After His Climate Denial Machine Is Exposed, Marc Morano Will Leave Senate Post

[Viking12]

While The Wonkroom may be overstating their role in the passing of Morano, it's good to see this paid liar off the federal payroll.

A top aide for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) will be leaving his Senate post after a Wonk Room investigation revealed how he coordinates the right-wing climate denial machine. Marc Morano, Inhofe’s environmental communications director, joined the Senate in 2006 to promote Sen. Inhofe’s denial of manmade global warming via the Drudge Report and other right-wing outlets. E&E News reports that Morano will return to the conservative media network as a blogger for Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).

-- Snip-

Morano joined the Senate, with a $134,000 a year salary, from the rightwing website Cybercast News Service (CNS), where he launched the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) in 2004 and attacked the war record of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) in 2006. Morano was Rush Limbaugh’s “Man in Washington” in the 1990s. Limbaugh, of course, still promotes global warming denial.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/03/06/morano-leaves-inhofe/

[phantom power]

1. Climate science community responds: "New lexus models -- all around!"

:rofl:

[starroute]

2. Oh, this guy

http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2007/morano.html

Lies, Conservatives and Statistics: Marc Morano's Fantasy
The former CNS reporter, now flacking for a conservative senator, peddles transparently bogus numbers about funding of global warming -- and the ConWeb eats 'em up.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 8/23/2007

Marc Morano has become one of the leading conservative figures speaking out against the idea of global warming -- at least, the idea that oil companies, mining firms, etc., should not be held accountable for making products that contribute to global warming. Morano is a former reporter for CNSNews.com, where he most notoriously co-authored an attack on Democratic Rep. John Murtha -- rehashing old scandals and suggesting that he didn't earn his Vietnam War medals -- that relied almost exclusively on sources who were dead, incapacitated or defeated political opponents of Murtha. (For such efforts, ConWebWatch awarded Morano a Slantie Award for career achievement in conservative media bias.)

While at CNS, Morano served as a willing amplifer of attacks on NASA global warming scientist James Hansen by George Deutsch, a former NASA press aide accused of censoring Hansen. (Deutsch was forced out of his job after it was revealed that he had not, as he had claimed on his resumé, graduated from college.) In an April 2006 article, Morano allowed Deutsch to spin away his dismissal and erroneous resumé claim ("I had more credits than are required to graduate, but I needed one math class"), as well as repeating "agency internal documents and e-mails" supplied by Deutsch purportedly "detailing the frustration among NASA public affairs officials over Hansen's refusal to follow protocol when it came to granting media interviews," Morano reported. Nowhere in the article did Morano explain under what authority an ex-NASA employee has to release internal NASA documents for the sole purpose of attacking a current NASA employee.

Morano also unquestioningly repeated Deutsch's claim regarding his instistence while at NASA that the word "theory" be attached to "big bang": "Deutsch said he was simply making recommendations to comply with Associated Press style." But as Deutsch himself wrote in a memo (unmentioned by Morano), it was about a lot more than style. As the New York Times reported, Deutsch claimed that the Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion," Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator."

This article, apparently, was a tryout for Morano's next gig. Shortly after it was published, he left CNS to join the press office of Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, then-chairman of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee (with the loss of Senate control to the Democrats, Inhofe is now ranking minority member). Inhofe claimed in 2003 that global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

[starroute]

3. And CFACT seems to be tied in with NCPPR

You all remember NCPPR, right -- the sleazy group run by an old associate of Jack Abramoff's which reliably provided propaganda pieces for Abramoff's clients and was the nominal sponsor of several of his oversees junkets. (That's when they weren't conning little old ladies out of their life savings, which is how we first became aware of them here at DU back in 2004.)

A little quick googling on the "Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow" keeps bringing its name up in connection with NCPPR.

Here's a 1995 item from NCPPR's newsletter concerning activities at its recent "Environmental Policy Task Force Meeting":

http://www.nationalcenter.org/ScoopIss103.html

Craig Rucker of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow discussed the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), an official arm of the U.S. Congress, which, he said, remains staffed by liberal environmentalists held over from Democrat years. Rucker explained that the old staff was not replaced because the GOP was going to abolish the OTA, but as that decision has been reversed it is now time to appoint new staff.

Here they are jointly presenting an award in 2000:

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=25

27 September, 2000
In 2000, The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the National Center for Public Policy Research awarded Congressman Helen Chenoweth- Hage (R-ID) the new "Friend of American Freedom Award" for her support of private property rights.

And here they are working together in 2006:

http://www.cne.org/pub_pdf/monatsmag/2006_12_00_CNE_Monatsmagazin_eng.htm

CNE Monatsmagazin Digest
December 2006

The National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) are distributing "Kyoto Protocol Survival Kits" at the United Nations Global Warming Conference in Nairobi. The kits contain several examples of technologies that, while impractical, would be considered "Kyoto-friendly" because they produce minimal greenhouse gas emissions, like a balsa wood airplane that represents "Kyoto Airlines".

It seems like this might be something worth looking into. NCPPR has been known to work through front groups, and the relationship here has gone on too long to be merely casual.

[Canuckistanian]

4. You see? It's just a small group of people

The only thing that changes is their "cause du jour".

And yet, they manage to grab the national spotlight, time after time. I wonder how they do that?

If this is the same guy, Thom Hartmann used to have him regularly on his show. I used to scream at the radio at the misleading statements and outright lies he used to tell.

[Viking12]

5. Related: "How Drudge Pumps The Marc Morano Jokers"

Recently, the Wonk Room unmasked the fifty-two men who work with Marc Morano, the environmental communications director for Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), to obfuscate the threat and deny the scientific consensus of man-made global warming. This core network of conspiracy theorists and right-wing media operatives generate stories for broadcast by the conservative media network, from Glenn Beck to George Will. But one other man is especially responsible for getting their work out — Matt Drudge. Drudge is a masterful editor, countering real headlines of the climate crisis with tales of “global cooling” and scientific skepticism.

As it turns out, practically every single one the Drudge Report’s headlines of climate misinformation uses a story constructed by Morano’s minions, as the following review of recent Drudge Report headlines reveals:...

(see link for the exciting conclusion)

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/02/19/drudge-morano-jokers/

OK, so the 'exciting conclusion' is actually quite predictable but it explains the climate-denier circle jerk pretty well.

[Canuckistanian]

6. Thanks

There's also a link to to a youtube 1982 video showing remarkable similarities to the anti-cancer tobacco deniers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn8RFLZyr-o

Same tactics, remarkably similar language.

[Viking12]

7. You're welcome. Here's another video demonstrating the relationship between tobacco-climate deniers

Featuring Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science, it's an hour long but extremely insightful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio