When it comes to the Solyndra scandal, the president’s closest confidants seem to know nothing about it.

GREENgate is the developing story that suggests that the Obama administration’s  “green jobs” program is more about delivering the “green” to major donors than creating sustainable “new economy” jobs.

First a couple of clips from Fox News revealing some of the details coming to light in the Solyndra scandal.  Next a clip from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show – you know things are bad when people from your own side of the political spectrum begin to poking fun at you.

From The Guardian

Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage.

The US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial “Copenhagen accord“, the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009.

Negotiating a climate treaty is a high-stakes game, not just because of the danger warming poses to civilisation but also because re-engineering the global economy to a low-carbon model will see the flow of billions of dollars redirected.

Seeking negotiating chips, the US state department sent a secret cable on 31 July 2009 seeking human intelligence from UN diplomats across a range of issues, including climate change. The request originated with the CIA. As well as countries’ negotiating positions for Copenhagen, diplomats were asked to provide evidence of UN environmental “treaty circumvention” and deals between nations.

Read the rest of the column.

A year ago tomorrow, just before the opening of the UN Copenhagen world climate summit, the British Meteorological Office issued a confident prediction. The mean world temperature for 2010, it announced, ‘is expected to be 14.58C, the warmest on record’ – a deeply worrying 0.58C above the 19611990 average.

World temperatures, it went on, were locked inexorably into an everrising trend: ‘Our experimental decadal forecast confirms previous indications that about half the years 2010-2019 will be warmer than the warmest year observed so far – 1998.’

Met Office officials openly boasted that they hoped by their statements to persuade the Copenhagen gathering to impose new and stringent carbon emission limits – an ambition that was not to be met.
Winter’s icy grip: Drivers and pedestrians battle through blizzards in Kent last week
Last week, halfway through yet another giant, 15,000delegate UN climate jamboree, being held this time in the tropical splendour of Cancun in Mexico, the Met Office was at it again.

Never mind that Britain, just as it was last winter and the winter before, was deep in the grip of a cold snap, which has seen some temperatures plummet to minus 20C, and that here 2010 has been the coolest year since 1996.

Globally, it insisted, 2010 was still on course to be the warmest or second warmest year since current records began.

But buried amid the details of those two Met Office statements 12 months apart lies a remarkable climbdown that has huge implications – not just for the Met Office, but for debate over climate change as a whole.

Read carefully with other official data, they conceal a truth that for some, to paraphrase former US VicePresident Al Gore, is really inconvenient: for the past 15 years, global warming has stopped.

Read the full story at the UK Daily Mail

On August 27, 2010, Sean Hannity aired a special program called “The Green Swindle” that should be a “must see” for everyone concerned about global warming hysteria.  The 42-minute program explains the history of global warming and who stands to profit from all the hype.

From Fox News

A legal battle is heating up faster than the planet for embattled climatologist Michael Mann.

First word emerged that the inspector general for the National Science Foundation would look into the Penn State panel reviewing the climate scientist, who is currently director of the school’s Earth System Science Center. Now the attorney general for his old employer the University of Virginia is planning an investigation, too.

According to a report in Charlottesville weekly The Hook, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has asked the University of Virginia to produce “a sweeping swath of documents relating to Mann’s receipt of nearly half a million dollars in state grant-funded climate research” conducted while Mann was at UVA between 1999 and 2005.

Should the AG uncover evidence of impropriety, the school could be commanded to return the funds, and pick up the cost of the AG’s investigation.

The paper, tipped off by anonymous sources, has posted a PDF of Cuccinelli’s formal request, a legal document called a civil investigative demand. In that letter, he demands production of information and documentary material relating to three papers Mann authored while at UVA, using a total of $484,875 of state grant money.

Read the Attorney General’s Letter

Read the Attorney General’s Note to UVA Rector John Wynne

“Since it’s public money, there’s enough controversy to look in to the possible manipulation of data,” Dr. Charles Battig, president of the nonprofit Piedmont Chapter Virginia Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment, told the Hook.

A spokesman for the attorney general told FoxNews that he was unable to comment on the case, explaining that “we can’t comment on whether there exists an ongoing investigation or anything like that.”

But the University confirmed that it had received the letter. According to spokeswoman Carol Wood, “the University has received the CID from the state’s attorney general regarding Michael Mann’s work. Because of the scope of the request for information it will take some time for us to review it and decide how best to proceed with gathering information.”

