Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Mark Levin endorses Greg Brannon for US Senate from North Carolina in Republican primary Tues., May 6

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4/30/14, "I am endorsing Greg Brannon for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in North Carolina. He is unquestionably the conservative in that race." Mark Levin Facebook

Primary is Tuesday, May 6, 2014.

Brannon for US Senate


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US first quarter 2014 GDP stalls at .1 percent on economist expectations of a slowed 1.2 percent-Reuters

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4/30/14, "U.S. economy stalls on inventories, trade," Reuters, L. Mutikani

"The U.S. economy barely grew in the first quarter as exports tumbled and businesses accumulated stocks at the slowest pace in nearly a year, but activity already appears to be bouncing back. Gross domestic product expanded at a 0.1 percent annual rate, the slowest since the fourth quarter of 2012, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday.

That was a sharp pullback from the fourth quarter's 2.6 percent pace and was worse than economists' expectations for a slowdown to a 1.2 percent rate. The slowdown partly reflected an unusually cold and disruptive winter, marked by declines in sectors ranging from business spending to home building.

The Commerce Department's first snapshot of first-quarter growth was released just hours before the Federal Reserve wraps up a two-day policy meeting.

While harsh weather partially explains the weakness in growth, the magnitude of the slowdown could complicate the U.S. central bank's message as it sets to announce a further reduction in the amount of money it is pumping into the economy through monthly bond purchases.

U.S. stock index futures fell slightly on the report, while U.S. Treasury debt prices trimmed losses.
The first-quarter stall in growth, however, is likely to be temporary and recent data have suggested strength at the tail end of the quarter. Separately, the ADP National Employment Report showed private employers added 220,000 jobs to their payrolls in April after increasing headcount by 209,000 in March...

Economists estimate severe weather could have chopped off as much as 1.4 percentage points from GDP growth. The government, however, gave no details on the impact of the weather.

INVENTORY GROWTH DECELERATES

Businesses restocked inventories to the tune of $111.7 billion in the final three months of last year, but added only $87.4 billion more to stocks in the first quarter, the smallest amount since the second quarter of 2013.

The slowdown in restocking subtracted 0.57 percentage point from GDP growth in the first quarter. Trade also undercut growth, taking off 0.83 percentage point, partly because of the weather, which left goods piling up at ports. Exports fell at a 7.6 percent rate in the first quarter, the largest decline in five years, after growing at a 9.5 percent pace in the final three months of 2013.


Together, inventories and trade sliced off 1.4 percentage points from GDP growth. A measure of domestic demand that strips out exports and inventories expanded at a 1.5 percent rate.

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, increased at a 3.0 percent rate, reflecting a spurt in spending on services linked to demand for heating during the winter and the Affordable Healthcare Act, which expanded health care coverage to many Americans.

Spending on services grew at its quickest pace since the second quarter of 2000.

Spending on goods, however, slowed sharply, indicating that the frigid temperatures had reduced foot traffic to shopping malls. Consumer spending had increased at a brisk 3.3 percent pace in the fourth-quarter.

Harsh weather also undercut business spending on equipment. While investment in nonresidential structures, such as gas drilling, rebounded, the increase was minor. Business spending on equipment fell at its fastest pace in nearly five years.

Investment in home building contracted for a second straight quarter, in part because of the weather. But a rise in mortgage rates over the past year has also hurt.

A second quarter of contraction in spending on home building suggests a housing recession, which could raise some eyebrows at the U.S. central bank. A bounce back is, however, expected in the April-June period."


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Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Pro Publica has obtained the IRS return of an Ohio group that apparently engaged in political advocacy but was given IRS tax-exempt status. Naturally, the group favored a Republican who lost

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4/25/14, "What Happens When a Dark Money Group Blows Off IRS Rules? Nothing." Pro Publica, by Kim Barker and Theodoric Meyer

"The Government Integrity Fund spent most of its money on election ads, despite IRS rules prohibiting a social welfare nonprofit from doing so."

"To see how easy it is for a dark money group to ignore the Internal Revenue Service, look no further than the loftily named Government Integrity Fund.

The Fund, an Ohio nonprofit, spent more than $1 million in 2012 on TV ads attacking Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and praising his Republican opponent, Josh Mandel. Now the Fund's tax return, which ProPublica obtained from the IRS this week, indicates that the group spent most of its money on politics — even though IRS rules say nonprofits like the Fund aren't allowed to do that.

The Government Integrity Fund was founded in May 2011 and applied later that year for IRS recognition of its tax-exempt status, swearing under penalty of perjury that it would not engage in politics but would instead "promote the social welfare of the citizens of Ohio." Within two months, the IRS had recognized the group.

It then devoted much of its resources to backing Mandel's unsuccessful bid to unseat Brown. As previously detailed by ProPublica, the Fund was linked to a former top Mandel staffer.

The Fund's return highlights the ways such nonprofits, known as dark money groups because they are not required to disclose their donors, can skirt IRS rules designed to limit their political activities.

Such groups are playing an increasingly prominent role in elections, spending more than $256 million on election activity in 2012.

Dark money groups can spend money on politics as long as they can persuade the IRS that their primary purpose is social welfare. This can lead to quite creative accounting on tax forms, with groups describing ads that should qualify as political under IRS rules as "education" or "issue advocacy."

On the Government Integrity Fund's latest tax return — for 2012 — the group told the IRS it spent $5.2 million overall. Of that, $2 million went to two super PACs — mostly the Fund's sister super PAC, the Government Integrity Fund Action Network — which then used the money to pay for different ads than the ones the Fund bought. According to the filing, this $2 million made up all of the Fund's political spending in 2012.

But that didn't include an additional $1.08 million the Government Integrity Fund spent on TV ads praising Mandel and attacking Brown in the spring and summer of 2012, which ProPublica reported on in September 2012. (The spending was tallied by Brown consultants. The lawyer listed on the Fund's incorporation papers confirmed that the group spent more than $1 million on the ads.)

If the Fund had categorized the additional money it spent on the ads as political, almost 60 percent of its expenditures would have gone toward elections — which would seem to violate IRS rules that say a social welfare nonprofit's primary purpose can't be politics.

