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Do you like your health plan?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:52:00 -0600

Too bad, you won’t be able to keep it. Many of you may be thinking but Obama has said if we like our current health plan it will not be taken away, and the administration along with its allies have criticized anyone who has tried to say otherwise.

Unfortunately, Obama’s promises always have expiration dates.

Both the Senate and the House health bills slash a significant part of my employer’s health plan — the Health Flexible Spending Account — restricting them to $2500 and restricting what they can used for.

That single change in my health plan (and my wife’s) will cause our family to pay a couple thousand dollars more each year in income taxes, and yet my FSA might still cause my employer’s plan to trigger the 40% Senate tax on Cadillac plans (I don’t know enough about the full cost of our plans to know).

[…] (source)

Anyone brave enough to trust Obama to veto a healthcare bill that still retains these features?

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Filed Under: Politics -- Obama -- Healthcare_reform

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Are we no longer a nation of laws?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:07:00 -0600

For those of us who have been paying attention, that question may have been answered with a “no we are not” some time ago. How could it get any worse than the racial and political games of Eric Holder’s reign at the Dept. of Justice, to point out just one aspect of the Obama administration? Unfortunately, it can get worse. If the following is true, the loss of liberties and prosperity threatened by Obama’s version of health care “reform” will be much more difficult to overturn, and the manner in which this is being attempted cares little for precedent or parliamentary procedure.

Upon examination of Senator Harry Reid’s amendment to the health care legislation, Senators discovered section 3403. That section changes the rules of the United States Senate.

To change the rules of the United States Senate, there must be sixty-seven votes.

That’s right, take over one sixth of the American economy, do so by hyper partisan votes, buying votes with favors inserted into the bill, and then require a super majority to overturn it.

The good news is that this only applies to one section of the Obamacare legislation. The bad news is that it applies to regulations imposed on doctors and patients by the Independent Medical Advisory Boards a/k/a the Death Panels. (source)

Get that? One of the worst aspects of the bill is being made more difficult to rescind. Be sure to read the entire post at Redstate.com, there is more, including a transcript wherein it is noted that this rule/procedure change that requires a super majority will not itself require that to be passed.

Before this was noticed there was talk of State nullification of this mess. It has happened before in our history, this disaster provides another reason for States to move forward on such legislation. You can learn more here, which includes a map of the current state of play.

States nullifying the most damaging elements of the law would be a better step to take than jumping to seceding or worse yet, revolution by arms rather than votes. But with this administration, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi on the side of increasing government control of our lives, and doing so with questionable methods (to put it politely), there is no telling where all this may end.

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Filed Under: Politics -- Healthcare_reform – Crime

Technorati tags: Harry Reid -- Nancy Pelosi -- Eric Holder -- Obama -- Obamacare -- Healthcare reform -- Senate -- tyranny

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Climategate, from Russia with love edition

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:40:00 -0600

If the following is true, it may be more explosive than the already damaging email and data leak that has shown manipulation of data, buggy and “fudged” programming and partisan distortion of the peer review process. The Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) has leveled charges that the Hadley Centre manipulated temperature data from Russia.

The following is alleged:

Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included…

[…]

On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.

[…]

IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.

[…]

The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

See here for more details and links to other commentary.

A guest post at Watts Up With That? notes how serious the claim of tampering could be:

This is a very powerful accusation, which if true could change much about the climate science debate. Many papers are based on this dataset which has the highest trend of the major ground datasets. (source)

The IEA study used all the stations available and the results were 1.4 degrees Celsius of warming since 1870 rather than the larger 2.0 degrees Celsius warming used in official reports by the IPCC. While that is a significant difference, if one were to adjust for the urban heat island affect, or leave out urban stations all together, the level of warming would be even less.

The state of these claims is rather up in the air at the moment because we do not have the raw, unadjusted data to compare to what is presented by the IEA. And that is part of the problem. The leading scientists have for some time resisted releasing data, programs and methods and yet have expected us to just trust them. But then how many people were informed of their hiding data and refusing to respond to FOI requests? If you only received your news from the MSM, you probably heard nothing of these long simmering controversies.

We have long had enough reason to distrust the science. With this new series of allegations, even if eventually proven to be in error, it is demonstrated again that there is a need for full disclosure. Without it a breeding ground for conspiracies and speculation is created. With trillions in economic activity being toyed with, we must be certain of what the truths are regarding the global temperature trend and the actual extent of man’s impact on it. It is far past time for these scientists to expect anyone to accept what they say merely because they say “trust us”.

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Previous posts:

CRU Climategate continues
More CRU email analysis and other climate warming goodies
More on that CRU email and data hack
Climate Research Unit – What the hack?!
Mark My Words – Global Warming archive

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Filed Under: Politics -- News -- Global_warming

Technorati tags: CRU -- AGW -- climate change -- global warming -- hadley Climate Research Centre -- philip Jones -- michael mann -- james hansen -- RICO -- climategate -- crugate

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CRU Climategate continues

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:11:00 -0600

The first thing everyone discussed was the content of the emails. It turns out that may not be the worst aspect of what has been discovered.

To review, we have enough from the emails to see that FOI requests were resisted to the point of rather destroying data than comply, emails related to FOI requests were deleted, scientific journals that did not follow the dogma were threatened and the overall claim that the science is settled is far from true. These actions are bad enough for the scientific method, where independent replication and falsification are central to the process. However, the zip file released to the internet contained more than just those emails.

While the emails revealed a great deal, the data that was freed also included programming code that was used to process the various temperature and proxy databases. Within that code were comments left by a programmer who worked for about three years attempting to fix the program.

Bishop Hill has a continuously updated list of the comments and summarizes them.

The code

Watts Up With That? has a post with all the comments in raw fashion.

Climategate: hide the decline – codified

One reason is quite clear as to why this climate team did not want to release its code. It is incredibly buggy as can be seen from the programmer’s frustration and confusion. The temperature databases being used are also very problematic.

With regard to the scientific process, the program used to create the temperature plots is needed by others to ensure that the methodology produces dependable and accurate results. It is sad enough that the program is so clearly sub par, but it appears this was well known, hence the hapless programmer having to try and fix it. Yet despite the known problems, the world at large was kept unaware of the issues and new temperature reconstructions were produced.

If this climate team had always been open with it’s data and programs, as it should have been, these problems could have been taken care of quite early. That is the scientific method after all.

Also hidden from the world were some of the scientists noting concerns with the data and some doubts in the certainty of the AGW conclusions in their emails. In fact, some of what they said echoed criticisms from ClimateAudit and other skeptics. But all we heard from the lamestream media and these climate study groups and various AGW proponents and evangelizers was that the science was settled.

