This story has legs now, as I predicted in this piece yesterday “The ‘RICO 20 letter’ to Obama asking for prosecution of climate skeptics disappears from Shukla’s IGES website amid financial concerns” the Streisand Effect has been unleashed. Now, instead of explaining why the RICO 20 letter was mysteriously withdrawn from the IGES website after questions began to be asked about the millions of dollars that George Mason’s Jagadish Shukla apparently has received, some of it while apparently “double dipping” against university policy, all the while claiming climate skeptics are the recipients of money that should be prosecuted under the RICO act, we find this curious missive posted in place of the RICO20 letter at the URL where it previously resided:
Source: http://www.iges.org/letter/LetterPresidentAG.pdf
“Inadvertently placed on this web site”? I think not, especially since that URL was the “go to” given in their press release about the letter and referenced in numerous news outlets, without so much as a peep of a correction for over a month while that story ran wild. All of the sudden it was posted in the wrong place?
I call that explanation “BS of the highest order”. He got caught with his pants down, tables have turned, and now its damage control, and badly done damage control at that, since the actions are making the situation with Shukla even more suspect.
Then there’s the apparent nepotism going on with all that public money used to fund Shukla’s climate dreams:
IGES Personnel:
President Shukla, Jagadish
Business Manager Shukla, Anastasia
Assistant Business Manager Shukla, Sonia
Director, COLA Kinter, James
Assistant to the President Shukla, Sonia
Source: http://www.iges.org/aboutiges.html
And, Steve McIntyre had called out one of the signatories, Barry Klinger, over untrue claims in Reckless Misinformation from Barry Klinger and the RICO 20
Klinger has now started a climbdown, screencap of http://mason.gmu.edu/~bklinger/ricoDebate.html below:
Popcorn futures are climbing, and this episode, along with all the many many “follow the money” tentacles it has, may very well become the takedown of organized climate science. The RICO20 has opened a Pandora’s box upon themselves.
As Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. Tweeted:
People that live in Greenhouses shouldn’t cast stones.
Note: shortly after publication this article was edited to include a missing comma, a misplaced “to” instead of “the”, and to fix a text formatting problem
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For those not aware: The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet. -Google Dictionary
Named after our good friend Barbara Streisand, who thought a photographic survey of the California coast from public airspace violated her privacy, and discovered that due to her lawsuit people started actually looking at the photographs of what would have been an otherwise unremarkable plush ocean-front villa that dot that bit of countryside.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t a certain Naomi Orekes a former thingy of Ms. Streisand’s Environmental Defense Fund?
You gotta love WUWT.
Nobody would know anything about this otherwise. Turn the screws please.
Yes, it has more of a real time feel to it and under the radar in most cases.
Slightly off topic I guess but another skeptical opinion column in the Vancouver Province
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2015/09/29/michelle-stirling-paris-is-about-saving-green-investors-not-the-earth/
O/T but good article. Pity the rest of BC is not so skeptical.
You know what Billy? I don’t know anyone personally who believes or seems to give a care one way or another. For most people, it isn’t even on their radar. It just seems that way because of the local media. The Sun in particular, with their writer Stephen Hume. He’s some ex-old hippy living on the Island.
@ur momisugly Mick, as far as living on the Island is concerned ( and I lived there and it is beautiful and in some ways unparalleled) If for what ever reason it would get cut off from the daily supplies like food and fuel it would be a mess in short order, so if an ” age old hippy” wants to live there fine with me. ( I have family still there and it is a topic of discussion).
I’m pretty sure I read about it first on Climate Etc. I like and value WUWT, but there are other resources.
You beat me to it, Jay!
True, but not in terms or reach.
Effective communication = value of information X broadcast reach
I am sure that the elements RICO conspiracy was known long before. WUWT provides a substantial hammer blow.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fossil-fuel-industrys-campaign-to-mislead-the-american-people/2015/05/29/04a2c448-0574-11e5-8bda-c7b4e9a8f7ac_story.html
Why this guy still has a job we pay for is to me astonishing. This part of the story was reported in June.
It’s actually a rather old story, news cycle wise. The side story of corruption is obviously also an old story that Steve M and R Pieke Jr. recently uncovered. Breitbart reported 10 days ago the request by a group of scientists for the Obama (a willing accomplice in the shredding of the first amendment) to prosecute using RICO statutes. RICO is often used as a harassment tool since it is easy to invoke for everything from hording toilette paper to armed extortion.
Tallbloke wrote a about it on 09/19/2015 citing a non-climate blog entry from the day before.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2015/09/19/do-you-dare-to-disagree-you-must-go-to-jail/
Steve M began his series on Sep 25 and had to have spent some time prior to publishing to analyze the story.