"Josh Mandel served our country with two tours in Iraq," one ad said. "Now he's fighting for taxpayers, fighting for our future." Another slammed Brown, contrasting his performance in 2012 with that of his younger self. "Young Sherrod Brown voted more for Ohio," it said. "Today's Sherrod Brown — he just votes the party line. Where did the young Sherrod go?"

The ads stopped short of telling people how to vote, but three nonprofit experts who reviewed them for ProPublica said they all qualified as election ads under IRS rules.

"There's no question," said Brian Galle, a Boston College associate professor of law who has written about political activity by nonprofits. "It's not even close. They're blatantly political advertisements."

The Fund now appears to be inactive. Its website is no longer operating. The Fund's president, Thomas Norris, who signed its tax return, did not respond to requests for comment.

"I think they existed solely to help Josh Mandel," said Justin Barasky, the Brown campaign's communications director, this week.

Unraveling what the Government Integrity Fund spent in 2012 wasn't possible until recently because the group didn't file its tax return until January of this year, when it was two months overdue. The long wait highlights one of the major problems with regulating dark money groups and their spending: The IRS typically doesn't look at these groups until a tax return is filed, often more than a year after an election has been decided.

Even with the return in hand, several aspects of its operations remain confusing.

In one spot, the group says $4.6 million of its $5.2 million in expenditures were made as grants "and similar amounts paid." But it doesn't identify which groups received the grants, as the IRS requires, or what the "similar amounts paid" might have gone toward. At the end of the form, the group says only $1.1 million went toward grants — again, without saying who received the grants — with the rest of the $4.6 million going to its sister super PAC and what it classifies as "public education."

The group offers no details on what the $1.5 million attributed to education included — mathematically, though, it would have to include the ads it bought related to the Brown-Mandel race. Experts scoffed at the idea that the ads qualified as education.

"There's no way you can claim these are education. If this is public education, then everything is public education," said Donald Tobin, a law professor at Ohio State University who specializes in the intersection of tax and campaign finance law. "These are clearly designed to be political ads to benefit or oppose a candidate. And that's not social welfare activity."

The Fund attributes its remaining expenses mainly to fundraising fees paid to three companies. No records could be found for two of the three companies. And, according to the return, none of them raised any money for the group.

The nonprofit is not alone in how it categorizes its ad spending, as detailed in past ProPublica stories. For example, one group, the Coalition for American Values Action, told the IRS it spent $508,491 in 2012, almost all of it for the " creation of videos to educate Americans on various issues that affect their lives," and said it spent nothing on politics. Yet it actually donated more than three-quarters of its money to a political action committee that bought election ads.

It's an open question how vigorously the IRS, which doesn't comment on individual taxpayers like the Fund, will pursue groups for irregularities. The agency has revoked the nonprofit status of only one social welfare nonprofit, a liberal group, and its affiliates since the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in 2010 paved the way for dark money groups to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into outside election ads.

Experts on nonprofits say the IRS has taken an even more hands-off approach since top officials admitted the agency had targeted applications from conservative groups for extra scrutiny, sparking a scandal and investigations.

The IRS has proposed new regulations to curtail political spending by social welfare nonprofits, but the agency has acknowledged that there's virtually no chance the regulations will be in place by this year's midterm election.

"This kind of nonsense just shows that the IRS should remain committed to a meaningful set of reforms, even if they can't get them done in time for this election cycle," said Galle, the law professor."

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Comment: I'm aware that Pro Publica is a left wing group. They don't need to worry about the IRS "remaining committed" to its principles. Certainly the GOP Establishment doesn't want new voices popping up. The Ohio group sounds like it wasted a lot of money and what it did spend was a massive failure. Maybe they learned at the feet of Karl Rove.




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It's time for National Review to close its doors

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4/28/14, "Sarah Palin’s Barbarism," NRO, By  

Comment: Mr. Brennan takes issue with former Governor Palin's recent comments mocking terrorists. Mr. Brennan and apparently his superiors at National Review think this is a serious topic deserving of NRO time and space. The recent best thinking of National Review yielded a hugely expensive loss in the Hockey Stick lawsuit in Washington, DC. The case was basically over nothing, but National Review failed to assess the situation or the judge correctly. In any event, the Hockey Stick character is suing them again. Still basically over nothing, but that isn't what matters. National Review chose their attorneys, either suggested or agreed to their recommendations, and lost. CO2 isn't poison to begin with, and even if it were China controls it. Plenty of scientific data confirms this but millions of US taxpayer dollars are spent every day to "tackle" a non-existent problem that even the EPA says US actions can't fix. Maybe if National Review or NRO had been exposing this fraud daily for the past couple of decades the Hockey Stick never would've gained traction to begin with. Even today NRO doesn't see the seriousness of what they're up against and use their platform instead to attack Sarah Palin. Powers of reasoning have been lost. It would be best if the Hockey Stick lawsuits extracted the last dime of NRO and National Review as they exist today so they would be forced out of business. Sorry to say it. Susan. via Mark Levin show and Mark Levin twitter.

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Filipino protesters burn Obama in effigy, don't want US military presence increased in Philippines nor free new infrastructure paid by US taxpayers

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4/28/14, "Angry Filipino protesters burn EFFIGY of Barack Obama in protest against military pact aimed at 'greater cooperation' between the two countries," UK Daily Mail, Tara Brady
"An effigy of President Barack Obama was burnt today by Filipino activists during a rally in protest at a a 10-year agreement which will beef up U.S. military forces there.

The military will get greater access to bases across the region as an effort by Washington to counter Chinese aggression. The presence of foreign troops is a sensitive issue in the Philippines, a former American colony....

U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg and Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin signed the agreement at the main military camp in the capital, Manila, ahead of Obama's stop and portrayed it is as a central part of his weeklong Asia trip.

The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement will give American forces temporary access to selected military camps and allow them to preposition fighter jets and ships.

The deal was signed hours before Obama arrived in Manila on the last leg of a four-country Asian tour, following stops in Japan, South Korea and Malaysia. Goldberg said the agreement will 'promote peace and security in the region,' and allow U.S. and Philippine forces to respond faster to disasters and other contingencies.

It is not known how many additional U.S. troops would be deployed 'on temporary and rotational basis.'...

