Ann Coulter is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers —Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America (January 2009);If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans (October, 2007); Godless: The Church of Liberalism (June 2006); How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)(October, 2004); Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (June 2003); Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right (June 2002); and High Crimes and Misdemeanors:The Case Against Bill Clinton (August 1998).
Coulter is the legal correspondent for Human Events and writes a popular syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate.
She is a frequent guest on many TV shows, including The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Early Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Hannity, The O'Reilly Factor, The Glen Beck Show, HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, and has been profiled in numerous publications, including TV Guide, the Guardian (UK), the New York Observer, National Journal, Harper's Bazaar, and Elle magazine. She was the April 25, 2005 cover story of Time magazine.
In 2001, Coulter was named one of the top 100 Public Intellectuals by federal judge Richard Posner in 2001.
A Connecticut native, Coulter graduated with honors from Cornell University School of Arts & Sciences, and received her J.D. from University of Michigan Law School, where she was an editor of The Michigan Law Review.
Coulter clerked for the Honorable Pasco Bowman II of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and was an attorney in the Department of Justice Honors Program for outstanding law school graduates.
After practicing law in private practice in New York City, Coulter worked for the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she handled crime and immigration issues for Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan. From there, she became a litigator with the Center For Individual Rights in Washington, DC, a public interest law firm dedicated to the defense of individual rights with particular emphasis on freedom of speech, civil rights, and the free exercise of religion.
WND says that Coulter's decision to speak at Homocon, an event sponsored by a gay Republican organization called GOProud, disqualifies her from speaking at their "Taking America Back National Conference."
"Ultimately, as a matter of principle, it would not make sense for us to have Ann speak to a conference about 'taking America back' when she clearly does not recognize that the ideals to be espoused there simply do not include the radical and very 'unconservative' agenda represented by GOProud," WND editor and CEO Joseph Farah said. "The drift of the conservative movement to a brand of materialistic libertarianism is one of the main reasons we planned this conference from the beginning."
Coulter, who is and will remain a WND columnist, said she was hired to deliver a speech at Homocon but that does not mean she endorses GOProud's views.
"They hired me to give a speech, so I'm giving a speech. I do it all the time," she said. "I speak to a lot of groups and do not endorse them. I speak at Harvard and I certainly don't endorse their views. I've spoken to Democratic groups and liberal Republican groups that loooove abortion. The main thing I do is speak on college campuses, which is about the equivalent of speaking at an al-Qaida conference. I'm sure I agree with GOProud more than I do with at least half of my college audiences. But in any event, giving a speech is not an endorsement of every position held by the people I'm speaking to."
Coulter added that she was set to speak for WND, but she thinks the organization is "nuts on the birther thing."
"The gay left has done their best to take all the fun out of politics, with their endless list of boycotts and protests. Homocon is going to be our annual effort to counter the 'no fun police' on the left," said Christopher Barron, Chairman of the Board of GOProud, in a statement when announcing that Coulter would address the conference. "I can't think of any conservative more fun to headline our inaugural party then the self-professed 'right-wing Judy Garland' - Ann Coulter."
WASHINGTON TAKES BREAK FROM PORN SURFING TO BAIL OUT WALL STREET by Ann Coulter April 28, 2010
Democrats have decided that in order to prevent Wall Street from starting more financial meltdowns, wrecking the economy and leaving the American taxpayer holding the bag, we need to give more oversight authority to the same government employees who were busy surfing Internet porn as private investors frantically tried to warn them about Bernie Madoff.
The Democrats' financial "reform" bill also includes a $50 billion bailout fund -- that's million with a "B" -- that will save the Democrats from the unpleasant task of having to go on record voting for another Wall Street bailout.
Under the Democrats' bill, the FDIC will distribute the bailout money to Wall Street bankers without Congress having to take any action at all. (In the House version, the slush fund for the Democrats' Wall Street friends is $150 billion.)
True, the billions of dollars will be doled out to banks for the purpose of "dissolving" them. So what? They'll come back under a new name. But the guilty parties will lose no money for making bad bets -- although if the bets paid off, they'd take all the profits. That's what Democrats mean by "accountability."
