Jack Kelly Sunday

Good Morning JKS fans!

Today we look at how, in his column this week, Jack Kelly (conservative columnist at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) rehashes a debunked by more than a year conspiracy theory about, you guessed it, Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton.

After framing the election this way:

Donald Trump will run as if he were in a Democrat primary. He’ll be to Ms. Clinton’s left on some economic issues, in sync on most social issues. He’ll aim his pitch at Sanders backers and the white working-class that Democrats have abandoned.

This strategy comports with Mr. Trump’s political views, such as they are. It will discombobulate Ms. Clinton, who doesn’t respond well to the unexpected. Trumpkins will applaud whatever he says. Republican “leaders” are too ethically compromised to complain.

After outlining well in his acceptance speech why America is in crisis, Mr. Trump said: “I am your voice. I alone can fix it.”

This is Chavismo, Caesarism. Only megalomaniacs say such a thing. Only morons believe it.

For the record, that was Jack Kelly calling Trump supporters "morons."

(And if some local Inspektor des Sicherheitspolizei und SD is reading this sometime after January 2017, I want to make sure Jack's standing right next to me facing the local militia's firing squad - BTW, I mean that "sarcastically.")

Anyway, Jack frames the debunked conspiracy with the emails:

The FBI thinks Russian intelligence hacked the DNC emails. Ms. Clinton turned over fewer than half the emails she sent through her private server while she was secretary of state. Odds are the Russians have the ones she didn’t.

That’s bad news for Ms. Clinton, because the Russians have a powerful interest in electing Donald Trump. He has a man-crush on Vladimir Putin and has indicated a willingness to dismantle NATO, Mr. Putin’s foremost foreign policy objective.

The gaps in Ms. Clinton’s email record coincided with meetings with shady foreign characters who got favors after making megabuck contributions to the Clinton Foundation, noted Peter Schweizer of the Government Accountability Institute. Few Americans know how badly Ms. Clinton has harmed national security. Most would be appalled by evidence that she may have solicited bribes.

Let's take a look at the source of this smear: Peter Schweizer (of the Government Accountability Institute).  Who is this guy?  The way Jack describes him, he sounds politically neutral, right?  Some sort of apolitical guv'ment watch dog who can be trusted to call the balls and strikes fairly, right?

Yea, that's a no.

He's got a bio at the right wing Federalist Society that says this:

Peter Schweizer is the William J. Casey Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and a best-selling author. He is a partner in the Washington, D.C. firm Oval Office Writers which provides speechwriting and communications services for corporate executives and political figures.

From 2008-9 he was a consultant to the Office of Presidential Speechwriting in the White House. He has also served as a member of the Ultraterrorism Study Group at the U.S. government’s Sandia National Laboratory and is a former consultant to NBC News.

By the way, I tried to find out something (ANYTHING) about this "Ultraterrorism Study Group" at the Sandia National Lab.  Interestingly, I couldn't find any reference to it that wasn't included in a Peter Schweizer bio.  Try it yourself: google ["ultraterrorism study group" -schweizer] and you won't find ANY references to speak of.  At this writing, I'm seeing one that includes a misspelling of his last name and others that are obviously spam.  Works the same if you include type the word "ultra-terrorism".

Was there an "ultra terrorism study group" at Sandia?  And if so who else was on it?  And if it existed the way Peter Schweizer wishes us to believe it existed, WHY CAN'T I FIND ANYTHING ABOUT IT ON-LINE?

Is everything except Peter Schweizer's participation in the group a state secret?

Please, if I am incorrect and there is some credible findable information about this Sandia committee that Schweizer says he was a part of, please email it in.  I'll post an update.  I want to be incorrect.  I don't want to have found out that this guy lied about his own bio and has been lying about it for years.

On the other hand, Melania Trump lied about having an architecture degree from Slovenia.  So...

Anyway, he's also the guy who wrote the roundly debunked smear on the Clintons, called Clinton Cash.

And that's where Jack got this story about the Clintons:

Rosatom, the Russian nuclear agency, bought a Canadian mining company. “The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain,” reported The New York Times in April 2015.

The deal, which gave Rosatom control of 20 percent of U.S. uranium production, had to be approved by the State Department, because of the national security implications. The shareholders of Uranium One contributed $145 million to the Clinton Foundation. The deal went through.

