Study Shows Obama’s ‘Climate Change’ Plan To Hurt The Poor And Middle Class

By William Teach April 25, 2016 – 7:36 am

This study puts into numbers what Skeptics have been saying for a long time

(Daily Caller) President Obama’s global warming plan would cost America’s poorest families billions annually, according to a report published Thursday by the Manhattan Institute.

The study estimates that Obama’s global warming plan would increase the costs of living for the poorest American families an additional $19 billion per year, equivalent to increasing their taxes by 166 percent. The tax increase would also raise taxes on other poor families by an extra $25 billion, equal to a 33 percent tax increase. Living costs for the richest households would only increase by 4 percent.

Democrats have yammered for years about the Bush tax cuts being solely “tax cuts for the rich” for over a decade. They complain that all tax cuts benefit the rich, and harm the poor and middle class, even when there are actual tax cuts for the poor and middle class. Yet, here we have an Executive Office initiative (not a law, mind you, because Obama won’t even bother to submit any legislation to Congress, and the “historic” and “landmark” Paris climate accord is structured to avoid the blessing of the duly elected Legislative branch) that will specifically cause way more economic harm to the poor and middle classes while sparing the rich from that pain.

Obama wants to implement the Enviromental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, which would effectively tax four-fifths of American carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and be similar in scope to an economy-wide carbon tax. In addition, Obama has proposed a $10.25-per-barrel oil tax.

Neither plan would have a large impact on global warming. Data modeling created by the EPA and run by the libertarian Cato Institute shows that the Clean Power Plan would only have adverted 0.019° Celsius of warming by the year 2100, an amount so small it couldn’t be detected.

One of the best ways to get people out of poverty is inexpensive, reliable energy. Obama’s plan will artificially increase the cost of energy while also increasing the cost of living.

Of course, you do know what the next step would be, right? Increased government payments to the poor, making them even more reliant on Government, in order to cover the mess government created in the first place. Funny how that works.

Let’s not forget that this study covers just two Obama proposals, as mentioned. What will all the other proposals do to the cost of living?

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Once Again, Obamacare Premiums Expected To Rise Sharply

By William Teach April 25, 2016 – 7:01 am

What happens when you create a law that artificially attempts to control up front costs, which sees people who are mostly sicker and older enroll rather than the young and healthy?

(The Hill) Health insurance companies are laying the groundwork for substantial increases in ObamaCare premiums, opening up a line of attack for Republicans in a presidential election year.

Many insurers have been losing money on the ObamaCare marketplaces, in part because they set their premiums too low when the plans started in 2014. The companies are now expected to seek substantial price increases.

Not mentioned is that the Government, at both the state and federal levels, helped set and enforce those rates in order to make Ocare look super awesome.

Insurers are already making the case for premium increases, pointing to a pool of enrollees that is smaller, sicker and costlier than they expected.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association released a widely publicized report last month that said new enrollees under ObamaCare had 22 percent higher medical costs than people who received coverage through their employers.

It’s great that these folks have access to medical care. Of course, they also have high deductibles to be met, and there are certainly better ways to structure the coverage to reduce both up-front and back end costs.

The proposals for premium increases, which will be rolled out over the next couple of months, still have to be approved by state insurance commissioners. The ultimate impact on consumers will be hard to determine, as ObamaCare’s tax credits often soften the blow.

In other words, other people are paying for it.

“Companies are either going to have to raise their prices significantly or drop out,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), pointing to a poll from NPR that found a quarter of the public says the health law has personally hurt them.

“When 25 percent of the American people say that something that the government has done has hurt them, personally hurt them, it’s going to absolutely be an issue in the campaign,” Barrasso, the chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, said.

Let’s also note that the deductibles went up an average of 8.4%, equating to $265 a month, across all plans and all states. In some cases they went down a bit, usually on the gold plans, in some cases way up.

Oh, and that Obama promise that he would cut health care premiums by $2,500 a year? They’ve actually increased by $4,865. You know what this all means? That we need to move to a single payer system, so Liberals state. Funny how everything liberals propose requires more and more central government control of our lives.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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It’s A New Era! Solar Plane Lands In California

By William Teach April 24, 2016 – 4:13 pm

Let’s consider: it took Lewis and Clark 2 years, mostly on foot and canoe, to travel from the St. Louis area to what is now Washington state. It took the Christopher Columbus expedition around 5 months to make the perilous and unknown journey from Europe to the New World. The first airplane flight around the world started on April 6th and ended 175 days later. In all fairness, they did use 4 planes. That was 1924. Zoom to almost a century later

(CNN) An experimental plane flying around the world without a single drop of fuel landed in California after a two-and-a-half day flight across the Pacific.

Piloted by Swiss explorer and psychiatrist Bertrand Piccard, Solar Impulse 2 touched down in Mountain View just before midnight (3 a.m. ET).