Not surprisingly, the only politicians opposed to a permanent bailout fund for bankers are the politicians not owned by Wall Street -- that is, most Republicans, and one socialist, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
The Democrats' defense of Wall Street's golden parachute is to say Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell used a "talking point" formulated for him by pollster Frank Luntz in opposing the bailout fund.
As Frank Rich explained in The New York Times, the bailout fund is not a bailout fund because "Sen. Mitch McConnell went on CNN to flog his big lie that the Senate reform bill somehow guaranteed bank bailouts -- a talking point long ago concocted for the GOP by its favorite spin strategist, Frank Luntz."
In other words, it must be a lie because ... because Frank Luntz told McConnell what to say and then McConnell said it on CNN!
Yes, and Steve Jobs gets his best ideas from parishilton.com.
Sen. McConnell doesn't need Frank Luntz to explain anything to him, least of all the financial reform bill. A fifth-grader could find out about the permanent bailout fund simply by reading the bill.
You will notice that neither Rich nor any of Wall Street's defenders specifically deny the existence of a permanent bank bailout fund in the Democrats' bill. They just say McConnell used a "talking point" to denounce it. (You might say this has become a "talking point" for Democrats defending the bill.)
Wall Street's defenders also crow that the money in the bailout fund won't come from taxpayers! (There's a newfound sympathy.) No sir, it will come from "the banks."
That's like saying that the original bailout money didn't come from the taxpayers -- it came from the government! Where do Democrats imagine banks and the government get their money?
Banks, like the government, are entities that spend money they collect from human beings. We'll all be charged up front to cover Gordon Gekko's future bad bets.
In other words, the Wall Street slush fund will be paid for by a group of despicable fat cats recently discovered by the Democrats known as People Who Have Bank Accounts. Damn them!
Another idea, based on the ancient concept of personal responsibility, comes from financial writer James Grant. He proposes that the bankers -- are you sitting down? -- take their own losses.
Let them keep their humongous salaries, Grant writes, but if their bank fails, "let the bankers themselves fail. Let the value of their houses, cars, yachts, paintings, etc. be assigned to the firm's creditors."
There's nothing wrong with speculation, creating derivatives or selling them, especially to sophisticated investors. The problem is that when the bets go bad, the speculators keep being back-stopped by the government -- i.e., "by me and people like me."
Strangely enough -- for a bill that allegedly sticks it to Wall Street -- during the Senate Banking Committee hearing this week, Goldman Sachs chairman Lloyd Blankfein endorsed the Dodd bill. Someone should have asked him who from Goldman wrote it.
In 2008, Goldman employees gave a record-breaking $1,007,370 to the Obama campaign.
This year, the "securities and investment" industry has already given twice as much money to the Democrats as to the Republicans.
ABC News reports that "the five biggest hedge fund donors all gave almost all their donations to Democrats." Among the biggest recipients of hedge fund money were Senators Harry Reid (Democrat), Chris Dodd (Democrat) and Charles Schumer (Democrat).
Even with the evidence right in front of their eyes, people still believe that it's the Republicans who are in Wall Street's pocket.
How out of touch with reality would a comedy writer have to be to write the following joke for Jay Leno this week: "The head of Goldman Sachs was going through security and was asked to empty his pockets -- and five Republican senators fell out."
Why didn't Barack Obama or Chuck Schumer fall out? Why not Rahm Emanuel, who worked for Goldman? Or Greg Craig, who used to work for Obama but just took a job with Goldman?
The fact that anyone laughed at that joke proves that Republicans have a serious PR problem.
Since arriving in Canada I've been accused of thought crimes, threatened with criminal prosecution for speeches I hadn't yet given, and denounced on the floor of the Parliament (which was nice because that one was on my "bucket list").
Posters advertising my speech have been officially banned, while posters denouncing me are plastered all over the University of Ottawa campus. Elected officials have been prohibited from attending my speeches. Also, the local clothing stores are fresh out of brown shirts.
Welcome to Canada!
The provost of the University of Ottawa, average student IQ: 0, wrote to me -- widely disseminating his letter to at least a half-dozen intermediaries before it reached me -- in advance of my visit in order to recommend that I familiarize myself with Canada's criminal laws regarding hate speech.
This marks the first time I've ever gotten hate mail for something I might do in the future.
Apparently Canadian law forbids "promoting hatred against any identifiable group," which the provost, Francois A. Houle advised me, "would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges."
I was given no specific examples of what words and phrases I couldn't use, but I take it I'm not supposed to say, "F--- you, Francois."
While it was a relief to know that it is still permissible in Canada to promote hatred against unidentifiable groups, upon reading Francois' letter, I suddenly realized that I had just been the victim of a hate crime! And it was committed by Francois A. Houle (French for "Frank A. Hole").
What other speakers get a warning not to promote hatred? Did Francois A. Houle send a similarly worded letter to Israel-hater Omar Barghouti before he spoke last year at U of Ottawa? ("Ottawa": Indian for "Land of the Bed-Wetters.")
How about Angela Davis, Communist Party member and former Black Panther who spoke at the University of Zero just last month?
Or do only conservatives get letters admonishing them to be civil? Or -- my suspicion -- is it only conservative women who fuel Francois' rage?
How about sending a letter to all Muslim speakers advising them to please bathe once a week while in Canada? Would that constitute a hate crime?
I'm sure Canada's Human Rights Commission will get to the bottom of Francois' strange warning to me, inasmuch as I will be filing a complaint with that august body, so I expect they will be reviewing every letter the university has sent to other speakers prior to their speeches to see if any of them were threatened with criminal prosecution.
Both writer Mark Steyn and editor Ezra Levant have been investigated by the Human Rights Commission for promoting hatred toward Muslims.
Levant's alleged crime was to reprint the cartoons of Mohammed originally published in a Danish newspaper, leading practitioners of the Religion of Peace to engage in murderous violence across the globe. Steyn's alleged crime was to publish an excerpt of his book, "America Alone" in Maclean's magazine, in which he jauntily described Muslims as "hot for jihad."
Both of them also flew jet airliners full of passengers into skyscrapers in lower Manhattan, resulting in thousands of deaths. No, wait -- that was somebody else.
Curiously, however, there was no evidence that either the cartoons or the column did, in fact, incite hatred toward Muslims -- nor was there the remotest possibility that they would.
By contrast, conservative speakers are regularly subjected to violent attacks on college campuses. Bill Kristol, Pat Buchanan, David Horowitz and I have all been the targets of infamous campus attacks.
That's why the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute (a sponsor of my Canada speeches) and the Young America's Foundation (a sponsor of many of my college speeches) don't send conservatives to college campuses without a bodyguard.
You'd have to be a real A-Houle not to anticipate that accusing a conservative of "promoting hatred" prior to her arrival on a college campus would in actuality -- not in liberal fantasies of terrified Muslims cowering in terror of Mark Steyn readers -- incite real-world violence toward the conservative.
The university itself acknowledged that Francois' letter was likely to provoke violence against me by demanding -- long after my speech was scheduled, but immediately after Francois disseminated his letter -- that my sponsors pony up more than $1,200 for extra security.
Also following Francois' letter, the Ottawa University Student Federation met for 7 1/2 hours to hammer out a series of resolutions denouncing me. The resolutions included:
"Whereas Ann Coulter is a hateful woman;
"Whereas she has made hateful comments against GLBTQ, Muslims, Jews and women;
"Whereas she violates an unwritten code of 'positive-space';
"Be it resolved that the SFUO express its disapproval of having Ann Coulter speak at the University of Ottawa."
At least the students didn't waste 7 1/2 hours on something silly, like their studies.
At the risk of violating anyone's positive space, what happened to Canada? How did the country that gave us Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Martin Short, Dan Aykroyd and Catherine O'Hara suddenly become a bunch of whining crybabies?
After Tuesday night, the hatred incited by Francois' letter is no longer theoretical. The police called off my speech when the auditorium was surrounded by thousands of rioting liberals -- screaming, blocking the entrance, throwing tables, demanding that my books be burned, and finally setting off the fire alarm.
