Global warmists tell feds: Use anti-mafia law to prosecute 'climate deniers'

Before you say this could never happen, let me ask you: Did you ever think people would be given six-figure fines for declining to bake a cake? And not only that, but see significant numbers of Americans agree with it happening? Orthodoxies are powerful things, and just as the left is riding one that defines non-participation in gay weddings as "discrimination," it also thinks it can gain mainstream support for the idea that dissent on the global warming orthodoxy is some sort of crime. Actually, if Democrat U.S. Senator Sheldon White House gets his way, a very specific type of crime - the same kind created to prosecute the mafia:

---

Last month George Mason Professor Jagadish Shukla and 19 others signed a letter to President Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and White House science adviser John Holdren urging punishment for climate dissenters. “One additional tool—recently proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse—is a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change,” they wrote. In other words, they want the feds to use a law created to prosecute the mafia against lawful businesses and scientists. In a May op-ed in the Washington Post, Mr. Whitehouse specifically cited Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who has published politically inconvenient research on changes in solar radiation. The RICO threat is intended to shut down debate because it can inflict treble damages upon a defendant. Enacted to stop organized crime and specifically to prosecute individuals tied to loansharking and murder-for-hire, it was long seen as so powerful a tool that the government warned prosecutors to limit its use. “The demand by Senator Whitehouse and the 20 climate scientists for legal persecution of people whose research on science and policy they disagree with represents a new low in the politicization of science,” says Georgia Tech’s Judith Curry on the Fox News website. She should know, as one of seven academics investigated last winter by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D., Ariz.) for their climate research.

---

---

Please note that White House is not proposing a bill for consideration in the Senate. He is asking the White House and the Justice Department to simply apply RICO to global warming skeptics. If this suggestion is followed, the Justice Department will simply start bringing federal indictments against people who publish papers questioning the orthodoxy of man-made global warming on the premise that they - what, are endangering the earth or something? You'd like to think any such action would be laughed out of court, but that would probably depend on the court and the judge. Between Obama and Bill Clinton (not to mention any ancient Jimmy Carter leftovers), there are probably enough left-wing judges out there that the DOJ could successfully cherry-pick a jurisdiction where they'd have a shot at winning such a case. But honestly, the actually likelihood of this happening is not even really the issue. The mere fact that a sitting U.S. senator would find it safe to propose such a thing - and that there is no First Amendment outcry from the media save for that from the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page - tells you all you need to know about the current political environment in this country. The reason the political class hates global warming skeptics is that they hope to use global warming as an excuse to act now, which means to shove through massive new taxes and federal controls on industry under the guise of it being some kind of emergency. Folks running around casting doubt on the severity of the emergency are ruining the plan, and if there's a way to intimidate them with potential prosecution, hey, why not do it? It's not like the mainstream media will call you out for it. The question is: Will anyone else?

---