The New York Times has just published another in a series of establishment press missives seeking to marginalize — from the perspective of establishment press-types — tea party activists and politicians who embrace or are embraced by them.

This latest entry is an embarrassment, if a rather typical one as I detail on Chapter 1 of Red Hot Lies, “Media on a Mission.” Here are some problems with the article:

“Climate change is real, and man is causing it,” [Dem. Congressman and pro-cap-and-trade voter Baron] Hill said, echoing most climate scientists.

The author does not point to any survey of “most climate scientists,” challenge or even inquire about the source for or other evidence to support that claim. That is because there is no such survey or collective assertion by the critical masses of “climate scientists.” Period. It’s a talking point. But he’s a reporter. If he wanted to be straight about the issue he would at the very least turn to the very inconvenient statement by the Association of State Climatologists. But, again, it’s inconvenient.

When pressed, those who scribble or utter this shibboleth generally expand the universe of “climate scientist” to include anyone who is willing to go on record agreeing in return for being called one of the world’s leading climate scientists. Even if they are anthropology teaching assistants. Read on.

That is, they revert to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a collection of (as its name indicates) representatives appointed by governments, which itself appoints anthropology TAs, instructors in “the human dimension of environmental change” (bring own incense, please) and transport policy instructors, for example, to achieve great if still exaggerated (why is that necessary?) numbers of supporters who supposedly (but didn’t) write its proclamations? The IPCC’s “chief climate scientist” and chief “climatologist,” according to outlets like the New York Times and USA Today is, just for the record, actually a… railway engineer.

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Amazingly, Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe seemed to figure out the hypocrisy of the DNC and the White House complaining about undisclosed donors and “special interest” money being supposedly funneled into Republican campaigns. The White House has been going after the Chamber of Commerce and more than once has been unable to come up with any defense or any support to their totally unsubstantiated claims. Alexrod can’t answer, Gibbs can’t answer, and Mika Brzezinski, co-host of Morning Joe certainly can’t answer. Joe brought up something that the rest of the media has blatantly ignored in this debate, President Obama’s ability to raise more money than any other candidate. President Obama has received more anonymous donations, more big oil donations, more big business donations, and more special interest donations than any other politician ever!

The obvious lunacy of the White House pointing fingers at the RNC is something that only one MSNBC host can apparently seem to grasp. Perhaps Joe can talk to the other MSNBC hosts that have shown “rank hypocrisy” when it comes to asking about finances between Republican and Democratic candidates.

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Despite the fact that President Obama made Cap and Trade and other green policy plans a focal point of his early days in office — not to mention his campaign for president — the White House has quietly scrubbed from its official website many of Obama’s promises and green initiatives. I guess the era of Obama really is “change you can believe in.”

Especially interesting it the sudden disappearance of Obama’s plan to commit $150 billion on clean energy research and development.

In 2008 as Obama was preparing to take office he featured on his “Office of the President Elect” website a pledge to spend $150 billion on energy R & D. As of today, that pledge is still there.

Invest in a clean energy economy and create 5 million new green jobs: Obama and Biden will invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial scale renewable energy, invest in low emissions coal plants, and begin transition to a new digital electricity grid. The plan will also invest in America’s highly skilled manufacturing workforce and manufacturing centers to ensure that American workers have the skills and tools they need to pioneer the first wave of green technologies that will be in high demand throughout the world.

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WJLA-TV, a Washington, D.C. ABC affiliate, suspended reporter Doug McKelway following his alleged “partisan” comments at a liberal rally on Capitol Hill marking the three-month anniversary of the Gulf oil spill. Video of the broadcast tells a different story:

Apparently facts are now “partisan.”

McKelway stuck to the truth about BP’s political contributions and pending cap-and-trade legislation, newsworthy subjects given that the event’s organizers were lobbying to “pass legislation to end America’s addiction to oil and urged lawmakers to donate campaign money raised from the oil industry to the clean-up efforts in the Gulf.”

According to the Washington Post, it was McKelway’s supposedly controversial comments on July 20 that led to his suspension. Anonymous sources at the station are now accusing him of “insubordination” in an apparent attempt to fire him. (more…)

This is how low “profiles in courage” in Massachusetts’s U.S. Senate representation has fallen, and how bad the media-leftist complex has gotten. Today’s Washington Post carries an homage by columnist E.J. Dionne to Sen. John Kerry’s “passion” to push an “energy bill.”

The absurd, offending sentence is “Which brings us back to Kerry, who in a talk with me made no apologies for his eagerness to get an energy bill.” Well. Yes. He’s eager to tell you how his cap-and-trade global warming bill is an energy bill, rebranding it after pollster Stanley Greenberg instructed Democrats that “cap-and-trade” and “global warming” weren’t selling, and they had to rebrand it as “energy”.