Read the rest of the story.

From the Climate Realists

By John O’Sullivan — The infamous Madoff Ponzi scheme cost $50 billion. Now put this into context with what the U.S. government has blown on policies related to climate change – over $79 billion since 1989. Madoff is in jail, Michael Mann isn’t-yet. So let’s look at the latest legal hullabaloo.

The Climategate scandal is a Ponzi scheme with far greater global ramifications for us all. But how are we dealing with the willfully corrupt acts of a few key individuals in the most senior posts?

The two lead scientists in this most grotesque scam, Michael Mann of Penn. State University and British Professor Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research (CRU), discussed manipulation of data to ‘hide the decline’ in global temperatures. Both men and their employers benefited to the tune of tens of millions of dollars for their complicity in this scam.

Jones, rather than be convicted of fraud, stymied Freedom of Information requests then destroyed his data. He avoided criminal prosecution on a mere technicality- the British government conceded the statute of limitations had expired.
Jones is remorseful, broken and discredited; Mann stubbornly refuses to quit his shenanigans. His hubris remains intact. An expedient American government, just like the British, has stalled in implementing the most serious of fraud charges. Their likely embarrassment is just too great to even contemplate action.

The facts are well documented: according to Mann’s fudged graph, the hottest period in modern history was NOT the generally balmy era between 900 and 1300 but the late 20th century. The world’s skeptical community diligently sought access to Mann’s calculations to check how he came to his incongruous conclusions. His conclusions were swallowed whole by world leaders intent on pursuing an international cap and trade strategy. Almost overnight he had succeeded in re-writing a wealth of historical peer-reviewed studies.

Read the rest of the column at Climate Realists

At a Washington DC press conference yesterday, the No Cap and Trade Coalition announced a new video spoofing prominent ‘climategate’ scientist, Dr. Michael Mann and his infamous ‘hockey stick chart’ showing rapidly increasing global temperatures in recent decades. The video was posted on YouTube until Wednesday afternoon, when the Google-owned video site removed the video, citing non-existent copyright claims by Jib Jab.

The video was produced in response to a cease and desist demand from Michael Mann’s attorney over an older video produced by Minnesotans for Global Warming. The original Hide the Decline video they created used some Jib Jab-provided animation, under their general license and with their expressed written consent, but the new video, recently removed by YouTube contains no such content.

Spokesman for the No Cap and Trade Coalition, Jeff Davis said, “It looks like Dr. Mann has gone into overdrive trying to hide ‘Hide the Decline,’ since the new video was launched and began to spread like wildfire across the internet.” In the span of less than a day, the video had been linked on over 1,000 websites, including News Busters, Junk Science, and the American Spectator. It was going viral fast and the press was calling when YouTube pulled the plug.

According to the No Cap and Trade Coalition, Jib Jab has no rightful claims on the new video, titled ‘Hide the Decline II.’

“They have no basis for this copyright claim. It’s outrageous that they would claim ownership of content we produced, if that’s indeed what’s happened, as YouTube claims in the removal notice,” said Davis.

Although YouTube has decided to stifle the popular new satirical video, ‘Hide the Decline II’ is still available through other venues and can be viewed at NoCapAndTrade.com.

Penn State University’s Michael Mann, one of the central figures in the Climategate scandal, has threatened legal action against Minnesotans for Global Warming (M4GW) over the group’s popular satirical YouTube video “Hide the Decline.” The No Cap-and-Trade Coalition, a group that includes M4GW, responded today at an event at the National Press Club, releasing Mann’s threatening letter and an updated version of the “Hide the Decline” video.

“We understand why Michael Mann is eager to silence public discussion of the hockey stick scandal,” said Jeff Davis of No Cap-and-Trade, “but truth is an absolute defense.”

The original “Hide the Decline” video, which had more than 500,000 viewers, was removed today from YouTube by M4GW’s Elmer Beauregard. It received national attention when Rush Limbaugh played it on his radio show and was later featured on CBS Evening News in the wake of the Climategate email scandal. “Hide the Decline” parodied Mann, the Penn State professor who is largely responsible for the creation of the now debunked “hockey stick” graph, which purported to show a dramatic spike in average global temperature during the 20^th century after 900 years of relatively constant temperature.

