Senator Cruz Calls Obama’s Shameless Trayvon Statement An Attack On 2nd Amendment

By William Teach July 20, 2013 – 7:09 am

I’m sure you’ve read the news and analysis regarding Obama’s “hey, Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago” (if Obama was in to street fighting, marijuana, illegal guns, taking naked pictures of underage girls, and taking drugs like DMX and Lean) comment, unsurprisingly making the issue about himself, along with all the race baiting and ignoring the facts of the case. Here’s Senator Cruz in response

GOP Sen. Ted Cruz on Friday slammed President Barack Obama after his remarks about Trayvon Martin, saying the president has a “disregard for the Bill of Rights.”

“It is not surprising that the president uses it seems every opportunity he can to try to go after our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms,” Cruz said on CNN. “I think it is unfortunate that this president and this administration has a consistent disregard for the Bill of Rights.”

According to the White House transcript, here’s what PBO said

And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these “stand your ground” laws, I’d just ask people to consider, if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened? And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.

If Trayvon thought he was in danger from Zimmerman and Zimmerman was confronting Trayvon, yes, he could stand his ground, if the Florida statute was met

A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

Democrats like Obama want to take the notion of self defense away from citizens (but not for themselves, of course). And then there’s the pesky little reality that stand your ground had nothing to do with the trial. Zimmerman waived having a stand your ground hearing, because it became pure self defense when Trayvon attacked Zimmerman first and had him on the ground pummeling George.

Most of the rest was shameless pandering based on Obama’s typical me me me mode. It was pathetic, unpresidential, and took the side of one citizen (Trayvon) over another’s (Zimmerman), the latter having been acquitted by a duly empaneled jury. Any violence against Zimmerman or through riots is now on Obama. Instead of fomenting peace and coming together, Obama stoked the fire even more.

And he used the comment to push for more gun control. The man is shameless.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: Senator Cruz Calls Obama’s Shameless Trayvon Statement An Attack On 2nd Amendment »

Posted in 2nd Amendment, Barry Obama, Current Affairs | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Bummer: Report Finds Fracking Chemicals Didn’t Pollute Pa. Waters

By William Teach July 19, 2013 – 4:07 pm

Despite all the yammering of Liberals, Democrats, and Warmists, virtually every talking point regarding hydraulic fracturing goes down in flames

(CBS) A landmark federal study on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, shows no evidence that chemicals from the natural gas drilling process moved up to contaminate drinking water aquifers at a western Pennsylvania drilling site, the Department of Energy told The Associated Press.

After a year of monitoring, the researchers found that the chemical-laced fluids used to free gas trapped deep below the surface stayed thousands of feet below the shallower areas that supply drinking water, geologist Richard Hammack said.

Although the results are preliminary — the study is still ongoing — they are a boost to a natural gas industry that has fought complaints from environmental groups and property owners who call fracking dangerous.

Look, I’ll be the first to say that the companies need to be careful as they drill in any manner, doing what they can to avoid environmental pollution. Basic safety. But, the anti-fracking wackjobs are irrationally unhinged over the issue, refusing to look at facts, figures, studies, instead going with their typical un-founded scareathon stories that “could happen”. But never seem to.

Read: Bummer: Report Finds Fracking Chemicals Didn’t Pollute Pa. Waters »

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If All You See…

By William Teach July 19, 2013 – 1:00 pm

…is the sign of an evil fossil fuels company threatening you with an evil gun, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Maggie’s Farm, with a post on the desperation of Warmists.

Read: If All You See… »

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Warmists Were Eviscerated During Senate “Climate Change Is Here” Hearing

By William Teach July 19, 2013 – 12:09 pm

Warmists really did not comport themselves well, especially when it came to the actual science, or what the infer is science. Judith Curry has a nice breakdown of the testimony, which includes this from Dr. Roy Spencer (full testimony here)

It should also be noted that the fact that I believe at least some of recent warming is human-caused places me in the 97% of researchers recently claimed to support the global warming consensus (actually, it’s 97% of the published papers, Cook et al., 2013). The 97% statement is therefore rather innocuous, since it probably includes all of the global warming “skeptics” I know of who are actively working in the field. Skeptics generally are skeptical of the view that recent warming is all human-caused, and/or that it is of a sufficient magnitude to warrant immediate action given the cost of energy policies to the poor. They do not claim humans have no impact on climate whatsoever.

