Fox News Fail: Comparing The Threat Of Climate Change To Terrorism

Posted by Mark NC on February 12, 2015 at 1:54 pm. 6 Comments :

During the State of the Union address last month, President Obama made note of a particularly perilous situation that requires an immediate response in order to prevent certain catastrophe. Warning that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than Climate Change,” Obama said that…

“The best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we don’t act forcefully, we’ll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration and conflict and hunger around the globe. The Pentagon says that Climate Change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it.”

Those remarks stirred up a bit of the usual knee-jerk opposition from wingnut science-deniers at the time, but they failed to endure through subsequent news cycles that shifted gears to more critical matters like the American Sniper movie, the end of Mitt Romney’s presidential aspirations, and measles. But the anti-science crowd was not to be ignored. So they are now ratcheting up the hoax-talk in order to reclaim the nation’s attention.

Not surprisingly, it is Fox News pushing the issue back into the slimelight by posting an article on their community website, Fox Nation, about the administration making Climate Change a national security priority. While there is nothing in the article itself (from the Huffington Post) that is especially newsworthy, the Fox Nationalists purpose is to trumpet a headline that they know will stimulate their dimwitted readers. After all, what could be more horrifying than Obama giving Climate Change the attention it actually deserves?

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Shortly after this national security policy was released, Obama was interviewed by Matthew Yglesias of Vox Media. He told Vox that the media is responsible for over-hyping terrorism to the detriment of other threats that impact more people. That comment was later seized upon by Jonathan Karl of ABC News (and the rest of the Right-wing Media Circus) who asked Obama’s press secretary, Josh Earnest, if the President actually meant to say that “the threat of climate change is greater than the threat of terrorism?”

Why is this such a difficult concept for conservative pundits and politicians? Climate Change is a global phenomenon that has the capacity to cause devastating environmental trauma impacting the entire population of the planet. In the United States alone there are already regions that are suffering more severe natural disasters like hurricanes and drought. And around the globe these problems, along with multiplying refugee populations and temperature extremes, are both costly and deadly. It could not be more obvious that the billions of potential victims of Climate Change make it a greater threat than terrorism. Note: To date ISIL has killed four Americans.

More to the point, the current debate revolves around the threat that Climate Change poses to national security. On that level 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.

The Rolling Stone just published an extensive examination of The Pentagon & Climate Change: How Deniers Put National Security at Risk. Among its many documented examples of a very real threat certified by numerous military experts 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.”

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.

Nevertheless, Fox News is still trying to raise a ruckus about Obama properly prioritizing Climate Change as a serious concern for national security, just as the Pentagon has done for years. What’s plain is that Fox could not care less about the welfare of the nation. They are solely devoted to disparaging this president and any policy with which he comes into contact. And they will pursue that mission despite the absence of reason or ideological consistency.

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2014: An Epic Year For Conservative Crackpot Conspiracy Theories

Posted by Mark NC on December 29, 2014 at 12:29 pm. 2 Comments :

Recalling the bygone year, there were enough examples of political foolishness, public embarrassment, and unabashed propaganda, to fill a trainload of FEMA caskets. But nothing comes close to boggling the mind like conspiracy theories rooted in nothing but psychotic paranoia and partisan dementia.

News Corpse has covered much of what the right-wing media has attempted to pass off as legitimate news, but was actually evidence of severe cognitive failure. So, as a reminder of 2014’s most ludicrous departures from reality, here is a compilation of some of the best (worst?) excretions from the imagination of the conservative hive mind.

CONSPIRACY: President Obama Is Trying To Impeach Himself

The evil genius in the White House orchestrated the whole Obama-hate campaign from its earliest days in 2008 just so that he would be able to use impeachment, which is every president’s dream, as an election strategy six years into his presidency. He had the foresight to anticipate that his anti-America agenda, developed in concert with the Muslims and Marxists in his inner circle, would make the 2014 midterms so difficult that he would need something positive, like having himself prosecuted before Congress for high crimes and misdemeanors, in order to stem the tide of opposition that would rise up.

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Ben Carson Fears That Obama Will Declare Himself President for Life.

The United States and its democratic system has endured for over 200 years, through economic catastrophes, civil and world wars, Nixonian corruption, and assassinations. Yet Carson thinks that it may all soon be over because of our present economy (with it’s soaring stock market, record profits, and low unemployment), and a band of desert rats 8,000 miles away?