Sadly, I missed the book burning because I never made it to the building.
But, reportedly, a Canadian crowd hasn't been this excited since they opened a new Tim Hortons. Local reporters couldn't make out what the crowd was chanting, but it was something about "Molson" and a "sled dog."
I've given more than 100 college speeches, and not once has one of my speeches been shut down at any point. Even the pie-throwing incident at the University of Arizona didn't break up the event. I said "Get them!", the college Republicans got them, and then I continued with my rambling, hate-filled diatribe -- I mean, my speech.
So we've run this experiment more than 100 times.
Only one college speech was ever met with so much mob violence that the police were forced to cancel it: The one that was preceded by a letter from the university provost accusing me of hate speech.
(To add insult to injury, Francois didn't even plan to attend my speech because Tuesday is his bikini wax night.)
If a university official's letter accusing a speaker of having a proclivity to commit speech crimes before she's given the speech -- which then leads to Facebook postings demanding that Ann Coulter be hurt, a massive riot and a police-ordered cancellation of the speech -- is not hate speech, then there is no such thing as hate speech.
Either Francois goes to jail or the Human Rights Commission is a hoax and a fraud.
Coulter cancels Ottawa speech, blames Canada
By Zev Singer and Kristy Nease, Ottawa CitizenMarch 24, 2010 1:13 PM
In this file photo, television personality Ann Coulter speaks to the audience.
Photograph by: Lucas Jackson , Reuters
OTTAWA — After protesters at the University of Ottawa prevented Ann Coulter from giving a speech Tuesday night, the American conservative writer said it proved the point she came to make — free speech in Canada leaves much to be desired.
Then she said what she really thought of the student protesters who surrounded the school's Marion Hall, making it too unsafe, in the view of her bodyguard, for the pundit to attempt entry.
"The University of Ottawa is really easy to get into, isn't it?" she said in an interview after the cancelled event. "I never get any trouble at the Ivy League schools. It's always the bush league schools."
Coulter said she has been speaking regularly at university campuses for a decade. While she has certainly been heckled, she said this is the first time an engagement has been cancelled because of protesters.
"This has never, ever, ever happened before — even at the stupidest American university," she said.
Coulter remarked on the reception she has had since entering the country.
"Since I've arrived in Canada, I've been denounced on the floor of Parliament — which, by the way, is on my bucket list — my posters have been banned, I've been accused of committing a crime in a speech that I have not yet given, I was banned by the student council, so welcome to Canada!"
The "accusation" of which Coulter speaks is a reference to an e-mail she received from University of Ottawa vice-president and provost Francois Houle on Friday, warning her that freedom of speech is defined differently in Canada than in the U.S. and that she should take care not to step over the line.
Coulter said that letter set the tone for and encouraged the protesters. She said it's well known on the campus speaking circuit that conservatives need to travel with security staff, as she did.
"I'm pretty sure little Francois A-Houle does not need to travel with a bodyguard," she said. "I would like to know when this sort of violence, this sort of protest, has been inflicted upon a Muslim — who appear to be, from what I've read of the human rights complaints, the only protected group in Canada. I think I'll give my speech tomorrow night in a burka. That will protect me."
Canadian conservative political commentator Ezra Levant, the other speaker travelling with Coulter on the three-city tour, presented by the International Free Press Society of Canada, told the half-filled hall that no more people would be able to enter and that Coulter had been advised it would not be safe for her to appear.
Coulter's bodyguard ultimately made the judgment, after conferring with security staff on site.
In a short speech, Levant said Tuesday was "an embarrassing day for the University of Ottawa and their student body, who could not debate Ann Coulter . . . who chose to silence her through threats and intimidation, just like their vice-president did."
Levant laid the blame squarely on Houle.
"A fish rots from the head down," he said. "Francois Houle got his wish. He telegraphed to the community that the University of Ottawa is not a place for free debate."
Houle could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.
Levant said the spectacle showed "just how eroded our Canadian values of free speech have become" — especially on university campuses.