“It’s a new era. It’s not science fiction. It’s today,” Piccard told CNN from California after his successful voyage. “It exists and clean technologies can do the impossible.”

In 2010, a plane flew around the world in 57 hours and 54 minutes. This solar plane trip started in Abu Dhabi in March 2015, and just landed in California in April, 2016.

“It’s a demonstration that the tech is reliable.”

The plane was stuck in Hawaii for 10 months, beset by mechanical problems, problems that plagued the entire venture. Oh, and then all the weather. Like rain. Slight wind. Too overcast to obtain solar energy. All this to fly one person. If this is the new era, maybe we should ditch it.

An interesting list of traveling the world here.

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If All You See…

By William Teach April 24, 2016 – 1:00 pm

…is a kayak need to navigate once sea rise hits, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Michelle Obama’s Mirror, with a post on the smug burning.

Read: If All You See… »

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Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

By William Teach April 24, 2016 – 9:19 am

Happy Sunday! Another fantastic day here in America, where global warming is making everyone oh so comfortable. This pinup is by Forest Clough, with a wee bit of help.

What is happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. This ain’t Hell… brings some needed truth about Trump followers (not what you think)
  2. Independent Sentinel covers the collapse of Ocare and what comes next
  3. The Daley Gator covers Trump and snake oil
  4. Say Anything isn’t happy about the boycott of Target by Conservatives (and makes some good points)
  5. Raise On Hoecakes discusses guilty when no crime has occurred
  6. Powerline says Hillary wants your guns
  7. Patterico is predicting Ted Cruz will be our next president
  8. Moonbattery has a comprehensive guide to Trump’s hand gestures
  9. Legal Insurrection notes that Hillary’s paid speeches issue just got worse
  10. Jihad Watch wonders about Muslims removed from a plane
  11. House Of Eratosthenes covers the unproducers
  12. Fire Andrea Mitchell debunks the latest anti-Cruz conspiracy
  13. Fausta’s Blog wonders about Mexico as the next ISIS route
  14. Creeping Sharia covers yet another sex attack by migrants…in Minneapolis
  15. And last, but not least, Chicks On The Right discusses PC nonsense

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.

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NY Times: Calling Hillary Fundamentally Dishonest Is A Bogus Narrative Or Something

By William Teach April 24, 2016 – 7:55 am

The NY Times’s Nicholas Kristoff is Very Upset that people refer to Hillary as dishonest. Also, crooked, a shyster, un-trustworthy, poor character, and “belongs in jail”. And here’s here to set you big meanies straight

Is Hillary Clinton Dishonest?

But Clinton’s big challenge is the trust issue: The share of voters who have negative feelings toward her has soared from 25 percent in early 2013 to 56 percent today, and a reason for that is that they distrust her. Only a bit more than one-third of American voters regard Clinton as “honest and trustworthy.”

Indeed, when Gallup asks Americans to say the first word that comes to mind when they hear “Hillary Clinton,” the most common response can be summed up as “dishonest/liar/don’t trust her/poor character.” Another common category is “criminal/crooked/thief/belongs in jail.”

All this is, I think, a mistaken narrative.

Do tell.

One of the perils of journalism is the human brain’s penchant for sorting information into narratives. Even false narratives can take on a life of their own because there is always information arriving that can confirm a narrative.

Huh. So, it’s all in our brains. Kristoff makes sure to tell us this for many, many paragraphs.

One basic test of a politician’s honesty is whether that person tells the truth when on the campaign trail, and by that standard Clinton does well. PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking site, calculates that of the Clinton statements it has examined, 50 percent are either true or mostly true.

So, 50% are either false or mostly false. If your friend, child, spouse, parent, boss, etc, told you a whopper 50% of the time, would you deem them dishonest? How about if they lied to you just 30% of the time? And many of the lies were about big things? Would you trust them? But, Kristoff, in the next paragraph, claims she is honest “by politician standards”. That’s more an indictment of the political class than saying Hillary is honest.

Kristoff attempts to shift Hillary’s Wall Street speaking fees from being dishonest to “just nuts”. If a person is telling everyone they are going to Do Something about some group, then getting paid huge sums to give speeches to them, would you find that dishonest? And then all these groups then lobby that person and seemingly get perks from the State Department?

Then there are the State Department emails, which are the subject of an F.B.I. investigation. What was she thinking in using a private email server? Why on earth would she do such a stupid thing?

Clinton is thin-skinned, private, controlling, wounded by attacks on her and utterly distrustful of the news media. Where Bill Clinton charms, she stews. My bet is that she and her staff wanted to prevent her emails from becoming public through Freedom of Information Act requests.

If she was doing it for that reason, that would still be….dishonest, would it not? Crooked? Poor character? Criminal? Kristoff is doing a piss poor job in attempting to make sure everyone knows that calling Hillary dishonest is just wrong.

