant. In reality, the “Paris Agreement,” signed by Secretary of State John Kerry, was part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a treaty that was ratified by the Senate in 1992. The Congress has no role whatsoever in the follow-on agreements to a treaty already ratified.

Secondly, Doocy’s contention that those supporting the Paris Agreement had made prior warnings that never materialized is also false. For one thing, he provides no names to back up his claim. And virtually everything that has been warned about climate change has, in fact, come to pass. 2015 was the hottest year on record, and 2016 is already poised to surpass that.

But what made this segment remarkable was the absurdity of how the argument was presented. Morano brought in a stuffed armadillo, in a cage for safety (?), to illustrate his fairy tale that the beleaguered beast was burdened by global cooling in the seventies and warming today. Once again, no evidence was provided to support the claim that “We were worried about a coming ice age” in the 70s. However, the global cooling fallacy has long been used by climate deniers, even though it was based on a single magazine article and was never advanced by anyone in the science community.

For the record, Morano has been lying about climate for several years despite the fact that he has no background at all in science. Just like Sarah Palin, who recently bragged that she is “as much a scientist” as Bill Nye (which is demonstrably untrue), Morano is as much a scientist as Palin.

Morano began his career as a Republican operative who worked for the Senate’s stupidest climate denier, Jim Inhofe. Morano’s resume also includes stints with Rush Limbaugh, the ultra-conservative CNSNews, and he was one of the original “swiftboat” liars who smeared Kerry’s service as a Vietnam veteran. He has a purely political past that in no way prepares him to comment on climate science. And with today’s partnership with a stuffed armadillo, Morano continues to turn an important issue into the sort of silliness that a Fox News viewer can understand, never mind that it is completely untrue.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox News Is Hyperventilating About Climate Change vs. Terrorism – Again

Posted by on March 27, 2016 at 12:14 pm. 2 Comments :

One of the most predictable lines of attack on President Obama by Fox News and other right-wing media is to latch unto his commitment to mitigating the catastrophic effects of anthropomorphic climate change, and suggesting that his commitment to fighting terrorism is lax in comparison. The idiocy of that argument has been demonstrated numerous times, but since the right keeps bringing it up like a meal of rotten clams, it still needs to be debunked.

Fox News

The latest regurgitation of this nonsense came when Obama spoke at a press conference with the President of Argentina. He was asked a question about the post-Brussels optics of his decision to stay in Cuba and attend a baseball game. Obama expanded on his previous statement asserting that allowing the terrorists to disrupt our lives would be counter-productive, and that the message we need to send is that “You do not have power over us.”

Obama: Groups like ISIL can’t destroy us. They can’t defeat us. They don’t produce anything. They’re not an existential threat to us. They are vicious killers and murderers who perverted one of the world’s great religions. And their primary power, in addition to killing innocent lives, is to strike fear in our societies, to disrupt our societies, so that the effect cascades from an explosion or an attack by a semi-automatic rifle. And even as we are systematic and ruthless and focused in going after them, disrupting their networks, getting their leaders, rolling up their operations, it is very important for us not to respond with fear.

That profound and powerful statement was contorted into an expression of indifference by the spinmeisters at Fox News with help from CNSNews, a division of the uber-rightist Media Research Center. The problem they had with Obama’s remarks was that they were followed by his support for advancing a positive agenda, including solutions to the very real global threats posed by climate change.

Obama: So it’s important for the U.S. president and the U.S. government to be able to work with people who are building, and who are creating things and creating jobs, and trying to solve major problems like climate change, and setting up educational exchanges for young people who going to create the next great invention or scientific breakthrough that can cure diseases. We have to make sure that we lift up and we stay focused as well on the things that are most important to us.

The Horror! President Obama had the audacity to advocate a path forward that seeks to prevent suffering from disease and worldwide climate-related disasters. Anyone with a clear perspective understands that these are real threats that will affect millions of people. And while terrorism is unarguably agonizing and barbaric, it’s impact is much more narrow in terms of victims. What conservatives want is to terrify people by focusing on the immediacy and bloodshed of incidents like those in Brussels. Which is, ironically, the same thing the terrorists want.

However, most experts on terrorism and international security (including four of the past Secretaries of Defense, three of whom are Republicans) have concluded that climate change, unlike terrorism, is an existential threat. The military has been crystal clear for years about the very real consequences of a world where water and arable land become scarce, and nations erupt into chaos and war. Last year the Rolling Stone published an extensive examination of The Pentagon & Climate Change: How Deniers Put National Security at Risk. Among its many documented examples of the threat certified by numerous military analysts is one that ought to be persuasive to the conservative Republican deniers:

“In 2003, under Donald Rumsfeld, former President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, the Pentagon published a report titled ‘An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.’ Commissioned by Andrew Marshall, who is sometimes jokingly referred to within the Pentagon as Yoda — and who was a favorite of Rumsfeld’s — the report warned that threats to global stability posed by rapid warming vastly eclipse that of terrorism.”

You might think that with Rumsfeld warning about the dangers of climate change from a national security perspective, the naysayers at Fox would keep their mouths shut. You would be wrong. And that’s because their goals have nothing to do with solving problems. The Fox propagandists are tightly focused on bashing the President to the exclusion of any other objective, including the best interests of the American people and the rest of the world.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

For the record, Obama didn’t just bring up climate change at the press conference to rattle conservative cages. The issue was one of the key subjects on the agenda for his trip to Argentina. And during the visit Obama and Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri agreed to take significant measures to cut carbon emissions from air flights and integrate solar and wind power into electricity grids.

What’s more, the criticism from the right that Obama has not properly prioritized the fight against terrorism in his public statements was put to rest the very same day in these remarks which Fox News neglected to report:

“I’ve got a lot of things on my plate. But my top priority is to defeat ISIL and to eliminate the scourge of this barbaric terrorism that’s been taking place around the world. The issue is how do we do it in an intelligent way. But what we don’t do, and what we should not do, is take approaches that are gonna be counter-productive. So when I hear somebody say we should carpet-bomb Iraq or Syria, not only is that inhumane, not only is that contrary to our values, but that would likely be an extraordinary mechanism for ISIL to recruit more people willing to die and explode bombs in an airport or in a metro station. That’s not a smart strategy.”

In conclusion, Fox News is blatantly disinforming their dimwitted audience when they try to portray Obama as disinterested in terrorism, when in fact it is one of his highest priorities. And they are likewise disinforming their audience by leading them to believe that climate change is not an existential threat, in particular when compared to terrorism. But what they are doing mostly is advancing the interests of terrorists by helping them to spread the fear that is at the heart of their strategy.

Fox News Suddenly Embraces The Environment To Scold The EPA For Toxic Spill In Colorado

Posted by on August 11, 2015 at 12:54 pm. 4 Comments :

The science deniers at Fox News have spent years dismissing the claims of environmentalists on matters relating to everything from water and air quality, to endangered species, to clean energy, to climate change. The network has vigorously denounced advocates for reform as propagating hoaxes or having ulterior financial motives. And always at the top of their list of evildoers is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Fox News

Pretty much every Republican presidential candidate has called for some measure of interference with the EPA’s mandate, up to and including abolishing the agency that began with an executive order by Republican president Richard Nixon.

In Colorado last week an EPA crew accidentally breached a debris dam that resulted in a massive flow of arsenic, lead, and other toxins into the Animas River. The crew had been working to repair leaks that were already leaching toxins into the river. It was an unfortunate accident that occurred during a commendable effort to restore the local ecosystem.

However, on Fox News this became a villainous atrocity by pernicious characters who aspire to deliberately destroy America. They have had numerous stories that explicitly and disparagingly cite the EPA’s responsibility for the spill as if it were intentional. Furthermore, they go out of their way to report the outrage of the local victims. What’s interesting about that editorial spin is that they never do the same when it is a corporation that was responsible.

For instance, when a pipeline burst near Williston, North Dakota, Fox didn’t once address the “anger” it may have caused. Instead, they interviewed the pipeline’s owner who gave assurances that everything would be fine. Fox covered another incident in West Virginia the same way. In North Carolina, toxic sludge from a coal ash dump polluted the Dan River, which was already contaminated from a previous spill. There, Fox quoted a Duke Energy spokesperson who downplayed the incident saying that “no immediate action was necessary.”

In story after story Fox declined to criticize the guilty energy companies whose greed created environmental nightmares. They pointedly neglected to advocate for penalties or reform. But in this story, where the EPA is the culprit, Fox repeats their name with noticeable sneers and insists that the agency needs to be reigned in. It is the most disingenuous, hypocritical, and self-serving expression of environmentalism imaginable.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Surely the events that led to the EPA crew’s accident should be investigated and all efforts to prevent further incidents should be taken. But Fox News obviously doesn’t care about that. They only care about slandering a government entity that was trying to improve an already harmful situation. As opposed to the energy companies whose accidents occur while they are trying to line their pockets.

