Attention scientists: Don't mess with Wall Street or Big Oil. Their puppet President, Dr. Kidglove, will gitcha.
Latest example (from the Guardian, UK, not one of our lap-puppy media): the scientist who first warned of the threat to polar bears in a warming Arctic has been suspended and his work put under official investigation for scientific misconduct.
Charles Monnett, a wildlife biologist, oversaw much of the scientific work for the government agency that has been examining drilling in the Arctic. His misconduct: writing the truth.
"You have to wonder: this is the guy in charge of all the science in the Arctic and he is being suspended just now as an arm of the interior department is getting ready to make its decision on offshore drilling in the Arctic seas," said Jeff Ruch, president of the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. "This is a cautionary tale with a deeply chilling message for any federal scientist who dares to publish groundbreaking research on conditions in the Arctic."
After accidentally discovering the bodies of four dead polar bears seven years ago, Monnet did further research. He and a colleague wrote in the scientific journal Polar Biology, "Drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open water periods continues."
Planet-raping oil companies, which want to drill in the pristine environment of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, have been bitching to their Oval Office puppet about delays caused by environmental reviews. This month Obama issued an order to speed up Arctic drilling permits.
Monnett's wife, Lisa Rotterman, a fellow scientist who worked with Monnett for years, said the effort to silence him came as no surprise. The government has bedeviled him before for speaking the truth about what his science showed. She said his 2006 article wasn't framed in the context of climate change but was relevant to the topic."I don't believe the timing is coincidental," she said.
Earlier this year, other truth-tellers got the axe:
Carlos Pascual, a veteran diplomat who had been U.S. ambassador to Mexico since 2009, was forced to resign recently because of leaked embassy cables that bluntly described the shortcomings of Mexico's efforts to control its drug cartels.
His criticism was absolutely true, as anyone who lives close to the border can attest. The cables were in the trove of material passed by WikiLeaks to certain news media.
P.J. Crowley, the State Department media spokesman, told an audience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that the military treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning was "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid." This is absolutely true.
Manning, who is accused of giving documents to WikiLeaks, suffered torture and naked humiliation at a military brig before being transferred to a civilian federal prison.
President Obama fired Crowley.
Vivian Schiller was forced out as CEO of National Public Radio -- one of the last bastions of occasional truth in American media today -- because some slimeball wing nut came up with another entrapment video. This one captured Ron Schiller -- an NPR executive who is not related to Vivian Schiller -- describing the so-called Tea Party movement as "racist" and "xenophobic." Anyone who is not utterly deluded by Frank Luntz-Heritage Foundation bovine excrement knows that these terms are perfectly apt descriptors.
Oh, what the hell. Once the Republicans plunge the country into default there won't BE any scientific research to stifle.
"Don't tell Momma I'm a journalist; say I play the piano in a whorehouse."
