When my critics say I am only further corrupted by this …. well ………..they can dream on, if they gain any solace from that accusation. They imply my efforts of exposing the fatal faults in the smear of skeptic climate scientists are written by, directed by, approved by, and paid by people who supposedly shill for the fossil fuel industry. But what my critics consistently fail to consider is that I am the person who sees all and knows all about my correspondence and my bank account. They can hold any belief they wish about my bank account being larger than I say, or that I don’t move an inch without some kind of rigid instructions from my benefactors, but I am the one who knows there is no evidence to prove those beliefs. An enlightening truism that my critics ought to try yelling in this situation is the line from Tom Cruise in the movie “A Few Good Men” where the lawyer he plays yells, “It doesn’t matter what I believe, it only matters what I can prove!” Whether it is scientific conclusions or the tactic of character assassination, that’s pretty much what determines if the statements we all hear have merit, or if they blow away in the wind.

So the good news for my friends and the bad news for my critics, no matter how they try to spin it, is that I’m given a strings-free $24,000 grant this time, for the full year. What I’ve found especially amusing is how my critics point to my Desmogblog profile as an indictment of my ‘funding corruption’ while abysmally and comically failing to realize is that what they perceive to be hugely damaging words are my own full disclosures about my funding, straight out of this blog.

I don’t know how much more plainly it can be said:  Strings-free means I am not under obligation – contractual or otherwise – to do anything Heartland says. More damaging to my critics, however, is that what I write here on the specifics of the smear of skeptics is entirely of my own free will, and I’ve been writing about the smear’s details in an unwavering consistent manner long before anybody donated a dime to me. Thus the donations and grants I received later were not given in order to prompt me to write what my critics think are “lies”.

If indeed any of the main accusation pushers do actually read my blog, the visual/audio analogies I offered previously on 12/20/13 and 1/28/14 about the certainty of the ‘industry corrupted skeptic climate scientists’ accusation sinking and my pile driver-style harder and relentless hits about the faults within the accusation and its pushers still apply. But, those people probably don’t read it, thus any urgency for them to figure out an exit strategy – before one of their closer ‘friends’ decides to turn “state’s evidence” in order to save his/her own personal legacy – won’t become obvious until it is too late.