Dem Sugar Daddy Tom Steyer Wants To Penalize People Who Add To Climate Risk

So, will this mean he’ll voluntarily penalize himself?

(Watchdog.org) Speaking in New York City last week, Wall Street billionaire Tom Steyer laid clear his vision for penalizing people whose actions may contribute to climate change.

“We need to reward people whose behavior reduces climate risk and penalize people who add to it,” said Steyer “If we can get this right, I think there’s no doubt that our economy is going to continue to do very well.”

Huh. How did he get to NYC when he lives in the San Francisco area? Fossil fueled air travel? Did he walk from the airport to the meeting? Isn’t he exactly the kind of person who adds to “climate risk” and should be penalized?

A Wall Street baron, Steyer’s words are not to be taken lightly. Deemed the ‘liberal answer to the Koch Brothers, he’s one of the richest businessman in the United States and played a key part in raising millions of dollars to elect Barack Obama in 2008 once Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic nomination.

He met with the president this week to discuss what the White House could do to tackle climate change, and how “insurance industry’s role in helping American communities prepare for extreme weather and other impacts of climate change,” according to Reuters.

Another fossil fueled flight?

Powerline pointed out the rank hypocrisy of Tom Steyer. He’s made lots of money on coal and fossil fuels interests. He flies all around the country and world, surely drives in nice limos, lives a big 1%er life (funny how the Occupy supporters ignore this in wanting his money), and now he wants to use the power of government to compel Other People to act in an approved manner. Why, yes, yes this is part of the Progressive (nice fascism) playbook.

You can see a full size at National Center Blog. I’ll let Tom have one of his people fill it out.

Read: Dem Sugar Daddy Tom Steyer Wants To Penalize People Who Add To Climate Risk »

Surprise: Most Think Obama’s Incompetent, A Total SCOAMF

Perhaps Joe Biden had a point about the presidency not lending itself to on the job training

(Atlantic Wire) When asked a question often discussed with dread at family Thanksgiving dinners, a plurality of voters —  33 percent — believe President Obama (or “Nobummer,” amirite?) is the worst president since World War II. In second place on the same question was George W. Bush with 28 percent. These are the numbers you will read in several headlines today. The thing is, the “worst president since World War Two” results aren’t really the worst numbers for the president in the Quinnipiac poll from which they’re drawn.  (snip)

Which brings us to the number that’s arguably the actual worst thing in the poll for Obama: “American voters say 54 – 44 percent that the Obama Administration is not competent running the government.” Politico’s Mike Allen agreed, flagging that number as of most concern to the White House this morning. This is the second recent poll to give the president or his administration a bad rating on a “competency” question: an earlier NBC/WSJ poll found that just half of Americans believe Obama is a competent leader of the federal government.

It doesn’t get any better

Voters were 40 – 55 percent against his handling of the economy;
They also were negative on his foreign policy, 37 – 57 percent. And on the related issue of terrorism? 44 – 51 percent.
Same goes for healthcare: 40 – 58 percent against.

But, gosh darn it, he’s just so likeable! He’s mostly incompetent, but, hey, he hosts a great campaign speech. Amazing what can happen when a presidential candidate and sitting president is not vetted by the supposedly Free Press, and is instead given a free pass.

Read: Surprise: Most Think Obama’s Incompetent, A Total SCOAMF »

If All You See…

…are the colors of a horrible fossil fuels addicted nation causing hurricanes, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Lonely Conservative, with a post on how dangerous that “JV” ISIS has become.

Read: If All You See… »

Trend Lines Show Cooling Since 2002

Does this have meaning over the long term? Maybe. Maybe not

(No Tricks Zone) Climate scientists on both sides of the debate agree on one thing: the earth’s surface and atmosphere have (unexpectedly) stopped warming; there’s been no temperature increase in over 17 years and counting.

While global warming scientists insist the pause is only temporary and that warming will resume in earnest sometime in the future (once the missing heat comes out of hiding), other scientists are very skeptical. Today a growing number of distinguished scientists all over the globe believe the earth will be cooling due to the forces of natural cycles that have recently come into play.

Yet as many scientists are making forecasts of cooling, there’s one fact that seems to have escaped them: the datasets of the world’s leading climate data institutes clearly show that planetary cooling is already taking place and has been happening for over a decade.

HADCRUT and RSS are the two main sources for global temperatures. HADCRUT is showing what would be considered a statistically insignificant decrease, while RSS, with a 0.1C decrease could be considered in the range of significant. Regardless, what happens now? Does a pattern similar to the 40’s through the 70’s occur, where the temperatures dip, with the media freaking out about a coming ice age? Do they simply flatline for an extended period? Do they start a march upwards, bringing the globe closer to the higher temps of the Medieval and Roman warm periods? Time will tell.

Many studies and scientists state that the Earth is in for a cooling period. Some go for the slight cooling, like during the 40’s through 70’s. Some are thinking more along the lines of a typical Holocene cool period. Some even think there could be a deep cooling, like during the Little Ice Age. Are any right? Time will tell. We can probably expect a spike in temps if El Nino sets up in the latter part of the year. I won’t prognosticate what happens climate-wise, but I will predict that if cooling happens, it will be Blamed on mankind via “climate change”.

