[This article now cross-published by Salon...]

Every few months, when climate change deniers decide they've come up with an all-new reason to convince themselves that global warming is all a big hoax, we like to take a look at whatever the latest scam is that they are propagating, either because they are part of the effort to help out the fossil fuel industry, or simply because they enjoy being their brainwashed and/or incurious little tools.

Back in 2013 these stooges were promoting the phony notion that "Arctic ice has grown to a record level!" It hadn't. After that debacle, they claimed UN scientists had found their predictions of warming were off by 50 percent or more. They weren't. More recently, they were pushing the false claim that the globe has been cooling ever since 1998. It hasn't been. And, of course, when all else failed, they could always fall back on their old standby: weaning ourselves from dangerous fossil fuels won't make any difference anyway because China would never do the same. But, of course, China is now doing so at a rate that should embarrass these jackasses. But it won't. Because they are never embarrassed about being wrong.

So, with 2014 recently clocking in as the hottest year for the planet on record, according to every major world agency that measures such things, and with 13 of the hottest years on record all falling within the past 15 years, these clowns are getting pretty desperate for something --- anything --- to use to keep the denialist scam going on behalf of the most profitable industry in the history of civilization.

The latest such scam, helpfully propagated on several Fox "News" shows last week, is that the so-called "scientists" have been caught red-handed in the act of "lying" about raw temperature data! That's right! They have been manipulating the data to exaggerate the extent of global warming!

Except, of course, they haven't, and they aren't...

There's a reason why we always refer to Fox "News" here with quotes around that second word. Simply put, they're not a news outlet, they're a Republican propaganda outlet. That's fine, but it ain't news. Looks like the White House may have finally developed their own quiet version of that, as noted by Shepard Smith following his pre-SOTU luncheon at the White House last week...

In 2009, the White House took a bunch of push-back (and largely folded to it), when their Communications Director at the time told CNN: "What I think is fair to say about Fox --- and certainly it's the way we view it --- is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party. They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that's fine. But let's not pretend they're a news network the way CNN is."

They were right (correct, I mean, if not necessarily politically wise), in calling out Fox back then for what they are, even as they publicly backed off the accurate assertion in the face of the usual outrage --- OUTRAGE! --- from the Fox "News" Stooge Brigade. They are no less correct now in dropping the word "News" when referring to Fox...even if it wasn't necessarily meant as a slight in this case. It just happens to be true. Sorry, Shep.

[Hat-tip Blue Nation Review & @JillEBond on the Twitters.]

Sean Hannity and his friends on the Republican right must be furious about the outrageous land grab happening to private American citizens in Nebraska. Wait, what? He's in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline project anyway? How could that be?

The pipeline's owner, TransCanada Corp., has now filed an eminent domain action in a Nebraska state court seeking to force private landowners to grant an easement that would permit the Canadian-owned company to erect sections of the highly controversial Keystone XL on privately owned land.

The new filing comes on the heels of a controversial decision earlier this month in which a 3-judge minority of the 7-judge Nebraska Supreme Court were permitted to overturn a lower court ruling that the process by which the state's Republican Governor Dave Heineman permitted TransCanada to revise the pipeline's route was unconstitutional. Heineman's decision was upheld because of a Cornhusker state requirement that state constitutionality be determined by a super-majority of high court's justices. (The new route was necessary after both the Republican Governor and GOP-controlled state legislature objected to the originally-planned route.)

While the Nebraska Supreme Court's decision at the time served to shift the immediate focus of the debate back to Washington D.C., where the Republican-controlled House voted for fast-track approval of the pipeline and a similar bill is quickly working its way through the newly GOP-controlled U.S. Senate, TransCanada's eminent domain filing in the state may prove a major embarrassment to those same elected Republicans. Many of those same GOPers, and their mouthpieces in the media like Hannity, have previously declared fierce opposition to eminent domain abuse that occurs when either state or local entities condemn properties owned by ordinary citizens, where such condemnations primarily benefit commercial interests of wealthy corporations and developers...

It's been a rough year for the fossil fuel-funded climate change denial industry. First, their long-loved China canard fell apart. The dupes working (either paid or unpaid) for the industry had long insisted that greenhouse gas emissions reduction in the U.S. wouldn't make any difference anyway, since China, which surpassed the U.S. as the world's largest CO2 emitter in 2007, would never cut emissions.

That favorite excuse for continuing to prop up the most profitable and dangerous industry on Earth came crashing down two months ago when China and President Obama struck a deal that would radically cut carbon emissions in both nations, including China's commitment to create enough renewable energy over the next 15 years to power an entire United States. (Begging the question: "If they can do it, why can't we?!")

But with the confirmation from both NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Friday that 2014 was the hottest year for planet Earth in recorded history, another favorite denialist ruse has also come crashing down.

