In the latest salvo to silence dissent over man-made climate change, nine Senate “progressives” are accusing 22 national and state-based organizations of orchestrating a “web of denial.” And they’re demanding that these conservative and libertarian research groups disclose their donors.

No intimidation there, right?

The various institutes, members of the Virginia-based State Policy Network, had the temerity to respond to Senate Democrats, who last month eviscerated climate-change skeptics, going as far as to suggest an “enemies list” of “intellectual foes.”

In response to the senators’ bluster, the various organizations detailed their objection: “Your threat is clear: There is a heavy and inconvenient cost to disagreeing with you.”

Rather than address the organizations’ concern, the senators, including Harry Reid, Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer, accused them of harboring “hidden principals” in a campaign to deceive and mislead their constituents. Their message: Show us your donors or shut up.

“(W)hat they are really stating is that they would just like to know who they can intimidate with the full police power of the federal government,” wrote Fred Birnbaum of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit institute that promotes free-market solutions.

In attempting to stifle the skeptics of climate change, “progressives” expose the emptiness of their argument — one increasingly premised on force, not reason.

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(c)2016 The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Greensburg, Pa.)

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