…is a sea that will rise hundreds of feet if Other People do not give up their fossil fueled travel, you might just be a Warmist
The blog of the day is The Lonely Conservative, with a post on Dems predicting midterm victory. And a double shot with a post on the Clinton scorecard.
Read: If All You See… »
No, really
After Election, Republicans Must Prepare their own Climate Policy
The Republicans have won a clear victory. They will take over the Senate, expand their control of the House, and deserve congratulations for their win.
Now, it is time to govern. The challenges that this country faces are long. And governing is different than campaigning. It means dealing with problems as they come – and not always in what fits best in a 30 second advertisement.
After this election, climate change is an issue that Republicans may think they are safe to ignore. The President has made a big push to regulate carbon emissions through the EPA over the last two years. Some outside groups sought to bring climate action into the campaign. Today, the electoral results could not be more clear: Obama’s policies were repudiated at the polls. Throughout the election, Democrats in swing districts went out of their way to avoid talking about climate change or the EPA.
Republicans could think that they are safe to continue saying “I’m not a scientist†when asked about climate change. They could think this means they don’t need a climate policy. That would be the wrong lesson to take from this.
President Obama’s policies on climate change are all wrong. His Department of Energy picks winners and losers among politically connected companies. His command-and-control policies at the EPA will ensure that “no lawyer is left behind†in a flurry of lawsuits over where to build power plants, and what kind of production is allowed.
However, that does not mean that not action is needed. The science has never been clearer. The threat has never been higher. On Sunday, the world’s climate scientists released their summary report, giving a dire warning of “severe, widespread and irreversible†effects from climate change. It had no effect on the election.
I didn’t realize that the election was all about “climate change”, and that winning means the GOP, what with the ass-whooping they put on Obama and the Dems, have to embrace solutions to the 18+ years of no statistically significant warming.
Here’s where it does get interesting
Fortunately, chemistry does not care about partisan politics. Republicans can actually be more effective in preparing for climate change by doing what we do best: embracing free markets, promoting breakthrough technologies, and devolving power to states and local governments. We don’t need Obama’s Cap and Trade plan. We don’t need to suddenly embrace the EPA or other big government solutions. We don’t need to give taxpayer dollars to politically connected industries.
Instead, Republicans should promote basic research and development into clean technology that will allow the private sector to effectively reduce emissions. They should devolve power to states and local governments to most effectively prepare for the effects of climate change, because the federal government shouldn’t give a one-sized fits all response. They should see that free markets have decided that solar and wind power is the cheapest new source of energy in some markets – but big monopoly utilities are blocking it. There are Republican solutions to climate change – and this year is our opportunity to force President Obama to take a new, conservative, and more effective track on addressing climate change.
Wait, didn’t I write something similar in yesterday’s post on National Geographic? We do not have to do this for “climate change” reasons, but the need to expand the economy and look towards the future, to create more energy, which can hopefully be cleaner than current “alternatives” are. There is nothing wrong with doing this. The end results of energy independence with cleaner energy and leading the world would be a good thing. Oh, and pushing power back to the States, where it belongs.
I’d love to see R&D into the use of alternatives – wind, solar, hydrothermal, geothermal, etc – for small use, for individual buildings, especially homes, rather than these giant wind and solar projects.
Read: Know What The Midterms Mean? That The GOP Has To Totally Lead On Climate Change! »
No, really. This is what they find important after the thrubbing Obama and the Democrats endured
Congress should allow D.C.’s marijuana legalization to stand
D.C. VOTERS, as expected, gave overwhelming approval to a ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana and, as expected, there were immediate rumblings from Capitol Hill of plans to block its implementation. We did not favor passage of Initiative 71, but we do believe in democracy and self-government. Congress should recognize how inappropriate it would be to interfere with the District on this local issue.
Um, why? Congress is essentially in charge of D.C. Furthermore, marijuana is still a Schedule 1 drug by federal law, the same class as cocaine, meth, LSD, crack, and heroin, among others. The Department of Justice should actually be jumping in and suing, much like they should in states that have legalized in some form.
However, if you thought that the Washington Post Editorial Board would defend the statement, you’d be wrong. You’re welcome to read the four following paragraphs to see if you can find any notion of the EB offering any sort of defense, reasoning, and/or rational for the statement. You won’t.
I will, sort of, though. On one hand, it should be stopped because marijuana is, as I noted, a Schedule 1 drug per federal law. On the other hand, I personally do not think people smoking pot is a big deal, especially in light of alcohol being legal, and it being a considerably worse drug than pot. If they want to smoke it, fine. Treat it the same as alcohol, in terms of where it can be smoked.
