Government & Tax $$$ Drive Scientific Opinion

April 26, 2012 - by: Gary DeMar

In 2006, then climate change enthusiast James Lovelock believed that “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.” The 92-year-old scientist is now in the recanting phase of his life. He admits that some of the language in his 2006 book Revenge of Gaia had been over the top. He admits that if he were writing today he would be more cautious.

It’s a little late now that laws are being implemented to curtail what was said to be “scientific fact.”

More than a century ago, John William Draper made the unsupported claim that scientific “opinions on every subject are continually liable to modification, from the irresistible advance of human knowledge.”[1] This wasn’t true then and it’s not true today.

In reality, many new scientific theories are often opposed by scientists for any number of reasons. There is continued scientific debate over the causes or even the reality of human-caused global warming, whether oil is a “fossil” fuel or a renewable abiotic resource,[2] the medical benefits of embryonic stem-cells, and much more. A lot of it has to do with grant money.

These debates can be downright hostile as charges and counter charges are lobbed from scientific strongholds where the claim is made that there is no room for debate. Consider the Inquisition-like reaction to those who question the certainty of global warming:

Scientists who dissent from the alarmism [over global warming] have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis. . . . In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.[3]

Some have gone so far as to propose that “global warming deniers” are aiding and abetting a global holocaust and should be prosecuted. Australian columnist Margo Kingston “has proposed outlawing ‘climate change denial.’ ‘David Irving is under arrest in Austria for Holocaust denial,’ she wrote. ‘Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence. It is a crime against humanity, after all.’ Others have suggested that climate change deniers should be put on trial in the future, Nuremberg-style, and made to account for their attempts to cover up the ‘global warming . . . Holocaust.’”[4] These arguments are being made by those within the secular scientific community. Follow the money.

There’s a new Inquisition in operation. If you don’t hold to the agreed-upon theories, then you will not be hired, and if you already have a position, there is a good chance you will lose it if you express your opinion, especially if that opinion goes against a theory that might jeopardize money that flows from government grants. Stephen Jay Gould has written: “The stereotype of a fully rational and objective ‘scientific method,’ with individual scientists as logical (and interchangeable) robots, is self-serving mythology.”[5] Scientists are just like everybody else. They want the same things.

We shouldn’t be surprised that climate scientists might fudge the evidence to keep the grant money coming in. Who’s really getting harmed? Anyway, the kids need new shoes and an investment portfolio so they can get into the best universities to learn how to game the system.

Gary Sutton, writing in an online article for Forbes, makes the point:

 

You can’t blame these scientists for sucking up to the fed’s mantra du jour. Scientists live off grants. Remember how Galileo recanted his preaching about the earth revolving around the sun? He, of course, was about to be barbecued by his leaders. Today’s scientists merely lose their cash flow. Threats work.[6]

Of course, they can be blamed when they claim that they are doing real science, there is no contrary evidence, and what contrary evidence they do find they suppress it. So the next time someone dogmatically asserts that the majority of scientists believe in Global Warming, ask your antagonist how much grant money he’s getting?

Notes:


1.John William Draper, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1875), vi. [↩]


2.Jerome R. Corsi and Craig R. Smith, Black Gold Stranglehold (Nashville, TN: WND Books, 2005). [↩]


3.Richard Lindsen, “Climate of Fear: Global-Warming Alarmists Intimidate Dissenting Scientists into Silence,” The Wall Street Journal (April 12, 2006): www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220 [↩]


4.Brendan O’Neill, “Global warming: the chilling effect on free speech” (October 6, 2006): www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1782/ [↩]


5.Stephen Jay Gould, “In the Mind of the Beholder,” Natural History (February 1994), 103:14. [↩]


6.Gary Sutton, “The Fiction of Climate Science,” Forbes.com (December 4, 2009). [↩]

http://godfatherpolitics.com/4900/the-new-inquisition-against-scientists-who-disagree-with-theories-that-have-the-support-of-the-government-and-tax-dollars/

Black and White: Who’s Killing Whom?

by: da Tagliare - April 25, 2012

Ever since George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin a month ago, it seems that everyone is talking about racial crimes. Every time a non-black commits a violent crime against a black person, certain black activists like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson crawl out from the cracks like cockroaches when the lights go out. They do their best to make everything into a racial hate crime, whether it was or not.

So I thought it was about time we take a look at racial crimes and see just who is committing the crimes against whom.

