Climategate: White House Involvement in Scandal Will Make It Harder for MSM to Ignore

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Yesterday Brian Williams delivered an NBC Nightly News report about President Obama attending the Copenhagen global warming summit. Guess what hot topic was left untouched? If you had guessed Climategate you would have been correct.

Not only Williams but also the other TV networks, with the exception of FOX News, have completely ignored what is considered to be the biggest scientific scandal in history. However, new Climategate revelations made by the Canada Free Press about a White House connection to the scandal will soon make it much more difficult (and ridiculous) for the networks to ignore.

Canada Free Press editor Judi McLeod and Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball reveal the involvement of White House Science Czar John Holdren (photo) in the Climategate Scandal. The picture presented of Holdren is not a pretty one:

Obama Science Czar John Holdren is directly involved in CRU’s unfolding Climategate scandal. In fact, according to files released by a CEU hacker or whistleblower, Holdren is involved in what Canada Free Press (CFP) columnist Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball terms “a truculent and nasty manner that provides a brief demonstration of his lack of understanding, commitment on faith and willingness to ridicule and bully people”.

Baliunas and Soon were authors of excellent work confirming the existence of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) from a multitude of sources. Their work challenged attempts to get rid of the MWP because it contradicted the claim by the proponents of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Several scientists challenged the claim that the latter part of the 20th century was the warmest ever. They knew the claim was false, many warmer periods occurred in the past.

Michael Mann ‘got rid’ of the MWP with his production of the hockey stick, but Soon and Baliunas were problematic. What better than have a powerful academic destroy their credibility for you? Sadly, there are always people who will do the dirty work... [snip]

Such as a certain person was destined to become a White House Science Czar...

[You need to read this to know the type of people we're dealing with here - MUST READ > ]

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Climate change 'isn't caused by us'

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limate change has mainly natural causes and the human contribution is too small to detect, said global warming expert Professor Fred Singer.

He told a debate in London organised by the free market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, the climate has not warmed in the past decade, despite the fact carbon dioxide was increasing rapidly. Singer, of the science and environmental policy project at the University of Virginia, told the event the climate has both warmed and cooled over the past century. Burning fossil fuels had enriched the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, because it was what plants live on.

"Maybe we should thank the Chinese for putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere instead of worrying about it,"

Singer said one school of thought was the warming of the earth in the 20th century was caused by humans, though greenhouse gases, but he believes that while there must be a human contribution it was not detectable, as it was too small.

He suggested people should be suspicious of any science where there was a consensus and concluded:

"I am not worried about climate change, not at all. We know how to adapt to climate change better than our ancestors, we have the means to adapt to both cold and warm climates.

"The only thing I am scared of is politicians who in their zeal to 'save the climate' will introduce policies that will ruin the economy."

Former chancellor Nigel Lawson, who has set up a think tank called the Global Warming Policy foundation, said technology for adaptation has never been better, and there are huge benefits from a warming planet, including for health and food production. Even if global agreement was reached to decarbonise, it would slow down growth in the world, including in developing countries.

"You are condemning tens and tens of millions in the developing world to unnecessary poverty, malnutrition and premature death and disease."

However, Dr Sam Fankhauser of London School of Economics, a member of the UK Committee on Climate Change, said a target of 50 per cent cut in emissions was both sensible and achievable.

Scientists were 90 per cent sure there was a problem, and it would be unwise and careless not to take precautionary measures.

But the IPCC has no scientific evidence and the theory relies solely on the output of climate models that according to the information in table 2.11 of the 2007 report cannot possibly be accurate.

Surely Dr Fankhauser knows that opinions aren't evidence and that scientific truth isn't determined by votes.

[But the issue's been hijacked by politics, which works precisely that way.

They most costly and liberty restricting scam in history.]

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Climategate: how they all squirm

[Credit where due - the field of professional journalism is not yet completely devoid of professional journalists...]

Among the many great amusements of the Climategate scandal are the myriad imaginative excuses being offered by the implicated scientists and their friends in the MSM as to why this isn’t a significant story. Here are some of the best:

Most Unexpectedly Honourable Response: The Guardian’s eco-columnist George Monbiot

Say what you like about the Great Moonbat, the heliophobic Old Stoic is the ONLY member of the Climate-Fear-Promotion camp to have delivered a proper apology.

