Tag Archives: Emails

Thwarting another attack on climate science, Michael Mann releases his own emails

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You’ve heard about the “scientific method.” If your memory is excellent, and you took a lot of science classes in American schools, you learned two of them, because life science textbooks and physical science textbooks teach somewhat different concepts called “scientific method.” If you study the history of science, even at a superficial level, or do actual science, you will find that the “scientific method” you learned in high school, the very same “scientific method” people who either love or hate science, but are not scientists, and talk a lot about science, incessantly refer to, is not what scientists actually do. Neither the procedures for developing a study nor the inferential process of advancing understanding follow this method, or at least, not very often. Doing science is much more haphazard and opportunistic, nuanced and visceral, much less clean and predictable. Like the famous physicist once said, “The scientific method; that is what I fall back on when I can’t think of anything else do to.”

But there is one thing that is found common to most scientific endeavors, and without this thing science would not progress very quickly or very far: Continue reading Thwarting another attack on climate science, Michael Mann releases his own emails →

The Real Fake Reason Trump Fired Comey: Lock her up

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As you know, President Trump sacked FBI Director James Comey yesterday. The firing involved a letter written by Rod Rosenstein, deputy attorney general, complaining about Comey, to Jeff Sessons. (The three relevant letters by Rosenstein, Sessons, and Trump are here.)

Jeff Sessons had recused himself of matters related to the Russia-Trump Scandal, so it was necessary for the DOJ and White House to make up a reason Comey was being fired, apparently, and that letter from Rosenstein included the excuse.

In the letter, Rosenstein said, “The Director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General’s authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution…”

This is the announcement that ended the Clinton email investigation.

Let me rephrase this. Sessons agreed with Rosenstein’s recommendation, and Trump with Sessons, to fire Comey because Comey had stopped the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email issues without prosecution.

The reason I mention this now is that to this moment, I’ve not seen a single news reporter, facebook commenter, or any one else get this right. At best the Clinton email connection is left vague, but at worse, people are noting how remarkable it is, and how unbelievable it is, that the Trump administration would use the OTHER THING Comey did about Clinton, the more recent momentary re-opening of the investigation thought by many to be a violation of the Hatch Act, as the excuse Trump is using. That is not the case.

Rather, it looks like this: Trump promised during his campaign to jail his opponent. Now, Trump has fired the FBI director for not taking steps to do so.

I am astonished that this has not been noticed, apparently, not yet, by the media.

I acknowledge that this is likely all a lame excuse, and that most people believe that Trump has fired Comey because the FBI was “getting close” to the White House, or to something, in its investigation of the Russia-Trump scandal. Fine. But the alt-Excuse, assuming it is fake excuse, is still important because top level federal officials including the President have now created policy. That policy is, the next FBI director will only be serving the administration’s needs if they pursue or attempt to pursue a criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton. And, again, I note, that “Lock her up!” was a campaign promise of Trump’s.

So, this is not unimportant.