According to a study conducted by the Scripps Howard News Service, white on black killings rose from 3% thirty years ago to 4% today. Black on white killings rose from 6% thirty years ago to 8% today. In other words, there are twice as many black on white killings as there are white on black killings.

On our local news last night, they reported white on black crimes in Ohio are running at 3.2% while black on white crimes are more than double, running at 8.2%. Worse yet were the black on black crimes, which had state and local officials alarmed. They never said exactly what the black on black rate was but indicated that it was significantly higher than the white on black and black on white figures combined.

With state and national statistics showing that black on white crimes are twice that of white on black, where are the racial activists screaming hate crimes? Where are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson when a black person kills a white person? If they were honest and sincere about wanting to stop racially motivated hate crimes, they should be fair and make the same accusations when the color is on the other side of the gun.

If they don’t think many black on white crimes are racially motivated, they need to think again. A former job of mine would take me into a predominately black area of a large metropolitan city. I was threatened by blacks of all ages and sexes. I’ll never forget the day a black preschooler came up to me and called me an f’n honky and then told me to get my white ass out of his neighborhood.

So my advice to black activists like Sharpton and Jackson is to start with their own house, clean it up first before they try to start cleaning up the houses of others. They need to spend more time working with blacks, especially those in major cities, start changing their racist attitudes and then maybe they’ll see a difference in the rest of American society.

http://godfatherpolitics.com/4870/black-and-white-whos-killing-whom/

Warren Buffett + Sen. Ben Nelson - Keystone pipeline = Profit for Buffet & Nelson

What exactly are Warren Buffett’s connections to TransCanada’s Keystone XL oil pipeline? Does the Oracle from Omaha have an interest in seeing the project killed?

Back in January, the State Department advised the President to reject the proposal to extend the Keystone XL pipeline because it was not in the “national interest” of the country at this time. But why would Obama choose to not support this project when he has backed so many green energy projects, even ones that have failed like Solyndra?

According to Forbes, the pipeline would have been a huge job creator:

According to TransCanada, the company planning to build the pipeline, Keystone XL would alleviate transportation bottlenecks and improve capacity in a market where oil imports total 10 to 11 million daily barrels. The company claims it would put 13,000 people to work building the pipeline and 118,000 spin-off jobs “through increased business for local goods and service providers.”


Building the Keystone extension would provide additional transportation capacity at the crucially important city of Cushing, Oklahoma. The pricing point for NYMEX spot and future WTI contracts, which determine the price of crude oil, Cushing has faced severe bottlenecks as its capacity to transport crude oil to the refinery-rich Gulf Coast has been limited.

The oil that would have come in the pipeline would still be coming to the United States regardless, only now it would be through trains. And who owns the trains? Warren Buffett.

The question is not about the environment or government studies.

Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC railroad — a unit of Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska based Berkshire Hathaway — would be among those poised to reap sizable gains by the administration’s decision to reject TransCanada’s oil pipeline permit. Berkshire Hathaway purchased a 22% (or, $34 billion share) of the 32,000 mile line in 2009, shortly after Obama was elected.

“Whatever people bring to us, we’re ready to haul,” said Burlington Northern spokesperson Krista York-Wooley.

Warren Buffet has vehemently denied ever speaking to The President about the Keystone Pipeline project despite the fact that he owned a company that would benefit from it’s cancellation.

This pipeline should have passed. Because it’s safe, it’s a job creator, helps America get cheap oil and gets you lower gas prices.

He’s got to be the luckiest guy ever because he benefits from this.

How did Buffett get so lucky? It had something to do with Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson.

Buffett and Nelson go way back. In 2010 while the country was undergoing an overhaul of it’s financial regulations, Nelson worked hard to push legislation that would benefit Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. As of 2010, Nelson owned up to $6 million in stock in Berkshire Hathaway.

Senator Ben Nelson, voted against the Keystone XL and lobbied that it be re-routed to avoid Nebraska. Ironically, the Senator’s attempts to thwart the pipeline were done while he himself maintained his state would heartily welcome the jobs created from the Keystone project. While Nelson’s position then seems counterintuitive, add to it the fact that he is heavily invested in Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

From 2007 to 2012 Nelson contributed $27,000 to the company itself and according to a recent financial disclosure statement from 2008, he owned between $1.5 and $6 million of the company’s stock – his largest investment in any one company to date.