"The year 2014 was the warmest year across global land and ocean surfaces since records began in 1880," NOAA's announcement reads. NASA's own statement, citing both their own and NOAA's "separate analyses," echoes: "The year 2014 ranks as Earth’s warmest since 1880."

NOAA goes on to report that "the annually-averaged temperature" in 2014 "was 0.69°C (1.24°F) above the 20th century average, easily breaking the previous records of 2005 and 2010 by 0.04°C (0.07°F)."

"While some Democrats may be convinced global warming is continuing to occur, the scientific record does not agree," Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), arguably the nation's most powerful elected climate denier and now Chair of the U.S. Senate Environment Committee, lied to the nation on the floor of the U.S. Senate in July of 2014 [PDF]. "In fact, for the past 15 years temperatures across the globe have not increased. Let's think about that. Is anyone listening here? Temperatures have not increased over the last 15 years."

That line, about temperatures not increasing over the past 15 or 16 or 17 years (sometimes it's 20, depending on how the deniers like to do their pretend math) was a lie when uttered in previous years, and with the new announcements from the world's preeminent measurers of such things, it'll be even more difficult to continue to tell the same lie --- not that they won't try...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: WHILE WE WERE OUT: The planet had its hottest year in recorded history; EPA issued new coal rules; Vermont shut down a nuclear plant; Germany broke more renewable energy records; China announced the closure of 2000 coal mines; Republicans take over; PLUS: The planet loses another champion... All that and MUCH more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): CA breaks ground on nation's first high-speed rail line; National Hockey League goes carbon neutral; Safeway fined $10m for illegal dumping; US takes over Arctic Council leadership; Supertrawlers banned in Australia's waters; TX leads in wind energy; Fuel rods removed from damaged Fukushima reactor; Solar overwhelmingly popular in US; Toyota opens hydrogen car patents... PLUS: The Economist finds climate action much cheaper than they thought... and much, MUCH more! ...

We'll let our friend Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks handle this one...

"Deep irony", indeed.

In addition to the bizarre questions from Louisiana's literacy test for African-American voters in the 1960s that Cenk cites above, here are some of the ridiculously difficult questions from one of Alabama's Jim Crow-era tests [PDF] that we cited back in 2010 when immigration foe and former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo was similarly calling for literacy tests:

Yes, it's ironic that these idiots from Fox "News" and elsewhere on the right seem to know so little about American history that they'd call for literacy tests for voters without understanding that such tests were found to be illegal and unconstitutional as practiced in the Jim Crow South. Aside from being ironic, however, it's also very lucky for brain-dead Fox viewers that literacy tests aren't required for voting, given that study after study after study find them among the least informed Americans.

[Hat-tip @DRTucker]

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Germany's biggest utility spins off its fossil fuel assets; Are fossil fuel companies running scared? Florida punishes homeowners for not polluting; PLUS: MSNBC's big infomercial for Big Coal... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Scientists predict green energy revolution after incredible new graphene discoveries; See what your city will look like with rising sea levels; NASA: rate of Antarctic ice melt triples in a decade; CO2 emissions produce maximum warming in 10 years; India considers emissions peak 2035-50; Russia's proposed pipeline falls victim to low prices; MIT: no health impacts from wind turbine noise ... PLUS: The Way We Weren't: Inhofe Singles out Streisand as Global Warming Hoaxer in Chief... and much, MUCH more! ...

"Seasons Greetings"? No "Merry Christmas"?! Fox "News" is gonna be furious.

P.S. A few selected thoughts of mine on the events in Ferguson this evening, from throughout the night on Twitter, follow below...

Well, I've been remiss over the years since 2012 in covering the BENGHAZI!!! "scandal" on these pages.

So allow me to make up for some of that lost time today, with this article just out from AP tonight:

The article continues describing the findings of the House Intel Committee report which its Republican chair Rep. Mike Rogers (MI) and Democratic ranking member Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (MD) announced today. Among those findings, in response to the epic reports of a "stand down order" said to have been issued by the CIA or the State Dept. or the White House, AP reports: "None of that is true, according to the House Intelligence Committee report."

You get the idea.

Nonetheless, as AP notes, "the eighth Benghazi investigation is being carried out by a House Select Committee appointed in May." That special select committee, convened by Congressional "conservatives", is set to cost tax payers some $4 million. How very "conservative" of them.

I've been looking into a few deeper dive stories of late --- for next week, at this point. So, until then, since the Colbert Report is soon disappearing (which makes me incredibly sad), please enjoy this segment from earlier this week.

It's not particularly political, really (other than beating up on one particular jackass at Fox "News" who really deserves it), but the last part of this thing just struck me as so goddamn funny at a time when I'm guessing you and I both could use some "goddamn funny"...

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