Sadly, despite the many criticisms from global warming skeptics being affirmed, there may be too much pride and prestige at stake on the “science” side and too much political power at stake on the political side for the AGW proponents to stop themselves. With trillions of dollars of economic activity in numerous countries threatened because of the view that AGW is settled science, will they ever admit publicly that AGW can not be considered settled when it is based on such shoddy programming work and incomplete, undocumented databases?

That question remains to be answered. While we are waiting, another story is breaking about how AGW proponents/scientists may have treated the raw temperature data in New Zealand, conveniently showing rising temperatures where hardly any existed.

The New Zealand Government’s chief climate advisory unit NIWA is under fire for allegedly massaging raw climate data to show a global warming trend that wasn’t there.

The scandal breaks as fears grow worldwide that corruption of climate science is not confined to just Britain’s CRU climate research centre.

In New Zealand’s case, the figures published on NIWA’s [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research] website suggest a strong warming trend in New Zealand over the past century:

But analysis of the raw climate data from the same temperature stations has just turned up a very different result:

Gone is the relentless rising temperature trend, and instead there appears to have been a much smaller growth in warming, consistent with the warming up of the planet after the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850.
[…] (source, be sure to read it all for graphs and further commentary)

The AGW proponents and evangelizers claim skeptics are only pseudo or non-science. With more proof being revealed of improper methods, corrupt data, undermining of peer-review and other actions that completely ignore and contradict the scientific method, such critics would do well to pull the log out of their own eyes before imagining splinters in eyes of everyone that disagrees with them.

*Update*

NIWA’s [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research] has responded to the accusation of altering data. Unfortunately the explanation brings up more questions. They are still refusing to release data on all the stations, including only one with their justification for altering temperature data.

Reeling from claims that it has massaged data to show a 150 year warming trend where there isn't one, NIWA's chief climate scientist David Wratt, an IPCC vice-chair on the 2007 AR4 report, issued a news release stating adjustments had been made to compensate for changes in sensor locations over the years.

While such an adjustment is valid, it needs to be fully explained so other scientists can test the reasonableness of the adjustment.

Wratt is refusing to release data his organisation claims to have justifying adjustments on other weather stations, meaning the science cannot be reviewed. However, he has released information relating to Wellington temperature readings, and they make for interesting reading.

[…] (source, thanks to Ace’s blog)

Be sure to read it all to understand why the explanation leads to more questions.

A small snippet from Ace’s blog summarizes the NIWA’s response.

“I'm seeing a pattern here, and it's not so much a pattern of climate as of obfuscation”

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Previous posts:

More CRU email analysis and other climate warming goodies
More on that CRU email and data hack
Climate Research Unit – What the hack?!
Mark My Words – Global Warming archive

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Filed Under: Politics -- News -- Global_warming

Technorati tags: CRU -- AGW -- climate change -- global warming -- hadley Climate Research Centre -- philip Jones -- michael mann -- james hansen -- RICO -- climategate -- crugate

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More CRU email analysis and other climate warming goodies

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:45:00 -0600

The Climate Research Unit emails number around 1000. As people search the online archive or their own copy of the released data, more detail on the inner workings of this group come to light.

I’m going to first direct readers to the Ace of Spades blog. Gabriel brings together several PowerLine posts about this matter with brief summaries. a brief intro:

John Hinderaker at PowerLine have been doing a great job digging through the emails leaked from the the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit.

[…] (source, be sure to follow the links to Powerline for the full details.)

The other climate warming goodies are several online resources covering the overall debate on AGW. Some I have mentioned or linked to before but I thought readers would be helped by mentioning them again. Of course you can find even more by perusing their blogrolls.

Bishop Hill – This blog covers other issues as well but the author is recognized as being quite adept at writing on the global warming issues under debate in a way that is accessible to the average person. He now has a book coming out called The Hockey Stick Illusion.

Finally, I recently ran across climate skeptic which brings up some good points about the global warming controversy.

[…] I often make a wager with my audiences. I will bet them that unless they are regular readers of the science-based climate sites, I can tell them something absolutely fundamental about global warming theory they have never heard. What I tell them is this:

Man-made global warming theory is not one theory but in fact two totally separate theories chained together. These two theories are:

Man-made greenhouse gasses, such as CO2, acting alone will warm the planet [between] 1.0 and 1.5 degrees Celsius by the year 2100.

The Earth’s climate system is dominated by positive feedbacks, such that the warming from Greenhouse gasses alone is amplified 3-5 or more times. Most of the warming in catastrophic forecasts comes from this second effect, not directly from greenhouse gas warming.

This is not some Iird skeptic’s fantasy. This two-part description of catastrophic global warming theory is right out of the latest IPCC report. Most of the warming in the report’s forecasts actually results from the theory of positive feedback in #2, not from greenhouse gasses directly.

One of the most confusing issues for average people watching the climate debate is how one side can argue so adamantly that the science is “settled” and the other can argue just the opposite. The explanation lies in large part with this two-part theory. There is a high degree of consensus around proposition1, even among skeptics. I may disagree that the warming is 0.8C or 1.2C, but few on the science end of the debate would argue that CO2 has no effect on warming. When people say “the science is settled” they generally want to talk about proposition 1 and avoid discussion of proposition 2.

That is because proposition 2 is far from settled. […] (source)

It may be that good and honest people currently on opposite sides of the debate are actually talking past each other due to confusion over these two points.

I’ll end this post by asking a question of those who are following this story. Do you know people who do not follow blogs and/or only watch Lamestream Media? Hopefully you will be talking to them about this unfolding story, emailing the various blog posts you find with good information and/or posting on whatever social website you and they use.

The point being, we obviously cannot rely on the Lamestream Media to inform people. With Cap and Trade still a possibility in the Senate, we need to maintain pressure and ensure that important information such as this is not ignored.

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Previous posts:

More on that CRU email and data hack

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:05:00 -0600

I covered the server hack of the Climate Research Unit in my previous post. There are some issues that have been raised since then and a resource that is now available on the internet for those wanting to dig into this more.

The (slim?) prospects of a RICO investigation are discussed in preliminary form at BigGovernment.com.

For some time. several individuals have asked why we don’t just initiate suit against the obviously dishonest tactics and claims by the global warming industry under the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO). This law commissions “private attorneys general” to pursue violations on their own, in essence as proxies for the state.

I have explained with intermittent impatience that just serially lying or exaggerating to deceive are not on their face RICO “predicate” offenses. There must be three instances of a certain type of enumerated behavior over ten years to constitute a pattern in violation of RICO.

I have received an email from someone who has much appropriate training and experience and which causes me to revisit the issue. […] (source)

Along with that, Michelle Malkin makes the important point:

First things first: The alleged hackers need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

That said: The crimes revealed in the e-mails promise to be the global warming scandal of the century — and have massive bearing on the climate change legislation being considered by our lawmakers here at home. (source)

But it may be that the outrageous actions of some of the more extreme in the environmental movement may have the unintended consequences of protecting the hacker(s). A comment at Michelle Malkin’s blog makes that connection.