The pendulum seems to swing both ways, however. Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe PAC in turn contributed $5,000 to Senator Nelson’s Nebraska Leadership PAC and Berkshire Hathaway employees have reportedly long supported the senator, contributing at least $75,550 to the Nebraska Democrat over the course of his political career according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Not coincidentally, Senator Nelson penned an op-ed column on March 5, 2012 entitled “Behind Those High Gas Prices.” As you can imagine, the senator was quick to tell Nebraskans that the spike “has nothing to do with the Keystone Pipeline” and also “isn’t a result of domestic oil production.”

Tying it all back to the Pipeline, it’s clear that both Nelson and Buffett have quite a bit to gain financially if Buffett’s trains were used to transport the oil instead of the pipeline.

The political favors, the green house gas emissions, oil transported on choo-choo trains riding off into the smog-ridden sunset.

And who loses? You.

You’re not on the gravy train. You’re in your car and most likely standing at the gas station pumping in gas that will be way more expensive.”

- Glenn Beck - 4/18/2012

Americans Making Over $50K Paid 93.3% of All Taxes in 2010

By Christopher Goins - April 14, 2012

Americans making over $50,000 paid most of the federal taxes that were paid in the U.S. in 2010.

According to statistics compiled from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by the Tax Foundation, those people making above $50,000 had an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent, and carried 93.3 percent of the total tax burden.

In contrast, Americans making less than $50,000 had an effective tax rate of 3.5 percent and their total share of the tax burden was just 6.7 percent.

Americans making more than $250,000 had an effective tax rate of 23.4 percent and their total share of the tax burden was 45.7 percent.

Out of the 143 million tax returns that were filed with the IRS in 2010, 58 million – or 41 percent – of those filers were non-payers.

In other words, only 85 million actually paid taxes.

But Tax Foundation data also shows that people who didn’t pay any income tax received $105 billion in refundable tax credits from the IRS.

Additionally, statistics from the Tax Foundation shows that the federal tax code is 3.8 million words long – 3.5 times longer than all seven books of J.K. Rowling’s famous Harry Potter series combined.

According to Scholastic.com, the total word count of all seven Harry Potter books is 1,083,594 words with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone being the shortest (76,944 words) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the longest (257,045).

In contrast, the federal tax code is 3.8 million words, almost a tripling of its size since 2001 when the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the tax code to be 1,395,000, and almost doubling its size since the Tax Foundation's estimates in 2001.

Even Barney Frank Told Obama to Nix Obamacare

By Jonathan Miller - April 16, 2012

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said he advised President Obama against taking up health care reform following a special election in 2010 that changed Democrats' fortunes in the Senate, saying that he should have instead turned his focus to financial reform.

Frank referenced former President Bill Clinton and his failed health care plan from the 1990s. “Obama made the same mistake Clinton made,” Frank said in a wide-ranging interview with New York magazine. “When you try to extend health care to people who don’t have it, people who have it and are on the whole satisfied with it get nervous.”

The outgoing representative from Massachusetts added that after Republican Scott Brown won former Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s seat, breaking Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority, Obama should have backed down: “I think we paid a terrible price for health care. I would not have pushed it as hard. As a matter of fact, after Scott Brown won, I suggested going back. I would have started with financial reform but certainly not health care," Frank said.

He said that if the president had followed his advice, “you could have gotten some pieces of it.”

Taxpayers Set to Lose $30+ Billion on the Auto Bailout

by Seton Motley - 4/12/2012

In 2012 reelection mode, President Obama has routinely chastised Mitt Romney and we Conservatives for wanting General Motors (GM) and Chrysler to go through bankruptcy...bailout-free.
In 2009, President Obama finished handing GM and Chrysler $85 billion in bailout money and then...had them go through bankruptcy.

Which - as Romney and we Conservatives have pointed out - they could and should have done for free.

In late 2009, President Obama told us that we would make money on the auto bailout.

In late 2011, the Administration begrudgingly admitted that we’ll lose $23.6 billion.

That’s a “success?”

And - as with most things Obama Administration - their numbers are uber-fudged.

This is, after all, the Administration that as part of tracking the nearly $1 trillion in “successful” “stimulus” money created fake Congressional districts - in which they “created or saved” imaginary jobs.

The Administration’s $23.6 billion auto bailout loss number includes a $9.3 billion hit on the 500+ million GM stock shares We the People now own as a result of the bailout.

But that’s a fudge-y number.

Right now, we’re actually losing nearly $15 billion on our shares. On a stock that dropped by a third just after the bailout, and has basically flatlined ever since.

