The Braintrust Keeps Trying To Debunk The IPCC...

...and they keep failing.

From today's Tribune-Review:

Cooler heads must deflect the latest blast of hot air from the discredited United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

And then:

The International Climate Science Coalition notes that 16 years without warming show U.N. climate models are wrong and weather's extremes remain within natural variations' range. Yet the U.N. climate change panel urges draconian anti-growth measures.

Yea, but we've already looked at that, haven't we?

Yea, like 5 days ago.

I guess we'll have to do it again.

The "16 years without warming" meme is what they call "selective evidence" and I'll let desmogblog explain.  But first, some of their artwork:

They're gonna be talking about that small area of the upward sweep marked by that big red arrow.  By the way, do you notice the upward sweep from just after 1900 to now?  So even if the line is, in fact, "leveling off" that still wouldn't discredit the upward sweep that represents the rising temperatures of the 20th century now, would it?

Anyway, back to desmogblog.  They explain that 1998 and 2005 were rather hot "el Nino" years and that:

After 1998 and 2005 global temperatures were not as hot, but still on the whole still much hotter than most years prior to 1998.

So the temperature is still clearly going up globally as can be seen by the long-term upward trend over time. But like any good conspiracy theory, if you look hard and long enough you will find “proof” of your theory — and the climate deniers seem to be clinging on to this latest proof pretty hard.

And again, this issue is already addressed in the IPCC summary report:

Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850. The period from 1983 to 2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years in the Northern Hemisphere, where such assessment is possible (medium confidence). The globally averaged combined land and ocean surface temperature data as calculated by a linear trend, show a warming of 0.85 [0.65 to 1.06] °C2 over the period 1880 to 2012, when multiple independently produced datasets exist.

In addition to robust multi-decadal warming, the globally averaged surface temperature exhibits substantial decadal and interannual variability (Figure SPM.1a). Due to this natural variability, trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends. As one example, the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012; 0.05 [–0.05 to 0.15] °C per decade), which begins with a strong El Niño, is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951 (1951–2012; 0.12 [0.08 to 0.14] °C per decade).

Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010 (high confidence), with only about 1% stored in the atmosphere. On a global scale, the ocean warming is largest near the surface, and the upper 75 m warmed by 0.11 [0.09 to 0.13] °C per decade over the period 1971 to 2010. It is virtually certain that the upper ocean (0−700 m) warmed from 1971 to 2010, and it likely warmed between the 1870s and 1971. [Italics in original]

They never learn, do they?

The Trib also makes this claim:

The U.N. panel again is providing “cover for costly new regulations and energy rationing” even though the EPA admits “electricity regulations will have no discernible impact on the global temperature,” U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, told The Hill newspaper.

Here's what the fool said in The Hill:

“Yet the EPA has admitted that electricity regulations will have no discernible impact on the global temperature,” he added. “America cannot afford to drive its economy over a cliff with the hopes that the rest of the world will make the same mistake.”

So far, I haven't been able to track down when the EPA actually admitted to anything of the sort (doesn't mean it's not out there, it just means I haven't found it yet).  But I suspect that the rhetorical ruse being played here is found in the phrase "global temperature."  Could the EPA have merely been pointing out that a great many other countries would also have to limit their carbon emissions that this global problem can't just be solved by the US limiting its own carbon emissions?  That a whole mess of other stuff has to happen as well?

That's what I suspect.  But until I see for sure, I'm withholding judgement.

In either case, the Trib Braintrust is still wrong about the science and they're doing it now so often that it has to be an embarrassment to any rational person working at that newspaper.

And We're Back To The Selective Evidence AGAINST The Reality

An embarrassingly typical "argument" against the Climate Science can be found in today's Tribune-Review:

Speaking of climate clucking, Western Pennsylvania broke records this week for summer cold. “What was that, honey? Why, yes, of course, I'll throw another log on the fire, baby — all that global warming is making it cold outside.” [Bolding in Original.]

As if the weather in one local area over a short time span is an indication of a global trend.

It isn't.

But I wonder if the Trib's editorial board would be issuing the exact same denial if they lived in Phoenix:

The official temperature in Phoenix hit 115 degrees at 1:32 p.m. on Thursday. That breaks the record of 114 degrees set in 2006. The high reached 116 degrees shortly after 2:15 p.m.

The overnight low on Thursday was 93 degrees. That also set a record.

Or Los Angeles:

Triple-digit heat scorched inland areas of Southern California on Wednesday as forecasters predicted that above-normal temperatures would continue into the weekend.

In the desert, Thermal hit 119 degrees, breaking a daily record of 118 degrees that was set in 2006. Palm Springs reached 116 degrees, tying a daily record that also was set in 2006, according to the National Weather Service.

As of 4 p.m. in Los Angeles County, Northridge, Saugus and Van Nuys each had hit 100 degrees. Acton and Lancaster topped out at 102, according to the weather service.

Or on Planet Earth:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that June was the globe’s warmest in 134 years of records following its report that May was also the hottest on record. These reports are feeding anticipation that 2014 could become the warmest year on record.

But, according to the scientifically illiterate editorial board of the Tribune-Review, none of that has any meaning because Allegheny County has been colder than usual for a few weeks.

So embarrassing wrong that it undermines the whole paper as a "news" source, doesn't it?

The Trib Misleads The Climate Science. Again.

From today's Thursday Wrap at the Tribune-Review:

More bad news for the First Church of Global Warming. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency, mind you, reports that temperatures in the United States have not risen over the last decade. In fact, they've fallen. And that coincides with overall planetary temperature stagnation over the past 17 years, reports Rick Moran, writing in the American Thinker. Old farmers likely are making plans to put up a few extra cords of wood for the winter. [Bolding in Original.]

Sooo many misleads here.  It's a selective use of the data that brings the braintrust to this incorrect place.  Again.

We can start with the fact that they're using "temperatures in the United States" as a guide to global temperatures.  When NOAA (that same federal agency they're citing, mind you) posts this about global warming:

Temperatures measured on land and at sea for more than a century show that Earth's globally averaged surface temperature is experiencing a long-term warming trend.

They even have a chart showing the data:

Now go back and look at what the braintrust wrote.  Notice how given the long term frame of reference their shorter terms ("the last decade" and "17 years") what they wrote can be both accurate (in the short term) and not at all true (in the long term).

If you start and end with the el Nino year of 1998 it certainly looks like a tapering off (and perhaps even a "cooling") but when taken as a whole, the localized trends become less important than the overall trend.  Which is warming.

This is a typical mislead from the science denying Trib braintrust.  It's cooler now (6:18am) than it will be 6 hours from now - does that mean the planet is cooling?  Of course not.  But that's their argument right here right now.

Not only that, but the data that the braintrust cites is for surface temperatures.  As NOAA explains:

Just because the global surface temperature has not risen significantly in the past decade doesn't mean the Earth's heat energy imbalance has vanished, though. Excess heat energy trapped by greenhouses gases can have more than one fate in the Earth system; among other things, it can cause water to evaporate, it can melt ice, and it can be mixed into the deep ocean by overturning currents.

That mixing coupled with water's naturally large heat capacity makes the global ocean the Earth’s biggest absorber of heat; scientists estimate the ocean absorbs more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases. When analyzing temperature patterns at different depths of the ocean, scientists observed that deep ocean temperatures—measured more than a half-mile down from the surface—began to rise significantly around 2000, while shallower waters warmed more slowly. This divergence took place at the same time that a natural climate cycle called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or PDO, was shifting to a negative phase.

