Big Green Was A Big Loser In 2016

There were many Big Losers in 2016. The media. Obama. Democrats. And, let’s face it, American Conservatism. The Washington Times’ Stephen Moore claims that Big Green was the biggest loser of 2016

The day after the presidential elections the executive director of the Sierra Club glumly called the Donald Trump victory “deeply disturbing for the nation and the planet.” Well, yes, if you’re a climate change alarmist who hates fossil fuels, you’re in for a bad four and maybe eight years.

Greenpeace executive director Annie Leonard was even more apocalyptic saying: “I never thought I’d have to write this. The election of Donald Trump as president has been devastating There’s no question, Donald Trump’s climate denial is staggering. He wants to shut down the EPA, cancel the Paris Climate Agreement, stop funding clean energy research and drill baby drill.” Ah, but if this is so crazy, why did he win?

The short answer is that Americans went to the polls and rejected environmental extremism among other things. The biggest loser on election night was the Big Green movement in America dedicated to the anti-prosperity proposition that to save the planet from extinction we have deindustrialize the U.S. and throw millions and millions of our fellow citizens out of their jobs. Voters turned thumbs down on the climate change lobby and rightly so. (snip)

In so many ways climate change was one of the primary issues that allowed Donald Trump to crash through the blue wall of the industrial Midwest. The Democrats’ preposterous opposition to building the Keystone XL pipeline which could create as many as 10,000 high-paying construction, welding, pipefitting, electrician jobs is emblematic of how the party that is supposed to represent union workers turned their backs on their own members and their families.

Climate change was a rather silent issue, being barely discussed during election season by the politicians. It didn’t make the news that much. Yet, people thought about it, and what the policies of Democrats had been and would be. Job killing, economy damaging, cost of living increasing, and governmental power increasing. And they voted against that in the places that mattered. If all those extra Hillary voters in California and Oregon and Washington want those policies, let them pass them and live under them.

The surprise of this election is that Democrats were surprised by the mass voter rejection of the radical climate change agenda. Every poll for the last five years at least has shown that climate change barely registers as a leading concern of American voters. Jobs and the economy were always issues number one and two, and global warming was usually close to last on the list. A 2015 Fox News poll found that only 3 percent of Americans believed that climate change was “the most important issue facing America today.” That means 97 percent disagreed with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernard Sanders and Tom Steyer that global warming was the greatest threat to America. This didn’t stop Hillary Clinton from telling West Virginians that she would put every coal miner out of a job. Then she wonders why she got crushed in this unionized historically reliable Democratic state.

Moore goes on to note that the Democrats will only rise when they get rid of the climate change extremists in their party and start listening to the working Americans again. But that’s not who Democrats are anymore. They are elitists whose every policy is about increasing the size and dominance of Government, about spreading the tendrils of government into the lives of citizens. They do not want to give up that power.

Read: Big Green Was A Big Loser In 2016 »

David Brooks Seems Pretty Upset That Trump Does Things Different Than Other Elected Leaders

One of the reasons people jumped on the Trump train was that he was not an insider, not a career politician. He thought different and talked different. He tended to communicated directly with citizens, primarily via Twitter, which, of course, has the Legacy Media very upset, because they prefer to be the gatekeepers of the news, with the ability to spin it to the benefit of the Democrat party and Progressive ideals. And they still haven’t wrapped their minds around the notion that things will be done differently. Witness Excitable David Brooks

The Snapchat Presidency of Donald Trump

Normal leaders come up with policy proposals in a certain conventional way. They gather their advisers around them and they debate alternatives — with briefing papers, intelligence briefings and implementation strategies.

As opposed to gathering all the insurance executives, interest groups, and hardcore activists together to craft things like Obamacare.

Donald Trump doesn’t do that. He’s tweeted out policy gestures in recent weeks, say about the future of America’s nuclear arsenal. But these gestures aren’t attached to anything. They emerged from no analytic process and point to no implemental effects. Trump’s statements seem to spring spontaneously from his middle-of-night feelings. They are astoundingly ambiguous and defy interpretation.