While the U.S. military will not pay rent for local camp areas, the Philippines will own buildings and infrastructure to be built or improved by the Americans and reap economic gains from the U.S. presence, it has been said."...


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Monday, April 28, 2014

Toyota will move 1600 jobs from Kentucky to Texas, closing Erlanger HQ, other Toyota jobs will remain in Ky-KVUE

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4/28/14, "Toyota announces plan to close Ky. headquarters, sights set for Texas," WHAS11.com, kvue.com, Louisville, Ky., WHAS 11

"Toyota is closing its Erlanger, Ky. headquarters which means nearly 1,600 jobs from that facility will be moving to Texas.
 
The move was announced on Monday, April 28, but it's not expected to begin until 2017.

All of the jobs from its U.S. Headquarters in California will also be moving to Texas.

Toyota says the new headquarters will bring together employees who are now scattered around the country.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear released the following statement:

“Obviously, we are extremely disappointed by Toyota’s decision. We would have welcomed the opportunity to discuss options with Toyota, but we will now turn our attention to preparing for this transition. 

We also are disappointed that the lives of hundreds of Kentuckians will be disrupted, and we pledge to assist those families however we possibly can. This transition will take two to three years to achieve, and Toyota has assured us that the company plans to offer
industry-leading programs and packages to its people.

In the past 30 years, Toyota has invested approximately $6 billion in Kentucky. And with 300 jobs moving from Erlanger to Georgetown and 750 new jobs being added to support production of the Lexus ES 350, there will be some 8,200 Toyota employees in Kentucky after the move. The Toyota officials have assured us that a continued strong presence in Kentucky is central to Toyota’s ongoing success. 

Kentucky remains a powerful force in auto manufacturing, and we will do everything possible to maintain and strengthen Kentucky's position as one of the top states for the auto industry.”"


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In 2010 Al Sharpton said Bill Clinton remark about Obama getting him coffee was offensive and disturbing

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"Former President Bill Clinton's efforts to persuade Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to endorse his wife's presidential bid fell flat when (Bill) Clinton told the Democratic lawmaker that just a few years ago, Obama would have been serving the pair coffee."

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1/13/2010, "Sharpton: Bill Clinton's 'coffee' remark about Obama may have been racist," The Hill, Bob Cusack

"Rev. Al Sharpton suggested Tuesday that a remark that Bill Clinton made about President Barack Obama may have been racist.

During an interview on Fox News with host Sean Hannity and conservative pundit Ann Coulter, Sharpton defended Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in the wake of his racially insensitive comments that are described in a new book titled, "Game Change." While defending Reid, Sharpton said an alleged comment Clinton reportedly made was "far more disturbing.

Sharpton told Hannity, "I think Bill Clinton said is something you ought to be dealing with. I have said, and you know I said it, that that was far more far disturbing and I think it was far more offensive [than what Reid said.]"

Hannity asked, "Was it racist?"

Sharpton responded, "If he meant that he would have been serving because he was black..."

Hannity said, "Well, what do you think he could have meant?"

Sharpton said, "Well, that's what I want to know."

Later in the interview, Sharpton, unsolicited, said, "Why aren't you all talking about Bill Clinton? You know why? Because Bill Clinton is not in charge of the Senate. He's not the one pushing healthcare [reform]. You're taking a statement [from Reid] you know is nowhere near what Clinton is accused of saying and going after Reid for purely political reasons.""

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1/9/10, "Harry Reid 'Negro' Comment: Reid Apologizes For 'No Negro Dialect' Comment," Huffington Post, Philip Elliott



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In 2008 Bill Clinton said Obama's side played the race card on him-Politico

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9/5/12, "Bill Clinton’s 8 digs at Obama," Politico, Kevin Cirelli
 
"Former President Bill Clinton — a native of Hope, Ark. — is expected to offer a rousing endorsement of President Barack Obama in his speech Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention. But four years ago, while his wife Hillary competed for the Democratic nomination, Clinton wasn’t always so supportive of Obama’s “hope and changemessage.

Here are Bill Clinton’s most controversial quotes about Obama:

1. “The idea that one of these campaigns is positive and the other is negative when I know the reverse is true and I have seen it and I have been blistered by it for months is a little tough to take. Just because of the sanitizing coverage that’s in the media doesn’t mean the facts aren’t out there.” — Jan. 7, 2008; New Hampshire campaign stop

2. “I think that they played the race card on me. We now know, from memos from the campaign, that they planned to do it all along.” — April 21, 2008, WHYY News Radio

3. “In theory, we could find someone who is a gifted television commentator and let them run. They’d have only one year less experience in national politics.” — Dec. 15, 2007, PBS’s “Charlie Rose

4. “Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.” — Jan. 7, 2008, addressing Obama’s record on Iraq during a New Hampshire stop

5. “Hillary’s opponent, in his entire campaign, every two or three weeks has said for months and months and months, beginning in Nevada, that really there wasn’t much difference in how America did when I was president and how America’s done under President Bush. Now, if you believe that, you should probably vote for him, but you get a very bad grade in history.” — April 17, 2008, Lock Haven, Pa., campaign speech
 
6. “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ’84 and ’88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here.” — Jan. 26, 2008, to reporters in Columbia, S.C.

7. “I mean, when’s the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the Senate before he started running? I mean, he will have been a senator longer by the time he’s inaugurated, but essentially once you start running for president full time you don’t have time to do much else.” — Dec. 15, 2007, PBS’s “Charlie Rose
 
8. “Oh, I think yes. – Dec. 20, 2011, Fox News, when asked if the media favored Barack Obama during the 2008 election."




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In 2008 Bill Clinton said Obama's side played the race card, that media carried water for Obama, that media "lived for" talking about race

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1/24/2008, "Bill Clinton says Obama's campaign brought race into presidential contest," NY Daily News, Helen Kennedy, Charleston, SC

"Bill Clinton angrily denied Wednesday that his wife's campaign was engaged in any dirty tricks and declared that it was Barack Obama's side - not the Clintons - who injected race into the contest.

"She did not play the race card, but they did," he charged, saying he was quoting Clinton backers and civil rights leaders Andrew Young and John Lewis. 

"This is almost like once you accuse someone of racism and bigotry, the facts become irrelevant." 

