Topic: WorldNetDaily
It's that time of year: Fringe Republican Art Robinson is staging another quixotic run for Congress against Oregon Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio. This is the third campaign for Robinson against DeFazio, and he lost the previous two quite handily.
This also means that WorldNetDaily's David Kupelian will write another dishonest column defending Robinson, as he did in 2010 and 2012.
Kupelian's Oct. 9 WND column takes many of its cues from his previous work, largely pretending that Robinson isn't an extremist and claiming that DeFazio has been "ruthlessly smearing" him. Indeed, large segments of it are largely cut-and-paste from Kupelian's 2012 column.
This means there's a repeat of Kupelian's dishonest defense of Robinson's homeschool curriculum, which includes a requirement that students read the public-domain adventure novels of 19th century author G.A. Henty. Kupelian repeats his complaint that critics have highlighted a "racially insensitive" passage in one Henty novel, omitting the fact that according to PBS, Henty's novels "are notable for their hearty imperialism, undisguised racism, and jingoistic patriotism" -- all things that have little relevance in modern society.
In another self-plagiarized section, Kupelian touts how "Robinson has single-handedly documented the utter lack of unanimity in the scientific community on man-made global warming through a petition he started – not an online petition, mind you, but an actual document physically signed – that to date has been signed by more than 31,000 scientists, including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s." But as we've pointed out, few of Robinson's signatories have a scientific background in climatology, there's no apparent verification mechanism to ensure that the signatories do in fact have the scientific qualifications they claim, and there have been more than 10.6 million science graduates as defined by Robinson's group since the 1970-71 school year, making the 31,000 on the petition a tiny fraction of that -- 0.3 percent, to be exact -- small enough that one could call it "fringe."
Kupelian adds a few more dishonest defenses this time around:
Robinson discusses in his newsletter “Access to Energy” an emerging field of science called “hormesis,” which hypothesizes that very low levels of ionizing radiation (which occurs naturally most everywhere, though to different degrees) may be beneficial to human health, so that one day human beings may actually control the level of background radiation in their environment for optimal health. DeFazio translation: Robinson wants to poison your drinking water with radiation.
In fact, that is what Robinson has effectively said he wants to do. Monther Jones quotes from Robinson's work:
On nuclear waste: "All we need do with nuclear waste is dilute it to a low radiation level and sprinkle it over the ocean—or even over America after hormesis is better understood and verified with respect to more diseases." And: "If we could use it to enhance our own drinking water here in Oregon, where background radiation is low, it would hormetically enhance our resistance to degenerative diseases. Alas, this would be against the law."
Kupelian also complains: "Robinson’s campaign is funded almost exclusively by large numbers of small donations from individuals, but DeFazio has fabricated the notion that Robinson is being bought off by Wall Street." In fact, in the 2010 election, Robinson was the direct beneficiary of $627,500 in advertising from a anti-DeFazio PAC funded by New York hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, and he spent six figures again in 2012, bringing the total amount Mercer spent to more than $1 million. Mercer has already contributed the maximum amount to Robinson's campaign, and it's likely he'll crank up PAC one more time.
Kupelian is silent about Mercer. He is, however, willing to slobber all over Robinson -- and, of course, encourage you to donate to his campaign:
Let me tell you, in this election, Art Robinson reminds me more of the Founding Fathers – principled, multi-talented Renaissance men, some of them scientists like Jefferson and especially Franklin – than anyone else in the current candidate field. Think about it: Ben Franklin was a scientist, writer, printer, political theorist, inventor, civic activist and statesman. Art Robinson is all of these things – except the last one, statesman. He needs your help to make that happen.
Art Robinson loves his beautiful farm and his kids and his science work and doesn’t really dream of power and Washington and living at the public trough. That’s exactly the kind of person we need in Congress. Believe me, it’ll be worth electing him just to watch a real scientist stand up in the House chamber and verbally annihilate the silly rhetoric of all those Congress members touting “global warming” and cap-and-trade.
Here’s the bottom line: Art Robinson can win this race with your help. He must counteract the wall-to-wall libelous TV, radio and Internet ads that will soon be unleashed during the final few weeks of the campaign to once again scare voters to death about a racist mad scientist who wants to eliminate Social Security and irradiate everyone’s drinking water. You can easily help stop this evil and elevate a modern-day Ben Franklin to the United States Congress.
Right now – while there’s still time – you can donate to his campaign the funds needed to run the TV and print ads necessary to refute the outrageous lies of his opponent in the few critical weeks prior to Election Day.
Please, help Art Robinson, support him financially, campaign for him and tell others about him. And if you live in his district, vote for him.
Kupelian has already failed the honesty test by hiding the truth about Robinson. Why should anyone believe him when he proclaims that Robinson is the second coming of the Founding Fathers?