Funny thing.  This story's bogus - and it was shown to be bogus in April of 2015:

The author of “Clinton Cash” falsely claimed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State had “veto power” and “could have stopped” Russia from buying a company with extensive uranium mining operations in the U.S. In fact, only the president has such power.

At the time of the sale, Clinton was a member of the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, which is required by law to investigate all U.S. transactions that involve a company owned or controlled by a foreign government. Federal guidelines say any one of nine voting members of the committee can object to such a foreign transaction, but the final decision then rests with the president.

Wait, did Jack really not tell us that there were eight other members of that committee that also had to agree with a sale that eventually went through?

Jack also fails to tell us that there is a conspicuous lack of evidence tying Clinton to that sale.  Curiously Chris Wallace (of Fox News) is the one Factcheck quotes.  (Remember this is from 2015.):

Wallace, April 26: Nine separate agencies and they [Clinton campaign officials] point out there’s no hard evidence, and you don’t cite any in the book that Hillary Clinton took direct action, was involved in any way in approving as one of nine agencies the sale of the company?

Schweizer: Well, here’s what’s important to keep in mind: it was one of nine agencies, but any one of those agencies had veto power. So, she could have stopped the deal.

Factcheck points out that Schweizer is also incorrect in asserting that Clinton had "veto power" in that situation:

The committee, which is known by its acronym CFIUS, can approve a sale, but it cannot stop a sale. Only the president can do that, and only if the committee recommends or “any member of CFIUS recommends suspension or prohibition of the transaction,” according to guidelines issued by the Treasury Department in December 2008 after the department adopted its final rule a month earlier.

And that's what Jack based his story of Clinton Corruption.  A smear that was debunked 15 months ago.

WHY CAN'T ANYONE AT THE P-G FACT-CHECK JACK KELLY?

This has gotta be embarrassing for the staff at the Post-Gazette - knowing they're pulling down a paycheck from the same folks who both a) pay Jack Kelly and b) can't keep him from making a fool of himself in print.

More On Donald Trump

A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.

Let me ask you [Mr Trump], have you even read the U.S. Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy.

Vice President Joe Biden, Last Night

Folks, let me say, let me say something that has nothing to do with politics. Let me talk about something that I'm deadly serious about. This is a complicated and uncertain world we live in. The threats are too great, the times are too uncertain to elect Donald Trump as President of the United States. Now Let me finish.  No major party, no major party nominee in the history of this nation has ever known less or has been less prepared to deal with our national security.

We cannot elect a man who exploits our fears of ISIS and other terrorists, who has no plan whatsoever to make us safer. A man who embraces the tactics of our enemies, torture, religious intolerance.  You all know. Other the Republicans know - that is not who we are.

It betrays our values.

Donald Trump betrays our values.

For a full (though not official) transcript, go here.

That was one of the best episodes of America I've seen

#DemConvention #DemsInPhilly

I'm just going to go ahead and repeat this because it bears repeating

Congratulations, Hillary!

Watch a Woman Older Than Her Right to Vote

Pledge Arizona's Delegates to Hillary Clinton

Reasons Why Donald Trump Is Unqualified For The Presidency (List #1)

Note: these are not the ONLY reasons nor are they necessarily the BEST reasons - I am assuming this list will be updated from time to time.

But for this morning, here's my list:

• He's a birther.
• He's a climate science denier.
• He's advocated waterboarding.

While the first two are simply products of a stubborn politically-enforced intellectual inactivity (to put it nicely), let's all remember that waterboarding is torture and that torture is a war crime.

The GOP candidate for the Oval Office has advocated committing war crimes.

Let that sink in for a second.

That alone disqualifies him for the highest office in the land and should have disqualified him from the start.

Sarah Silverman, Bernie Supporter, Said This Tonight.

This is what she said:

To the Bernie or bust voters: You’re being ridiculous.

And she's right.  With each new tantrum, they're making it easier for a Trump Presidency.

More Truth From John Oliver

Take a look-see:

Dear Donald Trump...

I'm not a Democrat, but...

The Tribune-Review's Colin McNickle MISREPRESENTS A Source

This one has been bouncing around in my head for some time, forgive me.

A few weeks ago my BFF, columnist Colin McNickle, wrote this piece at my absolutely positively favorite news source in the entire galaxy (it's true - believe me), the Tribune-Review.

It's titled:

Here's the foundation of the 2nd Amendment

And in it he very subtly misquotes his main foundation/source - United States Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story.  It's interesting to note that a columnist for the conservative/libertarian Tribune-Review would be so enamored of a Justice "deeply committed to a strong national union" but there you have it.  Strange bedfellows and all that.