Glenn Beck Asserts That Obama Purposely Planted Ebola In Dallas

Obviously President Obama’s agenda centers around the fact that he hates Dallas so much that he arranged to have an Ebola-infected Liberian fly there and die. […] First and foremost, it is not true that Dallas “doesn’t particularly care for the President.” In 2012 Obama was reelected with 57% of the vote from Dallas County. That’s a larger margin than he won nationally. Obama also beat McCain in Dallas by the same amount in 2008.

Steve Doocy Discovers A Mysterious Photo Of Two Men With One Pair Of Legs.

Doocy: Fox News Alert: New questions about those two Iranian men who boarded flight 370 with stolen passports. Did somebody Photoshop this picture of them, because they both appear to have the same legs. That’s leading many to believe there is a cover-up happening. […] The Malaysians are saying ‘No, we didn’t Photoshop or anything like that. They had a Xerox copy and part of the guy on the left was put on top of the duplicate of the guy on the right. Do you buy that?

According To “Doctor” Keith Ablow, Obama Orchestrated The World Cup To Distract From [???]

Somehow Obama orchestrated FIFA’s scheduling of the quadrennial games to coincide with whatever scandal is presently infecting Ablow’s brain so that the American people, who usually ignore soccer, won’t notice that FEMA has already begun incarcerating Tea Party leaders and the EPA is deploying new Pentagon technology to increase global temperatures. What a devious plot our Kenyan in the White House has devised.

Conservative Media Freak Out Over Obama’s Plan To Grant Amnesty To 34 Million Illegal Aliens

The usual conservative media mouthpieces are reporting that there is a plot afoot by the Obama administration to grant amnesty to some 34 million “illegal” aliens soon after the midterm election. To put that number into perspective, that’s more than three times as many undocumented immigrants as are currently estimated to be in the United States. It’s a third of the entire population of Mexico. If they all occupied a new state it would be the second most populous state in the country after California with 38 million.

Louie Gohmert Accuses Comcast Of Attempting To Silence Glenn Beck

Gohmert found an angle to question the [Comcast/Time Warner] merger that only he could have dreamed up. He believes that Comcast is engaged in a conspiracy to silence Glenn Beck. And Al Gore is in on it along with Al Jazeera who “wanted to get their Sharia law push into the United States.”

Pat Caddell Says That It Is Republicans That Want The IRS To Go After The Tea Party

Did the Republicans infiltrate the IRS and orchestrate a strategy to deny Tea Partiers tax-exempt status? Did they conduct sham hearings in the House, led by the crusading committee chair (and recidivist criminal) Darrel Issa, all the while maneuvering secretly to oppress Tea Party organizations and cast the blame on Democrats?

GOP Rep Tells Fox News That Obama Plans To Flood U.S. With Foreign Ebola Patients

The plot was discovered by the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte, who claims to have confidential information that came to him via an “inside source” within the administration. Naturally he takes this skimpy, unverifiable gossip to Megyn Kelly of Fox News. The alarmist anxiety of Rep. Goodlatte is typical of the fear mongering that Republican politicians and pundits engage in so frequently.

Fox News Imagines Another Covert Plot Against Rick Perry (And America) By George Soros

Brent Bozell’s op-ed for Fox News is titled “Mainstream media censors Soros’ connection to Rick Perry indictment.” He begins his bill of peculiars by alleging that the media has suppressed the truth about Texans for Public Justice (TPJ), the group that originally filed the complaint against Perry. Bozell claims that “the group responsible for that indictment had received a half million dollars” from Soros. However, there is a very good reason that the press failed to disclose this information: It isn’t true.

Fright-Wing News: Fox News Reports, As Fact, The Missing Libyan Planes Hoax

Fox News anchor Jon Scott introduced a segment saying “A potentially terrifying scenario is playing out as we approach September 11. Nearly a dozen airplanes are missing – flat out missing – from an airport in Tripoli, raising new fears of the possibility of another terror attack from the air.”

OMG! That is truly terrifying. I can almost hear the roar of a dozen jet engines filling the sky with thunderous evil as they aim for defenseless skyscrapers packed with unsuspecting victims. Why doesn’t Obama raise the threat level to “Unrestrained Panic” and evacuate America’s cities? Perhaps because the story is not true.

