Global Warming, The Temperature Record & The 97% Consensus

There's an old joke about a golfer whose best club in his bag was a pencil. So it would seem with those who are responsible for maintaining the temperature records. We've known for twenty years that they've been adjusting the historical climate data to make the records fit their theories. The latest on this is from Christopher Booker in his recent column, The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever:

When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.

Two weeks ago, under the headline “How we are being tricked by flawed data on global warming”, I wrote about Paul Homewood, who, on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat blog, had checked the published temperature graphs for three weather stations in Paraguay against the temperatures that had originally been recorded. In each instance, the actual trend of 60 years of data had been dramatically reversed, so that a cooling trend was changed to one that showed a marked warming.

This was only the latest of many examples of a practice long recognised by expert observers around the world – one that raises an ever larger question mark over the entire official surface-temperature record. . . .

Following my last article, Homewood checked a swathe of other South American weather stations around the original three. In each case he found the same suspicious one-way “adjustments”. First these were made by the US government’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN). They were then amplified by two of the main official surface records, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) and the National Climate Data Center (NCDC), which use the warming trends to estimate temperatures across the vast regions of the Earth where no measurements are taken. Yet these are the very records on which scientists and politicians rely for their belief in “global warming”.

Homewood has now turned his attention to the weather stations across much of the Arctic, between Canada (51 degrees W) and the heart of Siberia (87 degrees E). Again, in nearly every case, the same one-way adjustments have been made, to show warming up to 1 degree C or more higher than was indicated by the data that was actually recorded. This has surprised no one more than Traust Jonsson, who was long in charge of climate research for the Iceland met office (and with whom Homewood has been in touch). Jonsson was amazed to see how the new version completely “disappears” Iceland’s “sea ice years” around 1970, when a period of extreme cooling almost devastated his country’s economy. . . .

Of much more serious significance, however, is the way this wholesale manipulation of the official temperature record – for reasons GHCN and Giss have never plausibly explained – has become the real elephant in the room of the greatest and most costly scare the world has known. This really does begin to look like one of the greatest scientific scandals of all time.

Then there is the claim that, among climate scientists, a 97% consensus exists that "climate change is real, man-made and dangerous." That number comes from a study, if it can be called that, by John Cook, a PhD student in psychology at the University of Queensland in Australia. This from Prof. Richard Tol commenting on that paper:

The 97 percent claim was taken from a study paper by Australian John Cook, Climate Communications Fellow for the Global change Institute at the University of Queensland, and his colleagues, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters in May, 2013. The paper says nothing about the would-be dangers of climate change and it counts the number of publications, rather than the number of scientists, in support of human-made climate change. Never let facts get in the way of a good story.

The paper is a treasure trove of how-not-to lessons for a graduate class on survey design and analysis: the sample was not representative, statistical tests were ignored, and the results were misinterpreted.

What was an incompetent piece of research has become a highly influential study, its many errors covered up.

Some of the mistakes in the study should be obvious to all. There are hundreds of papers on the causes of climate change, and thousands of papers on the impacts of climate change and climate policy. Cook focused on the latter. A paper on the impact of a carbon tax on emissions was taken as evidence that the world is warming. A paper on the impact of climate change on the Red Panda was taken as evidence that humans caused this warming. And even a paper on the television coverage of climate change was seen by Cook as proof that carbon dioxide is to blame.

Cook and Co. analysed somewhere between 11,944 and 12,876 papers – they can’t get their story straight on the sample size – but only 64 of these explicitly state that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming. A reexamination of their data brought that number down to 41 [emphasis added]. That is half a per cent or less of the total, rather than 97 percent.

The remainder of Cook’s “evidence” is papers that said that humans caused some climate change and, more importantly, papers that Cook’s colleagues thought said as much.

There is vigorous debate about how much humans have contributed to climate change, but no one argues the effect is zero. By emitting greenhouse gases, changing the landscape, rerouting rivers, and huddling together in cities, we change the climate – perhaps by a little, perhaps by a lot – but not one expert doubts we do. However, a true consensus – 100 per cent agreement – does not serve to demonize those experts who raise credible concerns with the state of climate research.

The trouble does not end there. Cook has been reluctant to share his data for others to scrutinize. He has claimed that some data are protected by confidentiality agreements, even when they are not. He was claimed that some data were not collected, even when they were. The paper claims that each abstract was read by two independent readers, but they freely compared notes. Cook and Co. collected data, inspected the results, collected more data, inspected the results again, changed their data classification, collected yet more data, inspected the results once more, and changed their data classification again, before they found their magic 97 percent. People who express concern about the method have been smeared. . . .

This all stinks of a canard. Even as questions arise, the left is engaged in an all out push to ensconce human caused climate change as dogma and as a primary driver of our laws and social policy. The push is on through Common Core to teach anthropogenic global warming as settled science in grades K-12. With all of the dangers we face in the foreign arena, from a newly energized China and Russia to nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East and the continuing existential danger from radical Islam, President Obama spoke at the Coast Guard academy claiming that our greatest national security threat is climate change. With all of the horrendous issues facing the black community today in Obama's America, with growing violence, single motherhood, horrid schools and declining economic opportunities, Michelle Obama spoke at Oberlin College and claimed that climate change was the new civil rights movement.

Actually, it is hard to think of anything more perfectly designed to screw the middle and lower middle class than the many "green" policies and costs that would arise out of a full embrace of the climate change canard. That carbon tax on fossil fuels would go to feed the left, but it would act as regressive tax on all Americans. Just as it is hard to think of anything less pressing to our national security than anthropogenic climate change.

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Twenty Two Climate Truths & One Rant (Updated)

From WUWT, a particularly good summary of the gaping holes in Anthropogenic Global Warming theory (hereinafter, "AGW"):

The 22 Inconvenient Truths

1. The Mean Global Temperature has been stable since 1997, despite a continuous increase of the CO2 content of the air: how could one say that the increase of the CO2 content of the air is the cause of the increase of the temperature? (discussion: p. 4)

2. 57% of the cumulative anthropic emissions since the beginning of the Industrial revolution have been emitted since 1997, but the temperature has been stable. How to uphold that anthropic CO2 emissions (or anthropic cumulative emissions) cause an increase of the Mean Global Temperature?

[Note 1: since 1880 the only one period where Global Mean Temperature and CO2 content of the air increased simultaneously has been 1978-1997. From 1910 to 1940, the Global Mean Temperature increased at about the same rate as over 1978-1997, while CO2 anthropic emissions were almost negligible. Over 1950-1978 while CO2 anthropic emissions increased rapidly the Global Mean Temperature dropped. From Vostok and other ice cores we know that it’s the increase of the temperature that drives the subsequent increase of the CO2 content of the air, thanks to ocean out-gassing, and not the opposite. The same process is still at work nowadays] (discussion: p. 7)

3. The amount of CO2 of the air from anthropic emissions is today no more than 6% of the total CO2 in the air (as shown by the isotopic ratios 13C/12C) instead of the 25% to 30% said by IPCC. (discussion: p. 9)

4. The lifetime of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere is about 5 years instead of the 100 years said by IPCC. (discussion: p. 10)

5. The changes of the Mean Global Temperature are more or less sinusoidal with a well defined 60 year period. We are at a maximum of the sinusoid(s) and hence the next years should be cooler as has been observed after 1950. (discussion: p. 12)