I was surprised that WUWT still dishing up another series of Eschenbach diary entries while this story was breaking.
dp… “It’s actually a rather old story, news cycle wise.”
That is the problem. The MSM and big broad news orgs simply cannot keep this news story in prominent view. The corruption in the UN Climate mafia needs to be seen. a la Climategate.
DP, Washington Post explains a lot. See other headline.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/business/dan-gainor/2015/09/30/post-owner-makes-165b-while-paper-whines-558-times-about-income#sthash.6fLGRUZJ.dpuf
Paul, I love WUWT but if I’m not mistaken other people wrote about RICO20 earlier: World Net Daily, Marc Morano, Hot Air, James Delingpole at Breitbart, etc.
It’s another data point showing that AGW is a political power grab fight first, funding trough brawl second, and a scientific controversy a distant third, if at all.
Yes, turn the screws, please!
Yes…
That usually is the case. But as noted above, WUWT brings it to another level. I don’t frequent WND daily or Climate Depot (though excellent sites). WUWT is an aggregator/opinion site largely focused on the AGW issue, my pet peeve. I do frequent Breitbart but their site is broad and largely focuses on politics and cultural issues, diluting their focus on AGW.
If you want to get a AGW related issue to the most people in a hurry, where would you go?
As a courtesy to WND and Breitbart, both great sites!, I went back to find the tread and see if the screws are being turned.. and the articles are “below the fold” so to speak…. IF you can find them. WUWT’s focus allows the subject to sustain multiple postings, 3 here so far, and the necessary durability to make the tyrants knuckle under.
effective communication = value of information X broadcast reach X exposure time X # of exposures.
I agree, Paul, and I think it’s hugely important that WUWT keeps the pressure up on the sleazy AGW politics. I also appreciate that Curry, Pielke and McIntyre pay attention to this unscientific dirt.
Agreed. MacIntyre, Delingpole, Morano Curry et al were all over this out of the gate. This story needs persistence & reach because the MSM will slide this under the rug just like they tried to do with climategate 1.0. The MSM monitor WUWT. Note another RICO story just got posted at the top of WUWT.
Except for Pielke, Delingpole, Climate Audit, and quite a few others.
Thanks, Anthony. Good article, speaking against the corruption of alarmist climate science.
Gotta love it when some hard core Eco Greenie scammers are outed making the $Big $Coin Coin off the Glowball Warming scam.
Especially when they convince their kids to go morally corrupt in the name of Gaia.
The Streisand effect is in full gear
People who make their living peddling swamp gas ought not to strike matches.
Napalm, anyone?
I’m putting that on a T-Shirt!
Beautiful!
I am so stealing that. 😀
Another one … (which I heard about and had several bumper stickers printed)
“FRAUD: The #1 cause of global warming”
This one just occurred to me:
Sunrise: The #1 cause of Global Warming.
Great article – thanks Anthony. I wonder how much tax money has gone down drains similar to Shukla.
I’m waiting for the BBC to report this………..
……………………………………….
Keeping it pithy, huh Paul?
That’s the most brilliant reply I’ve ever seen which had no actual characters in it.
Most brilliant reply, period … period, period, period …
I just can’t seem to find anything at the Guardian. Maybe it’s my keyword search. All I found was this.
I don’t think this climastrologist-activist is scary enough.
Dana’s doubling down at the Guardian. He still calls for RICO investigations into sceptic science.
Thus proving that Klinger is being disingenuous when he claims that “jailing skeptics” references are spurious.
The anti-science mob are still at it and Kilnger’s in their ranks.
Thanks M Courtney. I notice that comments are closed on that page. Dana says:
I do hope he tells people a little bit about his brazen hypocrisy.
Dana Nuccitelli is a Guardian environmental contributor and has worked for Tetra Tech oil and gas services company since June 2006. In June 2012 it was announced that Tetra Tech had acquired Rooney Engineering. “REI has worked on projects across the United States, including in Alaska and the Gulf Coast, but many of the firm’s current clients are strategically located in the Bakken and Niobrara shale oil regions.”
22 July 2013 – WUWT
Dana Nuccitelli’s ‘vested interest’? – oil and gas
Here is more on the hypocrite Dana of the Guardian. He attacked Exxon in his Guardian piece. Now look.
Oil money for me but not for thee. Dana is not alone.
By Jimbo on NTZ
Long List Of Warmist Organizations, Scientists Haul In Huge Money From BIG OIL And Heavy Industry!