That said, the Washington Post hasn’t held the same position on other voter initiatives, such as banning gay marriage. When the People of California spoke and passed Proposition 8, the WPEB was very unhappy, and wanted it killed. They very much wanted DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) killed. They’ve very much wanted other laws and amendments, ones in which the People spoke, killed, such as North Carolina’s Amendment 1.
While I do not remember the EB chiming in on Wake County’s previous plan to go to local schools, rather than busing kids all over the county in the name of economic diversity (FYI, the busing plan hasn’t been about racial integration for decades), the paper itself often ran outraged articles, letters, and op-eds by other people, extremely upset over said local schools plan, despite having a local schools system in the Washington area. They were chiming in on a “local issue”.
Democrats/liberals/progressives love the notion of democracy and people voting, right up to the point that they lose the vote. Then they want it stopped.
Read: Washington Post Tells GOP “Hands Off On D.C. Marijuana Law” »
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Quite frankly one of the most amusing headlines regarding Obama and the midterms, something I really would not have expected to appear in Politico
I almost don’t even care what the article says, but
If President Barack Obama expects to escape the spate of brutal post-election news by traveling 6,000 miles and 12 time zones to Asia, he’s in for a surprise.
Regional players are taking stock of whether the U.S. president once seen as a global rock star will now have diminished heft on the world stage, and some are delivering their verdict well ahead of his arrival Monday for an eight-day trip to China, Burma and Australia.
Global Times, an English-language newspaper published by China’s state-run People’s Daily, has carried two withering editorials in recent days.
“The lame-duck president will be further crippled†in the wake of a GOP victory, the newspaper warned in one before the voting was complete. “He has done an insipid job, offering nearly nothing to his supporters. US society has grown tired of his banality.â€
Conservatives often note that international news outlets often do the job that the US media doesn’t. The big question for the US media is whether they turn on Obama at this point. He’s a drag on the party, he has rarely provided any help to other Democrats, he tends to be stingy with the cash he raises in regards to other Dems, and his brand is seriously damaged. What we should expect from him for the next two+ years is for him to significantly ramp up his partisan rhetoric, and to do things which the voters repudiated him over. Right now, Dems have to think about 2016, and Obama will be a helper.
“When Southeast Asia looks at this trip and him coming, they’re wondering, you know, who is Barack Obama now after the midterm elections?†Bower said. “They’ll be trying to discern whether he has the commitment and political capability, the political capital to follow through on earlier commitments.â€
When has Obama ever had the commitment and political capability to follow through, other than on campaigning? By his own words he’s “lazy”. He rarely puts in the hard work the job requires. That said, there’s a better chance of Things Getting Done with a GOP Senate, which supports the Transpacific Partnership trade agreement, something Harry Reid was dead set against. And it may well be that other Democrat Senators will join the GOP majority on this, once Reid is out of the way.
One interesting thing to note, the GOP congress may make Obama look good by the end of his term, if Obama follows along with the economic measures the GOP will pass.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Read: Ouch: “Lame duck swims to Asia” »
This may not be the dumbest thing I’ve read about the GOP Midterms win, but it ranks high up there, and gives me serious pause about the people who are allowed to walk around and get drivers licenses. This is a letter to the Raleigh N&O, and makes one wonder exactly why they would choose this one of all they get. Highlighting moonbattery from their side? Or do they feel the same? Anyhow, Theocracy is on our doorstep, y’all!
Regarding the Nov. 5 news article “ Tillis edges Haganâ€: Oh, goodie. One step closer to theocracy, to a government that forces us all to live according to the professed religious beliefs of the party in power, because if we live according to our own, that apparently violates their religious freedom. Check the history books (or look around the world) to see how well that usually works out.
Now that they realize that they are going to be the minority party in the Senate, they’re realizing that the filibuster thing is super awesome and a necessary part of Democracy. Here’s one of the least caustic articles, which actually has a few good thoughts
(Mother Jones) Danny Vinik says that with Democrats soon to be the minority party in the Senate, Harry Reid will employ the filibuster just as much as Mitch McConnell ever did:
Reid has a history of supporting the filibuster when in the minority and criticizing it when in the majority. There’s no reason to expect that to change with McConnell as majority leader.
And that’s a good thing. If Republicans are going to reap the political benefits of indiscriminate filibustering, then Democrats should do so as well. The advantage of filibustering is that it allows a party to block progress without taking all of the blame for it, for the simple reason that most of the public—and, surprisingly, most of the media—don’t realize that filibusters are basically thwarting majority rule. Presidential vetoes, on the other hand, are easy for the public and media to understand and easy to appropriate blame. If Democrats relinquished the tool now, they’d give up a chance to make the same sort of gains. It’d be the equivalent of unilateral disarmament.