And it should not be forgotten that many of those same polluting energy companies are advertisers on Fox News and other Fox media outlets. So as the corporations profit from their dirty enterprise, Fox News profits right along with them. Indeed, Fox has a financial incentive to bury bad news about their advertisers and to exaggerate accusations against their foes at the EPA.

Flat-Earther Ted Cruz Makes A Valiant Effort To Out-Trump Trump

Posted by on August 2, 2015 at 11:10 pm. 10 Comments :

The Republican presidential primary has utterly devolved into a festival of crotchety buffoons whose most steadfast goal is to attract more publicity than their current front-runner, Donald Trump. However, it says something rather pitiful about a collection of GOP candidates that are repeatedly upstaged by a boorish TV reality show host. That’s gotta hurt.

Consequently, every so often one of them will take a wild swing for fences to see if they can sponge up a little attention. Doing so almost never involves contributing something meaningful to the discourse on government, politics, or society. No, it usually means sinking to lower levels of dumbfuckery than Trump himself. And the latest contestant to step up to the plate is Sen. Ted Cruz, who in the pre-Trump era was the undisputed champion of the lunatic fringe.

Ted Cruz

Speaking at gathering of wealthy Republican donors sponsored by the wealthiest of them all, the Koch brothers, Cruz addressed the subject of Climate Change. He began by making the bizarre assertion that the vast majority of scientists whose studies prove that Climate Change is a real and imminent threat, are “Flat-Earthers.” That’s right, he used the phrase that ordinarily mocks those who reject science against actual scientists. And he used it to reject science.

You have to give Cruz some credit for managing to pull off this daring escape from reality with a straight face. And undoubtedly the imbeciles listening to this tripe will soak it up eagerly since they have already demonstrated that their capacity for rational comprehension is at or near zero. Cruz went on to dismiss Climate Change as a hoax saying that…

“If you look at satellite data for the last 18 years, there’s been zero recorded warming. The satellite says it ain’t happening … They’re cooking the books.” […and that…] “It is always disturbing to hear science use the language of theology. Deniers. Heretics. That’s not what science is supposed to be about. Science should follow the facts.”

Indeed. Science should follow the facts. And with 97% of scientists who have studied Climate Change agreeing that it is real and is caused by humans, the facts are not in doubt. What’s more, Cruz’s complaint about the “language of theology” comes entirely from his warped imagination. The term “deniers” was previously used mostly with reference to fake historians who claimed that the Holocaust never occurred. That is not a theological reference. And I would wager that Cruz could not cite a single instance of someone referring to Climate Change deniers as heretics.

As for Cruz’s claims about satellite data, cooked books, and the alleged absence of any recorded warming, he is obviously working from materials provided by the same Exxon lobbyists who previously worked for cigarette companies on the health benefits of tobacco. Because if he had asked the scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration they would have told him that the planet has been steadily warming for decades and that 2014 was Earth’s warmest year on record. And that 2015 is on track to surpass 2014.

This isn’t the first time that Cruz has wondered from the realm of reality by flipping the concept of flat-Earthers. Back in May he said much the same thing while adding that he and other science-deniers were modern-day Galileos. The only problem with that is that it is bass-ackwards. Galileo was persecuted for advocating theories derived from scientific method (like the 97%). His critics, mainly the Catholic Church, rejected his work because they were committed to preserving long-held myths that benefited the status quo (like Koch brothers). So Cruz assuming the mantle of Galileo is a complete reversal of logic. He’s the one using an unsupported belief system to supplant today’s Galileos who rely on actual science.

Perhaps the funniest diversion from sanity in Cruz’s speech was his ludicrous reasoning for why Democrats are pursuing Climate Change as an issue. First, he says that they plan to use it as a means to assert total control over … EVERYTHING! It’s all part of a grand conspiracy that concludes with universal slavery to environmental dictators forcing people to live with clean air and water in a habitable climate. The fiends! And even worse, Democrats only pretend to care about the issue in order to please the army of environmentalist billionaires (we all know how numerous and bloodthirsty they are) and to gain access to their campaign donations. Keep in mind that Cruz was offering this ominous conspiracy theory to a room full of some 450 wealthy campaign donors assembled by the Koch brothers from whom he is seeking donations.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

The only question for Cruz is, is this blockheaded stunt crazy enough to steal back some of Trump’s thunder? In ordinary times it would have more than sufficed. But these are not ordinary times. Trump has advanced the idiocracy to new, unforeseen heights. If Cruz really wanted to clinch the deal he should have accused the scientists of aiding and abetting ISIS, or thrown in a reference to environmentalist Nazis like Mike Huckabee did with Planned Parenthood. Now that’s how you out-Trump Trump.