Fun With Rush: Limbaugh Explains How The Dreaded Polar Vortex Was Created By Liberals

El Rushbo has dusted off his fake degree in meteorology to explain to his dittohead audience how something that has been studied for decades was just invented by some Democrats this week.

Limbaugh: So, ladies and gentlemen, we are having a record-breaking cold snap in many parts of the country. And right on schedule the media have to come up with a way to make it sound like it’s completely unprecedented. Because they’ve got to find a way to attach this to the global warming agenda, and they have. It’s called the ‘polar vortex.’ The dreaded polar vortex. […] Do you know what the polar vortex is? Have you ever heard of it? Well, they just created it for this week.

And there you have it. Just a taste of the insanity that has infected one of America’s two major political parties. And all of it occurring in just one hilarity-packed year. The only thing that makes these frighteningly absurd episodes of psychosis even more disturbing, is that in 2015 these are the folks who will be in charge of both the United States House of Representatives and Senate. So happy new Year America, and good luck. You’re gonna need it.

Global Climate Enemy Number One: Rupert Murdoch

Posted by Mark NC on August 6, 2014 at 6:24 pm. 2 Comments :

The perilous state of the planet’s environmental health is a continuing concern among those who know the most about it: scientists, climatologists, and environmental advocates. Indeed, 97% of the scientists who have studied the matter agree that Climate Change is a fact and that it is caused by human activity.

In the face of that overwhelming consensus, Climate Change deniers continue clinging to myths and fake research that is funded by fossil fuel interests and promoted by politicians who are bought and paid for by the same. The anti-science dimwits hold steadfastly to delusional beliefs that Climate Change is a hoax, or even a scam designed to enrich researchers and activists. That absurd contention is belied by the fact that there is much more money in Climate Change denial (via the billionaires in the energy industry) than in scarce grants to universities and research laboratories.

A recent survey by Ipsos MORI asked respondents from twenty countries to indicate whether or not they agreed with this statement: “The climate change we are currently seeing is largely the result of human activity.” The country with the greatest number of respondents who disagreed with that statement was the United States (We’re #1 – in climate denialism). We were followed closely by the United Kingdom and Australia.

Hmm…What do those three countries have in common? Well, they are all English speaking countries. And they are also all countries where the media is dominated by Rupert Murdoch. Can it be a coincidence that the people in these nations have a larger percentage of anti-science views than nations where Murdoch’s influence is not as strongly represented?

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Murdoch has taken some brazenly contradictory stances on Climate Change. On the one hand, he has directed his corporation to meet stringent carbon emission standards and even bragged publicly about achieving a goal of carbon neutrality. But simultaneously, his Fox News Channel took a starkly contrary position. Fox News Washington managing editor, Bill Sammon, went so far as to issue a memo instructing all personnel to…

“…refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.”

Indeed. Unqualified, politically motivated critics have called into question the overwhelming evidence that Climate Change is occurring and that it is man-made. This obvious contradiction was justified by a Fox PR flack who painfully struggled to explain that the corporate policy “doesn’t bring with it an editorial mandate.” In other words, on the business side they will behave responsibly with regard to the environment, but on the air they will lie their asses off. In fact, Fox News’ efforts to deliberately misinform their already intellectually confused audience continues unabated. The Union of Concerned Scientists did a study proving that the coverage of Climate Change by Fox News was nearly all (93%) misleading:

“The analysis finds that the misleading citations include broad dismissals of human-caused climate change, rejections of climate science as a body of knowledge, and disparaging comments about individual scientists. Furthermore, much of this coverage denigrated climate science by either promoting distrust in scientists and scientific institutions or placing acceptance of climate change in an ideological, rather than fact-based, context.”

This is what happens when a single entity is permitted to control vast swaths of the mediasphere. False perceptions of otherwise non-controversial facts can be spread widely. This is particularly problematic when a significant percentage of the media marketplace is comprised of people who are willfully gullible and easily duped. And a powerful and determined media mogul like Murdoch can produce the gullibility he requires for his message to take hold by inundating the audience with fear and promises of salvation in exchange for their loyalty.

That is pretty much how Fox News helped to create and grow the Tea Party. And now we have a nation that has the dubious honor of being the home to more science-challenged boneheads than any of twenty other surveyed nations. Thank you Rupert Murdoch. And Britain and Australia thank you too.