"I apologise. I was too trusting of some of those who provided the evidence I championed. I would have been a better journalist if I had investigated their claims more closely..."

[long list of hilarious, or frightening, responses to what should be the bursting of the AWG scam...]

RED MORE

[And in 2090?]

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NYT: Young Scientist 'Disheartened' by Climategate; Core Problems Ignored

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"Based upon feedback that I’ve received from graduate students at Georgia Tech, I suspect that you are confused, troubled, or worried by what you have been reading about ClimateGate.

What has been noticeably absent so far in the ClimateGate discussion is a public reaffirmation by climate researchers of our basic research values: the rigors of the scientific method (including reproducibility), research integrity and ethics, open minds, and critical thinking.

Under no circumstances should we ever sacrifice any of these values; the CRU emails, however, appear to violate them."

What's notably lacking in Revkin's report, Curry's letter, and many other Climategate-related establishment media reports is any willingness to entertain the notion that the scandal completely undermines the scientific basis for the argument that AGW (anthropogenic global warming) is occurring.

It seems that no one will dare say that the pathetic state of the data described in the leaked e-mails and the demonstrated willingness of those who control it to massage it hollows out the entire core of the AGW argument.

Given that those caught red-handed cooking the books and playing hide-and-seek with the data have yet to see any meaningful sanctions or discipline for what they have done, students would logically fear that if they fight for scientific values when they are compromised by political factors, they will be fighting alone and ostracized by their peers...

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MSM Goes to Ridiculous Lengths to Avoid Climategate by Ignoring IPCC Chairman Response to Scandal

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Big news on the Climategate front.

The chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, has issued a major response to the Climategate scandal. As a result a big rift has developed between the IPCC and a delegate to that organization on the topic of Climategate. This is big news, is it not? Does this not sound like a huge news story? Well, guess how many MSM reporters have covered this story? The answer as of this moment is one.

One.

The sole reporter who went where the rest of the MSM dares not tread was Andrew Revkin, the New York Times environmental reporter, who covered this story in his Dot Earth blog. Revkin is hardly what one would call a global warming "denier" or realists but to give him credit he will report on breaking climate stories even if contradicts the prevailing MSM agenda on this topic.

And his latest report covers both the IPCC chairman's response as well as the huge rift over Climategate that has now developed as resuult of that scandal:

Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has distributed a statement on the unauthorized disclosure of thousands of e-mail messages and documents involving a variety of contributors to the panel’s reports.

The numerous emails, particularly those related to the seemingly orchestrated machinations of the climate panel, have been the subject of much discussion...

In them, Phil Jones, the now-embattled head of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, the source of the leaked files, discusses several papers that challenge the status quo with Michael Mann, a longtime colleague from Pennsylvania State University. This is the take-home line, now reverberating around skeptics’ Web sites:

I can’t see either of these papers being in the next I.P.C.C. report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!

Here’s Dr. Pachauri’s statement defending the climate panel’s procedures: [snip] Dr. Pachauri goes on at great length defending the IPCC peer review process which you can read in the rest of Revkin's report.

However, if it weren't newsworthy enough that the IPCC chairman has responded to the Climategate scandal at length, it turns out that a delegate of that organization strongly disagrees with the chairman's assessment of the scandal.

Here is the reaction to the IPCC chairman's response to Climategate from Saudi Arabia's liaison to that organization, Mohammad Al-Sabban. Note that he does not use vague diplomatic language in his very direct reaction to the position of IPCC chairman:

A lot of damage has already been done to this international scientific body and I do not think the attached response by Dr. Pachauri was convincing enough to remove such a damage.

So there you have it. The IPCC chairman gives a lengthy response to the Climategate and a liaison to that organization claims a lot of damage has been caused by that scandal and is unsatisfied with the excuses provided.

And yet the MSM still does not think this worthy of coverage? The lengths that the MSM has gone to avoid mentioning Climategate has now entered the realm of the absurd.