[…] While the poor and the impoverished will suffer the most […]
It hurts to read sometimes
My mistake and apologies on the Guardian comments, they are in fact open.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/sep/29/is-the-fossil-fuel-industry-like-the-tobacco-industry-guilty-of-racketeering#comments
Jimbo, you understand that the “oil service industry” is fracking the Bakken and Niobrara shales! That frackin Nuticelli is a piece of work!!!
What I constantly still hear from CAGW’s (almost everyone under 30) “Are you telling me there is some vast left wing conspiracy and that thousands of scientists are all in on it?” Uh. yes.
It’s only hundreds, most of the rest just aren’t paying attention yet.
It doesn’t require a “vast conspiracy” at all. It’s sooooo much easier than that. All it takes is a dozen well placed individuals with an agenda exploiting the normal apathy, sheep, hive-mind, low information human nature of the general population. I don’t think the majority of scientists are corrupt. I think they are busy, not examining every single piece of climate research, and probably guilty of basic group think and/or naive loyalty to those whom they feel know more about it than they do.
It doesn’t require a “vast conspiracy” at all.
As has been pointed out so many times. The Baptist and The Bootlegger.
I’ve talked with several who take the position that “a scientist of his stature just wouldn’t do something like that”. Then refuse to look at anything I presented because it wasn’t from one of their peer reviewed sites recommended by their good colleague.
“I think they are busy, not examining every single piece of climate research,…”
and they haven’t read skeptical articles and threads; they’ve just read about them.
It doesn’t require a “vast conspiracy” at all. It’s sooooo much easier than that. All it takes is a set of incentives which are common to many actors.
The incentive to take over the energy market using a false pretext is a vast incentive for everybody on board. Energy is the life-blood of all economies. Control energy and you control everything.
This monstrosity was decades in the making, and now that the pieces are in place, it will be very very hard to destroy it.
Far too many people are invested and want their slice of the cake.
I can understand the urge to avoid sounding paranoid or conspiracy happy, but one does not have to know everything about such a conspiracy to be a part of it, knowingly. With something this big and long-running, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if several thousands have knowingly participated in some helpful way, And tens of thousands bit their tongues, so to speak, when they saw indications that funny business was going on of one form or another. .
The one who cases a joint and the one who drives the getaway car might not even know what is being stolen, and the fence may not know where or how the goods were acquired, but they are all part of the conspiracy of criminals required to pull off the crime successfully.
The channeling of grant funds to family members make it a triple dip instead of a double dip.
John
This is illegal in most states, even though a lot of academicians think tenure awards them immunity from laws of common citizens off campus.
Since Sonia Shukla is the ‘Assistant to the President’ AND the ‘Assistant Business Manager’ does she get TWO salaries? Just askin’.
Here is Sonia at the Gandhi College for women in her dad’s home village of Mirdha U.P. He helped establish it. Now I wonder who is administering that school? Maybe an aunt, a couz,………….
http://www.iges.org/gandhicollege/visitor_shuklafamily.html
http://www.iges.org/gandhicollege/images/mod_IMG_0109.jpg
Corr blimey, talk about keeping it in the family Wallace and Wallace, Shukla and Shukla!
Corr blimey again another Shkla! There is nothing wrong with nepotism, as long as you keep it in the family. I paraphrase Yogi.
http://www.iges.org/gandhicollege/academicsframe.html
[Shriram Shukla and Jagadish Shukla in the office of the Rector, Dr. S.P. Upadhyay]
http://www.iges.org/gandhicollege/images/office.jpg
From the Gandhi College pages of IGES it says his brother is the manager of the college.
http://www.iges.org/gandhicollege/images/entrance.png
Jimbo, the company name is:
Shukla, Shukla, Shukla & Look! Another Shukla! (R)
I’ve never seen the word “welcome” rendered in print as two words before: “wel come”. It appears that the Shuklas are not the only nepotists: I see two Wallaces as well. What degrees does one suppose the college grants?
What are you willing to spend?
Jimbo says:
Similar to the law-firm “Dewey, Fleecesum and Howe”.
Daughter and wife, apparently. Quad dip?
MarkW,
I do not know what to think about the possibility of ‘n’ Shukla dips of grant funds, where ‘n’ could be greater than 3.
Before imagining it is
turtles‘dips’ all the way down I need go out and buy some popcorn; that’s entertainment.John
Is this a typo?
I see where RICO should be applied. What a bloody racket! We are in carbon dioxide danger, apply for lavish funding. Rinse and repeat for 2 decades.
Undoubtedly why he is given awards.
It would wonderful, and a welcomed irony, if the technical inadequacies, inconsistencies and falsehoods of the climate establishment gurus do not result in their ultimate downfall, but that they are stranded on a lee shore by their own greed. It would be full circle revenge because their greed is what causes them to push inadequate science, to behave inconsistently and to lie.