The New GOP Majority Whip Is A Climate Change Denying Koch Brothers Flunkey

Posted by Mark NC on June 19, 2014 at 4:32 pm. 4 Comments :

When Eric Cantor lost his primary bid to run for reelection to his Virginia congressional seat, he set off a game of musical chairs within the Republican leadership ranks in the House. Today the GOP caucus chose Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy to replace Cantor as Majority Leader. Subsequently, they needed to fill the new vacancy in the Whip’s post. for that role they chose Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise.

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Scalise is regarded as a far-right conservative aligned with the Tea Party. He is currently the chair of the Republican Study Committee, an offshoot of the GOP caucus with an avowed ultra-rightist slant. Wikipedia notes that…

“The organization has long had ties to outside groups closely allied with the most conservative elements of the Republican Party, such as the National Rifle Association, The Heritage Foundation, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America and the conservative magazine National Review, as well as the libertarian Cato Institute.”

Last year Scalise authored a resolution that falsely asserted that “a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy” and “to American families and businesses,” and that it would “fall hardest on the poor, the elderly, and those on fixed incomes.” The bill was backed by the Koch brothers who spent heavily on lobbyists to insure its passage.

But for a real taste of the idiocy that is being incorporated into the highest ranks of the GOP elite, you need look no further than Scalise’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last year where he had this to say about Climate Change (video below):

“He [President Obama] talked about global warming at his inauguration, I found it ironic that the President was wearing a trench coat it was so cold, but he’s talking about global warming.”

So Scalise is one of those anti-science dimwits who doesn’t know the difference between weather and climate. He believes that the 97% of the scientists who affirm that climate change is real and man-made are perpetrating a hoax. He is an advocate for Big Oil, going so far as to defend BP after the disastrous 2010 calamity in the Gulf of Mexico, saying that “This job killing ban on drilling is causing more problems right now than” the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

And now he is the Republican Majority Whip and the third highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives. Well, at least for the next few months, when there will be another vote. If Democrats will get off their duffs and vote in November, we may not need to worry about him or the rest of the Republican Dark Agists.

Where’s The Outrage? On The Tenth Anniversary Of Ronald Reagan’s Death

Posted by Mark NC on June 5, 2014 at 3:41 pm. 1 Comments :

Ten years ago, on June 5, 2004, former president Ronald Reagan died after a long illness including severe Alzheimer’s disease. It’s a curious fluke of timing that this anniversary should occur just as some prominent events have sprung up in the news that parallel notable capstones of his term in office. And while many of these affairs have erupted into frenzied allegations of high crimes and misdemeanors on the part of President Obama, they generated a far more sedate reaction from Republicans of that era.

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Embassy Attacks

For almost two years now, the GOP has been furiously scratching at the walls to find something incriminating with regard to the tragic attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. In all that time, and after numerous congressional hearings and independent investigations, they have turned up nothing. So of course they decided to launch a new Select Committee on the Politicization of Benghazi in order to continue their fruitless and frivolous charade.

Perhaps on this day of remembrance, Republicans might take into consideration the fact that there were more embassy attacks, with greater loss of life, during the Reagan administration. And yet, there was never the degree of vitriol directed at Reagan for such deadly serious incidents as this:

“In April 1983, radical Shiite suicide bombers blew up the US embassy in Beirut, killing 63. Reagan did nothing to prevent this attack, and his ultimate response to it and a later deadly attack on US Marines in Beirut was to quietly withdraw from Lebanon.”

Climate Change

Last week President Obama announced an initiative to address the persistent problem of Climate Change that threatens to cause profound damage to our environment and our economy, while triggering profound national security risks. The Republican response to that was typically hostile, with rants about unlawfully overstepping his authority and deliberately attempting to sabotage the economy. However, no such rants were ever issued when Reagan said this in a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate requesting increased funding of nearly $500 million:

“Because changes in the earth’s natural systems can have tremendous economic and social effects, global climate change is becoming a critical concern.”

Voting Rights

A constant burr in the right’s britches has been their faulty analysis of alleged election fraud. Despite years of complaints, they have failed to turn up anything but trivial evidence of a handful of infractions, which they use to deny voting rights to tens of millions of citizens. Obama’s support for reform has yielded accusations of tyranny and advocacy of fraud. Recently the conservative-dominated Supreme Court drastically scaled back the scope of the seminal Voting Rights Act of 1965. Reagan opposed the legislation at the time, but during his presidency he had a somewhat different view that failed to garner the insults that Obama has suffered:

“To protect all our citizens, I believe the Voting Rights Act should and must be extended. […] The Voting Rights Act is important to the sense of trust many Americans place in their government’s commitment to equal rights.”