Oh, and it must really suck when the Earth refuses to cooperate with your models of extreme doom from slight temperature increases, cause those increases are not happening.

Read: Trend Lines Show Cooling Since 2002 »

The “Arthur Is Climate Change” Wonks Are Out In Force

You knew this had to happen, blaming Tropical Storm Arthur on “climate change”. Here’s a smattering

https://twitter.com/bobbrinkmann/status/484289870274514944

This will only get worse over the next few days.

Read: The “Arthur Is Climate Change” Wonks Are Out In Force »

Benghazi Suspect Was Upset Over Video No One Had Seen

Just kidding. He was livid over the US presence in Libya

(The Hill) Federal prosecutors say the suspected ringleader in the 2012 Benghazi attack voiced “concern and opposition to the presence of an American facility in Benghazi” days before the attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans at the U.S. consulate in Libya.

Huh. That can’t be right

(Washington Post) Ahmed Abu Khattala, one of the suspected ringleaders of the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, voiced opposition to the presence of a U.S. facility there in the days before the assault and organized the attacks out of a sense of ideological fervor, according to government prosecutors.

Sooooooo, nothing about a video? Strange. Well, perhaps the video was driving him to….

(NY Times) In the document, federal prosecutors said Mr. Abu Khattala had plotted attacks against the United States and other Western interests in recent months. They argued that because he posed a continued threat to the United States he should remain in custody until trial. Mr. Abu Khattala is scheduled to appear before a magistrate judge here on Wednesday for a hearing on whether should continue to be detained.

If he were to be released, the document said, Mr. Abu Khattala could “continue to communicate his plans for additional deadly attacks to other extremists and encourage them to carry out those plans.” The filing calls him “a commander in an extremist militia group who is fully committed to causing death and destruction to American personnel and property.”

Obviously, he’s upset about the video

The Justice Department said that Mr. Abu Khattala is motivated by extremist ideology, has “extensive contacts with senior-level members of extremist groups throughout Libya” and “could communicate and further conspire with many of those extremist individuals.”

Nope, just a normal Islamist wackjob, bent on murder and mayhem.

Read: Benghazi Suspect Was Upset Over Video No One Had Seen »

Hobby Lobby Decision Means Companies Completely Rule Your Health Choices Or Something

It really wasn’t much of a stretch to predict that Liberals would continue to publish wacky things regarding the Sebelius v Hobby Lobby decision. This is what they do. Things that make no sense in the real world, but are really meant to scare the Low Information Voters and whip up their base, which seems divorced from reality. Here’s Ezekiel Emanuel, a main architect of the majority despised Obamacare law….well, sort of a law, since Obama has unilaterally changed it multiple times without statutory authority, yapping about the Hobby Lobby decision’s unintended consequences

Which would you prefer: to have the ability to decide for yourself and your family the type of coverage you want to purchase on a health insurance exchange—and having your premiums subsidized by a defined contribution or voucher from your employer—or to cede that ability to your employer entirely, having them pick your insurance for you, but empowering them to decide, based on their personal religious beliefs, which services to cover and which to exclude?

After Monday’s Hobby Lobby decision, this is exactly the type of choice that more and more Americans will face.

Except, the latter is pretty much what we’ve had for about as long as companies have offered health insurance. You might even have a slight choice in which plan, but the plans were picked by the corporation. The great thing about America is that any citizen could literally go out and purchase a health insurance plan they liked, without interference from their company. Of course, then there’s the whole notion that Government, at the federal and state levels, was interfering by deeming which services had to be covered.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority, however, does seem to have added one more reason to doubt the wisdom of having employers be the main sponsors of health insurance in the United States.

Ah, now I get it. Emanuel is pushing for single payer

https://twitter.com/WilliamTeach/status/484035586173333505

On its own, Hobby Lobby will not end employer-sponsored insurance in favor of a voucher system. But it adds another reason for workers to want it to end. And the reasons will continue to accumulate—wider choice of insurance options, more job flexibility, more control over services, and so on. Check back in a few years. After Hobby Lobby takes hold, employer health insurance vouchers begin to look a lot more appealing.

Except, those potential vouchers from companies will still mean that it is Government making all the rules on coverage, not citizens. Do people who have no intention of having a baby need maternity coverage? Do men need coverage for gynecology? Our only real decision will be how much we’re willing to pay for premiums and deductibles.

You also have the Washington Post giving Sandra “I can’t afford $9 for contraception” Fluke a platform for cra-cra, because Hobby Lobby is an attack on women, who are apparently such wilting flowers that they need someone to pay for their abortifacients.

Then their Salon’s Sarah Jaffe, who says Hobby Lobby, and the Harris union decision, are bad for women because they reduce power to the low wage workers

The conservatives pushing both of these cases would have you believe that these are cases about freedom—the freedom to avoid a union, the freedom to practice religion. And yet what they wind up being about is reducing power on the job for thousands of mostly women, mostly low-paid workers across the country.