Here’s the thing: is Brooks sure of that? Did he ask? Or just assume?

Normal leaders serve an office. They understand that the president isn’t a lone monarch. He is the temporary occupant of a powerful public post. He’s the top piece of a big system, and his ability to create change depends on his ability to leverage and mobilize the system. His statements are carefully parsed around the world because presidential shifts in verbal emphasis are not personal shifts; they are national shifts that signal changes in a superpower’s actual behavior.

Brooks has obviously missed the last 8 years.

Donald Trump doesn’t think in that way, either. He is anti-system. As my “PBS NewsHour” colleague Mark Shields points out, he has no experience being accountable to anybody, to a board of directors or an owner. As president-elect, he has not begun attaching himself to the system of governance he’ll soon oversee.

Personally, I see that as a good thing. Perhaps it is time for some change in the way things are done. The debt clock is approaching $20 trillion dollars. Unfunded liabilities are somewhere in the range of $75-180 trillion dollars. No one truly knows. The government pisses away money that was earned through hard work by the citizens. It dictates policies that government officials won’t live themselves. Maybe it’s time to make government accountable to We The People.

Finally, normal leaders promulgate policies. They measure their days by how they propose and champion actions and legislation.

By that measure, Obama is an utter and complete failure.

When Trump issues a statement, it may look superficially like a policy statement, but it’s usually just a symbolic assault in some dominance-submission male rivalry game. It’s trash-talking against a rival, Barack Obama, or a media critic like CNN. Trump may be bashing Obama on Russia or the Mideast, but it’s not because he has implementable policies in those realms. The primary thing is bashing enemies.

While Brooks certainly has a point here, where was the same complaint about Obama, who continuously trashed Congressional Republicans to the point that he was also denigrating Republican voters?

His statements should probably be treated less like policy declarations and more like Snapchat. They exist to win attention at the moment, but then they disappear.

And that there is the mistake of the liberal and media elite. They should take Trump very seriously, but, they’ll continue to underestimate him, just like during the election. Continue to dismiss him. And continue to misread him. And he’ll continue to make them look like chumps.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: David Brooks Seems Pretty Upset That Trump Does Things Different Than Other Elected Leaders »

If All You See…

…is a horrible fossil fueled vehicle leading to the future end of the world, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Doug Ross @ Journal, with a post on the 2016 Fabulous 50 Blog Awards. Thank you to Doug for placing my little spot on the list again! Check out all the winners.

Read: If All You See… »

Good News: Climate Doom Has Been Averted

I’d forgotten about this

So, how exactly do we arrive at the ticking clock of 100 months? It’s possible to estimate the length of time it will take to reach a tipping point. To do so you combine current greenhouse gas concentrations with the best estimates for the rates at which emissions are growing, the maximum concentration of greenhouse gases allowable to forestall potentially irreversible changes to the climate system, and the effect of those environmental feedbacks. We followed the latest data and trends for carbon dioxide, then made allowances for all human interferences that influence temperatures, both those with warming and cooling effects. We followed the judgments of the mainstream climate science community, represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on what it will take to retain a good chance of not crossing the critical threshold of the Earth’s average surface temperature rising by 2C above pre-industrial levels. We were cautious in several ways, optimistic even, and perhaps too much so. A rise of 2C may mask big problems that begin at a lower level of warming. For example, collapse of the Greenland ice sheet is more than likely to be triggered by a local warming of 2.7C, which could correspond to a global mean temperature increase of 2C or less. The disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet could correspond to a sea-level rise of up to 7 metres.

In arriving at our timescale, we also used the lower end of threats in assessing the impact of vanishing ice cover and other carbon-cycle feedbacks (those wanting more can download a note on method from onehundredmonths.org). But the result is worrying enough.