Veterans Administration

Another hot topic on the GOP outrage agenda is the news that some of the Veterans Administration facilities have badly failed the soldiers they are intended to serve. While most of the veteran community report that they are “highly satisfied” with the service they receive, the disclosures of malfeasance are serious and unforgivable. The problems appear to be locally based, yet that hasn’t stopped Republicans from placing the blame directly at the feet of the President. Funny, they never did that to Reagan when these VA fiascoes plagued his term:

In 1981 a former Marine committed suicide after claiming the VA had failed to attend to his service-related disabilities. In 1982 VA director Robert Nimmo was “criticized for wasteful spending, including use of a chauffeured car and an expensive office redecorating project,” after failing to address veterans problems with Agent Orange. in 1984 “Congressional investigators find evidence that VA officials had diverted or refused to spend more than $40 million that Congress approved to help Vietnam veterans with readjustment problems.”

Negotiating With Terrorists

More recently, Obama’s decision to rescue Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from five years of captivity by agreeing to release some aging former Taliban leaders has resulted in political attacks against the soldier, his family, and calls for Obama’s impeachment. Right-wingers complain that there is no justification for negotiating with terrorists and that Obama has violated a long-standing policy not to do so. That, however, is totally false, as proven by Reagan himself. The notorious Iran-Contra scandal was centered around Reagan’s initiative to free hostages in Iran by agreeing to sell the terrorist nation over 1,500 missiles. The proceeds from that deal were then illegally funneled to anti-Sandinista death squads in Nicaragua. Reagan’s surreal confession to these acts continues to strain credulity:

“A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”

2016

Special Bonus Outrage: Setting up a future political battle, Republicans are going after presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Their fear of her is palpable as they struggle to bring down her popularity with the American people. A new survey shows her handily beating every GOP candidate she is matched against. Consequently, the right has gone all in to cast Clinton as “old and stale” (as Karl Rove said). Rove also suggested that Clinton was suffering from brain damage. Then the Drudge Report hilariously misinterpreted a People Magazine cover of Clinton leaning on a chair, which Drudge imagined was a walker.

All of this ignores the reality that Clinton is, by all credible accounts, in good health. But more to the point, she would be younger at inauguration than GOP pols like John McCain, Bob Dole, and, yes, you guessed it, Ronald Reagan, who still stands as the nation’s oldest president. This might be a good time to recall Reagan’s retort to rival Walter Mondale, who made some sly references to Reagan’s age:

“I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

While remembering the legacy of Ronald Reagan, which is fraught with disagreement and controversy, on this, the anniversary of his death, it would worthwhile to recognize the hypocrisy of contemporary Republicans who seem to have forgotten history entirely.

Late Additions

Immigration: Reagan granted amnesty to three million undocumented residents.
Al Qaeda: Reagan funded the Mujaheddin, from whom sprung the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden.
Gun Control: Reagan signed the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act that banned fully automatic rifles.

WARNING: Climate Science Imposter On The Loose On Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on February 28, 2014 at 6:02 pm. 4 Comments :

Be On The Lookout: In recent days a disreputable character has been making the rounds on Fox News claiming to be a co-founder of Greenpeace while peddling PR spin straight from the ivory tower suites of the energy industry.

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This imposter is Patrick Moore. He was last seen on the Sean Hannity program where he continued to misrepresent his association with Greenpeace. Hannity’s introduction was typically dishonest and dripping with animus as he declared that “For years the left has been spinning their lies about global warming, all in an effort to push through their radical agenda.” And he took full advantage of Moore’s subterfuge by noting that his climate science denial was surprising “coming out of your mouth.” What is surprising is that Moore is getting away with passing himself off as a co-founder of Greenpeace and an environmentalist.

The recent sightings of Moore in the media have been exploited by conservative outlets eager to dismiss the broad agreement in the scientific community that the Earth’s climate is changing at a rapid pace, and that it is caused by human activity. In fact, 97% of the scientists in the field have affirmed this in peer reviewed publications and research.