"I think this has turned into a teaching moment for the entire country, a reminder that freedom of speech is a Canadian value," he said.
Rita Valeriano was one of several protesters inside the hall who, with chants of "Coulter go home!" shouted down the International Free Press Society of Canada organizer who was addressing the crowd.
Valeriano, a 19-year-old sociology and women's studies student, said later that she was happy Coulter was unable to speak the "hatred" she had planned to.
"On campus, we promise our students a safe and positive space," she said. "And that's not what (Coulter) brings."
Outside the hall, Sameena Topan, 26, a conflict studies and human rights major at the U of O, spoke to the Citizen on behalf of a group of protesters.
"We have a large group of students that can very clearly outline the difference between discourse and discrimination," Topan said of the protest. "We wanted to mobilize and make sure that's clear on campus, that there's a line between controversy and discrimination, and Ann Coulter has crossed it. Numerous times."
"We had concerns about (the event) at the beginning, but especially after we saw what happened at the University of Western Ontario, when she called out a Muslim girl there and was saying she needs to take a camel because Muslim people shouldn't fly. That kind of stuff just reaffirmed everything that we were afraid of and that's when . . . we really got worried."
Topan was pleased to hear the students behind her shout, "Hate speech cancelled!" in unison.
"I think that's great. I think we accomplished what we were here to do, to ensure that we don't have her discriminatory rhetoric on our campus," she said.
Jonathan Reid, 18, a Carleton political science student and a fan of Coulter, brought a book to be signed.
During the protest outside after the event was cancelled, Reid and a group of other students shouted a counter-chant, "No more commies on our campus!" while pumping their fists. The Coulter protesters moved forward to face them, and TV crew lights lit angry faces.
"It's a shame," Reid said of the cancellation. "They claim we're the intolerant ones, yet they're the ones who refuse to allow a Conservative speaker to come to campus. That is the definition of intolerance."
U of O political science student Faris Lehn, 23, said he doesn't support Coulter's message, but had hoped for a debate.
"It's too bad she didn't get to speak because I think she would have made herself look more ridiculous than anyone here could have made her look," Lehn said.
"The problem with Ann Coulter . . . is that the arguments that she uses don't necessarily promote good debate, they promote this," he said, glancing at the chanting crowd.
Ottawa Citizen
Martha Coakley: Too Immoral for Teddy Kennedy's Seat
In Tuesday's primary election, Massachusetts Democrats chose as their Senate nominee a woman who kept a clearly innocent man in prison in order to advance her political career.
Martha Coakley isn't even fit for the late Teddy Kennedy's old seat. (What is it about this particular Senate seat?)
During the daycare/child molestation hysteria of the '80s, Gerald Amirault, his mother, Violet, and sister, Cheryl, were accused of raping children at the family's preschool in Malden, Mass., in what came to be known as the second-most notorious witch trial in Massachusetts history.
The allegations against the Amiraults were preposterous on their face. Children made claims of robots abusing them, a "bad clown" who took the children to a "magic room" for sex play, rape with a 2-foot butcher knife, other acts of sodomy with a "magic wand," naked children tied to trees within view of a highway, and -- standard fare in the child abuse hysteria era -- animal sacrifices.
There was not one shred of physical evidence to support the allegations -- no mutilated animals, no magic rooms, no butcher knives, no photographs, no physical signs of any abuse on the children.
Not one parent noticed so much as unusual behavior in their children -- until after the molestation hysteria began.
There were no witnesses to the alleged acts of abuse, despite the continuous and unannounced presence of staff members, teachers, parents and other visitors at the school.
Not one student ever spontaneously claimed to have been abused. Indeed, the allegations of abuse didn't arise until the child therapists arrived.
Nor was there anything in the backgrounds of the Amiraults that fit the profile of sadistic, child-abusing monsters. Violet Amirault had started the Fells Acre Day School 18 years before the child molestation hysteria erupted.
Thousands of happy and well-adjusted students had passed through Fells Acres. Many returned to visit the school; some even attended Cheryl's wedding a few years before the inquisition began.
