From World Net Daily(not the tabloid site World News Daily), with h/t to Green Hell Blog, something that if proven is quite disturbing. Yet given the kind of treatment I’ve recently received at the hands of an eco-zealot who can’t tolerate my views on climate, I’m not surprised.
Some people have no scruples and no shame. – Anthony
Democrats attack Republican candidate’s children
By Art Robinson
In an effort to do my part in rescuing our country from the out-of-control Obama administration, last year I ran for Congress in Oregon’s 4th District against 12-term incumbent, far-left Democrat Peter DeFazio, co-founder of the House Progressive Caucus.
Although I won the nominations of the Republican, Independent and Constitution Parties and the endorsement of the Libertarian Party, a massive media smear campaign by DeFazio, paid for with money raised by MoveOn.org and from special interests favored by DeFazio in Washington, resulted in a 54.5 percent to 43.6 percent victory for DeFazio in a race that was expected to be much closer.
Although I had never run for public office before, I immediately announced my candidacy for Congress again in 2012.
However, when you take a stand for what’s right, sometimes there is retribution.On Nov. 4, 2010, as soon as the election results were in and they were sure their candidate had won, faculty administrators at Oregon State University gave new meaning to the term “political payback.”
They initiated an attack on my three children – Joshua, Bethany and Matthew – for the purpose of throwing them all out of the OSU graduate school, despite their outstanding academic and research accomplishments. OSU is a liberal socialist Democrat stronghold in Oregon that received a reported $27 million in earmark funding from my opponent, Peter DeFazio, and his Democrat colleagues during the last legislative session.
Read full story here: Democrats attack Republican candidate’s children
UPDATE: I decided to pull the direct link to the website that hurled unspeakable insults to me by an eco-zealot, they don’t deserve the traffic WUWT will generate for them. Such things are best handled by other means. So, I used WebCite to permanently log the website, and you can view it here, scroll all the way to the bottom and note “corrections”: http://www.webcitation.org/5x0pgZdgl
UPDATE2: OSU has posted a statement which you can read here
This article seems plausible, based on what I have seen of academic politics over the past 25 years. Nevertheless, I would very much like to hear the other side of the story before reaching any conclusions.
The challenge the person because they can’t challenge the idea.
They challenge a person’s children because they are cowards.
for what it’s worth, we’re only hearing one side of this story.
And the use of perjorative adjectives in the failed candidates missive doesn’t help.
Perhaps the failed candidate doesn’t like the head of OSU nuc dept because she’s a “militant feminist” (his words).
swiftboat anyone?
Anthony writes,
“As representative of the side that espouses such ugliness, won’t don’t you tell us, “Gneiss”?”
I’m representing no side except myself, and I have no information about what actually happened at OSU. Do you?
Art Robinson’s declaration, headlined now by you, that Oregon State University administrators are throwing his three children out of graduate school in retribution for his political campaign, does not ring true. So I’m guessing there is more to this story.
Brad says:
March 7, 2011 at 8:19 am
“Call me when you get a news source, this is terrible if it happened, but I think it is highly doubtful based on my years in academics, and using WorldNetDaily as the only source makes it even more doubtful.”
In my years in the University system, I find it very highly likely that it IS happening. Pettiness, avaraice, and jealousy are the life blood of the faculty club, and mix in state funded research and politics and you get some real ugliness into the process.
Anthony,
The level of abuse to which some people stoop never ceases to amaze me; moreover the level of expounded vitriol is usually related to the level of protection such numpties feel, safe in their Internet castles.
It is the ultimate display of cowardice, none of the authors of that piece would have the, as we say over here, trouser potatoes to say that to your face.
One technique to avoid blood-pressure raising is, when reading such moronic drivel, to say out loud in suitable mothering tones: “ooo, someone’s tired”.
