Senator Whitehouse Exposes Carbon Tax Push As A Redistribution Scheme

As I’ve noted numerous times, the whole “climate change” schtick is really just another part of the far left Progressive policy push, an attempt to instituted their out of the mainstream agenda. Senator Whitehouse unintentionally exposes part of that push

(ECO Watch) Delivering a keynote address at the New York University Institute for Policy Integrity’s fall conference, in which he noted “The world has just set some dubious records. 2014 is on pace to tie or become the hottest year on record,” U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse announced that he plans to introduce legislation creating a carbon pollution fee next month. He said he will reveal details in the next few weeks. (snip)

“Pollution-driven climate change hurts our economy, damages our infrastructure and harms public health,” he told his audience. “However, none of these costs are factored into the price of the coal or oil that’s burned to release this carbon. The big oil and coal companies have offloaded those costs onto society. Economics 101 tells us that’s a market failure; in the jargon, that negative externalities are inefficient. If a company participates in an activity that causes harm, it should have to compensate those harmed.”

“By making carbon pollution free, we subsidize fossil fuel companies to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars annually,” he continued. “By making carbon pollution free, we fix the game, favoring polluters over newer and cleaner technologies that harvest the wind, sun and waves.  Corporate polluters, not bearing the costs of their products, are in effect cheating their competitors.”

What does he tell us he wants during the speech, for which he certainly took a fossil fueled trip from Rhode Island, and a return trip afterwards

Whitehouse praised the Obama administration’s limit on carbon emissions from power plants,announced in June, saying “It will change the way polluters think.” But he’d like to take the next step of making polluters pay for their cost to society. He said that not only would it reduce carbon emissions and improve air quality, it would generate significant new revenue for the federal government, perhaps as much as a two trillion dollars in the first decade. He pointed to some of the positive uses that money could be applied to, including cutting taxes, relieving student debt, increasing Social Security benefits and providing transition assistance to workers in fossil fuel industries.

So, really just a redistribution scheme. What he means by “cutting taxes” is giving money to certain people as rebates after paying federal tax rates, not actually lowering the tax rate.

And then there’s this, from one of the people in the comments “As soon as you use the term “carbon pollution” for CO2, you announce to the world that you don’t know a damn thing about science, and you immediately disqualify yourself from any rational discussion thereof.”

Read: Senator Whitehouse Exposes Carbon Tax Push As A Redistribution Scheme »

La Raza Pushing Illegals To Voting States With Not ID Requirements

According to Democrats, illegals are no big deal when it comes to voter fraud. And voter ID is raaaaacist, mean, and bigoted. And violates civil rights and stuff, you guys. Why? They won’t admit it, but voter ID will help stop voter fraud that helps Democrats

(IBD) The National Council of La Raza is promoting no-identification voting states to its followers. Might that have something to do with its advocacy of illegal immigration and the Democrats’ flagging electoral fortunes?

La Raza, as it’s known, is no ordinary nongovernmental organization in the “anti-poverty” racket. A group of lawyers and activists, it has long functioned as the illegal alien lobby in the U.S., advocating aggressively for the cause of open borders.

For its latest stunt, it has published on its website and social media a list of voting stations that don’t require IDs. Interesting, given a recent Harvard study showing that illegal immigrants have almost certainly swung close elections in recent years by canceling out U.S. citizens’ votes to ensure Democrat victories.

With Democrats trailing in the polls, it’s reasonable to conclude they’re seeking to swing another through the illegal alien vote on Tuesday.

La Raza has massive links to both the Obama administration and to the Democrat Party. The have a superiority complex (the name translates to “The Race”), and have even called for returning parts of the US Southwest to Mexico. Which is strange, since so many left Mexico. I had a Twitter fight with a La Raza supporter which ended up with her/him telling me that “they were here first”.

The La Raza people say it’s because Republicans would suppress their votes. But the real risk is of illegals swinging elections. There’s nothing legal about effectively disenfranchising citizens in their own country by encouraging illegals to cancel out their votes.

Democrats freaked out after the 2000 and 2004 elections, shrieking that the election was stolen due to voter/election fraud. Heck, you can still find some harping on Florida 2000. But, they have no problem with an illegal canceling out the vote of a legitimate citizen, because most that get canceled out are Republican votes. Then we have this, from PJ Media’s Brian Preston

An election integrity watchdog group is suing the state of Maryland, alleging that it has discovered massive and ongoing fraudulent voting by non-U.S. citizens in one county. But because of the way that the non-citizens are able to cast votes in elections, the fraud is likely happening in every single county and subdivision across the state. The group believes that the illegal voting has been happening for years.