It's one thing to put a person in prison for a crime he didn't commit. It's another to put an entire family in prison for a crime that didn't take place.
In the most outrageous miscarriage of justice since the Salem witch trials, in July 1986, Gerald Amirault was convicted of raping and assaulting six girls and three boys and sentenced to 30 to 40 years in prison. The following year, Violet and Cheryl Amirault were convicted of raping and assaulting three girls and a boy and were sentenced to 8 to 20 years.
The motto of the witch-hunters was "Believe the Children!" But the therapists resolutely refused to believe the children as long as they denied being abused. As the police advised the parents: In cases of child abuse, "no" can mean "yes."
To the children's credit, they held firm to their denials for heroic amounts of time in the face of relentless questioning.
But as copious research in the wake of the child abuse cases has demonstrated, small children are highly suggestible. It's surprisingly easy to implant false memories into young minds by simply asking the same questions over and over again.
Indeed, the interviewing techniques in the Amirault case were so successful that the children also made accusations against three other teachers, two imaginary people named "Mr. Gatt" and "Al" and even against the child therapist herself -- the one claim of abuse that was provably true.
But only the Amiraults were put on trial for any alleged acts of abuse.
Coakley wasn't the prosecutor on the original trial. What she did was worse.
At least the original prosecutors, craven and ambition-driven though they were, could claim to have been caught up in the child abuse panic of the '80s. There had not yet been extensive psychological studies on the suggestibility of small children. A dozen similar cases from around the country had not already been discredited and the innocent freed.
Of all the men and women falsely convicted during the child molestation hysteria of the '80s, by 2001, only Gerald Amirault still sat in prison. Even his sister and mother had been released after serving eight years in prison for crimes that never occurred.
In July 2001, the notoriously tough Massachusetts parole board voted unanimously to grant Gerald Amirault clemency. Although the parole board is not permitted to consider guilt or innocence, its recommendation said: "(I)t is clearly a matter of public knowledge that, at the minimum, real and substantial doubt exists concerning petitioner's conviction."
Immediately after the board's recommendation, The Boston Globe reported that Gov. Jane Swift was leaning toward accepting the board's recommendation and freeing Amirault.
Enter Martha Coakley, Middlesex district attorney. Gerald Amirault had already spent 15 years in prison for crimes he no more committed than anyone reading this column did. But Coakley put on a full court press to keep Amirault in prison simply to further her political ambitions.
By then, every sentient person knew that Amirault was innocent. But instead of saying nothing, Coakley frantically lobbied Gov. Jane Swift to keep him in prison to show that she was a take-no-prisoners prosecutor, who stood up for "the children." As a result of Coakley's efforts -- and her contagious ambition -- Gov. Swift denied Amirault's clemency.
Thanks to Martha Coakley, Gerald Amirault sat in prison for another three years.
Remember all that talk about President Bush shredding constitutional rights? Overzealous liberal prosecutors and feminist do-gooders allowed Gerald Amirault to sit in prison for 18 years for crimes that didn't exist -- except in the imaginations of small children under the influence of incompetent child "therapists."
Martha Coakley allowed her ambition to trump basic human decency as she campaigned to keep a patently innocent man in prison.
Anyone with the smallest sense of justice cannot vote to put this woman in any office. If you absolutely cannot vote for a Republican on Jan. 19, 2010, write in the name "Gerald Amirault."
As we now know (and by "we" I mean "everyone with access to the Internet"), the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has just been caught ferociously manipulating the data about the Earth's temperature.
Recently leaked e-mails from the "scientists" at CRU show that, when talking among themselves, they forthrightly admit to using a "trick" to "hide the decline" in the Earth's temperature since 1960 -- as one e-mail says. Still another describes their manipulation of the data thus: "[W]e can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!"
Am I just crazy from the heat or were they trying to deceive us?
Global warming cheerleaders in the media were quick to defend the scandalous e-mails, explaining that, among scientists, the words "trick," "hide the decline" and "garbage" do not mean "trick," "hide the decline" and "garbage." These words actually mean "onion soup," "sexual submissive" and "Gary, Ind."