Are Voters Willing To Pay To Combat Global Warming? Don’t Ask Fox News

Posted by on June 6, 2015 at 3:34 pm. 2 Comments :

For anyone looking for additional evidence that Fox News makes people stupid, another splendid example popped up on the Fox Nation website today.

Fox Nation

The article’s headline posed the question “Are Voters Willing To Pay To Combat Global Warming?” Both the question and the original source for the article came directly from the ultra-conservative pollsters at Rasmussen Reports. The folks at Rasmussen answered the question by stating flatly that “Most voters still aren’t ready to pay much, if anything, to fight global warming.” Fox News repeated the same thing without any critical assessment of its accuracy.

It would not be surprising, then, for Fox’s audience to come away believing that the poll showed that Americans are unwilling to pay up in order to prevent the scientifically verified dangers of Climate Change. And if they won’t pay to mitigate the harm, then they must not think it’s very important.

The problem with that conclusion, however, is that it flies in the face of both reality and the actual results of the Rasmussen poll. Reading further on the Rasmussen article (which Fox did not report) reveals a very different representation of the public opinion:

“A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 41% of Likely U.S. Voters say they are willing to pay nothing more in higher taxes and utility costs annually to to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming. But that’s down from 48% last August and the lowest level measured in regular tracking since January 2013. Another 24% are willing to spend only $100 more per year, unchanged from earlier surveys. Twenty-six percent (26%) are ready to spend $300 or more a year to combat global warming, with six percent (6%) who are ready to spend at least $1,000 more annually.”

To sum up, with 24% willing to pay at least $100.00 per year, plus 26% willing to pay over $300.00 per year, plus another 6% willing to pay more than $1000.00 per year, you get 56% (a clear majority) of Americans who believe that Climate Change is a problem that is serious enough to shell out significant funds to address. Yet somehow Rasmussen, and subsequently Fox News, spun the poll results as saying that “most voters still aren’t ready to pay much, if anything.”

So how did they arrive at that obviously contrary conclusion? One guess is that they simply decided that either $100.00 or $300.00 is not “much” money. But that’s a subjective analysis and many Americans would dispute it. Even Fox News would dispute it under different circumstances. For instance, if they thought that someone’s health insurance premium was going to increase $100.00 per year they would regard it as an outrage and renew their calls to repeal ObamaCare.

Another possible explanation for how the poll results were so absurdly twisted is Rasmussen’s methodology wherein they split the responses into four groups (pay nothing, $100.00, $300.00, or $1000.00). The effect is to divide all the responses where there is willingness to pay into three answers, while leaving a single answer for those unwilling to pay anything. Consequently, you get a plurality of 41% who won’t pay, compared to smaller numbers who will pay different amounts. So long as no one adds up those other amounts and realizes that they total 56%, a deceptive pollster could claim that those who won’t pay are the largest single group.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Rest assured that the Fox News audience won’t do the math. In fact, they probably won’t even click through to read the article. And for the foreseeable future they will believe, falsely, that the majority of the American people are against any attempt to address Climate Change if it is going to cost them anything. Nice work Fox. Your dishonesty will keep your audience mired in ignorance, just the way you like them.

Obama Declares Texas A Disaster: Prelude To Martial Law?

Posted by on May 30, 2015 at 12:12 pm. 2 Comments :

Late Friday, in response to a request from Texas Governor Greg Abbott, President Obama signed an order declaring Texas a disaster area. The action makes federal funds available from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other government sources for recovery efforts in the area affected by severe storms and flooding.

Obamapocalypse

Who does the President think he is calling the great state of Texas a disaster? The fact that he feels free to fling this insult is further evidence of the animus that Obama has for Texas and its citizens. It was only a few short weeks ago that Obama’s Storm Troopers (aka United States Armed Forces) designated Texas as “hostile” territory during preparations for the Jade Helm 15 invasion and subjugation of the state. Now he is granting himself additional powers to deploy his real “storm” trooping henchmen to impose “order.”

This appalling new development flies in the face of the defenders of liberty who cherish the freedom for which Texas stands. This includes former patriots like Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Louie Gohmert who bitterly objected to using taxpayer dollars to bailout the moochers who complained following other natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy, but who are now complicit to the White House conspiracy. Remember, it was not long ago that former governor Rick Perry was holding rallies to “Pray for Rain.” Apparently God has answered those prayers.