That hasn’t stopped Moore from conducting his charade wherein he asserts that there is “zero evidence that the earth is warming because of human activity.” His persistence is understandable with the knowledge that he is a paid representative of a variety of nuclear power and energy firms. Without any credentials in the field of climatology, Moore makes broad allegations that are not supported by verified research. Then he invents a vast liberal cabal that he claims is conspiring to build some sort of holy congregation of environmental opportunists:

“It is a powerful convergence of interests among a very large number of elites including politicians who want to make it seem as though they’re saving the world, environmentalists who want to raise money and get control over very large issues like our energy policy, media for sensationalism, universities and professors for grants […] it is a kind of nasty combination of extreme political ideology and religious cult all rolled into one.”

Contrary to his false identification as a co-founder of Greenpeace, Moore actually became affiliated with the group’s Canadian branch after it was already operating for a year. He left Greenpeace in 1991 to cash in on the lobbying fees he could collect from America’s pollution industries. And that’s what he has been doing for the last twenty-plus years. Greenpeace set the record straight about Moore a couple of years ago refuting any claim that Moore represents Greenpeace. They posted a detailed description on their website that revealed the facts of their past association and Moore’s current pro-pollution activities:

“Patrick Moore, a paid spokesman for the nuclear industry, the logging industry, and genetic engineering industry, frequently cites a long-ago affiliation with Greenpeace to gain legitimacy in the media. Media outlets often either state or imply that Mr. Moore still represents Greenpeace, or fail to mention that he is a paid lobbyist and not an independent source.”

This is just another example of how Fox News deliberately deceives their audience. With full knowledge of the false representations, and utter disregard for the truth that qualified scientists provide, Fox dispenses a litany of lies that keeps their viewers ignorant. For more information about Moore’s deceit, and the cooperation from Fox News and other rightist media organizations in proliferating his hoax, see the analysis by Media Matters.

The Tea Party’s Climate Change Denialism Is Scaring Off The GOP Regulars

Posted by Mark NC on November 2, 2013 at 12:16 pm. 11 Comments :

The Tea Party has always been the GOP’s far-right flank. Despite its small membership and radical views, it has mustered up an undue measure of influence in the Republican Party due to its fanatical posturing and wealthy financial backers. Now a new study by the Pew Research Center sheds light on a profound split between Main Street Republicans and the deep right-field Tea Party. Pew’s research reveals that…

“Just 25% of Tea Party Republicans say there is solid evidence of global warming, compared with 61% of non-Tea Party Republicans.”

So a solid majority of Republicans recognize the reality of Climate Change that is affirmed by 97% of scientists who have studied the matter. But only 25% of Tea Partiers respect the peer-reviewed evidence of Climate Change. While some of the Tea Partiers say that they don’t have enough information as to whether the Earth is warming, a majority of the skeptics stubbornly insist that it’s “just not happening.”

This split between the Tea Party and the rest of their Republican pals in the public at large is not reflected in the GOP representation in Congress where a majority of the GOP caucus aligns itself with the deniers. Nor is it represented in the conservative media that stridently rejects any suggestion that the planet faces any climate risks. The inevitable result of that divergence is that a portion of the population is woefully misinformed about Climate Change. Even worse, the bias disseminated by right-wing media foments a distrust in science and scientists in general.

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Consequently we see absurd departures from reality that are based strictly on partisan propaganda. When the White House issued an executive order to facilitate “efforts to improve climate preparedness and resilience; help safeguard our economy, infrastructure, environment, and natural resources,” Fox News covered the event by saying that “Obama uses executive order in sweeping takeover of nation’s climate change policies.” The report had an alarmist tone in warning that the order will “potentially skirt legislative oversight and push a federal agenda on states.” Fox ignored the actual substance of the order that explicitly stated that “This order shall be implemented consistent with U.S. obligations under international agreements and applicable U.S. law, and be subject to the availability of appropriations.” The language addressing appropriations specifically bows to the oversight authority of Congress that Fox denied existed.

Fox’s report further injected a partisan intent on the part of the White House to deliver climate policy implementation to a cabal of Democrats. Three separate times in the report Fox noted the presence of Democrats on the task force that the executive order created. Why that should surprise anyone is a mystery. The President is entirely within his rights to appoint members of his party to executive branch committees. More importantly, why would anyone go out of their way to put the sort of climate science deniers that dominate the Republican Party on a committee tasked with mitigating the effects of Climate Change? It would be like asking atheists to lead the Christian church’s membership drive.

