If All You See…

By William Teach December 16, 2016 – 1:00 pm

…is a river frozen from too much carbon pollution causing extreme weather, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Raised On Hoecakes, with a post on “hacking democracy.”

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Dozens Attend Anti-Gun Violence Vigil Or Something

By William Teach December 16, 2016 – 10:30 am

Anti-2nd Amendment liberals, er, anti-gun violence activists, had a big vigil Thursday. Did you even know about this?

(WTVD) As part of a national day of remembrance for gun violence victims across America, several nonprofit groups held a vigil Thursday evening at Davie Street Presbyterian Church in Raleigh. Their goal was to specifically recall the tragic mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012.

North Carolinians Against Gun Violence coordinated the evening’s vigil with the assistance of MomsRising, NC AIDS Action Network, NC Council of Churches, Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham, NC Coalition Against Domestic Violence, NC Justice Center, Parents of Murdered Children, and others.

“We do believe gun violence affects all of us. And where do we go from here?” asked the Rev. Byron Wade, pastor of Davie Street Presbyterian.

Where they want to go is gun confiscation and abridging 2nd Amendment Rights for those who are law abiding owners. Rarely do they talk about or propose going hard after those who illegally use guns.

Anyhow, how’d it work out in Raleigh, a city of over 472 thousand people, with hundreds of thousands more in the surrounding cities?

Attendance for the nearly 45-minute long vigil was in the dozens; and the thread was evident.

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Good Grief: NY Times Blames Cold Weather On Global Warming

By William Teach December 16, 2016 – 7:49 am

NY Times writer Tatiana Schlossberg goes full bore Cultist (via Eric Worrell at Watts Up With That?)

Feeling a Chill? Blame the Polar Vortex. And Global Warming.

On Thursday, temperatures on the East Coast are expected to plummet, and some people — fellow journalists and weather broadcasters, we’re looking at you — may start talking about a “polar vortex.”

We thought you might want to know what the polar vortex is, and what it’s not.

(And we wanted to pre-empt the inevitable chatter about climate changethat usually crops up when the thermometer drops — “It’s bone-shakingly cold, how could the Earth be warming?” We’ll tell you how.)

When these cold snaps come, you may hear other people asking,” If global warming is supposed to be warming the globe, then why is it so cold?”

Well, for starters, there is a difference between weather and climate. Climate refers to the long-term averages and trends in atmospheric conditions over large areas, while weather deals with short-term variations, which is what happens when the polar vortex visits your hometown.

Interesting. Because she’s saying the cold weather, something we get during, get this, winter, is now climate change.

And the earth is definitely warming: Temperature records show that, by the end of last year, the earth’s surface had warmed by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since the 19th century. But even though the earth’s surface is warming, scientists say that winter will still exist.

Warming doesn’t prove causation: just that it has warmed. Like it has done numerous times during the Holocene, not too mention the rest of the Earth’s history. And that, my dear Tatiana, is the argument: causation.

And even if parts of the United States are experiencing unusually cold temperatures, it represents such a small portion of the earth’s surface — about 2 percent — that it does not mean much in terms of average global temperatures.

So, when there is a little warming in one place Warmists will use that to proclaim doom. When there’s contradictory weather, or even climate, they trot out the “2 percent” argument. Regardless, Eric Worrell noted “New York Times published similar articles blaming global warming for extreme winter weather in 2014, 2013, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008…”

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CNN Pushes Electors To Be Faithless

By William Teach December 16, 2016 – 7:11 am

For the past month, as you’ve certainly seen, it’s been all the rage within the Democrat community to try and get enough members of the Electoral College to become faithless, which would, at a minimum, send the election to the House of Representatives which would then vote to pick someone. Which would be Trump, really, since they have to chose from those who were running. Their real objective, which they work to deny, is to get enough to switch to make Hillary president.

CNN features yet another of these missives by Scott Piro, supposedly an “Independent” (uh huh), with the typical tag about this not necessarily reflecting the views of CNN. If the shoe was reversed, would CNN be running this type of opinion piece, or would they be shooting down the notion of faithless electors?

It’s time for the Electoral College to fall on its sword

Amid the last month’s exhausting drama around Cabinet picks and presidential tweetstorms, one date stands out — December 19, the day the Electoral College picks our next president.