However, the tyrants in Washington, D.C. are not fooling the real Americans in Texas with their phony declarations that are merely cover for more widespread abuses to our civil liberties. The language in the disaster declaration includes ambiguous code words for carrying out “hazard mitigation measures.” What is stopping the Feds from invoking that language to confiscate guns from law-abiding patriots, detain “dissidents,” and/or impose martial law? This plot is still so clandestine that even Glenn Beck and Alex Jones have not caught on.

As the illegitimate government proceeds with its agenda of oppression they will employ the media to brainwash the gullible masses with propaganda that attributes simple rain storms to allegedly catastrophic myths about Climate Change. An example of this deception was recently exposed by the media watchdogs at NewsBusters whose headline blared “NBC Continues Media Push Blaming Flooding in Texas, Drought in California on Climate Change.” The article sought to highlight the hypocrisy of attributing both storms and droughts to the specious scientific theory. Even though the “experts” agree that such changes in the Earth’s atmospherics can occur as climate patterns are transformed by the accumulation of greenhouse gasses, heroic science deniers refuse to fall for the scam.

Even more impressive was the observation by NewsBusters that NBC deliberately skewed its reporting to ignore the positive side of torrential rains that have so far claimed the lives of 25 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses. NewsBusters noted that the current rainfall followed years of drought and “As opposed to expanding upon on the benefits of this news, [NBC reporter Miguel] Almaguer decided to invoke climate change.” Can’t these people see the bright side of anything?

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Given the threats that are so apparent, Americans must be on their guard against efforts by aspiring dictators to enslave the population. And declarations of so-called disaster areas may be the first step toward complete slavery. This administration has proven that it is determined to breach the Constitution via its assault on the long-cherished American principles of gun fetishism and Christian supremacy. Notice how Obama has nearly depleted the nation of firearms already, and devout Christians are victims of rampant discrimination. The message to patriots is: Now is not the time to surrender (you crazy motherf*ckers).

Fox News Editorial On Climate Change Still Using Bogus Argument By Disgraced Author

Posted by on May 29, 2015 at 4:24 pm. 6 Comments :

The debate over climate change is over. Not only is it occurring, it is man-made and dangerous. That is not one person’s opinion. It is the consensus opinion of thousands of climate scientists who have studied and written on the subject. The evidence was published in a study led by John Cook of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, Australia, that examined nearly 12,000 peer-reviewed papers that were categorized by both independent researchers and the paper’s own authors. The result: “97% of those expressing a position…endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.”

Notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence of the expert’s opinions, conservatives and right-wing media continue to try to dismiss reality in favor of a viewpoint that benefits the giant fossil fuel industry and defenders of the status quo. Leading the pack is Fox News where climate change denialism is clutched unto as a matter of faith. The twisted coverage of environmental issues by Fox News, and the rest of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, has actually resulted in the countries where his media dominates (particularly the U.S.) to be the most ignorant of the risks associated with climate change.

Rupert Murdoch

In keeping with their pro-pollution doctrine, Fox News published an editorial disputing a tweet by President Obama citing the 97% consensus.

The article was written by Richard Tol, a Dutch professor who has turned his denialism into a fetish. So much so that even after he was embarrassed by a prior effort to criticize the consensus he is still using the same failed arguments in this new article. Tol makes several wholly unsupported allegations against the consensus study, but focused on his assertion that the papers reviewed in the study were categorized improperly. He complains that…

“The paper claims that each abstract was read by two independent readers, but they freely compared notes. Cook and Co. collected data, inspected the results, collected more data, inspected the results again, changed their data classification, collected yet more data, inspected the results once more, and changed their data classification again, before they found their magic 97 percent.”

Tol is overstating the process that actually consisted of only two reviews – an initial review followed by a re-review if the two researchers disagreed on a category designation. If they still disagreed after the second review, a third researcher would break the tie. There is no evidence, or incentive, for anyone conspiring to falsify the categorization. Even so, the gist of Tol’s complaint is that the study was just too darn thorough. That’s a negative in Tol’s view. Although real scientists tend to prefer thoroughness, shills and propagandists favor Tol’s disdain for it.