I say turnabout is fair play. James Hansen flew to England to help get six Greenpeace climate change activists cleared of causing £30,000 of criminal damage at a coal-fired power station. “It was the first case in which preventing property damage caused by climate change had been used as part of a ‘lawful excuse’ defence in court. It is now expected to be used more widely by environment groups.”

[…]

If a “lawful excuse” defence can work for climate change hooligans, why not for these hackers/whisleblowers? The only damage they did was to expose the truth and reveal data paid for by public funds (assuming the files were not doctored, of course.) (full comment text here)

There is a searchable database of the over 1000 alleged emails online now.

Alleged CRU Emails – Searchable (thanks to What’s Up With That?)

The Bishop Hill blog has a readable summary of some of the emails.

General reaction seems to be that the CRUgate emails are genuine, but with the caveat that there could be some less reliable stuff slipped in.

In the circumstances, here are some summaries of the CRUgate files. I'll update these as and when I can. The refs are the email number. (source)

How many of the usual suspect media outlets have covered this?

*crickets*

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Filed Under: Politics -- News -- MSM -- Global_warming

Technorati tags: CRU -- AGW -- climate change -- global warming -- hadley Climate Research Centre -- philip Jones -- michael mann -- james hansen -- RICO

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Climate Research Unit – What the hack?!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:26:00 -0600

It appears that a leading climate sciences research center had its servers hacked and numerous emails and files released to the internet. This could be very embarrassing for proponents of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

A good summary here that also links to the various blogs that are discussing this in depth.

The University of East Anglia's Hadley Climatic Research Centre appears to have suffered a security breach earlier today, when an unknown hacker apparently downloaded 1079 e-mails and 72 documents of various types and published them to an anonymous FTP server. These files appear to contain highly sensitive information that, if genuine, could prove extremely embarrassing to the authors of the e-mails involved. Those authors include some of the most celebrated names among proponents of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

[…]

Be sure to read it all and peruse the other blogs mentioned for even more as this story continues to unfold.

If these emails are true, we have a number of troubling issues thus far.

Collusion to change the peer review criteria to keep out an author and study that did not tow the line.
A request to delete emails. If this was in response to a FOIA request it most definitely runs afoul of the law. It may also be problematic due to the work and correspondence being supported by public funds.
The claim of independence and transparency is clearly a lie.
Philip Jones (Director of the CRU) stating that the death of an anthropogenic global warming skeptic was good news.

One of the emails that is getting a lot of attention, and has been verified as accurate by Philip Jones contains this statement by Jones:

I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline.

Jones has responded to questions about this. The site ClimateAudit.org puts the email into context and explains what this is really about.

When smoothing these time series, the Team had a problem: actual reconstructions "diverge" from the instrumental series in the last part of 20th century. For instance, in the original hockey stick (ending 1980) the last 30-40 years of data points slightly downwards. In order to smooth those time series one needs to "pad" the series beyond the end time, and no matter what method one uses, this leads to a smoothed graph pointing downwards in the end whereas the smoothed instrumental series is pointing upwards — a divergence. So Mann's solution was to use the instrumental record for padding, which changes the smoothed series to point upwards as clearly seen in UC's figure (violet original, green without "Mike's Nature trick"). (source, *Update* ClimateAudit.org is overloaded, their post is mirrored here, if you are having trouble getting to the ClimateAudit.org site)

This story is going to take time to unfold. Let’s keep in mind that while Jones has said that the data released appears to be genuine, and Steve McIntyre has verified that his email correspondence in the hacked data is accurate, and others have pointed that the data is much too large (62mb) and detailed to have been the result of a hoax, caution is still warranted.

It is possible that much is accurate but that some of the exchanges were spiked to increase the embarrassment of those targeted. We do know their system was hacked and that some of the emails are accurate but careful study and time is still needed to determine the accuracy of all questionable correspondence and data.

Considering the government expansion and control proposed by AGW proponents and that this is supported by our tax dollars, it is not too much to ask that this data be thoroughly studied to determine the truth of what has been released.

That is, if one is concerned with the truth here.

*Update*

Of course RealClimate.org has responded. The astute reader will notice the response does nothing to address the actual issues regarding adding in temperature data as covered at climateaudit.org and already referenced in this post. Even worse is the obfuscation Gavin offers in his response to a reasonable question asked in the comments.

KTB says:

20 November 2009 at 12:57 PM

It would be nice to get comments from the authors for lines like this. This can of course be understood in many ways…
I hope that posting of this small snippet doesn’t violate copyright, and I left the name out:

“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Xxx and I will keep
them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is”

[Response: Bad papers clutter up assessment reports and if they don't stand up as science, they shouldn't be included. No-one can 'redefine' what the peer-reviewed literature is. - gavin]

If it was really bad science then the current definition of peer-review literature would not have to be changed. The person who wrote that thought it was proper to go so far as to change the definition to keep the report/papers out, thought they and others had the ability to do so, and worst of all believed this was an appropriate thing to do.

With attempted defenses such as this, it is time to buy more popcorn and sit back and enjoy the show as much lulz is to be expected at the expense of the AGW faithful.

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Filed Under: Politics -- News -- Global_warming

Technorati tags: CRU -- AGW -- climate change -- Michael Mann -- Philip Jones -- Hadley Climate Research Centre -- global warming

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The ACORN story continues

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:42:00 -0600

ACORN staged a protest in Los Angeles. Andrew Breitbart decided to show up to ask and also answer questions.

In short, the ACORN story is far from over. There are more videos to come next week. You’ve seen the Baltimore story, the Philadelphia story, the New York story.

Now you will know about the LA story. (source)

Be sure to read the entire account and keep an eye on BigGovernment.com for the coming videos.

It is hardly surprising that an organization that is corrupt from top to bottom, so much so, that good people have been fired when they tried to do the right thing, has protests with rent-a-thugs.

While there has been some progress in diminishing our tax dollars supporting ACORN, it is only temporary at this time. We need to maintain pressure so this corrupt and partisan organization cannot regroup, reorganize, or change its name while continuing it’s dirty business as usual and with public funds helping it.

And despite Obama and his Kool-Aid drinking apologists doing all they can to distance him from the mess, Barack Obama has long and deep ties to ACORN.

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Filed Under: Politics -- Obama -- News -- Crime – ACORN

Technorati tags: Breibart -- ACORN -- Obama -- liberals -- crime

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Infidel woman stops jihadist’s murder rampage

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Fri, 6 Nov 2009 15:04:00 -0600

The death toll and injury could have been higher at Fort Hood if not for the actions of a police officer.

… the police officer who gunned him down, Kimberly Munley, a civilian Fort Hood police officer, is in stable condition. (source)

Her bravery and quick action should be commended. Fortunately, she had training in "active-response tactics", which teaches aggressive action against a threat.