About Joseph Story, he was nominated to SCOTUS on November 15, 1811 and confirmed by the Senate three days later.  And according to the Federal Judicial Center:

His appointment to the Court came after three other nominees, including John Quincy Adams, had either declined the offer or failed to win Senate confirmation.

Wait, The Senate voted on the nominees back then? Within days?? Did you know this Senator Toomey?

Anyway, in 1833, Story published his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, from which Trib columnist selectively selects his snippets to bolster his pro-gun argument.

This is what McNickle says Story wrote:

Once upon a more cogent time, the right to bear arms scarcely was questioned. The right was considered as natural as breathing — a natural right, not a common law right. As Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story put it in “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,” his seminal 1833 book, “The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons who have duly reflected on the subject.”

It was Mr. Justice Story who distilled the Second Amendment — “the palladium of the liberties of a republic” — into its essence:

“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms ... offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”

And then in a quote within a quote (McNickle is quoting this article at The Federalist and that article is quoting Poli-Sci professor Edward Erler):

The right to revolution — and even merely the specter of it, I would interject — is “an essential ingredient of the social compact and a right which is always reserved to the people. The people can never cede or delegate this ultimate expression of sovereign power. Thus, in a very important sense, the right of revolution (or even its threat) is the right that guarantees every other right.”

Or as Story put it, “There is certainly no small danger that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause in our national bill of rights.”

Now, let's go see what Joseph Story really wrote.  I'll highlight the parts that McNickle chose for you to see:

The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.

Ohmigod! Take a look at what Colin McNickle chose not to show you.  Immediately after the first sentence he takes from Story, we see this:

The militia is the natural defence...(sic)

And then in the sentences immediately before the last that McNickle chooses for you, we see this:

And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see.

Regardless of what you (or I) might think of the Second Amendment's meaning, do you really think Joseph Story was talking about an individual's right to own weaponry rather than a State's right to a militia made up of citizen-soldiers?  Story is obviously talking about a "well regulated militia" as the "natural" defense against tyranny and complaining how there was (even then) a growing indifference to any sort of "militia discipline" and strong disposition "to be rid of all regulations."

My my - plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, I suppose.

This leads me to McNickle's biggest sin.  Take a look at the context into which he places Story's last sentence.  It's a discussion of "the people's" right to revolution.  That's where McNickle writes about indifference going to disgust and then to contempt.

Now take a look at where Story actually uses the word "indifference."  It's in two places; "the growing indifference to any system of militia discipline" and then the danger that it leads to disgust and so on.

Story is NOT talking about any sort of revolution there is he, Colin?

You mis-represented your main source didn't you, Colin?

Isn't that kind of a bad thing to do when you're a columnist?  I'm just asking.

RIP: GOP

From Huffingtonpost:

Republicans mourned the Grand Old Party after presidential nominee Donald Trump gave his acceptance speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention on Thursday.

Nicole Wallace, communications chief under former President George W. Bush, didn’t mince words after Trump spoke.

“The Republican Party that I worked for for two decades died in this room tonight,” Wallace said on NBC.

And again:

A small group of veteran Republicans who are die-hard Donald Trump opponents gathered Thursday evening to mourn ― and effectively protest ― a party they no longer recognize.

Meghan McCain:

The party I was part of is dead.

And so on.

Meanwhile, on the speech itself, here's NBC:

TRUMP CLAIM: My opponent wants to essentially abolish the 2nd amendment.

THE FACTS: Clinton has proposed gun regulations, like background checks to purchase firearms. Yet the 2008 Supreme Court decision protecting and individual's right to possess firearms also stated that the right isn't unlimited — and can be subjected to regulations.

TRUMP CLAIM: Homicides last year increased by 17 percent in America's fifty largest cities. That's the largest increase in 25 years.

THE FACTS: Trump is correct that there has recently been an uptick in crime, including in some (but not all) of America's largest cities. But overall, violent crime is down significantly since the 1980s and 1990s, according to FBI statistics. And the current violent crime rate is lower today per the most recent data (365 incidents of violent crime per 100,000 people) than when President Obama first took office in 2009 (431 incidents per 100,000 people).

There are other places that find Trump equally fact-free:

• NPR
• Factcheck.org 
• NYTimes
• Andrew Sullivan
• Huffington Post

And so on.

