The Green New Deal Can Provide For America’s Security Or Something

We’ll be more secure while deal with rolling brownouts and blackouts, planned power outages, and giant energy bills under the plan (and lots more bad things, but energy is the specific topic). And the inability to travel very far or often. Thor Hogan attempts to tell us why this would be great

The best sales pitch for the Green New Deal

The Green New Deal has faced a bevy of criticism since its introduction, most of it from climate-denying Republicans. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Sen. Edward J. Markey (Mass.) have led the charge for the proposal with an emphasis on its potential economic benefits as the pathway to victory. But an equally good argument, and one that may even bring skeptics and Republicans into the fold, involves the national security benefits of fighting the climate crisis.

Put bluntly, the Green New Deal is the biggest step we can take toward a more secure America.

For nearly two decades, since 9/11, most Americans have been convinced that Middle East-based terrorism is the greatest threat to our nation. What most of us failed to ask, however, was why we were targeted. After the attacks, cable news anchors asked “Why do they hate us?” without really seeming to care about the answer.

The explanation isn’t particularly complicated. For close to three-quarters of a century, Americans have involved themselves in the domestic politics of many countries in the Middle East, often with little regard for how those actions affected the residents of these nations. Unsurprisingly, this behavior angered many people in the region.

Gotta love the Leftist belief that the attack on 9/11 was our own fault, eh?

Anyway, Thor jumps through an interesting look at oil production since World War II, how it gave power to the Middle East and particularly Saudi Arabia (failing to mention much of America’s problems with our own production is due to Leftist’s blocking drilling and new refineries here in America)

The costs of this decision have been immense. American foreign policy became focused on four objectives: to persuade the region’s oil-producing nations to increase production and avoid embargoes; to provide them with military aid to ensure their internal and external security; to encourage the discovery and development of new oil fields; and to send U.S. military forces to the region if required to guarantee the flow of oil to America’s allies.

As a result, the United States found itself engaged in three petroleum-related wars over a quarter-century, which cost us thousands of lives and at least $4 trillion — costs that never show up at the pump. At the same time, we earned the hatred of millions of people who were oppressed by the autocratic rulers we kept in place to do our bidding. Some of them joined terrorist organizations that aimed to punish the “Great Satan.”

Interestingly, the only war that was really about oil was the one Obama launched with France and Britain against Libya, meant to protect the flow of oil to those two countries when Libya was in a civil war.

This is where the Green New Deal can come in. As a former energy secretary and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, has written, “Every American can make the intuitive connection between global dependence on Middle Eastern oil, dissent in Middle Eastern societies, and terrorist attacks on the United States.” Removing ourselves from the region would eliminate this problem. If we depart, anger toward our nation would fade over time, as would the threat to our country.

So, we’re going to drill our own oil, right? Because the U.S. has a ton of proven oil fields. Heck, we can also get a lot from Canada. This would make everything go, right?

Adoption of a Green New Deal would make this possible by providing newly developed clean energy supplies to power electric vehicle fleets as they enter the market en masse. If we don’t need Middle Eastern oil because renewables are providing us with what we require, then we don’t need to intervene in the region in toxic ways.

See? It’s so simple! We’ll simply wave our magic wand and everyone will have electric vehicles in their driveways powered by unicorn farts and pixie dust. It would be great if we (and a goodly chunk of the world) didn’t need Middle East oil: we could leave that region to mostly burn. But, since the world is nowhere close to being able to replace oil with “clean energy supplies” at this time, and won’t be for there’s no telling how long, this is just another pipe dream.

Read: The Green New Deal Can Provide For America’s Security Or Something »

Democrat Groups Plan To Put Abortion Rights Front And Center For 2020

How do you think this will play with the average voter for the 2020 elections?

Democratic groups gear up to use abortion rights as attack on GOP in 2020

Democrats are gearing up to use abortion rights as an attack against Republicans in 2020, seeking to paint the party as too extreme after the passage of sweeping laws restricting the procedure by GOP legislatures across the country.

Presidential contenders, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), are already taking the issue head-on, most recently joining the Democrats’ condemnation of a comprehensive abortion ban signed into law in Alabama that bans the procedure in almost all circumstances, including rape and incest.

Democratic groups are mobilizing as well, hoping to put the abortion debate front and center in state and local races in 2020 as they look to put Republicans on the defensive at a time when the GOP lost the House last year, in large part by losing suburban female voters.

Abortion was already expected to be a key issue in 2020 as anti-abortion rights advocates grow hopeful of overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in the Supreme Court after the appointment of two new conservative justices by President Trump.

“We are buckled in. We are ready to go, but we’re not going to be playing defense,” Jennifer Holdsworth, a senior political strategist for the Democratic firm MWWPR, told The Hill.