The group, Virginia Voters Alliance, says that it compared how voters in Frederick County filled out jury duty statements compared with their voting records. The group’s investigation found that thousands of people in Frederick County who stated that they are not U.S. citizens on jury duty forms went on to cast votes in elections. Either they failed to tell the truth when they were summoned for jury duty, or they cast illegal votes. Both are crimes. The same group previously found that about 40,000 people are registered to vote in both Virginia and Maryland.

While Maryland is a Democrat stronghold, the race for Governor is tight, and Democrats have no problem cheating to win.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: La Raza Pushing Illegals To Voting States With Not ID Requirements »

Warmists Freak Out Over Sarah Palin Declaration, Call Her “Climate Criminal”

I’m obviously no longer a big fan of Sarah Palin, but she does make some good points now and then, designed to drive liberals nuts

(HuffPo) Sarah Palin is once again brushing off global warming as “junk science,” comparing (that’s the link to her video) warnings about the threat of climate change to the eugenics movement of the early 20th century.

Last week, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate recorded a video for the Sarah Palin Channel dismissing the “con job” of man-made climate change.

“I’m not a denier. I don’t doubt that climate change exists,” Palin says in the video. “No one has proven that these changes are caused by anything done by human beings via greenhouse gases. There’s no convincing scientific evidence for man-made climate change. The climate has always been changing.”

She continues: “Climate change is to this century what eugenics was to the last century. It’s hysteria and a lot of it’s junk science. And when it’s as discredited as eugenics, you know a lot of people are going to look very foolish and heartless.”

It’s an interesting comparison to the eugenics push by Leftists, which has never really went away. “Climate change” is very much about pushing junk science to make political points. Here in North Carolina, Democrats used the eugenics push to sterilize mostly women, and mostly minority (meaning Black) women during the 20th Century. Palin notes in the video

“In the meantime, don’t buy into the global warming con simply because it’s hip with celebrities and limousine liberals who consume more fuel and emit more emissions bee-bopping around in their private jets and multiple mansions than the rest of us ever will,” she wrote in the Facebook post. “We could have more respect for these folks if they behaved in their private lives as if global warming really is as catastrophic as they publicly claim it is.”

The comments at Talking Points Memo were less than charitable, and if Republicans were writing stuff like that about a Democrat woman, there would be a huge kerfuffle, #WarOnWomen. And, obviously, lots of Progressive sites are slamming her, but here’s the best

SARAH PALIN — THE DUMBEST CLIMATE CRIMINAL ALIVE

That’s from Ring Of Fire, a hardcore Progressive website for radio and videos, which features hyper-Warmist (and massive climahypocrite) Robert F Kennedy, Jr. And we can see the way these hardcores think, calling people who do not believe the same way “criminals”. Yes, Progressives really do want to criminalize thought.

You also get others, like this at Raw Story

The hosts of The Young Turks mocked former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) on Tuesday for her attempt to dismiss climate change as “bad science” like the eugenics scares of the 20th century.

“All you can really do is look at her and laugh at her and make fun of her,” Ana Kasparian said. “But in reality, there’s a serious point to take away from all this: it’s assholes like the Koch brothers, it’s morons like Sarah Palin and all the other Republicans that deny climate change that’s literally gonna lead to the destruction of this planet.”

Literally!

Read: Warmists Freak Out Over Sarah Palin Declaration, Call Her “Climate Criminal” »

If All You See…

…is the need to adapt to seas which will rise hundreds of feet, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The First Street Journal, with a post on what the real #WarOnWomen looks like.

Read: If All You See… »

Ebola Nurse Balks At Voluntary Confinement

You’re familiar with the nurse, Kaci Hickox, who was the center of a kerfuffle in New Jersey when she was involuntarily quarantined after returning from West Africa, threatening to sue, because she apparently knows best, and apparently has no qualms about potentially exposing other people to Ebola. Now, Maine is looking to quarantine her

(Fox News) Maine health officials said Tuesday that they are prepared to go to court to force nurse Kaci Hickox to comply with the state’s “voluntary” 21-day quarantine period for health care workers who have treated Ebola patients, as the nurse vows to defy the state.

