Thomas Moore Law Center Files Suit Over Imagined Attacks On Right

Last week many conservatives tried to fuel their conspiracy theories that Obama wants to suppress conservative speech based upon a report on right wing extremism that was declassified by the Department of Homeland Security. They ignored the facts that 1) the report only dealt with those who promote violence and not mainstream conservative speech, 2) there was also a report on left wing extremism, 3) the report was to provide situational awareness and did not promote taking action against any individuals 4) the report had been prepared by a Bush-appointee. This has now been taken to a new level of nuttiness. The far right Thomas Moore Law Center is filing suit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano over this report.

Napolitano discussed the report on CNN’s State of the Union. I previously posted Napolitano’s response to the report here.

The Thomas Moore Law Center has often championed causes of the far right including opposing abortion rights and opposing separation of church and state. The center has supported the teaching of creationism/intelligent design  in cases including the Dover case.

Even some on the right realize how absurd this is. Little Green Footballs predicts, “This ridiculous publicity stunt will be tossed out with the first motion to dismiss.”

Antartic Ice Growing–But Only Temporarily

Yesterday Fox had a story entitled Report: Antarctic Ice Growing, Not Shrinking. Conservative bloggers jumped onto this story as evidence against the scientific consensus on climate change. While it would be great news if the problem had disappeared, as usual information from Fox only tells part of the story. New Scientist explains:

It’s the southern ozone hole whatdunit. That’s why Antarctic sea ice is growing while at the other pole, Arctic ice is shrinking at record rates. It seems CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals have given the South Pole respite from global warming.

But only temporarily. According to John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey, the effect will last roughly another decade before Antarctic sea ice starts to decline as well.

Arctic sea ice is decreasing dramatically and reached a record low in 2007. But satellite images studied by Turner and his colleagues show that Antarctic sea ice is increasing in every month of the year expect January. “By the end of the century we expect one third of Antarctic sea ice to disappear,” says Turner. “So we’re trying to understand why it’s increasing now, at a time of global warming.”

There is considerably more information in the rest of the article. They also note, “Earlier this year, research led by Eric Steig of the University of Washington, Seattle showed that although the Antarctic continent as a whole has warmed by 0.5°C in the last 50 years – on a par with the global average – the figure hides strong regional differences.”

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The White House Press Corps

Anna Marie Cox is critical of the White House press corps, describing the White House briefing room as “where news goes to die.”

Name a major political story broken by a White House correspondent. A thorough debunking of the Bush case for Iraqi WMD? McClatchy Newspapers’ State Department and national security correspondents. Bush’s abuse of signing statements? The Boston Globe’s legal affairs correspondent. Even Watergate came off The Washington Post’s Metro desk.

While the real news on Watergate came far more from journalists like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, at least White House correspondents such as Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw did put some pressure on Richard Nixon. Watching the softball coverage of George Bush in recent years was very disappointing when compared with these White House correspondents of the Watergate era.