6. The absorption of the radiation from the surface by the CO2 of the air is nearly saturated. Measuring with a spectrometer what is left from the radiation of a broadband infrared source (say a black body heated at 1000°C) after crossing the equivalent of some tens or hundreds of meters of the air, shows that the main CO2 bands (4.3 µm and 15 µm) have been replaced by the emission spectrum of the CO2 which is radiated at the temperature of the trace-gas. (discussion: p. 14)

7. In some geological periods the CO2 content of the air has been up to 20 times today’s content, and there has been no runaway temperature increase! Why would our CO2 emissions have a cataclysmic impact? The laws of Nature are the same whatever the place and the time. (discussion: p. 17)

8. The sea level is increasing by about 1.3 mm/year according to the data of the tide-gauges (after correction of the emergence or subsidence of the rock to which the tide gauge is attached, nowadays precisely known thanks to high precision GPS instrumentation); no acceleration has been observed during the last decades; the raw measurements at Brest since 1846 and at Marseille since the 1880s are slightly less than 1.3 mm/year. (discussion: p. 18)

9. The “hot spot” in the inter-tropical high troposphere is, according to all “models” and to the IPCC reports, the indubitable proof of the water vapour feedback amplification of the warming: it has not been observed and does not exist. (discussion: p. 20)

10. The water vapour content of the air has been roughly constant since more than 50 years but the humidity of the upper layers of the troposphere has been decreasing: the IPCC foretold the opposite to assert its “positive water vapour feedback” with increasing CO2. The observed “feedback” is negative. (discussion: p.22)

11. The maximum surface of the Antarctic ice-pack has been increasing every year since we have satellite observations. (discussion: p. 24)

12. The sum of the surfaces of the Arctic and Antarctic icepacks is about constant, their trends are phase-opposite; hence their total albedo is about constant. (discussion: p. 25)

13. The measurements from the 3000 oceanic ARGO buoys since 2003 may suggest a slight decrease of the oceanic heat content between the surface and a depth 700 m with very significant regional differences. (discussion: p. 27)

14. The observed outgoing longwave emission (or thermal infrared) of the globe is increasing, contrary to what models say on a would-be “radiative imbalance”; the “blanket” effect of CO2 or CH4 “greenhouse gases” is not seen. (discussion:p. 29)

15. The Stefan Boltzmann formula does not apply to gases, as they are neither black bodies, nor grey bodies: why does the IPCC community use it for gases ? (discussion: p. 30)

16. The trace gases absorb the radiation of the surface and radiate at the temperature of the air which is, at some height, most of the time slightly lower that of the surface. The trace-gases cannot “heat the surface“, according to the second principle of thermodynamics which prohibits heat transfer from a cooler body to a warmer body. (discussion: p. 32)

17. The temperatures have always driven the CO2 content of the air, never the reverse. Nowadays the net increment of the CO2 content of the air follows very closely the inter-tropical temperature anomaly. (discussion: p. 33)

18. The CLOUD project at the European Center for Nuclear Research is probing the Svensmark-Shaviv hypothesis on the role of cosmic rays modulated by the solar magnetic field on the low cloud coverage; the first and encouraging results have been published in Nature. (discussion: p. 36)

19. Numerical “Climate models” are not consistent regarding cloud coverage which is the main driver of the surface temperatures. Project Earthshine (Earthshine is the ghostly glow of the dark side of the Moon) has been measuring changes of the terrestrial albedo in relation to cloud coverage data; according to cloud coverage data available since 1983, the albedo of the Earth has decreased from 1984 to 1998, then increased up to 2004 in sync with the Mean Global Temperature. (discussion: p. 37)

20. The forecasts of the “climate models” are diverging more and more from the observations. A model is not a scientific proof of a fact and if proven false by observations (or falsified) it must be discarded, or audited and corrected. We are still waiting for the IPCC models to be discarded or revised; but alas IPCC uses the models financed by the taxpayers both to “prove” attributions to greenhouse gas and to support forecasts of doom. (discussion: p. 40)

21. As said by IPCC in its TAR (2001) “we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” Has this state of affairs changed since 2001? Surely not for scientific reasons. (discussion: p. 43)

22. Last but not least the IPCC is neither a scientific organization nor an independent organization: the summary for policy makers, the only part of the report read by international organizations, politicians and media is written under the very close supervision of the representative of the countries and of the non-governmental pressure groups.

The governing body of the IPCC is made of a minority of scientists almost all of them promoters of the environmentalist ideology, and a majority of state representatives and of non-governmental green organizations. (discussion: p. 46)

Do read the entire post along with the explanatory appendix. This is as good a summary as I've seen in some time. The first two facts noted by the author are really the meat of it all. The foundational theory of AGW is that, as more CO2 is pumped into our atmosphere, temperatures will rise proportionately. There is no support for this theory in the historical record predating modern temperature records, nor does the theory find any empirical support in the modern records, given that we have been pumping large amounts of CO2 into the air since 1997 with NO corresponding rise in temperature.

I am always amazed when the left, most of whom seem to embrace the AGW theory, accuse the right of being "anti-science" or "science deniers." It stands reality on its head. In a sane world, the gaping holes in AGW theory would lead scientists to discard the theory and start anew. The reality is that, as more facts show the fatal flaws with AGW theory, the left just becomes more strident in trying to shut down debate and in their claims that "the science is settled."

The truth is that there is much more than science at stake for the AGW crowd. For a very significant number of players, there are hundreds of billions of dollars at play in this scam, whether from carbon credits, renewable energy scams, cushy jobs at foundations, or even outright transfers of wealth from wealthy countries to third world nations (all to be administered by the UN, of course). And there seem to be more than a few watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside) pushing this AGW canard for whom the thought of saving Gaia comes with an underlying motivation to do away with capitalism and democracy. Then there are the scientists riding the gravy train of grants and recognition who have, in some cases, falsified or presented deeply misleading research, as well as attempted to severely restrict the voices of any who would raise questions about AGW. And lastly, there are the useful idiots at the bottom who unthinkingly embrace AGW and go to bed thinking themselves not only morally superior for doing so, but as they are constantly told by AGW cheerleaders, much smarter than those on the right who object to AGW on the basis of unreliable and contrary data.

No area of science is more bastardized than "climate science." I have no problems following science experiments wherever they might lead, so long as the scientific method is practiced. But all too often in climate science, there is a complete failure in this regards. It is criminal the number of climate scientists who fail to adhere to the scientific method, trying to claim peer review as the gold standard of reliability rather than a complete posting of their experiment in such detail as to allow for reproduction and verification by other scientists. Even as I write this, the EPA is preparing to issue regulations that will cost our economy tens of billions of dollars, and which regulations are based on "secret science" that has never been made public so as to subject it to reproduction or verification. It is a mockery to call it "science." It is faith being sold as science.

Yet another significant concern I have is with the numerous unexplained changes to the historical record of our temperature data, something that Jim Hansen, then at NASA, started doing in the late 90's and which continues to this day. As it stands, I have no faith whatsoever in the historical temperature record relied upon by the UN IPCC. Though, it should be noted, those records only begin about the 1880's, with the first relatively reliable efforts to collect data from thermometers.

This is not an academic debate about AGW. People's lives across the world are being effected by this scam. Hundreds of billions of dollars that could be used productively are being wasted in this fraud. Economies are being strangled by regulations designed to drive out a trace gas necessary for life on this planet. It is a travesty and, indeed, criminal. A very large number of people need to be jailed over this fraud.