So that ups the auto bailout loss to about $30 billion. At least.

Because, again, we’re having to take at face value the rest of the Obama Administration’s always highly irregular math. On the GM side - and the Chrysler side. A very difficult proposition indeed.

The total auto bailout loss is undoubtedly - probably dramatically - higher than $30 billion. And counting.

Only the biggest of Big Government proponents can consider this titanic loss a “success.”

Obama Using IRS as Personal Army to Supress Opposition

By Elizabeth Harrington - April 11, 2012

Saying President Barack Obama is “targeting the Tea Party” and using the “IRS as a weapon,” Tea Party activists Wednesday launched a coalition to combat the federal government agency’s burdensome and onerous interrogation of conservative groups to determine if they should receive tax exempt status.

Speaking at the National Press Club, two Tea Party group leaders announced the formation of the Liberty Defense Foundation, which will assist grassroots organizations in fending off long questionnaires from the IRS when filing for 501 (c) (4) non-profit status.

“I really wish I didn’t have to be here,” said Eric Wilson, director of the Kentucky 9/12 Project. “I don’t mind coming to D.C. to visit but I don’t want to be doing a press conference for the reasons I’m having to do it, because the truth is, Obama’s IRS is targeting local Tea Party, liberty groups and ordinary citizens. And that’s the reason we have to fight back.”

Wilson said his organization and hundreds of others have received letters from the IRS requesting thousands of pages of information about their activities, with a two-week deadline to respond.

“They’re trying to bury us in time, trying to bury us in paperwork, and they are making us use up resources we don’t have, especially small local organizations and small groups,” he said, referring to an IRS questionnaire with 88 inquiries. “And they’re doing this during a critical election year. This is not by accident. This is coordinated and this is targeted.”

Toby Marie Walker, president of the Waco (Texas) Tea Party, said the IRS demanded every Facebook, Twitter and social media post released by her organization over a two-and-a-half year period, as well as lists of any information about politicians the group is associated with and transcripts for their daily radio show broadcasts. Wilson said one organization had to provide “book reports” of every book recommended or read by their group.

“Tea Parties and 9/12 groups, liberty groups around the country are small,” Walker said. “Some of the groups have 20, 30, 40, 50 members, others have a couple thousand. But this is a David and Goliath fight. The IRS has unlimited resources and manpower to try to silence us. We have very limited funds and very limited human resource ability.”

“None of us wanted to form a new [501] (c) (4) to protect [501] (c) (4)’s,” she said of the new Liberty Defense Foundation. “That’s just ridiculous.”

The IRS grants tax-exempt status through its 501 (c) (4) designation for groups not organized for profit and whose exclusive operation is to promote social welfare. Unlike 501 (c) (3) organizations, 501 (c) (4)’s can engage in political activity, endorse candidates and donate to campaigns.

IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said last month testifying before a congressional panel that the IRS is conducting its usual examination process for 501 (c) (4) applicants to determine tax-exempt status, and is not targeting the TEA Party.

“The notion that we're targeting anyone, I think, is off because, you know, these people are going through an application process that they voluntarily decide to do that isn't required under the law,” he told a House Appropriations subcommittee on March 21.

Wilson and Walker said that of the 1,700 applications for 501 (c) (4) status in 2010, 1,400 were approved. Of the remaining 300 awaiting approval, half are groups related to the Tea Party that have received the same scrutiny as the Waco Tea Party and Kentucky 9/12 Project.

During the press conference the activists promoted the Liberty Defense Foundation as a resource for like-minded groups. The organization will provide assistance in finding attorneys and accountants, help make travel arrangements, and provide “rally kits” with flyers, signs, talking points and a recommended speech for Tea Party gatherings.

The group is also aligning with the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) for legal representation.

“We want to shine a light of what’s going on,” Wilson said. “We want to tell the general public that we’re being attacked, the Obama administration is using an arm of the government to go after ordinary citizens.”

“These are your neighbors, these are the people who are meeting locally and getting together and want to have a voice,” he added. “That voice is being attacked and that voice is trying to be taken away.”

States MUST Refuse Obamacare Exchanges

April 12, 2012 - By Michael F. Cannon

Whatever SCOTUS does, states should refuse to create exchanges.

Obamacare had a bad couple of days before the Supreme Court — so bad that President Obama made some ill-considered comments about the Court from which he still hasn’t totally backpedaled. Though the oral arguments over the individual mandate and severability were encouraging, we cannot count on the Supremes to kill Obamacare. Opponents must keep fighting it on all fronts.