Sad to see how low this once dignified party has sunk - but let's not forget, that by courting 2-3 decades of fact-free demagoguery (Rush Limbaugh, Jerry Falwell, the Tea Party) the GOP has only itself to blame.

Let's hope we never ever see that again. 

GOP Convention Day Four Theme: "Tomorrow Belongs to Me"

I'm here in Cleveland and I managed to get some video of the rehearsal for the last night of the GOP convention. Rehearsal? Right! I guess there have been so many missteps, they're leaving nothing to chance for the grand finale. Anyway, the rock group Queen has repeatedly requested that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump no longer use their song "We are the Champions" as his theme song, so the Trump campaign has gone in a different -- and some might say -- a more appropriate direction. From my iPhone:



Looks like the focus group of delegates are eating it up! Can't wait to see Trump enter to this!

They will also be revealing the new campaign poster:

I'd say another winner!

As per the program notes for the evening, directly after Trump gives his speech, Hillary Clinton -- having been tried in absentia and found guilty by potential Attorney General Chris Christie -- will be dragged into the Quicken Loans Arena where her head will be shaved and she'll be "shot for treason." 

What a show!

Meanwhile, Outside...It's Still Getting Warmer. (Trump and Pence BOTH Deny Climate Science)

We all know that GOP Presidential Nominee (and husband of a well-known Slovenian plagiarist), Donald Trump thinks that climate science is a hoax.  But what about his Vice Presidential nominee?

He's also a climate hoaxer - from way back in 2001.

Meanwhile, however, it's still getting warmer outside.  From NOAA:

Warmer to much-warmer-than-average conditions dominated across much of the globe's surface, resulting in the highest temperature departure for June since global temperature records began in 1880. This was also the 14th consecutive month the monthly global temperature record has been broken—the longest such streak in NOAA's 137 years of record keeping. The June 2016 combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces was 0.90°C (1.62°F) above the 20th century average, besting the previous record set in 2015 by 0.02°C (0.04°F). June 2016 marks the 40th consecutive June with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th century average. The last time June global land and ocean temperatures were below average was in 1976 (-0.07°C / -0.13°F).

Warmest June since temperature records began in 1880.

For those who can't be bothered to read here's a chart:

Yea, some hoax.

Something else to think about come November.  Which party agrees with science and which doesn't?

Video Highlights from Melania Trump's Convention Speech

(CNN: "Melania Trump's speech plagiarizes parts of Michelle Obama's")

(Melania Trump: “He will never, ever, give up. And, most importantly, he will never, ever, let you down.” Vox: "Did Melania Trump include a Rickroll in the middle of her convention speech?")

Yea, The Tribune-Review Ed. Board Lies AGAIN About The Climate Lawsuit

This won't take long.

Take a look:

The hypocrisy of liberal state attorneys general in their pursuit of climate change “deniers” and, specifically, ExxonMobil, is on stark display in their bitter response to subpoenas served by the House Science Committee.

And:

And while the same AGs suggest racketeering by those who dare to question the “settled science” of climate change, they, themselves, colluded with environmentalists, who briefed them on prosecuting the “deniers,” The Times reports.

Free speech on climate science is not the malicious “fraud” that the AGs make it out to be. They should exercise their own First Amendment right, preferably before the House Science Committee.

Like most everything else you say about climate change, you can keep saying it but that doesn't make it true.

Here's the truth.  Based (in part) on this story:

The state of New York is investigating whether Exxon Mobil misled the public and investors about the risks of climate change, a move sought by environmentalists that could signal a broader reckoning with the conduct of big energy companies.

A spokesman for Exxon Mobil confirmed Thursday that the company had received a subpoena from the office of the attorney general of New York, Eric Schneiderman, related to the subject of climate change and was “assessing” its response.

The investigation focuses on whether Exxon Mobil intentionally clouded public debate about science and hid from investors the risks that climate change could pose to its business according to a person familiar with the matter.

Guys, you know we've been here before. 

As far back as the late 70s, Exxon knew the science was right and yet within a few years began to fund the "think tanks" that would sow doubt into the minds of the gas-purchasing public in order to keep the profits going.  That's fraud.

Fraud is not a free-speech issue.

Jack Kelly Sunday

I guess Jack learned nothing from this column from last September.

Then, he was repugnant regarding the echoes of slavery.  This time it's Black Lives Matter.