Update: A perfect illustration of why such green energy scams are unforgivable in their impacts on people's lives comes from Germany:

According to EU data, Germany’s average residential electricity rate is 29.8 cents per kilowatt hour. This is approximately double the 14.2 cents and 15.9 cents per kWh paid by residents of Germany’s neighbors Poland and France, respectively, and almost two and a half times the U.S. average of 12 cents per kWh. Germany’s industrial electricity rate of 16 cents per kWh is also much higher than France’s 9.6 cents or Poland’s 8.3 cents. The average German per capita electricity consumption is 0.8 kilowatts. At a composite rate of 24 cents per kWh, this works out to a yearly bill of $1,700 per person, experienced either directly in utility bills or indirectly through increased costs of goods and services. The median household income in Germany is $33,000, so if we assume an average of two people per household, the electricity cost would amount to more than 10 percent of available income. And that is for the median-income household. The amount of electricity that people need does not scale in proportion to their paychecks. For the rich, $1,700 per year in electric bills might be a pittance, or at most a nuisance. But for the poor who are just scraping by, such a burden is simply brutal.

HT: Instapundit

While here at home, we are but a half step behind Germany:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is preparing to finalize its Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce power plant carbon dioxide emissions by 30% from 2005 levels over the next 15 years. Looking at some of the best-case scenarios for CO2 reductions, the plan could potentially cut roughly 300 million tons of CO2 annually. Because global man-made CO2 emissions reach roughly 30 billion tons annually, it’s estimated that the EPA plan could result in a possible 1% reduction in annual man-made CO2. Overall, man-made CO2 accounts for only 4% of total atmospheric CO2. So the true atmospheric reduction in CO2 from the EPA plan would be approximately 0.04%. The cost for this plan is estimated at $50 billion annually, with the loss of roughly 15,000 U.S. jobs each year. Increases in household utility bills could reach $100 billion annually.

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America Goes To School On Obamacare & Socialism 101

Dr. Krauthammer does a superb job of describing the intent, arrogance and fraud of the Obamacare design.



Obamacare, sold on breathtaking lies (keep your insurance, keep your doctor, lower your healthcare premiums, better insurance, reduce the deficit) and built on a mountain of perverse incentives (part time work chief among them), is finally hitting home for the many Obama supporters. They are being schooled in Obamacare and socialism. Idiots.

Have we finally reached the point of far left overreach? I hope so, for the nation.

Many Democrat legislators who voted for Obamacare are now seeing their political obituaries written for 2014. They have no way to fix the Obamacare obscenity, but they are clamoring to put off Obamacare for another year - to get them past the next election. I have two thoughts on that. One, the damage is done, so Republicans agreeing to such an extension would be giving up very little. Two, they should only agree to that single change in exchange for medical malpractice tort reform - something that actually would stop defensive medicine and, if done properly, would actually bend down the cost curve of medical care. Other than that, let Obama and every naive idiot that voted for him - or indeed, any Democrat - twist on the end of the Obamacare rope.

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AR5 & IPCC Fraud

Who the hell does the IPCC think they are fooling?

In the final draft of the IPCC report, made public approximately ten months ago, the IPCC included the following graph showing the computer models set against the observed temperature (with a meaningless gray background).

This chart clearly shows that observed temperatures (black dots) have fallen outside the projections of each of the computer models used by the IPCC. It is clear and easy to assess.

In the final report, just released, with the IPCC now claiming that the computer models have not failed, we get the following graph:

This goes beyond being a ridiculous attempt at obfuscation - it is outright fraud. Instead of showing an average of temperatures, the IPCC plots so many multiple points on a spaghetti graph as to make it virtually impossible to read. Moreover, the IPCC has shifted the computer model projections downward so that, mirale dictu, all of the plots now fall comfortably within the computer model projections.

Steve McIntyre, in his post at Climate Audit attempting to asses this fraud, notes that:

None of this portion of the IPCC assessment is drawn from peer-reviewed material. Nor is it consistent with the documents sent to external reviewers.

In other words, some people at the IPCC - and we need names for this one - snuck in this fraud at the 11th hour, site unseen even by the IPCC scientists tasked with reviewing the document.

Tar and feathering is simply not enough for these people.

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Gloom & Doom With A Distinct Odor Of BS - The IPCC Releases AR5 Summary For Policy Makers

[AR5 Summary For Policy Makers] in a nutshell: Since we started in 1990 we were right about the Arctic, wrong about the Antarctic, wrong about the tropical troposphere, wrong about the surface, wrong about hurricanes, wrong about the Himalayas, wrong about sensitivity, clueless on clouds and useless on regional trends. And on that basis we’re 95% confident we’re right.

Comment from Ross McItrick to post at Watts Up With That, Reactions To IPCC AR5 Summary For Policy Makers, 27 Sep. 2013

The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change today released their SPM [Summary For Policy Markers] to their about to be released AR5 report on climate change. It is a painfully tortured attempt to keep the meme of catastrophic man made global warming alive - and the money flowing in.

The IPCC faced multiple problems with this report. Their mission is to shill for man made global warming (really - their mission statement is not to analyze climate change, but "human induced" climate change). Yet the earth hasn't warmed for the past 17 plus years despite steadily increasing human contributions to CO2 levels; every one of the climate models used by the IPCC have failed with observed temperatures now falling at or below their minimum projections, Antarctica is adding ice, not losing it; and hurricanes are down.

So how does the IPCC address these problems - a lot of tap dancing and a lot of studied ignorance, all laid over top truckloads of bull excreta. The single most glaring example - the claim of 95% confidence that global warming is occurring and that man is the cause juxtaposed with this nugget in footnote 16 of the SPM:

No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity [to increases in CO2] can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.

In other words, as to the central thesis of climate change alarmism, the IPCC can no longer agree on whether more CO2 will increase temperature by a nominal amount, a measurable amount, or a catastrophic amount. In other words, there is nothing approaching a consensus to their 95% confidence level.

It is only downhill from there.

The IPCC explains away the 17 year hiatus in warming with a wave of its hand, saying its either volcanoes and a weak sun (yet the models do not account for either) or that the missing heat from all the new CO2 over the past fifteen years has gone into the deep ocean. Why the deep? Because the upper and mid level portions of the ocean, for which we have good data measurements via ARGO, show no appreciable warming. How heat is transferred from the surface to the deep ocean without heating the upper and middle layers of the ocean - that is a mystery. And what little data we have on deep ocean temperatures shows only 1/100th of 1 degree of heating over the past 44 years. This hypothesis - which is the last best hope of the warmies - is more than a bit weak. Yet they do not blink in raising it. Shameless.

The IPCC continues to talk about the rise of the oceans, and how this is caused by melting ice. But the truth is that is done using corrupt data. Joe D'Aleo explains here, that instead of relying on the single best measurement source - satellites - the IPCC cherry picks from tidal gauges at places where the land is subsiding. These people really should be indicted for fraud.

As Richard North states of the AR5, it is not science, "it is a political statement by a politically motivated body, made for political reasons. And if you need to know the basis of the politics, start with Rio in 1992 and Agenda 21."