Holdsworth added that groups such as Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and individual state organizations in Ohio, Missouri, Georgia and Alabama would help “lead the fight.”

Abortion on demand is the #1 commandment for Democrats, and they demand that all people running for office in their party toe the line. But, how will it play pushing the murder of the unborn, which is done mostly because having a baby would be inconvenient, as a giant issue for elections? Especially when Democrats have shown themselves to be massively extreme as of late, defending late term abortion right up to the point where the child will soon be delivered? That they are defending letting a child born alive from an abortion die? Republicans can simply ask any Dem candidate “what restrictions on abortion do you approve of?” to show how extreme they are, because the Democrat will not approve of any.

How will this play for the average voter? You might get polls showing a bare majority in support, but, that doesn’t mean that voters approve of the extreme views of the abortion/murder groups, and certainly do not want it being “front and center.” Especially with all the other extremist stuff Democrats will be running on.

Read: Democrat Groups Plan To Put Abortion Rights Front And Center For 2020 »

Bummer: It’s Too Late For The Green New Deal, So, Have To Go Radical

This would be the Green New Deal that Democrats do not want to actually vote on, and was already pretty darned radical to start with

It’s Too Late for a Green New Deal; Can Other Radical Plans Work?

We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to those who have articulated the Green New Deal (GND), especially Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise Movement. We needed something that focused attention on how serious climate change has become and the need for government action. The GND has shattered the neoliberal insistence upon incremental, market-oriented climate mitigation.

But, considering the emerging climate science and our diminished carbon budget after at least three decades of denial, and with carbon concentration in the atmosphere higher than it has been in 3 million years, it is too late to speed up the slow transition from fossil fuels to renewables with government facilitated renewable building; too late to build renewables under a Keynesian plan that employs all the workers in transition; too late for a transition that makes money and lets us keep living our present lifestyles.

The author, Bill Henderson at the uber far left Truthout, builds up to the fin

…Fossil fuels must now be kept in the ground. Governments must regulate a scheduled, rapid, managed decline of all fossil fuel production based upon the best science and risk-management expertise.

End use of fossil fuels

Of course, like rejecting “Big Government” as a mitigation option, a government-regulated, managed decline affecting long-term international investment is anathema to the business elites who control our governments and many other institutions in our society. They will have to accept the duty of government to regulate in this emergency and join with all other stakeholders in the climate mobilization.

Massive government control of economies.

Importantly, instead of a plan offered to consumers to buy their support, climate mitigation should be a responsibility of citizens who recognize their duty to limit damage to future generations. We don’t need urgent action on climate to make life more comfortable and secure for the world’s richest people.

Elites jamming through control of our lives in a fashion, dare I say, reminiscent of the Third Reich and Communist China.

Funny how this always boils down to the same Fascist, Authoritarian type governmental systems.

Read: Bummer: It’s Too Late For The Green New Deal, So, Have To Go Radical »

If All You See…

…is horrible pavement used to help move fossil fueled vehicles, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Raised On Hoecakes, with a post on a strange court case.

Read: If All You See… »

Memorial Day 2019 Pinups (Sticky For The Day)

More below the fold

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Read: Memorial Day 2019 Pinups (Sticky For The Day) »

2020 Is Team Oil Vs Team ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

They keep telling us that the issue of ‘climate change’ is super important. They did this in 2016. And 2012. And 2008. They keep telling us that it should be super important during general elections and mid-terms. During state and local elections. Yet, it rarely ends up on the front pages of those who keep telling us it is important

2020 is team oil vs. team climate change. There’s no middle.

As Americans gas up for the start of the summer driving season, they’ll pay the highest Memorial Day prices at the pump since 2014. And they’ll have trouble finding any sort of middle lane in the oil wars of American politics.

Voters in 2020 can choose President Donald Trump, who brags about oil production — the fact that the United States is now the largest producer of oil on Earth.

Or voters can opt for the Democratic presidential candidate, whoever it ends up being. All of them agree that humans contribute to climate change — which is nearly universally described as an existential threat — and that the US must do something about carbon emissions immediately.

Nearly every Democrat or Democratic-leaning voter – 96% in a CNN poll in April — wants a candidate who will take aggressive action on climate change.

It’s a far less important issue for most Republicans. An NBC News poll in December found 71% of Democrats saying climate change required immediate action compared with 15% of Republicans.

CNN’s Zachary B Wolf is kind of correct that it appears that it is one or the other. In theory on the Democrat side, of course, because where it breaks down is putting this in practice, something even most Warmists do not want when those rules, regs, and laws will personally affect their own lives negatively. Further, when you start getting deep into the primaries, and certainly the general election, people want to hear more about the “pocketbook” issues, the bread and butter issues, not bad weather which has always happened and taxing the hell out of their lives, especially when it would make it harder to travel.