Hm, I'm wondering if there's a common thread here triggering Jack's disgust.  Something that connects or otherwise overlaps those two issues - the first regarding the current effects of the past enslavement of African-Americans (aka "black people") here in Amurika and the second a movement formed to protest (among other things) police brutality called Black Lives Matter.

Hm.  Thinking.  Pondering.  Wondering.  WHAT COULD THOSE TWO ISSUES POSSIBLY HAVE IN COMMON THAT JUST MIGHT HAPPEN TO BOTHER POST-GAZETTE COLUMNIST JACK KELLY SO MUCH??

I think I know but I won't say because I could be wrong (but I don't think I am - in fact, I doubt even Wendy Bell could miss it).

Jack begins:

To assign the actions of one person to an entire movement is dangerous and irresponsible,” said Black Lives Matter after five Dallas police officers were killed during a BLM protest by a black man who was upset over recent incidents in which police officers killed black men.

BLM doesn’t practice what it preaches. Neither do President Barack Obama or most in the news media. It’s also dangerous and irresponsible to jump to conclusions when black men are shot by police.

The shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota “are symptomatic of …the racial disparities that appear across the [criminal justice] system year after year,” Mr. Obama said. But the more we learn about those shootings, the less it appears they were racially motivated.

Too bad, Jack didn't follow up on Obama's statement of July 7.  Had he, Jack would've seen this:

If communities are mistrustful of the police, that makes those law enforcement officers who are doing a great job and are doing the right thing, it makes their lives harder. So when people say “Black Lives Matter,” that doesn’t mean blue lives don’t matter; it just means all lives matter, but right now the big concern is the fact that the data shows black folks are more vulnerable to these kinds of incidents. [Emphasis added.]

Interestingly Jack tries to dance the data-dance, too!

Let's see how he does:

In what he said was “the most surprising result of my career,” Harvard professor Roland Fryer, who is black, found no evidence of racial bias in his study of shootings in 10 major police departments, although he did find that blacks were more likely to be cuffed or roughed up.

Here's that Harvard prof's study that Jack almost gets right.  Note what he tucks into the last phrase of that paragraph.  Professor Fryer describes what Jack rhymes into that phrase this way (this is from the intro to the paper Jack may or may not have read):

The results obtained using these data are informative and, in some cases, startling. Using data on NYC's Stop and Frisk program, we demonstrate that on non-lethal uses of force -   putting hands on civilians (which includes slapping or grabbing) or pushing individuals into a wall or onto the ground, there are large racial differences. In the raw data, blacks and Hispanics are more than fifty percent more likely to have an interaction with police which involves any use of force. Accounting for baseline demographics such as age and gender, encounter characteristics such as whether individuals supplied identification or whether the interaction occurred in a high- or low- crime area, or civilian behaviors does little to alter the race coefficient. Adding precinct and year fixed effects, which estimates racial differences in police use of force by restricting to variation within a given police precinct in a given year reduces the black coefficient by 19.4 percent and the Hispanic coefficient by 26 percent, though both are still statistically larger than zero. Including more than 125 controls available in the data, the odds-ratio on black (resp. Hispanic) is 1.173 (resp. 1.120).

To Jack, that was worth 10 words.

Jack also omits this part from the study:

Our results have several important caveats. First, all but one data set was provided by a select group of police departments. It is possible that these departments only supplied the data because they are either enlightened or were not concerned about what the analysis would reveal. In essence, this is equivalent to analyzing labor market discrimination on a set of firms willing to supply a researcher with their Human Resources data! There may be important selection in who was willing to share their data. The Police-Public contact survey partially sidesteps this issue by including a nationally representative sample of civilians, but it does not contain data on officer-involved shootings.

Relatedly, even police departments willing to supply data may contain police officers who present contextual factors at that time of an incident in a biased manner - making it difficult to interpret regression coefficients in the standard way.

So the data used might be accurate but (maybe) not indicative of the whole picture OR it might not be reliable.

Or as is stated at Slate:

Fryer was quite explicit about the fact that his data were specific to Houston and more data are needed in order to understand whether police shootings are racially biased in other parts of the country.

Did Jack tell you any of that?

No, he didn't.  It could've put some nuance and context in this us-versus-them, black-and-white column.  He could have put it there, but he didn't.  He doesn't want nuance.  He doesn't want context.  And now you should ask yourself why.

Then look at these paragraphs from Jack Kelly's column:

When Mr. Obama was elected, the silver lining in the cloud I saw descending on America was that the election of the first (half) black president might promote racial healing. But he’s been the most racist president since Woodrow Wilson.

