THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 223, October 25, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
CALL ME FORMER SENATOR BARBARA BOXER:
Just Don't Call Me "Ma'am" or Suggest We
Need Honest, Accurate Climate Science
By Martha Montelongo
THE POLITICAL MISSION OF BARBARA BOXER, LEFTWING LIBERAL DEMOCRAT & U.S. SENATOR FROM CALIFORNIA:
ESTABLISH CENTRALIZED GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL & DIRECTION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY & OF THE
OPPORTUNITIES & LIVES OF AMERICANS; REPLACE AMERICA'S ENERGY SYSTEM & FREE MARKET ECONOMY WITH A
STATIST OR SOCIALIST SYSTEM; REPLACE HYDROCARBON ENERGY, & THE TENS OF MILLIONS OF JOBS IT SUSTAINS, WITH
"GREEN" JOBS CREATED BY USING TAXPAYERS' MONEY TO SUBSIDIZE FAVORED COMPANIES & MINORITY GROUPS THAT
WILL HELP ENSURE THAT LEFTWING LIBERAL POLITICIANS ARE REELECTED IN PERPETUITY. CAN AMERICANS
REALLY AFFORD ANOTHER SIX YEARS OF BARBARA BOXER IN THE U.S. SENATE? WHAT SHOULD CALIFORNIA
VOTERS DO WHEN THEY GO TO THE POLLS ON NOVEMBER 2, 2010?
FULL STORY:
Who can forget California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer’s put-down of Brigadier General Michael Walsh, during a
June, 2009, U.S. Senate committee hearing? When he addressed her as “Ma’am,” in answering a question about the
New Orleans levee system, she petulantly interrupted: “Could you say Senator, instead of Ma’am? I worked so hard
to get that title, so I’d appreciate it.”
“Ma’am” is a term of respect given by military personnel to superior female officers. So she’s right. She didn’t deserve
it. Her behavior was once again disrespectful, arrogant, condescending – and a disgrace to a Congress whose public
esteem is deservedly at a record low.
As Californians head to the polls on November 2, 2010, they should ponder very carefully whether they really want,
and can really afford, another six years of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer.
The Golden State’s junior senator has long been dismissive of anyone who dares to disagree with her, no matter what
experience, expertise, or evidence they might bring to a Senate proceeding. She epitomizes the overbearing attitude of
the power elite, the ruling class that thinks it knows more than we do, is better than us, and is in Washington not to
serve or represent us, but to rule us.
In 2005, the late Dr. Michael Crichton testified before the same Senate Environment and Public Works Committee,
stressing the need for sound science and above-reproach analysis in making laws and public policies. He offered not
his well-deserved reputation as an author and filmmaker – but his expertise as a Harvard-educated physician and
medical researcher.
Dr. Crichton expressed his growing concern that science is being politicized, misused, and abused to advance an
unproven global warming hypothesis, and justify policies that will adversely affect our energy supplies, jobs, living
standards, and liberties. Those policies will also give Washington politicians and bureaucrats unprecedented power
and control over our lives.
Science, he emphasized, relies on “independent verification.” A scientific hypothesis or assertion “is valid and merits
acceptance, only if it can be independently verified.” The Food and Drug Administration, he noted, has strict rules
governing the conduct of drug research in order to ensure honesty and integrity and to protect the public’s health
and welfare. The gold standard is randomized double-blind studies that involve four separate teams: one plans the
study, another administers the drug to patients, an third assesses its effects, and a fourth analyzes the results.
“The teams do not know each other, he observed, “and are prohibited from personal contact of any sort, on peril of
contaminating the results.” Deviate from those rules, and your $100-million study will be declared null and void. But,
in climate “research,” every one of these rules is routinely and deliberately violated, to further an agenda that will
affect, not just a company or small group of patients, but every single American business, citizen, and community.
In climate science, Dr. Crichton pointed out, “it is permissible for raw data to be modified by many hands. Gaps in
temperature and proxy records are filled in. Suspect values are deleted because a scientist deems them erroneous”
-- or inconvenient. Researchers “may elect to use parts of existing records, and ignore other parts.” Peer review “by
pals” is unavoidably biased,” but commonplace in the climate arena. Predictions are treated as facts.
