Heartland.org by Ron Arnold March 9, 2015
Hot on the heels of the assault by Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey and Arizona Representative Raul Grijalva against climate change skeptic scientists by demanding their academic institutions reveal who is funding their work, President Barack Obama has mounted a companion attack campaign against climate skeptics in Congress.
Obama ordered his “independent,” IRS registered, 501(c)(4) community organizing project, Organizing for Action, to “put together a site highlighting deniers across the country, and the impact of climate change on your state,” as indicated in a personal email from the president.
His Organizing for Action website shows a grid with pictures of 161 Republican senators and representatives, each labeled “DENIER,” above a “call them out” button that leads to a “bill of indictment”-style page. There we find stories of climate disasters envisioned in the accused’s states (with the utter certainty that bad weather – but not good – is proven to be manmade) with links to send a pious message by Twitter, Facebook or email.
The president’s pitch line said, “This shouldn’t be a controversial opinion. We need to listen to our friends at NASA and the 97 percent of climate scientists who agree that climate change is real, man-made, and happening right now.”
“We need to listen to our friends…” That’s a call for belief, conformity and zeal. It’s clearly a political policy pitch, not “social welfare” as IRS rules require for 501(c)(4) groups.
As the New York Times said, applicants for 501(c)(4) status need to be “asked by the Internal Revenue Service to prove they are ‘social welfare’ organizations and not the political activists they so obviously are.” The NYT was talking about Tea Party groups, but did say the rules “should be applied across the board,” including pro-Obama groups. An activist president telling us we need to listen to those who toe the Democratic Party line isn’t social welfare.
It gets worse. Obama’s email kicker line was, “OFA’s mission is holding climate change deniers’ feet to the fire,” perhaps evocative of burning at the stake. That’s not social welfare, it’s zeal raised to fanaticism, and that’s social warfare. We can fervently hope that “believe or die” will not follow from such provocation.
The Orwellian implications are chilling, but all-out social war to eradicate policy opposition is to be expected of Obama in the run-up to his big December legacy fest in Paris, France, the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference. Nothing should come as a surprise from Obama’s social war machine for the months before Paris.
A look behind Obama’s officially nonpartisan Organizing for Action shows that it is the successor of Organizing for America, a community organizing project of the Democratic National Committee, which was the grassroots arm of Obama for America, Obama’s official presidential campaign committee – ties that bind, regardless whether the IRS says it’s legitimate. Even the usually bland Wikipedia entry noted sharply that “Organizing for Action’s agenda and policies are strongly allied with the Democratic Party.”
Markey’s and Grijalva’s letters were prompted by false accusations made by Kert Davies, a former Greenpeace activist now running the web-only, no physical address, Climate Investigations Center, and fed to the New York Times’ all-too-eager reporter Justin Gillis, who falsely claimed that climate skeptic Wei-Hock (Willie) Soon had not revealed his research was supported by funding from an electric utility that uses coal power.
Markey did not disclose in his show-me-your-funding letter that his election campaign received a good chunk of uber-green billionaire bundler Tom Steyers’ $1.02 million 2014 election money, and his top donor ($357,261) was the League of Conservation Voters, run by 25 ranking green leaders. Markey is in the pocket of elite Big Green money, period.
Grijalva did not disclose in his show-me-your-funding letter that he serves as advisor to a legal group created by the notoriously libelous Center for Biological Diversity – Arizona rancher Jim Chilton won a $500,000 damage settlement from CBD for pushing a federal agency to revoke his grazing permit using photos of damaged land elsewhere and claiming it was Chilton’s. Chilton remarked, “I wanted to beat those liars and I did.” Grijalva is in bed with lying Big Green power, period.
As for President Obama, he will try anything to get his way.