So not only where they selective about the area (the contiguous USA vs the globe) in misleading you, their reading public, but they were selective in what data they used (surface temps vs water temps).

See how much do they have to mislead for their story to be accurate?

What does that tell you about their story?

Look How BIG The Conspiracy Is!

From today's Tribune-Review editorial board:

And milking the cash cow that's climate change, a report issued by a Pentagon think tank rings a global-warming alarm and urges the Defense Department to step up spending to combat a “man-made” problem, The Washington Times reports. The report, based on “absolute objectivity,” was funded by a climate change group that's one of the think tank's customers. Such stunning “objectivity” is the foundation on which the Church of Global Warming is built.

Let's try to unweave some of the rather confusing prose in the above.

The Washington Times piece is here and it says:

Retired military officers deeply involved in the climate change movement — and some in companies positioned to profit from it — spearheaded an alarmist global warming report this month that calls on the Defense Department to ramp up spending on what it calls a man-made problem.

The report, which the Obama administration immediately hailed as a call to action, was issued not by a private advocacy group but by a Pentagon-financed think tank that trumpets "absolute objectivity." The research was funded by a climate change group that is also one of the think tank's main customers.

The May 13 report came from the military advisory board within CNA Corp., a nonprofit based in Alexandria, Virginia, that includes the Center for Naval Analyses, a Navy-financed group that also gets contracts from other Pentagon units. CNA also operates the Institute for Public Research.

Ok, so now we're getting somewhere.  The port came from a board within the CNA Corp and the CNA Corp operates the Center for Naval Analyses and the Institute for Public Research.

But Scaife's braintrust charges that the people who wrote the report are doing so to line their own pockets.  So what sort of people are these that wrote this report?  Here's the press release page announcing the report:

As a follow-up to its landmark 2007 study on climate and national security, the CNA Corporation Military Advisory Board's National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change (PDF) re-examines the impact of climate change on U.S. national security in the context of a more informed, but more complex and integrated world.

The Board’s 2007 report described projected climate change as a “threat multiplier.” In this report the 16 retired Generals and Admirals who make up the board look at new vulnerabilities and tensions posed by climate change, which, when set against the backdrop of increasingly decentralized power structures around the world, they now identify as a “catalyst for conflict.”

Ok, so it was the Military Advisory Board who wrote the report.  So who are THEY?

Here they are.  Here's the bio of the Chairman of the Board (sorry, Frank):

General Paul Kern, USA (Ret.), Chairman, Military Advisory Board Former Commanding General, U.S. Army Materiel Command General Kern was Commanding General, Army Materiel Command from 2001-2004, and senior advisor for Army Research, Development, and Acquisition from 1997-2001. He was commissioned as an Armor Lieutenant following graduation from West Point in 1967 and served three combat tours – two in Vietnam as a platoon leader and troop commander and the third in Desert Shield/Desert Storm. In the 1990s, Kern served as senior military assistant to Secretary of Defense William Perry. In June 2004, at the request of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Kern led the military's internal investigation into the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

So the guy Donald Rumsfeld asked to investigate Abu Ghraib is in on the climate change conspiracy.

This is the level of their argument, the braintrust.  It's all a conspiracy to get more money out of the Pentagon.  The facts are false, the reasoning is false it's all a big conspiracy - git aht yer tin hats!

But if the source of the funding can, in fact, skew the research, then why are they silent about the money Big Oil has poured into the "research" denying climate science?

Scaife, The Trib, And The NIPCC

I don't think the editorial board fully understands the unintended irony of the opening of today's op-ed:

A new Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) report shows just how weak the case is for “man-made” global warming. Unlike United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, the NIPCC's 1,200-page report has no governmental sponsorship, freeing it from conclusions predetermined by politics. It comes from a consortium of The Heartland Institute, the Science & Environmental Policy Project and the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.

So the funding of a report determines its outcome?  Maybe it's not that harsh.  Perhaps what they're saying is that the source sponsorship of a report can undermine the validity of that report.

The Guardian has some background info on the groups supporting the NIPCC:

The report is the latest in the Heartland Institute's "Climate Change Reconsidered" series and the cornerstone of its campaign against the IPCC's fifth assessment. Heartland is aggressively pushing the report in op-eds, blogs and in articles in conservative newspapers and news stations. Among others, it has received coverage in the Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph, The Washington Times and the UK's Daily Mail, in an article that had to be "significantly" changed due to errors.

Other groups participating in the report include the Science & Environmental Policy Project, a research and advocacy group founded by climate skeptic Fred Singer—who is also the director of Heartland's Science and Environmental Policy Project—and the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, an Arizona-based climate skeptic group partly funded by ExxonMobil.

Ok, so who sponsored the NIPCC report?  More specifically, who supports The Heartland Institute, The Science & Environmental Policy Project and the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change?

You already know the answer but let's take a look anyway.  The NIPCC was set up by Fred Singer and

Let's start with The Heartland Institute.  Over the years it's received (among many others):

• $555,000 from Exxon
• $350,000 from the Sarah Scaife and Carthage Foundations

By the way, Fred Singer's also involved with the Science & Environmental Policy Project.
And how about the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change? It's received:

• $75,000   from Exxon
• $100,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation 

That's a million dollars right there.  So IF the sponsorship of a report can predetermine it's outcome, then why can't we assume the exact same thing about the NIPCC? Funny but Scaife's braintrust never says.

But let's look at some of the specific things in the op-ed:

Taking into account research ignored by or contrary to the IPCC's blame-mankind assumptions — and its latest report, unveiled on Friday, was no exception — the NIPCC report says “climate sensitivity to CO2 is much lower than (the IPCC's incomplete climate) models assume.”

And an explanation from skepticalscience:

The NIPCC report exclusively examines the literature published by climate "skeptics," whereas the IPCC report examines the work of both "skeptics" and mainstream climate scientists. For example, the 2011 NIPCC report has a section about climate sensitivity - how much the planet will warm in response to increasing CO2 emissions. Climate sensitivity is one of the most important climate science issues, especially for climate "skeptics", whose arguments for climate inaction depend entirely on low climate sensitivity. It tells us how much we can expect the planet to warm, depending on how much CO2 we emit in the future.

However, the 2011 NIPCC report only devoted one sub-section (and one page) to the subject of climate sensitivity, and only referenced four scientific studies on the subject (one of which is the debunked Lindzen and Choi [2009]; a second was specific to high-latitude, not global sensitivity; a third was published in a journal of dubious quality over a decade ago; and the fourth does not support low sensitivity). The IPCC report on the other hand devotes several sections to the subject (i.e. here and here and here) and references dozens of peer-reviewed studies investigating the question of climate sensitivity. It's a clear difference between comprehensive and selective reviews.

And then there's this:

It cites the stability of global temperatures since 1997, “despite an 8 percent increase in atmospheric CO2.”

As we already know, there's been no "stability" since 1998.  It's still getting warmer:

The year 1998 was remarkably warm relative to the underlying trend line, in association with the El Nino" of the century. But the underlying global temperature has continued to rise, despite the fact that solar irradiance for the past few years has been stuck in the deepest solar minimum in the period of satellite data.

And so on.

I Guess I Gotta Do This Again

How many "less than accurate" assertions can you spot in this latest from the Tribune-Review editorial board?

Not only did Barack Obama's IRS illegally target conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status with hellish harassment, it engaged in clandestine surveillance of them even after its illegalities were exposed, investigators say. If it takes an old-fashioned public pillorying followed by tarring and feathering to bring the IRS to justice, then so be it. [Bolding in original.]