And on a related note, the next time you here Obama justify destroying our energy sector in response to global warming based on a claim that the period 2002 to 2012 was the hottest on record, note two things. One, the "record" they refer to - of recorded observation - only extends back 130 years, with only the the last 50+ years being global. Two, that record has been corrupted. The claim that this most recent period is the warmest is based on tenths of degrees. And yet, the warmies in charge of our temperature records have systematically altered the raw data to make the older temperature records appear colder. For but one example, this from an essay by Jim Steele, Director emeritus Sierra Nevada Field Campus, San Francisco State University:

The warm peaks from the 1930s and 40s had been adjusted downward by 3 to 4°F and these adjustments created dubious local warming trends as seen in examples from other USHCN stations at Reading, Massachusetts and Socorro, New Mexico.

What Dr. Steele has stumbled upon is the trick Jim Hansen played on us in 2007, "homogenizing" the raw data in a way that significantly cooled the temperatures from the 1930's and 40's. Without that adjustment, the hottest decade on "record" would be the 1930's. There needs to be a reckoning for these people. The harm they are causing our nation to pay for this scam, the harm they are causing our children by inculcating in them an unquestioning belief in this junk science, it must all be paid for in the end. Bastards.

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Finally: The DOJ Charges S&P With Fraud In Rating Sub-Prime Backed Securities

The DOJ is going after S&P for giving sub-prime mortgage backed securities AAA ratings in the run-up to our economic meltdown in 2008. This move is getting panned by many on the right as payback against S&P for downgrading U.S. credit rating to AA in 2011 - and that certainly is a reasonable conclusion, given that the DOJ has not similarly targeted either Moody's or Fitch, both of which were equally guilty of vastly over-rating sub-prime mortgage backed securities.

Regardless, this is a lawsuit that I sincerely hope plays out in public. The fraud perpetrated by the ratings agencies was wholly intertwined with an insane government policy to force banks into making loans that did not meet traditional colorblind lending criteria. The ratings agencies were both complicit in and victims of this policy. There are a lot of facts that need to come out. Moreover, it is an issue with direct application to today, as the Obama administration not merely continues, but actually has strengthened the same insane government policies that gave rise to the the subprime crisis and our 2008 economic meltdown.

To explain, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was used by the left for 16 years to destroy color-blind lending standards and force banks to make sub-prime loans. Fannie and Freddie were used to create a massive market for these loans. Still, none of this would have worked if the credit rating agencies had not given AAA ratings to the securities containing these mortgages, as most if not all banks were limited to purchasing securities with AAA ratings. That is how the sub-prime contagion spread throughout world markets.

In 2008, I wrote a long post explaining the origins of our melt-down. As to the ratings agencies, I opined at the time:

One of the most questionable aspects of the subprime meltdown is how mortgage backed securities being pumped out by Fannie Mae and others, were vastly underrated as to the actual risk they represented. This is another horror story that centers on the tearing down of "outdated and arbitrary" lending criteria. From the information available today, it appears that, when the old standards were labled "racist" under Clinton, the rating agencies tried to adapt to the new "market innovations" without reliance on old standards. This from Stan Liebowitz of the University of Texas:

[Why were] the rating agencies were willing to give [risky loans] AAA ratings? . . .

[T]he housing price bubble that was caused in part by these relaxed underwriting standards tended to reduced defaults and obscure the impact of the standards while prices were rising because almost no one would default when they could, instead, easily sell the house at a profit. Rating agencies could suggest that these loans were no more risky than the old antiquated loans and provide empirical support for that conclusion, given the still low default rates at the time, although to do so was short sighted to the point of incompetence.

In fact, the rating agencies seemed overly concerned with the trees and lost sight of the forest. For example, a Wall Street Journal article (which is the basis for the following three quotes) reports on rating agencies’ benign treatment of piggyback mortgages (taking out a second mortgage to cover the downpayment required by the first mortgage). In previous decades, mortgage applicants unable to come up with the full downpayment and therefore thought to be more at risk of default, were required to pay ‘mortgage insurance’ which raised the interest rate on the loan. Piggyback loans allowed borrowers to avoid this mechanism, thus presumably making the loan riskier. Nevertheless, the article reports that rating agencies did not consider these loans more risky:

Data provided by lenders showed that loans with piggybacks performed like standard mortgages. The finding was unexpected, wrote S&P credit analyst Michael Stock in a 2000 research note. He nonetheless concluded the loans weren't necessarily very risky.

The finding was unexpected because it contradicted what had generally been known about mortgages by a prior generation of mortgage lenders—that when applicants made smaller downpayments, increasing the loan-to-value ratio, the probability of default increased. This finding contradicted common sense. Further, these measurements were being made at the front end of a housing price bubble (Figure 1 below shows that prices were rising smartly in 2000), likely biasing downward any default statistics. Relaxed lending standards also had a short enough track record that rating agencies could not know how they would perform in the long run or in adverse conditions, meaning that it isn’t clear that sufficient information existed to even rate these securities. So how did the rating agencies defend their counterintuitive ratings?

One money manager, James Kragenbring, says he had five to 10 conversations with S&P and Moody's in late 2005 and 2006, discussing whether they should be tougher because of looser lending standards… Other analysts recall being told that ratings could also be revised if the market deteriorated. Said an S&P spokesman: "The market can go with its gut; we have to go with the facts."

Whether such a myopic view of the “facts” was responsible for all or most of the excessively high ratings I cannot say, but these ratings were consistent with the views of the relaxed lending standards crowd. The real facts, of course, eventually soured the view of the rating agencies:

By 2006, S&P was making its own study of such loans' performance. It singled out 639,981 loans made in 2002 to see if its benign assumptions had held up. They hadn't. Loans with piggybacks were 43% more likely to default than other loans, S&P found.

In spite of their inaccurate ratings, the rating agencies, nevertheless, were making great profits from rating mortgage-backed securities, a quasi-sinecure created by the government which required many financial organizations (e.g., insurance companies and money market funds) to invest only in highly rated securities as certified by government (Security and Exchange Commission) approved rating agencies (NRSROs). There were only three such approved rating agencies for most of the last decade (S&P, Moody’s and Fitch). Given that government-approved rating agencies were protected from free competition, it might be expected that these agencies would not want to create political waves by rocking the mortgage boat, endangering a potential loss of their protected profits.

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"It's A Business We Can Live On" - Fraud, Cronyism & The Green Energy Scam

From WaPo:

Inside a midnight-blue BMW, a Sicilian entrepreneur delivered his pitch to the accused mafia boss. A new business was blowing into Italy that could spin wind and sunlight into gold, ensuring the future of the Earth as well as the Cosa Nostra: renewable energy.

“Uncle Vincenzo,” implored the businessman, Angelo Salvatore, using a term of affection for the alleged head of Sicily’s Gimbellina crime family, 79-year-old Vincenzo Funari. According to a transcript of their wiretapped conversation, Salvatore continued, “for the love of our sons, renewable energy is important. . . . it’s a business we can live on.”

And for quite awhile, Italian prosecutors say, they did. In an unfolding plot that is part “The Sopranos,” part “An Inconvenient Truth,” authorities swept across Sicily last month in the latest wave of sting operations revealing years of deep infiltration into the renewable energy sector by Italy’s rapidly modernizing crime families.

The still-emerging links of the mafia to the once-booming wind and solar sector here are raising fresh questions about the use of government subsidies to fuel a shift toward cleaner energies, with critics claiming huge state incentives created excessive profits for companies and a market bubble ripe for fraud. China-based Suntech, the world’s largest solar panel maker, last month said it would need to restate more than two years of financial results because of allegedly fake capital put up to finance new plants in Italy. The discoveries here also follow so-called “eco-corruption” cases in Spain, where a number of companies stand accused of illegally tapping state aid.