Former state Democratic Party head Dick Harpootlian, who worked for Bill Clinton in 1992 but has endorsed Obama in the 2008 contest, told CNN that the Clintons were engaged in a pattern of divisive comments meant to "suppress the vote, demoralize voters and distort the record."

He said the tactics reminded him of the godfather of dirty campaigning, Republican Lee Atwater. 

The ex-President, whose staffers tried fruitlessly to pull him out of the Charleston restaurant where he had been stumping for his wife, lost his cool when asked about the Atwater comparison. "This is crazy. This rhetoric is getting a little carried away," he told reporters. "I spent all my life fighting those people." 

Clinton said repeatedly that ordinary voters never ask him about race - even though voters asked about it four times at four public events in a row here. 

Just before his outburst, a black woman at the Charleston event asked him how she should explain the "race-baiting in the news media" to young people. 

In Greenville on Tuesday, a young man asked if he was hurting his legacy with black voters. Clinton later said he suspected the questioner worked for Obama.

Clinton accused reporters of carrying Obama's water. 

"They are feeding you this because they know this is what you want to cover. This is what you live for," he said. "So they just spin you up. Shame on you."


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Hillary Clinton said Obama campaign workers intentionally exploited his race; Bill Clinton said "just a few years ago Obama would be serving us coffee." In 2007, Biden said Obama was "first mainstream African American who's articulate, bright, and clean"-Huffington Post

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1/9/10, "Harry Reid 'Negro' Comment: Reid Apologizes For 'No Negro Dialect' Comment," Huffington Post, Philip Elliott

"Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid apologized on Saturday for saying the race of Barack Obama – whom he described as a "light skinned" African-American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one" – would help rather than hurt his eventual presidential bid.

Obama quickly accepted, saying "As far as I am concerned, the book is closed." Reid, facing a tough re-election bid this year, spent the day telephoning civil rights leaders and fellow Democrats in hopes of mitigating the political damage.

The revelations about Reid's 2008 comments were included in the book "Game Change" by Time Magazine's Mark Halperin and New York magazine's John Heilemann. The behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 campaign that elevated Obama to the White House is based on the writers' interviews with more than 200 sources, most of whom were granted anonymity and thus much of the material could not be immediately corroborated.

Among the details in the book:

_ Presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton said she believed Obama's team had used out-of-state supporters to win the Iowa caucuses and had intentionally exploited Obama's race. She said the country faced a "a terrible choice" between Obama and Republican nominee John McCain....

_ Former President Bill Clinton's efforts to persuade Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to endorse his wife's presidential bid fell flat when (Bill) Clinton told the Democratic lawmaker that just a few years ago, Obama would have been serving the pair coffee. But what caused the biggest stir Saturday was the Reid statement.

"He (Reid) was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama – a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,' as he later put it privately," according to the book.

After new excerpts from the book appeared on the Web site of The Atlantic, Reid released a statement expressing regret for "using such a poor choice of words. I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African-Americans for my improper comments."

Obama issued a statement saying he had spoken with Reid, who faces a difficult re-election amid frustration from both liberals and conservatives with his leadership in the Senate and his agenda....

Reid's office said he had also phoned to apologize to civil rights leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton; NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and Leadership Conference on Civil Rights president and chief executive officer Wade Henderson, as well as veteran political operative Donna Brazile. Reid also spoke with Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., both African-Americans.

The leaders quickly fell in line supporting Reid. "While there is no question that Senator Reid did not select the best word choice in this instance, these comments should not distract America from its continued focus on securing healthcare or creating jobs for its people," Sharpton said.

Clyburn, part of the House's Democratic leadership, also supported Reid despite the comments.

"Sen. Reid's apology for his private assessment of President Obama's candidacy should be accepted and our time and energy should be devoted to helping him overcome current obstacles to job creation, health care reform and energy independence," Clyburn said. Aides to Obama, the Clintons and Biden declined to discuss details of the book....

In 2007, Biden called Obama "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." And Biden was later invited to be Obama's running mate."


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In 2010 Sen. Harry Reid said Obama was a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one"

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4/27/14, "ESPN Analyst: Where Was Outrage After Harry Reid Said Obama Had 'No Negro Dialect'?" Breitbart News

"Robert Smith, the former Ohio State and Minnesota Vikings running back who is now an ESPN analyst, wondered on Sunday, regarding  the Donald Sterling controversy, why there was no outrage when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called President Barack Obama a "light-skinned" African American with no "negro dialect" in 2010.



Reid apologized for the comments, which were in Game Change. Mainstream media journalist Marc Ambinder was the first to uncover Reid's remarks in the book when he discovered an early copy of the book at a D.C. book store. Ambinder published the excerpt below in 2010.:...

"He was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one," as he said privately.  Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination."



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Sarah Palin endorses Jodi Ernst for US Senate in June 3, 2014 Iowa Republican primary-AP

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4/27/14, "Palin: Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst unlike any other," AP, West Des Moines

"U.S. Senate hopeful Joni Ernst would bring Iowa's values to Washington, D.C., and is unlike any lawmaker the nation's capital has seen, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said at a political rally Sunday.

Palin was one of many women in politics to attend the "Heels On, Gloves Off!" event to support Ernst, a Republican state senator. Others who attended the rally included U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., former Nebraska Gov. Kay Orr and Iowa Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds.

The event was put on by ShePAC, a political action committee that supports conservative women candidates. It was free and open to the public.

Ernst is one of five candidates vying for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Tom Harkin, a long-serving Democrat. The primary is June 3.

If elected in November, she would be the first woman to represent Iowa in the U.S. Senate.

Fischer, the first woman from Nebraska to be elected to the U.S. Senate, said she needs Ernst's presence to move forward with conservative values at the national level, such as a free market and a belief in strong families and communities.
 
"She will help me in the U.S. Senate to promote those values, to promote those principles and those strengths that we have as a country," Fischer said. "She will help to restore America."

Palin highlighted Ernst's military background, worldview and Iowa values as reasons why Ernst would succeed in Washington.

"They just had better not underestimate this gal from flyover country," Palin said. "She's a patriot. She's a fighter."