 Let's start with the IRS targeting.  We've already posted this from Salon, but it bears another read:

We already know that the IRS targeted progressive groups in addition to Tea Party ones, but new information released today adds further details, showing that the tax agency also targeted “ACORN successors” and left-leaning “Emerge” groups. Emerge Nevada, Emerge Maine and Emerge Massachusetts were the only groups to have their applications actually denied 501(c)4 tax-exempt status. Conservative groups had their applications delayed, in some cases for over a year, but not rejected outright.

The above was from late August of this year.  The link in the first sentence goes back two more months to June, 2013.  So we've known for a while that it wasn't only conservative groups that were targeted but liberal ones as well.  It's just that there were more conservative groups than liberal groups applying for tax-exempt status.

But let's take on some more recent reporting on this issue.  Here's what the AP reported a few days ago:

A May report by the IRS inspector general said the agency gave extra scrutiny to 298 groups when they applied for tax exempt status from the spring of 2010 to the spring of 2012. The vast majority of the groups — 248 — were conservative, while 29 were liberal and 21 were neither, according to an analysis by the Republican staff of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Of the 111 conservative groups that had their applications approved, 38 were flagged for additional monitoring, according to the staff review. Of the 20 liberal groups that had their applications approved, seven were flagged for additional monitoring.

Take another look at that last paragraph.  A little over 34% (38/111 = .342) of the conservative groups approved were flagged for further review while a whopping 35% (7/20=.35) of liberal groups approved were also flagged for further review.

And yet this story is about how the IRS targeted the tea-party.

But did it?  Further down the AP story we read this:

After the hearing, the IRS issued a statement saying that while some groups had been flagged for additional scrutiny in the future, that monitoring never took place because the program was put on hold this summer.

‘‘This means that none of them received special scrutiny,’’ the IRS said. ‘‘This precautionary step was done out of an abundance of caution and to ensure a fresh, independent evaluation to determine if these groups needed review at a future point in time. We are continuing to assess the situation going forward.’’ [Emphasis added.]

Now of course the IRS could be lying.  But still it's a long way from the assertion that they had "engaged in clandestine surveillance" now isn't it?

But what would that monitoring have looked like had it taken place?

Cue the next AP paragraph:

The monitoring, known as a review of operations, would have fallen short of a full audit in most cases. Under the program, agents monitor groups to assess whether they are adhering to the activities described in their applications for tax-exempt status.

So Scaife's braintrust is saying that nothing like this should ever be taking place?  As I've written before, it's not the scrutiny that's offensive, it's the way the scrutiny took place.  Legal monitoring of this is absolutely necessary.

But let's move on to another "less than accurate" assertion from Scaife's braintrust.  We can all read this from the AP:

So far, congressional investigators have shown that IRS supervisors in Washington knew that applications by tea party groups were being delayed for months and even years. However, investigators have not publicly produced evidence that anyone outside the IRS ordered the targeting or knew it was happening.

That would include, of course, the White House.  But that didn't stop the braintrust from calling it "Barrack Obama's IRS" did it?

And then finally:

The IRS has been under siege since May when agency officials acknowledged that agents working in a Cincinnati office had improperly targeted tea party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. Shortly after the revelation, President Barack Obama forced the acting IRS commissioner to resign and appointed Werfel to run the agency temporarily.

In August, Obama nominated John Koskinen, a retired corporate and government turnaround specialist, to a five-year term as commissioner. Werfel continues to run the agency while Koskinen awaits Senate confirmation.

Three congressional committees and the Justice Department have launched investigations, and much of the leadership at the IRS has been replaced.

The implication from the braintrust, of course, is that Barrack Obama's IRS has not yet been punished - because it's Barrack Obama's IRS.  And yet, in reality...

Did you get them all?

I've Been Waiting For This One...

Today on the op-ed page of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, we find this:

A funny thing has happened on the way to the polar ice caps melting and inundating our coastal cities. The National Snow and Ice Data Center says 1 million more square miles of ocean are covered in ice this year versus last. Which has prompted University of Wisconsin researcher Anastasios Tsonis to note that the Earth is in a cooling phase that could last for at least the next 15 years. And what do we say, class, upon learning of such news? All together now: “Throw another log on the fire, honey. It's getting cold outside.”[Bolding in original.]

The week old story popped up on a few facebook feeds as well.

However, Scaife's braintrust couldn't even get it's numbers right.  Here's the USAToday from three days ago:

Sea ice is frozen ocean water that melts each summer and then refreezes each winter. It typically reaches its smallest "extent" in September and largest in March of each year.

The data center reported Wednesday that the extent of Arctic sea ice shrank to 1.98 million square miles on Tuesday. Last year, at its smallest point, the amount of sea ice shrank to 1.32 million square miles.

That's a difference of about 2/3 of a million square miles - the braintrust said it was a "million more."  Messy sloppy mistake, guys.  It's embarrassing to make such a simple mistake, doncha think?

Anyway, even if they got that simplest of facts right (which they didn't), they're still misleading you with a bit of a statistical fallacy.  What they're doing is called "regression toward the mean."  Basically what that means is that since the previous summer (of 2012) was so bad, anything not so bad can be seen as "recovering" while in reality it's really just moving back to the average (which is already bad and getting worse).  Here's the lede from the USAToday piece:

Sea ice in the Arctic will reach its annual minimum "any day now," says Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which tracks Arctic ice.

Although not nearly as ice-free as last September's all-time record low, the amount of Arctic sea ice in the summer of 2013 was well below average, and will likely go in the books as the sixth-smallest "extent" of Arctic sea ice on record,he says. [Emphasis added.]

In it's debunking of this story, Slate.com was even good enough to add a chart from the NSIDC to show what's happening:

I guess the braintrust didn't bother to take a look at this chart from the very same source it uses as the foundation of it's most recent warm and steamy pile of anti-science.

See that light blue line?  That's this year.  The dotted line is last year and the darker grey is the average.  See how last year, while above last year, is still below the average?  Additionally, see how it's consistently below the 1981-2010 average?  See how what the climate deniers at the Trib and on Facebook are completely wrong?

Nor was this "recovery" unexpected.  Take a look at this from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science in the UK (Note: This is from August of last year):

Around 80% of the ~100 scientists at the Bjerknes conference thought that there would be MORE Arctic sea-ice in 2013, compared to 2012.

Again, in an informal poll of actual climate scientists last year, they thought there'd be more ice in the arctic this year than last.  And there was.

And about the research of Professor Tsonis.  Does the braintrust understand that he's already address (in relation to an earlier paper) his work on the supposed "cooling"?

Well, he has.  Here:

The contentious part of our paper is that the climate system appears to have had another “episode” around the turn of the 21st century, coinciding with the much discussed “halt” in global warming. Whether or not such a halt has really occurred is of course controversial (it appears quite marked in the HadCRUT3 data, less so in GISTEMP); only time will tell if it’s real. Regardless, it’s important to note that we are not talking about global cooling, just a pause in warming. [Bolding in original.]

And I think that about does it.

Yes, But...

A musicology professor once told a class I was in that every intelligent statement is a "Yes, but..." statement.  So let me start with this op-ed at the Tribune-Review and then proceed from there:

Colorado voters have recalled two heavily funded Democrat state legislators over stricter gun-control laws. Out are Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron. The good news is that you can mess with the Second Amendment only so much. The bad news is that Democrats still control the Centennial State's House and Senate. [Bolding in original.]