Attacks on all workers’ rights often come first through attacks on those deemed less important workers. When we decide that birth control isn’t a pivotal issue because it only affects some workers, or that homecare workers’ loss is not a loss for us all, we leave the door open for the next attack.

And so, in a country where these feminized personal service jobs are increasingly the only jobs available, the court continues to rule that workers’ rights are less important than the bosses’, that protections on the job are a luxury working-class women can’t afford.

And there you go: it’s not about restricting Government tyranny and union heavy-handedness, nope, it’s about restricting freedom to…..have abortifacients covered for those wild, stupid, and drunk nights, and be forced to join a union.

Of course, Team Obama, after getting beaten like a rented mule yet again at the Supreme Court, has decided to deflect to

The idea closet is empty.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Hobby Lobby Decision Means Companies Completely Rule Your Health Choices Or Something »

Warmist Suggest Using Beer To Talk About “Climate Change”

Which is strange, because beer is Bad for climate change, since is contains CO2 and is shown to cause obesity, as well as over-consumption of foods that are Bad for climate change

Editorial: To get the climate change message across, talk about beer

For years, the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming hasn’t been enough to convince some skeptics — mostly those making a living off of the fossil fuel industry — that the U.S. or anybody else should lift a finger to reduce carbon emissions.

If you bring “consensus” into the mix, you’re practicing politics, not science. Furthermore, trotting out the old “living off the fossil fueled industry” meme, you’re being insulting, and unserious.

Then came the government reports, analyzing serious shifts in weather patterns, and predicting massive new costs to deal with rising oceans, unpredictable river levels, floods, fires and famine. (snip)

None of it created much movement among stubborn climate change deniers.

Nothing like comparing political opponents to Hocolocaust deniers to get them to listen to you. Tell you what: try calling the next person you are having a discussion with an asshole. See if they’re willing to listen to your opinion.

But now there’s a magic buzzword that could help Americans, particularly those who vote Republican, realize that climate change is truly worth taking seriously.

“Beer.”

More specifically, bad beer.

On Wednesday, a group of business owners, environmentalists, politicians and beer drinkers gathered at Urban Chestnut’s Washington Avenue brewery to hear some truly scary news. Beer’s principal ingredients, hops and barley, are sensitive plants. They don’t like it when the weather is too warm, which is why so much of the world’s beer ingredients, especially hop flowers, are grown in Germany and the northwest U.S. Warmer temperatures could negatively affect taste, and, ultimately, the price, of your favorite brew.

It could, but won’t. A slight increase in global temperatures hasn’t caused a problem yet, and the possibility of a slight increase in the future, whether natural, anthropogenic, or a combination, won’t have any affect, either. Remember when the Brits were producing fantastic wines during the Medieval Warm Period, while French wines suffered? Things change.

Hit Joe Six-Pack in the wallet and he pays attention.

Tell a beer drinker loyal to his brand that next year’s batch of brew is going to lack the gentle, beechwood-aged taste he’s grown used to, and, well, revolution comes to mind.

And Skeptics can respond that the uptick from 1980-1996 didn’t affect the beer quality, nor did the big spike in 1997 due to El Nino. In fact, there has been a huge spike in micro-brew production over the last 20 years, producing utterly awesome beers.

Read: Warmist Suggest Using Beer To Talk About “Climate Change” »

If All You See…

…is an evil grill using evil gas to cook evil meat, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Jammie Wearing Fools, with a post on the utterly rational response from NOW on Sebelius v Hobby Lobby.

Read: If All You See… »

In Order To Solve Hotcoldwetdry, How High Does The Carbon Tax Need To Be?

I’m not sure why we need one in the first place. There has been no statistically significant warming in almost 18 years. More importantly, there’s no hard scientific proof that the Modern Warm Period, or even the brief increase in global temperatures that occured from around 1980 to 1996, was the result of CO2. Anyhow

How high would a carbon tax really have to be to rein in climate change?

Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson published an opinion piece in the New York Times a week ago calling for a tax on carbon — and the idea of putting a price on carbon emissions is suddenly back in the news.

But do current economic models place a realistic price tag on carbon? A new paper from the London School of Economics Grantham Research Institute says “No.”

Professors Nicholas Stern and Simon Dietz contend that current models grossly underestimate the actual risks and costs of global warming. If we want to have the market rein in carbon pollution, say Stern and Dietz, we need to place a much higher price on carbon pollution.

Why do we really need one? If Believers would just give up all use of fossil fuels and make their own lives “carbon neutral”, that’d go far to solving the issue. Let’s skip to the final conclusion

Specifically, instead of considering $20 or $30 per metric ton an optimal level, that figure will need to be in the triple digits.

“The only question,” Komanoff concludes, “is: How fast do we get to triple digits, and how high up above $100 dollars per ton do we take it?”

And where would all that money go? The Government, of course! And this economy destroying tax would somehow magically stop hotcoldwetdry.

Read: In Order To Solve Hotcoldwetdry, How High Does The Carbon Tax Need To Be? »

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