Ernst, who earned her Iowa senate seat in a special election in 2011 and was re-elected in 2012, echoed Palin's and Fischer's comments, pledging to bring Iowa values and conservative principles with her if elected.

"I would be honored to serve as Iowa's first elected female ... We're going to take Iowa values out to Washington, D.C.," Ernst said.

Palin and Orr also appeared Saturday in North Platte, Neb., at a rally for U.S. Senate candidate Ben Sasse. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah joined them."

Image: "Iowa Republican Senatorial candidate Joni Ernst, left, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, center, and U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., right, wave to supporters during a campaign rally for Ernst, Sunday, April 27, 2014, in West Des Moines, Iowa." AP photo

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Jodi Ernst was also endorsed by the Senate Conservatives Fund and Mitt Romney:

4/25/14, "Senate Conservative Fund backs state Sen. Joni Ernst in Iowa GOP Senate primary," Washington Times, McLaughlin

"Mrs. Ernst is running against Mark Jacobs, Sam Clovis, Matt Whitaker and Scott Schaben in the June 3 Republican primary
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The winner will face off against Rep. Bruce Braley, who is fighting to keep the seat in the hands of Democrats now that Sen. Tom Harkin is set to leave at the end of his term.

The latest poll showed that Mrs. Ernst is leading the pack by a 22.5 percent to 20.4 percent over Mr. Jacobs, a former CEO of a Texas energy company.

Mrs. Ernst has also received endorsements from 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee."...



Mother of disabled 6 year old boy put him in dog cage, poured syrup and kitty litter on him, home was covered in fleas from 3 cats, deprived child of medication

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The mother moved from Pennsylvania to Georgia in March.

4/25/14, "'Do you love me?' Heartbreaking pleas of disabled boy, 6, as his lesbian mothers 'forced him into a dog cage and poured syrup and kitty litter over him'," UK Daily Mail, Lydia Warren

"A six-year-old boy whose mother forced him into a dog cage then poured syrup and kitty litter on him was rescued after neighbors heard him screaming, 'Do you love me?' to his abuser, authorities said.

The boy's mother, Crystal Jean Hostetter, 24
, and her long-term girlfriend, Sarah Elizabeth McClain, 30, allegedly abused the boy - who has psychological issues and does not like sticky substances - for two hours on Saturday. Neighbors witnessed the treatment and alerted authorities.

The two women, from Douglasville, Georgia, appeared in front of a Douglas County Magistrate on Thursday, where they were both charged with cruelty to children.

They allegedly forced the boy into a small crate, covered his feet and hands with syrup and kitty litter and also made him hold a brick above his head for 15 minutes, police told the Douglas County Sentinel.

The boy was heard screaming, 'Please don't kill me!' and 'Do you love me?', police said.

Hostetter carried out the treatment to punish her son and told cops she poured syrup on him because she knew he did not like it, Douglasville Police Sgt. Todd Garner said.

'He acts out based on the things that they have diagnosed him with and she doesn't like that so she has issued these forms of punishment,' Garner said.

'She has also gone to the point of taking his bed out and making him sleep on the floor because he slept on the floor one night. So she said, "If you don't like your bed, you cannot have it".'

He added that the child is supposed to be on medication, but Hostetter has failed to collect them.

'He’s supposed to be on three different medications that she has not filled or given him,' Garner said. 'In our conversation, I asked her, "You just think that you know more than the doctors?" She said yes.'

He did not detail the extent of the boy's psychological issues, but said that he had been hospitalized earlier this year in Pennsylvania

According to police, a neighbor witnessed the boy being abused on Saturday and called the Department of Children and Family Services hotline, but when they could not get through, they contacted the boy's school and police were called.

When police arrived, they found the home covered in fleas from the couple's three cats.

Hostetter and McClain admitted to the alleged crimes after a DFCS worker came to their home on Monday evening, the County Sentinel reported.

The youngster is now staying at the home with an adult caregiver, while the women are being held without bond in the Douglas County jail.

The couple, who have been dating for three years, moved from Pennsylvania in March and police are looking into whether there have been reports in Pennsylvania of similar treatment."


Corrupt subsidiary of Cerberus Capital Mgmt., a private equity firm, is main beneficiary of billions of US taxpayer dollars allegedly for Afghanistan-Daily Beast

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"DynCorp—which is owned by Cerberus Capital Management LP, a private equity firm based in New York—is used to relying on federal cash. With more than 96% of the company’s $3 billion in revenue coming from government contracts, DynCorp is basically a private subsidiary of Uncle Sam."...
 
4/24/14, "The Real Winner of the Afghan War Is This Shady Military Contractor," Daily Beast, Jacob Siegel

"DynCorp, one of the largest corporations working in the government’s army of private contractors, has long been known for corruption scandals and a questionable performance record. But none of that seems to have discouraged the U.S. government from awarding the company new contracts.

The State Department paid nearly $4 billion for projects to aid in Afghan reconstruction from 2002 to 2013. $2.5 billion of that went to DynCorp69% of all the money awarded by the State Department over almost the entire duration of the war.

The figures on DynCorp’s earnings come from a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR), an auditing agency created by Congress to provide oversight on government spending in Afghanistan.

According to the SIGAR report, 89% of State Department funding, $3.5 billion, went to supporting large, so-called "rule-of-law" projects, like training and equipping the Afghan police force. And that was DynCorp’s primary focus in Afghanistan, too—although the firm also handled jobs like providing bodyguards for Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai.

“Dyncorp contracts dealt principally with training and equipping the Afghan National Police and counternarcotics forces. DynCorp contracts included police trainers, construction of police infrastructure, and fielding police equipment and vehicles,” the SIGAR report states.

The list of DynCorp’s job responsibilities, particularly in counter-narcotics and training the Afghan police force, gives a short rundown of some of the most difficult problems for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. But for all the billions the company has received to resolve these problems, there has been precious little progress. In the case of narcotics, it’s actually gotten worse in recent years, with opium production reaching record highs in 2013.

It might raise alarms that so much of the State Department’s budget was funneled directly into one entity. But DynCorp—which is owned by Cerberus Capital Management LP, a private equity firm based in New Yorkis used to relying on federal cash. With more than 96% of the company’s $3 billion in revenue coming from government contracts, DynCorp is basically a private subsidiary of Uncle Sam.

By itself, that might not be so bad; there are plenty of private companies that bring in public funds. The real problem with DynCorp is the company’s well-documented history of corruption investigations and subpar performance.

In July 2009, Forbes wrote that “Dyncorp has emerged as one of the big winners of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which now generate 53% of Dyncorp’s $3.1 billion of annual revenue.” Not long after, the “big winner” was called out in 2010 by the inspector general for Iraq for being unable, along with the State Department, to account for $1 billion spent training the Iraqi police force.

In 2011, the company was hit even harder in a joint report from Department of State and Department of Defense inspector generals citing failures that “placed the overall mission at risk by not providing the mentoring essential for developing the Afghan Government and Police Force.”

And that’s not even mentioning the allegations that DynCorp employees procured child prostitutes to entertain Afghan officials. It’s a claim that the company and State Department have both denied, but was serious enough to prompt worried emails from an Afghan politician asking that the story be kept secret.

The child prostitution story first publicly emerged through a diplomatic cable revealed by Wikileaks.

The document describes “a May 2009 meeting”  in which “interior minister Hanif Atmar expresse[d] deep concerns that lives could be in danger if news leaked that foreign police trainers working for US commercial contractor DynCorp hired ‘dancing boys’ to perform for them.”

The “dancing boys” story went away without causing too many problems for DynCorp. But it wasn’t the first time the company had been implicated in a sexual abuse case; an earlier incident inspired the Hollywood movie “The Whistleblower.” In that incident, a group of DynCorp employees working as peacekeepers in Bosnia were accused of sex trafficking by a colleague. The whistleblower, Kathryn Bolkovac, was fired by DynCorp after coming forward to them with her report. She then successfully sued the company in British court. Another DynCorp employee who worked in the Balkans during the same period as Bolkovac filed a separate lawsuit against the company. In his suit Ben Johnston claimed he “witnessed coworkers and supervisors literally buying and selling women for their own personal enjoyment, and employees would brag about the various ages and talents of the individual slaves they had purchased.”

More recently, in 2013, Dyncorp was found to have done a subpar job on a construction project for the Afghan National Army in Kunduz province. The company and the American government eventually reached an agreement after being investigated for the botched job in Afghanistan—an agreement that saw Dyncorp receive nearly $70 million despite the shoddy work. The head of SIGAR, John Sopko, said of the outcome: “That wasn’t a settlement, it was a mugging.”

Whether America ought to be outsourcing its foreign policy to for-profit corporations is an issue that has been debated elsewhere—probably not enough, but we won’t get into it here. The immediate question is how a company with so many bad marks on its record keeps getting bigger and bigger slices of the federal pie. DynCorp has emerged as one of the only big winners in Afghanistan.

87% of all contracts awarded by the State Department in Afghanistan went to only five companies, with DynCorp being the biggest of the five. The remaining 13% of contracts were split between another 766 recipients, who received on average less than a million dollars each—a relative pittance compared to the payout the top five received. That’s the kind of structure—with the vast bulk of contracts going to a small group of insider corporations—that can create accountability problems.

When the same small group of big companies keeps getting the big contracts, it can threaten the competitive advantage that’s one of the rationales behind contracting out government work in the first place.

In Dyncorp’s case, performance and accountability seem to have been no obstacle to keeping the work and paychecks flowing from the government.

If this is the point in the story where you’re shaking your head at the strangeness and impenetrable stupidity of it all, this is the point where I tell you: Forget it, Jake. It’s Afghanistan." via Free Rep.

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Added: The present chairman of Cerberus Global Investments is none other than former US VP Dan Quayle who served in the one disastrous term of George HW Bush. Quayle joined Cerberus in 1999.





Sunday, April 27, 2014

RINO-FEVER is sweeping the nation, selling out the American people has reached epidemic proportions

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The author cites Ted Cruz among few exceptions, thinks RINO fever is caused by GOP personal fears of NSA and IRS. In any case the GOP has no fear of voters. They also have Fox News on their side. Almost no one is on the peoples' side:

4/27/14, "RINO-FEVER: Selling out the American People & Why It’s an Epidemic," RedState diary, traversecityconserveative

"There have always been Rinos but it seems like there have been more and more lately – and Republicans that started out by being “Tea Party” candidates and have totally sold out their Conservative base, not to mention the American people.

When they start saying Obamacare will never go away – and they tell us that they’re going to force their immigration amnesty plans on us no matter what the rule of law is or no matter how many Americans are already unemployed, you have to start asking yourself why.
These RINOS also no longer care about the debt or the deficit and enjoy their earmarks as you can see here
 
Rush Limbaugh and others have tried to figure out why we are being so thoroughly sold up the river by these RINOS especially at a time when these politicians should be going for the gold – explaining how the country is failing, blocking everything the Democrats come up with, defunding ridiculous things like Obamacare – and just keeping the other party in check to save the country which is why we voted them all into office in a historic wave in 2010 to begin with.

Some explanations I’ve seen for Rino-Fever have included…

1. They’re doing what their donors want them to do (in the case of immigration, they’re beholden to the US Chamber of Commerce and other business groups).
2. They were never Conservatives in the first place.
3. They don’t understand that things like Obamacare and immigration legislation (without already enforcing the laws on the books) is NOT a popular position – even with many Democrats and independent voters, let alone Conservatives.
4. Rinos actually believe in big government and big government spending. They just want to be the ones to run it. But they don’t oppose it. (see a statement by Ted Cruz here).

5. They are career politicians so they won’t take stands on anything “controversial” or might make them look bad in a Democrat candidate’s advertisement.
6. “Obama will do it anyway.” If they don’t vote the right way with the Democrats, Obama will just impose another Executive Action anyway and the outcome might be even worse.