As for this jihadist, there is already too much passing by of Nidal Malik Hasan’s developing Jihadi mindset.

Apparently the truth is at odds with the desired narrative. We must not upset CAIR after all.

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Filed Under: Terrorism -- News – MSM

Technorati tags: Nidal Malik Hasan -- Kimberly Munley -- Jihadist -- Islamofacism -- terrorism

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Obama decides to escalate the war

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Fri, 6 Nov 2009 14:23:00 -0600

The war on Fox News that is, never mind our troops in harms way in Afghanistan, who are waiting for the support and resources they need in an important theater for the war on terror. Never mind that defeat is looming if we do not do what is necessary to achieve the victory that is still possible, Barack Obama has more important priorities.

The White House has taken the war on Fox News to a strange new level. Bitterly complaining that the news channel does not provide a balanced presentation of the issues, the Obama administration has now warned strategists from the Democratic Party that they won’t work with them any longer if the strategists appear on Fox’s programming as guests: (source)

Be sure to read it all.

I’m sure that saying something about Barack Obama’s skin will be construed as racist by some nitwit, but this guy sure is thin-skinned. Unfortunately this character flaw is expressing itself by suppressing a news agency for not towing the line like others. Clearly, this also intends to send a message to others in the media to keep sucking up.

Considering only a few data points, the lack of in depth investigation or coverage of the ongoing discovery of ACORN corruption, and the incredibly late and whitewashed reporting on Van Jones, do they really need the encouragement?

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Filed Under: Obama -- NewsPolitics -- News – MSM -- Politics

Technorati tags: Obama -- FoxNews -- White House -- Democrats -- MSM

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ACORN Philadelphia video available

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:09:00 -0500

ACORN had claimed that Hannah and O’Keefe had been thrown out of their Philadelphia office. The short video that has been released, with promise of the entire video and audio being available later, shows otherwise.

At Biggovernment.com – FYI it seems that traffic is slowing down the servers

Breitbart, Hannah and O’Keefe held a press conference earlier today. The reason for the dropped audio in the video was explained as addressing Pennsylvania record and consent laws.

Even with just this introductory video we can see that ACORN lied about the following:

1. Prostitution was not mentioned – YOU LIE!

2. Only talked to them for a few minutes – YOU LIE!

3. They caused a disturbance – YOU LIE!

As O’Keefe and Breitbart have noted, the media has repeated these lies. Will they correct their stories now?

ACORN has been revealed once again to be a criminal organization from top to bottom. While there can be no doubt that there are still some good people somewhere in the organization, they are constrained by the culture of corruption that is ACORN. This organization needs to be completely defunded at all levels of government and investigated thoroughly. Good people need to find other organizations that actually help the poor, rather than seek political power with liberal Democrats and using the poor as mere cannon fodder while people at the top benefit from the political corruption.

And let’s not forget that our Community Organizer in Chief has long and substantial ties to ACORN.

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Filed Under: MSM -- Politics -- News -- ACORN

Technorati tags: ACORN -- Obama -- biggovernment -- Andrew Breitbart -- Okeefe -- Hannah Gills

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About those Rush Limbaugh quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:46:00 -0500

A youtube video has been made by BraveNewFilms that features some of the racist quotes by Rush Limbaugh. The only problem is that the most inflammatory quotes have been made up out of thin air.

Lee Doren has a video in response that addresses the outright dishonesty.

Rush has been targeted as racist for some time now. The sad fact of the matter is that the claims have been based on out of context quotes. Now we have liars making things up simply because they can.

While that is certainly evil, it is not much better to push the BraveNewFilms video and assume it must all be true because you don’t like Rush, Conservatives or Republicans. Unfortunately, being as stupid, willfully ignorant and biased as some myspacetards is not limited to that social website. Mainstream media outlets and others in the sports world have perpetuated the lies. Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson and Al “Tawana Brawley” Sharpton have also encouraged these lies but informed people are not surprised at their behavior. If anything, they are simply being consistent with their past racial demagoguery.

It has become quite clear that electing a black President, rather than healing the racial divide, has only encouraged some to call anyone they disagree with a racist. While it may be a convenient weapon, throwing the charge of racism around so often, carelessly and lying to do so, only destroys the power of the word.

We have come a long way but the fact is that we still have racism in this country. Those who seek to accuse everyone who disagrees with this or that policy as being racist only make it more difficult to confront real racists. They may win some battles on policy or who can purchase a sports team, but what they do to the country should concern everyone regardless of what side one falls in politics.

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Filed Under: Politics -- MSM -- News – Culture

Technorati tags: BraveNewFilms -- Robert Greenwald -- Lies -- Rush Limbaugh -- Racist -- Lee Doren -- HowTheWorldWorks

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Global warming hockey stick dead?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:29:00 -0500

An interesting development regarding the well known global temperature graph with the twentieth century hockey stick like uptick has possibly added another reason for rejecting the accuracy of the graph and with it the alarmism concerning global warming.

To summarize, tree rings have been used as proxies for historical temperature data. What has now been shown by Steve McIntyre is that when a larger pool of tree ring data is included, the hockey stick disappears. Barring reasonable explanations, if this does not kill the hockey stick, then actual science in climates studies is dead.

An important context to all of this is that the data had, until now, not been publicly available. This is contrary to standard scientific journal requirement for the archiving of data. It is rather difficult to peer-review in a meaningful manner when the underlying data or even the program code that assembled the data is unavailable. It took much fighting to achieve this public disclosure, which now allows others to see how much of tree ring data was rejected and the result of including this in the temperature plot.

As CA readers also know, until recently, CRU staunchly refused to provide the measurement data used in Briffa's Yamal reconstruction. Science(mag) acquiesced in this refusal in connection with Osborn and Briffa 2006. While the Yamal chronology was used in a Science article, it originated with Briffa 2000 and Science(mag) took the position that the previous journal (which had a different data policy) had jurisdiction. Briffa used the chronology Briffa et al (Phil Trans B, 2008) and the Phil Trans editors finally seized the nettle, requiring Briffa to archive the data. As noted before, Briffa asked for an extension and, when I checked earlier this year, the Yamal measurement data remained unarchived. A few days ago, I noticed that the Yamal data was finally placed online. With the information finally available, this analysis has only taken a few days.

If the non-robustness observed here prove out (and I've provided a generating script), this will have an important impact on many multiproxy studies that have relied on this study. (source and more here about this, Thanks to AoSHQ)

Be sure to read it all. It is quite technical but the graphs make the situation very clear.

Unfortunately, it seems this unwillingness to allow open examination of methods and data sources is rather common for some in the climate studies field. Despite that, we still have those who claim the science is settled and that we need to do whatever it takes to avoid climate catastrophe.

