William Lau, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, T.N. Krishnamurti, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, Vasu Misra, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Ben Kirtman, University of Miami, Miami, FL, Robert Dickinson, University of Texas, Austin, TX, Michela Biasutti, Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY
Mark Cane, Columbia University, New York, NY, Lisa Goddard, Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, Alan Betts, Atmospheric Research, Pittsford, VT
From CEI’s web page:
CEI Defeats RICO-20 Ringleader In FOIA Lawsuit
George Mason University Must Release Documents Calling for Prosecution of Political Opponents
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) prevailed in a Virginia Freedom of Information Act (VFOIA) lawsuit against George Mason University (GMU). The VFOIA request sought public records showing how the “RICO-20” group of academics, using public funding, organized their call for a federal racketeering investigation of “corporations and other entities” who disagreed with them on climate policy.
The judge ruled for CEI on all counts in an April 22 ruling in Christopher Horner and CEI v. George Mason University that the court released today. The ruling concluded that by leaving it to faculty who simply told the school’s FOIA officer they had no responsive records, GMU failed to conduct an adequate search; the judge also ruled that documents including emails from GMU Professor Ed Maibach must be released to CEI.
“This victory puts on notice those academics who have increasingly inserted themselves into politics, that they cannot use taxpayer-funded positions to go after those who disagree with them and expect to hide it,” said Chris Horner, CEI fellow and co-plaintiff. “These records are highly relevant to the state attorneys general campaign that these academics hoped for, and will be of great assistance to the public in trying to understand how their tax dollars are being used for political fights.”
In 2015, George Mason University (GMU) faculty claimed “no records” existed in response to CEI VFOIA request for records regarding Professor Ed Maibach’s role as a ringleader of the RICO-20 campaign. Other universities provided proof that the “no records” claim was not true, which prompted CEI to sue GMU over the FOIA dispute.
The RICO-20, including six GMU faculty, wrote a September 1 letter from 20 climate scientists to President Barack Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and White House science adviser John Holdren requesting a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) investigation of “the fossil fuel industry and their supporters.” The scientists allege that the aforementioned interests “knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, in order to forestall America’s response to climate change.” CEI’s FOIA efforts extend to each public university represented in the letter. GMU is not the only school to falsely claim “no records” existed.
In May 2015, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) called for a RICO investigation of “fossil fuel companies and their allies.” The academics “strongly endorse” Sen. Whitehouse’s proposal. Documents provided by two universities suggest the RICO-20 recruited this support, not for any legislation, but for his call to prosecute political opponents, in consultation with Sen. Whitehouse.
In April, 2016, CEI was subpoenaed by the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands for a decade’s worth of climate policy related work. CEI is vigorously fighting the subpoena, which is an attack on its First Amendment rights.
Here is the order denying their appeal to the April 22nd decision:
The full court document: GMU-FOIA-Orders (PDF)
There’s quite a backstory to this, which we’ll cover later. -Anthony
UPDATE: Some emails are released in this document, they make for interesting reading: http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/img20160205_17361082.pdf
UPDATE2:
From EELegal
For Immediate Release:
May 13, 2016
Virginia Circuit Court Dissolves Protective Order on GMU Professor’s E-mail;
National Campaign led by AG’s to Use RICO Against ‘Climate Skeptics’ will be Revealed in Released E-mails
Washington, D.C. – Today the public came one big step closer to learning the truth behind how university professors launched “a national campaign” to have state attorneys general investigate and prosecute political opponents under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) — investigations which have now swept up think tanks and climate scientists who have dared challenge the climate agenda and claims made to force it into place.
Representing Christopher Horner and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, attorneys from the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic successfully argued that the public records of Professor Edward Maibach should now be disclosed to all, having previously been submitted to the court under a protective order. Having reviewed these emails under seal, we were aware of their connection and importance to the ongoing and expanding abuses by state AGs to use law enforcement powers to go after opponents.
On April 22, the Richmond (VA) Circuit Court held that the emails were public records, that they are not protected by any exemption and thus must be disclosed. Because they were being held secret under a protective order, and in light of the Court’s decision, today FME Law asked the court to dissolve the protective order and allow the records to be made public. The Virginia Assistant Attorney General, representing George Mason University, asked the protective order remain in place and that the ruling be stayed while it appealed the underlying decision to the Supreme Court. After extensive oral argument, the Court concluded that the appeal would most likely fail and thus it dissolved the protective order, allowing the public to view records about a disgraceful campaign that the public paid for.
Director of the FME Law Clinic, David W. Schnare, commented, “We need to protect the work of academics as set forth in Freedom of Information Acts, which laws make exception for information that should be legitimately protected, for example relating to research. But when professors voluntarily enter the policy arena, particularly in this case when they use their positions specifically to advance a political agenda, they are no different than any other government employee and the law treats them accordingly.”
FME Law, the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, and others should now look forward to publicly discussing what this information reveals about the ongoing campaign by text pair funded academics, lawn force meant officials, and major political party donors to use the offices of attorney general to prosecute and silence political opponents.
A total of 5 PDFs, 190 pages
Here’s one:
Here’s another showing how they planned to use tobacco lawsuit tactics:
Here is the genesis of the whole affair. Shukla can’t believe the public remains mostly skeptical, therefore it must be a big oil conspiracy. Some scientist, op-eds replace factual research for him:
Here’s Shukla’s response to a tobacco lawyer meeting, seems his first effort into political lobbying turned into a disaster, as we see now:
“Don’t turn climate into God.”:
LOL! Union of Concerned Scientists bows out of climate circus they propose, doesn’t think it is a good idea to get involved:
Here’s the worst part – they knowingly tried to circumvent future FOIA requests:
Next up is John Holdren, the high ranking useful idiot with the FOIA-fighting apparatus backing him.
On Monday CEI was granted discovery (that means sworn depositions, (meaning perjury is at stake) in the Holdren global warming causes cooling 2 minute White House video Holdren made and then claimed was unofficial to avoid the ‘truthful support law’ inquiry by CEI. The judge found the White House acted in bad faith in attempting to dodge FOI regarding same by first saying there were no docs, and then trying claim exec priviledge when CEI produced some.
There is a pattern forming here.
This White House is the most corrupt, dishonest bunch of people ever to occupy it.
And the sad thing is, I believe they know it.
CEI should countersue under the Ku Klux Klan Act Shukla et al for attempting to deny them their civil rights. Go after the VI Attorney General, too.
18USC241 is criminal, and is initiated by a US attorney. Unlikely.
Civil liability under 42USC1985 means CEI can sue directly for large sums.
But for an offense not resulting in death the statute of limitations on 18USC241 is 7 years. I believe the clock starts to run with discovery, not with the actual offense, so these guys are far from off the hook for criminal conspiracy. At the very least an unsympathetic AG could scare the crap out of them, turnabout is fair play…
Ristvan,
Couldn’t a person file a verified complaint?
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1985
42 U.S. Code § 1985 – Conspiracy to interfere with civil rights
(1) Preventing officer from performing duties
If two or more persons in any State or Territory conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States, or from discharging any duties thereof; or to induce by like means any officer of the United States to leave any State, district, or place, where his duties as an officer are required to be performed, or to injure him in his person or property on account of his lawful discharge of the duties of his office, or while engaged in the lawful discharge thereof, or to injure his property so as to molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his official duties;
(2) Obstructing justice; intimidating party, witness, or juror
If two or more persons in any State or Territory conspire to deter, by force, intimidation, or threat, any party or witness in any court of the United States from attending such court, or from testifying to any matter pending therein, freely, fully, and truthfully, or to injure such party or witness in his person or property on account of his having so attended or testified, or to influence the verdict, presentment, or indictment of any grand or petit juror in any such court, or to injure such juror in his person or property on account of any verdict, presentment, or indictment lawfully assented to by him, or of his being or having been such juror; or if two or more persons conspire for the purpose of impeding, hindering, obstructing, or defeating, in any manner, the due course of justice in any State or Territory, with intent to deny to any citizen the equal protection of the laws, or to injure him or his property for lawfully enforcing, or attempting to enforce, the right of any person, or class of persons, to the equal protection of the laws;
(3) Depriving persons of rights or privileges
If two or more persons in any State or Territory conspire or go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another, for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws; or for the purpose of preventing or hindering the constituted authorities of any State or Territory from giving or securing to all persons within such State or Territory the equal protection of the laws; or if two or more persons conspire to prevent by force, intimidation, or threat, any citizen who is lawfully entitled to vote, from giving his support or advocacy in a legal manner, toward or in favor of the election of any lawfully qualified person as an elector for President or Vice President, or as a Member of Congress of the United States; or to injure any citizen in person or property on account of such support or advocacy; in any case of conspiracy set forth in this section, if one or more persons engaged therein do, or cause to be done, any act in furtherance of the object of such conspiracy, whereby another is injured in his person or property, or deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States, the party so injured or deprived may have an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury or deprivation, against any one or more of the conspirators.
(R.S. § 1980.)
[Moderator, please delete my longer post here on this subject, which is not displayed yet and may have gone into the ether. Thank you.]