This is the story Scaife's braintrust finds so enthralling:

An epic national debate over gun rights in Colorado on Tuesday saw two Democratic state senators ousted for their support for stricter laws, a "ready, aim, fired" message intended to stop other politicians for pushing for firearms restrictions. Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron will be replaced in office with Republican candidates who petitioned onto the recall ballot.

But did you know that the recall effort itself was unpopular?  Take a look at this poll data from KWIN- uh-pe-ack University:

By wide margins, Colorado voters oppose efforts to recall two state legislators and say 2-1 that efforts to remove legislators when people don't agree with their vote should be when they face reelection, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Voters say 54 - 35 percent that State Senate President John Morse should not be removed from office because of his support for stricter gun control, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN- uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Voters also say 52 - 36 percent that State Sen. Angela Giron should not be recalled because of her support for stricter gun control.

Colorado voters say 60 - 31 percent that when people don't agree with a legislator, they should wait for reelection, rather than attempt a recall.

While Republicans support both recall efforts by margins of 2 - 1, only 47 percent support the overall concept of recall, while 42 percent say wait for reelection.

All voters oppose 54 - 40 percent the stricter new gun control laws which led to the recall effort. Democrats support the stricter laws 78 - 16 percent, while opposition is 89 - 7 percent among Republicans and 56 - 39 percent among independent voters. Women are divided on the stricter laws 48 - 45 percent, with men opposed 64 - 33 percent.

"With wide partisan and gender divisions, Colorado voters oppose the state's stricter new gun control laws, but they don't want to recall State Senate President John Morse or Sen. Angela Giron because they supported these laws," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Philosophically, voters don't want a recall election every time they disagree with a legislator. They'd rather deal with it every four years."

Mediamatters has two more things to ponder:

The Recall Turnout Was Extremely Low. A very small number of voters determined the recall election. In fact, voter turnout in Morse and Giron's districts were both substantially lower in the recall election compared to the 2010 state senate elections. Only 21 percent of 84,029 registered voters in Morse's district voted in the recall election. A mere 9,094 people voted in favor of recall; he lost his seat by a margin of 343 votes. Turnout was about 11,000 voters higher in Morse's 2010 senate election. Turnout in Giron's district was only 36 percent; 10,000 more people voted in her 2010 Senate election. Deriving national trends from low-turnout recall elections seems unwise.

Efforts To Recall Other Members Who Supported Stronger Gun Laws Failed. Opponents of stronger gun laws didn't intend to recall just Giron and Morse; they originally targeted two other lawmakers as well. But an effort to recall Sen. Evie Hudak was suspended by organizers three weeks before the deadline. And an effort to recall Rep. Mike McLachlan also failed when the Colorado Secretary of State reported that no signatures were turned in before a deadline. [Bolding in original.]

So yes, the two were recalled but I am not sure it all means what the braintrust wants you to think it means.

Just sayin'

The Brainstrust Dazzles Us With Its Command Of The Facts. Again.

We'll start with what they published today:

Speaking of guns, a new Harvard study concludes that more gun control does not necessarily lead to lower death rates (homicide and suicide) or violent crime. “(T)hose correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared around the world,” the study says. Translation: That dog won't hunt. [Bolding in original.]

Do you see the fifth word in that? It's the word "new" and its meaning should be obvious to everyone even remotely conversant in English.

Now let's go to the "study" they call "new"  Here it is.  It's volume 30 of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and according to the HJLPP's website, this article was published in the Spring of 2007.

How, exactly, is that "new"?

And is this really a Harvard study (new or otherwise)?  Depends on how you define "Harvard study" I guess.  As stated above, it's from the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (www.harvard-jlpp.com) - but what is that, exactly?

First, you'll note that the URL ends with a ".com" rather than a ".edu" like say where the Harvard School of Public Health publishes its Firearms data (www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/). See the .edu?  That means it's from Harvard University.

On the other hand, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy describes itself as:

[A]n organization of Harvard Law School students. The Journal is one of the most widely circulated student-edited law reviews and the nation’s leading forum for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship.

So we're not exactly talking peer-reviewed social science here, are we?  From there you can decide for yourself whether that constitutes or subverts the notion of this paper being a study from Harvard.

And so are there any actual studies published in the peer-reviewed Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy that look at whatever connection that may exist between the number of firearms and homicide?

I am so glad you asked.  Take a look at what's available on this page:

Our review of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.

Hepburn, Lisa; Hemenway, David. Firearm availability and homicide: A review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40. [Bolding and italics in original.]

But let's look at some of the facts presented by the paper being touted by Scaife's braintrust.

On page 652, there's a table titled:

Table 1: European Gun Ownership and Murder Rates

And this table tells us that the tiny country of Luxembourg had, in 2002, a murder rate of about 9 per 100,000 people. That means that given a population of about 500,000 there were would have been about 45 homicides in 2002, right?  It's such a prominent "fact" that it's presented prominently in the text:

These countries, however, have murder rates as low or lower than many developed nations in which gun ownership is much rarer. For example, Luxembourg, where handguns are totally banned and ownership of any kind of gun is minimal, had a murder rate nine times higher than Germany in 2002.

This must've come as a surprise to the researchers who compiled the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.  Their Eighth Survey covered the years 2001-2002 and their data shows that Luxembourg had a total number of 4 homicides in 2002 or a rate of .9 per 100,000 inhabitants.

4 not 45.  0.9 not 9.01.  (It's on page 185 of this document if you want to check my work.)

Shabby work.  Old(ish) shabby work, too!

Now go back and look at what Scaife's braintrust wrote.  How valid do YOU think it is?

The Trib Covers A Source.

Yes, they're still at it.

From today's Tribune-Review editorial page:

The left and “progressives” love to blame wage stagnation on greedy businesses wanting to gobble a larger share of the pie. But it's actually a product of businesses' uncertainty about taxes, regulations and employee-benefit costs — which the Obama administration has exacerbated.

Merrill Matthews, resident scholar at the nonpartisan, free-market Institute for Policy Innovation (ipi.org), notes...

Regardless of what Mr Matthews actually said regarding wages, take a look at how Scaife's braintrust characterizes the IPI -  "nonpartisan" and "free-market."

Really?  Nonpartisan? Let's go take a look.

Back in October, 2012, American Enterprise Institute scholar J. D. Kleinke published a piece in the New York Times called "The Conservative Case for Obamacare" and for that he was, according to Forbes.com "pilloried" by what they call "Conservative policy experts."

Among them:

Merrill Matthews, resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation: “The fundamental philosophical difference is that liberals do not think the free market can work in health care and so the government must make it work. Conservatives think the free market has never been tried. Kleinke is clearly in the former camp and is thus making the liberal, not the conservative, case for ObamaCare.” [Bolding in original.]

In 2002 the Capital Research Center, a conservative think-tank that is itself the beneficiary of almost $5.3 million of Scaife foundation money over the years rated the Institute for Policy Innovation as an "8" on a "1 to 8"/"Left to Right"scale.

And since we mentioned the Scaife money, how much has this "nonpartisan" think tank received from foundations controlled by my good friend Richard Mellon Scaife?

Of the $2 million or so it's received from various foundations, the IPI got about a quarter of that ($470,000) from The Sarah Scaife and Carthage Foundations.

Finally, if the place were so "nonpartisan" why would TeaParty Senator Ted Cruz be a part of its 25th Anniversary gala?

Nonpartisan?  Not even close.

Disassembling The Trib's Climate Science Denial

Let's start with what Scaife's braintrust published this morning at the Tribune-Review and then unweave point by point:

Al Gore, who profited handsomely paving the way for Al Jazeera's U.S. entree, likens climate change skeptics to racists, homophobes and those who enable an alcoholic's denial. Oh, this just in — the United States recorded 2,899 record cold temperatures versus 667 record warm temperatures between July 24 and Aug. 19.[Bolding in original.]