That we don’t have catastrophic climate change that we must attempt to avoid does not mean that the environment is a free fire zone. Portraying all skeptics of man made global warming/climate change as motivated only by a desire to wantonly rape and destroy the environment is as dishonest as it is mistaken. Instead of attacking skeptics in such fashion, how about the various agencies and scientists have open and honest discussion about the data and methodologies used before we rush into destroying economies and limiting freedoms? Once we’ve gained certainty about the process and data, and determined what really is necessary, there would still be left many discussions about what is actually achievable and what are reasonable tradeoffs to accomplish the goals.

With this additional demonstration of less than professional and sound scientific work underlying the hysteria, what’s the hurry?

*Update:

A less technical summary of this story for the layman is available at the Bishop Hill blog.

The story of Michael Mann's Hockey Stick reconstruction, its statistical bias and the influence of the bristlecone pines is well known. McIntyre's research into the other reconstructions has received less publicity, however. The story of the Yamal chronology may change that. (source)

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Filed Under: Politics -- News -- Global_warming

Technorati tags: Steve McIntyre -- climate change -- tree rings proxies -- hockey stick

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ACORN sues activist journalists

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:09:00 -0500

We shall see if they actually go all the way to court, but for now, ACORN is suing Giles, O’Keefe and Breitbart.

Community activist group ACORN is suing the makers of a hidden-camera video that showed employees of its Baltimore office giving tax advice to a man posing as a pimp and a woman posing as a prostitute.

The liberal group contends that the audio portion of the video was obtained illegally because Maryland requires two-party consent to create sound recordings. […]

So the game is on. How much discovery will be allowed by the judge? Was there really any expectation of privacy? Two parties involved obviously offered their consent, that being Giles and O’Keefe. Is that enough to satisfy the law? According to one online resource, with Maryland law:

To recover civil damages, however, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant knew it was illegal to tape the communication without consent from all participants. MD. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 10-410. (source)

ACORN must be trying to win an irony award or something with this:

The two employees seen in the video were fired after it was posted online. The lawsuit says the employees, Tonja Thompson and Shera Williams, suffered "extreme emotional distress." […] (source)

Yes, that happens when you get fired for offering help with tax and mortgage fraud, money laundering and the trafficking of minors for sexual exploitation. The fired employees should be suing ACORN, by rolling them into this it could complicate legal matters for that criminal enterprise.

ACORN has now talked out of one side of its mouth about cleaning up but now out of the other side sues the very people that demonstrated so clearly that serious cleansing was necessary. With such actions is there any wonder that Congress and an ever increasing number of states are moving to defund ACORN? The IRS has severed its relationship with the organization as well.

ACORN of course runs the risk losing but even more important, that discovery will go much further than they currently expect. There is also the risk that Breitbart will release more videos as a first volley in reply to this.

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Filed under: Politics -- Obama -- News -- Crime – ACORN

Technorati tags: ACORN -- Hannah Giles -- James O'Keefe -- Maryland ACORN -- Tonja Thompson -- Shera Williams

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National Endowment for the Arts links to partisan grant recipients

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:59:00 -0500

This story follows on the audio showing that the NEA had lied about the nature of the conference call. The links and pages will probably soon be scrubbed but Big Hollywood tells the story with pictures of the web pages.

Are we to believe that mobilizing artists to contact Congress and demand “affordable guarantee-issue insurance” is “unbiased” and not an attempt to “influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities”?

And why is the NEA funneling artists ONLY to this single “resource?” Where are the links to sites calling for tort reform? Why not a link to the cheapest private carriers of health insurance or information on affordable catastrophic plans that are perfect for young, healthy artists?

The NEA is essentially saying to those looking for help regarding health insurance: Lobby!

The lawyers can decide how ethical or legal that is, but it doesn’t take a law degree to understand that the NEA couldn’t be any less helpful if it tried. (source)

Needless to say, if President Bush had tried this the past tense media would be all over it. There would be panels featuring media and Hollywood celebrities discussing the chilling affect this would have had on the arts and our culture. Certain Democrats would call for investigation into the waste of tax dollars and to determine if any laws were broken.

An interesting aspect of this is that the artists had already helped on the campaign, why see the need to encourage them to do so through a government agency that distributes our tax money via grants to artists? Are they really that stupid to miss the legal implications or merely that arrogant?

This President and his cronies might have the gift of combining both flaws in large proportion.

Those of us who paid attention during the election and did not rely on the past tense media for information are not surprised. We considered Obama’s actions when it came to his legislative record and his associations. His actions during the campaign consisted merely of words that deflected or distorted the truth on those matters. In other words, actions really do speak louder than mere words. Perhaps more people will realize that is the case even when certain media sycophants continue to leg tingling, lavish praise or despite those words being read from a teleprompter, while the reader is backed up by Styrofoam Greek columns.

This is only the second day of Breitbart’s addressing the NEA matter. Is there more? Time will tell.

An update before I post:

The White House is trying to get in front of this now:

White House officials say they are enacting specific steps to make sure such a call never happens again.

Today White House officials are meeting with the chiefs of staff of the executive branch agencies to discuss rules and best practices in this area, a conversation during which they will be told that that while White House lawyers do not believe that the NEA call violated the law, “the appearance issues troubled some participants,” Burton said. “It is the policy of the administration that grant decisions should be on the merits and that government officials should avoid even creating the incorrect appearance that politics has anything to do with these decisions.” (source, Thanks to Big Hollywood)

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Filed Under: Obama -- Politics -- News -- NEA – Culture

Technorati tags: Artists Unite -- 501(c)(3) -- health insurance -- IRS -- NEA -- White House -- Obama -- liberals

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NEA conference call is propaganda for Obama with your tax dollars?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:18:00 -0500

Audio and transcript of this call are available and seem to undercut the NEA’s original claims that this was not about political campaigning. As they say, the cover up can be worse than the crime.

Big Hollywood introduces the new audio and transcript here.

The context of the NEA conference call is laid out in another very detailed article that follows at Big Hollywood.

All evidence points to the fact that the conference call was a ruse, a front for a White House using Skolnik as a kind of beard in order to put an innocent spin on their abuse of the NEA and two non-partisan volunteer organizations (United We Serve – an initiative overseen by The Corporation for National and Community Service – a federal agency, and the White House’ Office of Public Engagement).

The goal: To motivate a group of hand-picked pro-Obama artists (grant recipients or those wanting grants) to push the President’s flagging agenda, especially health care — and to funnel this promotion through the ACORN related- Serve.gov website. (source)

Be sure to read it all.