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1985
42 U.S. Code § 1985 – Conspiracy to interfere with civil rights
(3) Depriving persons of rights or privileges
If two or more persons in any State or Territory conspire or go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another, for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws; or for the purpose of preventing or hindering the constituted authorities of any State or Territory from giving or securing to all persons within such State or Territory the equal protection of the laws; or if two or more persons conspire to prevent by force, intimidation, or threat, any citizen who is lawfully entitled to vote, from giving his support or advocacy in a legal manner, toward or in favor of the election of any lawfully qualified person as an elector for President or Vice President, or as a Member of Congress of the United States; or to injure any citizen in person or property on account of such support or advocacy; in any case of conspiracy set forth in this section, if one or more persons engaged therein do, or cause to be done, any act in furtherance of the object of such conspiracy, whereby another is injured in his person or property, or deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States, the party so injured or deprived may have an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury or deprivation, against any one or more of the conspirators.
(R.S. § 1980.)
I don’t know if this has been covered, but it is a felony for any government official to act to deprive your rights by falsely claiming you are doing something criminal. 18 USC para 242 “Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law”
I thought the same in an earlier post however, someone properly pointed out that 18 USC 242 only applies “on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race,”
So, this statute would not apply.
Not by my reading. There are two clauses, separated by an ‘or’
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242
“Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States,
or
to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens”
Link to full document needs fixing.
Documents including lots of emails between Maibach and Shukla are up at Junkscience
Documents at
http://junkscience.com/2016/05/court-allows-climate-skeptics-access-to-rico20-profs-e-mail/
Shukla is toast. First, Rep Smith confirms the double dipping and violation of GMU moonlighting rules, and refers to the NSF Inspector General for appropriate legal action, which can include incarceration and restitution. Now he’s caught out lying concerning FOIA. The emails will build a prima facie 42USC1985 civil action against all of the RICO 20.
I’m sure you’d also agree, RI, that Shukla’s “overwhelming evidence” statements prove his scientific incompetence.
Minxey, referring to. . .?
[Reply: ‘Minxey’ is a site pest/ID thief. Disregard him. -mod]
ristvan, do you think Shukla will be indicted on criminal charges? I keep hoping… Perhaps when Chris Christie is appointed USAG.
should get his views on Eugenics and population control on the record. Holdren is a Pseudoscience
advocate that should have been castrated during his studying years.
Scott, Holdren held a position under John Ehrlich so he is likely a castrato already
Paul Ehrlich
I’m finding that my inattention to detail the older I get is making the result of my typing an awful lot like Yogi Berra’s speech.
I recall when Ehrlich came to speak at my college in the late 70’s, about the coming new Ice Age and how we were all going to starve. I stepped up to the microphone and said it all sounded like an excuse for government control of everything, and his answer was like, “Yeah, what’s your point?”
Holdren is Obama’s offical junk scientist
Looks authoritative on the late night talk shows, though.
Obama relies on the likes of Al Sharpton for his “civil rights” expertise, which is so far off the mark as to be completely embarrassing, so it’s just a bunch of clowns advising a bunch of political hacks at top levels.
I’m surprised the Russians haven’t marched in and taken over.
The RICO law was designed to extend penalties for an illegal enterprise (money laundering, murder for hire, etc.). Until emitting CO2 becomes illegal, how could RICO apply? Every living thing on this planet would be guilty. Even if the oil companies own research showed CO2 causes warming, even “dangerous” warming, RICO could not apply. Someone correct me otherwise.
The sale of cigarettes were/are a legal enterprise last time I looked. Conspiracy to hide the danger was the key to the tobacco RiCO case.
“ Conspiracy to hide the danger was the key to the tobacco RiCO case.”
HA, then the CO2 RiCO (threatened) case will be a “winner” for the wacko warminists ….. simply because there is no scientifically factual evidence that supports or proves the “junk science” claims of the dangers to the human populace being caused by cigarette smoke and/or atmospheric CO2 increases.
Juries consisting of “junk-science” nurtured, liberally biased “brainwashed” individuals will always “find-in-favor-of” ….. their like-minded mentor(s) when said mentor(s) is party to a law suit.
“ Conspiracy to hide the danger was the key to the tobacco RiCO case.”
HA, then the CO2 RiCO (threatened) case will be a “winner” for the wacko warminists ….. simply because there is no scientifically factual evidence that supports or proves the “junk science” claims of the dangers to human populace that is being caused by cigarette smoke and/or atmospheric CO increases.
Juries consisting of “junk-science” nurtured, liberally biased “brainwashed” individuals will always “find-in-favor-of” ….. their like-minded mentor(s) when said mentor(s) is party to a law suit.
The sale of cigarettes were/are a legal enterprise. What was proved was a conspiracy to hide the danger using RICO.
In the case of CAGW, there is no danger to hide. CAGW is not happening. The defendants are being attacked for not believing in fairy tales.
The following was excerpted from a now defunct ACS published Internet commentary, to wit:
So “Yes”, the tobacco control “cultural revolution” was a resounding success because the children were forcibly “brainwashed” and the populace believed the fear mongering “junk science” claims without benefit of any scientific evidence to support or prove their beliefs.
And CAGW is simply a “repeat” of the appropriate fear mongering “junk science” claims that the children are forcibly “brainwashed” into believing and which are required to benefit a cultural revolution in fossil fuel usage control …….. without benefit of any scientific evidence to support or prove their beliefs.
If you “brainwashed” the minds of the children ……. you will soon have total control of the minds of the populace.
Duncan, This is what opened the door to this abomination. One might naively think that we’d already know better based on historical precedents, yet we learn but slowly and reluctantly from history and forget what we ought to have learned in the blink of an eye.
As an instance of forgetting what we ought to have learned, I submit as Exhibit A a point made by Michael Crichton in his 2004 novel called “State of Fear”.
Crichton pointed out in that book that the Global Warming mania arrived hot on the heels of the Big Tobacco trials in the mid 1990s. The Legal Bar consequently made the instantaneous connection that Global Warming was going to be the Next Big Thing: a highly profitable way to go after Big Oil.
That was almost 20 years ago, and STILL there have been no public trials with Alarmists and Skeptics pitted against one another in the court room. Crichton’s point in 2004 was that as soon as the Alarmist lawyers began to seriously examine the case for/against, their enthusiasm for a high profile suit against Big Oil dribbled away to nothing, and so it remains today.
Mark Steyn has been ferociously eager to come to grips with the Big Climate enforcers, yet they are now using all the tricks they have to delay/prevent an actual trial.
Here is my prediction. There will continue to be much sound and fury from the left, just as there has been for the past 20 years. However, the Alarmists will continue to refuse to enter a courtroom where there are well informed expert witnesses on both sides of this debate.
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the Alarmist position cannot withstand well prepared opponents faced on equal terms.
@ markbofill, 11:08 pm, you wrote, “One might naively think that we’d already know better based on historical precedents, yet we learn but slowly and reluctantly from history and forget what we ought to have learned in the blink of an eye.”
Looking at history I doubt we even “slowly and reluctantly” learn anything, this is a case in point. You’d think that these so called “educated” people would know better but hey they went to Uni’s in the 70’s so I wonder what kind of long term effect the damage from dope has after all.
Doing the same things that one has done before, and expecting a different result, is a definition of insanity.
Doing the same things that others have done before, and expecting a different result, is a definition of hubris.
I already contemplated the “smoking” precedent and I cannot draw any correlations. Forest fires produce CO2 (non-toxic) and other toxins like Carbon Monoxide above 35ppm. If people ‘packaged’ and sold “forest fires” saying they are healthy alternatives to breathing normal air, I can see the precedent for RICO. Oil companies sell gasoline which are already covered by MSDS sheets explaining toxicity, flammability, by-products, safe handling instructions, etc. People exhale CO2, if believing CO2 causes climate change is then ever person subject to Racketeering charges for continuing with this criminal behavior? Maybe this is where the ‘greens’ are going with this whole argument.
“People exhale CO2, if believing CO2 causes climate change is then ever person subject to Racketeering charges for continuing with this criminal behavior? ”
Everyone BUT them yes. Because they only exhale perfectly green and beneficial CO2 while the rest of us common folk exhale the “dirty” kind.
In all seriousness–you are looking for logic where there is none. If you told a greenie to hold their breath to keep from killing the planet they won’t know what the hell you are talking about. Because it isn’t about the CO2, it’s about the “dirty oil industry”. It’s not even about “clean” energy either because nuclear and hydroelectric are completely ignored. There is no logic in their arguments because it has become a religion (or reverted back to one) where man is inherently evil, man is a plague upon the Earth and man is solely responsible–and accountable–for everything (from the sun rising to the moon phases).
Duncan, the EPA has determined that rising levels of CO2 produced dangerous climate change and that C02 can be regulated to avoid these dangers. The Fossil Fuel industry is knowingly misleading the public that buying and using Fossil Fuel is safe, when they know that rising levels of CO2 is a danger to the whole world. Why can you not see the how this is the same as the tobacco industry misleading the public about the safety of cigarettes? Except with Fossil Fuels it is much more serious because the entire world is threatened by rising CO2 and climate change. It is the knowingly misleading the public in order to sell their products that makes this an obvious RICO offense.
Well, maybe for the sun rising too early, and “that time of the month”, but let’s keep it real, Jenn ; )
Dan, are you saying that as soon as the EPA (a political organization) determines a conclusion, no one is allowed to challenge that? To do so is a crime? What about the market place of ideas? The EPA can present their case and implement rules and regulations at the same time as their target makes their case that the EPA is mistaken. We the citizens can then vote for who should be the new chief executive to appoint the head of the EPA
Dan, I understand your side of the argument, it’s very targeted that is the problem. As example, the US military embraces climate action yet continue to burn copious amounts of fossil fuels, depleted uranium rounds, etc. Knowing they are a danger to the whole world, should they not stop doing this? Do they get a free pass just because they know?