By disseminating false and misleading information about Climate Change, Fox News has been a significant factor in dumbing down the small portion of the electorate that is glued to their network. The more gullible among them, specifically the Tea Party faction, have become ardent opponents of reform measures to address Climate Change. And now it appears that they have drifted so far from the GOP mainstream that they have little in common with the average Republican’s position on this issue.

Nevertheless, the Republicans in Congress will continue to obstruct reasonable reforms that are supported by the majority of America, and even the majority of their party. That defiance is directly attributable to their fear of Tea Party primary challenges and their dependence on Tea Party billionaires like the Koch brothers. Until the GOP unshackles itself from their extremist wing and exhibits a willingness to cooperate on issues where they share common ground, voters must replace them with either common sense Republicans or Democrats. And if the Pew study is any indication, Republican voters are getting ready to do just that.

Rush Limbaugh’s Spiritual Guidance On Climate Change Refuted By 200 Evangelical Scientists

Posted by Mark NC on September 2, 2013 at 9:48 am. 8 Comments :

Last month Rush Limbaugh put on his pastor’s bonnet and proceeded to hand out religious advice to his audience of glassy-eyed dittoheads.

Limbaugh: In my humble opinion, folks, if you believe in God, then intellectually you cannot believe in manmade global warming. You must be either agnostic or atheistic to believe that man controls something he can’t create.

How Limbaugh arrives at this spurious conclusion is never clearly explained. Obviously humans control many things that they can’t create. We split atoms, we clear-cut forests, we drive animal species into extinction, we destroy cancer cells, we defy gravity. What would make Limbaugh think that our excessive disbursement of pollutants wouldn’t have an effect on the atmosphere?

Limbaugh also makes a logical leap that a belief in God, which has a faith, rather than intellectual basis, can be a foundation for intellectually refuting science. It’s like saying that if you believe in Santa Claus, then intellectually you can’t believe in Hasbro. But it’s not as if Limbaugh’s ecumenical guidance has ever been held in high esteem. And that is still the case today as a coalition of 200 evangelical scientists smack down Limbaugh’s absurd biblical analysis, saying that they “were appalled at the ignorance behind Rush Limbaugh’s statement but we weren’t surprised.”

“For us, global warming is not a matter of belief – it is about applying our understanding of science to the climate of this planet. The author of Hebrews tells us, ‘faith is … the evidence of things not seen.’ We believe in God through faith. Science, on the other hand, is the evidence of our eyes. We can measure the extent to which natural levels of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere regulate and maintain our climate. We can track how excess heat-trapping gases, beyond what would naturally occur, are being added to the atmosphere every day by human activities. We can calculate how this artificially warms the Earth’s surface, increasing risks of extreme heat, rain, and drought. We can see how these impacts often fall disproportionately on those with the least resources to adapt, the very people we are told to care for by our faith.

“While our expertise allows us to understand the complexity of a changing climate and its causes, it is our faith that compels us to speak out and motivates us to push forward despite the opposition from voices like Rush Limbaugh and gridlock in Washington.”

In July these observant scientists sent a letter to Congress urging them to reduce carbon pollution and adopt policies consistent with God’s instructions to care for his creation. They cite scripture and verse attesting to the fact that Christians have a responsibility to be good stewards of the Earth.

This is something that Limbaugh apparently cannot comprehend in his pedestrian, political, and self-serving exploitation of faith. And it is evidence that anyone who takes Limbaugh’s spiritual advice is as foolish as anyone who takes his political advice. All of it is crafted without facts or reason, specifically for an audience that Limbaugh himself characterizes as so incapable of cogent thinking that they can only repeat his ignorant nit-witticisms.

Glenn Beck’s Inner Dictator Emerges With Climate Change Denialism And Conspiracy Theories

Posted by Mark NC on August 27, 2013 at 7:22 pm. 9 Comments :

Anyone who has seen Glenn Beck’s Acute Paranoia Revue is familiar with his Messiah complex and his extremist and delusional worldview. Despite his frequent characterizations of President Obama as a tyrannical despot who seeks to enslave all Americans and, indeed, the world, it turns out that Beck himself is the petty dictator who denies those around him the freedom to live as they chose.

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Glenn Beck

Last week Beck delivered a sermonette (video below) in which he threatened his staff that they would be fired for purchasing compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). He went even further to forbid the purchase of recyclable spoons, cardboard, or pretty much any product that helps to protect the environment.