Clinton’s private email server may have been penetrated by the Russians, though we don’t know that. But we do know that the official State Department nonclassified email system was indeed penetrated by the Russians, along with the White House unclassified email system.

The bottom line: If she had followed the rules and used her official email address, Vladimir Putin might actually have had a leg up on reading her correspondence.

That’s cute, but, it is also an argument that would not be accepted by any federal agency which found a high ranking private sector corporate officer using an outside email system to avoid federal record keeping laws. We’re also talking about the non-classified system, which wouldn’t be used to transmit the highly classified information found on her server. Nor the stonewalling from Hillary and her people for a long, long time.

So as we head toward the general election showdown, by all means denounce Hillary Clinton’s judgment and policy positions, but let’s focus on the real issues. She’s not a saint but a politician, and to me this notion that she’s fundamentally dishonest is a bogus narrative.

When a Democrat yammers on about focusing on “real issues”, you know this is an attempt to deflect from how bad the discussed issue is for them. If we want to focus on her judgement, though, Kristoff has just told us that it was rather pathetic. Poor. Nuts, even. Not much of a defense or endorsement.

Furthermore, should we accept this kind of judgement and policy from someone just because they are a politician? Should we not demand better, like following the rules, regulations, and laws that apply to everyone else? And that they should not lie to the general public while telling the truth to close compatriots?

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Kerry Yammers On About The War On Climate Change

By William Teach April 23, 2016 – 4:25 pm

Climahypocrites were on parade at the United Nations Friday

(CNS News) U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says the signing of the climate agreement by a record number of countries is a moment for world leaders to recommit to actually win the “war” against carbon emissions that are making the planet hotter every year.

“The urgency of this challenge is only becoming more pronounced,” he said, “and this is why our gathering today is, in fact, historic.”

That would be the gathering that required hundreds, if not thousands, of people to use vast amounts of fossil fuels to travel to the UN.

Kerry said the power of last December’s climate agreement “is the message that it sends to the marketplace.”

It is going “to unleash the private sector” to define the new energy of the future and set the global economy on a new path to development that preserves the environment, he said.

The message it sends is two fold: first, that the government will hook up any compliant company. The second is that the government will destroy any non-compliant company.

“We are in a race against time,” U.N. secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the gathering. “The era of consumption without consequences is over.”

Interestingly, the people who are telling us this refuse to stop their own.

Leonardo DeCaprio is urging world leaders to leave fossil fuels “in the ground where they belong” as he tells them they are the “last best hope” for saving the planet from the disastrous effects of global warming.

The actor, who is a U.N. Messenger of Peace with a special focus on climate change, spoke shortly before the leaders began signing the Paris Agreement.

“We can congratulate each other today, but it will mean absolutely nothing” if you return to your countries and don’t take action to implement the deal, DiCaprio said.

Nothing like an actor who uses immense amounts of fossil fuels telling everyone else to stop their use, to “leave it in the ground”. Bet he wouldn’t be happy having to take a sailing ship to exotic locations. And surely won’t be happy when government restrictions affect his own big carbon footprint lifestyle. Of course, many of the proposals will only really hurt the “little people”.

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If All You See…

By William Teach April 23, 2016 – 1:00 pm

…is a wonderful natural space, perfect for solar panels to offset the evil leather from evil moo cows, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Lonely Conservative, with a post about what Trump’s favorite tabloid is now saying.

Read: If All You See… »

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Trump Does Hamlet Regarding Hillary’s Qualifications To Be President

By William Teach April 23, 2016 – 7:43 am

He does the “to be or not to be”, in other words, he’s wavering all over the place

(ABC News) Republican front-runner Donald Trump’s opinion of Hillary Clinton seems a bit murky, as he homes in on who may be his eventual opponent.

Addressing thousands of people at the Pennsylvania Farm Expo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Thursday, he began by slamming “Crooked Hillary,” adding how her Democratic rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, has suggested that she might be unqualified to be president.

“I don’t know, I think she’s qualified, I guess. But that doesn’t mean she’s good,” the businessman said.

But, in the next breath, he seemed to change his mind.

“He [Sanders] said she is not qualified to be president. Now, what he meant is because her judgment is so bad,” Trump said. “So Bernie Sanders, not me, said she’s not qualified. So now I’m going to say she’s not qualified, OK.”

The thing that interests me the most in this is that Trump has spent the better part of a year denigrating his Republican opponents, attacking them mercilessly, questioning them both personally and professionally. Yet, he just doesn’t seem to have it in himself to truly attack Hillary in the same way. It certainly does make one wonder what Trump’s motivations are, after working hard to split the GOP to the point where many proclaim they will never ever vote for Trump, which helps, you guessed it, Hillary (Sanders won’t get the nomination). He’s divided the GOP, which helps the Democrats. Going easy on Hillary helps…..Hillary.