Hickox, on Wednesday, told NBC’s “Today” that she doesn’t “plan on sticking to the guidelines” and is “appalled” by the home quarantine policies “forced” on her.

“I truly believe this policy is not scientifically nor constitutionally just, and so I’m not going to sit around and be bullied around by politicians and be forced to stay in my home when I am not a risk to the American public,” she said, saying she’s in “perfectly good health.”

Jazz Shaw wrote about this earlier this morning, in that Maine had been looking for a way to enforce a quarantine, and now we know how.

As a nurse, she should know better, yet, she is exposing herself to her boyfriend (BTW, does she know that the main way to catch Ebola is through transfer of bodily fluids?), who will then expose himself to others

On Monday, Hickox traveled from New Jersey to Maine, where her boyfriend is a senior nursing student at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. Her boyfriend opted to leave Fort Kent to spend time with her during the quarantine period, officials said Tuesday.

If Hickox were to show Ebola symptoms, then her boyfriend and any others who had contact with her also would be subject to quarantine, Mayhew said.

The news of Hickox’s return to Maine swept across the town of Fort Kent and the university campus, which has 1,400 students.

Faith Morneault, a 19-year-old behavioral science student, said news that Hickox may be headed to Fort Kent had caused “a lot of panic” among students. But she said she understands her desire to go home.

“You can’t freak out in this situation. You have to understand it,” she said.

So, if she starts showing symptoms (hopefully not), then she will have caused lots of other people to be forced into quarantine. Which is a time honored way of dealing with disease.

The very fact is, Ebola is a tremendously hard disease to catch. Yet, every so often, we have big outbreaks. More people will die from the common flu this year than Ebola. Yet, Ebola illicits a visceral reaction from people simply upon hearing the word. Even those who do not really understand what it does, it causes fear and anxiety. Mention the Bubonic Plague, and there is little concern, yet, on average, 9 people in the US will catch it. People think it’s a disease from almost a 1000 years ago. Jazz goes on

But this is really just a microcosm of the larger, national hypocrisy on this issue. Noah already highlighted (in much more polite words than I could have managed) the doublespeak of the President when he attempted to explain how mandatory quarantines of people who are actually working with Ebola patients are insulting and bad, but quarantining our troops who do not have such contact is an obvious choice. In fact, there seems to be little that the administration and their media surrogates can agree on except for four things:

1. Chris Christie is a terrible person and we shouldn’t do anything he says.
2. Mandatory quarantines are insulting and bad for America.
3. We obviously need to go ahead and do exactly what Christie put in place.
4. But under no circumstances should we call it a mandatory quarantine.

If you get the flu, you isolate yourself from other people. Ms. Hickox is practicing bad medicine, and is irresponsible to potentially expose others because she is, as so many others nowadays, utterly selfish.

More:  How’d that self-quarantining work with the NY doctor, Dr. Craig Spencer?

“He told the authorities that he self-quarantined. Detectives then reviewed his credit-card statement and MetroCard and found that he went over here, over there, up and down and all around,” a source said.

Spencer finally ’fessed up when a cop “got on the phone and had to relay questions to him through the Health Department,” a source said.

Huh. Meanwhile

A new CBS News poll finds that Americans overwhelmingly support quarantine for travelers arriving from West Africa. Eighty percent think U.S. citizens and legal residents returning from West Africa should be quarantined upon their arrival in the U.S. until it is certain they don’t have Ebola. Just 17 percent think they should be allowed to enter as long as they do not show symptoms of Ebola.

Certainly, it is correct that it is enormously difficult to contract Ebola. That said, why make it easier to spread? Nip it in the bud. Also, those who have voluntarily put themselves in harms way should not be ostracized nor denigrated. They’ve done a good thing. Yet, they will ruin the notion of people doing good work if they are so selfish that they recklessly potentially expose other people. If you went to work, the supermarket, the mall, etc, and saw someone in the throes of the flu, would you say “great, freedom! Civil rights! No one should be confined!”? Or would you think the person was a selfish you-know-what for exposing other people, including yourself?