Beck: I am dead serious. I fire the person that starts to purchase fluorescent light bulbs unless that is the only light bulb for a specific reasons and I want to be CC’ed on what that reason is.

So if you work for Glenn Beck and you just want to buy CFLs because they last longer than conventional bulbs and save money on energy bills, you’re out of luck. If you disagree with his anti-science stance on global warming, you better keep your mouth shut, and restrict your purchases to only the most polluting products. Beck will not permit you to make your own choices and still allow you to keep your job. You must submit to his will, because as long as you work for him, you have no free will of you own.

The reason Beck has laid down this edict is because he views environmental responsibility as tantamount to treason. It is a typically myopic viewpoint that ignores the benefits of energy conservation, and a clean, healthy environment, apart from any consideration of climate change. He is so opposed to anything that smacks of sustainable living that he would prefer poisoning the air and water to taking measures to reduce pollution.

Beck: If you’re doing anything in this company because of global warming, you’re fired. Global warming is a pile of crap. A load of socialist, communist crap.

You see, all of the science professionals and climatologists, 97% of whom agree that the climate is warming and that humans are the cause, are really just commie subversives bent on world domination. The facts, as succinctly put in that liberal, anti-capitalist rag Forbes Magazine, are irrelevant to Beck. And any attempt to think for yourself is also evidence of your betrayal of loyalty to Master Beck. You have been warned.

Hell Freezes Over: Fox News Embraces Russian Climate Denialism

Posted by Mark NC on August 18, 2013 at 4:50 pm. 4 Comments :

Executives at Fox News have made it clear that their official editorial position on Climate Change is that it is either a hoax or unsettled science and that credible arguments exist on both sides of the debate. Fox News Washington managing editor, Bill Sammon, went so far as to issue a memo instructing all personnel to…

“…refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.”

Indeed. Unqualified, politically motivated critics have called into question the overwhelming evidence that Climate Change is occurring and that it is man-made. In fact, despite the characterization of environmental activists as “terrorists” by some at Fox News, 97% of of the scientists that actually study the climate agree that the planet is warming at an unprecedented rate and that this presents a crisis that requires immediate reformative action.

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Ben Stein on Climate Change

Nevertheless, Fox News continues to deliberately misinform their audience on behalf of the right-wing political establishment and the fossil fuel industry who finance their campaigns. The Union of Concerned Scientists did a study of the coverage of Climate Change by Fox News and found that nearly all (93%) of the reporting was misleading.

“The analysis finds that the misleading citations include broad dismissals of human-caused climate change, rejections of climate science as a body of knowledge, and disparaging comments about individual scientists. Furthermore, much of this coverage denigrated climate science by either promoting distrust in scientists and scientific institutions or placing acceptance of climate change in an ideological, rather than fact-based, context.”

So it should come as no surprise that this weekend Fox News aired a segment on Obama’s “Green Energy Agenda” with a brazenly biased video introduction that featured only critics of the President’s policies, including notorious climate denier Mark Morano. This led to anchor Doug McKelway’s peculiar remarks preceding an on-air debate:

“Dissent is indeed growing based in part on criticism from dozens of highly credited skeptics who say that temperature averages have stalled for the last fifteen years. In fact, some scientists from Russia are now predicting a new mini-ice age based upon the lack of sunspot activity.”

When was the last time that Fox News favorably cited Russians as credible experts on anything? That’s how desperate Fox is to cast doubt on a subject that almost every scientist agrees on.

The claim that temperature averages have stalled contradicts the fact that 2012 was the hottest year on record and that six of the last ten years were among the warmest ever recorded. So much for the “dozens” of skeptics whose credentials are unverifiable because McKelway declined to name any of them. Even if he had, it would be hard for them to compete with the hundreds of actual scientists on the other side.

Obviously McKelway was complying with the Sammon Directive to give equal weight to dubious hacks who have no background in climate science. Fox has a preconception on this issue that is written in stone and they are vigorously engaged in pushing their false narrative regardless of the facts. They have abandoned all sense of shame for their obliviousness to honest reporting to the extent that they even embrace sources that they would ordinarily ridicule. Can you image what Fox’s response would be to a Democrat who cited Russian scientists to support Climate Change? It would be a three day long scandal, at least, with the Democrat being accused of communist sympathies.

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Embassy Attacks

Climate Change

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Negotiating With Terrorists

2016

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