It is the scandal that dare not speak its name as far as the MSM is concerned. Of course, they risk embarrassing themselves yet again if Climategate explodes as an issue at the Copenhagen summit which President Obama will be attending.

Then the MSM, as in the case of the ACORN and Van Jones scandals, will have to go through the embarrassing task of explaining to its readers and viewers what Climategate is all about even though most folks familiar with the Web would have already known all about it...no thanks to their ridiculous non-reporting of this major event.

Oh, and a big round of applause to Andrew Revkin for reporting on all aspects of climate news...including Climategate.

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Big Lies and Little Facts

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"This should be considered not merely a scientific scandal but an enormous journalistic scandal,"

National Review's Jonah Goldberg writes about the still-unfolding revelations of dishonesty by global-warmist scientists (noted here yesterday).

It's a critical point: The elite press are trying to portray skepticism about global warming as a mental defect....

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WaPo: Climate Schemers 'Under Attack' By Skeptics Who Dare to Question

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The release of internal emails from Britain's University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit shows scientists plotting to ostracize and marginalize other researchers who question their assumptions on anthropogenic global warming.

Yet the Washington Post finds that such a strategy is but a natural reaction to questions of these scientists by climate skeptics...

[I.e. , in all things claim victimhood - and half the folks will be distracted by it every time.]

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Networks That Jumped at Complaints About a ‘Deniers’ ‘Conspiracy’ Now Silent About Left’s Global Warming Distortions

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In 2007, as Brent Baker chronicled at the time in the MRC's CyberAlert, the broadcast network evening newscasts jumped to hype a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing meant to publicize a report from two far-left groups about how the Bush administration supposedly suppressed science about the dire threat of global warming — as if that view wasn’t getting plenty of play in the mainstream media... [snip]

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a front-page story about the exposure of the censorious tactics of left-wing climate scientists..

... but none of the networks chose to notice it ...

[I.e., the NYT is more creditable than TV - think about that.]

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PLEASE REMEMBER

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SELECTIVE SECRECY

Here’s a dirty little secret about The New York Times. It likes to leak things. Important things. Things that change the course of the public conversation. From the Pentagon Papers to the ruined terrorist-surveillance programs of the Bush era, the Times has routinely found that secrecy is a danger and sunlight is a disinfectant. Until now.

A hacker recently released e-mails going to and from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain, e-mails that exposed how the "scientific experts" cited so often by the media on global warming display are guilty of crude political talk, attempts at censoring opponents, and twisting scientific data to support their policy agenda. But, according to the NYT;

"The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here."

Funny, that rule didn’t apply to things like the disclosure of the SWIFT global bank monitoring program against terrorists - despite their grave implications to our terror-fighting efforts and national security.

No, here there is only a danger of shredding the undeserved reputation of some global-warming alarmists as partisan, ideological non-scientists pushing a preconceived environmentalist and statist agenda to everyone's detriment - but 'propriety' is now paramount... [snip]

This kind of censor-your-opponents activity ought to disgust a journalist who values openness and rigorous debate above all. Every day the networks avoid this story, they’re saying they don’t really care about either of those values.

In fact, they become willing accomplices in a coverup of global proportions.

[Again, the most pervasive spin: omission. If you're getting your news from TV, you aren't.]

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ClimateGate Ignored, Again -- Broadcast Nets Go with State Dinner Menu, Sea Lions and Pete the Moose

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It probably won't come as any surprise, but coverage of the ClimateGate scandal, which involved the Climate Research Unit at University of East Anglia in Britain suffering a breach of data, was nowhere to be found.

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'Global Warming Meltdown' Article Pulled

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On Nov. 20th Startribune.com had a nice article about the hacked emails called "A Global Warming Meltdown" written by by Andrew C. Revkin, of the New York Times.

The article talked about how the emails revealed that scientists were using statistical "tricks" to make charts show a recent sharp warming trend. I went to find that article today on their website and it is gone, it seems to have been pulled.

Despite a high number of other sites having being linked to this article, all paths now result only in this 404 error message...

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CNN FINALLY Reports ClimateGate -- To Downplay It

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It only took CNN six days to notice the growing international scandal known as Climategate, and when it finally reported on the matter, it predictably did so by downplaying the significance...