Judith notes that this is particularly clever, a good way to blunt the “97% consensus” meme being thrown around. Hey, you could put me in that 97%, as I’ve written before. I do believe Mankind plays a small role in heating, mostly through agriculture, ocean pollution, and landfills, when it comes to true global impacts, but the urban heat island effect plays the most part in anthropogenic forcings, meaning it is localized.

The lack of statistically significant warming in the last 15 years is sometimes glossed over with the claim that the global temperature record has a number of examples of no warming (or even cooling) over fifteen year periods. But this claim is disingenuous, because the IPCC presumed radiative forcing of the climate system from increasing CO2 has been at its supposed maximum value only in the last 15 years. In other words, when the climate “stove” has been turned up the most (the last 15 years) is also when you least expect a lack of warming.

It is time for scientists to entertain the possibility that there is something wrong with the assumptions built into their climate models. The fact that all of the models have been peer reviewed does not mean that any of them have been deemed to have any skill for predicting future temperatures. In the parlance of the Daubert standard for rules of scientific evidence, the models have not been successfully field tested for predicting climate change, and so far their error rate should preclude their use for predicting future climate change.

The claim has been made that the extra energy from global warming has mostly bypassed the atmosphere and has been sequestered in the deep ocean, and there is some observational evidence supporting this view. But when we examine the actual, rather weak level of warming (measured in hundredths of a degree C) at depths of many hundreds of meters, it implies relatively low climate sensitivity. Part of the evidence for this result is satellite radiative budget measurements which suggest that more intense El Nino activity since the 1980s caused an apparent decrease in cloudiness, which allowed more sunlight into the climate system, which caused a natural component to recent global warming. Since the global energy imbalance leading to ocean warming since the 1950s is only about 1 part in 1,000 compared to the average rates of solar heating and infrared cooling of the Earth, it should not be surprising that natural climate cycles can cause such small changes in ocean temperature. Even if our ocean temperature measurements of deep warming of hundredths of a degree over the last 50 years are correct, and mostly due to human greenhouse gas emissions, they probably do not support the IPCC’s pessimistic view of future warming.

Judith notes

On the “warm” side, overconfidence or snarky putdowns of scientists on the other side of the debate does not go over well, since this triggers reminders of Climategate and detracts from your credibility. On the more “skeptical” side, aligning yourself with consensus is an effective strategy, which was used both by Roy Spencer and Roger Pielke Jr. in this Hearing.

Barbara Boxer quickly snarked about the Climate Realists being paid hacks of Big Oil, smearing the witnesses. Of course, Boxer is a paid hack of abortionistas, based on the money that EMILY’s list gives her.

Check out all of Steve Milloy’s tweets about the hearing.

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Posted in Climahypocrites, Collapsing Science, Democrats, Global Warming | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Obama To Work Hard Pushing Obamacare

By William Teach July 19, 2013 – 8:57 am

Democrats up for re-election in 2014 hardest hit

(The Hill) President Obama criticized Republicans on Thursday for “the same old song and dance” on ObamaCare, vowing to “blow through” their criticisms to implement his signature healthcare law. [WATCH VIDEO]

Seeking to bolster his unpopular healthcare law in a speech from the White House, Obama contrasted positive headlines about the law’s effects with Republicans’ continued efforts to undermine the law and said his administration would plow ahead with full implementation.

Which is funny, considering that Obama has had to violate the law in pushing the employer mandate out a year from its legally scheduled start date of 1/1/2014. Unions are saying that Obamacare will shatter their benefits. The testing requirements for state exchanges could delay them. HHS and the other agencies involved, including the politicized IRS, are constantly missing their deadlines. Heck, they’re at 20,000 pages of regulations and still adding.

