Bob Park’s weekly newsletter gives the story sharply and succinctly (August 6 edition):
WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 6 Aug 09 Washington, DC
CLIMATE: LETTERS TO CONGRESS ARE EXPOSED AS “ASTROTURF”.
They look like a grass-roots campaign, but they’re fakes. The letters purported to be from registered nonprofit groups. Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), a sponsor of the climate bill, has begun an inquiry into whether the fake letters amount to fraud. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity disavowed the scurrilous tactic and said it was considering legal action against the Hawthorne Group, a firm it paid to make the climate bill disappear. Hawthorne, however, is only a contractor. It hired Bonner and Associates to make the hit. The founder of the firm, Jack Bonner, laid the blame squarely on a wayward employee who has since been fired. Thus was the purity of the legislative process restored. But why had this employee taken it upon himself to do such a thing? A lowly temp, he was paid according to the number of fraudulent letters he sent to congressional offices. And nobody supervised his work?
Dr. Park offered facts only, no links.
Let me help you out. But a word of warning: This campaign against Al Gore and serious science is really, really sleazy.
- Daily Progress (in Charlottesville, Virginia) reported on letters forged by opponents of the Markey-Waxman bill; climate change “skeptics” had hired a public relations firm that used the names of real minority advocacy organizations in Charlottesville, Virginia — including the NAACP. In one case the forged letters invented people and positions at the organization that do not exist (vapor turf).
- A blog of The Wall Street Journal reported the fraud
- The Washington Post confirmed the reports, and discovered at least six more forged letters, and maybe as many as 47, written on behest of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), an anti-climate change prevention group representing coal mining companies — ACCCE disavowed the letters. ACCCE had hired a lobbying firm, the Hawthorn Group, which had hired Jack Bonner. You can view the forged letter from the NAACP in a .pdf, here; and the forged letter from the Charlottesville Hispanic advocacy group here.
- The New York Times carried an Associated Press story on the affair
- A blog at Congressional Quarterly (CQ) makes a defense of Bonner’s reputation as the “discoverer” of the fraud (I’m not sure that’s an accurate description)
- Mother Jones detailed the history of Jack Bonner’s other Astroturf campaigns, suggesting Bonner may not be the innocent bystander he claims to be; also see this 1997 story that reports in more detail on Bonner’s tactics
- A report at American Prospect suggests that the campaign may have been much more widespread, and that it involved probably-illegal forging of fax identities, too
- Think Progress wonders if Bonner was really the victim — see also the note from the NAACP in this piece
Who can you trust? It’s clear that we can’t trust claims from climate change sceptics and denialists, especially when they claim “thousands” of scientists and “thousands” of citizens oppose laws to mitigate the damage from climate change.
Please help spread accurate science reporting; tell friends about this post:
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Poe on Hattip
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Hattip,
Does that mean that 90% of what comes out of right wingers mouths, such as you, are put there by
Fascist/Nazi front organizations, KKK, etc?
No, Hattip, it is you that needs to wake up and grow up. You’re the one letting blind hatred cloud your judgement.
You render anything you say meaningless everytime you spout that “Communist/Marxist” nonsense. Because all it means is that you’ve turned off your brain and are letting others speak through you.
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Democrats don’t do this all the time. Republicans don’t do this all the time.
If the facts were on the side of these businesses, why would they hire a company like Bonner’s?
This is one more indication of the fact poverty on the “don’t like to clean up the air” side. Were there good arguments to oppose science with, those arguments would be made (by scientists).
I learned shame working for Republicans. That’s why I’m a Democrat. Hattip, you would do well to do some research from time to time, before dispensing more information than you have.
If you have children, or hope to, and if we continue to do nothing, they will curse you as they fry. We faced similar problems in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. We faced up to the problems, passed the Clean Air Act, passed the Clean Water Act, passed the Superfund bill, and generally got about cleaning things.
The only thing that prevents us from fighting garbage now is the will. Don’t do it to avoid your children’s detesting you — that never works. Do it because you love them. If you do.
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Oh and climate change is a fraud. It is just andither Marxist grab at power and the purse. People like you that either wittingly or unwittly aid them in their quest to impoverish Americans and blight their political and economic freedoms should be ashamed of themselves.
You being a Democrat, however, know no shame. If you have children, and this monstrosity goes through, you bear a direct responsibility in the darkness of their future. In time they will come to detest you, of this I am sure.
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What nonsense. What a hypocrite you are. The Democrat do this stuff all the time. They have been doing it for 60 years. 90% of what come out of the left wingers mouth are put there by Communist front organizations, Labor Unions, etc.
You need to wake up (and grow up) a bit.
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