Those are all reasonable explanations of the Rino-Fever sweeping across the nation. However, I am convinced that there are currently two even more important and overriding factors that control what they are doing:

1. The NSA
2. The IRS

If you had a political job which gave you incredible wealth and power – and would set you up for life – and you knew you were constantly being monitored by the government (which happens to be your political enemy) would you go out on a limb and actually be true to your promises and do what your voting base wanted? Of course not. You didn’t really want to be Conservative in the first place and now there’s a HUGE penalty for it by a lawless Federal Government. At any time, they can expose your phone calls to your girlfriend, how many times you go to the bar after work, the connection to a shady political donor, your medical records, your list of donors, information from your IRS forms…

Why would you NOT doing everything you needed to do to keep the Democrat party happy?? Your main goals are not serving the public. You are serving yourself – keeping your job, your money, your power, your family intact, your secrets hidden.

So when you look at the handful of Conservatives who are not sell outs – Cruz, Lee, Amash and others, what you have is politicians who do NOT have skeletons that they are worried about being exposed. And that, my friends, is why there are so few willing to stand up for the American people – their futures are more important than ours. Being a politician, by its very nature, means that you’ve made deals along the way and have done things to move up the food chain. The only thing that will ever stop this is TERM LIMITS.*

The Rinos know that there is a total lawlessness going on in the country right now with the President and the Attorney General leading the pack. We no longer have equal protection under the law. Laws can be changed or waived for political donors – and enemies.

You can’t exactly blame the Rinos for thinking this way…the Federal Government has been doing pretty much what it wants with no accountability at all and with a lack of any push-back from Republicans. They know they are being watched, spied on, monitored…There are examples of this everywhere.

Look at what they’ve seen…Right off the bat in 2008, you have an Attorney General who dismissed charges against the New Black Panther Party in the voter intimidation case and continues to pick and choose which laws he wants to enforce; Obama changes the Affordable Care Act illegally over and over again; the IRS goes after Conservative groups with no repercussions; the government uses eminent domain and the BLM to take away land and property from certain groups of people – but not others who pay be political donors of certain Senators; waivers are given for the Affordable Care act for certain groups of people but not others; a White House kill list without due process; Congressional Obamacare subsidies; implementing the Dream Act without legislation; changing welfare work rules without legislation; war in Libya without Congressional Authorization; collecting bulk data from Americans’ cell phones; appointing people to the NLRB while the Senate was in session; suing Arizona over their immigration enforcement; not enforcing federal marijuana drug laws; asserting executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents…the list goes on and on. We all see it every day and so do the Rinos.

So our House leader who is looking more and more like a clueless muttonhead is on a path to not only NOT win the Senate, but possibly lose the House. The Democrats certainly have nothing to run on but the Rinos can certainly alienate their base into not showing up because of muttonhead public reaction to Conservatives. That’s why primaries are SO important so that Rinos can be voted out.

When it comes down to it, Rinos are no better than Democrats when it comes to upholding the Constitution and Conservative principles."

======================

*The only hope for this is via a Rule 5 convention of states.

 



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GOP House Speaker John Boehner







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Racist far left cartoonist portrays Justice Clarence Thomas as 'an argument against affirmative action'

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4/23/14, "Affirmative Action," Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press
















4/27/14, "Racist Liberal Cartoonist Portrays Clarence Thomas as Illiterate Black Man after SCOUS Ruling," Aurelius, thepunditpress.com

"Clay Bennett, cartoonist for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, is well known for being one of the worst political commentators in the entire country. The only reason you may not have heard of him is because he’s not quite bad enough to be on MSNBC yet.

On Wednesday, upset at the Supreme Court’s decision to allow Michigan voters to decide whether their state’s colleges could use race as a factor in admitting students, Bennett decided to put all semblance of common sense aside.

Grabbing his pen and ink, he decided to do away with what the Left holds so dear: their pretend respect for African Americans. Bennett was determined to voice his outrage. And to him, who better than to attack than Clarence Thomas, the only African American on the Supreme Court?

But Bennett wasn’t drawing to praise the fact that a black man could face adversity and still rise to the highest court in the United States. No, instead Bennett aimed to mock Thomas for his race, declaring that solely because of the color of his skin, Thomas was himself an “argument against affirmative action.”

Next to him stands proud Latina Sonya Sotomayor, who Bennett describes as an argument in favor of affirmative action.

Obviously an insult and completely classless, the point of the cartoon would have been made if Thomas was holding his name right-side-up, like Sotomayor. But for whatever reason, that portrayal was not enough for Bennett. Instead, Thomas had to hold his name upside-down. Get it? Because he can’t read! How hilarious, Mr. Bennett! Portraying a Supreme Court member as illiterate and an argument against affirmative action solely on the basis of his skin color. I’m sure the Pulitzer is in the mail as we speak." via Free Rep.





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Irreconcilable conflicts of interest in 2014 UN IPCC Climate Report Summary for Policy Makers says lead author Stavins in letter to UN IPCC Co-Chair Ottmar Edenhofer. Governments were free to make detailed changes for purely political reasons, 75% of text was deleted in International Cooperation chapter

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4/25/14, "Is the IPCC Government Approval Process Broken?" RobertStavinsBlog.org

"Over the past 5 years, I have dedicated an immense amount of time and effort to serving as the Co-Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of Chapter 13, “International Cooperation:  Agreements and Instruments,” of Working Group III (Mitigation) of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)....Two weeks ago, immediately after returning from Berlin, I sent a letter to the Co-Chairs of Working Group III — Ottmar Edenhofer, Ramon Pichs-Madruga, and Youba Sokona — expressing my disappointment with the government approval process and its outcome in regard to the part of the assessment for which I had primary
responsibility, SPM.5.2, International Cooperation. At the time, I did not release my letter publically....I believe it makes most sense simply to reproduce it, and let it stand – or fall – as originally written. It follows below.
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From: Stavins, Robert Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2014 4:06 PM
. TO: Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair, Working Group III, AR5, IPCC 
     Ramon Pichs-Madruga, Co-Chair, Working Group III, AR5, IPCC
Youba Sokona, Co-Chair, Working Group III, AR5, IPCC
CC:  Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman, IPCC  
Jan Minx, Head of Technical Support Unit, Working Group III
FROM:   Robert Stavins
SUBJECT:    Thoughts on the Government Approval Process for SPM.5.2 (International Cooperation) of the Summary for Policymakers of Working Group 3, Fifth Assessment Report, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Dear Ottmar, Ramon, and Youba:

I am writing to you today to express my disappointment and frustration with the process and outcome of the government approval meetings in Berlin this past week, at which the assembled representatives from the world’s governments, considered and, in effect, fundamentally revised or rejected parts of the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of IPCC Working Group 3 over a period of five long days (and nights).  My focus in this letter is exclusively on one section of the SPM, namely SPM.5.2, International Cooperation. I am not representing nor referring to any other parts of the SPM.