But, hey, Obama tells us that NY is the perfect example of costs coming down

The reason New York premiums are forecast to drop under Obamacare is that the state has required insurance companies to offer coverage to all applicants since 1993. This mandatory coverage has made New York’s insurance rates the highest in the nation, meaning that by adding the federal requirement that all humans not covered by a government program purchase insurance, the risk pool will expand and rates will drop.

Dr. Sreedhar Potarazu notes that this is like buying at a sale where the prices were already hyper-inflated

Ohio’s rates will be more typical of those experienced by consumers in the rest of the nation: Insurance regulators in Columbus are forecasting an 88 percent individual rate hike next year as those previously refused insurance or unable to afford it come into the system.

Democrats up for re-election should probably breathe easy: Obama rarely spends much time pushing anything. He gave a speech, he might spend a week or two pushing O-care (which is still just as unpopular as it was before it was passed), then forget about it. But, they do have to worry about the dreaded “pivot” close to voting time. Because more than half of Americans think Obamacare will make their lives worse. And

(Weekly Standard) A new Gallup poll of small-business owners indicates that Obamacare is having a dramatic and deleterious effect on Americans’ employment prospects.  More than 40 percent of small-business owners say that Obamacare has caused them to freeze hiring, while nearly a fifth say that it has caused them to cut existing workers.  According to the poll, 41 percent of small-business owners have frozen hiring, while 19 percent have “reduced the number of employees [they] have in [their] business as a specific result of the Affordable Care Act [Obamacare]” (italics added).

But, hey, Republicans should thank Obama for giving them talking points as the 2014 mid-terms approach.

Read: Obama To Work Hard Pushing Obamacare »

Posted in Barry Obama, Democrats, Healthcare | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Detroit As A Stand In For America

By William Teach July 19, 2013 – 8:28 am

In noting this article by Walter Russell Mead, Ace notes that Mead keeps typing “Detroit” instead of “America”

Obama to Detroit: Drop Dead

This is where blue governance has brought Detroit in the end: not even a liberal Democratic administration will step in to save the pensions of thousands of public workers and African Americans, condemning countless innocents to having their pensions and health benefits gutted in bankruptcy court.

Detroit has been spending on average $100 million more than it has taken in for each of the past five years. The city’s $11 billion in unsecured debt includes $6 billion in health and other retirement benefits and $3 billion in retiree pensions for its 20,000 city pensioners, who are slated to receive less than 10 percent of what they were promised. Between 2007 and 2011, an astounding 36 percent of residents lived below the poverty line. Last year, the FBI cited Detroit as having the highest violent crime rate for any major American city. In the first 12 years of the new century, Detroit lost more than 26 percent of its population.

Progressive politicians, wonks, and activists can only blame big corporations and other liberal bogeymen for so long. The truth is that corrupt machine politics in a one-party system devoted to the blue social model wrecked an entire city and thousands of lives beyond repair. The sooner blues come to terms with this reality, the greater chance other cities will have of avoiding Detroit’s fate.

And Lefties will blame everything but Blue politics in the days and months to come. Detroit has been run almost solely by Democrats for 51 years. It’s a model for Blue politics and policies, and we see how well they work. One of the people in the comments at the story attempts to yammer on about no one knows what “blue governance” is, and, hey, look at the educational state of Southern states. Interestingly, the states and cities in the worst financial plights tend to be in Blue states. Those that have been going bankrupt or close to are in Blue areas.

The problem going forward is that no one wants to move to Detroit. Their tax base has eroded to almost negligible. Their tax rates are some of the highest in the country by a large margin. If Detroit was a private company, they’d simply be shut down, their limited assets sold off, and thrown on the dust heap of Bad Ideas, like the Edsel, New Coke, Subprime mortgages, Ford Pinto, Betamax, and Agent Orange.

David Freddoso provides lots and lots and lots of depressing facts about America, er, Detroit.