Read: Ebola Nurse Balks At Voluntary Confinement »

Warmists Talking About Abortion For Midterms

Why? Because very few care about “climate change”

(Reuters) Green billionaire Tom Steyer vowed to make the November congressional elections about climate change. Now he’s talking about abortion and the economy to get his candidates across the finish line.

Funny, I thought Democrats hated those Big 1%ers.

Steyer, a hedge fund manager turned environmentalist, launched a state-of-the-art operation to push voters to elect governors and senators willing to confront global warming. His NextGen Climate Action political committee is on track to spend more than $55 million in this election – an unprecedented amount for an environmentalist group.

But NextGen and other green groups are not talking about climate change as much as one would expect.

Instead, they are paying for TV ads that attack Republican candidates on job creation and corruption, not carbon emissions. Door-to-door canvassers talk about clean water and reproductive rights, not the controversial Keystone XL pipeline that would carry crude oil from Canada to U.S. refineries.

Why, you ask?

The reason is simple: climate change isn’t a top concern for most voters. Only 3 percent think it should be the country’s top priority, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.

So Warmists are yammering on about other issues in an attempt to elect Democrats, who agree that economy killing “climate change” regulations are super-awesome. Despite they themselves refusing to take the plunge and make their own lives “carbon neutral”.

But the win-first approach has its risks, as Republicans can argue that the groups’ unwillingness to let the climate message stand on its own is proof that it doesn’t matter to voters.

“Climate change is like an afterthought in the wider message, which is a tacit admission that on its own it doesn’t move the dial,” said Republican strategist Josh Penry.

However, don’t discount the notion that abortion is part of the “Green” agenda, where they want population control, particularly in the “developing nations”, ie, people of color in Africa and Asia. Many of the more extreme Warmists want population reduction in those areas. Seems rather racist, eh?

And we cannot forget that Warmism is all part of the greater parent belief in Progressivism (nice fascism), a political belief in the Power of the federal government, which seeks to give the federal government more and more control over individual lives, private entities, and the economy.

“Climate change is a huge issue that we’re just pushing under the rug and not dealing with,” said Emily Rowe, 19, as she twirled a hula hoop on the campus of the University of Colorado. “I’m assuming the Democratic Party is more for that. That’s about all I know.”

Sadly, Ms. Rowe represents the typical Democrat voter, all passion and virtually zero knowledge on the issues. And that’s who Democrats are targeting

One population segment needs no convincing: voters under 35 years old who, unlike older voters, see climate change as a top issue. Green groups are targeting young voters, as well as Hispanic and African-American voters, with a sophisticated digital and door-knocking campaign to make sure they don’t stay home on election day.

Every single one of them should have to face the question “what are you doing in your own life to reduce your own carbon footprint?”

Read: Warmists Talking About Abortion For Midterms »

Washington Post Poll Gives GOP Edge For Midterms

Of course, the final poll will be cast next Tuesday

(Washington Post) Republicans entered the final week of the midterm campaign holding higher ground than Democrats, aided by public dissatisfaction with President Obama’s leadership, the direction of the country and the federal government’s ability to deal with major problems, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Driving attitudes is a pervasive sense of a nation in trouble. Overwhelming majorities say the country is badly off track and give the economy negative ratings. Economic expectations are little better today than they were at this time four years ago.

People disapprove of the way Obama is handling the economy 52-42%.

68% say country is on wrong track, compared to 28% who say on right track.

53% say the the federal government’s ability to deal with problems has gotten worse under Obama, compared to only 11% who say it has gotten better.

72% have a negative opinion of the economy, with 28% saying it is poor, the worst category. 27% say is it positive, but only 1% say it is excellent

Six in 10 say they cannot trust the government in Washington to do what is right — the same as a year ago in the aftermath of the government shutdown and the botched rollout of the federal Web site for the Affordable Care Act.

With multiple crises confronting the country — including the spread of Ebola in West Africa and cases here at home, as well as threats from Islamic State militants — a majority now says the government’s ability to deal with big problems has declined in the past few years. Among those who say this, more — by 3 to 1 — blame Obama and the Democrats than fault Republicans in Congress.

There is also a lot more interest in the election amongst Republicans than Democrats

Republicans appear to have more enthusiasm about voting, based on those who say they are certain to vote. And more people who voted for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 say they are closely following the midterms, compared with those who say they voted for Obama. Democrats are hoping to counter that enthusiasm gap with a get-out-the-vote operation that is aimed at persuading sporadic voters to cast ballots.