As hope from Jill Stein’s recount fades for Hillary Clinton’s supporters, another Hail Mary chance to thwart Donald Trump’s presidency has taken its place: that enough members of the Electoral College sworn to vote for Trump will break their pledge and vote to elect an alternate candidate.

America needs 37 “faithless electors” from states Trump won to do this in order to drop him below the 270 threshold and block him from automatically winning the White House. (snip)

There is still one idea with the power not only to end a Trump administration, but also to eradicate democracy’s ugliest anachronism — the Electoral College. Thirty-eight faithless electors from states Trump won switching their votes to Clinton would do it. Regardless of your political affiliation, it would be the best possible thing for America in the long run.

How would this be the best thing? Trump won fair and square according to the rules as set up by the Constitution. The Washington Post’s Charles Lane lays out why the system works. And, let’s face it, if this happens, and Trump doesn’t end up president, do all these sore losers think there will be no consequences? Especially if Hillary wins? The words “violent insurrection” and “rebellion” come to mind.

The Electoral College has contradicted the popular vote in two of the last five presidential elections, electing a Republican president in both those splits. Not surprisingly, many Democrats already favor abolishing it. The system favors the GOP because too many liberal voters live in too few (primarily coastal) states.

Can’t run this type of piece without a Florida 2000 whine.

Swing voters, centrists and moderate Republicans, you have less than a week to join fed-up Democrats in raising hell to persuade 38 Trump electors to vote for Clinton, putting enough pressure on them that they risk whatever fallout may come from their actions. In the short term, it would elect Hillary Clinton, whom you may not support. But in the long run, it’s the only way to take our democracy back. Make the federal government acknowledge we are smart enough to elect our own president.

“you have less than a week to join sore loser Democrats…..it’s the only way to take our democracy back.” Who are they taking their “democracy” back from? The guy who spent time working the people on the ground and earned their votes, as opposed to the woman who spent her time at fundraisers with the 1%ers Democrats say they hate? The guy who worked the system and won? The guy who played by the rules? Democrats are simply setting themselves up to be sore losers for at least the next 4 years.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Posted in Barking Moonbats, Elections, Liberal World | 104 Comments | Trackback URL

Vulnerable Democrats Suddenly Open To Replacing Ocare

By William Teach December 15, 2016 – 5:07 pm

The hell you say!

(Politico) Senate Democrats will never vote to repeal Obamacare. But once the deed is done, a surprising number of them say they’re open to helping Republicans replace it.

“If it makes sense, I think there’ll be a lot of Democrats who would be for it,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).

As Republicans aim to make good on their years-long vow to quash Obamacare and replace it with their own health care vision, they’ll have to do something Democrats were never able to: Bring members of the opposing party on board. Enacting any substantive alternative will take at least eight Democratic votes in the Senate.

Why? Republicans can repeal it and replace it in exactly the same fashion as Democrats passed it, using parliamentary shenanigans.

Yet the GOP will have powerful leverage that Democrats lacked in 2009 – namely, a huge number of members facing reelection in hostile territory.

Twenty-five Democrats are on the ballot in 2018, including 10 in states that Donald Trump just won. The GOP is betting that many or most in the latter group will be under irresistible pressure to back an Obamacare replacement, if the alternative is leaving millions of people in the lurch without insurance.

Think those vulnerable Democrats do not understand just how toxic Ocare has been to Democrats? They can surely see that tally sheet showing how many seats at the federal, state, county, and local levels that Republicans have taken over. And these Democrats are more interested in retaining their seats and power rather than holding firm to their belief in this rat turd of a bill they voted to pass.

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Posted in Democrats, Healthcare | 7 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach December 15, 2016 – 1:00 pm

…is carbon pollution created snow and ice, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Daley Gator, with a post on who needs high capacity magazines.

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California Governor Threatens To Launch “Own Damn (Climate) Satellite”

By William Teach December 15, 2016 – 10:30 am

Because Donald Trump could conceivably just turn off the ones we have

(Gizmodo) With his latest cabinet picks, Donald Trump has strongly signaled that his administration will do little to combat climate change, which he once called a hoax invented by the Chinese. If the President-elect tries to stop climate research, however, California’s Governor has promised to fight him at every turn.