We found that, given all of the above, 100 months from today we will reach a concentration of greenhouse gases at which it is no longer “likely” that we will stay below the 2C temperature rise threshold. “Likely” in this context refers to the definition of risk used by the IPCC. But, even just before that point, there is still a one third chance of crossing the line.

Yet another in a long line of failed Cult of Climastrology prognostications. Of course, what they really wanted was a massive increase in Government. As the saying goes “be careful what you wish for. You might get it.” Warmists never think the bad parts of their policies will affect themselves.

I eagerly await the next doomy prognostication, to go with all the other failed ones.

Read: Good News: Climate Doom Has Been Averted »

Will Texas Pass A Gender Confused “Bathroom Bill”?

Liberal activists and the UK Guardian are Very Concerned about this, since they believe it is better to allow gender confused men who feel they’re women into locker rooms, bathrooms, and changing rooms with women, invading the female’s privacy and peace

Texas looks set to follow North Carolina with push for ‘bathroom bill’

The passage of a “bathroom bill” last March sparked a maelstrom with severe political, economic and cultural consequences for North Carolina that continued through the end of 2016. Yet Texas is poised to propose a similar law in 2017.

In November, one of the state’s most senior politicians published his top 10 priorities for the next legislative session. A “Women’s Privacy Act” was at number six, right after banning immigration “sanctuary cities” and insisting on photo ID at the ballot box.

The act, said lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, is necessary so that “women and girls” can have “privacy and safety in their restrooms, showers and locker rooms”. (snip)

Patrick hasn’t released his own proposed bill, but has said it would allow businesses to create their own bathroom policies.

Oh, no! Create their own policies! How horrible! In Liberal World, only Government is allowed to set policy. That’s how it is supposed to be! Government is Government! The private sector is here to serve Government.

Can we place this in the fake news category? Because this is all Things That Haven’t Happened. But, it should happen. Democrats talk about how important women are, but, again, we see them placed lower on the rungs, below Islamic radicalism and fake women

Despite the demonstrable negative consequences in states that have passed laws that undermine LGBTQ equality, the coming months will indicate whether the ascent of Donald Trump to the White House is emboldening religious conservatives to press for more such bills after a series of gains for gay and transgender people at the federal level under the Obama administration.

They do have equality. Men go to the men’s room, women go to the women’s room. Men compete on male teams, women compete on female teams. The interesting thing here is if they’d stop making such a big deal of it, if they’d stop trying to force compliance, there would be less pushback. They’re harming their own cause. Of course, it’s still a really bad idea to allow men who think they’re women in the bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms with young girls. But, they refuse to accept accommodations, they demand compliance.

But, Liberals really do not care about women, when it comes to it. They care about fringe interest groups, and women’s rights and privacy can go to hell in their world of perversion.

The rest of the article is about as wacky and unhinged as you’d expect, as it delves into religious freedom.

Read: Will Texas Pass A Gender Confused “Bathroom Bill”? »

Paul Krugman: America Has Now Become A “Stan” Or Something

Remember when we were supposed to give Barack Obama a chance in 2008? Not in Paul Krugman’s world, where doom is occurring and Trump is at fault

America Becomes A Stan

In 2015 the city of Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, was graced with a new public monument: a giant gold-plated sculpture portraying the country’s president on horseback. This may strike you as a bit excessive. But cults of personality are actually the norm in the “stans,” the Central Asian countries that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union, all of which are ruled by strongmen who surround themselves with tiny cliques of wealthy crony capitalists.

Americans used to find the antics of these regimes, with their tinpot dictators, funny. But who’s laughing now?

We are, after all, about to hand over power to a man who has spent his whole adult life trying to build a cult of personality around himself; remember, his “charitable” foundation spent a lot of money buying a six-foot portrait of its founder. Meanwhile, one look at his Twitter account is enough to show that victory has done nothing to slake his thirst for ego gratification. So we can expect lots of self-aggrandizement once he’s in office. I don’t think it will go as far as gold-plated statues, but really, who knows?