The video spotlighted a phrase from one of the central “Climategate” e-mails in which the University of East Anglia’s Phil Jones explains how he used Mann’s “Nature trick” to “hide the decline” of key temperature data. The hockey stick graph relied on “hiding this decline.”

When asked why he removed the video, Beauregard said “Right now, the last thing I need is a lawsuit. I can barely afford my electric bill.” Beauregard recently converted M4GW’s world headquarters (a recreational vehicle parked in Northern Minnesota) from propane to wood heat. “Mann should be glad to know that we don’t burn fossil fuels anymore – just trees,” said Beauregard.

“M4GW was started to poke fun at Global Warming because I knew it was a joke, it’s hard to believe in Global Warming when you live in a place like Minnesota. During last winter we all wished we had some global warming, hence the name of our group,” said Beauregard. As global warming developed into a political issue, M4GW has tried to educate the public that CO2 is not harmful but part of the natural carbon cycle.

Minnesotans for Global Warming did comply with Mann’s cease and desist demand, taking the “Hide the Decline” video down from their YouTube account and webpage. The No Cap and Trade Coalition unveiled a new video they’re calling “Hide the Decline II,” however. It was screened at a press conference on April 20^th and is available on YouTube and NoCapAndTrade.com.

“If Doctor Mann decides to sue,” said Davis, “we would welcome the opportunity to do legal discovery. I believe he’s hiding more than just ‘the decline.’”

Speaking at the No Cap-and-Trade Coalition press conference was M4GW spokesman “Chicken Little,” a man in a chicken suit who goes to rallies crying “The globe is warming, the globe is warming!”

When asked about the situation, Chicken Little said, “I used to believe in global warming – of course, I used to believe the sky was falling too, but Elmer set me straight.” Chicken Little went on to say, “I think it’s horrible that Elmer had to take down the video. Can’t a person have a little fun on YouTube anymore? Those Global warming guys sure don’t have any sense of humor.”

At the press conference, the No Cap-and-Trade Coalition handed out a historical review of the hide-the-decline controversy entitled, “Michael Mann: Defamed or Defined by Hide-the-Decline?” as well as mini-hockey sticks that read “Mann-Made Global Warming: Why We Should Be Worried About the Intellectual Climate.”

Scott Brown’s historic victory on Tuesday in Massachusetts has a lot of people asking the question whether there’s a new day dawning in American politics.  This video does a pretty good job of framing the issue.

A special election will be held this week in Massachusetts that could determine the outcome of much of President Obama’s agenda.  Republican candidate Scott Brown has stated he is opposed to the President’s cap-and-trade bill, which would cost the American taxpayer trillions of dollars.  Democrats have controlled this senate seat for nearly 60 years, so a win for Brown would appear to be truly a miracle.  Polls have the Brown and his Democratic opponent in nearly a statistical tie going into the election.

This 53-minute documentary offers an alternative explanation for climate change that is based upon a relationship between cosmic rays, the sun and the earth’s clouds.

Because the findings contridicted the so-called “scientific consensus” that CO2 was responsible for climate change, the author of this study was unable to get his work published in a scientific journal.  This is the same corrupt peer review process exposed in ClimateGate that  is leading to censorship of studies that contradict the C02 theory.

From Slate Magazine

COPENHAGEN, Denmark-I’m not sure whether it was the chicken-suited followers of Supreme Master Ching Hai wandering about or the experience of freezing slowly for seven hours as I waited to get into the Bella Center, but something happened in the last 10 days to convince me, once and for all, that the United Nations climate negotiations will never quite work. As the dust settles on this year’s talks and observers try to understand exactly what happened here, one thing is for certain: The U.N. process can no longer be the central focus of global efforts to confront climate change.

President Barack Obama in Copenhagen The structural problem with these talks has long been clear: It’s hard to find anything that 193 countries agree on, and it’s downright impossible to negotiate when all those parties must have their say. But activists, diplomats, and many analysts have long insisted on the participation of every last U.N. member nation. Climate change is a global problem, they argued, and hence one that requires a global solution. Indeed, the logo for the Copenhagen conference shows circle of 192 crisscrossing lines. (It was designed before Somalia joined the U.N. process on Dec. 10.) This pattern is meant to symbolize how interconnected we are. Instead, it looks like a ball of tangled string.

Read the rest of the column.