The most important front right now is to ensure that states do not create the health-insurance exchanges Obamacare needs in order to operate. Refusing to create exchanges is the most powerful thing states can do to take Obamacare down. Think of it as an insurance policy in case the Supreme Court whiffs.

Exchanges are the new government bureaucracies through which millions of Americans will be compelled to purchase Obamacare’s overpriced and overregulated health insurance. Through these bureaucracies, insurance companies will receive hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies. Without these bureaucracies, Obamacare cannot work.

Here are just a few reasons why states should refuse to create them.

Jobs. Refusing to create an exchange will block Obamacare from imposing a tax on employers whose health benefits do not meet the federal government’s definition of “essential” coverage. That tax can run as high as $3,000 per employee. A state that refuses to create an exchange will spare its employers from that tax, and will therefore enable them to create more jobs.

Religious freedom. In blocking that employer tax, state officials would likewise block Obamacare’s effort to force religious employers to provide coverage for services they find immoral — like contraception, pharmaceutical abortions, and sterilization.

The federal debt. Refusing to create exchanges would also reduce the federal debt, because it would prevent the Obama administration from doling out billions of dollars in subsidies to private insurance companies.

The U.S. Constitution. The Obama administration has indicated that it might try to tax employers and hand out those subsidies anyway — even in states that don’t create an exchange, and even though neither Obamacare nor any other federal law gives it the power to do so. If that happens, the fact that a state has refused to create an exchange would give every large employer in the state — including the state government itself — the ability to go to court to block the administration’s attempt to usurp Congress’s legislative powers.

A lower state tax burden. States that opt to create an exchange can expect to pay anywhere from $10 million to $100 million per year to run it. But if states refuse, Obamacare says the federal government must pay to create one. Why should states pay for something that the federal government is giving away?

Bye-bye, Obamacare. That is, if the feds can create an exchange at all. The Obama administration has admitted it doesn’t have the money — and good luck getting any such funding through the GOP-controlled House. Moreover, without state-run exchanges, the feds can’t subsidize private insurance companies. That by itself could cause Obamacare to collapse.

Unfortunately, ever since Obamacare became law, lobbyists for the insurance companies and others who would financially benefit from it have been wooing state officials with the false promise that a state-run exchange would preserve state control over health care. If the Supreme Court fails to strike down the entire law, they’ll say, “Aw, shucks. Now you have to create an exchange.”

Nonsense. Obamacare does not and cannot mandate that states create exchanges. Moreover, state-run exchanges do not preserve local control. They will do Washington’s bidding, or else they will be commandeered or swept aside.

Even if we assume the Obama administration figures out a way to impose a federal exchange on states, are there any atrocities a federal exchange might inflict that federal regulations could not require state-run exchanges to inflict? Of course not.

That’s why every conservative and free-market group, including the Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council, has advised states to refuse to create an exchange and to send all related grants back to Washington. Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wisconsin have already done so.

If the Court strikes Obamacare down, state officials who refused to create an exchange will look prescient. If not, they will be positioned to drive a stake through its heart.

Congressman Wants REAL Unemployment Rate as New Standard

The important numbers:

• 88 MILLION PEOPLE OUT OF WORK (More people not working in American than entire population of Germany).
• 19.1% IS THE REAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE.

by Wynton Hall - 4/1-/2012

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) wants Americans to know what the real unemployment rate is, not the figure that the Bureau of Labor calls unemployment which excludes those who have given up hope and are no longer seeking employment.

Rep. Hunter says his one-page bill, the "REAL Unemployment Calculation Act" (H.R. 4128), is not an effort to make President Barack Obama look bad, but rather to shoot straight with the American people:

“If a Republican gets elected this year and gets sworn in next year this will be their unemployment figure too. So you have to have truth no matter who it hurts or who it actually affects. You have to have the actual truth, that’s what we need here - truth to power. And that’s how things start getting fixed,” Hunter said on Fox News.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates the current unemployment rate at 8.2 percent. If Rep. Hunter's bill were to become law, the current unemployment rate would be 9.6 percent.

Presently, the government already calculates both figures, but reports the so-called U-3 rate as the nation's official unemployment figure. Rep. Hunter's proposal would report the U-5 rate as the nation's unemployment rate.

