Topic: NewsBusters
It's not often you see right-wingers treat a discredited Soviet propaganda outfit as credible. But that's exactly what NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard and Newsmax's Phil Brennan do in their attempt to attack global warming.
At issue is a Jan. 11 article on the Pravda website by Gregory F. Fegel asserting that "The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science." Apparenly oblivious to Pravda's history as the official voice of the Soviet Communist Party (though the current version of the paper, according to Wikipedia, "often takes a nationalist and sensationalist approach"), Sheppard and Brennan were eager to promote this.
Sheppard, in a Jan. 11 post, touts how Fegel's article was "reported by Russia's Pravda" and that it "not only goes quite counter to the junk science being espoused by folks like Nobel Laureate Al Gore and his accomplices James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt, but it has also been regularly proffered by many of the real scientists and climatologists around the world that global warming loving media not only refuse to cite and/or interview, but also disgracefully ridicule as deniers and flat earthers." Similarly, Brennan writes in his Jan. 13 column:
Now comes Gregory F. Fegel writing in Pravda Ru that we are on the brink of a new ice age, a revelation that has shocked many Americans but one that I explained 12 years ago in my series The Icemen Cometh.
According to Fegal, "The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years."
Sheppard and Brennan perhaps should have done a little investigating of their new friend before embracing him so wholeheartedly. It seems that Fegel is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, as revealed in a Aug. 22 Pravda column:
A preponderance of evidence shows that the highest officials of the Bush Administration, in collusion with many other officials from the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, FEMA, NSA, NORAD, New York City officials, air-traffic contollers, airline executives, controlled demolitions experts, computer graphics technicians, media executives, and others together planned and committed the horrible attacks of 9/11/2001 against the Pentagon and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 9/11 attacks were immediately blamed on some bogus 'Arab highjackers', a half dozen of whom were later confirmed to be still alive, and therefore innocent, after the 9/11 attacks.
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The USA's long descent into fascism cannot be halted or stopped merely by electing a member of the Democrat Party to the Presidency, or by electing a Democrat majority to Congress. The infiltration and control of the US government by right-wing extremists is far too advanced and complete -- they manipulate our elected officials like puppets on a string, and a great many of our elected officials are themselves part of the fascist establishment. The right-wing takeover of the US government has been a gradual and very successful fascist coup that will not be reversed without a very serious and deadly struggle. Given the history of extreme and indiscriminate violence shown by the ruling junta of the USA, it appears quite obvious to me that restoring democracy to the USA would inevitably require a violent armed Revolution in which the American people are opposed against the forces of the US government and the US military.
[...]
We need a Nuremberg-style trial for Treason and Mass Murder for all of the members of the US government, the US military, the US intelligence agencies, and their civilian accomplices in the airline industry and the news media who participated in the murderous crimes of 9/11.
So, Phil and Noel: Do you still want to tout this guy and the publication where he appears?
For Sheppard, the answer is yes. In an update to his post, Sheppard notes that Fegel "has some interesting views about 9/11 that would make Rosie O'Donnell proud," then adds: "How delicious that an America-hating Truther who contributes to Pravda has a firmer grasp of climatology than Nobel Laureate Al Gore, James Hansen, Gavin Schmidt, and most of the folks at the IPCC. Now THAT'S entertainment!!!"
UPDATE: Sadly, No! weighs in as well.