It seems the crime may be using federal funds, the granting or threat of withholding NEA grants to artists based on how politically useful they have been. It will be interesting to see what else Breitbart has due to his drip, drip, drip release of the ACORN videos. At the very least is the implication of reward followed by the NEA covering up the purpose of the call.

drip, drip, drip…

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Filed Under: Politics -- Obama -- News -- NEA – ACORN

Technorati tags: ACORN -- Buffy Wicks -- health care -- Michael Skolnik -- national endowment for the arts

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NEA conference call next for Breitbart?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:49:00 -0500

It would appear that’s the case based on Andrew Breitbart’s hint and the follow up “Pre-game” post.

First an excerpt from his article that offers a hint:

At the very least, filmmaker James O’Keefe and actress Hannah Giles deserve a Pulitzer Prize for their expose of deep corruption and unspeakable immorality at the ACORN housing division. But more important, I won’t rest until they receive a grant to continue their partisan artistry from the National Endowment for the Arts.

That’s this week’s mission. (source)

Be sure to read it all for an explanation of the ACORN video roll out strategy.

His post is then followed by, “Pregame Report: The NEA Conference Call”.

So what did happen on that call? Was the NEA coordinating with the White House to push their agenda on a group of artists eager for and reliant upon the NEA for grants, or is the NEA telling the truth that this call “was not a means to promote any legislative agenda”?

Tomorrow at noon ET, explosive new information will answer that question and raise many others. (source)

Again, be sure to read it all to get all the background about that conference call. The information we already have is disturbing enough, it will be interesting to see what more Breitbart has.

Usually I hate Mondays, but this one looks like it could be better than normal.

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Filed Under: Culture -- Obama -- Politics -- News – NEA

Technorati tags: NEA -- Obama -- ACORN -- James O'Keefe -- Hannah Giles -- propoganda -- Arts -- politics

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Mayor encourages criminals to run

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 13:45:00 -0500

Of course that is not the intent, but Wellford Mayor Sallie Peake seems not to have thought through the necessary implications of her policy proclamation very well. (Thanks to HotAir Headlines)

Video source

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis has since chimed in by stating that Mayor Sallie Peake was simply playing along with the racist reporter because Peake was scared and that asking a minority Mayor a question about making it easier for criminals is also racist.

I might have added that last part. (Thanks to AoSHQ for that literary device)

BTW, I don’t have any Hannah Giles in a bikini photos although there is a rumor of photos existing of Hannah Giles in a bikini and wearing a lace wig.

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Filed Under: News – Crime -- 4GrinsNGiggles -- ACORN

Technorati tags: Mayor Sallie Peake -- criminals -- Wellford -- Bertha Lewis -- ACORN -- Hannah Giles -- bikini

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Another State shuts down ACORN funding

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:14:00 -0500

This snowball is getting bigger and moving faster.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal today cut off state funding for the community activist group ACORN.

Jindal has also blocked any state agency for entering into contracts with the organization.

The executive order also cuts off any future state funding of ACORN, on the heels of a series of embarrassing incidents for the organization.

The governor's action follows a subpoena of documents from the group's national headquarter office in New Orleans. […] (source, thanks to Michelle Malkin)

Let’s take the opportunity of reinforcing a point I made in a previous post:

This new scandal is only on top of the former scandals of embezzlement and cover up, voter registration fraud convictions in multiple states, shaking down businesses, campaign finance illegalities, to name a few off the top of my head.

Anita Moncrief adds more detail to ACORN’s long-standing corruption with her post ACORN: The Roots of a Scandal, be sure to go through earlier posts at her personal blog as well. She makes an interesting point with:

Some may find it disturbing that ACORN Housing is a landlord after watching the videos on the ACORN scandal at BigGovernment.com …

I can’t tell from what is presented if ACORN or one of the subsidiaries in its web actually has ownership or management of any housing. If they do own or are involved in managing such properties, perhaps there should be an investigation into the conditions at those locations? It’s not like there has never been a housing or real estate scandal in Chicago or other cities. ACORN has shown from top to bottom that it cares little for ethical standards. Even if just involved in development and not as landlords, their ever worsening reputation gives reason for concern. If the line is not drawn at covering up embezzlement at the top, or the trafficking of minors for sex at the bottom, is there really any reason for giving ACORN the benefit of the doubt in any project?

It seems the more one looks, the more thorough the corruption shows itself to be. Sadly, while there are undoubtedly sincere people within ACORN simply trying to help the poor, the organization over all appears to be far less concerned with its stated mission and more focused on gaining power and money no matter the cost, even if it hurts those it is supposedly trying to help.

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Filed Under: Obama -- Crime – ACORN

Technorati tags: ACORN -- Obama -- liberals -- crime -- Louisiana -- Bobby Jindal -- Anita Moncrief

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ACORN kicked in the nuts by House vote

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:30:00 -0500

Despite the pathetic attempts by some to deflect from ACORN’s corruption, the message is getting around. We now have the House following the Senate and voting to defund ACORN.

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs has details, including the names of those who voted to continue funding an organization that is so corrupt that it’s front line employees, without hesitation, offered advice to help with the sexual exploitation and trafficking of minors, mortgage fraud, money laundering, tax fraud etc. Their ease with and certainty of the steps needed for such illegal actions naturally leads to the question of, how many times have they done something like this before?

Ace has information about how certain and complete this de-funding really is and what is being attempted to ensure that it is thorough enough to stop funding this organization and it’s affiliates with our tax dollars.

The pressure needs to continue. It is obvious that ACORN is hoping for this to blow over with it’s talk of suspending operations and being audited. And about that audit, which anyone with a brain would be skeptical of, we now have data to confirm our skepticism. Allahpundit at HotAir begins his post with a good bit of snark:

I can’t do better than Karl’s summary so I’m going to steal it: “A Soros hack, an SEIU thug, someone who pleaded to lying to the FBI, and a Kennedy.” All that’s missing are a few pimps and prostitutes for “technical expertise.” Hardest-hitting internal investigation evah: […] (source)

We now have California and New York looking into investigating the matter.

Now that the supreme community organizer himself, via his spokesdork Gibbs, has distanced himself from the organization, perhaps certain individuals will stop with the distractions.

Don’t hold your breath though, some people just can’t stop themselves. It’s almost as if they like punching themselves in the nads or something.

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Filed Under: Politics -- Obama -- News -- Crime – ACORN

Technorati tags: ACORN -- Obama -- liberals -- biggovernment.com -- Hannah Giles -- James O'Keefe -- sex trade

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An embarrassing attempt at defending ACORN

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:01:00 -0500

I would feel a little sorry for this individual if I had not been exposed to his intellectual dishonesty so many times before.

In an update to a previous post I had linked to a Myspace thread Shawn Wilkinson created when he saw that I had encouraged people to catch a new ACORN video on Glenn Beck. Of course there was no substantive rebuttal to the videos released thus far which resulted in my criticizing his comment. The following would be his idea of a reply that has substance.

Shawn in bold font

My replies in regular font

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Markie mark,

I made fun of you and your postering of Glenn Beck as an informative source.