Lots of Lefties are agitating for a federal bailout of Detroit. They’re also blamestorming Republicans, Reagan, deflecting, wailing, gnashing, moonbating, but what they aren’t doing is introspection of their own policies, with the intent to come to grips that the first step in admitting you have a problem is admitting you have a problem.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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Posted in Democrats, Economy | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Grist: Everyone Should Stay Single Because It’s “Sustainable”

By William Teach July 18, 2013 – 6:09 pm

I actually think this is a fantastic idea for Warmists, which should be coupled with staying childless, so that we can ensure that their stupid genes aren’t passed on to future generations

(Grist) Good news, single people: Living alone not only gives you the freedom to vacuum in your underwear and leave crusty dishes in the sink; it also has a societal benefit. As a so-called “singleton” or “solo” (barf), you’re helping make your city more sustainable.

That’s what Devajyoti Deka of Rutgers’ Alan M. Vorhees Transportation Center argues. In a study called “The Living, Moving and Travel Behaviour of the Growing American Solo,” Deka found that people who live alone — about 28 percent of U.S. households, a threefold increase since 1950 — also live more sustainably, dwelling in apartments instead of single-family homes, commuting shorter distances to work, and owning and using cars at lower rates than couples and families. And solo dwellers tend to prefer living in cities.

A Grist commenter calls this bunk, and goes on to note that kids are what makes households unsustainable. So, all you Warmists? Have no children. Please. Remember, Warmists call children “little carbon footprints”.

Read: Grist: Everyone Should Stay Single Because It’s “Sustainable” »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach July 18, 2013 – 1:00 pm

…is a desert created by Someone Else driving an SUV which would be great for a wind farm, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Atlas Shrugs, with a post on the possible next Rolling Stone cover.

Read: If All You See… »

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Don’t Forget, Dems Are Holding Their “Climate Change Is Here” Hearing Today

By William Teach July 18, 2013 – 11:22 am

Going on right now, if you want to watch it live as the panel of primarily big time Warmists blathers on about evil fossil fueled travel after taking fossil fueled travel to D.C.

Steven is live-tweeting the hearing, so follow him.

(Daily Caller) Senate Republicans have released a report undercutting catastrophic predictions made about global warming ahead of a hearing planned by Democrats on the issue.

“Over nearly four decades, numerous predictions have had adequate time to come to fruition, providing an opportunity to analyze and compare them to today’s statistics,” reads the report from Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

The report examines the 15-year break from global warming, sea level rises, extreme weather, and the unilateral regulations proposed by the Obama administration.

Too much to excerpt, read the whole article. And then tweet Barbara Boxer and ask if she plans to walk or ride a bike back to California.

Read: Don’t Forget, Dems Are Holding Their “Climate Change Is Here” Hearing Today »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Democrats, Global Warming | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

India Demands Wind Farms Accurately Predict The Wind

By William Teach July 18, 2013 – 10:58 am

As Jo Nova points out “What the Nanny-State Goddess Giveth…”

(Bloomberg) India’s move to stabilize its power grid by asking wind farms to accurately predict their output a day in advance or face fines will deepen the slowdown in Asia’s second-biggest wind market, Tata Power Co. (TPWR) said.

A directive took effect this week ordering wind farms with a capacity of 10 megawatts or more to forecast their generation in 15-minute blocks for the following day. Missing estimates by more than 30 percent will incur penalties.

“Forecasting at 15-minute intervals is very challenging,” and could cost a 100-megawatt farm an estimated 250 million rupees ($4.2 million) a year, Tata Power said in an e-mailed response to questions. “Developers will see this as a further handicap” and penalties will “jeopardize” the industry’s growth, the nation’s second-biggest developer said.

Let me get this straight: they think it’s very challenging to forecast the wind for the following day, but Warmists can tell us what The Weather will be 50-100 years out? Of course, it is difficult to forecast what the wind will do the next day, but the point of the directive is to know just how much power the wind farms will add, or, usually, not add, to the power grid. And the wind is inherently unreliable in most places.

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Posted in Energy, Global Warming | 1 Comment | Trackback URL
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