Additionally, Tol attempts to misrepresent the study’s findings by saying that of the 12,000 papers reviewed only 64 explicitly endorsed the climate change consensus. He exuberantly declares that that is only “half a per cent or less of the total, rather than 97 percent.” However, the study’s category for endorsement consists of three sub-categories including a range from explicit to implicit endorsement. Tol separated out just the papers with the highest level of explicit endorsement which was indeed 64. But he left out the other 3,832 papers that were also unambiguously endorsements. That’s the kind of math distortion that deniers embrace to make their illogical arguments seem reasonable.

A year ago, Tol tried to to make many of these same arguments to discredit the consensus study. He was roundly trounced in an article for the Guardian (a must read) by one of the study’s contributing authors, Dana Nuccitelli, an environmental scientist and risk assessor. In fact, Tol’s effort inadvertently confirmed the consensus study. Among the false claims that Tol made previously (and in his new article for Fox) was that Cook did not disclose the data used in the study. He must have overlooked the data that was fully published on a website where any interested party could make their own categorical assessments and compare them to those in the study.

Nuccitelli pointed out that using Tol’s methodology, which Tol himself miscalculated, resulted in an even stronger consensus, raising the figure from 97.1% to 97.2. Nuccitelli also revealed that Tol had tried to get his rebuttal theory published by the same journal that published Cook’s study, but he was rejected – twice.

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In some sense you have to admire the tenacity of someone who can persevere despite being embarrassed repeatedly. But since this subject has such important ramifications for the planet and all of humankind, it is hard to have much respect for Tol, who perseveres in an effort to deceive people and advance the interests of those who would profit from the misery they create. No wonder this tripe was published by Fox News, whose own reputation is in tatters and for which there is also widespread consensus – of deception.

Bill O’Reilly Joins Delusional Deniers To Attack Obama On Climate Change

Posted by on May 23, 2015 at 2:58 pm. 6 Comments :

This week President Obama gave the commencement address at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. The speech devoted significant time to the issue of climate change and the problems it creates for the military. He said in part that…

“I’m here today to say that climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security. And make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country. And so we need to act — and we need to act now.”

To no one’s surprise, Fox News bristled at the notion that the potential harmful effects of climate change would be a topic of discussion at a military graduation ceremony. And among those flustered by the President’s message was pathological liar Bill O’Reilly (video below) who began his reproach by claiming that “that theory surprised a lot of military people.”

Bill O'Reilly

Then, as evidence of the many surprised military people, O’Reilly played a clip of Sen. John McCain (who has not been in the military for 34 years) saying that he is, indeed, worried about climate change, but wonders whether “we give a damn about what’s happening in the streets of Ramadi.”

McCain was attempting what many intellectually vacant demagogues do by implying that it’s impossible to care about more than one thing at a time. Even so, he undermined O’Reilly’s point by admitting his worries about climate change. But more importantly, that soundbite from McCain was the only proof O’Reilly offered of his assertion that the military are surprised by Obama’s speech. Had he actually done any research on the subject he would have found that the Pentagon has expressly cited climate change as a “threat multiplier” that can “aggravate” conditions that lead to conflict and terrorism. As stated in the Pentagon’s 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review:

“The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world. These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions – conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence.”

What’s more, sixteen retired Generals and Admirals writing for the Center for Naval Analyses’s Military Advisory Board published a report that warned that…

“…developments in scientific climate projections, observed climate changes (particularly in the Arctic), the toll of extreme weather events both at home and abroad, and changes in the global security environment have all served to accelerate the national security implications of climate change.”

So as usual, Bill O’Reilly doesn’t have the foggiest notion what he is talking about. Not only do 97% of scientists who study climate agree that climate change is a real concern and is exacerbated by human behaviors, but the military has repeatedly affirmed the geo-political risks. Which makes it all the more disturbing that O’Reilly can say with a straight face that…

“It’s fine to want a cleaner planet. I do. And it’s good to explore ways to eliminate harmful emissions. Every sane person supports that. But to tell a group of military graduates that climate change is a defense priority borders on delusion.”

Apparently O’Reilly believes that America’s military leadership are suffering delusions with regard to climate change. Then again, if anyone knows about being delusional it’s O’Reilly. And he isn’t alone. His contention that every sane person supports exploring ways to eliminate harmful emissions would put congressional Republicans in the insane category. Just last year GOP members of the House voted overwhelmingly to prohibit the Defense Department from using funds to implement the recommendations of the science institutions best qualified to assess climate change.

This is just another example proving that the last thing the GOP wants is for experts to be contributing their expertise to policy. And the last thing O’Reilly and Fox News want is for facts to get in the way of their rightist propaganda.

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Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.