(blah blah blah)

In short, America is rapidly turning into a stan.

Here’s the kicker

But let’s get real. Everything we know suggests that we’re entering an era of epic corruption and contempt for the rule of law, with no restraint whatsoever.

Really?

https://twitter.com/WilliamTeach/status/815915882266365952

We’ve literally (not the Joe Biden type) just been through 8 years of what Krugman is complaining about. The massive waste of taxpayer money so that Obama can vacation and campaign. Using the IRS as a tool to abuse conservative groups. Attempting to hide everything from Freedom Of Information Requests. And Congress. Lying to Congress and the People. Using secretive email to communicate. Hillary’s server. People like Huma Abadin double dipping in their work for government and private entities, and doing it for pay for play. The constant photos of Obama inserting himself into everything that happens. Refusing to engage Congress and instead passing rule after rule, regulation after regulation, many of which exceeded statutory limitations and had federal judges telling the Obama administration to cease and desist.

Krugman even goes on to whine about the George W. Bush administration. But nothing for Obama and his time.

The only question now is whether the rot has gone so deep that nothing can stop America’s transformation into Trumpistan. One thing is for sure: It’s destructive as well as foolish to ignore the uncomfortable risk, and simply assume that it will all be O.K. It won’t.

How will it go with Trump? Time will tell. Yes, I’m concerned. I’ve been concerned since he started rising in the polls. But, I’m willing to give him a chance. Lefties like Paul Krugman are not only unwilling to give him a change, they’re at level 10 Moonbat.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Paul Krugman: America Has Now Become A “Stan” Or Something »

2017: Annual New Year’s Prediction Challenge For Climate Alarmists

Happy New Year’s! Welcome to 2017, and the 7th year of my prediction challenge, which virtually no Warmists will take. And one year closer to End Of Life As We Know it. 2050 and 2100 are fast approaching, the primary dates that the climate alarmists always want to use to denote when Earth is going to burn, baby, burn in fire, dan dan daaaan, fire, dan dan daaaaan.

2016 saw historically low numbers for wildfires and tornadoes, just like 2013, 2014, and 2015. There was just one landfalling U.S. hurricane, Matthew. There have still been no major hurricanes making landfall since 2005, the longest stretch since the Civil War era. There were 16 named Atlantic storms, with seven hurricanes (the average since 1980 is 12.1 storms and 6.4 hurricanes, with 2.7 major hurricanes). Thousands of cold temperature high temp records were set. Summer wasn’t as hot as usual. In other words, the weather just didn’t cooperate with Warmist predictions. Hence, they have made a big effort, building on 2013, to change their predictions and fold all weather, including cold and snow, as being caused by “climate change”.

No child born over the last 18 years has seen statistically significant warming, and no child born this century has seen any warming.

And Warmists still can’t prove anthropogenic causation of all warming.

New Year’s is usually a time when we make resolutions which we abandon when we realize that chocolate, bacon, and beer are great (and bacon cooked in beer and covered with chocolate!) In the blogosphere, we often make predictions for the New Year. Instead, how about a challenge?

For a long time, the alarmists have been making predictions as to what the climate will do. They say in 10 years, 50, 100. Instead, why not, say, make predictions for……2017! What I want for them to do, from the biggest of big climahypocrites, such as Al Gore, James Hansen, Barack Obama, and Leonardo DiCaprio, to the smallest climate dupes, is tell us exactly what the climate will do this year. For some of these questions, I’m using the USA, but, alarmists from around the world can use their own country/region, if they like:

