Kamala Harris, Ted Lieu Stomp First Amendment To Punish Climate Change Deniers

Our representative to the United States Congress, the well-intentioned if currently off-base Ted Lieu, has joined with another Democrat from San Jose to urge California Attorney General Kamala Harris on in her inappropriate harassment of ExxonMobil. Harris is attempting to find evidence to prosecute ExxonMobil for failing to disclose to the public what the company knew about climate change.

Nobody likes oil companies. They are considered "greedy" and "dirty" and their products, along with enabling us to eat food we can afford, get to work so we can afford the food, buy clothes, do just about anything - and fly to Washington to vote in the U.S. Congress - are just plain evil.

Apparently, Kamala, supported by Lieu and possibly other Democrats who are jumping on this bandwagon, wants to "investigate" whether or not ExxonMobil knew about and lied regarding "climate change risks."

In a rare show of bureaucratic intelligence, the US House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology has sent a missive via Chair Lamar S. Smith chiding AG Harris and a number of other ambitious attorney generals, the self-proclaimed "Green 20," regarding their "coordinated attempt to deprive companies, nonprofit organizations, and scientists of their First Amendment rights and ability to fund and conduct scientific research free from intimidation or threats of prosecution."

The House Committee is on to Harris's game. She and her fellow prosecutors have decided that only one scientific theory is allowed. Individuals and companies who don't subscribe to the current religion should be criminally pursued. The chill such a threat puts on any intellectual endeavor is obvious. Don't bother doing research unless your results will please the current government in power.

In his letter to Harris, Chairman Smith writes, "The Committee is concerned that these efforts to silence speech are based on political theater rather than legal or scientific arguments, and that they run counter to an attorney general's duty to serve as the 'guardian of the legal rights of the citizens' and to 'assert, protect, and defend the rights of the people.'"

You don't say! Attorney generals are supposed to support the law. They're not supposed to chase private corporations who have absolutely no duty to research in the first place, and certainly no duty to come up with results which satisfy an attorney general - whose job has nothing to do with overseeing the scientific research of non-governmental corporations.

In the spirit of throwing one's own lie in another's face, Ted Lieu's press release regarding the dispute accuses Chairman Smith of "an unfortunate record of intimidating and harassing scientists whose work does not conform to his notions and partisan goals."

Unfortunately for Mr. Lieu, this categorization seems to best fit himself and Kamala Harris.