In a barnburner speech on Wednesday, Governor Jerry Brown vowed to defy any attempt by the future President to “mess with” the state’s earth science programs, telling a group of geophysicists in San Francisco, “We will persevere.”

“We’ve got the scientists, we’ve got the lawyers and we’re ready to fight,” Brown told the American Geophysical Union to wild applause. “If Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite.”

Remember, these are scientists who are supposedly scientists, not activists, not political. Yet, they cheered wildly for a very partisan governor giving a speech, which also included a shot at Rick Perry, who has been nominated to head the Department of Energy

“Rick, I got some news for you,” said Brown. “California is growing a hell of a lot faster than Texas. And we’ve got more sun than you have oil.”

Bringing in tons of illegal aliens to offset all the jobs lost to Texas isn’t quite the growth they need. Interestingly, it is a whole lot easier for companies and citizens in Texas to put up solar panels and solar farm than in California, due to the massive discrepancy between the regulatory systems in the two states.

Read: California Governor Threatens To Launch “Own Damn (Climate) Satellite” »

Posted in Global Warming | 20 Comments | Trackback URL

The Era Of Trump Is Turning Climate Scientists Into Activists Or Something

By William Teach December 15, 2016 – 8:18 am

It’s sudden!

Trump’s skepticism about climate change is turning scientists into activists

Scientists aren’t generally known for their political protests. But like so many things, that’s all changing under the shadow of a looming Trump presidency.

Dec. 12 marked the start of the four-day American Geophysical Union conference, a gathering of climate scientists that isn’t typically known for its raucous itinerary. But on Dec. 13, in between sessions on nonlinear geophysics, seismology, and the study of the earth’s deep interior, many attendees also took to the streets of San Francisco to protest the incoming administration’s stance on climate change. The rally drew hundreds of participants.

And to highlight that notion of climate scientists being non-partisan, they highlight

At the AGU conference, worries abound over future funding for research, jobs, and, of course, Earth. Peter de Menocal, dean of science at Columbia University, told NPR he has heard colleagues express “feelings of rage, anger, confusion, fear—they’re all negative emotions.”

But, mostly the money.

“This is a frightening moment,” said Harvard history of science professor Naomi Oreskest at the protest. “We have to get out and explain to people why this science matters.”

Money, jobs, and power.

In fact, a goodly chunk of the “climate scientists” in the public eye have been activists for years if not decades. Many explicitly call for some sort of carbon tax and/or cap and trade scheme (such as Gavin Schmidt, the guy in charge of GISS). They have been caught manipulating data. Many fight tooth and nail to hide their data and methods, which were paid for with taxpayer funds. They show up at protests and rallies, and some of them even get arrested (such as James Hansen, who was director of Goddard at NASA, and who has been arrested while still in the employment of the government).

Yes, there are good people who do good work in a non-partisan way, gathering data, looking at data, publishing data, without getting political. There are more than enough, though, who are partisan hacks, and show that this whole “blame Mankind” schitck is a hustle.

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Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 26 Comments | Trackback URL

NY Times, Washington Post, Continue To Push To Overturn Election Results Thru Electoral College

By William Teach December 15, 2016 – 7:54 am

The Times and Washington Post have both published numerous articles, opinion pieces masquerading as articles, and opinion pieces since the election brought us President Elect Donald Trump looking to see what could be done to overturn the election, because they, like their Leftist comrades, cannot accept those results. If the shoe was reversed, had Hillary won the election per the Constitution, we’d be treated to a dose of “look, just accept it, stop the shenanigans.” Instead, we get things like

Why G.O.P. Electors Can Vote Against Trump

With the Electoral College set to meet next week, millions of Americans horrified by the prospect of a Donald J. Trump presidency have implored red-state electors to vote for Hillary Clinton or an establishment Republican. Millions of Americans supportive of Mr. Trump find these efforts galling. But both sides agree on what to call such electors: “faithless.”

This is a loaded label. Is it warranted? Do presidential electors have an obligation to ratify their state’s popular vote?

As a matter of state law, the answer is mixed. Just over half of the states have enacted measures that instruct electors to vote for their party’s designated candidate. The rest have not. And even in the states that tell their electors how to vote, the penalties for disobeying tend to be modest and to go unenforced.