Crichton singled out Penn State University Professor Michael Mann and his infamous “hockey stick” temperature
graph as a prime example of this unacceptable, politicized science. That’s because the hearing preceded Climategate
and its revelations that Mann and other researchers hid data, as well as the IPCC’s use of student papers and
environmentalist press releases as “peer-reviewed science.”
Meteorologist and hurricane expert William Gray followed Dr. Crichton, emphasizing that computer models are not
valid predictive tools. They don’t factor in precipitation, ocean circulation or solar effects properly, and their
predictions have been totally out of synch with real world temperature and storm data.
Dr. Gray challenged the notion that carbon dioxide is driving climate change, and noted that Earth has been through
countless climate cycles, none of them caused by humans. He rejected Senator Boxer’s claim that there is no
disagreement “among the real experts” that humans are causing unprecedented warming, and thus the intensity and
frequency of storms.
Dr. Gray also questioned the impartiality and expertise of Senator Boxer's favorite “real expert,” astronomer James
Hansen, who repeatedly rails about “runaway” global warming and “death trains” carrying coal to power plants. Gray
also predicted, “in 15 or 20 years, we are going to look back on this whole business [of man-made climate disasters] as
the Eugenics movement.”
The junior senator went on a tear, firing off prosecutorial questions, interrupting every response – then pouting, “I
am asking you something, I still don’t have an answer.” She attacked Dr. Gray for not having enough climate papers
peer reviewed by processes and people that systematically refuse to review or publish them. She blasted Crichton
and Gray for not being climate change experts – but accepted without question statements by a Brookings
Institution lawyer with no training in any branch of science. The “few dissenters” to her global warming disaster
claims, she harrumphed, are funded by oil and coal companies.
Last year she did it again. National Black Chamber of Commerce CEO Harry Alford had introduced an expert study
his organization had commissioned, concluding that cap-tax-and-trade legislation would result in 1.3 million fewer net
jobs, increase energy and consumer costs and hurt minority families, despite any "green" jobs supposedly created
through massive taxpayer subsidies. Boxer wouldn’t hear it.
She presented two letters that supposedly contradicted Alford’s study, by making meaningless claims about global
warming and renewable energy. The NAACP “approved a historic resolution addressing climate change legislation,”
said one. “Clean energy will unlock millions of jobs, and NAACP support is vital to ensuring that these jobs help
rebuild urban areas,” said the other.
“What does that mean?” Alford wanted to know. “You’re trying to put up another black group to contradict me.”
These people “would be proud” that they were being quoted in this committee hearing, Boxer retorted in her most
imperious and condescending tone.
When he responded to her accusation that he wasn’t from California – noting that he was born and raised there and
still owns property in the state – she stopped him with a testy “Let me talk to you.” (In other words, “Don’t get
uppity with me.”)
Barbara Boxer is on a mission. She intends to control our economy, opportunities, and lives. It is her intention to
put the U.S. national government in charge of an American energy and free enterprise system that created more
health, opportunity, and prosperity for more people than any other system in history. And she is determined to
replace hydrocarbon energy -- and the tens of millions of jobs it sustains -- with “green” jobs created by using
money confiscated from families, businesses, and our grandchildren to subsidize favored companies and minority
groups that will help ensure that Liberal politicians are reelected in perpetuity.
She is not about to let some uppity black man, contrary economic analysis, or “fake” experts like William Gray and
Michael Crichton derail her scheme. No wonder the Left-leaning San Francisco Chronicle dis-endorsed her,
saying: “Her most famous moments on Capitol Hill have ... been ones of ... delivering partisan shots. There is no
reason to believe that another six-year term would bring anything but more of the same uninspired representation.”
On November 3, let’s call her former Senator Barbara Boxer.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Politics, Political Competition, & the Control of
Public Policy: Elections, Political Parties, Political Factions,
Ideologies, Special Interest Groups, & Political Corruption
American Government & the U.S. Congress:
Congressional Legislative Politics & National Public Policy
The American Political System:
Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
The American Political & Cultural Left:
Liberals, Statists, Socialists, Marxists, & Other Leftists:
The Democratic Party, Academia, & the Mainstream Media
Martha Montelongo is a writer and radio commentator. She has been the host on "Make Sense with Martha," "Straight
Talk with Martha," and Cable Radio Network’s Digital Talk Radio Network. Visit her website at MarthaMontelongo.com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity