Democrat Says Republicans Are Worse Than ISIS

By William Teach September 3, 2014 – 10:46 am

He’s just saying what Democrats think. They typically poo poo the threat from radical Islam, and actually consider Republicans, Conservatives, and anyone (other than Islamists) who doesn’t hold their Progressive views to be an Enemy

(Al.com) Congressional candidate J.T. Smith of Phenix City is upset with the Republicans in Congress — so much that he compared Republicans to the terrorist group, the Islamic State in Iraq and the the Levant, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

Smith, the Democratic nominee in Alabama’s District 3, made the comparison on Labor Day, taking to Twitter to vent.

https://twitter.com/jt4congress2014/status/506638146063589376

Then he went to attempt to add context (I’m hoping the Facebook post will embed correctly. First time I’ve done this. If not, here)

Update: nothing wrong with the Twitter link, cause he deleted it. It said

The greatest country on earth is being bullied from within. Actions of Republicans in congress are worse than #ISIL. pic.twitter.com/cOfwONHG13

— JT Smith (@jt4congress2014) September 2, 2014

He also deleted the Facebook link, which said

“Twitter does not allow for context, but this does,” Smith wrote on Facebook. “I am not saying that the republican party is beheading people in the streets, obviously. Here in America, because we are a civilized democracy, we do not use violence against each other as a means of control. The republicans have used the economy as a means to terrorize the people of this country.”

He now has a tweet saying

It’s a well done apology, not one of those weaselly non-apology apologies. But, one has to wonder why he wrote it in the first place, then followed up with an apology. And no explanation on his Facebook page.

Read: Democrat Says Republicans Are Worse Than ISIS »

Posted in Democrats, Unhinged Tools | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

UN Looks In Crystal Ball, Creates Weather Forecasts For 2015

By William Teach September 3, 2014 – 7:19 am

Of course, these are all about doomsaying regarding “climate change”

(CNS News) In a fresh effort to generate fervor for a far-reaching new global climate agreement, a U.N. agency is releasing videos featuring “imaginary but realistic” weather reports set in 2050, to illustrate the type of extreme conditions it predicts we will face by mid-century.

But the first video in the series of 15 to be rolled out over the coming weeks shows some temperatures for 2050 considerably in excess of those projected in the latest major U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (which has itself been dubbed “too alarmist” by some critics.)

The imaginary 2050 weather forecasts have been submitted by actual television weather presenters from around the world at the invitation of the U.N. World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Which is awesome, considering that a 10 day forecast, heck, a 5 day forecast, is a tricky thing. There’s often huge difficulty in predicting what a tropical system will do just 24-48 hours out. But, they know what will happen almost 40 years from now. The video even shows Copenhagen (which saw the Gore Effect in play during the IPCC conference there a few years ago) at 98.6F, despite the highest temperature recorded in Copenhagen being 87.8F.

Similarly, the WMO video features a weather map showing a temperature in central Bulgaria of 50°C (122° F) in 2050. Central Bulgaria’s average maximum temperature ranges from 6°C (42.8°F) in January to 31°C (87.8°F ) in July, and the highest temperature recorded in Bulgaria, in data going back to 1850, was 45.2°C (113.4°F), in 1916.

Uh huh.

“The weather reports are potential scenarios compatible with the most up-to-date climate science documented by the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report,” WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud said in a statement accompanying the launch of the first video.

“They paint a compelling picture of what life could be like on a warmer planet,” he said. “Climate change is already leading to more extreme weather such as intense heat and rain. The ‘abnormal’ risks becoming the norm. We need to act now.”

Except for that pesky 18 year pause which pretty much invalidated warmist prognostication and computer models.

The videos will be released one at a time, prior to the climate summit in NYC, starting on September 22nd, when tons of Warmists will take fossil fueled trips by plane and auto to complain about fossil fuels.

Read: UN Looks In Crystal Ball, Creates Weather Forecasts For 2015 »

Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Obama Official On ISIS Strategy: “Stay Tuned”

By William Teach September 3, 2014 – 6:53 am

The Obama administration has often been compared to celebrity status. Now it goes one step further in looking like a television show. Oh, and highlighting that they do not actually have a strategy

(The Hill) A senior State Department official urged critics of President Obama to “stay tuned” for the administration’s plans against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

“We are putting the features in place, developing a broader regional coalition, a broad international coalition, working to get a new Iraqi government stood up, working to get our plans in place,” Brett McGurk, the deputy assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran, told CNN. “So stay tuned.”