Is that what CNN considers a good report on this subject?

Maybe they should take a tip from Russia Today which logged the following the same day: [HIGHLY RECOMMENDED > ]

[select image to play]

[In which they point out that the 'reports' from University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) in Norwich, England, are the primary basis for IPCC 'data' on which this canard is based, and the numerous calls (everywhere but here) for the resignation of the principle parties -- i.e., real reporting on the subject...]

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Has ClimateGate Changed Obama's Global Warming Strategy?

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Has the emerging international ClimateGate scandal changed President Obama's global warming strategy?

Just the opposite; its been taken as a sign to ratchet up his rhetoric in support of CO2 curbing controls...

Within days of the ClimateGate scandal breaking, Obama [not] surprisingly announced that he's going to Copenhagen with a pledge for serious carbon dioxide emissions cuts.

Coincidence?

Not likely, for the White House either realizes that the current momentum against cap-and-trade legislation needs to be halted quickly if it's ever going to get passed, and they needed to divert attention on the subject of global warming away from the growing scandal.

After all, as e-mail messages and documents obtained from the computers of Britain's Climate Research Unit continue to be analyzed, it seems likely that more revelations damaging to scientists involved as well as to the global warming myth are going to surface - such as American Thinker's Marc Sheppard already uncovered source code in CRU documents clearly used to manipulate climate data - more such discoveries seem a metaphysical certitude.

With calls out for CRU director Phil Jones to resign or be fired, such occurring while the Copenhagen conference produces absolutely nothing could be close to a death knell for the entire climate alarmism movement. So the President is relying on his proven allies in the MSM to simply misdirect America's attention to his grand plans for combating a problem ... that increasingly seems doesn't exist...

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LAT Breaking: Obama Going to Copenhagen, No Mention of Climategate

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World leaders spur on climate debate

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PORT OF SPAIN — World leaders sought on Friday to spur on the global-warming debate ahead of a Copenhagen climate conference that has been fired up by pledges from China and the United States to cut emissions.

The UN is seeking a common stance for the talks in Copenhagen. [i.e., all 'debate' must center on how severely to saddle developed countries with growth impediments with no discussion on the irrefutable evidence that the problem they' re to 'combat' doesn't exist. So much for 'meaningful talks'.]

Fears that the conference starting December 7 would fail to reach a deal were eased this week with pledges by Beijing and Washington. The offers by the world's two biggest greenhouse gas emitters were widely hailed, even if there were questions over how effective they would be.

The United States said it was aiming to curb emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. [not, possible.]
US President Barack Obama will also present at Copenhagen longer-term pledges of a 30 percent reduction in emissions by 2025, 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050 [from inane to insane].

China said that by 2020, it would cut the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 40 to 45 percent compared to 2005 levels. .

China's Communist Party leadership pledged Friday to "actively" tackle climate change while sticking to its economic expansion.

Experts said however that while China was touting its plan as a "major contribution" to the struggle against climate change, its already massive greenhouse gas emissions will still rise for years to come.

"We think it represents a relatively small move away from business-as-usual for China and still implies quite a large growth in emissions,"

[But its real goal is to force the US to commit its political suicide - and it will work perfectly unless we the people stop this scam when Congress is called on to ratify any related 'treaty'.]

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Summit of Self-Interests

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Fewer than 50% of British people believe there is a genuine climate problem caused by humans. And of that 50% most have no idea what the science says anyway. Same goes for the USA and most other countries. Nor do the leaders of those countries know the extent of worldwide concern, that nations are stripping their assets to follow unproven science. Or, more likely, they are ignoring it.

There is the general delusion that climate change is caused by CO2 even though the science says otherwise. There is also the general delusion that man can change climate by altering his CO2 emissions. This is another fallacy, unproven by science.

So, what is [really] going on? [snip]

Yet, economies are being driven to collapse by relying totally on only one side of the argument. The evidence suggests this is deliberate. Laws and policies that control and remove freedoms of choice are being produced at break-neck speed. People are now unable to heat their homes, or travel far. And there is inordinate taxation.

But, there is no natural shortage of oil – there is more oil ready to be tapped than ever before! There are plenty of fossil fuels – coal and gas.