My point, even if the fossil fuel industry knows CO2 is dangerous, how does this single them out? Just because McDonald’s knows high fat diets are bad for the human body, should they be RICO’ed too. They even advertise to kids, one of the standards used against the tobacco companies. It’s a misappropriation of the law IMO. Politicly savy, I give them that.
@John Knight;
LOL. Why? They certainly aren’t. Ok, Ok, I’ll keep it out of the sandbox and try to remember to not throw sand when they do. 🙂
Duncan, RICO absolutely would apply to McDonalds if they knowingly mislead the public about what is in their food or tried to make some sort of health claim about their food. I am sure they very carefully avoid that type of deception and make calorie and food content lists available to customers. It is the fraud/deception that would be the key to a RICO violation.
blcartwright, I mention the EPA findings because that would be used to prosecute the RICO charge and determine whether a judge (also a political entity) considers there enough evidence to allow a RICO accusation to proceed to trial. It would of course be up to a jury to determine the truth. I am sure there is no juror out there who would decide that the EPA findings are true and that the Fossil Fuel companies were not 100% honest. By the way, I am totally in favor of you fighting the EPA and trying to make lots of money by telling people that EPA findings are wrong.
“As example, the US military embraces climate action yet continue to burn copious amounts of fossil fuels, depleted uranium rounds, etc. Knowing they are a danger to the whole world, should they not stop doing this?” Huhhh??? Please provide links to documentation indicating that the military “embraces” [willingly, gladly, etc.] climate action.
1. The Military analyzes the effects of climate change as part of their need to have a strategy for combating/mitigating potential problems in the future regardless of their probability when there exists a potential that it is possible. Its’called “Being Prepared.” Does the fact that you have discussed what to do in case of a fire with your family imply that you “embrace” your house burning down?
2. The Obama administration has Directed the military, and all other government agencies, departments, commissions, etc. etc. to reduce their energy usage through efficiency, insulation and Architectural design measures, AND, by obtaining 20% of their electricity from “Renewable Energy.” Does the fact that the military spends 10% plus on burocratic mandates that give them 1 cent on the dollar return imply that they “embrace” renewable energy?
3. A common misconception is that radiation is depleted uranium’s primary hazard. It is used in just about all of the record setting racing sailing yachts, and many others. Depleted uranium is approximately 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium. It can be handled in your unprotected hands. The many parks and national monuments in western USA have high levels of natural uranium, same in Austrilia. Not high enough to “mine” but right there on the surface giving you a dose higher than allowed by the NRC for any Radiation Worker, in many areas. Are you going to quit visiting them and notify the public of your ignorance at the same time? The oceans contain natural uranium and depleted uranium. The soil in your backyard contains uranium for mor info – http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/dod/du_factsheet_4aug98.htm
Dan, we are arguing semantics. Mcdonald’s advertising “health food” as being perceived more healthy. RICO them. One of new kale salads has more calories, fat and sodium than a Double Big Mac.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/mcdonalds-kale-calorie-questions-1.3423938
Mr Brain. “embraces” might have been an overstatement considering the current political climate but I am sure the extra funding does not hurt. “It says the military will not be able to maintain effectiveness unless the directive is followed. It orders the establishment of a new layer of bureaucracy — a wide array of “climate change boards, councils and working groups” to infuse climate change into “programs, plans and policies.””
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/7/pentagon-orders-commanders-to-prioritize-climate-c/?page=all
Dan, to add (as I steal your tin-foil hat) combined prescription drugs, alcohol and poor food choices combine to kill tens ( if not hundreds of) thousands of people every year. Yet these industries do not get RICO’ed? They are aware of their products being killers, world wide, yet they go on? I’ll finish, this is a chess move for political gain, nothing more. To argue anything else shows your true political stripes.
Duncan May 13, 2016 at 2:51 pm
. As example, the US military embraces climate action yet continue to burn copious amounts of fossil fuels, depleted uranium rounds,
Dan What are you babbling about? The only thing the US embraces is blasting people who threaten the safety of the United States off the face of the earth. The only Climate action the military embraces is turning perfectly good farm, pasture or city land into moonscape. Get will the program, It the administration that “embraces” climate delusion. The administration then orders the military to act silly mush like Caligula and his orders to have the Legions attack the sea and gather sea shells as booty.
michael
@ Duncan “but I am sure the extra funding does not hurt. ” What country do you live in? Have you not heard that the military is thread bare, repairing equipment by taking parts off of Reserve and NG equipment? The Graveyard of older aircraft has been stripped to skeletons and scrap aluminium. And the dollars are spent on Renewable Energy rather than their operating/training funds requirements. Where is the Extra Funding coming from?
I retired from the local electric utility. The utility has a contract to provide the local AFB with electricity at 3 cents per kWh, meanwhile, the AFB is forced to buy all available Wind energy from a government contracted wind farm [built at DOD expense] at a great price of 25 cents per kWh. Workers from other companies have told me similar stories. Worse yet, there are non government contract wind farms willing to sell for 5 cents per kWh so that they qualify for government subsidies. And you think the military embraces that extra expenditure?
You need to visit some web sites other than the AGW Cult Choir.
Mr Brain. I think you are barking up the wrong tree. I live in Canada, I love the USA besides some minor differences. Everyone wants hates USA until they need the USA. Everyone else can pound sand.
Unfortunate, all this “extra funding” will not get to YOU on the front lines. It’s the $500 toilet seat fiasco again. Your military climate commandos will be eating caviar.
@Duncan ‘ wide array of “climate change boards, councils and working groups” to infuse climate change into “programs, plans and policies.” Search, find, download, and read that drivel. Paragraphs, sections are word for word from the “UN Agenda 21” Sustainability diatribe. The document that the left says does not exist, that the USA has not agreed to, some eve mock those that claim the USA is doing it. Seems strange that the counties newest building code has whole sections that are also word for word from UN documents. So, why do military programs mimic UN documents that the USA has not committed to? [Also retired military and have seen them.]
Can you imagine what it is going to be like when the USA is governed just like the UN. Hope all liberals live long enough to suffer under what they precipitated.
Duncan, I absolutely agree with you “this is a chess move for political gain, nothing more.” You were just wondering how this compared with the cigarette RICO suit and I was explaining how it compares and the justification of those bringing the charge. I think it is unconscionable that they are trying to bring a RICO suit to “climate deniers”. I sincerely hope and pray that it backfires on them.
Scientific “certainty” is abused, flogged, twisted, undermined, pummeled, and tortured everyday in our courtrooms. I believe it is a major cause of most cases of injustice in America. Scientific “certainty” is almost always overstated and jurors almost always accept any scientific evidence.
There was far more behind the smoking RICO action than “just smoking tobacco”
The tobacco executives were claiming that they never saw/read/heard evidence against smoking
The tobacco companies did go on mis-information campaigns. They also actively sought to discredit people and scientists against tobacco.
Then the court cases shook loose letters, presentations and discussions.
Turns out the tobacco executives received research notices regarding nicotine, tobacco tars, cancer rates, exposures, etc.
— The tobacco executives not only knew nicotine was extremely addictive, but they also adjusted nicotine levels in their products to ensure solid addictions.
— The tobacco executives initiated and operated the tobacco industry’s official program that insisted there were no connections between smoking and cancer.
— Tobacco executives were implicated in campaigns to discredit, demonize scientists and where possible damage their careers.
These, extremely simply stated, were/are the main case points leading to RICO charges against the tobacco industry.
Or do the alarmists plan to prove skeptics caused plants and living creatures to be addicted to carbon monoxide?
Meanwhile; the alarmists engage in campaigns to damage careers and employment circumstances to any persons of contrary thought.
— The alarmists want to incarcerate people and scientists just for being skeptical.
— The alarmists are the ones who refuse discussion or to properly share research and data.
Duncan May 13, 2016 at 5:14 pm
$500 toilet seat fiasco again.
You, need to look a bit deeper. Yes the over expensive ashtrays, the 700 dollar hammers. If you built a mullti million dollar submarine you don’t want it compromised because someone knocked a ashtray off a table.
The quality control is much higher on parts machined for military vs civilian. 1-10 % inspection vs 100%.
And yes Duncan I know this because I was a machinist-Toolmaker in both areas. Every part I ever made for aerospace has a paper trail with my name on it. When you need a battery to work it MUST work. Not 90% of the time not 99% not 99.999 but 100%. For want of a nail a shoe was lost, for want of a shoe a rider was lost….
michael
Mike,
I live quality control day to day as a Engineer/Project Manager (ASME Code, Nuclear, Gas, etc.). For example, calibration certificates cost more than the gauge itself, the gauge is already calibrated from the factory, but the “paper” (photo copy) is more. Justify how you want, $700 hammers, hey, I need a pay check too.
While my projects are around 500-700 thousand, no nuclear sub by all means, I see the waste.
Funny how Toyota has figured out how to make an ashtray for a few $$ and it’s bumping around a lot more than a sub. Who is smoking on a sub nowadays anyways, all that CO2 and whatever. Still need to install those ash trays though at $700 a piece.
Back in WII, they could build a ship one a day in the USA. Today, they are built in Korea.