This story is not unique to Europe of today. It is merely an example of a universal, historical truth - combine government mandates with government subsidies and what you get is a prescription for the worst of fraud, crony capitalism and abuse, all at taxpayer expense.

Solyndra, now almost forgotten by the public, was a poster child for such abuses under Obama. It combined an untenable decision to fund an investment a business that could not survive in the free market, at least some of the private owners had ties to the Obama administration, and the administration violated the law when they renegotiated the contract to provide that any private investors would stand ahead of the government in the event of a bankruptcy. Solyndra was the very small tip of the iceberg.

Earlier in the month, Powerline posted a complaint, filed in Federal Court, that gives a birds eye view of cronyism, corruption and fraud in a government program to provide subsidized loans to corporations involved in green energy:

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of XP Vehicles, Inc. and Limnia, Inc., companies that competed for Department of Energy loans under a Congressionally-authorized program. The owners of XP eventually realized that there was no real competition, and that the whole Department of Energy program was a scam intended to funnel money to Obama and Democratic Party campaign contributors and political allies. They allege in addition that DOE misappropriated proprietary technology that they submitted in connection with their loan applications, and gave that technology to Obama administration cronies.

Go to Powerline and read the highlighted portions of the Complaint. It makes for a fascinating read.

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Oh What A Tangled Web AGW Fanatics Weave . . .

The Heartland Institute is a tiny libertarian think tank that does a yeomans' job of promoting the many studies and scientific findings that run contrary to the global warming dogma. They run on a shoestring annual budget of $6 million and employ all of 40 people. And yet by pointing out the chinks in the AGW armor, they have become a huge thorn in the side of those who want all to accept unquestioningly the canard of man-made global warming.

A weak ago, on Valentine's Day, there was an "anonymous leak" of documents originating from the Heartland Institute, including one damning "2012 strategy" document that conveniently proved all the things the AGW fanatic crowd just knew to be true about evil global warming deniers - my own personal favorite being that Heartland was conspiring to stop k-12 grades from "teaching science." Within hours of the release, warmie blogs were awash with the news, twitter was on fire with it, and Suzanne Goldenberg wrote an article at the Guardian, highlighting all the juicy bits from the strategy document.

Except . . . it wasn't a "leak," and Heartland claimed that the damning "2012 strategy" document was a forgery. As to the "strategy" document, numerous people pulled that apart to see if it would withstand scrutiny. Megan McArdle at the Atlantic published the best analysis of why the "strategy" document did not appear at all genuine based on technical evidence, along with a follow-up. As to the substance of what appeared in the strategy document, Steve MacIntyre at Climate Audit evaluated its authenticity and found it to be sorely lacking:

On or before Feb 13, the “unknown person” or an associate (who subsequently called himself Heartland Insider), fabricated a document entitled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy Memo”. Its pdf version was created on Feb 13 at 12:41 Pacific time.

Although media that were duped by the fake memo have tried to argue that its contents are fully supported by the board documents, in my opinion, numerous claims in the fake memo, including the money quotes that animated so many articles, are readily seen to be unsupported by the unfabricated documents, as well as being untrue.

1. The fake memo stated that Heartland planned to develop a Global Warming curriculum aimed at “dissuading teachers from teaching science”. This damning phrase occurs nowhere in the board documents or elsewhere.

2. The fake memo put the Koch foundation, prominent in climate activist demonology, in a place of particular prominence and stated that it was funding Heartland’s climate programs to the tune of $200,000 in 2011 and that greater contributions were being sought in 2012. In fact, Koch had contributed only $25,000 to Heartland’s Health Care (HCN) program in 2011 and $200,000 was being sought for this program in 2012. (Quite aside from other marks of forgery, it is inconceivable to me that Bast would make this sort of error in a board memo.)

3. The fake memo stated that Heartland was seeking contributions for their climate programs “especially from corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies”. There is no support for this in the document and it appears to be untrue: the board documents show that Heartland’s climate activities were almost entirely financed by an individual.

4. The fake memo exaggerated the scale of Heartland’s climate programs. It said that they sponsored NIPCC to “undermine” the IPCC (a term not used in the actual documents and a word more characteristic of activist than skeptical literature) and that, additionally, it “paid a team of writers” to produce editions of Climate Change Reconsidered (actual documents – team 0f “scientists”, double-counting the expenditures.

5. The fake memo said that it was “important to keep opposing voices out” of Forbes, which was characterized as having previously been “reliably anti-climate”, but which had now begun “to allow high-profile climate scientists (such as Gleick) to post warmist science essays that counter our own”. There is nothing remotely supporting this assertion in board documents or elsewhere. The anomalous prominence of Gleick (as opposed to the more logical Hansen, Gore or Mann, Jones and the Climategaters) attracted attention in later commentary.

6. The fake memo said that Heartland was coordinating “with external networks (such as WUWT and other groups capable of rapidly mobilizing responses to new scientific findings, news stories, or unfavorable blog posts”, a sort of skeptic answer to the Climate Rapid Response Team of Scott Mandia, John Abraham and Peter Gleick. There is nothing in the actual documents to support this.

7. The fake memo proposed the cultivation of “more neutral voices” such as Revkin and Curry, an idea that surprised both Revkin and Curry and which is not supported in the actual documents.

8. The fake memo gave the impression of “increased” activity in 2012, describing Heartland as “part of a growing network of groups working the climate issues, some of which [they] support financially”, whereas the actual documents showed reduced activity in 2012, as a result of declining funding, with no plans to hold the climate conference that they had sponsored for the previous few years.

Lucia observes in a post today that the fake memo also purports to show intentional deception on the part of Heartland officers by, for example, deliberately concealing the confidential memo from part of the board of directors (“distributed to a subset of Institute Board and senior staff”). See her post for other examples.

As to the "leak," there was no disgruntled "insider" seeking to expose the truth. It turns out that someone had posed as a board member to trick a secretary at Heartland to send them a copy of briefing documents. And today, we now know who that someone was - warmie scientist Peter Gleick, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a frequent lecturer on "integrity in science," and indeed, until today apparently, a member of the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) Task Force on Scientific Ethics. You can read more on Mr. Gliek at the Telegraph, where James Delingpole is obviously enjoying the warmie angst.

At any rate, Mr. Gliek, issued a limited mea culpa today, admitting to fraudulently obtaining the briefing documents, claiming that his actions were justified by Heartland and those who dare question AGW, and further claiming that the 2012 Strategy document was not forged:

At the beginning of 2012, I received an anonymous document in the mail describing what appeared to be details of the Heartland Institute’s climate program strategy. It contained information about their funders and the Institute’s apparent efforts to muddy public understanding about climate science and policy. I do not know the source of that original document but assumed it was sent to me because of my past exchanges with Heartland and because I was named in it.

Given the potential impact however, I attempted to confirm the accuracy of the information in this document. In an effort to do so, and in a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else’s name. The materials the Heartland Institute sent to me confirmed many of the facts in the original document, including especially their 2012 fundraising strategy and budget. I forwarded, anonymously, the documents I had received to a set of journalists and experts working on climate issues. I can explicitly confirm, as can the Heartland Institute, that the documents they emailed to me are identical to the documents that have been made public. I made no changes or alterations of any kind to any of the Heartland Institute documents or to the original anonymous communication.