Agreed. In fact, it never even occurred to me that Democrats might use the filibuster any less than Republicans have over the past six years. The GOP has taught a master class in the virtues of obstruction, and there’s no reason to think that Democrats haven’t learned the lesson well. The only question is whether Reid will be able to hold his caucus together as well as McConnell held together his.
That excerpt in the excerpt is from The New Republic, which really wants Dems to employ the filibuster as much as they can in order to block any substantive GOP legislation. Democrats were Very Concerned prior to the election that Republicans would keep the existing filibuster rules put in place by the Dems under Reed, and even go full nuclear option. Republicans/conservatives are also pushing Mitch McConnell to keep the Reid rules, and even expand them.
It’s nice to see them coming back to bite Dems in the posterior.
Actually, I take that back. That’s not the only question. Here’s the one I’m really curious about: will the media treat Democratic filibusters the same way they treated Republican filibusters? To put this more bluntly, will they treat Dem filibusters as routine yawners barely worth mentioning? Or, alternatively, will they treat them not as expressions of sincere dissent against an agenda they loathe, but as nakedly cynical ploys employed by vengeful and bitter Democrats for no purpose other than exacting retribution against Mitch McConnell? Just asking.
Good questions, and not ones I’d expect from Mother Jones. TNR article specifically wants Dems to use the filibuster tongue up the works, rather than for any real objections to legislation.
…is a wonderful progressive city with wind turbines stopping climate change, you might just be a Warmist
The blog of the day is The Other McCain, with a post on the sweet hangover of victory.
Read: If All You See… »
Why? Because the results make it less likely that any legislation will be passed to help stop Hotcoldwetdry
(National Geographic) In the green hills and gray hollows of Kentucky’s well-mined mountains, the economy of extracting coal from the fuel-rich ground isn’t what it once was.
Yet Mitch McConnell, a longtime senator poised to become majority leader of the U.S. Senate in a Congress that will be fully controlled by his Republican Party come January, has found political fortune in those hills. He successfully campaigned for reelection there with warnings about a “war on coal” he accuses Democratic President Barack Obama of waging. This helps explain what the United States won’t be doing about global warming in the near future. (Read more about how the midterm election results may intensify the battle over clean energy.)
An alignment of the newly empowered McConnell and fellow Republican leaders—who either openly doubt scientists’ findings that human industry has heated the planet, or contend that curbing carbon emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere isn’t worth the potential cost of lost jobs—is likely to create the most hostile political environment ever for addressing climate change in Washington.
Let’s hope so. Interestingly, Democrats failed to pass any meaningful “climate change” legislation when they had complete control of Congress during Obama’s first two years.
At the end of the day, as has been noted many times, on the list of issues that concern Americans climate change comes in last or next to last. If it even makes the list.
I would like to see the GOP take up the issue of investing more in research and development into alternatives, to make them better. The method from Dems was to just give away money, some of which was supposed to be paid back, but rarely was, to companies that slapped up wind turbines and solar farms. A good chunk of those failed, and provided few jobs. The return on investment was negligible. The power is expensive, and power output is low compared to nuclear, coal, gas, and natural gas. We really need the next generation wind and solar. Also, a better battery for storage.
Read: National Geographic Warmists Really Upset Over Midterms »
Yes, “climate change” was a big loser for the midterms. Perhaps not quite a big a loser as Mr. Obama’s policies, but, pretty big. Here’s the Voxspation from hyper-Warmist Brad Plummer
One big loser in this election? Climate policy.
In the lead-up to the 2014 midterms, a lot of green groups were hoping that this might finally be the election in which climate change became a defining issue.
You had billionaire Tom Steyer spending $57 million trying to convince voters to care about global warming. You had the League of Conservation Voters pouring in another $25 million, more than in the previous two elections combined. All the while, it at least seemed possible that recent natural disasters — from Hurricane Sandy two years ago to the ongoing drought in the West — might push climate issues to the fore.
Ultimately, none of it mattered much. The outlook for climate policy looks just as dismal after these midterms as it did before — at least in Washington, DC.
That was published Tuesday at 10:56pm, before all the results were in, and probably written earlier. And, yeah, none of it mattered. Despite all the money, most didn’t care in the least about Hotcoldwetdry, just as the opinion polls show
On handing Republicans control of the Senate on Tuesday, Americans effectively voted for the party’s hostile plans against President Barack Obama’s environmental legacy. Their votes also put the Senate’s environment and climate policy into the hands of the worst science-denier in national politics: Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who is almost certainly the next chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Hooray!!!!!! That’s some excellent news
(Politico) For Tom Steyer and other environmentalists, $85 million wasn’t enough to help Democrats keep the Senate blue or win more than a single governor’s mansion in Tuesday’s toughest races.