If Exxon have scientific proof AGW is a valid hypothesis that would be something.
I seriously doubt anyone Exxon hired has that kind of experience and knowledge. The science hasn’t even been born yet, it’s just models and a lot of wild guess figures thrown around and lent authority because it is an extremely weak argument.
As Steyn says, the idea is so weak it cannot even bear public debate
Duncan May 13, 2016 at 6:06 pm
Again only civilian experience.
amateur hour.
Did you get finger printed? Did you sign a sabotage clause? I did. There is a place,its called Leavenworth.
did the stuff you did never did to spic lead you to such a place if you blew off your responsibility?
Me my Dad flew in the birds, I turned people in, yes I was a rat. Surprise. We are not in the same league
Next self serving ill informed unresearched assumption please.
michael
Time to slap the epa with a Rico lawsuit for their handling of the flint water fiasco.
Duncan:
The more you comment, the greater the confusion you leave.
Well, that’s a new one on me. Just what ships did they build in a day?
And the shipyards in various American ports are still building frontline ships today. You might find some foreign boats or inflatables used b the services; you won’t find any ships.
You’re a QE and you’re bitching about certification documents?
Gauges are set to calibration standards at the factory.
Expensive gauges are even individually calibrated at the factory. Inexpensive gauges might have a few per hundred tested.
Then the gauges are sent to the purchaser; located elsewhere. Different altitude, different weather systems, different work environment,…
Some engineer, certified, tests the gauge, adjusts if necessary and certifies the accuracy and limits of the gauge.
Cost to certify:
Receipt of gauge.
Scheduling of gauge certification
Certified and qualified engineer disassembles and certifies the gauge.
Engineer records all adjustments, accuracy and certification limits.
Copy of certificate and gauge are processed through billing and shipping.
I suppose you want all of this to be free?
Whine about the costs all you want. You want precise and accurate, you’ll pay the price.
If you want whatever the gauge might happen to say; you have no right to claim quality standards then.
Once upon a time, my Father bought a broken grocer scale at an auction. During the summers we kids worked the crops and for local farmers plus we sold what was ripe off the front porch.
One year when the tomato crops came in well over estimates and we were feeding even slightly overripe tomatoes to the pigs, it got so the pigs were less than happy at tomatoes in their trough.
We switched out the working grocer scale for the broken one.
Neighbor tomato sellers would squawk and get angry with us if we went too far off rational price scale, so we played dumb with a broken scale.
People would buy a shopping bag full of tomatoes that the scale would read at three pounds.
We’d watch their faces and it was amazing to us just how many people got so excited to cheat the dumb farmer kids.
Maybe one or two people in a hundred would try to alert us to the broken scale.
But we got rid of an incredible amount of extra tomatoes. We also noticed that few of the folks most gleeful with their unpaid for tomatoes, rarely returned; and those that did, avoided eye contact.
That was also the summer that our processing tomato sauce steamed the wall paper off the wall in the kitchen. We also fed a lot of excess cayenne peppers to the pigs which definitely did not like cayenne peppers.
I shop the surplus government auctions every chance I get. Most of the equipment is far superior to anything I find locally.
My last purchase was a box of various nuts and bolts. 4140 steel bolts, grade 8 and 5 nuts, titanium rivets…
I separated out what I could use and sold the rest; grade 8 nuts are worth quite a bit. The government sold a mess to me and I spent a few days sorting and cleaning. They got cash for the mess and I received cash for sorted quality material.
Auctions with those $700 hammers and expensive coffee pots sell for far more than I can afford. The government doesn’t really lose that much money.
Reply: The record was set by [The Liberty Ship] SS Robert E. Peary, which was launched 4 days and 15½ hours after the keel was laid…~ctm, the one reply wonder, now heading back underground after this brief guest appearance. ciao!
ATheoK
“Well, that’s a new one on me. Just what ships did they build in a day?”
Liberty ships were launched at a rate of one per day. They were made in a vast yard that had a sort of assembly line organisation but the keel remained in one place.
One of the main organisers of this extraordinary feat was a stumpy Canadian with whom I shared a design office when I worked for IMAX in Mississauga. He told me in detail how the achievement of launching a ship per day was done. In his dotage he was developing solid state power control circuitry for industrial applications when the rest of us were looking to upgrade our slide rules.
Why can you not see the how this is the same as the tobacco industry misleading the public about the safety of cigarettes?
=========================
because you have to prove damages. that is the key point. you have to show that CO2 has caused actual damages, like people dying of lung cancer and the government having to pick up the bills.
go ahead, sue the oil companies. and if you win and cannot prove that there has been harm, the courts will say. yep, you won, and the oil companies owe you nothing.
because without actual harm there is no case for damages. what actual harm has CO2 done you? be specific. How much are you out of pocket?
Let’s see the recent emails conversing with state AG staffs.
One of the reasons these scientists got themselves into this mess is that they believe the tobacco-funding memes of the leftist organizations they follow.
You see this political manipulation clearly, yet you keep your head from sticking out of the parapit, leaving others to take the brunt. Calling it as I see it.
Dr. Spencer has accumulated more than his share of slings and arrows because he had the colossal temerity to tell the truth. He makes most of the rest of us look like mere guttersnipes.
Yeah, commieBob, what the hell is david talking about here?
Not by choice. I can’t create more notoriety than others bestow upon me.
Like it or not, if someone moves slightly into the realm or discussion of the “political manipulation” (even by just pointing it out, and even if they are 100% correct), they will lose the some respect. That’s just the way it is.
Those that stay above the fray most of the time can create a bigger impact when they do choose to get close to it.
It is not about you.
First of all it is a parapet, not a “parapit”.
Second, you say you are calling it as you see it, yet I have no idea what you see.
Care to elucidate it for me ?
David, i reject your premise… Anyone who engages in activism should do so as he or she sees fit. I read a comment recently on an open thread here at wuwt. It went something like, “i’m not here to fight, i’m here to win.” THAT is what it’s all about; every activist has to dig down deep within to find the way to win. Whatever strategy the activist uses must have that one goal in mind, WINNING! And it’s not always going to look like what people on the outside think it should look like…
Nonsense did Roy not quit NASA over this nonsense.
he has gone on the media to debate Schmidt, who chickened out,
If you are thinking a scientist should get all political, you are a numpty, because that is the bloody problem.
One informed vote in favour of Roy Spencer.
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
– George Orwell
David, why the cheap shot on Dr Spencer? (what’s your beef?)
Sophistry + rhetoric + government funding + magic computers + ignorant media hungry for compelling stories = $$$
David Ball, May 13, 2016 at 1:48 pm wrote: “It is not about you.”
Cheap shot, David.
Roy Spencer, May 13, 2016 at 11:02 am wrote: “One of the reasons these scientists got themselves into this mess is that they believe the tobacco-funding memes of the leftist organizations they follow.”
I don’t see how these scientists got themselves into any mess, no matter what they believed or how they were brainwashed by one side or the other.
The bottom line is CAGW is an unproven theory, and it does not make one guilty of anything, if you don’t believe in the theory’s validity, or if you say the theory has not been proven. All you are doing is telling the truth. Telling the truth should not be a criminal offense.
(y)
…(?)
(!)
..Otter, you never cease to amaze me…( by the way, you owe me about 4 monitors now )…LOL
……………. haha ……………………….
This actually all started two years ago at Scripps in LaJolla in a two day activist brainstorm session attended by the likes of Naomi Klein and Naomi Oreskes. Its modeled on Merchants of Doubt and the tobacco analog. Problem for warmunists is, the analogy utterly fails. Easy to prove smoking/lung cancer connection. First done in UK in 1954. Very difficult to prove CAGW now. There hasn’t been any. Temperature not rising this century except 2015 El Nino blip. No acceleration of SLR. Greening. Snow.
See my comment re Michael Crichton and “State of Fear” above.
it’s not difficult, it is impossible to prove AGW because there is no human CO2 signal.
it’s a load of science and some pseudo science all based on several assumptions, some of which have been shown to be actual bunk, which is why they are still staying well away from attribution in discussion because any discussion will reveal they have no idea.
The Germans made the link in the 1930’s. They banned smoking in the underground and in public offices. But, they were the Nazi’s, so, they had to be wrong. The USA, fighting for freedom, promoted tobacco use. Right up to the Clinton administration.
They were called ‘cancer sticks’ when I was a kid in the 60’s. We have brains. We don’t fall in line just because the cigarette companies OR the government tells us something is one way or the other.
I started smoking in 1963 in college and quit in 2003. At no time did I ever think smoking was good for you. The description of cigarettes as “coffin nails” go back to early 20th century. Likewise the government did not promote smoking even though the cigarette companies did. People did it anyway because they enjoyed smoking.
http://scholarship.law.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1879&context=mlr
42 US code 1983 and 1985 prohibit conspiracies to deny citizens their rights. Go after Sukla ‘RICO’ group AND the US attorneys on this, for trying to deprive skeptics their freedom of speech and association.
Fully agree. And sue the AG’s in their personal rather than official capacities on grounds of abuse of prosecutorial discretion, which 27 other state AG’s have already said is the case.
Agreed. There is no way they should be able to hide behind their “official” capacities when the rightful punishment for their stupid witch hunt comes around.
Agree 100%. I’m so sick of these self-righteous Eco-Nazis.
Even the IPCC agrees that mild warming is beneficial. It is only warming over 1.8C or so that begins to get harmful, and we HAVE NOT YET reached that point.