There are two points I want to look at here; what Al Gore said and the data being used to "debunk" the climate science.

First, what did Gore actually say?  Did he really "liken climate change skeptics to racists..." and so on?

No, not really.  In a piece in a Washington Post piece about how and why he's "optimistic" about the future regarding climate science, this is what Gore actually said:

Well, I think the most important part of it is winning the conversation. I remember as a boy when the conversation on civil rights was won in the South. I remember a time when one of my friends made a racist joke and another said, hey man, we don’t go for that anymore. The same thing happened on apartheid. The same thing happened on the nuclear arms race with the freeze movement. The same thing happened in an earlier era with abolition. A few months ago, I saw an article about two gay men standing in line for pizza and some homophobe made an ugly comment about them holding hands and everyone else in line told them to shut up. We’re winning that conversation.

The conversation on global warming has been stalled because a shrinking group of denialists fly into a rage when it’s mentioned. It’s like a family with an alcoholic father who flies into a rage every time a subject is mentioned and so everybody avoids the elephant in the room to keep the peace. But the political climate is changing. Something like Chris Hayes’s excellent documentary on climate change wouldn’t have made it on TV a few years ago. And as I said, many Republicans who’re still timid on the issue are now openly embarrassed about the extreme deniers. The deniers are being hit politically. They’re being subjected to ridicule, which stings. The polling is going back up in favor of doing something on this issue. The ability of the raging deniers to stop progress is waning every single day.

So it's not really about "likening" deniers to racists, homophobes and so on.  It's really about how the conversation is changing.  In the past (before "civil rights was won in the South") a racist joke was far more acceptable in day to day discourse.  Same thing regarding members of the various LGBTQ communities across the country.  Not that everything's fixed, mind you, but the conversation's changed enough that two gay men can hold hands in a fast food restaurant and the homophobes who try to ridicule them are themselves subject to public shaming.

Imagine that 20 years ago.  Or 10.

The conversation is changing, he said.  The deniers are the ones subject to ridicule (like this from just last week) because their position is simply embarrassing.

Now let's take a look at the data the braintrust is trying to use to undermine the science.  I haven't been able to track down it's exact source, but let's (for the minute) assume it's true - that United States recorded 2,899 record cold temperatures versus 667 record warm temperatures between July 24 and Aug. 19. 

Even if that's true, so what?

The United States only makes up about 6.6% of the total land mass of the planet (or only about 2% of its total surface area).  Assuming a world wide pattern from such a small selection of the data is misleading (at best).   But even if it does point out a large scale trend (that there were fewer "record-setting hot days in that month") again, so what?

What's the larger global trend?  The selected data the braintrust uses doesn't go anywhere near the global trend.

Which is still getting warmer.

The braintrust is running out of ways to mislead on climate science.

They're Cherry Picking Again

And by that I mean the Tribune-Review editorial boards recurring (and yet always failing) science denial.  From this past Thursday:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says 2012 “was among the 10 warmest years on record.” But as climate blogger Pierre Gosselin notes, the report fails to mention that last year was one of the coolest of the decade. “(T)he report gives the ... impression that warming is galloping ahead out of control. But (NOAA's) data show just the opposite.” There's “science” and then there's science.
[Bolding in original.]

Before I get to deconstructing the braintrust's "conflict" I'd like to point out a bit of "gee, maybe I dunno, Wally" plagiarism.  Take a look at this from CNSNews:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently released its “State of the Climate in 2012” report, which states that “worldwide, 2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record.”

But the report “fails to mention [2012] was one of the coolest of the decade, and thus confirms the cooling trend,” according to an analysis by climate blogger Pierre Gosselin.

“To no one’s surprise, the report gives the reader the impression that warming is galloping ahead out of control,” writes Gosselin. “But their data shows just the opposite.”

How much closer could these two passages get?  But is this really plagiarism?  Considering the fact that it's from the "Cybercast News Service" and that the "Cybercast News Service" used to be the "Conservative News Service" and that the "Conservative News Service" is owned by the Media Research Center and Tribune-Review owner Richard Mellon Scaife is a huge financial supporter of the CNS, I suppose that even if it is plagiarism, Barbara Hollingsworth (writer of the CNS piece the braintrust filched) probably can't protest about it that much.

Back to the  braintrust debunking.  Let's look at Gosselin's blogpost first.  It's a typical case of cherry picking the data as you can see from his first chart:

See how it just goes back to 1998?  That's the first clue there's selective data choosing going on.  Gosselin goes on to say that the NOAA report actually "confirm(s) precisely what the skeptics have been claiming all along" ie that "The Earth has stopped warming."

Except that it doesn't.

We've dealt with this "no global warming since 1998" myth before.  If you focus on the last decade and a half it certainly looks like a stoppage in the warming.  But if you expand the view and take a rolling average, this is what it looks like:

See the upper right hand corner? That's just about all the data from the last decade or so (more or less exactly what Gosselin's basing his "the warming stopped" story on).  Looking at more than a century's worth of data, how anyone can say the warming's "stopped" is beyond me.

Indeed, there's no conflict between the two statements the braintrust wants you to think are in conflict.  It is possible for 2012 to be "among the warmest on record" and for it to be "one of coolest of the decade."

How?  Well, as NOAA says on the page describing the report:

Including the 2012 temperature, Earth is warming at a rate of 0.06°C (0.11°F) per decade since 1880 and a more rapid 0.16°C (0.28°F) per decade since 1970.

Ah...

So only by a careful selection of the data can you show that "the Earth stopped warming" in 1998.

So the braintrust is right, there's "science" and there's science.  Too bad they're wrong in thinking they're quoting science - when they're quoting non-climatologists (oops, did I fail to mention that he's not actually a climate scientist?  My bad.) like Pierre Gosselin, they're only dabbling in "science."

On the other hand, the data used by the NOAA report is actually "peer-reviewed."

So you can decide which is more scientifically reliable.

When Editorials Collide

Every now and then the editorial board over at the Tribune-Review takes issue with something the editorial board over at the Post-Gazette publishes.  More often than not, they don't like what they read.  Surprising, I know.

Which in itself is fine.  Conflicting between editorial boards is a good thing.  But only if both are honest with, you know, the facts.

And we all know by now that the relationship between Scaife's braintrust and the facts is iffy, at best.

Take a look at this from this morning:

Huh?: Those economic “scholars” at The Toledo, Ohio, Block Bugler once again are shilling for a higher minimum wage — this time for fast-food workers and to $10.50 an hour. And, hey, it argues (a word we use loosely), it would raise the price of a Big Mac by only a nickel. “That's a small amount to pay for meaningful change,” it says. Actually, it's a steep price to pay, given that the real result would be fewer of these entry-level jobs.

What they're talking about is this P-G editorial.  Look closely at how the braintrust characterizes the idea of raising the minimum wage to $10.50.  Now let's go see what the P-G editorial board actually says about it:

The low wages don't do great things for the restaurants, either. According to Time magazine, the National Restaurant Association estimates that a fast-food outlet sees 75 percent turnover in employees every year. The story also reported that a letter signed by more than 100 economists said that raising the minimum wage to $10.50 would add only a nickel to the price of a Big Mac.

That's a small amount to pay for meaningful change. We think most Americans would be willing to fork over a few more cents for a Happy Meal if it meant happier times for the workers who make them.