And green taxes go to pay for… well, nothing in particular… ask government what the money actually pays for. You’ll find the answer is quite nebulous and unscientific...[snip]

This means that leaders who attend the Summit represent only themselves and their own interests. They certainly do not represent their peoples. Why are governments pushing the green agenda? It has nothing at all to do with ‘saving the planet’.

The sole reason is power and money. Behind the whole enterprise is socialism, and a struggle to create a one world government.

Both Gordon Brown and Barack Obama have openly said so...

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Fighting Global Warming ‘Requires Balancing the World’s Needs with America’s’

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The the three broadcast network evening newscasts on Wednesday informed viewers that President Obama has decided to attend the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen – while ignoring news of Climategate...


– but the NBC Nightly News uniquely devoted a full story to Obama’s intention to take part in the conference, and the underlying assumption that it's America's fault and so we should be willing to sacrifice our welfare on the alter of global wealth redistribution...

['Social euthanasia' - apt.]

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A Political Who's Who of Global Warming Liars

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As the global warming fraud unravels, it’s a good time to look at the politicians who have been some of the most outspoken advocates, using global warming/climate change to advance “Cap-and-Trade” legislation and other related laws and regulations.

Top of the list is President Barack Obama who has made many references to “climate change” and “global warming” to further this national and international fraud. He’ll pick up his Nobel Peace Prize in December; the same one given to Al Gore and the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a few years back. Further proof of his mendacity will be his attendance at the UN Climate Change Conference in Denmark.

Speaking on World Environment Day last June, Obama said of global warming,

“We’re going to have to make some tough decisions and take concrete actions if we are going to deal with a potentially cataclysmic disaster.”

This mirrors years of similar doomsday statements by former Vice President Al Gore.

This is the kind of drivel Americans and others around the world have heard from their supposed “leaders” for far too long...

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Politics and Greenhouse Gases

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Advocates and sympathetic politicians claiming that man-made global warming from use of carbon-based energy sources mandates international controls on economically prosperous nations were already worried that their victory is slipping. Now another blow has been struck against the basic "science" used to support their case.

Following an extensive theoretical analysis, two German physicists have determined that the term greenhouse gas is a misnomer and that the greenhouse effect appears to violate basic laws of physics.

The book Climate Confusion, points out how man-made global warming alarmists attempt to mislead the public by claiming that global CO2 emissions total about 50 billion tons per year while failing to acknowledge that the total weight of the atmosphere is 5 quadrillion tons. In other words, the 50 billion tons adds to 5 million billion tons, or a mere 10 parts per million -- relatively speaking, a trivial change each year.

They call the terms greenhouse effect and greenhouse gases "deliberate misnomers" and a "myth beyond physical reality" and conclude:

In summary, there is no atmospheric greenhouse effect, in particular CO2-greenhouse effect, in theoretical physics and engineering thermodynamics. Thus it is illegitimate to deduce predictions which provide a consulting solution for economics and intergovernmental policy.

Thus, scientific support for the man-made global warming hoax slowly collapses while politicians rush to lock in massive international wealth-redistribution in its name.

Those pesky "greenhouse gases" just don't behave in a politically correct manner.

[Dramatic I know, but the CO2 canard is the mechanism by which it can, and will if not stopped, come to pass.

So... ]

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"OPPOSE ALL CO2 RESTRICTIONS OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES"


Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...

and as always, pass it on...

contact-template

POLL: 53% More Thankful This Thanksgiving

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Fifty-three percent (53%) of Americans say they are more thankful this Thanksgiving than they were last year at this time.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 11% are less thankful, while 35% are about as thankful this year as they were last year.

The plurality (41%) of adults say their religious faith is what they are most thankful for after family and health.

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Presidential Tracking Poll

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The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 27% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President.

Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15. This is the lowest Approval Index rating yet measured for President Obama (see trends).

Fifty-two percent (52%) of Democrats Strongly Approve while 68% of Republicans Strongly Disapprove. Among those not affiliated with either major political party, just 16% Strongly Approve and 51% Strongly Disapprove (see other recent demographic highlights from the tracking poll).