Whenever I hear Trump on Hillary, the attacks seem muted, and nowhere near the venom he reserves for other Republicans, the party he says he’s representing. Makes me wonder whether he has an ulterior goal. To be clear, he has gone after her on a few occasions, but, just not the same as with other Republicans.

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Obama: I’m Going To Ensure A Free Market By Government Dictates

By William Teach April 23, 2016 – 7:30 am

Investopedia defines a free market as

A free market is a market economy based on supply and demand with little or no government control. A completely free market is an idealized form of a market economy where buyers and sellers are allowed to transact freely (i.e. buy/sell/trade) based on a mutual agreement on price without state intervention in the form of taxes, subsidies or regulation.

Here we go

WEEKLY ADDRESS: Ensuring Our Free Market Works for Everyone

Hello, everybody. One of America’s greatest strengths is our free market. A thriving private sector is the lifeblood of our economy – it’s how we create jobs, expand opportunities, and give everybody a shot at success. It’s what has made America the strongest country on Earth.

The most essential ingredient in a healthy free market is competition. But right now, too many companies are engaging in behaviors that stifle competition – like blocking new competitors from entering the market or limiting the information and options that give consumers real choice. As a consequence, the rest of us pay higher prices for lower quality products and services. Workers receive lower wages than they otherwise would. Small businesses and entrepreneurs can get squeezed out of the market. And none of that is fair – or good for our economy.

And some of that “unhealthy” behavior arises from government instituting regulations that pick and choose winners and losers. Some of it arises, shockingly to Obama and other liberals, from competition which lets the consumers choose the winners and losers. For instance, I used to shop at Kroger for groceries and stuff. They closed down due to too much theft and low profits from high (required) acceptance of food stamps. Across the street is a super Walmart. I won’t shop anywhere else now. Great prices and immense selection. I like cherry tomatoes for salads. The nearest Food Lion and Lowe’s Foods have a small selection, and often not a good selection. Walmart typically has 5 different types. They’re produce and fruits selection is giant. If they drive competitors out of the market with great prices and incredible selection, that’s the free market.

Here’s how Obama’s free market strategy works

The deck should not be stacked in favor of the wealthiest individuals and the biggest corporations, against working Americans.  That’s why my administration is doing everything we can to reverse this trend and promote more competition in the marketplace.  In addition to enforcing the rules on the books, I’ve directed federal agencies to identify anti-competitive behavior in different industries, and find new and specific ways to promote competition.

Huh. That’s approaching a command economy, where the government dictates everything. Right now it’s stuck in a crony capitalism mode.

One industry that’s ripe for change is cable TV.  Right now, 99 percent of cable and satellite TV customers rent set-top boxes from their providers.  According to one survey, this costs households an average of more than $230 per year.  We spend some $20 billion to rent these devices.  While we have almost unlimited choice in what we watch on television, from traditional programming to online content, there’s next to no competition to build a better, user-friendly product that allows you to easily access all this content in one place.  So most consumers just rent whatever the cable company offers.  Because we have to.  That means companies have little incentive to innovate.  As a consequence, we need multiple devices and controllers to access content from different sources.  That makes no sense.

So my administration has encouraged the FCC to remove the barriers to competition that prevent new players from offering innovative cable box options to consumers.

Interestingly, quite a bit, if not most, of the problem with set top boxes arose from government regulation and intervention. Now, government intervention and regulation is required to fix the problems that government regulation and intervention created.

Now, it’s not that I disagree with this “encouragement” from Team Obama. I’d love a set top box that allows me to limit the channels I see to only those I want, rather than having to scroll through a ton I don’t. And one that uses virtually no power when the power button is pressed (current boxes use a lot of what is called Vampire Electricity).

What I don’t want to read is a guy yammering on about the free economy while instituting more regulations.

We know this works.  For years, Americans had to rent our telephones from the phone company.  This was a while ago, but when the FCC finally unlocked competition for home phones, the marketplace was flooded with all kinds of phone options with new features, and at different price points.  Consumers suddenly had many options.  And the whole industry moved forward as a result.  The same can happen with cable boxes, and in dozens of areas of our economy – all of which can make a difference in your everyday life.

The bottom line is, competition is good for consumers, workers, businesses, and our economy.  So I’m going to keep doing everything I can to make sure that our free market works for everyone.  Thanks, and have a great weekend.

He’s dead correct. When the regulations were removed, choice exploded. In the wired sector, this was more about long distance calling, and the ability to purchase your own phone, leading to cordless. Then to mobile phones, and people ditching the limited number of home phone providers, then the use of home and business phones over the Internet. This was more about removing regulation, rather than implementing more government regulation to override other government regulation. Competition is good. Government should get out of the way. And Obama should stick to talking about things he knows, like fundraising and golf.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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