Wait, you mean that wasn't just an argument from the editorial board, but it was from something from Time Magazine?  And it's a group of 100 economists who are making the argument NOT the P-G editorial board? 

Huh, I guess that still would be some real "economic 'scholars'" but just not at the P-G.  Funny how that part got left out.  The argument looks a lot different if it comes from 100 economists, doesn't it?

Here's the Time article, by the way - the real source of that idea.

But why would those actual "economic scholars" say that about raising the minimun wage to $10.50?

Here's what they say from the petition:

We, the undersigned professional economists, support the “Catching Up to 1968 Act of 2013, ” sponsored by Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida. This measure would raise the federal minimum wage from its current level of $7.25, established in 2009, to $10.50 per hour , and with automatic increases indexed to inflation thereafter.

As is conveyed by the title of the bill itself, the real , inflation-adjusted, value of the federal minimum wage has fallen dramatically over time. In 1968, the real value of the minimum wage was $10.65, so that, in fact, an increase today to a $10.50 federal minimum would not even bring the minimum wage fully back to the 1968 standard.

And:

Businesses can readily absorb these small cost increases through minor increases in prices and productivity as well as enabling low-wage workers to receive a slightly larger share of businesses’ total revenues. On average, even fast-food restaurants, which employ a disproportionate share of minimum wage workers, are likely to see their overall business costs increase by only about 2. 7 percent from a rise today to a $10.50 federal minimum wage. That means, for example, that McDonalds could cover fully half of the cost increase by raising the price of a Big Mac, on average, from $4.00 to $4.05.

And as to whether that will decrease  minimum wage employment, they say:

Opponents of minimum wage increases frequently argue that such measures will mean fewer employment opportunities for low-wage workers because businesses will be less willing to hire workers at the increased wage level. But the weight of evidence from the extensive professional literature has , for decades, consistently found that no significant effects on employment opportunities result when the minimum wage rises in reasonable increments. This is because the increases in overall business costs resulting from a minimum wage increase are modest .

And there's more:

Moreover, the overwhelming factor determining employment opportunities for low - wage workers is macroeconomic conditions — whether the economy is growing or in a recession. Thus, in 1968, when the U.S. minimum wage reached $10.65 in real dollars, the overall unemployment rate was 3.6 percent. By contrast, during the depths of the 1982 recession, the real value of the minimum wage had fallen to $8.05 while unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent

You can even check out the economic scholarship supporting the petition here.  Where's the work supporting the braintrust's position?  Someplace NOT bought and paid for by Scaife foundation money, that is.

There's a lot behind the P-G editorial, isn't there?  Not so much for the editorial from the braintrust.

When editorials collide, said George Pal to his bride, I'm gonna give you some terrible thrills.

Some More Trib Climate Mendacity

From a few days ago at the Trib:

Mr. Obama warns that the climate today is warming at an accelerated rate — “faster than anybody anticipated five or 10 years ago” — and that the future “is going to depend on our willingness to deal with something we may not be able to see or smell.”

On the contrary, the smell of what's he's spreading around is quite distinctive.

At a recent Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, a panel of five scientists were asked twice whether they stood by the president's assessment, The Heritage Foundation reports. Their initial response?

Silence.

I fear I risk alienating my audience out of sheer repetition by pointing out that here's yet another example of Richard Mellon Scaife's editorial board citing The Heritage Foundation with no mention of the millions upon millions of Scaife foundation dollars he's simply drenched it with.

So let's move on to the argument itself.  Here's what the president said (it was at a DCCC fundraiser at the home of Paul and Bettylu Saltzman):

We still have a situation in which, on the one hand, our energy future is more promising than we’ve ever allowed ourselves to believe. We will probably be a net exporter of traditional fossil fuels over the next 20 years -- within the next 20 years, probably a net exporter of natural gas in the next three or four years -- something that could not be imagined even five, 10 years ago -- because of the dynamism and technology that America has produced.

But the flipside is we also know that the climate is warming faster than anybody anticipated five or 10 years ago, and that the future of Bettylu’s grandkids, in part, is going to depend on our willingness to deal with something that we may not be able to see or smell the way you could when the Chicago River was on fire, or at least could have caught on fire, but is in some ways more serious, more fundamental. [Emphasis added.]

So far, so good. At least Scaife's braintrust didn't take those words out of context.  They said he said the earth was warming faster than anticipated.  And he did say that.

But is that true?

Well, according to this article at the Scientific American, it is:

Over the past decade scientists thought they had figured out how to protect humanity from the worst dangers of climate change. Keeping planetary warming below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) would, it was thought, avoid such perils as catastrophic sea-level rise and searing droughts. Staying below two degrees C would require limiting the level of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million (ppm), up from today's 395 ppm and the preindustrial era's 280 ppm.

Now it appears that the assessment was too optimistic. The latest data from across the globe show that the planet is changing faster than expected.

Or this article from The Atlantic:

A new report from the International Energy Agency says global temperatures will rise twice as fast as projected if countries don't act to slash their admissions soon. Released this morning, the IEA report shows carbon diaoxide from energy emissions rose 1.4 percent globally last year, a new record, and puts the world on pace for a 5.3 degree Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) rise in global temperatures by 2020 if new steps aren't taken. In 2010, a UN summit agreed the goal would be to limit the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees by 2020.

But take a look at what's being said: the planet's warming is happening faster than anticipated.

Now look at how Scaife's braintrust tries to debunk what the president said:

“There is little or no observational evidence that severe weather of any type has worsened over the last 30, 50 or 100 years, irrespective of whether any changes could be blamed on human activities anyway,” said Dr. Roy Spencer, principal research scientist at the University of Alabama, according to a Heritage report.[Emphasis added.]

While the president (and the IEA and Scientific American) was talking about rising temperatures, Climate model skeptic and evolution denier Dr. Spencer is talking about severe weather.  Here's what he said in his Senate testimony:

There is little or no observational evidence that severe weather of any type has worsened over the last 30, 50, or 100 years, irrespective of whether any such changes could be blamed on human activities, anyway. Long-term measurements of droughts, floods, strong tornadoes, hurricanes, severe thunderstorms etc. all show no obvious trends, but do show large variability from one decade to the next, or even one year to the next. While the 2003 heat wave in France and the 2010 heat wave in Russia were exceptional, so were the heat waves of the 1930s in the U.S., which cannot b e blamed on our greenhouse gas emissions.[Emphases added.]

Now, what does he say about global warming in general? Does he deny it?

No, not really:

My overall view of the influence of humans on climate is that we probably are having some influence, but it is impossible to know with any level of certainty how much influence. The difficulty in determining the human influence on climate arises from several sources: (1) weather and climate vary naturally, and by amounts that are not currently being exceeded; (2) global warming theory is just that – based upon theory; and (3) there is no unique fingerprint of human caused global warming.

My belief that some portion of recent warming is due to humans is based upon my faith in at least some portion of the theory: that the human contribution to atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations has resulted in an es timated 1% reduction in the Earth’s ability to cool to outer space, and so some level of warming can be expected to occur from that change.

Funny how that part didn't make it into what the braintrust wrote.

But the larger point is the subject change.  As I wrote a few paragraphs above, Obama's talking temperature and the braintrust counters with hurricanes and tornadoes.  And the guy they cite to make that counter actually does believe that the planet is warming up.