I will not comment on the substance or implications of the materials; others have and are doing so. I only note that the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed. My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved. Nevertheless I deeply regret my own actions in this case. I offer my personal apologies to all those affected.

The many bloggers who have been touting the 2012 Strategy document now claim that Gliek has "authenticated" it for them. They are being willfully blind and refusing to ask even the most basic questions.

This is going to be resolved very quickly. Someone very soon - whether it be law enforcement or a civil attorney for Heartland - is going to demand those "original" documents Gliek claims to have received in January. Just as a threshold matter, if all he can produce is a copy of the 2012 Strategy memo with metadata showing a February 13 creation date, this will all come crashing down around his ears. Indeed, the warmies who are still staking their reputation on Gliek ought to be the first ones demanding he produce the originals that he claims now to have received in January.

The Heartland Institute, which previously issued cease and desist letters to all of the blogs and papers who had made use of the 2012 strategy forgery, released this statement today in response to Mr. Gliek's partial confession:

Earlier this evening, Peter Gleick, a prominent figure in the global warming movement, confessed to stealing electronic documents from The Heartland Institute in an attempt to discredit and embarrass a group that disagrees with his views.

Gleick’s crime was a serious one. The documents he admits stealing contained personal information about Heartland staff members, donors, and allies, the release of which has violated their privacy and endangered their personal safety.

An additional document Gleick represented as coming from The Heartland Institute, a forged memo purporting to set out our strategies on global warming, has been extensively cited by newspapers and in news releases and articles posted on Web sites and blogs around the world. It has caused major and permanent damage to the reputations of The Heartland Institute and many of the scientists, policy experts, and organizations we work with.

A mere apology is not enough to undo the damage.

In his statement, Gleick claims he committed this crime because he believed The Heartland Institute was preventing a “rational debate” from taking place over global warming. This is unbelievable. Heartland has repeatedly asked for real debate on this important topic. Gleick himself was specifically invited to attend a Heartland event to debate global warming just days before he stole the documents. He turned down the invitation.

Gleick also claims he did not write the forged memo, but only stole the documents to confirm the content of the memo he received from an anonymous source. This too is unbelievable. Many independent commentators already have concluded the memo was most likely written by Gleick.

We hope Gleick will make a more complete confession in the next few days.

We are consulting with legal counsel to determine our next steps and plan to release a more complete statement about the situation tomorrow. In the meantime, we ask again that publishers, bloggers, and Web site hosts take the stolen and fraudulent documents off their sites, remove defamatory commentary based on them, and issue retractions.

So that is where we stand today. The warmie blogs and publishers are refusing to budge on their claims that the 2012 Strategy document is anything but true based on the statement of Mr. Gliek. I personally applaud them for their utter refusal to look at this with any intellectual honesty. It will only bring more damage to their own cause. Heartland, it appears,is going to pursue this legally. I have a feeling this situation will, like fresh wine, just improve dramatically with time.

There have been several reactions of note to Gleick's revelations. Andrew Revkin, the NYT's go-to guy for the warmie crowd, has issued a damning indictment of Gleick:

Peter H. Gleick, a water and climate analyst who has been studying aspects of global warming for more than two decades, in recent years became an aggressive critic of organizations and individuals casting doubt on the seriousness of greenhouse-driven climate change. He used blogs, congressional testimony, group letters and other means to make his case.

Now, Gleick has admitted to an act that leaves his reputation in ruins and threatens to undercut the cause he spent so much time pursuing. . . .

Another question, of course, is who wrote the climate strategy document that Gleick now says was mailed to him. His admitted acts of deception in acquiring the cache of authentic Heartland documents surely will sustain suspicion that he created the summary, which Heartland’s leadership insists is fake.

One way or the other, Gleick’s use of deception in pursuit of his cause after years of calling out climate deception has destroyed his credibility and harmed others. (Some of the released documents contain information about Heartland employees that has no bearing on the climate fight.) That is his personal tragedy and shame (and I’m sure devastating for his colleagues, friends and family).

The broader tragedy is that his decision to go to such extremes in his fight with Heartland has greatly set back any prospects of the country having the “rational public debate” that he wrote — correctly — is so desperately needed.

Climate scientist Dr. Judith Curry also offered her own trenchant observations on Gleick's unique form of ethics and finds it a mirror image of Climategate:

Gleick’s ‘integrity’ seems to have nothing to do with scientific integrity, but rather loyalty to and consistency with what I have called the UNFCCC/IPCC ideology. . .

It is fine for people (and scientists) have political ideologies. The problem comes in when you use politics to defend your science, and you use science to demand policies.

Gleick’s unethical action with respect to integrity has been to push fealty to the UNFCCC/IPCC ideology under the guise of promoting integrity and ethics in science. . .

When ‘Heartlandgate’ first broke, I saw no parallels with Climategate. Now, with the involvement of Gleick, there most certainly are parallels. There is the common theme of climate scientists compromising personal and professional ethics, integrity, and responsibility, all in the interests of a ’cause’. . .

And from a twitter from IPCC lead author Richard Tol: "Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. Phil Jones, Michael Mann, Peter Gleick. What fools."

With Mr. Tol's statement in mind - some parting thoughts. Science done within the confines of the scientific method is as trustworthy a source of data as we will ever have. The problem for the AGW crowd is that they gave up on science long ago. When Michael Mann rewrites climate history while withholding the underlying methods and data to test his theory, when Ken Briffa does the cherry picking job of all time on Yamal, when James Hansen adjusts our temperature record at every turn to make warming appear from nowhere, and when Kevin Trenberth demands that we embrace the 'reality' of AGW on the sole basis of an untested hypothesis, then its clear that the AGW crowd who accuse "deniers" of being anti-science have turned reality on its head. Gleick's actions fit in perfectly with the spirit - and ethics - of those "climate scientists" The reality is that they are becoming more shrill and more desperate by the moment as it appears that new research - and indeed, surface temperatures - are not cooperating with their apocalyptic AGW meme. Their angst is well founded. This from WSJ today:

[A]n important gauge of scientific expertise is the ability to make successful predictions. When predictions fail, we say the theory is "falsified" and we should look for the reasons for the failure. Shown in the nearby graph is the measured annual temperature of the earth since 1989, just before the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Also shown are the projections of the likely increase of temperature, as published in the Summaries of each of the four IPCC reports, the first in the year 1990 and the last in the year 2007.

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Hansen Not Even Trying To Hide The Decline Anymore

Why is the off the rails, capitalism hating uber warmie James Hansen still working at NASA and riding herd over our temperature records? Indeed, why is he not in jail for fraud, since he is cooking the books and becoming personally wealthy for doing so? These are but two of the life's perplexing mysteries.

How blatant is Hansen these days about his cooking the temps? This catch from Willis Eschenbach posting at Watts Up With That:

. . . Hansen’s paper says the following (emphasis mine):

The precision achieved by the most advanced generation of radiation budget satellites is indicated by the planetary energy imbalance measured by the ongoing CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) instrument (Loeb et al., 2009), which finds a measured 5-year-mean imbalance of 6.5 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009). Because this result is implausible, instrumentation calibration factors were introduced to reduce the imbalance to the imbalance suggested by climate models, 0.85 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009).

I bring it up because it is climate science at its finest. Since the observations were not of the expected range, rather than figure out why the results might be wrong, they just twisted the dials to “reduce the imbalance to the imbalance suggested by climate models.”