He still offers nothing to show the information is not accurate. ACORN has suspended operations, and fired employees, such actions indicate they know things went bad, the videos are true and they need to delay so this blows over. My words “as if that would matter anyway” were clearly broad enough to cover any ad hominem fallacy, but of course Shawn has nothing to criticize the actual information so has to resort to it again. As for ACORN threatening to sue, the people involved had said, bring it on. A number of us are looking forward to the discovery phase of such an action.

Concerning the conent of your post...

Why not the content of the videos? *chirp* *chirp*

These two "journalists" managed to successfully catch several bad apples in a large pile. Have they disucssed their Philadelphia trip? Of course not.

I was already aware of ACORN’s claim regarding Philadelphia. What will be interesting is to see what actually happened. Considering that ACORN has been wrong about it being only one incident with Baltimore, wrong about being turned away in New York and San Diego thus far, and it’s up to five offices, at this point, leaves Hannah and O’Keefe with far more credibility than ACORN. They also have the videos.

But since you are an avid FOX News watcher, surely you saw Hannity’s show today?

As if this is relevant to the truth or falsity of the videos which do not require having cable or watching FOX News, but only an internet connection to Big Government, youtube and various blogs.

You know, the one with Giles and Breitbart discussing how EVVVIL ACORN is, but it was Hannity (of all people) who pushed Giles into admitting that they had failed to fact check their story before coming out with it. No? Perhaps you should catch the podcast.

Then show where the facts are wrong. Shawn is desperately trying to stomp out the chirping crickets now.

More and more we see the duo as amateurs,

No one has argued otherwise. The Jon Stewart video criticizes the press for being scooped by amateurs and yet Shawn thinks their being amateurs is the negative point.

who when pressed to divulge all their video, refuse to.

So? They have their schedule. Notice Shawn still offers no evidence to counter what has been presented, just tries to imply something nefarious.

There’s a term for this type of behavior...

Hilarious, Shawn’s link has a five point definition for yellow journalism and this reporting doesn’t match up at all with any of it.

1. This fails as it is clearly not a minor story, unless one does not mind the under-age sex trade.

2. Would apply to any investigative undercover journalism with video if he foolishly wants to apply it to this case.

3. Is decimated by the fact that we have video and the very words of the ACORN workers and ACORN higher ups early statements showing they are not about being truthful about any of this.

4. Not really applicable in this case.

5. With this matter we have the supposed champions of underdogs and who they use as a shield and cannon fodder defrauding the system, this point fails as well.

But on a more serious note.

I guess he got tired of the the ad hominem fallacies and attempts at deflection.

I guess FOX news is a child porn mill and supportive of sexual harrassment if we make the charge that a few bad apples spoil the enitre bunch.

I was wrong, he is going for more deflection, doubling down even. Let’s first review what Shawn has tried thus far. One, go after Glenn Beck, as if that actually addresses the content of the videos. Two, attack Hannah and O’Keefe despite the five point definition of yellow journalism failing and the Philadelphia claim, which currently lacks details, already being overwhelmed by the five ACORN locations and ACORNS initial lies, with perhaps more videos in the future. And again, the actual content of the videos is not.rebutted.at.all.

Now he tries for deflecting with a ridiculous attempt at moral equivalence. He first has to distort the charge against ACORN to have a chance at this, in other words, a straw man fallacy. Once the actual complaint is taken into account the rest just falls away. There has been evidence for some time that ACORN is a corrupt organization from the top. This new scandal is only on top of the former scandals of embezzlement and cover up, voter registration fraud convictions in multiple states, shaking down businesses, campaign finance illegalities, to name a few off the top of my head.

That it takes this to wake up Congress, with the media still asleep, shows that we have additional problems with uprooting corruption in this country when it comes to liberal institutions. The charge is clearly not that a few bad apples spoil the entire bunch, but rather, that an organization that has long been corrupt at the top demonstrates this all the way to the bottom and that government and the media would rather look the other way until forced to act.

Best of luck in your parallel universe!

This coming from someone who can only respond with fallacies, deflections, distortion of the actual charge against ACORN and a pathetic attempt at moral equivalence.

Apparently Shawn did not watch the end of the Jon Stewart video or he refused to comprehend the criticism of shallow responses to this serious matter.

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Filed Under: Politics -- Obama -- News -- MSM -- Crime – ACORN

Technorati tags: ACORN -- Obama -- liberals -- biggovernment.com -- Hannah Giles -- James O'Keefe -- sex trade

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ACORN suspends services, orders audit

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:41:00 -0500

With the uncertainty of whether or not there are more videos and revelations forthcoming, ACORN has tried another tactic in response to the shocking undercover videos that have been released thus far. ACORN is obviously trying to get in front of the growing scandal.

ACORN says workers conduct 'indefensible'

ACORN, calling the actions of some of its employees "indefensible," has suspended advising new clients as part of its service programs and is setting up an independent review to see what happened.

ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis said in a written statement that she was "ordering a halt to any new intakes into ACORN's service programs until completion of an independent review."

[…] (Thanks to HotAir Headlines)

What needs to be remembered is how their response progressed.

This was just one office, it was tried at a number of others and failed

The video is doctored and doesn’t show the true story. Despite that claim, they fired the employees.

This is a racist attack.

We are just community organizers like the President was.

Considering, as noted in that story, ACORN already had an advisory panel in place to deal with previous management problems, much skepticism is warranted towards their latest reaction. It is more likely that they are trying to create time to buy more paper shredders and to find out if any other offices were tagged so they can preemptively fire those employees.

Considering how far this could go, with serious criminal indictments, convictions and federal money already in danger of being denied, admitting to some failures now is certainly much less damaging.

Let’s also not forget that President Obama was very involved with ACORN, including during his campaign for President. Jill Stanek recounts some connections that really do make one wonder if that scandal could reach the White House.

[…] Now it turns out ACORN, the SEIU, Obama, and even Blagojevich are all somehow connected. There is a reason why both IL senators - Burris and Durbin - were among the 7 voting to retain funding of ACORN yesterday. I knew it before I scanned the roll call. Many State of IL officials are in bed with the SEIU, even AG Lisa Madigan. […] (source)

But of course for some, it is only about hating Glenn Beck, or this is all about being racist. Illegal activities, aiding child prostitution/slavery, etc. are minor matters that just need to be put aside. Such a position is so pathetic and morally bankrupt that even liberal Jon Stewart awakens slightly to say Are you f*** kidding me!?! as he chides the mainstream media for being scooped on such an explosive and important story. The Beck haters linked to earlier should stick around for the end of that Stewart video. It might be hoping for too much but maybe the correct lesson will sink in this time.

**Update:

More about the SEIU and ACORN relationship here at Big Government.