And anyway, did you know that there were two 5-expert panels at that hearing?  Scaife's braintrust and Scaife's Heritage Foundation only mention one.  On the other panel, we can find another climate expert, a Dr. Heidi Cullen who is Chief Climatologist at Climate Central, saying this:

Ongoing research (Francis and Vavrus, 2012; Petoukhov et al., 2013) suggests a possible mechanism for the increasing extremes we are beginning to see . Specifically, by changing the temperature balance between the Arctic and mid latitudes, rapid Arctic warming is altering the course of the jet stream, which is responsible for steering weather systems from west to east around the globe . The Arctic has been warming about twice as fast as the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, due to a combination of human emissions of greenhouse gases and unique feedbacks built into the Arctic climate system. According to this new research, the jet stream is becoming “wavier,” with steeper troughs and ridges. Weather systems are moving more slowly, increasing the chances for long duration extreme events, like droughts, floods, and heat waves. The tendency for weather to get stuck in one pattern is going to favor extreme weather.

Funny how that never made it into what the braintrust wrote, either.

It was said at the hearing, right?  It was spoken to the Senate committe, right?  So why didn't the braintrust bother telling you about it?  My guess is that since it doesn't fit into the reality they want you to accept, they don't think you need to know about it.

Same story, different day.

Oh, NOW It's The Sunspots!!

From today's Tribune-Review Op-Ed Page:

Global warming's “pause” over the past decade-plus is an inconvenient truth that blame-mankind, “settled science” climate cluckers struggle to explain. Here's another: Sunspot formation is weakening in ways reminiscent of conditions associated with a “little ice age” about 300 years ago.

The U.K.-based Global Warming Policy Foundation (thegwpf.org) cites an Irish Times report on solar scientists' latest findings. Sunspot activity should be peaking in its regular 11-year cycle, averaging between 90 and 140 sunspots a month, but the actual figure is just 67.

Here's the "report" at the GWPF which is just a repost of this article at the Irish Times.

By the way at the bottom of the GWPF page there's this link which basically debunks story that the braintrust's trying to tell you:

Those hoping that the sun could save us from climate change look set for disappointment. The recent lapse in solar activity is not the beginning of a decades-long absence of sunspots – a dip that might have cooled the climate. Instead, it represents a shorter, less pronounced downturn that happens every century or so.

How interesting that they chose not to tell you that.

But this "sunspot/climbing temps" argument isn't new.  Let me show you something from skepticalscience.com.  It's a set of three pages (one basic, one intermediate, and one advanced) explaining this argument.  But let's go straight to the artwork:

See how the solar activity line (the blue one) has been headed downward for a few decades and the temperature line (the red one) has been trending upwards?

From their "intermediate page" there's lotsa actual science to show how little influence sunspot activity actually has on global temperatures.

The recent disconnect between sunspots and temperature rise isn't new news at all.  Just this data.

Still doesn't change the fact that climate change is undeniable.

Now go back and look at what the braintrust wants you to believe.  How silly does it look now?

The Trib, The Washington Times, And The IRS Zombie Story

Don't these guys keep up with the news?

We'll start here at the Tribune-Review:

The Washington Times reports that the Treasury Department has admitted that confidential records of several political candidates and campaign donors were “improperly scrutinized by government officials, but the Justice Department had declined to prosecute any of the cases.” We've lost count on how many scandals are plaguing the Obama administration. But its fundamental lawlessness grows more stunning by the week. [Bolding in original.]

Ah...those Obama "scandals."  Is there a reason why we haven't heard much about them recently?

Turns out, there is but let's get back to the article Scaife's braintrust references.  Here's the third paragraph:

In a written response to a request by [Senator Chuck] Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, [the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, J. Russell] George said a review turned up four cases since 2006 in which unidentified government officials took part in “unauthorized access or disclosure of tax records of political donors or candidates,” including one case he described as “willful.” In four additional cases, Mr. George said, allegations of improper access of IRS records were not substantiated by the evidence. [Emphasis added.]

And a paragraph or so later:

The investigation did not name the government officials who obtained the IRS records improperly, nor did it reveal the identities or political parties of the people whose tax records were compromised.

Wait.  Only four cases since 2006 with only one described as "willful" and with no indication as to who or when these cases took place?  So from the report we have no idea whether this is a Bush Administration thing or an Obama Administration thing, right?

And yet to the Scaife's braintrust, it's automatically an Obama scandal.  The Times fills in the myth:

The disclosures deal another blow to the IRS and the Obama administration, which are still grappling with revelations that IRS agents inappropriately targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for extraordinarily burdensome scrutiny during President Obama’s first term.

And yet, that's not completely accurate, is it?  From a memo released by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee:

On Thursday, the Committee will hold its second—and Congress’ seventh—hearing on accusations that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeted Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status for partisan political purposes. This investigation was initiated when the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) issued a report on May 14, 2013, finding that the IRS used “inappropriate” criteria to identify Tea Party organizations for review.

For the past eight weeks, Republican politicians, pundits, and commentators have engaged in a sustained and coordinated campaign to accuse the White House and the Obama Administration of using the IRS to target Tea Party groups applying for tax exempt status despite the absence of any evidence to support these accusations.

And:

This memorandum provides the results of the Committee’s investigation to date. It finds that since the Chairman and other Republicans first began accusing the Administration of targeting “the president’s political enemies,” the Committee has identified no evidence whatsoever—documentary, testimonial, or otherwise—to substantiate these claims. Despite an extremely aggressive investigation involving thousands of documents and more than a dozen interviews of IRS employees, the overwhelming evidence before the Committee reveals no political motivation or White House involvement in this process.[Emphases added.]

The evidence that the memo does show goes something like this:

When asked if there was any evidence of targeting the President’s political enemies, a Republican Tax Law Specialist in Washington, D.C. answered: “No, not at all. That’s kind of laughable that people think that. No, not at all. This is purely cases that, unfortunately, Cincinnati didn’t have enough guidance on. That (c)(4) area is a very, very difficult area, and there’s not much guidance. And so the lingering length of time, unfortunately, was just trying to apply the law to the specific facts of each case.”

So tell me again how this is a scandal?

And what of the rest of those "scandals"?  Go read this.

No, HERE'S The Reality

My friends, the braintrust is misleading you.  Again.

This time it's about the sequester:

For all the hand-wringing over the big, bad sequestration, most of the worst fallout predicted by pols never occurred. The Washington Post reminds that prison guards and FBI agents weren't furloughed. Americans didn't get stuck at border crossings. And hundreds of thousands of low-income women and children didn't go hungry.

That last line's an obvious distract because as the Washington Post pointed out last February:

Most mandatory programs, like Medicaid and Social Security, and in particular low-income programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, or welfare) and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) were exempt from the sequester.

Back then, the Post did point out (in the next sentence, by the way) that:

...some low-income programs, most notably aid for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), are subject to cuts.

However when we look at the Post article (or even the Heritage Foundation blog post) the braintrust references we don't find ANY mention of WIC.

Um, so since, say, food stamps were exempt from the sequester, isn't it kinda misleading to imply that the sequester ain't so bad because women and children didn't go hungry because of it?

On the other hand the Washington Post article they reference does point out one of the reasons why the predictions of the Obama administration didn't occur:

So many predictions fell short because, in recent months, the administration and Congress did what was supposed to be impossible: They undid many of sequestration’s scariest reductions. In the process, this supposedly ironclad budget cut — ostensibly immune to political maneuvering — became a symbol of the reality that nothing in Washington is beyond politics.

So some of the details of the sequester have been changed by the Congress and the Administration in reaction to the reality of the budget cuts in order to lessen their impact.  Huh.  So let me ask you: Did you get any indication of that in reading the Braintrust's editorial?

No?  Me neither.

Don't you think it should have been in there, if only to present a clearer picture of reality?