And curiously, the “imbalance suggested by climate models”, of some 0.85 W/m2, was actually from Hansen’s previous paper. That earlier paper of his, by coincidence called “Earth’s energy imbalance: Confirmation and implications“, gave that 0.85 W/m2 figure as a result from Hansen’s own GISS climate model … but all this incestuous back-slapping is probably just another coincidence.

Of course, you know what all this means. Soon, the modelers will be claiming that the CERES satellite results verify that the GISS and other climate models are accurately duplicating observations …

Hansen isn't even trying to hide his bastardization of the numbers. If he doesn't like the result, he just changes it. And you don't need a PhD in physics to understand that to go from 6.5 to .85 is change by an order of magnitude.

It really is too bad that Rick Perry, the one person running for the nomination who actually gets that this is all the world's greatest scam, is simply unable to articulate it. All he would have to say is that the whole temperature record is untrustworthy and that climate scientists are refusing to subject their work to the scientific method, instead trying to argue that a corrupt peer review process should substitute. That isn't science.

At any rate, step one to sanity is to fire James Hansen and everyone under him at NASA. Step two is to open up the temprature record to full transparency, including all raw data and all of the underlying math used to arrive at the final numbers. Step three is to withhold all future funding from institutions and individuals that publish findings that do not allow for full replication by the scientific method. Step four is to start putting warmie frauds in jail. Hansen, Gore and Mann should be sharing a jail cell if there is any justice in the cosmos.

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Nonverbal Responses To Recently Voiced Democratic Concerns

One does not need an extensive vocabulary to respond appropriately to concerns recently voiced by Democrats. For example:

Having been swamped in the 2010 elections, particularly in state legislatures where Congressional redistricting will soon take place, it would seem that several Democrats now want to make redistricting "fairer" via federal control over state redistricting plans. The only approriate response:


And over in the House Oversight Committee, Dem. Rep. Elijah Cummings is demanding veto power over the Chairman Issa's use of subpoenas to investigate the Obama Administration. That one deserves an equal response:


Then in Virginia, where the Attorney General is investigating fraud by climate science charlatan Michael Mann, the Democrats are seeking to take away his subpoena power and scuttle the investigation. Let's call George Bush out of retirement for that response, since he resisted all attempts to regulate CO2 during his administration:



Indeed, responding appropriately requires few words indeed.

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Stopping The Tsunami Of Obamacare

On his first day as Speaker of the House, John Boehner received a letter from the CBO stating that "repealing health care reform will add $230 billion to the deficit over the next decade, leave 32 million fewer people with insurance and lead to higher costs for those who are covered." That was both a smart tactical ploy by the left and an utterly contemptible falsehood.

Responding to the left's disingenuous arguments, Charles Krauthammer weighs in today, explaining in a few short paragraphs the massive fraud of Obamacare:

Suppose someone - say, the president of United States - proposed the following: We are drowning in debt. More than $14 trillion right now. I've got a great idea for deficit reduction. It will yield a savings of $230 billion over the next 10 years: We increase spending by $540 billion while we increase taxes by $770 billion.

He'd be laughed out of town. And yet, this is precisely what the Democrats are claiming as a virtue of Obamacare. During the debate over Republican attempts to repeal it, one of the Democrats' major talking points has been that Obamacare reduces the deficit - and therefore repeal raises it - by $230 billion. Why, the Congressional Budget Office says exactly that.

Very true. And very convincing. Until you realize where that number comes from. Explains CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf in his "preliminary analysis of H.R. 2" (the Republican health-care repeal): "CBO anticipates that enacting H.R. 2 would probably yield, for the 2012-2021 period, a reduction in revenues in the neighborhood of $770 billion and a reduction in outlays in the vicinity of $540 billion."

As National Affairs editor Yuval Levin pointed out when mining this remarkable nugget, this is a hell of a way to do deficit reduction: a radical increase in spending, topped by an even more radical increase in taxes.

Of course, the very numbers that yield this $230 billion "deficit reduction" are phony to begin with. The CBO is required to accept every assumption, promise (of future spending cuts, for example) and chronological gimmick that Congress gives it. All the CBO then does is perform the calculation and spit out the result.

In fact, the whole Obamacare bill was gamed to produce a favorable CBO number. Most glaringly, the entitlement it creates - government-subsidized health insurance for 32 million Americans - doesn't kick in until 2014. That was deliberately designed so any projection for this decade would cover only six years of expenditures - while that same 10-year projection would capture 10 years of revenue. With 10 years of money inflow vs. six years of outflow, the result is a positive - i.e., deficit-reducing - number. Surprise.

If you think that's audacious, consider this: Obamacare does not create just one new entitlement (health insurance for everyone); it actually creates a second - long-term care insurance. With an aging population, and with long-term care becoming extraordinarily expensive, this promises to be the biggest budget buster in the history of the welfare state.

And yet, in the CBO calculation, this new entitlement to long-term care reduces the deficit over the next 10 years. By $70 billion, no less. How is this possible? By collecting premiums now, and paying out no benefits for the first 10 years. Presto: a (temporary) surplus. As former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin and scholars Joseph Antos and James Capretta note, "Only in Washington could the creation of a reckless entitlement program be used as 'offset' to grease the way for another entitlement." I would note additionally that only in Washington could such a neat little swindle be titled the "CLASS Act" (for the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act).

That a health-care reform law of such enormous size and consequence, revolutionizing one-sixth of the U.S. economy, could be sold on such flimflammery is astonishing, even by Washington standards. . . .

(H/T Prarie Pundit)

And here was Paul Ryan making the same points on the House floor the other day, prior to the vote to repeal Obamacare:



(H/T Nice Deb)

At the WSJ several days ago, a former CBO Director and two former CBO Assistant Directors explained in some detail how and why the CBO came op with the numbers it did. The short version, false numbers in, false numbers out.

The left is now in an all-out push to protect Obamacare, willing to use the most ridiculous and scurrilous of lies to shape public opinion.

Rep. Steve Cohen equates Republicans with Nazis for their "lies" in support of repealing Obamacare. He gives no specifics, but then again, no specifics are required for left wing argument, just demonization.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee tells us that repealing Obamacare will "kill" people, and in particular, directs her arguments towards seniors, all of whom are actually covered by Medicare, the program raped to provide funding for Obamacare.

(/sarcasm on) Noted Constitutional scholars (/sarcasm off) Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and Rep. John Lewis, between only a few working brain cells, tell us that to repeal Obamacare would be unconstitutional.

The left, in passing the nightmare for our country that is Obamacare, made the wildly ridiculous argument that Obamacare would create jobs. Well, the massive regulations will create more government jobs, but the regulations themselves would inevitably cost exponentially far more jobs in the private sector as the costs of compliance take hold. Apparently some on the left don't quite understand economics or much about the private sector, so when Eugene Robinson, appearing on MSNBC, called on Obama to now defend Obamacare by explaining to America how it would be a boon to employment, Rachel Maddow quickly switched him off that line of argument.

At any rate, expect to be inundated with emotion-heavy, fact-lite arguments from the left on Obamacare for the next two years. The single most important thing that Republicans can do is call the CBO Director in for hearings, have him explain both how the books are cooked on Obamacare and how the numbers change when the smoke and mirrors are removed. Then at the end of the hearing, the Republicans need to package it into a neat little sound bite summary, appropriate for use in one or two minute ads ripping the left for being dishonest and wildly reckless with Obamacare and our economy.