So all that can be said is the Oil Companies conspired to bring us a net benefit.
We also do not KNOW that +1.8C “begins to get harmful”, though IPCC believes that to be the case.
I agree. I was just making the case that the evidence shows that there is a net benefit from current warming. Which is pretty obvious when you compare living in countries the emit lots of CO2 as compared to those that do not.
ferd berple, still, ipcc conjecture is just that, conjecture. What the ipcc says is based on shoddy science (by any strech of the imagination), so even their conjecture should have no weight in a court of law…
And yet billions have been wasted, policy is being formulated around just that very thing.
Reading the documents, Maibach is a propaganda PR type. Social marketing. Climate change communications.. Isn’t Cook a climate change communications fellow, UOQ have created entirely new profession for this idiot for the lies he passed off as research.
Maibach is a fan of using the mass media to change people’s behaviors.
If only this got him fired, he deserves to be fired or at least like Gleick, pushed into the background because he is damaged goods.
Deliciously good.
I hope someone takes a huge chunk of his financies
Turn over a new-fangled climate-sciencey rock and this is what happens. Then the fleas start a hoppin’ …
In saying that they had no responsive records in response to the FOI request, and now the demonstration that they did indeed have them, did they not engage in obstruction of justice and/or contempt of court?
Could someone possibly explain this breaking American news in terms that the rest of the world can relate to?
They lied. But not just lying got them into hot water. They denied that they lied until a judge made them turn over their emails for inspection. The problem isn’t just that they lied and conspired to indict the oil industry by comparing them to the tobacco industry–it’s that they were being paid with public funds while this was going on. Using essentially public owned computers and their emails on public owned servers. So when the public said, HEY we want to see those–they said, “oh we don’t have those–so go away”.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is not just for asking the CIA about their alien files. Anyone can ask any public institution for information about anything that isn’t already available. In this case, the CEI asked these professors for proof–and they said they didn’t have anything. Well, turns out they sure did.
If they had been smart–they would have done this away from the university, using their own private emails and servers. But they weren’t smart–and probably though they wouldn’t get caught.
I shall try. The RICO 20 professors wrote a letter to President Obama and the Attorney General advocating use of RICO, an anti Mafia law, against climate skeptics. Shukla was the lead signatory. This followed on RI Senator Whitehouse advocacy of same. As a Senator, he is unfortunately untouchable. As professors, these warmunists aren’t.
Two separate consequences followed.
First, turns out Shukla was double dipping from NSF research grants (a federal crime) and not following Virginia/GMU rules on moonlighting (which is how he double dipped), a Virginia crime. Pielke Sr. and McIntyre, with help from yours truely, caught him out. Rep. Lamar Smith, head of the Congressional Oversight committee for NSF, investigated, found our blog findings substantiated, and has referred the matter to the NSF Inspector General for appropriate legal action, which includes criminal incarceration (last case was 4 years) and restitution (in Shuklas case, best as we can estimate, $6.9 million). There are subplots which make Shukla’s situation even worse, like filing false Virginia forms and diverting grant moneymto relatives in India.
Second, there are civil rights laws making conspiracy to deny civil rights like free speech a crime under 18USC241, and subject to civil lawsuits for damages under 48USC1985 and maybe 1983. So the Freedom of Information request for emails pertaining to the origins of the RICO 20 letter were seeking email evidence of conspiracy by the RICO 20. Shukla and 19 friends responded there were none. That has been proven grossly false even before the judge’s new ruling. They lied. They have thereby proven their conspiracy.
So the upshot is not only do they have to disclose everything, their behavior already self proves liability under the above civil rights statutes. These folks are going to owe millions, and several may well end up in prison. NOT what they intended. BUT what they deserve.
BTW, same is true for the US Virgin Islands AG subpoena of EXXON and CEI. Slightly different legal reasoning, same results.
An American baseball idiom. Warmunists tried to play hardball (we have softball and hardball baseball). They just lost. Hardball has consequences that can really hurt.
Thank you for the clearest explanation I’ve seen yet!
Questions for you…the AGs, are they subject to the 18USC241 or 48USC1985 also?
And Senator Whitehouse, if he’s not subject to the Codes for some reason, could the Senate censor or expell him?
Flicka, so far as I know, NOBODY is exempt from the civil rights laws. That was their congressional intent, back in the day.
Flika:
18 USC 241/242 is specifically aimed at political entities: Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law is a felony.
If you could explain what you mean in more detail, then someone could most likely help you. Do you have problems with the English language?
There are two possible responses. 1. You forgot a sarc. 2. You are not an attorney, and therefore do not appreciate the precision with which potentially libellous accusations must be leveled. As Steyn has regretably found in re Mann.
I cannot think of a third reasonable response. Short summary is legally dangerous. Besides, now you can make your own, at your risk. Try calling Shukla a criminally double dipping warmunist liar. Like I just did, using many more words. 🙂
Your comments weren’t up when I made my comment. I have to remember in the future to specify who my comment was aimed at. Sorry for the confusion.
AOK. I figured out fafterwards that might have bombed the wrong target. Please accept apologizes.
The prosecutors of the CAGW Skeptics are about to get the tables turned on them.
I have read through the emails and communications at JunkScience. Apart from the sheer silliness and narrow-mindedness of a number of the writers, I am not sure what else there is of note in the sample provided. It seems to me pretty clear that these guys were doing this while ostensibly working for the State via their Universities – a form of co-mingling. It seems to me that to support an alternative interpretation they would have to take personal days or time and document it accordingly.
What else is being looked for?
They are free to go home and write emails on their personal account from there. These were sent from their employer’s email accounts, while on the clock.
In some states it is against the law to use state owned computers for any personnel business. Primarily aimed at computation and word processing but even includes email. Falls under rules covering the “use of public resources and funds.” Have seen this used to get rid of unwanted employees as they are prone to over use computers for personnel use.
They were sent from their employer’s email accounts.
The RICO letter was sent on official letterhead.
The signers used their professional titles.
The activities were coordinated on official time.
For many salaried employees, there is no official difference between official and unofficial time as the employee is responsible 24/7 to their employer.
My point was if they would have done this privately from the beginning, I doubt they would be in the situation they are now. It appears they used the university letter heads as an appeal to authority. That made their emails university property and subject to FOIA. They then lied in response to the initial FOIA requests. They could have setup some ‘concernedscientists@gmalil’ and avoided this pickle.
However, looking at Curt Schilling, doing things on private time does not shield one from their employer’s wrath.
It was far more than just the letterhead. Check the list I wrote earlier.
Plus salaried officials with senior, executive, managerial standing are presumed to be representing their employers unless otherwise explicitly specified.
A salaried executive or senior researcher that speaks out publicly and shames, demeans, is inconsiderate or a host of other less salacious appearances is usually penalized or punished by their employer. In egregious circumstances, they’re terminated for cause, often without benefits.
In other words it will take steps much more aggressive than just going home to write their emails, to separate Shukla, Maibach, Trenberth, and quite a few of the others from their respective organizations.
A complete severance of association with the University.
Use of privately financed communication services and equipment.
Zero reference to official positions or work at the University.
Zero effort to involve students, colleagues and co-workers.
Running home from work and using equipment or services paid for by University services or using any reference to their job positions or authority and even allegedly private emails become business emails.
I hate to break it to you but “on the clock” has little meaning in academia.
Conspiracy to intimidate or otherwise supress civil rights such as 1st Amendment free speech on global warming. Criminal violation of the KuKluxKlan act 18USC241, civil violation of 48USC1985.
Rud:
But I see nothing that rises to the level of what was visible in the Climategate emails. I understand the content of the letter and its intended effect, but everyone is free to write such a letter on their own dime.
Bernie, I see it multiply differently. This is not Climategate. And have posted here and elsewhere on same. Is criminal.
Wow, some sheeple are just simply blind to reality ! They were “On The Clock”. AKA, being paid public taxpayers money ! D’oh !
Marcus15: Who is blind to reality?
You are Bernie.
You.
You would think they would be savvy enough to NOT use their official school email accounts to make these communiques. State school = public records. (Of course, they probably think the same thing Hillary does: rules are for the little people.) GMU will fight to try to keep the school’s reputation intact (the admins are all about the money and attention), so they will probably continue trying to make this go away. If it starts looking like a loss and/or donors start getting leery, GMU might just quietly drop these guys. One can only hope. George Mason is spinning in his grave.
When a department of Duke got caught violating NSF rules, the punishment was 2 years no fed grants to the entire university. GMU has already been caught out in worse; the only question left is the punishment. I don’t think OBama can torque the established NSF precedents. And Rep. Smith’s NSF congressional oversight committee has commanded the NSF IG to act, and keep his committee informed of those actions. Popcorn futures are UP.
They are basically thieves, stealing from tax payers like us and indignant at being found out, never mind even being questioned.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/a-climate-of-deception-deceit-lies-and-outright-dishonesty/
Pointman
Not normally ‘for’ witch-hunts but, the manner in which Shukla turned on Bill Gray would make this particular slap-fest a delicious dish to savor. At length. With relish. And mustard. Or custard.
” The scientists allege that the aforementioned interests “knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, in order to forestall America’s response to climate change.””