(Boy, it must be great to be able to redefine words right in the middle of a debate.)
Also, of course, the defenders said that the words needed to be placed "in context" -- the words' check was in the mail, and they'd like to spend more time with their families.
I have placed the words in context and it turns out what they mean is: gigantic academic fraud.
The leaked e-mail exchanges also show the vaunted "scientists" engaging in a possibly criminal effort to delete their own smoking-gun e-mails in response to a Freedom of Information request. Next, the fanatics will be telling us that "among scientists," this behavior does not indicate knowledge of guilt.
If I recall correctly, their next move should be to fire the special prosecutor late Saturday night.
These e-mails aren't a tempest in a teapot. They are evidence of pervasive fraud by a massively influential institution that has dominated news coverage of global warming.
CRU was regularly cited as the leading authority on "global climate analysis" -- including by the very news outlets that are burying the current scandal, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. The CRU alone received more than $23 million in taxpayer funds for its work on global warming.
Having claimed to have collected the most complete data on the Earth's temperature for the last half century, the CRU's summary of that data was used by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its 2007 report demanding that we adopt a few modest lifestyle changes, such as abolishing modern technology, reverting to hunter/gatherer status and taxing ourselves into servitude.
But then last weekend -- in the middle of the "Let's Cook the Books!" e-mail scandal -- the CRU said that all its data on the Earth's temperature since 1960 had been irretrievably "lost." (Although I suspect "overcooked" might be a more apt term.)
The way this episode is unfolding, the environmentalists may be forced to drop their phantom threat of global warming and go back to the phantom threat of global cooling.
Most disturbingly, the CRU-affiliated "scientists" were caught red-handed conspiring to kill the careers and reputations of scientists who dissented from the religion of global warming. Indignant that scientific journals were publishing papers skeptical of global warming, the cult members plotted to get editors ousted and the publications discredited.
This sabotage of global warming dissenters may be more galling than their manipulation of the data. Until now, the global warming cult's sole argument has been to demand that everyone shut up in response to the "scientific consensus" that human activity was causing global warming.
That's their idea of a free and open debate.
It's always the same thing with primitive people -- voodoo practitioners, rain dancers and liberals. In lieu of facts, debate and a weighing of the evidence, religious fanatics respond to all counterarguments by invoking a higher authority: the witch doctor, a "scientific consensus," "the Constitution" or "historians are agreed."
Liberals won't tell us why Congress passed a law outlawing incandescent lightbulbs by 2014 -- a bill solemnly delivered to the president in a Prius hybrid (making it the slowest-moving bill in U.S. history). Instead, they tell us there's a "scientific consensus" that we have to use fluorescent lightbulbs or we'll all die.
They won't tell us why Ten Commandments monuments must be stripped from every public space in America. Instead, they tell us "the Constitution" says so (according to the high priests who interpret it to mean things the document doesn't remotely say).
They won't tell us what Sen. Joe McCarthy lied about. They say: Historians are agreed that McCarthy was a liar. (These are the same historians who also stated as fact that "few American Communists were spies" -- until decrypted Soviet cables proved that the Communist Party was awash with Soviet spies.)
This is precisely what liberals accuse Christians of doing, but which Christians never do. We don't cite the Bible as authority -- and then refuse to let anyone read it. We certainly don't claim to have "lost" it, so you can't check for yourself. But that's exactly what the CRU has done with its secret data allegedly showing a warming Earth.
Also, biblical data on the great flood and Noah's ark have held up remarkably well.
Even if the Earth were warming -- which apparently it is not -- the idea that humans using energy-efficient lightbulbs would alter the temperature of the globe is approximately as plausible as the Aztecs' belief that they were required to wrench the beating heart out of living, breathing humans in order to keep the sun on its path.
Sadly, the "human sacrifice deniers" lost the argument to Aztec CRU scientists, who explained that there was a "scientific consensus" on the benefits of ritual murder.
But at least the Aztecs only slaughtered tens of thousands of humans in the name of "climate change." The global warming cultists want us all dead.