During a press conference last week, Obama conceded that “we don’t have a strategy yet” to counter Islamist militants operating in Syria.

In other words, Team Obama had nothing, despite Mr. Obama having been briefed on the danger of ISIS for over a year. And it sounds eerily like yet another “leading from behind” strategy. Too bad Obama has spent very little time engaging world leaders and developing alliances. Taking selfies at funerals does not count.

McGurk said that the U.S. military could not “just go in militarily and start dropping bombs and hope that it’s going to work out” and called such a go-it-alone mission “counterproductive.”

“You have to have a very sophisticated approach to this,” McGurk said.

It sounds more like they are putting together a romantic sitcom rather than a plan to decimate ISIS.

On the positive side, there have been over 100 airstrikes. On the minus side, this is the same administration that couldn’t put together a website. Also, they do not seem to realize that they should talk to the Pentagon, which certainly has a plan. of course, that plan probably doesn’t include “leading from behind”.

Meanwhile, Dems are putting together an authorization

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said Tuesday he is filing legislation that would give President Obama clear authority to order airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

The move came after ISIS released a new video showing the purported beheading of a second American journalist, Steven Joel Sotloff, on Tuesday.

“This will ensure there’s no question that the president has the legal authority he needs to use airstrikes in Syria,” Nelson, a senior member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement Tuesday.

Good for him. Of course, nothing can be done till Congress returns next week. Too bad Congress hasn’t joined the 21st Century and go use something like Go To Meeting to take a vote.

Also, just to be clear, Obama talked tough last night after arrival in Estonia. Will he match the talk with action? Stay tuned.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Posted in Barry Obama, War On Terrorism | 14 Comments | Trackback URL

Obama’s Been Briefed For A Year On ISIS Danger

By William Teach September 2, 2014 – 1:25 pm

I heard about this in the morning on Fox News, but was waiting for a link

(Fox News) A former Pentagon official confirms to Fox News that detailed and specific intelligence about the rise of ISIS was included in the PDB, or the President’s Daily Brief, for at least a year before the group took large swaths of territory beginning in June.

The official, who asked not to be identified because the PDB is considered the most authoritative, classified intelligence community product providing the President with analysis of sensitive international events, said the data was strong, and “granular” in detail, adding a policy maker “…could not come away with any other impression: This is getting bad.”

The official who has close knowledge of the process said the President, who reads the PDB unlike his predecessors who traditionally had the document briefed to them, was not known to come back to the intelligence community with further questions or “taskings.” Asked to describe the frequency, the former Pentagon official said “not generally.”

After suggestions that the administration may have been blindsided by the rise of ISIS, and that poor intelligence was to blame, the former Pentagon official said some of the intelligence was so good it was described as “exquisite” when the President drew a red line on chemical weapons use in Syria in 2012.

Liberals assaulted President Bush over that August PDB for years, and will still bring it up, despite being informational and without actionable intelligence. According to this report, the briefings contained more than enough information to actually making plans and take action. I would like to see more confirmation before making a judgement, but, hey, let’s face it, Obama has never really wanted to make the Hard Decisions, nor has he truly focussed on Doing The Job.

I’d recommend reading Ed Morrissey’s post on the subject. There’s only so much I will two thumb on my Droid.

This also adds to the case that Obama should simply resign

Just resign already. Go. Be gone. Vamoose. Get out of our lives. More important: Stop endangering all of us with your self-indulgent vacations and self-absorbed dithering, along with unconstitutional domestic power plays while the whole world burns.

Barack Obama already is derelict in his duties as commander in chief. He ought to abdicate and just step off his self-made throne.

Read: Obama’s Been Briefed For A Year On ISIS Danger »

Posted in Barry Obama, War On Terrorism | 18 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach September 2, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is a wall worn down by climate change, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Rhymes With Right, with a post wondering where Wendy Davis is.

Read: If All You See… »

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Global Warming Will Collapse Labor Or Somethin

By William Teach September 2, 2014 – 12:07 pm

What would Labor Day be without the always wacky Joe Romm chiming in?

(Climate Progress) Global warming is projected to have a serious negative impact on labor productivity this century. Here is a look at what we know.