The U-5 stat measures, “total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus all other persons marginally attached to the labor force, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force,” while the U-3 stat or the “official unemployment rate,” measures, “total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force.”

Rep. Hunter believes the currently used U-3 statistics ignores “a subset of Americans who are not counted.”

As The Hill reports, the U-5 rate Rep. Hunter favors does not include all individuals out of work:

Still, the U-5 rate does not factor the reasons that individuals stopped looking for work, such as, deciding to go to school, inheriting money, or realizing that jobs were not available in their local area. It also does not account for the number of individuals who are on unemployment insurance, according to a source familiar with the monthly survey.

Still, Rep. Hunter believes the change would be a step in the right direction and would provide greater transparency about the unemployment crisis:

We need to be realistic and focus our attention on the figure that provides the most accurate representation of national unemployment—not the figure that under-represents the challenge we face.

As Big Government reported Saturday, a record 87,897,000 Americans are not in the labor force. When the number of individuals who have stopped looking for a job and/or who are working part-time but desire full-time employment is included--a figure known as the "underemployment rate"--real unemployment now stands at 19.1%.

Top Astronauts Condemn Global Warming Endorsement

Tue, 2012-04-10

In an unprecedented slap at NASA’s endorsement of global warming science, nearly 50 former astronauts and scientists--including the ex-boss of the Johnson Space Center--claim the agency is on the wrong side of science and must change course or ruin the reputation of the world’s top space agency.

Challenging statements from NASA that man is causing climate change, the former NASA executives demanded in a letter to Administrator Charles Bolden that he and the agency “refrain from including unproven remarks” supporting global warming in the media.

“We feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate,” they wrote. “At risk is damage to the exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA’s current or former scientists and employees, and even the reputation of science itself.”

The letter was signed by seven Apollo astronauts, a deputy associate administrator, several scientists, and even the deputy director of the space shuttle program.

NASA had no immediate comment.

In their letter, the group said that thousands of years of data challenge modern-day claims that man-made carbon dioxide is causing climate change. “With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from (NASA’s) Goddard Institute for Space Studies leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled,” they wrote.

NASA’s website is filled with stories about the impact of climate change on the earth, animals, and ecosystems. Most administration officials agree with the position NASA has taken.

“The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decision or public statements,” the critics added.

Their letter was heralded by outspoken global warming critic and author Leighton Steward who said, “These American heroes, the astronauts that took to space and the scientists and engineers that put them there, are right to criticize NASA’s advocacy of an extreme and unsubstantiated position.”

More Info on Americans Elect's Attempt to Steal Election

Few are aware of the push by the highly funded and highly organized group Americans Elect (even in Nebraska where AE has been successful) to get an independent candidate on the ballot in all 50 states. 

Collecting over 2 million signatures, currently AE has been approved for ballot access in 21 states. The group is funded by folks with ties to prominent democrats like Obama and the Clintons. Are the Rothschilds behind AE as well?

AE plans to hold an Internet vote to decide who will run as the independent candidate in November’s Election. It is likely that their intent is to push a right leaning candidate in order to steal votes from the Republican nominee. Because their Internet voting process is vague and authenticity of votes and outcome are hard to verify, those in charge of AE are able to rig and push whichever candidate they so choose. 

It appears AE accepts large denomination "donations" and repays the donors with interest. The money they used to pay back the whales (with interest) comes from the much larger pool of (much smaller) donors.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but how isn't this a pyramid scheme? If someone donates a million dollars to AE, and is repaid OVER a million dollars in return, how is that a donation? All of the small donations are funding interest and principle payments on these loans made by the largest contributors.

 Is AE a viable threat? Is it time to do something about it now…before it’s too late?

One Step Closer To MLK's Dream: Court Upholds Affirmative Action Ban

Opponents arguments are simply racist and misleading!  To illustrate how misleading, lets take a look at FACTS:

According to US Census information from 2010, the racial demographics of the United States are as follows:

White:      72.4%
Black:      12.6%
Hispanic:  16.3%
Asian:        4.8%
Native:       0.9%

Next let's take a look at 2009 enrollment rates in degree-granting institutions by race, according to the Dept. of Education:

White:       62.3%
Black:       14.3%
Hispanic:   12.5%
Asian:         6.5%
Native:          1%

As you can see, it is actually whites who are the most under-represented race within degree-granting institutions.  Hispanics are also under-represented according to 2009 data; however, it is worth pointing out a recent pew study reveals that college enrollment of Hispanics from the year 2009 to 2010 has increased dramatically, and continues to rise!  The most OVER-represented race within degree-granting institutions...blacks!!!