While I share the desire that this episode may begin the unraveling of the CAGW cartel, I am 97% certain that it will not happen. The CAGW agenda is now too deeply embedded within our federal bureaucracies and the manipulated media for it to be excised quickly. The best we can hope for is that as the public slowly realizes the prognostications of these alarmists amounts to mere buffoonery, this agenda will die a slow death as attention moves to another fabricated crisis.
I agree with you, KellyDr. Let’s not forget that while the Shukla family appears to be double dipping contrary to university policy, it’s highly unlikely that George Mason U. will want to rock this boat. After all, the university’s rake off the top of all grant money is usually 50% and 50% of zero is zero. Not only are the Shuklas feathering their nests with this grant money, so are the non-climate people at GMU, Presidents, Provosts, officers, administrators, lawyers, compliance officers, professors in other disciplines that need this money for their salaries and benefits. Then think about how this money allows each US state that funds higher education to avoid more spending in it’s budget for its public universities, which adds them to the toll of people tainted by this more subtle area of corruption of climate science.
My apologies to Dr Watts re elephant in the room comment what I really meant in the posting would have been left sticky as it was obvious this was a huge story that’s all. I think the moderator overreacted. Cheers and thnk you Mr watts for your wonderfulk efforts I just happen to be more vehemently a doubter that’s all
Physician, heal thyself!
I love a good flogging!! Continue with your great work, Cap’n Anthony!
John Ashe Blackthorne,
Ahhh . . . let’s give him a field commission . . . leap him to the rank of Admiral . . .
And let’s not forget to also credit Steve McIntyre in creating an essential cause of this story gaining momentum.
John
The floggings will continue until moral improves !!
I feel better already.
The railroad engineer effect is in play.
Anne (or Anastasia, as she is sometimes referred to) earns $160,000 plus as “Business Manager”.
As IGES as a “business” does not trade, sell, or produce in any shape or fashion, and only employs a handful of people, and simply collects govt funding to produce reports, it is difficult to see what could possibly justify payment of such a large amount of money to the manager.
It seems she can do little other than a bit of admin/bookkeeping, which could probably be contracted out for a few thousand dollars a year.
The conclusion is clear – that this is a “made up” position, used simply as an excuse to cream off govt funding.
“which could probably be contracted out for a few thousand dollars a year.” a few hundred if it was offshored to erm India !
Any possible reportage of this story in the MSM will be buried under the upcoming avalanche of “Hurricane Joaquin” fear mongering.
what reportage?
Give it a bit, they are making this out to be a Cat 5 in damage… even though it’s a pretty anemic mid Cat 1 at the time.
There is more money in climate fraud than doomsday books. Climate policy overreach fraud is the gift that keeps on giving. See Ravi Batra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravi_Batra#Outcomes_of_predictions
There is more money in climate fraud than doomsday books. Resourceguy, you say that like there is a difference.
The updated website says that they’ve been planning to shut down IGES for over two years now. That makes no sense since in October 2013 they were awarded NSF Grant #1338427, which started in May 2014 and is expected to continue into 2017. Does that mean they were planning to shutter the doors while they were still applying for grants? Did they tell the NSF that they planned on shutting down?
As others have said – something smells fishy…
“expected to continue into 2017”
Maybe there is a very small asterisk there that says “…or until the money runs out”, re: nepotism.
Someone call the IGs office to investigate the use of NSF funds.
That grant is not to IGES. Investigator is James Kinter and sponsor is George Mason University
I’m not surprised that they got NSF funding. They said all the right words of bias and secured the funds. Next.
“Is in the process of being decommissioned?”
Should have done that in July, we all know how those inactive web pages are just an invitation to trouble …
But now you can hear the shredders working full time.
good job Anthony, MacIntyre, and Pielke Jr!
As I’ve mentioned, we hare having federal election here in Canada, and the ruling Conservatives are being hammered by the Usual Suspects, in particular over Alberta’s so-called tar sands.
Much of the “grey” money, i.e., money not being spent by the left-wing Liberal, the very left-wing New Democrats, and the off-the-charts Green Party, is coming from American sources (i.e., Tides Foundation), and ultimately Russian and Gulf Oil States. Oh, its filtered down and passed around so that it becomes “crunchy organic and local” money, of course.
An acquaintance is a forensic accountant and points out that this is also the way that organized crime launders their money.
Not saying anything is related, only that the process is the same: shell companies, money for nothing jobs, etc.
Institute for Greedy Enrichment and Sleaze
Gravy train derailment.