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Barack & Sarah's reversal of fortune

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Last year at this time, Bar ack Obama was fresh off his historic election, riding a honeymoon high that would see him hit 70 per cent approval. Voters gave his party control of Washington, and media acolytes were force-feeding the nation syrupy comparisons to FDR and Lincoln.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand, was sent skulking back to Alaska, beaten as well as defeated. John McCain wouldn't let her speak on election night, a final insult in a race where she was ridiculed as a little nutty by the mainstream press and a little slutty by late-night jackals.

What a difference a year makes... [snip]

This flip-flop in fortunes stems from many factors, but generally equal parts push and pull: he's aligned himself with the left wing of his party instead of the ordinary Americans who identify with Palin and his Ivy League eloquence seems tired next to her wrong-side-of-the-tracks passion...

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AP Poll: Americans fret over health overhaul costs

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WASHINGTON - It's the cost, Mr. President. Americans are worried about hidden costs in the fine print of health care overhaul legislation, an Associated Press poll says. That's creating new challenges for President Barack Obama as he tries to close the deal with a handful of Democratic doubters in the Senate....

[Damn the cost folks, it's the permanant loss of liberty {total, over time} which should make the concept a non-starter to all Americans.]

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Mammogram guidelines spark debate over health bill

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WASHINGTON — Lawmakers broke along party lines on a new aspect of the health care debate Sunday as a former National Institutes of Health chief urged women to ignore guidelines that delay the start of breast cancer screenings.

Republicans pointed to the guidelines as evidence the Democrats' proposals for a health care overhaul would yield limits on mammograms and a rationing of care.

Democrats dismissed those worries and said Republicans were stoking fears without facts....

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THE RATIONING COMMISSION

The core problem with government-run health care is that it doesn't make decisions in the best interests of patients, but in the best interests of government...

Under ObamaCare, Democrats will control health care spending by imposing a "global budget" on Medicare. This will have radical implications for U.S. medicine, says the Wall Street Journal.

All the various health bills stipulate that Congress will arbitrarily decide how much to spend on health care for seniors every year -- and then invest an unelected board with extraordinary powers to dictate what is covered and how it will be paid for:

• As envisioned by the Senate Finance Committee, the commission -- all 15 members appointed by the President-- would have to meet certain budget targets each year.
• Starting in 2015, Medicare could not grow more rapidly on a per capita basis than by a measure of inflation.
• After 2019, it could only grow at the same rate as gross domestic product (GDP), plus one percentage point. [arbitrary, narcicistic limits all]

The reason that physician discretion -- not Washington's cost-minded judgments -- is at the core of medicine is that usually there are no "right" answers. The data from large clinical trials produce generic conclusions that rarely apply to individual patients, who have vastly different biologies, response rates to treatments, and often multiple conditions.

A breakthrough drug like Herceptin, which is designed for a certain genetic subset of breast-cancer patients, might well be ruled out under such a standardized approach... [snip]


The only way to take the politics out of health care is to give individuals more power to control medical dollars. And the first step should be not to create even more government spending commitments...

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ction of breast testing
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Reid’s Bait and Switch Tactics

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Harry Reid had two problems. How would he get the health care bill out of the Senate Finance Committee without revealing the glaring potential fissures in his party over the public option on health care? And, how could he lend a veneer of bipartisanship to a one-party bill?

Harry Reid had two problems. How would he get the health care bill out of the Senate Finance Committee without revealing the glaring potential fissures in his party over the public option on health care? And, how could he lend a veneer of bipartisanship to a one-party bill?

So he used the bait of a bill with no public option to hook moderate Democrats like Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and the gullible Republican Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.

When the bill emerged from Finance, by a lopsided 15-to-nine vote, it restored the momentum to health care reform that had stalled due to the public outrage so evident during the August recess.

Then, the dexterous Reid capitalized on that momentum to put the public option back into the bill, reversing the commitment to compromise that allowed the bill to clear the committee in the first place.

This tactic of bait and switch offers a foretaste of what Reid will attempt on the Senate floor. He obviously hopes to replicate these tactics in getting the bill through the Senate.