One of the most important factors to consider in acceptance to colleges and universities include the simple prerequisite of a high school diploma.  Yet, a 2010 study on graduation rates by race shows that: 80.7% of Asians and 76.6% of whites graduate from high school, while only 55.5% of Hispanics, 53.7% of blacks, and 50.7% of Natives graduate from high school.  So doesn't it make more sense that lack of this simple prerequisite (a high school diploma) plays a bigger part in college enrollment than race or other factors?  Yet, despite the poor graduation rates, blacks and other minorities find themselves OVER-represented in colleges and universities.  The REAL issue is increasing high school graduation rates among these racial groups, rather than discriminating against the other racial groups based on skin color.

When opponents complain about lack of diversity on campus, they intentionally mislead by forcing the assumption that there are the same amount of candidates enrolling from each race.  As you can see above, that simply isn't the case.  They ignore the fact that one of the nation's largest minority groups, Asians fare well in acceptance to colleges and universities, as they remain more qualified.

The real issue remains...the definition of racism is "a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering a doctrine of discrimination {based on race (color of skin)}.  Affirmative Action is clearly nothing more than government sponsored racism.  It's time to stand up for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of judging on content of character, rather than color of skin.  This is a GREAT place to start! 

Associated Press - April 2, 2012

Affirmative action proponents took a hit Monday as a federal appeals court panel upheld California's ban on using race, ethnicity and gender in admitting students to public colleges and universities.

The ruling marked the second time the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned back a challenge to the state's landmark voter initiative, Proposition 209, which was passed in 1996.

Affirmative action proponents, who had requested that the court reconsider its 1997 decision after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that affirmative action could be used in college admissions, said they would continue fighting.

"We think the decision is wrong," said Detroit attorney George B. Washington, who is representing the group of minority students and advocacy groups that filed the latest challenge in January 2010.

Washington said he would ask the full appellate court to review the case since this decision was issued by a three-judge panel.

In its ruling, the court rejected the plaintiffs' arguments that a new ruling is needed and said the previous decision still applies.

Ralph Kasarda, attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation who had argued in favor of the ban, said the court's decision was not surprising since the issue had already been decided. This case was redundant and baseless, he said.

"The bottom line from both decisions by the 9th Circuit — today's and the ruling 15 years ago — is that California voters have every right to prohibit government from color-coding people and playing favorites based on individuals' sex or skin color," Kasarda said in a statement.

At least six states have adopted bans on using affirmative action in state college admissions. Besides California and Michigan, they include Arizona, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Washington.

Advocates of affirmative action say such bans lead to the exclusion of minority students and less campus diversity.

In California, the year after ban was adopted, the number of black, Latino and Native American students at the University of California's most prestigious campuses — Berkeley and Los Angeles — plummeted by 50 percent, according to the plaintiffs cited in the court opinion.

The university has tried to compensate for the drop in those students by using other admissions criteria, including a "comprehensive review" of applicants, admitting the top 4 percent of graduates from any high school and decreasing the weight of standardized tests, the opinion said.

But affirmative action proponents say the measures have not been enough to boost opportunities for historically excluded minorities.

Although blacks, Latinos and Native Americans comprise about half of California's high school graduates, they make up only 19.5 percent of the current freshman class at UC Berkeley. Whites compose roughly 30 percent and Asians 48 percent. The remainder is out-of-state students.

"All you have to do is walk into any classroom, and you can just see it. There's like one black or Latino student," said Maria Belman, a history major at UC Berkeley and a plaintiff in the lawsuit. "To say that it isn't a problem is just a lie."

Belman said the lack of diversity creates a hostile climate to minorities on campus and puts more pressure on the minorities who are there.

"There's racism in our society," she said. "You need something to make up for that."

Backers of affirmative action bans say ruling out race, gender and ethnicity criteria guarantees that all applicants are treated fairly and not discriminated against.

The issue has led to protracted legal battles in several states.

In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court said the University of Michigan Law School could consider race in admissions decisions to promote campus diversity.

That decision led to a three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturning Michigan's affirmative action ban last year. The full appellate court, however, has agreed to reconsider the case.

In February, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear another case against the University of Texas, alleging that use of affirmative action is discriminatory. If the court decides against the university, the ruling could definitively end consideration of race in public university admissions.