It cannot be said often enough that the chief of staff of the United States Army, Gen. George Casey, responded to a massacre of 13 Americans in which the suspect is a Muslim by saying: "Our diversity ... is a strength."
As long as the general has brought it up: Never in recorded history has diversity been anything but a problem. Look at Ireland with its Protestant and Catholic populations, Canada with its French and English populations, Israel with its Jewish and Palestinian populations.
Or consider the warring factions in India, Sri Lanka, China, Iraq, Czechoslovakia (until it happily split up), the Balkans and Chechnya. Also look at the festering hotbeds of tribal warfare -- I mean the beautiful mosaics -- in Third World hellholes like Afghanistan, Rwanda and South Central, L.A.
"Diversity" is a difficulty to be overcome, not an advantage to be sought. True, America does a better job than most at accommodating a diverse population. We also do a better job at curing cancer and containing pollution. But no one goes around mindlessly exclaiming: "Cancer is a strength!" "Pollution is our greatest asset!"
By contrast, the canard "diversity is a strength" has now replaced "at the end of the day," "skin in the game," "blood and treasure," "jumped the shark," "boots on the ground," "horrific" (whatever happened to the perfectly good word "horrible"?), "not so much," "I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here," and "that went well," as America's most irritating cliche.
We should start making up other nonsense mantras along the lines of "diversity is a strength" and mindlessly repeating them until they catch on, too.
Next time you're at a cocktail party, just start saying, "Chocolate pudding is dramatic irony" from time to time. Eventually other people will start saying it, without anyone bothering to consider whether it makes sense. Then we'll do another one: "Nicolas Cage is a two-cycle engine."
Before you know it, liberals will react to news of a mass murder by muttering, "Well, you know what they say: Nicolas Cage is a two-cycle engine," while everyone nods in agreement.
Except mere nonsense makes more sense than "diversity is a strength."
If Gen. Casey's wildly inappropriate use of this lunatic cliche in the aftermath of the Fort Hood massacre doesn't kill it, nothing will.
Among the worst aspects of America's "diversity" is that liberals' reaction to a heterogeneous population is to create a pecking order based on alleged victimhood -- as described in electrifying detail in my book, Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America.
In modern America, the guilty are sanctified, while the innocent never stop paying -- including with their lives, as they did at Fort Hood last week. Points are awarded to aspiring victims for angry self-righteousness, acts of violence and general unpleasantness.
But liberals celebrate diversity only in the case of superficial characteristics like race, gender, sexual preference and country of origin. They reject diversity when we need it, such as in "diversity" of legal forums.
After conferring with everyone at Zabar's, Obama decided that if a standard civilian trial is good enough for Martha Stewart, then it's good enough for the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. So Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is coming to New York!
Mohammed's military tribunal was already under way when Obama came into office, stopped the proceedings and, eight months later, announced that Mohammed would be tried in a federal court in New York.
In a liberal's reckoning, diversity is good when we have both Muslim jihadists and patriotic Americans serving in the U.S. military. But diversity is bad when Martha Stewart and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are subjected to different legal tribunals to adjudicate their transgressions.
Terrorists tried in civilian courts will be entitled to the whole panoply of legal protections accorded Stewart or any American charged with a crime, such as the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair trial, the right to exclude evidence obtained in violation of Miranda rights, the right to a speedy trial, the right to confront one's accusers, the right to a change of venue, the right to examine the evidence against you, and the right to subpoena witnesses and evidence in one's defense.
Members of Congress have it in their power to put an end to this lunacy right now. If they don't, they are as complicit in Mohammed's civilian trial as the president. Article I, Section 8, and Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution give Congress the power to establish the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts and to create exceptions to that jurisdiction.
Congress could pass a statute limiting federal court jurisdiction to individuals not subject to trial before a military tribunal. Any legislator who votes "nay" on a such a bill will be voting to give foreign terrorists the same legal rights as U.S. citizens -- and more legal rights than members of the U.S. military are entitled to.
In the case of legal proceedings, diversity actually is a strength.
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First Posted: 08-18-10 10:35 AM | Updated: 08-18-10 02:13 PM