Which calls into question the breathtaking courage, passion, etc. This is Kerry’s second cap-and-trade global warming bill just this Congress. After the first floundered, he came out muttering about how mean it is to describe the bill as cap-and-trade — the central component of both is cap-and-trade, of course — on the grounds that “I don’t know what cap-and-trade means” (he said that, incidentally, just after the Greenberg memo urging such abandonment). (more…)

Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but some opinions are just plain embarrassing. In a June 8 Op-Ed published in the New York Times, Stanford University professor Jon A. Krosnick postulated that the vast majority of Americans believe that global warming is both real and man-made, and – ergo – Senators would be well-advised to vote against the Murkowski Resolution when it comes to a vote today.

It’s pretty obvious that Krosnick, a professor of communication, political science and psychology, doesn’t actually understand the subject matter or what the Murkowski resolution is about. He starts his Op-Ed by declaring:

On Thursday, the Senate will vote on a resolution proposed by Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, that would scuttle the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to limit emissions of greenhouse gases by American businesses.

And he closes with this piece of advice:

When senators vote on emissions limits on Thursday, there is one other number they might want to keep in mind: 72 percent of Americans think that most business leaders do not want the federal government to take steps to stop global warming. A vote to eliminate greenhouse gas regulation is likely to be perceived by the nation as a vote for industry, and against the will of the people.

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When even the New York Times finally picks up the pungent aroma of a scandal, you’ve gotta figure that the stench is overwhelming. Recently, the Times decided this bit of news was finally fit to repeat: that the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been playing fast and loose with scientific data regarding “climate change.” That story has only been buzzing about the blogosphere for weeks now, so hats off to the “newspaper of record” for taking notice of the situation with such alacrity.

This is a milestone of sorts. The Times has – finally – chosen to publish a story about global warming that did not primarily consist of Andrew Revkin’s fawning assurances that alarmists were the guardians of holy writ and skeptics are alchemists in the employ of Exxon-Mobil. Prior to this happy event, I thought the chances of the Senate passing a cap and trade bill were slim, but that the possibility still existed. Now that the New York Times has finally acknowledged that global warming skeptics may have a point or two after all, we may administer last rites to Waxman-Markey. Good riddance.

But how did we get here? Al Gore’s hucksterism and that silly movie of his, which any legitimate scientist – even among the alarmist crowd – has to laugh at, deserve a lot of the blame. But the biggest problem was the way that the old media and policy makers embraced the collectivist agenda of the IPCC. This shameful episode has been an object lesson of what happens when we follow Obama’s doctrine of following the lead of the would-be global government crowd, rather than letting America and her allies lead the globe toward a bright future. (more…)

Many have declared the dubious “Cap and Trade” scheme dead, so Obama went ahead and had the EPA suggest they were going to impose it under their own regulations. The truth is, they’re not likely to do that. They want the “Climate Bill” to pass because it’s designed to gouge the energy and manufacturing sector out of $646 billion in tax dollars over ten years. All to finance his crypto-socialist programs.

The Democrats see the climate bill as a cash cow, but Republicans aren’t buying it. So in his State of the Union address, the president didn’t mention cap and trade. He mentioned the “green jobs” that would be created by the “Climate bill.”

But to create more of these clean-energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.

Doesn’t that sound swell? Except nuclear power plants are already safe and sound in the US and have been for over 50 years. (more…)

You’ve read the stories. You’ve seen the quotes and the scary pictures and graphics. Unless the Senate passes a cap and trade bill to regulate (aka: tax) greenhouse gas emissions, the USEPA will regulate those emissions through the Clean Air Act and – cue ominous music – you’re not going to like that.

Don’t buy it. It’s a bluff. The last thing that the Obama administration and USEPA Administrator Lisa Jackson want to do is to try to regulate greenhouse gases through the Clean Air Act. It would be a nightmare for the USEPA, creating enmity among large swathes of the populace, forcing people to reassess the shaky science behind global warming and it would take many, many years to implement the regulatory measures necessary to actually reduce these emissions. The Clean Air Act threat is a desperate attempt at extortion, with the ultimate goal of forcing a pointless cap and trade bill down our throats.

Trust me here. I’m an expert on two things: 1) the best places to enjoy a cold beer in the southeast side of Chicago, and 2) air pollution regulation, especially the Clean Air Act. Indeed, I wrote the book. (Which I encourage nobody to buy, because, unless you happen to manage environmental affairs for some industrial concern, it will bore you to tears). Even given Barack Obama’s vaunted talent for ignoring and working around rules that he finds inconvenient, the Clean Air Act presents too many insurmountable obstacles for even an “Ocean Reversing Czar” to overcome. The reasons why are complicated, but we’ll do this in a couple of parts and – hopefully – I’ll keep the explanations entertaining enough that you won’t fall asleep.

Let’s start here: exposing the tyranny of the system: (more…)