Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli II.
Credit: State of Virginia
Posted on 03/03/2012 8:04:46 PM PST by neverdem
The Virginia Supreme Court has tossed out an effort by the state's attorney general, Kenneth Cuccinelli II, to compel the University of Virginia to turn over detailed records related to the work of climate scientist Michael Mann. The decision, issued today, upholds a lower court ruling that found Cuccinelli, an avowed conservative climate skeptic and now candidate for governor of Virginia, had overstepped his authority.
Cuccinelli had originally sought information on five grant applications and assorted e-mails from Mann, who now works at Pennsylvania State University. He later pared his request to one grant after a lower court rejected his approach.
Mann told The New York Times today that he was pleased by the ruling. "It's sad, though, that so much money and resources had to be wasted on Cuccinelli's witch hunt," he wrote in e-mail.
In a statement, Cuccinelli said: "From the beginning, we have said that we were simply trying to review documents that are unquestionably state property to determine whether or not fraud had been committed."
No, Dude. The sad part is that you're a witch. Don't worry, you can run, but you can't hide.
Are they lockstep Dems, could they have been..."made an offer"...or is there a legal point here that I just don't see?
.
I can’t see the reasoning. If the Attorney General doesn’t have authority to investigate possibly fraud involving state funds, then who exactly does have that authority? Somebody must, and if not the chief law enforcement officer, then who?
These are the people who are making the extreme claims. These are the people who want our tax dollars. These are the people who want to overturn our way of life. They have been CAUGHT fudging their data. And they are immune from investigation. Good Grecian gravy!
The names of no judges were given in thr Times’ story. You could probably find them in the Richmond-Times Dispatch. Then a Wikipedia search should do it for party affiliation.
Public disclosure of government funded “science” is now a “witch hunt”
Can’t the state just stop funding it?
Hey, let’s get Assange on it. /s
Indeed. That's the most vexing thing to me: if our Attorney General (I'm a Virginian) doesn't have the authority, just who the $%#^&*% does?!!
No one on the Left seems to come within a thousand miles of that thought. Sadly, I fear this is just one more example of Gore's celebrated "no controlling legal authority."
Just move along now, all you rubes. Mustn't squash academic fraud freedom, don't ya know. Sheesh.
Academic freedom, in this context, is just a canard. It’s not possible to claim “academic freedom” as a valid defense against fraud committed on the public using state funds. If the state were telling the professor what they couldn’t teach, then that would be an academic freedom issue. Trying to ascertain if someone lied to obtain state funds is a simple law enforcement issue.
I looked a little further into the arguments, and it seems to boil down to this: the judge held that Cuccinelli hadn’t presented any evidence of wrongdoing that would justify the warrant/subpoena to get the records. The best evidence, of course, are the Climategate emails, but since those were not obtained lawfully, I don’t think they could be presented in court. The academic investigations of Mann would seem to be admissable, but they all “exonerated” their buddy of wrongdoing.
So, it seems to me, as long as the same corrupt racketeering-like system that the Climategate emails revealed continued to function, Cuccinelli was at a major disadvantage in presenting evidence to the Court to justify his request. Cuccinelli needs to treat these guys like the mafia: find one lackey who witnessed the fraud who can also be convicted of some other crime, and use that leverage to get him to turn State’s evidence.
“To the victor goes the spoils.”
The Democrats use their victories and build on it.
The Republicans ask for a do over until the Democrats win.
No worries mate. Each and every resume I received from PSU from the time I found out Mann, I threw in the trash can...by my count at least 15.
DING DING DING!
Academic freedom, in this context, is just a canard. It’s not possible to claim “academic freedom” as a valid defense against fraud committed on the public using state funds. If the state were telling the professor what they couldn’t teach, then that would be an academic freedom issue. Trying to ascertain if someone lied to obtain state funds is a simple law enforcement issue.
You, sir, couldn't be more correct. This is a law-enforcement issue, plain and simple. Which is precisely why the global warming cultists must conflate Cuccinelli's completely justified efforts to investigate Mann's fraud with a politically-motivated witch hunt. It's sickening.
And yet, it's just one more example of what I believe is a incontrovertible truth: Liberal arguments are predicated on ignorance. That is, a Leftist's arguments can win the day only when his audience is ignorant of all the facts.
What's even more tragic is that not too far from the building in which Mann worked while at UVa is an inscription on another building (New Cabell Hall): "Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." (Yes, I work in Charlottesville, and know the Grounds of the University well.)
As I said, sickening. And liberals believe that we're the mind-numbed ones.
“That is, a Leftist’s arguments can win the day only when his audience is ignorant of all the facts.”
That’s what public education is for!
Good quote too. The leftie version would be: “Error of opinion may be tolerated only if we can use it to our advantage.”
Ain't that the truth. Sadly, as sophomoric as our chuckle here may be, it is driven by the realization that, and is a tragic indictment of, just how poorly taught good old fashioned Civics is.
According to http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/inaugural/inrevdraft.html Mr. Jefferson's original quote is a bit longer:
If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change it’s republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it.
Sometimes I come close to despair when I realize just how far our once proud Republic has fallen. I am comforted, however, when I remember that even during Thomas Jefferson's day, there were those who valued liberty and truth less than they craved power and dominion over their fellow man.
Well, I’m of the opinion that the founding fathers did an admirable job trying to create a political system that could withstand the predations of unprincipled men, but even they realized that if the majority of the populace wasn’t actively striving against those forces, it wouldn’t matter. I think that’s what we have seen happen, the majority, little by little, stopped fighting to marginalize the malcontents, while the evil men just kept at it, through every means they could imagine.
Maybe we’ll be able to turn things around, but I don’t think this system of government, even though it’s the best we’ve come up with, can last forever. I think America is the last major refuge of reason in the world, and we’re slipping fast. If we do fall, then there’s nowhere else in the world to flee to, so it’s probably going to be very ugly. Maybe I’m just a pessimist, though.
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