Got that? David Pozen, unsurprisingly a very leftist professor at Columbia Law School, and a guy who has been beating this same bandwagon since November 16, is not only suggesting that electors vote for the person who lost in their state, but, to violate the law in many cases.

The entire piece is about deeming that those who refuse to vote for the winner are not really “faithless”, and that they should vote their own conscience, rather than uphold the will of the people in their respective states, up till it ends by saying we should do away with the Electoral College. But, the main point is that the EC should overturn the results because Democrats do not like them and are unable to act like adults.

The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, Jr, is also beating the bandwagon that the EC shouldn’t do their job

Memo to the electoral college that votes next Monday: Our tradition — for good reason — tells you that your job is to ratify the state-by-state outcome of the election. The question is whether Trump, Vladimir Putin and, perhaps, Clinton’s popular-vote advantage give you sufficient reason to blow up the system.

They will do anything and say anything to attempt to overturn the results. Look, I still do not trust Trump. He’s had some pretty good picks for his staff and Executive Offices (and a few “eh’s”), but, how will he actually govern? Regardless, he won per the Constitution.

Yet defenders of the electoral college cannot claim that following the state results is an explicit “constitutional” obligation. The Constitution makes no mention of popular election of electors, leaving the manner of their selection to the states. It’s worth asking why the national popular vote should be seen as meaningless while the state-by-state popular vote should be regarded as sacred.

Because part of the rationale for the EC is that it protects smaller states from the tyranny of larger states. It protects the rural areas from the larger urban areas. Because we are a Federal Republic, not a democracy, and States are meant to have more power, and the federal government is meant to have much, much less.

Of course, these aren’t the only pieces. Numerous papers and media outlets are pushing the same. These are just the two leading papers of the nation asking the EC to be faithless. We saw much of this same thing back in 2000, because they didn’t want Bush to win. But, not to this extent. Just deal with it, Democrats. Your horrible candidate lost. To Donald Trump. A guy with no campaigning experience. No government experience. Because your candidate was horrible. Blame Russia, blame Putin, blame this, blame that. You lost. We dealt with 8 years of Obama, you can deal with at least 4 years of Trump.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: NY Times, Washington Post, Continue To Push To Overturn Election Results Thru Electoral College »

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Late Night Comics Could Have A Big Impact On ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

By William Teach December 14, 2016 – 4:36 pm

Popular Mechanics’ Jeremy Deaton is super enthused

LATE-NIGHT COMICS COULD HAVE A REAL IMPACT ON CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL
IT’S A SERIOUS PROBLEM, BUT A LITTLE LAUGHTER GOES A LONG WAY

By little, he’s probably right, because late night TV is just not that funny.

Last year, ABC News devoted just 13 minutes of airtime to covering climate change in its nightly and Sunday news shows — about as much as CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. This may be as much an indictment of ABC’s news coverage as it is a testament to Stephen Colbert.

“It is certainly notable that Colbert spent as much time as he did on climate change, given that his show is a comedy variety show,” said Rutgers professor of communications Lauren Feldman. “I think it reflects a continuation of the attention he paid to the issue on The Colbert Report.”

Feldman explained that TV satirists are regularly pulling double duty as America’s ambassadors to science — whether geeking out with Neil DeGrasse Tyson or riffing on the latest climate science. Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jon Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah and, (until recently) Jon Stewart, have lent valuable airtime to a vital issue that garners too little attention in traditional news programs.

What’s more remarkable than the sheer amount of time given over to climate change is the fact that late-night comics are actually able to make the research accessible — serving up the latest science with a side of humor.

All right, we can stop there. What they’re doing is preaching to the choir, for the most part. How many Republicans do they think are actually tuning in? The vast majority of their audience these days is comprised of liberals, people who think exactly the same as they do. It’s an echo chamber. Do they ever really have discussions where skepticism is discussed? Or just Warmists? In the few cases where Republicans are on, they are challenged and often insulted. When Warmists are on, are they ever challenged to provide rock sold proof? No. And the falling ratings of all these “comic” shows show that the audience is limited.

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Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 3 Comments | Trackback URL
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