In 2013, a NOAA study projected that “heat-stress related labor capacity losses will double globally by 2050 with a warming climate.” If we stay near our current greenhouse gas emissions pathway, then we face a potential 50 percent drop in labor capacity in peak months by century’s end.

Many recent studies project a collapse in labor productivity from business-as-usual carbon emissions and warming, with a cost to society that may well exceed that of all other costs of climate change combined. And, as one expert reviewing recent studies put it, “national output in several [non-agricultural] industries seemed to decline with temperature in a nonlinear way, declining more rapidly at very high daily temperatures.”

Good thing real world warming isn’t cooperating with Warmist doomsday, eh?

Of course, the reality is that human society does better during warm periods than cool ones. Also,  Warmist/Progressive policies do more to harm workers than a tiny increase in global temperatures.

Read: Global Warming Will Collapse Labor Or Somethin »

Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Will GOP Push Populist Notion That Illegal Immigration Is Threat To Jobs?

By William Teach September 2, 2014 – 7:18 am

They’re thinking about it

(Washington Times) An effort is underway to push the Republican Party to rethink its close ties to business groups on immigration, with conservatives arguing that the way to fight immigration-reform proposals is to focus on how they would force Americans into a tougher competition for jobs.

Bolstered by recent polling that suggests voters are worried about the competition, some conservatives have argued the Republican Party should adopt a populist-style pro-worker message heading into the 2014 election, taking advantage of a renewed focus on immigration amid the surge of illegal immigrant children jumping the border.

“Jobs is the primary motivator for awakening action on immigration,” said Kellyanne Conway, founder of the Polling Company, as she presented her survey data last month at the Heritage Foundation. “Hispanics [and] even liberals pipe up [on the issue]. Independents, those making less than $40,000 a year and 85 percent of blue-collar workers agree with this. They believe that protecting American jobs is an incredibly important point of this immigration equation to them, even if it’s left out of the national conversation.”

It’s an issue that’s long divided the GOP, with then-President George W. Bush igniting a near civil war within his party over his push for immigration bills in 2006 and 2007. It reared its head again last year when a group of Senate Republicans joined with all the chamber’s Democrats to pass a bill, though it went nowhere in the House. (snip)

Usually immigration is framed as an issue of border security or a matter of morality, and in those areas it has been trending toward the legalization side. Ms. Conway’s polling, however, suggests voters could be made to see it as a jobs issue.

One of the best ways to increase wages is to reduce the labor pool. If companies want the best workers when the labor pool is small, they increase wages and benefits. Adding millions, if not tens of millions, of new and mostly unskilled workers will further keep wages low.

The question is, will the GOP do it? Entirely too many are all for amnesty, er, a pathway to citizenship. Many simply want to make the illegals “permanent residents”. Many say they are against illegal immigration but are really for it.

Read: Will GOP Push Populist Notion That Illegal Immigration Is Threat To Jobs? »

Posted in GOP, Illegal Immigration | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Ricky Gervais Makes Common Sense Tweet On Hacked Celeb Nude Photos, People Mad

By William Teach September 2, 2014 – 7:07 am

You’ve heard about this, right?

(Buzzfeed) A leak that started as the latest round of personal pictures hacked from celebrities’ phones turned Monday into a vast invasion of the privacy of actress Jennifer Lawrence and a handful of others — and a kind of festival on Reddit, 4chan, and other online spaces — with continued release of pictures and videotape purporting to be taken from stars including Lawrence, Kate Upton, Lea Michele, and more.

The extent of the leak — with dozens of incredibly personal photos and a few short videos — was unanticipated even by some of the people at its center, hitting all corners of fame from athletes to American Idol contestants. One publicist told BuzzFeed Sunday she was hoping the leak would stop with one photograph of her client, only to see a half dozen more make the rounds the next night.

Beginning Sunday night, a massive quantity of nude and risqué photos that appeared to be of huge stars such as Jennifer Lawrence, Ariana Grande, Victoria Justice, and Kate Upton leaked online, first appearing on the /b/ thread on 4chan (NSFW link).

Some celebs are saying it’s not them, some, like Jennifer Lawrence, confirm the pictures. They are very upset about this, and have their attorneys and law enforcement involved. The FBI is also looking in to the incident.

(Mediaite) Actor and comedian Ricky Gervais had a different take on the hacked nude celebrity photos today. While he made it absolutely clear he finds the release of such photos horrible, he did make a joke about how no one would be able to obtain naked photos of celebrities if said celebrities didn’t take naked photos of themselves in the first place.