Cheers and keep up the good work
Mark
If this is legit, this is a terribly sad story. However there are a couple of alarm bells, one is that it was published in World Net Daily (which is where conspiracy kooks tend to get their stories published) and two the fact that the guy goes on rants about the professors like “militant feminist” and the like. This ad hom attack leads me to think that he is not serious, because a serious person would most likely want to present his case matter of factly. I’d be interested in a journalistic investigation of the claims here, because these are quite serious accusations.
I would hasten to point out that graduate departments can be VERY “tribal”.
The head of a graduate department is the “Chief”. He knows it, and he treats it the same way that Chiefs in any PRIMATIVE tribe would. A good friend of mine Ed P. (vauge enough)…30 years ago was a graduate student in the Mechanical Engineering department of a local University. He had an arguement with the “Department Head”. He told me the man said, “Ed, you will NEVER get your Phd here…” (He did have his MS degree completed.)
Ed had done some machine design for a professor in another engineering department, who had jokingly said: “If you ever want a Phd in (blank), let me know.” The day he had the DEPARTMENT HEAD “kill” his Phd (in MechE), he walked 300′ over to the other department, asked Dr. G. “Were you serious?” The good Dr. said, “Completely”.
I met Ed in the year’s graduate courses in that field he needed to take…but about 2 1/2 years later he had his Phd. Turned out that it was a “hot” field at the time, and he was employed within a MONTH after getting his Phd. Interestingly, years later Ed said, “Dr. S (MechE) did me a FAVOR… by slamming the door in my face.”
I hope that the influence of the “tribe” does not extend that far and Dr. Robinson’s children can make a similar decision and go elsewhere. I’d recommend U of IL Nuc. E. for example.
Max
At 8:22 AM on 7 March, theduke had written:
.
This is carried online at the WorldNetDaily site. It is written by Dr. Robinson himself. You want more verification than his byline?
How positively Sopranos.
The Robinsons should contact FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education).
FIRE has been remarkable in defending the rights of students and faculty when school administrations overstep their bounds
http://thefire.org/
Stop calling fascists “democrats”.
Apparently OSU and DeFazio are taking their lead from Obama: “Elections have consequences” .
You could sue him, in fact I would however these guys are actually really good news for the skeptic camp, there quickly destroying ANY credibility and showing… me thinks this guys is a 15 year ol kid probably
The nuclear program at OSU receives federal dollars it is not out of the question that someone in either the House or the Senate could open up an investigation.
Anthony, regarding the “Beast” bile. Just remember the psychological phenomenon known as “transference”. When you have people with certain psychotic tendancies, one of their behaviors is to run around and accuse others of the malfience THEY are involved in.
Thus I have my “suspicions” about a blog called, “THE BEAST”….(Happy 666 to you all!)
Call me when you get a news source, this is terrible if it happened, but I think it is highly doubtful based on my years in academics, and using WorldNetDaily as the only source makes it even more doubtful.
+ 1
I be willing to bet there is much MUCH more to this story than this. WND is pretty slimy and has no problem distorting facts or making up stuff to get attention!
Juice says:
“Could the guy have picked a worse outlet for this story than WND? Simply because the story is there, it has no credibility.”
Two points: first, mainstream newspapers are owned by the same kind of people that are attacking the Robinsons. Do you really believe the NY Times or any other major newspaper would cover this story?
And second: you are attacking the messenger instead of the message. The only thing that matters are the facts. Art Robinson is the moving force behind the OISM Petition, in which over 31,000 professionals with degrees in the hard sciences, including over 9,000 PhD’s, co-signed this statement:
That statement deconstructs the entire claim that “carbon” is a problem by making it clear that CO2 is harmless and beneficial, and it deconstructs the claim with credible co-signers such as Freeman Dyson and Edward Teller.
After trying and failing to show that the Petition is not legitimate, the purveyors of the runaway global warming scam are out for revenge. Publicity from WUWT will probably help the Robinsons more than the WND article.
Anent The Beast, howcumizzit that James Delingpole isn’t prominent on their enemies’ list?