  • What will the average temperature of the Earth be for 2017? Most scientists place the average at 59 degrees F (15 C) (it depends on the range of dates used, cherry picking to use more of the cooling period during the 40’s through 70’s). How far above, or below, will it be?
  • What will the average temperature be for the USA? The rough average for the USA is 53 F.
  • How many tropical systems will there be in the Atlantic? How many will hit the USA?
  • What will the four seasons do in 2017? Warmer, colder, hotter, wetter? Tell us
  • What will each month look like in the USA? How about in your home state?
  • Which months will be above average, and which ones below, temperature wise?
  • What states will have big floods, and during what months?
  • What will tornado season look like?
  • How many destructive thunderstorms will there be, and in which states?
  • How many “extreme” weather events will there be? Oh, wait, that’s right, Warmists now call all weather events “extreme” now
  • How much ice will the poles gain/lose?
  • Will the Arctic be ice free this summer? It failed to be ice free in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 and has gained ice
  • You’re predicting doom for Antarctica: what will happen this year?
  • What will the average precipitation be for your home city? Average temperature? Average low’s and highs?
  • How many earthquakes will there be (since, apparently, climate change/globull warming creates earthquakes)?
  • Pick an island, and tell us how much the sea will rise around it.

There are many, many, many more questions that can be asked, but, I know what the alarmists are thinking: “Teach, that is weather, not climate! I refuse to participate!” Ah, but, what, exactly, is climate? Let’s pull a couple good definitions

  • Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time
  • Climate is the average weather conditions at a particular place over a long period of time. Climate is the long-term predictable state of the atmosphere. It is affected by physical features such as mountains, rivers, positioning of the globe, plateaus, deserts, depressions and much more.
  • The general or typical atmospheric conditions for a place and/or period of time. Conditions include rainfall, temperature, thunderstorms, lightning, freezes, etc.

Notice, “long term predictable.” Weather and other natural forces create climate. And right now the alarmists are saying “but, Teach, one year is not considered to be a “long period of time!”” Well, you have plenty of data available for the long term, and, with all your vast knowledge of what the climate is doing, due to man’s release of greenhouse gases, surely you alarmists can make predictions for 2017 based on that long term data, and be mostly correct, right? Surely, you aren’t afraid to make predictions for this year, and tell us what the climate during 2017 will do, right? But, you have to make your predictions, and can’t go back and change them up as the year goes on, the way many organizations, like NOAA, the Met Office, and the IPCC do. And at the end of the year, we will see how well you have done.

And since you are now claiming that every weather event is a result of Hotcoldwetdry, er, climate change/climate disruption, you should be able to give us a few predictions. You’re somehow able to make those predictions for the long term, why not the short term?

Of course, if you use any of the models from Warmist groups, you’ll be bound to fail

There’s your real “97% consensus”, though we can substitute the squishy feelings based word “consensus” with that sciencey word “data”.

Any alarmist up for the challenge? And no cheating be reading the Farmer’s Almanac, which tends to be right way more than the Met, NASA, UN IPCC, and other alarmist groups are. Forget about your PR blitzes, “spreading awareness” campaigns, your advocacy, your stunts, and tell us what will happen. If you’re correct, for a change, maybe people will start to believe you again.

Oh, and a second challenge: live your life in 2017 in the manner you tell everyone else to live. Go “carbon neutral”. Give up your fossil fueled vehicles. No washing machines. No dryers. No refrigerator ice makers. No A/C. No gas heating and cooking. No pets. No kids. No hairspray. No new clothes. Turn all power off at home when not at home. Flip those circuit breakers. 2 minute showers. Move into a tiny home.

Read: 2017: Annual New Year’s Prediction Challenge For Climate Alarmists »

If All You See…

…is an evil fossil fueled vehicle causing it to get so hot it snows, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Independent Sentinel, with a post on New Year’s with liberals.

Let’s start off the new year with an ode to fossil fueled vehicles, which Warmists want Everyone Else to give up.

BTW, sorry for the light posting the past week. Had a nice cold. Thought I was better Friday, and ended up having to go home since I was sweating inside. Slightly better Saturday, enough to work, not enough to care about reading the news. Better today.