Can somebody point to examples of the oil industry trying to influence the public about climate change? I can’t recall ever seeing an ad in any form about climate change by an oil company. What I have seen are commercials by environmental groups about melting ice and dying polar bears. I’ve also seen episodes of “Nature” and “Nova” that assert great current and future harm to the world because of climate change, along with claims by politicians, movies stars and activists along the same lines. As far as I can tell the attempts at public influence are largely one-sided.
“Can somebody point to examples of the oil industry trying to influence the public about climate change? I can’t recall ever seeing an ad in any form about climate change by an oil company. …”
Nope, I can’t recall any examples at all. However I do recall, in the 1980’s, UK television adverts about BP (a – horrors – oil company!), providing research, development and funding for solar power in Africa. Greenies are spiteful morons.
That was BP’s ‘beyond petroleum’ campaign which was headed by their radical old leader who thought there was a future and fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. He was strongly influenced by PK Prahalad’s ideas and formed the Emerging Markets Team of about a dozen experts, then advised by Craig Cohon of Coke and Cirque de Soleil fame.
This visionary was ousted by his understudy in a corporate coup that is a strange story. This nameless shameless underling then led BP into the Deepwater Horizon disaster and, after making silly comments about wanting his life back, was thankfully fired.
Unfortunately the Emerging Markets team was by then destroyed, shutting down pro-poor technology development projects in India and South Africa that were still below the horizon. The solar PV stuff was more developed and visible.
Can’t pinpoint an exact ad or date, or even company- but I have seen several eco-friendly ads, both print and TC, from BP(trying make up for the oil spill), Exxon, and Shell.
Several of the released Exxon papers show the company was studying CO2 and climate change and trying to understand it. They seemed to have had a hard time reconciling their scientific knowlege with other published works used by the IPCC.
Keep all that in mind when the lawsuits begin for THEIR ACTUAL deception. The oil companies COULDN’T HAVE “deceived” anyone, because there is no proof of any “climate catastrophe” from human CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use.
seems to me that what they are doing actually fits the RICO statute to a tee … a criminal enterprise engaged in fraud for monetary gain …
Yup! And just imagine what all the digging into the politically connected’s finances will show when “investments” conveniently timed just before “green” legislation was passed (which artificially pumped up the price of those “investments”) are considered in the light of day.
I was casually wondering to myself, how could it be that Edward Maibach PhD. is so ignorant of the skeptics case and their quite genuine cause for skepticism.
I thought – surely a PhD scientist with qualifications in relevant areas of science should grasp that the concerns of people such as Judith Curry are genuine.
So, then I asked myself, what training does Maibach have and what is his specialism.
I was quite surprised to discover that his training is in PSYCHOLOGY and that his specialist area is MASS BRAINWASHING. And that in his spare time he cultivates TV weathercasters. Presumably to replace weathercasters who have been sacked for observing that the weather is no more “extreme” than when they were a child.
It seems that the alarmists are happy to admit that their job is purely to brainwash people, and that they have no training that would give them an ability to assess the verity of claims made regarding the future of the earth’s climate.
“Edward Maibach – a Mason distinguished University Professor – is a communication scientist who is expert in the uses of strategic communication and social marketing to address climate change and related public health challenges. His research – funded by NSF, NASA and private foundations – focuses on public understanding of climate change and clean energy; the psychology underlying public engagement; and cultivating TV weathercasters, health professionals, and climate scientists as effective climate educators. ”
More here: http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/portfolio-view/edward-maibach-4/
Maibach is an expert in strategic communication.
But he’s got himself into this mess as a result of his own communication blunders
So not really much of an expert then.
X is an unknown quantity.
Spurt is a drip under pressure.
(Apologies for the deliberate misspelling.)
Not so much an expert as an academic. He is now learning the difference between theoretical science and applied science.
So GMU has an entire department, funded in part by the government, not to find out if climate change is real or not, but to train people in the media to spread the propaganda.
And to destroy the evil forces of scientific inquiry and skepticism.
Which they plan to do by promoting a grand conspir@cy theory.
So, for all those people who ask questions, or have doubts about the cult of climate hysteria – it is important to recognize that those doubts have been manufactured by the oil industry and planted in your brain. (sarc.)
Pot – meet kettle! LMAO.
It gets better. There are classes at GMU that require students to study the climate change institute’s polls, and to conduct “surveys” in the community about climate change. In one of those courses, students then have to go to a local high school to present their “results” and promote the idea that WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE AND IT IS THE DEVELOPED WORLD’S FAULT. Imagine what could be accomplished if all that money, time, and effort were being directed toward an actual problem, that could actually be solved.
This will sound awfully snooty, but what on earth is a “communication scientist”? That sounds made up, like someone is trying to make their work and ideas seem more legitimate than they really are.
That’s a fancy term for a propagandist. The good doctor has a PhD in Psychology and studies the ways to more effectively convince people of certain opinions.
Yeah, there is a growing need for “information specialists” in the Alarmist community. They need to figure out how to communicate the CAGW danger to the great unwashed, who have been fooled by Exxon and CAGW Skeptics into thinking there is no danger.
So that explains why our local TV weather guys say things like “there’s a 30% chance of warmer than normal temperatures over the next 3 months.” Of course most folks don’t realize this is the same as saying there’s a 70% chance of cooler than normal temps. AGM spin is everywhere.
well, no. there’s not just ‘warmer than’ and ‘cooler than’, there’s also the overall average, so it means a 70% chance of average warmth, 30% higher. if s/he meant a 70% chance of it being cooler they no doubt would have gone w the more inflammatory number cos thats what the media does.
I agree with Rick. Temps don’t often land right on ‘normal’ – usually they’re either above or below.
I note that the term, “social engineering” has recently (over the past decade, perhaps?) taken on a new meaning in the vernacular. It used to refer to a fairly surreptitious and organized effort (usually by government, I propose) to manipulate group behaviour or thinking to a desired outcome.
Now, it’s commonly understood to mean tricking people into giving out confidential information, especially with regards to computer access. Semantics again – redefining known words and terms into something other than their original meaning, a great tactic. If you can’t effectively describe something, how can you understand, communicate or fight against it?
Isn’t that ironic?
And since they referenced using personal email to protect against FOIA does that open them up for additional lawsuits?
I think that would be true only if, as Hillary Clinton did, switch their official work correspondence to private, unsecured channels. These communications were private, being done on their employer’s dime.
When I’m at work I have two tabs open in my browser – one for work email, the other for private.
But that would still be done on company time and with company property (even if in different tabs). Plus, I’ll bet that there’s a digital record of whatever happened to or from that “private” tab. Maybe only in an obscure TMP file, but it’s most likely still there.
Your correct, but I keep them strictly segregated (it’s not hard) and I keep the work time on personal mail to a minimum. Often stuff from my wife.
Sometimes I want to ask a client for a favor or something out of the ordinary, and I know that if I put it in an email his superiors will have every opportunity to read it – so I’ll save it for a phone call or a personal meeting.
Good to see these “researchers” spending so much time “researching”.
They don’t have a choice, it’s mandatory to reply to FOIA.
…The PREVIOUS conversations in the Emails…D’oh !
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”—Winston Churchill
Basically, the big money is to be made in the time differential. The same goes for policy over reach.
Resourceguy,
Wasn’t that Mark Twain? It doesn’t really sound like Churchill’s style.
Cyde @ 5:03 pm, , I think Twain said ” boots on”, Churchill just changed it as far as I can remember.
All about manipulating people….nothing about the science
I smell personal liability coming soon to the cast of 20 and many others. What a bunch of arrogant, oppressive people.
They deserve what is coming for them.
The moral, ethical, social, and economic decay continues at a rapid pace in the USA via the current administration.This is just another example of what happens when you empower liberal progressives who think they are above the law. The next election cannot come soon enough!
Liberals have no morals or ethics…To them, the end justifies the means…no matter what !
Marcus15,
So I’m not the only person to have come to the conclusion that liberals feel that any and all means are justified by their ends.
“Progressives” too often see things as they think they should be, rather than how they are. And it pisses me off that classical liberalism has been hijacked by the looney left.
I spent four years from 2008 to 2012 looking forward with great expectations to the next election. Unfortunately, the forces of evil proved too powerful. I still have hope for 2016, but my faith in the American electorate has been shaken. I feel like I hardly know my country any more.
You are not alone, as evidenced by the actionable response of the populous and legal process to the continued assault on this great county’s earned rights and preferred way of life through a democratic process. Never give up, we are the vast majority that has been too quiet and is finally tired of it!
They are neither liberal nor progressive. They are regressive, totalitarian communists.
..Wow, liberals are having a really bad month ! LOL
Considering the sheer volume of advanced degrees among these individuals, there is an overwhelming naivete and sheer stupidity surrounding their words and actions.
Seriously…. these professors are freaking retards. Which goes a long way to explain people like Mann and Gleick and their ridiculous behavior.
Two aspects also jump out.
Absence of doubt. They truly believe that what they are doing is correct and right.
And assumption of immunity from their actions. They actually think they can get away with this bullshit, trying to lever their respective higher positions in academia to lend weight to their pontifications while doing all this on company time and company computers and using company email systems, then conveniently claiming it was all personal opinion done on personal time. Do they really think people are stupid enough to buy this crap?
In it’s simplest form, it’s called SOCIALISM !
you are spot on there. a high level education only proves capacity for memory, not how to use the information the memory stores. this is great news, it is about time someone put the reigns on these clowns.
all we need now is for the oil and energy companies to withdraw all fossil fuel based energy from every single state and country that are stupid enough to demonise the fossil fuel industry, starting with california (sorry anthony) to bring reality home in as harsh a way as possible to the people that continually vote the clowns into office that support this nonsense.