These warmist jerkwads are not just malignant but blindly parochial in the bargain.
If Art Robinson says this is happening. You can bet it is. World Net Daily is not the issue.
I thought that the USA was “the land of the free, and the home of the brave”.
Land of the slaves and the home of the cowards, more like.
This story is a national disgrace for all you lot “over the pond”, and I hope you all can do something about it.
Anthony, I don’t mean to make light of what is obviously a very serious issue for anyone caught in the crosshairs of these nuts. But that site you linked to is so wrong, it’s actually funny. It makes me want to meet the makers of it just so I can be reminded of what madness looks like, and know the faces of those who held so strongly to a failed belief system.
I mean, look at it as dispassionately as you can. The guy adds a comment at the end about romantic encounters with animals directed at you. This means he was so desperate for something bad to say he decided to use (quite literally) the oldest direct insult humanity has to offer. I skimmed some of the others, but everything points to one thing:
—> This is hilariously poor as attack attempts go. That site, as any form of humor, is truly laughably bad.
I wouldn’t say I’m the best critic on such matters but I’ve been savoring internet wit since the early says of Seanbaby and Maddox, and that site is truly awful just in terms of what it attempts to do. I’m sorry to make light of what is obviously a serious issue. I can say for certain I wouldn’t like such attacks directed at me. But I must be honest and say, I went to that site and ended up laughing, not at the content, but at the severely inept creators.
Dear Anthony,
The climate has not behaved how the AGW’s predicted and their world is slowly falling apart.
They have taken what should be science and turned it into a religion and nothing but nothing makes people as intolerant as religion.
My view has always been that as and when the day arrives that the AGW theory is finally trashed the young women who believed it will be hugging one another and crying their eyes out whilst the lunatic fringe will turn to violence.
It won’t be like political and religious terrorism the AGW crowd will behave like the animal rights lunatics and make it personal to individuals.
Keep your nerve and if you can take him to court .
My daughter received her degree from OSU so I am somewhat familiar with the university. I did not get the impression that it was, as you claim, that is a bastion of socialist ideology (University of Oregon is considered more liberal than OSU.). I also do not agree with your political ideology, nor your characterization of the Obama Administration as being “out of control”. That being said, if what you claim is true about the treatment of your children at OSU (assuming there are no legitimate reasons for there being singled out by some faculty), I very much condemn such behavior. As a former Professor at four universities (2 in the UK and 2 in the US), I have never heard of such things happening on a campus. I hope that a full investigation is made into these allegations, and that all parties who have acted outside of academic norms are properly judged. Finally, I wish your children success in their schooling (which should certainly be based on their academic performance and not the political party affiliation of their father).
This is not the first time Art Robinson has tangled with an Oregon university. He is opposed to “socialist public education” and sells home-school curricula. Perhaps this is his attempt to discredit and smear public education.
The below quotation is from http://www.independentscientist.com/
Art’s warrior instincts’ also came to the fore after his daughter Arynne enrolled at Southern Oregon University. To graduate, she was told, she had to take a course called “colloquium,” an exercise “specifically designed to destroy her faith, her innocence, her self-respect, and her happiness in her way of life,” Art says. Advance placement had allowed the boys to skip this insult. So why not remove her from the school? As it happened, the science faculty was excellent, the university’s proximity was convenient, and his tax dollars were paying for this travesty. “What can a student do if the science, engineering and mathematics courses are held hostage by the ‘humanities’ departments?”
Art informed the university administration that they faced law suits, adverse publicity, and “an ever increasing telephone, fax, and letter campaign.” The first two did not worry them, Art says-they had the lawyers and the media. But the third did. It would have involved many thousands of inquiries, and they would be needing extra telephone lines and secretaries. The president backed down at the last minute. “We won this fight without firing a shot,” Art told his friends, “but only because we were prepared to shoot.” And they were able to do so only because a large number of his subscribers and home-schooling friends “were available to help.