When asked whether they will vote for the Democrat or the Republican in their House districts, 50 percent of likely voters say the Republican and 44 percent say the Democrat. Among the larger universe of registered voters, Democrats have an edge — 47 percent to 44 percent. That swing of nine points between registered and likely voters is identical to the difference recorded at this point in 2010.

Being “registered” is meaningless if they do not intend to vote. And, if the numbers hold up, there could be a big sweep for the GOP. What’s even more dangerous for Democrats is that the survey has a partisan breakdown of 32% Democrat, 24% Republican, and 36% Independent. This could mean a big swing of Independents over to the GOP.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Washington Post Poll Gives GOP Edge For Midterms »

In Endorsing Dems For State Positions, Raleigh N&O Reads Like Hardcover Progressive Blog

If I hadn’t already mentioned in the headline that this comes from the Raleigh News & Observer,  the editorial board,  to be exact,  could you tell the difference between a hard core progressive blog and what is North Carolina’s preeminent newspaper,  publishing in the state capital?

Democrats offer a needed change in NC House

One reason that Republican state House Speaker Thom Tillis is having a tough time in his race for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan is the dismal and mean-spirited record he helped create as leader of the General Assembly’s lower chamber.

From voter suppression to a ridiculous (and thanks to the courts, irrelevant) anti-gay marriage amendment to the cuts in unemployment benefits to the state’s refusal to expand Medicaid rolls at no expense to North Carolina, Republicans in the House and the Senate have been an embarrassment to the state.

For state House seats in the Triangle, The News & Observer is recommending the replacement of sitting Republicans with Democrats. The Republicans have shown no compassion for the disadvantaged, no empathy for the unemployed and a callous disregard for public education.

I wonder if the Daily Kos, eh,  News & Observer can explain what Dems did while they controlled the General Assembly for most of the preceding 100 years? Their pitiful policies were the reason they were booted out in 2010. I do enjoy the part where they are actually slurring 61% of the population which voted for Amendment 1, which banned gay marriage.

District 11: In this Cary/Raleigh district, the choice is happily clear. Incumbent Democrat Duane Hall, an attorney, has been a calm, progressive voice and a dutiful servant of his constituents. (I love that part about “progressive voice”. It’s like the N&O isn’t even hiding anymore)

District 35: Construction manager Brian Mountcastle, a Democrat, is an energetic lifelong resident of the area and deserves the nod in this northeastern and Eastern Wake County district. He brings a fresh and hopeful voice to this race, and this race needs it.

Democrat Lisa Baker is the best choice. She has been active in her community for 30 years, serving in any number of voluntary roles, and she’s well-tuned on issues and would bring an enlightened compassion to the House, which it sorely needs.

That goes on for the rest,  where it is all about squishy feelings,  portraying Dems as oh so nice and,  subtly meaning Republicans aren’t. What’s missing is any policy platforms and competence. This is how we ended with the disaster that is Obama.

This also avoids the reality that NC’s economy is turning around now that we have a GOP general assembly and governor.

Read: In Endorsing Dems For State Positions, Raleigh N&O Reads Like Hardcover Progressive Blog »

If All You See…

…is the need for more firefighters because “climate change” could create more fires, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Villainous Company, with a post on epidemics through history, and an interesting observation.

Read: If All You See… »

Pause That Doesn’t Exist May Have Been Caused By Government

As we all know, the talking points from Warmists, like the good little Progressives they are, are dictated by the circumstances. There are no hard facts, no consistency. Hence

(UK Daily Mail) Government environmental measures may already have helped to slow down global warming, an energy minister has claimed.

Baroness Sandip Verma said the rate of warming might have decreased, which could support the effectiveness of green policies. (snip)

Lady Verma told him: ‘You raise a couple of issues that we would dispute in a longer debate, but what we do recognise is that there a change in weather patterns happening across the globe, that climate change is occurring.

‘It may have slowed down, but that is a good thing. It could well be that some of the measures we are taking today is helping that to occur.’

Had to break out the Fozzie Bear.

BTW, let’s not forget that the UN IPCC 5th Assessment, soon to be released, will validate that there has been no statistically significant rise in global temperatures in 15 years. Other real world data measurements show it anywhere from 18 to 26 years.

Read: Pause That Doesn’t Exist May Have Been Caused By Government »

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