For every black person killed by a white cop, 71 blacks are killed by other blacks. The real tragedy is that so many blacks must live in inner-city neighborhoods where gangs run riot, schools are terrible, jobs are scarce.

Whites aren’t to blame for the terrible conditions in which so many blacks live. Those at fault are local government officials (Democrats mostly), politicians in Washington whose policies hurt black families (Democrats mostly), and blacks themselves.

Problem solved!  Racism in this country isn't the fault of anyone other than the Democrats who run things locally and nationwide AND blacks themselves!  And the (half) black president is also to blame for not cleaning up 600 years the mess in a measly 8!

Can Jack Kelly be any more of an embarrassment to the P-G?

I'll give the president the penultimate word:

And so when African Americans from all walks of life, from different communities across the country, voice a growing despair over what they perceive to be unequal treatment; when study after study shows that whites and people of color experience the criminal justice system differently, so that if you’re black you’re more likely to be pulled over or searched or arrested, more likely to get longer sentences, more likely to get the death penalty for the same crime; when mothers and fathers raise their kids right and have “the talk” about how to respond if stopped by a police officer -- “yes, sir,” “no, sir” -- but still fear that something terrible may happen when their child walks out the door, still fear that kids being stupid and not quite doing things right might end in tragedy -- when all this takes place more than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, we cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid. (Applause.) We can’t simply dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism. To have your experience denied like that, dismissed by those in authority, dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and coworkers and fellow church members again and again and again -- it hurts. Surely we can see that, all of us.

And Roland Fryer the last:

Black Dignity Matters.

About that logo...

(My version)

The Tribune-Review Editorial Board Must Define "Fact" Differently Than Everyone Else

Take a look at this from today:

In preparation for their convention this month, Democrats are taking aim at so-called “climate deniers.” Lending a hand is the father of the long disputed “hockey stick” global-temperature graph, who now says facts no longer are necessary to substantiate the climate change story line.

They're going after Mann's hockey stick?  AGAIN?

Don't they know that their use of the word "disputed" is simply not supported by the scientific facts?

Let's move on:

People can simply see the outcome of man-made emissions, says Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State.

Climate models “increasingly are unnecessary,” says the climate researcher, because the manifestations of climate change are “playing out in real time.” Would these be the same climate models used by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which have been consistently wrong?

Ah...the computer models.  To the rightwing pundits, they don't work.

To the actual climate scientists, they do:

Climate models are unmatched in their ability to quantify otherwise qualitative hypotheses and generate new ideas that can be tested against observations. The models are far from perfect, but they have successfully captured fundamental aspects of air, ocean, and sea-ice circulations and their variability. They are therefore useful tools for estimating the consequences of humankind's ongoing and audacious planetary experiment.

The braintrust continues with its assault on facts:

Mr. Mann, who has sued a number of his critics for defamation, this spring acknowledged the early 2000 “warming slowdown.” He now says that climate change is obvious in hurricanes, flooding and droughts in different parts of the United States.

Wait..."slowdown"? Not "stop" or "pause"?  Doesn't that mean that warming continued but at a slower pace?

Doesn't that mean that the braintrust acknowledges the warming??

Then there's this braintrust embarrassment:

But just last year the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies reported that the nine-year reduction in Category 3 hurricanes, starting in 2006, beat the previous record of eight years in 1861-68. Wouldn't that suggest that temperature patterns are cyclical rather than influenced by human activity?

Yea, let's go to the facts.

The "nine year reduction" is not a global phenomenon but a local one.

From NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies:

The United States hasn't experienced the landfall of a Category 3 or larger hurricane in nine years — a string of years that's likely to come along only once every 177 years, according to a new NASA study.

And then there's this:

While the study did not delve into the meteorological causes behind this lack of major hurricane landfalls, Hall said it appears it is a result of luck.

"The last nine hurricane seasons were not weak — storms just didn't hit the U.S.," Hall said. "It seems to be an accident of geography, random good luck."

So what Scaife's braintrust uses as evidence against, really isn't evidence for anything at all.

Goshers, that's embarrassing.  But isn't that how they argue climate science over there at the Trib?

Meanwhile, it's still warming up outside and we're still to blame.  No amount of right wing propaganda is going to change that.

Wendy Bell basking in the "warm sunshiny bubble" that is Wendy Bell

Someone please, make her stop!