The billionaire’s super PAC and other green groups saw the vast majority of their favored candidates in the battleground states go down to defeat, despite spending an unprecedented amount of money to help climate-friendly Democrats in the midterm elections.
Just two of the six vulnerable Democratic Senate candidates backed by various green groups — New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Michigan Rep. Gary Peters — prevailed Tuesday, while Colorado Sen. Mark Udall, North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan and Iowa hopeful Bruce Braley lost. (The fate of Alaska Sen. Mark Begich was still undecided.)
As I and others have noted time and again, when it comes to real world issues that people care about, “climate change” tends to come in last or second to last.
And, hey, I thought Democrats hated all that outside money by uber-rich people?
While most pundits, news outlets, reporters, etc, even liberal ones, were wondering what in the heck is wrong with Mr. Obama, what alternative world he lives in, how detached he is, regarding his press conference Wednesday on getting shellacked, the NY Times editorial board loved it
Mr. Obama’s Offer to RepublicansPresident Obama refused on Wednesday to submit to the Republican narrative that his presidency effectively ended with the midterm elections.
He said he will not agree to the repeal of health care reform, as many Republicans demand. He will not sit around doing nothing while they look for the courage to enact immigration reform. He will continue to demand a higher minimum wage and new spending on public works, and expansion of early education programs.
“Obviously, Republicans had a good night,†he said, a quiet admission that his party got drubbed, losing control of the Senate, as well as at least 14 House seats. But he said he hopes to meet regularly with Republican leaders and work on areas where there is mutual agreement.
Strange that the Times doesn’t mention that Obama barely meets with his own Party members in Congress, and hasn’t bothered meeting with either them or Republicans regularly over the past 6 years. Why would he change now?
“What’s most important to the American people right now, the resounding message not just of this election, but basically the last several is: Get stuff done,â€Â he said. “Don’t worry about the next election. Don’t worry about party affiliation. Do worry about our concerns.â€
Get. Stuff. Done. That is so incredibly deep. A great plan, eh? Of course, he hasn’t really bothered with this the last 6 years, either.
Republicans ran on no message except that Mr. Obama was always wrong, and voters on Tuesday said they were angry with the country’s direction and political gridlock, taking their fury out on the president’s party because he is in charge. (As he noted, two-thirds of eligible voters didn’t even show up.)
I don’t remember the Times saying the same thing in 2006, when that’s exactly what Democrats did. I’m sure if we dug up an editorial from them for the 2006 midterms, we’d probably see them being thrilled and holding Bush responsible. As far as the two-thirds thing, that was a nice slap at Americans, and, furthermore, roughly three-fourths of US citizens did not vote for Obama in 2012. So, I guess he has no mandate, right?
Under those circumstances, Mr. Obama was justified in sticking with what he called “the principles that we’re fighting for,†which got him elected twice: creating job opportunity by expanding the economy, the top issue on the minds of most voters. There is no need to backtrack on goals like a higher minimum wage or expanded health insurance when most voters say they want those things.
Good grief. All the exit polls showed that people were sick of Obama and sick of his policies. He said his policies were on the ballot, and his policies lost. He and the NY Times want to continue those policies.
Mr. Obama said he would never agree to end the mandate, which would gut the health law, and there is no reason he should. Voters said they wanted the two parties to stop bickering and work harder, not erase the progress made in the last six years.
Interesting. The Times puts the burden on the GOP, even though the Democrat run Senate has been devoid of serious legislation for years. There’s been no actual budget during Obama’s term. Harry Reid avoids tough votes in order to protect Obama (though, as minority leader starting in 2015, I bet Reid is less inclined to do anything for Obama anymore). The House has sent dozens of economic bills to the Senate, all of which are tabled in committee. The NY Times is cheerleading for Obama to ignore the results of the midterms, and for Obama to keep on with his failed agenda.
Let’s flip over to Dana Milbank
“I hear you,†President Obama said to the voters who gave Democrats an electoral drubbing in Tuesday’s midterm elections.
But their message went in one presidential ear and out the other. (snip)
It’s true that voters are disgusted with both parties, but they were particularly unhappy with Obama. In exit polls, 33 percent said their votes were to show disapproval of him (19 percent said they were showing support). In The Post, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid’s chief of staffall but blamed Obama for the loss.
But Obama wasn’t about to acknowledge fault, or the need for change. He allowed that, as president, he has “a unique responsibility to try and make this town work.†But his solution was to defer responsibility: “I look forward to Republicans putting forward their governing agenda.â€
No one should be surprised by Obama deferring responsibility: he’s done it his entire time in politics, and particularly when the buck is supposed to stop at his desk. It’s what he does best.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Read: NY Times Super Thrilled With Obama’s Weird Election Loss Press Conference »
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