Climate of Fraud

November 25, 2009 4:00 AM

What do hacked e-mails tell us about global-warming research?

An NRO Symposium

The University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit’s e-mail account was hacked earlier this month, exposing communications among CRU faculty members and researchers that reveal their willingness to distort climate-change data. Do those e-mails mark a sea-change moment in the global-warming debate? National Review Online asked environmentalism experts to weigh in.


H. STERLING BURNETT
Why anyone should be surprised by this, I don’t know. Twenty years ago, Steve Schneider of Stanford stated that to be effective advocates on the issue of global warming, scientists would have to “offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.” His disciples have tried to suppress criticism of the “hockey stick” graph; when that proves impossible and researchers such as Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick expose the graph’s deep flaws, they settle for ignoring or downplaying the problem.

And all of this with the cooperation of the mainstream media. Even when errors are found and admitted to, “legitimate journalists” such as those at the New York Times and the Washington Post, rather than asking hard questions of the scientists who have made the errors or conducting independent investigations, have simply given these scientists a platform to say, “Yeah, we were wrong, but the error was not important.” The reporters never question the claim that the errors aren’t important.

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$50 Million From Soros For New Tank

By Jeremy Rosenberg
October 27, 2009 12:01 AM

George Soros will give $5 million annually for the next ten years to the Institute of New Economic Thinking, a new think tank.

Joseph Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs are among the luminaries affiliated with the org.

More from the Financial Times is here.

From the press release, it would appear that INET will be based in Budapest, with an initial event scheduled for next Spring in England.

At first glance, the closest INET comes to a direct Calif. connection is A. Michael Spence's time at Stanford. Spence is a fellow at the Hoover Institute.

Reid Weighs Rise in Medicare Tax

• NOVEMBER 13, 2009

By NAFTALI BENDAVID

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, seeking a new source of funding for the health-care overhaul legislation the Senate could begin debating next week, is considering a proposal to raise Medicare payroll taxes on couples who make more than $250,000 a year, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The Nevada Democrat may need the money because he is looking to scale back a tax on high-value health-insurance policies that is part of a bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee. In addition, many Democrats want him to increase the proposed health-insurance subsidies for low- and middle-income people.

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid is struggling to craft a bill that will meet the demands of his 60-member Democratic caucus and not add to the deficit. One proposal involves an increase in Medicare payroll taxes on wealthy Americans that could plug a financing gap in the health-care bill. WSJ's Naftali Bendavid reports.

Senators have proposed several options to fill the gap, but the Medicare tax proposal is gaining steam. It would raise the payroll tax to 1.75% from 1.45% for individuals earning more than $200,000 a year and couples making more than $250,000, aides said. No estimate was available of how much the increase would raise.

The move could prove popular with labor unions and others who have strongly opposed the initial plan for a 40% tax on high-value insurance plans, those worth at least $8,000 for individuals or $21,000 for families.

On the Table

Compare the plans, point-by-point

Health-Care Overhaul Attempts

As costs have risen, attempts at change

View Interactive

• More photos and interactive graphics
• Complete Coverage: Health-Care Overhaul

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Thursday that a payroll-tax increase on high earners is fairer. "We think that's far preferable to taxing the plans," Mr. Trumka said in an interview. Others say an extra tax on high earners would crimp the economy, and that taxing the high-value plans would limit wasteful medical spending.

and much more here>>>

MoveOn.org targets Bayh

Updated: Thursday, 12 Nov 2009, 9:24 PM EST
Published : Thursday, 12 Nov 2009, 9:24 PM EST

• Mark Mellinger

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - About a dozen protestors got together outside Evan Bayh's Fort Wayne office Thursday.

They were urging him not to block a vote on a health care overhaul.

The liberal activist group MoveOn.org put the rally together.

So far, Senator Bayh hasn't committed>>>

Blinded Prison Guard: Don't House Terror Suspects in NYC

Saturday, November 14, 2009
By Joseph Abrams

The high-security prison in New York City where 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is expected to be sent to await his trial has a supermax wing to keep even the most notorious criminals quiet — but it isn't perfect. Just ask Louis Pepe.

Ten months before Al Qaeda in 2001 struck a deathblow in the heart lower Manhattan, one of the terrorist group's founding members plunged a sharpened comb through Pepe's left eye and into his brain, blinding the 42-year-old prison guard and causing severe brain injuries that plague him to this day.

Pepe told FoxNews.com he worries that sending Mohammed and four of his alleged fellow 9/11 conspirators to New York could compromise the safety of the guards at the MCC prison. Keeping the prisoners in one location, he said, was especially dangerous.

"Could you imagine over there what they're gonna do, God forbid?" asked Pepe, now 52, who lost feeling in the right side of his body and most of his ability to speak. "After all these years, you'd think they should know."

On Nov. 1, 2000, Pepe was ambushed in the cell of Mamdouh Mahmud Salim — an alleged top aide to Usama bin Laden. Salim's cellmate, another Al Qaeda suspect, joined in the attack, which prosecutors say was an attempt to steal Pepe's keys to the cell block to free other prisoners and take hostages.

The two had been granted permission by a federal>>>

Obama and 'Special Interests'

• NOVEMBER 2, 2009, 11:14 P.M. ET

By JOEL JANKOWSKY

For the past nine months, the Obama team has waged a campaign of political convenience against lobbyists.

Its policies against so-called special interests include: a refusal to accept lobbyists' campaign contributions, a ban on employing lobbyists within the administration, discouraging lobbyists' contact with government workers, new rules that will result in the public disclosure of every lobbyist who visits the White House, and a directive to exclude lobbyists from serving on department and federal agency boards and commissions.

All of this is meant to give the impression of purity. But this is illusory. At the same time that the White House has demonized lobbyists, it has allowed itself to be infiltrated by a different army—one made up of campaign contributors. These individuals can breeze past defenses designed to repel lobbyists.

Campaign contributors, especially those who bundled large contributions from others, have been embraced by this administration. Because they aren't formally registered or regulated in the way lobbyists are, they enjoy the benefits and privileges of serving in the heart of the administration. These contributors serve in critical foreign and domestic policy positions, as well as department and agency boards and commissions. Dozens of Obama for America National Finance Committee members have joined the administration. Most of them raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the campaign, according to the watchdog group the Center for Responsive Politics.

This inconsistent treatment does a>>>

Obama and 'Special Interests'

• NOVEMBER 3, 2009

By JOEL JANKOWSKY

For the past nine months, the Obama team has waged a campaign of political convenience against lobbyists.

Its policies against so-called special interests include: a refusal to accept lobbyists' campaign contributions, a ban on employing lobbyists within the administration, discouraging lobbyists' contact with government workers, new rules that will result in the public disclosure of every lobbyist who visits the White House, and a directive to exclude lobbyists from serving on department and federal agency boards and commissions.

All of this is meant to give the impression of purity. But this is illusory. At the same time that the White House has demonized lobbyists, it has allowed itself to be infiltrated by a different army—one made up of campaign contributors. These individuals can breeze past defenses designed to repel lobbyists.

Campaign contributors, especially those who bundled large contributions from others, have been embraced by this administration. Because they aren't formally registered or regulated in the way lobbyists are, they enjoy the benefits and privileges of serving in the heart of the administration. These contributors serve in critical foreign and domestic policy positions, as well as department and agency boards and commissions. Dozens of Obama for America National Finance Committee members have joined the administration. Most of them raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the campaign, according to the watchdog group the Center for Responsive Politics.

This inconsistent treatment does a disservice>>>