The same people whining about oil will be using a lot of it this weekend, as will the people campaigning on ‘climate change.’

Just as Trump’s climate change denials led him to isolate the US by withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, any Democrat who beat him in 2020 would, presumably, jump back in immediately, an epic whipsaw.

Ultimately in 2020, if it’s an election decided in the middle, the question that will be answered is whether the country will do something about climate change or nothing at all.

If ‘climate change’ becomes that big of an issue in this election, the Warmists will lose, like they lose at the ballot box the vast majority of the time. Does anyone think Trump won’t attack the Warmists as pushing big government policies that will spike the cost of living and restrict liberty? How will the Democrats respond to that?

Read: 2020 Is Team Oil Vs Team ‘Climate Change’ Or Something »

NYC Gun Grabbers Change Law To Avoid Potential Supreme Court Loss

Not mentioned is the notion that New York City could change the regulation back if the Supreme Court decides to drop the case, because gun grabbers loke to play lots and lots of cases (though the Court will most likely not drop the case)

Fearing Supreme Court Loss, New York Tries to Make Gun Case Vanish

A couple of weeks ago, the New York Police Department held an unusual public hearing. Its purpose was to make a Supreme Court case disappear.

In January, the court agreed to hear a Second Amendment challenge to a New York City gun regulation. The city, fearing a loss that would endanger gun control laws across the nation, responded by moving to change the regulation. The idea was to make the case moot.

The move required seeking comments from the public, in writing and at the hearing. Gun rights advocates were not happy.

“This law should not be changed,” Hallet Bruestle wrote in a comment submitted before the hearing. “Not because it is a good law; it is blatantly unconstitutional. No, it should not be changed since this is a clear tactic to try to moot the Scotus case that is specifically looking into this law.”

David Enlow made a similar point. “This is a very transparent attempt,” he wrote, “to move the goal post in the recent Supreme Court case.”

The rule itself was about restricting where law abiding citizens could take their firearms. They were limited to 7 shooting ranges in the city (which the city would also like to shut down), but not to second homes or shooting ranges outside the city. The changes would remove those restrictions. If the court drops review of the case, you know that those restrictions would slowly re-appear. Because if the gun grabbers can’t do the Big Law, they’ll do death by a thousand rules.

Still, the city seems determined to give the plaintiffs — three city residents and the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association — everything they had sued for. The plaintiffs, in turn, do not seem to want to take yes for an answer.

If you go back to the bold in the first excerpt, it is very easy to see why. They want the Supreme Court to rule to avoid future attempts by NYC (and across the country) to limit movement with a legally and constitutionally acquired firearm to this degree.

The court has said the “voluntary cessation” of government policies does not make cases moot if the government remains free to reinstate them after the cases are dismissed. But formal changes in laws may be a different matter.

To hear the plaintiffs tell it, the court should not reward cynical gamesmanship.

“The proposed rule making,” they wrote, “appears to be the product not of a change of heart, but rather of a carefully calculated effort to frustrate this court’s review.”

And now we wait. I’d personally bet that SCOTUS will review the case, and NYC and other gun grabbers will not like the ruling.

Read: NYC Gun Grabbers Change Law To Avoid Potential Supreme Court Loss »

If All You See…

…is a wonderful low carbon means of transportation, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Victory Girls Blog, with a post on Rolling Thunder riding for the last time in D.C.

It’s skateboard week!

Read: If All You See… »

Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

Happy Sunday! Another gorgeous day in America. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the Dodgers are leading the NL, and it important to remember the men and women in our military who gave their lives to protect this nation. This pinup is by Bill Medcalf, with a wee bit of help.

What is happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. 357 Magnum covers a would be robber being shot in the ass
  2. Brass Pills notes the horrible outcome of a fake rape accusation
  3. Chicks On The Right covers Democrats looking to introduce bill that would block all pro-life laws in the States
  4. Common Cents Blog says to fly those American flags
  5. DC Clothesline notes the UK government staging a “Muslim response” to a terror event
  6. Diogenes’ Middle Finger wonders why there are so many lunatics in the Dem party
  7. The Deplorable Climate Science Blog has great photos of a wild-space soon to be destroyed by a wind farm
  8. No Tricks Zone notes the end of the Permanent Drought for the U.S.
  9. Geller Report discusses deplorable anti-Semite Ilhan Omar’s comments on Trump voters
  10. Irons In The Fire covers more fallout from the Rotherham sex scandal
  11. Jihad Watch notes a big protest in NYC against Ilhan Omar by Jews
  12. Legal Insurrection covers the German gov’t warning Jews to not where Kippah’s
  13. Moonbattery notes Britain banning cotton swabs, among others
  14. neo-neocon discusses the potential liberty issues with 5G wireless
  15. And last, but not least, Pacific Pundit notes that Trump did not share a “doctored” video of Queen Nancy

As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page (nope, that’s gone, the newest Apache killed access, and the program hasn’t been upgraded since 2014). While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your “Pinups for Vets” calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts and things that interest me

Don’t forget to check out all the other great material all the linked blogs have!

Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list.

Read: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup »

Attention Warmists: A Carbon Tax Scheme Doesn’t Really Work To Reduce Fossil Fuels Usage

Canadian Terence Corcoran makes the case that a carbon tax doesn’t really reduce the use of fossil fuels, particularly in discussing the Canadian carbon tax schemes (via Watts Up With That?)

Carbon tax smackdown: Terence Corcoran says higher prices at the pump don’t mean fewer emissions

According to the oracles of carbon economics, a carbon tax must be applauded because it is a “market-based” tax that acts just like a “market price” which, under the infallible economic laws of supply and demand, will automatically produce reductions in carbon dioxide emissions more efficiently than regulations and other big-government measures.

As the current $20-a-tonne federal carbon tax — about 4.4 cents per litre of gasoline at the pump — rises to $50 or $100 or even $200 in years to come, fossil fuel consumption will fall, an outcome allegedly guaranteed by economic theory.

None of this carbon tax dogma stands up well in the real world, as I will demonstrate shortly.

We’ll skip by the types of carbon tax schemes mentioned and dissected, such as the new favorite, the carbon tax and dividend type, which sees the Government causing your cost of living to artificially rise, then they refund some of that money back to you (which means you are now even more reliant on the Government. Strange that, right?), and move on to the impacts (though Corcoran does mention that British Columbia gave up on refunding anything and keeps it all)

Of all the myths surrounding a carbon tax, the greatest is the foundational claim that an increase in the price of fossil fuels will lead to major reductions in carbon emissions, thereby saving the world from the perils of climate change. Yale University’s William Nordhaus, a 2018 Nobel Prize winner, argues in The Climate Casino that a “sharp price rise” is needed to “choke off” growing carbon emissions.

Gasoline price history in North America suggests the choke-off theory is at least debatable and more likely unsupportable.

In the United States, the price of gasoline soared more than 60 per cent to US$3 a gallon during the 1970s and went through another price burst to almost $4 a gallon in the early part of the 21st century. Increases of that magnitude — up to $2 a gallon — are equivalent to imposing a carbon tax of $160 a tonne. But U.S. consumption of gasoline declined only slightly, and for other reasons (see graphic).

In Canada, gasoline consumption has grown steadily over the past 40 years despite bouts of severe price increases that were equivalent to carbon taxes of up to $500 a tonne (see graph).

The reason high prices/taxes don’t produce dramatic cuts in demand is well-known. Studyafter study has concluded that gasoline is dominated by what economists call “price inelasticity.” People do not change their behaviour in the face of rising prices when the product is essential to their economic success. There are some recent counter-studies, but it is clear that the market-price theory is still highly theoretical.

The piece provides lots of graphs and charts to back this all up, worth flipping to the article to see them.

Think about it: when the price of gas has spiked this century, especially when it was way up in the high $3 to $4 range, did you change your behavior that much? Perhaps a little bit. Maybe one less trip to the beach, but, you still went. You still drove to work. People who don’t carpool mostly didn’t start carpooling. They didn’t start taking the bus. And, get this, if you look at places like the United Kingdom, which has placed massive costs on fossil fuels other than carbon tax schemes, making gas way, way more expensive than North America, the only thing that truly caused a dip was the Great Recession this century. People still paid for it.

Which leads us to another delusion. A carbon tax is said to be a beautiful free market substitute for costly and inefficient regulation. Some economists used to say that carbon taxes were preferable because they left “no room for planners.”

On the contrary, carbon control and pricing have become a bureaucratic paradise for central planners and economic control freaks.

In Canada, governments still plan to regulate coal out of existence. Electric vehicle mandates and quotas will be issued; fuel consumption standards will be imposed on non-electric vehicles. Carbon sequestration will be required for major industries. Alternative energy forms must be subsidized. Industrial emission standards will be regulated into existence by state planners, although scores of exemptions will be needed.

The astute reader will by now perceive that the hard-core case for carbon pricing as a “market-based” regime that will let the “market mechanism” of the “carbon price” do the work has been thrown overboard.

Carbon taxes are not free market mechanisms, they are government imposed, government run, government priced market mechanisms. What’s the political system that this is called?

The thing is, the leading members of the Cult of Climastrology surely know this all, but, even if they don’t, they do not care, because the purpose of any carbon tax scheme is to put more money in the hands of government, to grow government, and to give government more power over everything.

Read: Attention Warmists: A Carbon Tax Scheme Doesn’t Really Work To Reduce Fossil Fuels Usage »

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