Read: If All You See… »

Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup – Happy 2017 Edition

Bill Randall patriotic pinup

Happy Sunday! The start of a new year, something special, something exciting, a time for resolutions which will be broken by the 10th. This pinup is by Bill Randall, with a wee bit of help.

What is happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. Victory Girls Blog notes that Trump=Love
  2. The People’s Cube has the top 13 things that didn’t happen in 2016
  3. The Lid has the top 30 hoax hate crimes since Trump was elected
  4. White House Dossier notes Obama going after pizza
  5. Powerline discusses the slow learner in Germany
  6. Vlad Tepes notes another peaceful Muslim in slow learner’s Germany
  7. Maggie’s Farm has a tune for 2017
  8. Fire Andrea Mitchell has more info on the Turkey terrorist attack
  9. Chicks On The Right discusses the Hypocrite in Chief
  10. Alan Colmes is already starting the complaints about Trump golfing
  11. Adrienne’s Corner notes the things she wants to go away in 2017
  12. A View From The Beach isn’t impressed with Ariana Grande’s objection to objectification
  13. Watts Up With That? covers the Scott Adams climate challenge
  14. Scottish Skeptic lets you in on a Scottish new year’s tradition
  15. And last, but not least, Director Blue notes how George Soros has destroyed the Democratic Party

As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page. 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. (BTW, since someone asked, the reason I leave links for the previous week up (or you might see a *) is because they are place holders for later in the day or for next weeks. Easier than rewriting all the time. Also, the listing order has to do with how they are added over time, not how good a post is. I just copy and paste from the previous week, then edit. If you see one of the *’s, go ahead and check out the blog anyhow, see if there is an update. I cannot update with my Android during the day.

Read: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup – Happy 2017 Edition »

Federal Judge Places Injunction On Obama Transgender And Abortion Rules

Barack Obama ends 2016 by losing yet another court case

(Buzzfeed) A federal judge in Texas on Saturday issued a nationwide injunction halting enforcement of Obama administration protections for transgender and abortion-related healthcare services just one day before they were due to go into effect.

The lawsuit — brought by Texas, a handful of other states, and some religiously affiliated nonprofit medical groups — challenges a regulation implementing the sex nondiscrimination requirement found in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The Health and Human Services (HHS) regulation “forbids discriminating on the basis of ‘gender identity’ and ‘termination of pregnancy’” under Obamacare, as US District Court Judge Reed O’Connor wrote in his opinion halting enforcement of those provisions in the rule.

Explaining the lawsuit, O’Connor wrote, “Plaintiffs claim the Rule’s interpretation of sex discrimination pressures doctors to deliver healthcare in a manner that violates their religious freedom and thwarts their independent medical judgment and will require burdensome changes to their health insurance plans on January 1, 2017.”

Judge O’Connor also included something else not mentioned in the Buzzfeed article

(Fox News) O’Connor wrote in a 46-page ruling that the rules “likely violate” the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and “places substantial pressure on Plaintiffs to perform and cover transition and abortion procedures.”

In other words, the Obamacare rules would essentially force compliance for doctors and medical facilities to do things they do not want to do, and, let’s face it, Leftists intentionally attempt to go to places and force compliance. That’s how we end up with religious bakers and florists and others being fined and losing their businesses because they don’t do gay weddings. They could have gone to another business, but, no, they want to force compliance.

(Washington Post) The regulation in question implements Section 1557 of the ACA, which prohibits health-care entities that receive federal funding from discriminating on the basis of sex. According to the regulation, this prohibition extends to discrimination based upon “gender identity,” “sex stereotyping” and “termination of pregnancy.” Among other things, it requires that covered entities treat individuals in accordance with their self-proclaimed gender identity, which is defined as a person’s “internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.”

In other words, it required that medical facilities ignore basic biology based on the fantasies of deluded people and activists.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Federal Judge Places Injunction On Obama Transgender And Abortion Rules »

Pirate's Cove