Daily Catch: Media turns on Michaud, Climate data fiddle, Border crisis, and more

Media Flips on Michaud: The mainstream press is starting to turn on U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, Democratic candidate for governor. On Friday, the liberal Portland Press Herald published an editorial headlined, “Our View: Blaine House rivals overplay Michaud’s part in VA crisis“. But don’t let that title fool you — this editorial is devastating news for Michaud. Here are some pull quotes: “He’s one of a number of people who should have noticed the system’s issues and pushed for reform sooner… [T]he Maine congressman was one of many who didn’t adequately prepare for the coming storm… Someone should have noticed and pushed loudly for reform. Many people are on that list, but Michaud is one of them, and he has not done well at articulating why the scope of the problems was not recognized earlier.”

Michaud told The Maine Wire that the VA corruption scandal is not a “political issue.” But the states top newspaper disagrees: “It is, however, relevant to the campaign,” the PPH Editors wrote.
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Bonus: On a related note, multiple media outlets are now reporting that more than two-thirds of all the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 300 senior administrators received performance bonuses worth a total of $2.7 million last year. Government, where incompetence is rewarded.
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Walmart: The New York Times ran a scathing hit-piece on Walmart. Rather than let sleeping dogs lie, Walmart took its editorial pen to the article, highlighting some of the inaccurate points. Very funny read.
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Climate Data Fiddle: Science writers are claiming that some of the most influential climate records have been manipulated to create appearance of warming trends. “When future generations try to understand how the world got carried away around the end of the 20th century by the panic over global warming, few things will amaze them more than the part played in stoking up the scare by the fiddling of official temperature data,” writes Christopher Booker of The Telegraph. “There was already much evidence of this seven years ago, when I was writing my history of the scare, The Real Global Warming Disaster. But now another damning example has been uncovered by Steven Goddard’s US blog Real Science, showing how shamelessly manipulated has been one of the world’s most influential climate records, the graph of US surface temperature records published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).” Good thing we haven’t written hundreds of economy-upending laws based on that climate data…
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IRS: Check out Maine Wire Editor Steve Robinson’s latest column in the Press Herald, “IRS harassment, cover-up should worry all Americans“. Keeping track of President Obama’s scandals is like drinking from a Paul Bunyan-size fire hose…
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Death Train: The crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border continues to worsen as thousands of Central American youths risk life and limb to enter America illegally. Reports are now emerging that some immigrants are stowing away on a network of Mexican freight trains dubbed “El Tren de la Muerta,” or Death Train. Though it is unclear what has caused the recent surge in illegal immigration attempts, many reports point to actions and rhetoric from the Obama administration, which have been portrayed in Latin American media as a pro-amnesty policy change.
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Democracy Alliance: More information has been leaked about the shadowy group of liberal millionaires and billionaires who support a network of progressive groups across the country, and here in Maine. Politico has obtained a copy of the programming guide, which shows how DA ranks various groups which its members can “invest” in. Locally, Press Herald owner S. Donald Sussman and WABI-TV owner Daniel Hildreth are DA members whose vast fortune supports groups like the Democratic Party and the Democratic Maine People’s Alliance. See the politico article here.
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Jihad Draws Somali Immigrants to Mid East: According to multiple media reports, as many as 15 Somali-American men have left the U.S. in order to join radical Islamist fighters in Syria.