Yea.  Me, too.

Distorting reality for the sake of pushing a political agenda - not much of a surprise, really, coming from the editorial board of the Richard Mellon Scaife's Tribune-Review.

The Braintrust Gets It Wrong. Again.

I hope everyone had a good fourth.

But there's still work to be done, still misinformation to be corrected, still Tribune-Review op-eds to be debunked.

Like this one, today:

The Obama administration just jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire with its abrupt Tuesday decision to delay a signature provision of ObamaCare.

Not only is the move to delay, until 2015, implementation of a mandate that larger employers (of 50 or more workers) provide health care insurance for their employees or face a $2,000 fine for each nakedly political — it postpones an onerous diktat with backdraft political implications until after the 2014 midterm elections — the administration's arbitrary decision to flout the law is patently illegal. [Emphases added.]

Arbitrary?  Well, let's see about that.  Here's how the Treasury Department explains the "abrupt" and "arbitrary" decision:

Over the past several months, the Administration has been engaging in a dialogue with businesses - many of which already provide health coverage for their workers - about the new employer and insurer reporting requirements under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively. We recognize that the vast majority of businesses that will need to do this reporting already provide health insurance to their workers, and we want to make sure it is easy for others to do so. We have listened to your feedback. And we are taking action.

The Administration is announcing that it will provide an additional year before the ACA mandatory employer and insurer reporting requirements begin. This is designed to meet two goals. First, it will allow us to consider ways to simplify the new reporting requirements consistent with the law. Second, it will provide time to adapt health coverage and reporting systems while employers are moving toward making health coverage affordable and accessible for their employees. Within the next week, we will publish formal guidance describing this transition. Just like the Administration’s effort to turn the initial 21-page application for health insurance into a three-page application, we are working hard to adapt and to be flexible about reporting requirements as we implement the law.

So not so abrupt or arbitrary, huh?  But take a look at the why of the delay: to give businesses more time to meet the requirements of the law.

And what does business have to say about this delay?  From the New York Times:

Employer groups were quick to applaud the delay. At the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has strongly opposed the law, Randy Johnson, senior vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits, said in a statement, “The administration has finally recognized the obvious — employers need more time and clarification of the rules of the road before implementing the employer mandate.”

E. Neil Trautwein, a vice president of the National Retail Federation, said the delay “will provide employers and businesses more time to update their health care coverage without threat of arbitrary punishment.”

And why is there a need for a delay?  This from the Washington Post:

The decision comes as a result of years of bumps and setbacks for the overhaul, including legal challenges and political opposition that have hampered its implementation. Last summer, the Supreme Court upheld the law but struck down a mandatory expansion of Medicaid. State officials and businesses held off changing their policies through the 2012 presidential campaign because Obama’s GOP opponent, Mitt Romney, had promised to repeal the law.

Basically, business has been delaying implementing the policies hoping that either the Supreme Court overturns the law or Romney killed it.  In case you missed it, neither happened.

And so now they're running short of time and the Administration just gave them another year.

And yet to Scaife's braintrust, it's an "abrupt" and "arbitrary" decision designed to help out in the 2014 midterms.

But will it have much of an effect?  According to Brian Beutler at Talkingpointsmemo, not so much:

The provision in question — the so-called “employer mandate” — is intended to entice large employers to provide insurance to their full-time employees, and create a disincentive for large employers who might be tempted to unload their health care costs on to taxpayers by nudging their employees into Obamacare’s subsidized insurance exchanges.

Crucially, though, experts note that these incentives are fairly trivial in the grand scheme of employer sponsored insurance, and they don’t expect that the temporary delay of this particular penalty will have major consequences for the insurance market under Obamacare.

“[T]here is very little in the ACA that changes the incentives facing employers that already offer coverage to their workers, and fully 96 percent of employers with 50 or more workers already offer today,” write Linda J. Blumberg, John Holahan, and Judy Feder of the Urban Institute. “Competition for labor, the fact that most employees get greater value from the tax exclusion for employer sponsored insurance than they would from exchange-based subsidies, and the introduction of a requirement for individuals to obtain coverage or pay a penalty themselves, are the major factors that will keep the lion’s share of employers continuing to do just what they do today with no requirements in place to do so.”

In other words, even in absence of Obamacare’s $2000-a-head penalty, employers still have very real incentives to offer their employees health benefits. And if the delay will only have a modest impact on the insurance market, then it should also have a modest impact on the law’s fiscal consequences.

Funny how much real reality differs from the false reality projected by the Tribune-Review editorial board - you know, once someone bothers to introduce facts to the discussion.

THE IRS SCANDAL!!

Hey, remember when the P-G's Jack Kelly wrote this?

Who in Washington ordered special scrutiny of Tea Party groups, pro-Life groups, pro-Israel groups and donors to Freedom Watch, an organization which supported the Iraq troop surge?

Lois Lerner, director of the Exempt Organizations Division in Washington, was placed on administrative leave (with full pay) after she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination rather than answer questions from the House Oversight Committee. But it's doubtful the buck stops with her. [Emphases added.]

Or this?

The Internal Revenue Service demanded of some conservative groups (but not liberal groups) applying for tax-exempt status the names and addresses of their members and donors, and their contacts with journalists and legislators.

"Please detail the content of the members of your organizations' prayers," the IRS asked a pro-life group in Iowa.

Tax collectors have no right to demand such information from Americans. We must find out who is responsible for targeting critics of the Obama administration, and hold them accountable.[Emphases added.]

And how about our friends on Scaife's braintrust? Remember when they wrote this?

This is government thuggery at among its worst — siccing the tax man on those with political views opposite of those in charge of the executive branch and in the middle of a presidential election year. [Emphasis added.]

Or this?

Not only did the Internal Revenue Service target conservative groups for harassing and illegal scrutiny of their tax-exempt status, it appears to have lied about how far up the food chain knowledge of this thuggish practice went. [Emphasis added.]

And when Ruth Ann Dailey wrote this?

The cacophony has grown louder and wilder in recent days due to a quick succession of executive branch debacles: the cynical cover-up of the Benghazi assault; the IRS oppression of conservative and independent nonprofits...[Emphasis added.]

Or this?

The bolder and more troubling intrusion is the Internal Revenue Service's clearly ideological targeting of conservative and libertarian groups. Bureaucrats grilled nonprofit applicants on matters of conscience up to and including the specific content and wording of their prayers. [Emphasis added.]

Remember all this?  It was only in the last coupla months.

Now take a look at this from the New York Times:

The instructions that Internal Revenue Service officials used to look for applicants seeking tax-exempt status with “Tea Party” and “Patriots” in their titles also included groups whose names included the words “Progressive” and “Occupy,” according to I.R.S. documents released Monday.

The documents appeared to back up contentions by I.R.S. officials and some Democrats that the agency did not intend to single out conservative groups for special scrutiny. Instead, the documents say, officials were trying to use “key word” shortcuts to find overtly political organizations — both liberal and conservative — that were after tax favors by saying they were social welfare organizations.

The Times has an example:

“Common thread is the word ‘progressive,’ ” a lookout list instructs. “Activities appear to lean toward a new political party. Activities are partisan and appear as anti-Republican.”

Now that it looks like Obama Administration (or at least the IRS) was not (repeat: NOT) targeting conservative groups with their offensive and intrusive inquiries - they were targeting groups across the political spectrum - will we see a clarification from Jack Kelly?  The Braintrust?  Ruth Ann Dailey?

And what would these clarifications look like?  And how long will it take?

There are reputations at stake here.