Original: Global Warming Denier Marc Morano Doesn’t Bother to Check the Facts.
Blasted across the front of his anti-science "Climate Depot" website, Marc Morano has this headline today: Report: Democrats Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify Alongside Gore At Congressional Hearing. Here is the first paragraph of the comical piece:
UK's Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon.
Apparently neither Monckton or Morano bothered to check the widely distributed and publicly available hearing schedule, which Monckton was not on at any point in time. Monckton should have, um, looked at the actual schedule before booking his trans-Atlantic flight. Morano could have taken a few minutes to check the hearing schedule himself, but that would have interfered with his strict anti-reality agenda.
Later in the piece, the idiocy continues:
"The Democrats have a lot to learn about the right of free speech under the US Constitution. Congress Henry Waxman's (D-CA) refusal to expose Al Gore's sci-fi comedy-horror testimony to proper, independent scrutiny by the House minority reeks of naked fear," Monckton said from the airport Thursday evening.
This is rich. To be perfectly clear: the 1st amendment does not guarantee you the right to speak at a highly publicized panel at a Congressional hearing. That is just not how it works.
I know it must be difficult for Morano to fact-check while he is literally drowning in oil industry cash, but a quick look at the publicly available hearing schedule really isn't asking for much.
Update: This is part of a much larger problem. Solve Climate documented a few weeks ago how deniers in Congress are able to take advantage of procedure to ensure that "climate change deniers without credentials in climate science testify alongside respected scientists."