This is hilarious, but apparently true. Seriously, if you want a recap of the daily drivel that eats up the #MTPol discussion on Twitter these days, just read this Daily Caller article: Sierra Club’s confidential guide for wooing union workers
The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained an internal memo from Margrete Strand, the director of Sierra Club’s Labor and Trade Program from 2004 to 2012, providing this advice.
“Don’t overly emphasize lofty, potential new green jobs,” another point reads, admitting that highly-publicized green jobs aren’t the guarantee they’re often presented as.
Most of all, “Don’t ever use the phrase ‘killing’ to refer to jobs, businesses, or the coal industry,” employees were warned. “Talk about transitions, phases, and gradual changes in the way we create and distribute energy.”
Read further for the “focus on the Koch brothers” instructions…
Meanwhile, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is obviously sticking to the talking points being fed by the powerful environmental special interest groups. No mention of the well-financed environmental groups in this post by Joel Connelly:
Powerful, multinational developers of two proposed Washington coal export terminals have acknowledged that they are outgunned by and losing ground to local critics, and have issued a call for help.
At the Montana Energy 2014 conference this week, the Missoulian reported on cries of corporate concern, even though developers have hired top Northwest PR firms, financed an “Astroturf” support group, and for a time flooded TV screens with pro-coal ads.
No mention of the Sierra Club, NRDC, NPRC, League of Conservation Voters, Friends of the Earth, Wild Earth Guardians….and on and on…which are working to block the coal jobs back here in Montana.
Meanwhile, Yahoo News snagged on to this article written by an author who is funded by the Gates Foundation, which advocated the Common Core education standards.
Suzi Parker has this for TakePart.com- Wyoming Becomes First State to Reject New U.S. Science Standards for Schools
It’s official: Wyoming has become the first state to block a new set of national science standards that address climate change. Republican Gov. Matt Mead signed the bill earlier this month, rejecting the Next Generation Science Standards, a set of federal K–12 curricula supplementing the Common Core State Standards and developed over three years by national science education groups and representatives from 26 states.
Because U.S. students don’t rank at the top in science, the creators of the Next Generation Science Standards looked to Singapore, South Korea, and Finland. The first of their kind since 1996, the new standards no longer treat science as a list of facts and ideas students are expected to memorize. Instead, they cover fewer ideas using more approaches, so students have a deeper understanding of subjects. Additionally, new scientific discoveries are included in the standards, like lessons on climate change that explain the role of carbon dioxide emissions from oil, coal, and gas in global warming.
Wyoming legislators put the science standards restriction in a footnote in the budget bill, citing the state’s oil-based economy as a key reason to ban the standards. The governor could have chosen to veto that line item but didn’t.