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GM & The Real Story Of Their Loan Payback

Last month, GM and the Obama administration were crowing over GM's repayment of a government $4.7 billion dollar loan. GM released an ad announcing the act. I wrote at the time that the ad was likely so misleading as to constitute fraud under SEC regulations. Powerline has come to a similar conclusion. Apparently, someone at the Weekly Standard reworked the ad to bring it in line with reality. Heh.

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The NYT Finally Addresses The Obama Administration - GM Fraud

I posted here on the fraud being jointly perpetrated by GM and the White House as regards GM early repayment of its government loan. Touted by both GM and the White House as proof of GM's profitability and responsibility, they failed to note that the repayment was accomplished using TARP funds. The Bush administration would have been roasted to a smoking husk over this in the MSM had his administration engaged in such a blatant fraud. Nonetheless, as with most things involving the left, it has been virtually ignored by the left. Today, weeks after the story broke, the NYT has posted an article addressing the fraud:

. . . Truth seekers the nation over . . . are indebted to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who in recent days uncovered what he called a government-enabled “TARP money shuffle.” It relates to General Motors, which on April 21 paid the balance of its $6.7 billion loan under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

G.M. trumpeted its escape from the program as evidence that it had turned the corner in its operations. “G.M. is able to repay the taxpayers in full, with interest, ahead of schedule, because more customers are buying vehicles like the Chevrolet Malibu and Buick LaCrosse,” boasted Edward E. Whitacre Jr., its chief executive.

G.M. also crowed about its loan repayment in a national television ad and the United States Treasury also marked the moment with a press release: “We are encouraged that G.M. has repaid its debt well ahead of schedule and confident that the company is on a strong path to viability,” said Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary.

Taxpayers are naturally eager for news about bailout repayments. But what neither G.M. nor the Treasury disclosed was that the company simply used other funds held by the Treasury to pay off its original loan.

Neil M. Barofsky, the inspector general overseeing the troubled asset program, revealed this detail when he spoke before the Senate Finance Committee on April 20.

“So it’s good news in that they’re reducing their debt,” Mr. Barofsky said of G.M. But he went on to note that G.M. was using other taxpayer money to make the loan repayment, according to the transcript of his testimony.

Armed with this information, Mr. Grassley fired off a letter to Mr. Geithner on April 22, asking for details of the transaction. “I am concerned ... that this announcement is not what it seems,” he wrote. “In fact, it appears to be nothing more than an elaborate TARP money shuffle.”

Mr. Grassley heard back from the Treasury last Tuesday. Herbert M. Allison Jr., assistant secretary for financial stability, confirmed that the money G.M. used to repay its bailout loan had come from a taxpayer-financed escrow account held for the automaker at the Treasury.

Emphasizing that the cash in the account was “the property of G.M.,” Mr. Allison said that the department had approved the company’s use of the money to retire the original debt because it was “consistent with Treasury’s goal of recovering funds for the taxpayer and exiting TARP investments as soon as practicable.”

It’s certainly understandable that G.M. would want to spin its repayment as proof of improving operations. But Mr. Grassley said he was troubled that the Treasury went along with the public relations campaign and didn’t spell out how the loan was retired.

“The public would know nothing about the TARP escrow money being the source of the supposed repayment from simply watching G.M.’s TV commercials or reading Treasury’s press release,” Mr. Grassley said in a speech on the Senate floor last Wednesday, saying that “many billions” of federal dollars remained invested in G.M.

“Much of it will never be repaid,” Mr. Grassley added. “The Congressional Budget Office estimates that taxpayers will lose around $30 billion on G.M.”

(Taxpayers still own $2.1 billion in preferred stock of G.M. and almost 61 percent of its common equity.) . . .

Of course, there is much joy in Mudville when a recipient of government aid repays its obligations. And it is also natural that the administration is keenly interested in reassuring taxpayers that losses on their bailout billions will be smaller than expected. Still, employing spin and selective disclosure is no way to raise taxpayers’ trust in our nation’s leadership. . . .

I pointed out in my initial post that this fraud and collusion likely fell afoul of securities regulations. And today, Hot Air and Powerline conclude similarly. This is more than a bad act - it is a potentialy criminal scandal. It is certainly a scandal deserving of far more than a buried article in the business section of the NYT, though that is at least a small start.

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Utterly Shameless - & Fraudulent

You might have caught this bit of seemingly good news today if you saw this commercial . . .



Or you might have heard the news from an ecstatic White House. This from CBS News:

No one was cheering louder than the White House about General Motors' repayment of $6.7 billion in loans from the federal government.

First thing this morning, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs alerted his 56,000 followers on Twitter of "BIG NEWS."

"GM pays back US $6.7 billion used to save jobs," Gibbs exulted. But he had more.

"BIGGER NEWS," he trumpeted. "Payment was 5 years ahead of schedule."

. . . Later at his daily press briefing, Gibbs didn't wait for a reporter to ask him about the GM payback. He portrayed it as a vindication of President Obama's decision to provide a federal bailout to GM and Chrysler . . .

The amount repaid by GM is less than 13 percent of the $52 billion in federal bailout funds provided to the automaker. The remainder of the bailout was converted into stock, which GM still intends to pay off. Gibbs concedes, "obviously, we're not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination." But he thinks the payback demonstrates that GM is on a path to renewal. . . .

Vice President Biden added his voice to the White House chorus, hailing the GM payback as a "huge accomplishment."

"The President of the United States took a lot of heat for that effort," said Biden of the GM bailout, saying it kept the company alive while it was transitioning.

"And I would just like to point out that I am proud to be associated with the guy who saw the necessity to do this," boasted the VP about his constitutional boss.

Biden said the rapid GM payback "exceeded our expectations."

White House economic advisor Lawrence Summers came closest to telling the critics of the bailout "we told you so," without actually using those words.

"This turnaround wasn't an accident of history," said Summers in a blog on the White House website. "It was the result of considered and politically difficult decisions made by President Obama to provide GM and Chrysler - and indeed the auto industry - a lifeline, if they could demonstrate the will to reshape their businesses and chart a path toward long-term viability without ongoing government assistance."

But the payback also gives the White House ammunition in defense of future government bailouts, should they be needed. Gibbs said it's the White House hope they won't be.

Great news for Obama and GM indeed - until you get the rest of the story. This, courtesy of Jamie Dupree via Q&O:

The issue came up yesterday at a hearing with the special watchdog on the Wall Street Bailout, Neil Barofsky, who was asked several times about the GM repayment by Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), who was looking for answers on how much money the feds might make from the controversial Wall Street Bailout.

“It’s good news in that they’re reducing their debt,” Barofsky said of the accelerated GM payments, “but they’re doing it by taking other available TARP money.”

In other words, GM is taking money from the Wall Street Bailout – the TARP money – and using that to pay off their loans ahead of schedule.

“It sounds like it’s kind of like taking money out of one pocket and putting in the other,” said Carper, who got a nod of agreement from Barofsky.

“The way that payment is going to be made is by drawing down on an equity facility of other TARP money.”

Translated – they are using bailout funds from the feds to pay off their loans.

This is absolutely unreal. This is nothing more than a shell game with taxpayer money, yet it is being presented as if GM is actually becoming a profitable organization again. Its been a long time since I looked at securities law, but I would be willing to bet this incredibly bit of misleading news from GM and its primary stockholder, the Obama administration, easily crosses those regulatory lines that define fraud under SEC regs. This is GM and the Obama Administration colluding to perpetrate a massive fraud on the American people.

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