Terry @ 2:07 pm, For a long time people were just told to believe and respect anyone with “authority” like the “copper”, the “doctor”, the “priest” the mailman and so on, I believe that meekness has finally come to an end, I just think many of those people in the establishment just haven’t realized it yet.
I may not be right on this but the NET has and is having a huge influence on how things are being perceived, things that used to take weeks if not months to get into the average guy’s living room now are there within hours if not minutes!
It’s the complete lack of doubt or any perspective that I find astonishing. Intelligent people I’m sure but utterly and willfully blind to the greater importance of open scientific debate. “Scientists” who are anti-science!
I’m a consultant and data provider in sports analytics. It’s not climate, but there are a lot of similar things in how data is collected asnd and analyzed. I have a couple friends who are brilliant in math. They are also liberals and seem to check their brain at the door when it comes to politics (and yes, global warming is politics). If they would do critical analysis of climate change to a fraction of a degree that they do with sports, they’d stop believing in a minute. But for them, it’s gospel.
So basically, it’s like a gang of thieves on their way to rob a bank getting stopped for speeding.
Nice mug shot, Anthony ; )
I suppose the answer to the question, “Who will protect us from our protectors?”
is, “The courts.”
The next question is then, “For how much longer?”
We are quickly coming to the brink of losing it all, when the Capital dictates acceptable dogma.
I don’t see anything in this that is surprising or damning in any way. I know this post says:
But seems an iffy description at best. Consider what Edward Maibach wrote:
Whether or not one agrees with his view on FOI law, it hardly seems appropriate to say people “knowingly tried to circumvent future FOIA requests” for trying to do their private activism on private accounts rather than involving their university.
that’s why we have the law courts Brandon. You have one opinion, others have a different opinion. I happen to disagree with you. so what.
Brandon, you missed the legal plot here. It was done on his GMU computer/server/ email account. He admits that. Does not matter legally whether at 2am on ‘his own time’. The law cares about where and how, not when. And whether he was ‘paid’ matters not. He used paid for by Virginia GMU resources for supposedly private purposes. In any company I have been associated with, the most polite term for that is ‘diversion’, and the most legally precise is ‘property theft’. There is literally no legal Maibach defense I can think of. And as a licensed lawyer, have been thinking for months on this with many previous comments around the blogosphere.
No. It is not “property theft” to use a work e-mail account for non-work purposes. That is done all the time. It isn’t anything, except perhaps unwise. Some organizations specifically instruct people not to do it, others happily allow it. There is no basis for creating some blanket statement implying criminal activity because someone chose to use a workplace e-mail for some personal matters.
Edward Maibach may be wrong about FOI law, but he didn’t commit a crime by sending these e-mails. And as far as anyone has shown, he didn’t do anything that should have been connected to his job. If he had used a private e-mail account from the start, this entire discussion fork would be non-existent.
…Brandon, it must be nice to live in a world full of Pixie Dust and Fairy Kisses, but in the real world…we have to live within the laws of reality !
Brandon, you are obviously missing Ristvan’s points.
Firstly, the emails are not his. Any work done for a university remains the property of the university, including intellectual property. As such, he has no basis for declaring that they are exempt from and FOI request. You note that he does not try to declare them private property? Because he knows that they are not.
Secondly, the emails in aggregate will potentially show a conspiracy was formed with an intent that may have led to a breach of other laws. That has yet to be judged in a court of law, so as yet, no criminal or civil violation has been found.
And to put a final nail in your argument, Edward Maibach’s day job is to communicate about climate change:
“His research – funded by NSF, NASA and private foundations – focuses on public understanding of climate change and clean energy; the psychology underlying public engagement; …” (see http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/portfolio-view/edward-maibach-4/)
I would like to see his explanation for how his “private” behaviour is not directly connected to his job. Even if he had used a private email account, his employer would be asking him to explain this serious conflict of interest. As it is, he and his colleagues have brought his employer into significant disrepute.
Brandon Shollenberger May 13, 2016 at 3:08 pm
Wrong Brandon you are missing the point. You can’t even charge your personal phone, Its called stealing.
Think I’m over harsh? These people were not working on sanctioned activities that the State and Granting organizations had agreed to. Game over.
michael
It might be better to differentiate between “property theft” and “theft of services”.
Many public employers have specific rules against employees using equipment,
systems, and services meant for institutional use and are NOT legally available to
the citizenry at large.
In public academic institutions such “rules” show up in civil service rules & regulations
for classified and unclassified employees, and are usually reflected in personal
service contracts for academic staff.
The use of “company” equipment to knowingly conspire to or actually violate the
civil rights of others opens a huge can of legal worms for both the conspirators AND
the institution. Generally, the institution will be prohibited from mounting legal
defenses for willful violators of civil rights laws… and most errors and omissions
policies covering academic folk are void in such instances.
Unbuttered salt on my popcorn, please.
Excuse me. If those people had been “trying to do their private activism etc.” there would have been no need for the Email, late in the day, to ask for their personal Email addresses – they would already be known.
No. People often use work e-mail accounts for things not related to work. When it occurs to them that might cause attention to be paid to those e-mails, with them even potentially being released to the public, they, it is natural they might chose to use different e-mail accounts.
Perhaps they should have thought of it sooner, but that hardly shows nefariousness. Unless these people actually thought their activism was tied to their job duties, them deciding not to have it subjected to the oversight of their employers is unremarkable.
@Brandon
The horse already left the barn. Too late.
Brandon – Generally, I believe you are correct that it’s not illegal to send personal emails from a work account. However, as I tell my coworkers, if you do, those emails are no longer private, and you must assume that other people in the company can and will read them.
Even if the messages were strictly personal, putting them on the university email made them fall under the scope of FOIA. The act of sending the email may not be criminal, but the contents of the emails may disclose criminal activity.
Brandon, “No. It is not “property theft” to use a work e-mail account for non-work purposes. That is done all the time.”
It is whatever you agreed to when you signed the paperwork for the job. Company I worked for said specifically that while email and internet were not provided for the personal use of employees innocuous and inconsequential uses, such as sending emails home for scheduling with the wife, etc. or browsing during lunch hour after work wouldn’t generally be audited unless the issue came up for some other reason such as an employee performance review. In any case the emails were company property and so were all uses of the equipment.
Such terms and conditions were almost certainly included in Mr. Maibach’s employment contract, also in the GMU ethics policies and other university policies and regulations. Not the least of which would be complying with regulations covering grant moneys, equipment, and actions done under them.
On the face of it he would be wise to consult appropriate attorneys on his own dime and time. GMU’s own attorneys will be looking out for the university, not Mr. Maibach’s best interest. It’s of no consequence that much personal use of email, company computers, and equipment is done. That doesn’t mean that employees can’t be misusing the privileges or liberties that are allowed by conspiring to commit crimes.
blcartwright:
Of course. I don’t disagree at all. I’ve said the same thing many times myself. The issue is people implied nefariousness over people sending personal e-mails from a work account then deciding to switch to personal accounts. That isn’t nefarious at all. It certainly isn’t reasonable to call that an evasion of FOI laws.
phil cartier:
That is true. It is certainly possible for employers to restrict how their employees use their work accounts. If someone could find an agreement regarding the use of the university e-mail accounts used here, it might turn out there was misuse. We can’t just assume there was misuse though. It’s quite possible (and I suspect even likely) this was within the accepted norms of university e-mail.
Brandon – also to the illegality of hiding from FOIA. That does not involve moving future conversation to private email accounts (as long as they are truly private, and not work-related conversations). The defendants knew the requested emails existed and were on the GMU system, but they lied and said the emails did not exist or could not be found. “There’s nothing here!” They can possibly be prosecuted for those lies.
Brandon Shollenberger May 13, 2016 at 3:03 pm
No. People often use work e-mail accounts for things not related to work.
“No. People often steal work e-mail accounts for things not related to work”.
whats the difference?
michael
blcartwright:
Er, sorry about that. I must have forgot to close a blockquote tag.
[It is not clear where the blcokquote html should be inserted. .mod]
Brandon, you might have a point there, OTOH, it seems they had a long history of emails on IGES and GMU account prior to that email. They made the letter with the 20 signatories public on Sept 1st, 2015, and then on October 2nd 2015 called for them to start using private accounts. In one of the emails shown above at the top on Sept 29th Maibach says: “The situation with the RICO letter continues to escalate rapidly” in response to the public pushback they were getting. Just three days later, he and Shukla are calling for the private email addresses.
It seems clear to me they wanted to “go dark” after realizing they have an uncomfortable situation on their hands. While you can certainly argue they may or may not have wanted to circumvent FOIA laws, the fact that this comes after they get a load of vocal public pushback suggests a wagon-circling exercise to me.
Maibach used his GMU email account many times prior to that to design, solicit, and promote this letter. His claim that it wasn’t done on the public dime really doesn’t hold up given he used the GMU email address for months for that purpose prior to asking for use of private email on October 2nd.
It shows how stupid these people are that the never considered that in the first place, so it also shows incompetence in planning.
Clowns, how many of these thieving idiots could you fit in a mini?
Oh, and let’s not forget, they lied about having these emails at all in response to early FOIA requests. If that’s not knowingly circumventing FOIA, I don’t know what is.