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Filed Under: Politics -- News -- Obama -- MSM -- Illinois -- Crime -- ACORN -- Blagojevich

Technorati tags: ACORN -- Obama -- politics -- liberals -- Illinios -- Blagoevich -- biggovernment.com -- Hannah Giles -- James O'Keefe -- sex trade

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Obama’s nuts getting dipped in hot grease

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:04:00 -0500

And then it gets worse. Let’s get some important information out of the way first. Be sure to tune in to Glenn Beck’s show at 5pm and check out the Big Government site today at 4pm (both Eastern) as a new ACORN video is going to be released. Per Ed Morrissey:

According to Twitter chatter, this one has some politicians named, as well as a surprising admission from the ACORN staffer on tape. (source)

Yep, that would be the getting worse part, now back to the hot grease for Obama’s buddies. As previously noted, the Senate passed an amendment to removed funding for ACORN. Republicans in the house are also pushing to add this amendment to their version of the bill. There is also pressure for a full investigation of the organization.

All of this is covered in the HotAir post linked to above. Be sure to read it all as there is at least one update since I’ve been typing.

Another matter that adds to ACORN’s woes is that they may be operating illegally in Maryland. I’ll link to another HotAir post as Ed Morrissey has experience with State compliance issues.

I can’t think of a state with tougher compliance laws, with the possible exception of Virginia. We practically built our compliance group just for those two states.

With that in mind, ACORN’s ability to maintain its operations without valid registration — if indeed that’s what happened here — should get considerable scrutiny. Were their operations merely overlooked, or was there something more deliberate in keeping compliance enforcement off of their backs? Could it be because partisan hacks like Jessamy are more interested in protecting their political allies than actually enforcing the law? (source)

One has to marvel that all of this has come about despite the overall see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil attitude of the mainstream press. Primarily because of the initial work of Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, we are now finally moving to dismantling this criminal enterprise.

We are now up to four videos. Are there any more? Whatever the case may be I’m sure much paper shredding and deletion of electronic records is well under way at ACORN offices. I’m sure much overtime is required so those who have helped with this exposure of ACORN’s criminality should be congratulated for their efforts at helping stimulate the economy.

**Update:

An embed of the video from BigGovernment.com. Note, “This is a Part I of the ACORN San Bernardino exposé.”

**Update:

HotAir has full, unedited video from Fox News here.

**Update:

See how some on the left respond in this myspace thread. Notice there are no refutations or even discussion about what is presented in the videos along with the assumption that because Glenn Beck is mentioned in this post, that is who this information was initially derived from, as if that would matter anyway. But then Shawn Wilkinson has shown he is intellectually dishonest a number of times already, see here, here and here.

Not that the typical non-conservative in that thread will bother to read this. They obviously don’t care that ACORN is a criminal enterprise and are probably too lazy to scroll this far on top of it. The evidence showing support of under-age sex/slave trade, laundering money, mortgage fraud, etc. are just not important enough to them.

And here is the previous post about the videos that preceded these for those who are interested in what is being exposed about ACORN.

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Filed Under: Politics -- MSM -- News -- Obama – Crime

Technorati tags: ACORN -- Obama -- biggovernment.com -- Hannah Giles -- James O'Keefe -- sex trade -- liberals

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Obama’s nuts are getting squashed

noreply@blogger.com (Mark K. Sprengel) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:04:00 -0500

Those nuts being his ACORN buddies. If you’ve been watching only ABCCBSNBCCNN then you are probably unaware of what has been happening to ACORN due to the work of two activist journalists, a new website by Andrew Breitbart, various blogs, Fox News and Glenn Beck. This is what we have thus far.

Andrew Breitbart started a new website Big Government that features a video of ACORN employees helping a prostitute and her pimp/boyfriend figure out how to commit mortgage fraud, tax fraud and money laundering for a political campaign. It only gets worse. These same employees then offer advice on how to hide the fact the the prostitute is bringing in under age girls from El Salvador to turn tricks. They go so far as to say declare three as dependants but no more as that would look suspicious. Video of all this is here.

ACORN responds by saying this only happened at one office, these people tried it a number of places and were turned away. One problem with that, there is another video of the same thing happening at a different office. ACORN still claims it is an isolated incident and begins throwing the race card and threatening to sue. You can see how this has progressed by going to the ACORN category at Big Government. There is now a third video from another ACORN office. Here is the link, just click newer entries at the bottom to get the updates and then read from the bottom up to see how the story unfolds.

As of today the latest is that ACORN has been dropped from the census, and a Senate funding bill for HUD/Transportation has had an amendment added that prevents ACORN from receiving federal funds until this is investigated. Sadly, seven Senators voted against the amendment, six were Democrats and one is an Independent. HotAir has the names which includes little Dick Durbin and Roland Burris, hardly surprising in my opinion.

So can we assume that Illinois and Vermont are especially sympathetic to child-whoring pimp assistance? (source, which has the rest of the names and several updates)

Glenn Beck has been all over this story and has promised more to come. ACORN is a criminal enterprise that receives millions of our tax dollars. Besides what you can find at biggovernment these days you can also find some interesting background at Anita Moncrief’s blog under the ACORN category.

Let us not forget that Obama cut his teeth working with ACORN and paid them for services during his campaign. That money was “mislabeled” originally but of course Obama received a pass on that matter, as he has on others. More about ACORN during the election here.

Michelle Malkin covers other ways that ACORN receives support from our taxes.

If the Census Bureau no longer trusts ACORN to collect data as a result of these videotapes, why is Congress still allowing taxpayer money to be funneled to the ACORN Housing Corporation?

AHC has received an estimated $16 million in taxpayer funds between 1997-2007, according to the Employment Policies Institute.

Last week, I noted that ACORN is now managing apartments in Bedford-Stuyvesant for the newly completed Atlantic Avenue Apartments.

In April, I noted that the bone-headed Bush administration shoved another $1.6 million into AHC’s pockets to subsidize the left-wing mortgage counseling racket.

AHC has a long history of abusing federal housing funds and Americorps grants for political activities. Thanks to the Consumer Rights League and brave ACORN whistleblowers, we also know their shady practices include working to obtain mortgages for illegal aliens and relying on undocumented income, “under the table” money, that may not be reported to the Internal Revenue Service. (source, read it all as they say)

The pressure needs to not only be maintained but increased. This should only be the start. ACORN should long ago have been the target of a RICO investigation. It may be that the ingenuity and guts of two activist/journalists may be the spark that finally removes this race baiting, radicalizing, criminal enterprise, which treats the poor as throw away facemasks and cannon fodder from the position of power and influence it has held on to far too long.

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Filed Under: Politics -- MSM -- News – Obama

Technorati tags: ACORN -- Obama -- biggovernment -- Andrew Breitbart -- Okeefe -- Hannah Gills -- Anita Moncrief

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