Uhh, guys, doctors still use medicinal leeches!

Few folks have been as wrong about climate science as Marc Morano and Dr. Roy Spencer.  So it’s no big surprise to see this laughable screaming headline on ClimateDepotted:

Morano apparently couldn’t spend 30 seconds on Google to find the link to Spencer’s post on his new memoir, The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the Climate Scientist who Wrote this Book.  [Okay, I may have changed the subtitle a little bit, but it's Spencer who insists on using unintentionally ironic titles for his novels, like Climate Confusion.]

For those who don’t follow the professional disinformers closely, Spencer (and John Christy) famously made a bunch of analytical blunders and spent years pushing the now long-overturned notion that the satellite data didn’t show significant warming (see “Should you believe anything John Christy and Roy Spencer say?“).  Now Spencer is claiming that “When properly interpreted, our satellite observations actually reveal” that the climate system is insensitive to carbon dioxide.  Yes, well, he has the secret recipe for properly mis-interpreting satellite data.

But it’s the leeches stuff that shows he also can’t even be bothered to spend 30 seconds using Google to check his own analogies.  Here’s the screen capture before he edits it:

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The underlying agenda on the Republican side, from the top down, is to frustrate and humiliate the president and the Democratic majority — and to ensure that no legislation passes. They typically begin with a memo from Frank Luntz, outlining rhetorical tricks that will be used to mislead and anger voters, while obscuring the true content of any proposal that Democrats might consider.

Next week, Graham, Kerry, and Lieberman will launch the bipartisan climate and clean energy jobs bill.  Every other Senate Republican but Graham will attempt to kill the bill because their entire strategy is predicated on convincing the public that Obama isn’t a different kind of politician, isn’t a pragmatist who can reach across the aisle.

McConnell told the NY Times last month, “It was absolutely critical that everybody be together because if the proponents of the bill were able to say it was bipartisan, it tended to convey to the public that this is O.K., they must have figured it out.”

And so the GOP is quite willing to destroy the Republic to advance their extremist agenda, as long as their shamelessly superior messaging (which is to say, disinforming) means they won’t be punished at the polls and indeed will actually make gains.  A (very) few journalists have woken up to this reality (see Joe Klein on the GOP: “How can you sustain a democracy if one of the two major political parties has been overrun by nihilists? “¦ How can you maintain the illusion of journalistic impartiality when one of the political parties has jumped the shark?”).

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In a letter to Senate colleagues, energy committee chairman Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), and Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said they “strongly oppose” efforts to shift offshore oil and natural gas royalties from the federal government to coastal states. President Obama’s sweeping new offshore drilling policy did not specify where revenues from newly opened federal lands should go, but drilling advocates such as Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK), and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) want a portion of the proceeds to go to their states, even as ten coastal-state Democrats oppose the expansion. The letter from Bingaman and his fellow energy hawks explains why they believe “revenue sharing” would amount to dirty pork-barrel politics:

Bingaman, Dorgan, and Rockefeller have been critics of the efforts of their more liberal colleagues to enact comprehensive green economy legislation. These energy hawks should recognize their opposition to dirty drilling pork is just the first step. The time is overdue for them to support ending the biggest dirty subsidy of all — the free global warming pollution that is putting civilization at risk.

Full text of the letter: Read more

Here is something you twitterers out there can retweet, from twitter.com/algore:

The Nobel prize-winner has posted a longer recommendation on his website:

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Interior Moving to Curb Coal Mining Pollution, Require Mountaintop Restoration

The Interior Department is writing new regulations for mountaintop-removal coal mining that would expand protection for waterways and require the restoration of dynamited areas.

Christopher Holmes, spokesman for Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, said the agency is rewriting its “stream protection rule” to boost environmental safeguards.  The proposal being drafted, Holmes said, would:

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And are more likely to vote for Senate candidate who supports action

Poll after poll shows that the general public STILL favors the transition to clean energy.  Two new polls show that the majority of African Americans and Latinos believe that switching to clean energy will create jobs and keep the economy strong while also combating climate change.  CAP Energy Opportunity intern Sarah Collins has the story.

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Later apologizes for distasteful and baseless comment, locks Twitter account

This is a Think Progress repost by Lee Fang.

Yesterday, the AP reported that Marlene Griffith, a widow of William Griffith, one of the 29 men killed in last week’s explosion at a coal mine in West Virginia, is suing Massey Energy, the owner of the mine. Griffith filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Raleigh County Circuit Court, arguing that Massey’s handling of work conditions at the mine plus its history of safety violations amounted to aggravated conduct that rises above the level of ordinary negligence. Marlene and here husband were to celebrate their 33rd wedding anniversary weeks after the deadly blast on April 5.

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