Also, none of what I have to say should be taken as reflecting negatively on you (the Co-Chairs of Working Group 3), the WG 3 Technical Support Unit (TSU), nor the overall leadership of the IPCC....

The problems I seek to identify are structural, not personal....

In this letter, I will not comment on the government review and revision process that affected other parts of the SPM, other than to note that as the week progressed, I was surprised by the degree to which governments felt free to recommend and sometimes insist on detailed changes to the SPM text on purely political, as opposed to scientific bases.

The general motivations for government revisions – from most (but not all) participating delegations – appeared to be quite clear in the plenary sessions. These motivations were made explicit in the “contact groups,” which met behind closed doors in small groups with the lead authors on particularly challenging sections of the SPM. In these contact groups, government representatives worked to suppress text that might jeopardize their negotiating stances in international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

I fully understand that the government representatives were seeking to meet their own responsibilities toward their respective governments by upholding their countries’ interests, but in some cases this turned out to be problematic for the scientific integrity of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers.  Such involvement — and sometimes interference — with the scientific process of the IPCC was particularly severe in section SPM.5.2 on international cooperation. It is to that section of the SPM that I now turn.

In the early morning of Monday, April 7, 2014, a draft of SPM.5.2 was completed and approved by the assembled team of CLAs in Berlin.  The draft, a copy of which is attached as Item A, had been extensively revised over the preceding months in response to comments received from governments around the world (to whom multiple drafts had been sent as part of the normal IPCC process). The draft in Item A was sent to governments on April 7th through the IPCC’s PaperSmart system.

The plenary session of government representatives turned their attention to SPM.5.2 at approximately 10:00 pm on Friday, April 11th When it became clear that the country delegates were unwilling to move forward with the consideration of the text in plenary, you established a contact group to work on acceptable text. You gave the group 2 hours to come up with acceptable text. That group began its work at approximately 11:00 pm (and continued past 1:00 am on Saturday, April 12th).

The contact group included representatives from of a diverse set of countries, ranging from small to large, and from poor to rich.  Hence, I do not believe that the responsibility for the problems that arose are attributable to any specific country or even set of countries. On the contrary, nearly all delegates in the meeting demonstrated the same perspective and approach, namely that any text that was considered inconsistent with their interests and positions in multilateral negotiations was treated as unacceptable.  In fact, several (perhaps the majority) of the country representatives in the SPM.5.2 contact group identified themselves as negotiators in the UNFCCC negotiations. To ask these experienced UNFCCC negotiators to approve text that critically assessed the scholarly literature on which they themselves are the interested parties, created an irreconcilable conflict of interest. Thus, the country representatives were placed in an awkward and problematic position by the nature of the process.

Over the course of the two hours of the contact group deliberations, it became clear that the only way the assembled government representatives would approve text for SPM.5.2 was essentially to remove all “controversial” text (that is, text that was uncomfortable for any one individual government), which meant deleting almost 75% of the text, including nearly all explications and examples under the bolded headings. In more than one instance, specific examples or sentences were removed at the will of only one or two countries, because under IPCC rules, the dissent of one country is sufficient to grind the entire approval process to a halt unless and until that country can be appeased.

I understand that country representatives were only doing their job, so I do not implicate them personally; however, the process the IPCC followed resulted in a process that built political credibility by sacrificing scientific integrity. The final version of SPM.5.2, as agreed to by the contact group, and subsequently approved in plenary (at approximately 3:00 am, April 12th), is attached to this letter as Item B.

No institution can be all things for all people, and this includes the IPCC. In particular, in the case of the IPCC’s review of research findings on international cooperation, there may be an inescapable conflict between scientific integrity and political credibility If the IPCC is to continue to survey scholarship on international cooperation in future assessment reports, it should not put country representatives in the uncomfortable and fundamentally untenable position of reviewing text in order to give it their unanimous approval. Likewise, the IPCC should not ask lead authors to volunteer enormous amounts of their time over multi-year periods to carry out work that will inevitably be rejected by governments in the Summary for Policymakers.

I hope I have made it clear that my purpose is not to condemn the country representatives, the IPCC leadership, the TSU, the Lead Authors, or the Coordinating Lead Authors. The problem is structural, not personal. In my view, with the current structure and norms, it will be exceptionally difficult, if not impossible, to produce a scientifically sound and complete version of text for the SPM on international cooperation that can survive the country approval process.
 

More broadly, I urge the IPCC to direct public attention to the documents produced by the lead authors that were subject to government (and expert) comment, but not subject to government approval. I believe that tremendous public good would arise from publicizing the key findings of the Technical Summary and the individual chapter Executive Summaries, instead of the Summary for Policymakers....


Best wishes,

Rob

Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business & Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Director, Harvard Environmental Economics Program
Director of Graduate Studies, Ph.D. Programs in Public Policy and Political Economy and Government

Co-Chair, Harvard Business School-Kennedy School Joint Degree Programs

Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
 
Blog: An Economic View of the Environment          SSRN Paper Downloads
 
Mail: John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 79 JFK St., Room L-306, Box 11, Cambridge, MA 02138"...via Climate Depot
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Added: UN climate official Ottmar Edenhofer referenced above has already said UN Climate conferences aren't about climate but a means to "distribute" money away from those who have it. It's good for US politicians since it mandates another stream of trillions of US taxpayer dollars to be funneled through them:

Edenhofer, 11/14/10: ""But one must say clearly: We distribute by climate policy de facto the world's wealth around. ...This has to do with environmental policy... almost nothing....The climate summit in Cancun end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War."...

Ottmar Edenhofer
11/14/10, "Climate policy distributes the assets new world," NZZamSontag, Bernard Potter 

"Climate protection has hardly anything to do with environmental protection, says the economist Ottmar Edenhofer. The next 
world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which it relates to the distribution of resources."...
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In 2012 $1 billion a day was invested in the notion of "global warming. 
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