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image toon 1st hcare mny = Turkey + Stuffing = hcar bill + taxes

POLL: Support for Health Care Plan Falls to New Low

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Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% now oppose the plan.

Only 16% now believe passage of the plan will lead to lower health care costs. Nearly four times as many (60%) believe the plan will increase health care costs. Most (54%) also believe passage of the plan will hurt the quality of care.

As has been the case for months, Democrats favor the plan while Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party are opposed. The latest numbers show support from 73% of those in the president’s party. The plan is opposed by 83% of Republicans and 70% of unaffiliated voters.

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Eight charged in U.S. for Somali war recruiting

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Minneapolis - Authorities unsealed terrorism-related charges Monday against eight defendants they said recruited young Somali-American men to return to their homeland to fight for an Islamist militant group. The charges said men were recruited in Minneapolis mosques to fight for al-Shabaab, which the United States accuses of being al Qaeda's proxy in the Horn of Africa nation.

In all, authorities have charged 14 people with recruiting, training or financing travel for young Somali immigrants...

[GWOT]

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Academic Cheerleaders for Terrorists

Professors with favorable regard for terrorists and a somnolent disconnect from their victims have shown themselves impervious to shame

Raymond Luc Levasseur served twenty years in federal prison for leading the United Freedom Front, a radical anti-government group notorious for its violent "protests" against U.S. foreign policy in the '70s and '80s.

Its members were charged with the murder of a New Jersey state trooper, the attempted murder of a Massachusetts state trooper, several other assaults on law enforcement officers, eight Boston-area bombings, and a series of armed bank robberies.

In spite or even because of Levasseur's heinous acts, academics at the University of Massachusetts- Amherst recently saw fit to include him in its annual Colloquium on Social Change: Radical Democracy and the Moral Economy [whatever that means] on Social Change, an event designed to showcase radicals of '60s vintage. The purpose of this year's colloquium was to "examine how ideas about social justice have shaped American lives with speakers who represent distinctly different radical challenges to American society."

Never mind that Levasseur's notions of social justice cut short the life of state trooper Philip Lamonaco, caused many others great suffering, and visited destruction on various military reserve and recruiting centers... [snip]

Something is horribly wrong in higher education, as the public increasingly grasps. Consider the reaction of Chuck Canterbury, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, for example, to the honoring of Levasseur at UMass:

This notorious killer ... is a guest of the university's faculty to talk to students ... Is that the lesson these so-called teachers want to send? ... Glorifying terrorism and equating it with social change is wrong. The University of Massachusetts should be ashamed of its faculty, which has turned this colloquium into a sick joke. Who will speak at this event next year -- Terry Nichols and Zacarias Moussaoui?"

But professors with favorable regard for terrorists and a somnolent disconnect from their victims have shown themselves impervious to shame. Citizens will have to unite in finding ways to prevent these "teachers" from emboldening those who would do us harm and inviting them to infiltrate our campuses...


[Or for those of you my age:

Point: parents: do you know what your children are being 'taught' in school?]




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Free Speech Silenced at Columbia and Princeton

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Nonie Darwish, the executive director of Former Muslims United and author of Cruel And Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, was scheduled to speak at Columbia and Princeton Universities last week, but both events were canceled under pressure from Muslim groups on campus.

Remember, we are talking about Columbia University, where Ahmadinejad was welcomed like a returning king... [snip]

Just hours before Darwish was scheduled to speak at Columbia, the groups that had invited her to both universities, the Whig-Clio Student Debate Society and Tigers for Israel, succumbed to demands from student Muslim groups and canceled her speaking event.

'Tigers' for Israel, my eye. Their name mocks them.

The Whig-Clio Society is the oldest debating society in the U.S., founded by James Madison in 1765. These are the students who are supposed to be the leaders of the future.

What a joke.

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POLL: 55% in New York Oppose Civilian Terror Trials

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Just 35% of New York State voters agree with Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try the confessed mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks and five other suspected terrorists in a civilian court in New York City rather than before a military tribunal.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state finds that 55% are opposed to that decision, which is part of the Obama administration’s effort to close the terrorist prison camp at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba.

[Surprising: who would have thought that a majority of New Yorkers were country bumpkins?]

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