Here’s the tweet in question, which has since been deleted:

That didn’t exactly go over well. And while Gervais did take down that tweet, he continued to defend himself on Twitter, arguing that it’s really not worth it to be outraged by a joke:

Sadly, he did delete a very simple common sense piece of advice. How many times has it happened that someone allowed risque pictures and/or vids of themselves to be taken, or taken by themselves, and they end up on the Internet? Not just celebs, but average citizens? Maybe a boyfriend or husband (or female friend) talked them into it. Maybe they were just taking a selfie. Next thing you know, they’re mortified by it being out there for the world to see. This has been going on since the 1990’s, with the Internet becoming accessible to everyone. Heck, even before then things happened. Remember Vanessa Williams?

In a case like this, taking nude photos, many which appear to be selfies, and putting them in the cloud is asking for problems. This is not to blame the celebs, who are the victims….well, yes, it is. Actions have consequences. This “taking pictures of yourself naked” meme is not limited to these celebs. It seems to be more and more common amongst the under 30 crowd. I’ll never get wanting to take a risque selfie in a public bathroom, but that’s a different story. If you take them, there’s always a possibility that someone will get their hands on them. Especially a Hollywood celebrity.

If you want to take them, don’t put them on the cloud. Don’t leave them on your phone. Put them on an external hard drive, with massive password protection. Better yet, if you do not want people to see them, don’t take them.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Ricky Gervais Makes Common Sense Tweet On Hacked Celeb Nude Photos, People Mad »

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Warmist Juan Cole: Forget ISIS And Russia, Cause Climate Change Is The Real Threat

By William Teach September 1, 2014 – 3:46 pm

Juan Cole has long been a leading voice of Crazy within the Left-o-sphere (here’s an oldy but goody where he wants coal use criminalized). Here’s another example

U.S. Public Worried About ISIL and Putin but Climate Change Is the Real Challenge

This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s Web page.

In a new Pew/ USA Today poll, the American public shows itself alarmed by the rise of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in northern Iraq and Syria as a threat to U.S. security, finding it more threatening even than Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who has risen on the villain scale quite a lot.  Iran is seen as less menacing, as is North Korea.  The Israel-Palestinian struggle is seen as a threat to the U.S. by a little over half.  More Americans still think the U.S. is doing too much as the world’s policeman, but those who think it is doing too little have greatly increased in number, especially among Republicans.

But almost no Republicans think Global Warming is a threat, and only slightly more than a majority of Democrats do.  In short, the US public is again being misled by its media and politicians as to the true shape of the world, and is likely to suffer pretty badly for this ignorance.

Except for that part about no warming for almost 18 years.

Americans’ concern about the rise of the so-called “Islamic State” is justified.  It is an extremely nasty and vicious organization, and it has made significant advances this summer in northern Iraq.  The public largely supports giving U.S. close air support to Kurdish and Iraqi military forces against it.

And, he proclaims that North Korea, Iran, and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine are not threats to the U.S.

But Global Warming (what experts call Climate Change) is a dire threat to the health and well-being of millions of Americans.  In the coming decades it will do trillions of dollars of damage to the American economy.  Imagine what the city of Miami is worth;  but much of it is doomed .  We have locked in a four foot sea level rise over the next 80 years or so.  But that is an average.  In some places it will be higher (the ocean is not smooth).  There will be episodes of rapid rise and storm surges leading to substantial coastal flooding for some towns and cities.

You are much more likely to die falling in the bathtub or being struck by lighting than to be killed by terrorists or by Vladimir Putin, much less by Hassan Rouhani of Iran.  But Americans’ health and well-being is directly and powerfully threatened by global warming.

Doooooooom!!!!!!

I will give him props for using the terms CO2 and carbon dioxide, rather than the silly Warmist talking points about carbon and carbon pollution. Yet, he wants to worry about something which is mostly natural, has always happened, was warmer during multiple points in the Holocene, while minimizing the stated threats from Islamic terrorists. Typical head in the sand Progressive.

Read: Warmist Juan Cole: Forget ISIS And Russia, Cause Climate Change Is The Real Threat »

Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming, RoP | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach September 1, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil plastic water bottle and several evil beer bottles causing seas to rise and temperatures to scorch, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Other McCain, with a post on the thought police.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 1 Comment | Trackback URL
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