..Anthony, what you are forgetting is the difference between their Email having the “Letterhead” of an institution (work/GSU) or just their name( private).. They sullied the name of the GSU just by using GSU accounts …
they lied about having these emails at all…….
and that’s the nail
Anthony Watts:
Of course. They realized by using university accounts for their personal activism they created the potential for people to use things like FOI laws to examine aspects of that activism. That helped cause them to decide to stop using work accounts for their personal activism. But people deciding to stop using work accounts for personal activism cannot reasonably be described as conspiring to circumvent FOI requests. FOI requests should never have applied to this activism in the first place (as they should not have used work accounts for it).
There is nothing about using one’s work account to send e-mails which implies one is being paid to send those e-mails. All it says is that’s how they knew to get in touch with one another. There are tons of non-work e-mails in university mail servers. (Heck, just look at how many are in the ~200k Climategate e-mails.)
Where, exactly, did they lie about having these e-mails?
“The ruling concluded that by leaving it to faculty who simply told the school’s FOIA officer they had no responsive records,
In 2015, George Mason University (GMU) faculty claimed “no records” existed in response to CEI VFOIA request for records”
Brandon, per your comment, you really need to learn more law. A lot more.
I was hoping our host would respond to explain his serious accusation of lying, but since he didn’t, I’ll go with Latitude’s comment:
These are two quotes from a press release by CEI. They’re not a legal finding, and they don’t involve any quotes from anybody that could be labeled lies. The words “no records” placed in quotations are not a quote from any resonse, but rather a shorthand phrase CEI used in their lawsuit.
The reality is the released e-mails show no lying was involved. Edward Maibach clearly indicated he did not believe his e-mails were public records, and as such, provided none in response to the FOI request. He clearly spelled out his reasoning for this to the FOI officer.
His reasoning was absolutely wrong, and the FOI officer should never have allowed it. Quite frankly, she gave him bad instructions regarding the FOI requests which made his position tenable. Had she actually done her job well, she would have explained why his position was misguided and based upon confusion. She didn’t. Whether it was because of she misunderstood him, is incompetent, is lazy or is completely dishonest is impossible to know.
What we can know is the university’s method for handling FOI requests was bad, its FOI officer did not do her job properly, and these e-mails should have been released from the start. That doesn’t mean anybody lied though.
ristvan:
This sort of comment is useless. If you don’t have anything to contribute, plese just don’t respond to me. It wastes everybody’s time.
And of course it doesn’t matter where you work, the choice of out going email account* is up to the sender. It is a deliberate choice as far as I’m concerned and that is what has bitten them! They used the authority of their institutions to make an impression, a political and tactical decision that they latter regretted.
*The “send from” address. A choice of account is available from any email application and associated web interfaces are also always accessible.
Brandon’s first comment, “for trying to do their private activism on private accounts rather than involving their university.” No, not “rather than”, but “after”. You can’t dispute that they did involve GMU, can you? That the Comm. Director was, at the very least, indicating this conversation should not be on GMU’s system, for some reason? At which point, it had occurred on that very system? I don’t disagree private activism should be on private accounts, for more than one reason (at least two; the one you see and the one you refuse to see). To that point, it’s a routine FOIA request. Then, you recognize Maibach’s response is wrong, but Anthony shouldn’t call it a lie. Where to begin-let’s try the beginning. The letter itself calls for prosecution of opinion advocacy, which is to say, demanding gov’ts sworn to protect free speech investigate that which it’s supposed to protect. The letter itself was improper activism, agreed? Before you disagree, have you considered that your exposure of Mann’s fraud may mean the next VI (or NY) subpoena is coming your way? Because that’s what the letter demanded (indirectly). Anyway, in response to allegations by skeptics of improper activism and calls for FOIA requests (at this very site, did you comment there?), the Comm Dir. directs the conversation go private. Maybe for legitimate reason, maybe to hide, maybe both. Up to there, maybe you can give him the benefit of the doubt. But (here’s my point-sorry for the long but necessary buildup) Maibach’s written response that the background communications leading to a letter communicating climate change advocacy is not related to his job as CC Comm. Dir., communicated on GMU accounts, is a plain lie even if you are blind to it. Shukla saw it as Maibach’s job, does that count? Criminal convictions requiring a knowing lie are made on less circumstantial evidence than this. If gov’t atty decided to investigate the letter as a civ. rts violation of individual skeptics and this email was private from the jump, he or she could get it by subpoena, no?
Brandon,
You know that you write nonsense here.
Consider how hard it would be for a Maibach to pick up a phone and call any number of ‘important’ people, if he did not have the credentials associated with his university post.
When one takes a senior office, it is implicit in acceptance that there is duty to uphold several historical concepts like honesty. This is held so important that governments often require oaths as part of the administration.
Are you arguing in favour of universities being a new Wild West of lawlessness by force?
Geoff.
Geoff Sherrington:
Really? That’s the sort of response I’m going to get? Not only are you going to say I’m wrong, you’re going to claim I know it is wrong too… really? I hope you realize how silly that is. Not only is that rude, it’s demonstrably false as there is no chance I’d ever agree with the depiction you give. You say:
But the fact one’s job can increase their credibility does nothing to suggest any e-mail they send from a workplace account is part of their professional career. When somebody like James Hansen spent his personal time as a global warming activist, he wasn’t getting paid for it. When he e-mailed people from a private e-mail account to discuss his activism, he wasn’t trying to circumvent FOIA laws. That his activism was more successful because of his government position doesn’t somehow make his activism fall in the purview of laws designed to give people oversight of governmental operations.
Are you arguing Scottie Pippen couldn’t have a successful career without Michael Jordan on his team? That’s about as connected to anything I’ve said as your question is to anything I’ve said. And you probably know that. After all, you know what you’re writing is nonsense. I can tell because my ESP lets me read your mind and see all your nefarious thoughts.
Brandon: Any e-mail they send from a workplace account belongs to their employer. If that employer is the government or a state run school, they will fall under FOIA. These people don’t seem to have realized that everything they wrote on the university emails could one day be expected to become public knowledge, and expose their conversations to scrutiny. If, when the authorities examine the details of how the initial search at GMU turned up empty, find that people lied, then punishment for that may follow.
Falls under rules covering the “use of public resources and funds” as described in your state laws. Federal laws also apply if federal funds are involved, which is the case here.
“The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) prevailed in a Virginia Freedom of Information Act (VFOIA) lawsuit against George Mason University (GMU).”
“This victory puts on notice those academics who have increasingly inserted themselves into politics, that they cannot use taxpayer-funded positions to go after those who disagree with them and expect to hide it,” said Chris Horner, CEI fellow and co-plaintiff. ”
Don’t you just love the smell of science here! Scientists quacking in their boots when confronted with the all-compassionate power of the CEI! Oh dear, oh dear.
What are you babbling about? Scientists are ducks? And pray tell, what “science” were the Gang of 20 doing?
You dont want to discuss the contexts of the emails do you tho..
Can’t use #exxonknew now can you lol
I fail to remember any times you came here discussing science, copy paste merchant
You must be gutted Wagen, this essentially is the proof there is no line between activism politics ideology and science with these people
There was never any proof Exxon did anything, it was all started by Macarth.. I mean Whitehouse
political witch hunt.
Or are you going to go all denial on us
..Wagen is the Vanguard of the liberal desperation to come !
Quacking in their boots???. The girl in the orange sweater on the left side of the above photo seems to enjoy wearing boots…. As to weather she quacks or would quack when confronted with “compassionate power” (???) or any other type of power is something that remains as an unknown.
And is she a scientist? she doesn’t seem to be named and labeled like the others in the photo, so it is hard to tell fur sure.
Your sarcastic inference that they would not be concerned is a little silly. First they tried to hide, then they lied, then they got caught, then they tried to cover up, then they were exposed. All the while soliciting for (free?) legal advice, and wondering weather they they could make they light and attention go away by “retracting” the letter.
I do believe that a few of them are quitely quacking (boots or no); and if they are subject to/of reasonable and competent investigation then a few more will be very quietly singing to cover their assess.
Now that reminds me of this old Monty Python scene.
..If Trump gets elected, they won’t be “Quacking in their Boots”, they’ll be chitting in their pants ! ( I have to put nice words because I’ve been too aggressive against fools, so I’m sensored)
Where I live we have a lot of ducks in the streams that meander around our housing units but if I were one of the Rico 20, I might be quaking in my boots but leave the quacking to the ducks. I’ve heard doctors with PhD’s being called quacks before so I’m not sure if you thought quacks when you saw the PhD’s next to signers names.
This deserves a name. “ShuklaGate”?
(If those involved had the right names it could have been “ShuklaFranandOllieGate”!8-)
gunga, I feel that “Water Gate” covers it nicely, particularly regarding your moniker. Or course the more common name “Traitors Gate” applies as well.
Trenberth? Surely not the star of the “Climategate” email scandal way back then? He must be a slow learner.
OMG…London, Ontario in Southern Canada just got a Weather Warning of an approaching snowstorm….halfway through April !! Glo.Bull Warming is going to bring on the next Ice Age in Canada ! LOL
It’s May.
And we have a freeze warning.
People thought I was nuts to wait until Memorial Day to plant my veggie garden–they now know why I wait while they are covering their seedlings, mine are safe and sound inside.
…I knew dat..I was just testing ! LOL…Can I have your address so when the chit hits the fan , I will know where to go ? LOL