January 2, 2012

68 Occupiers Arrested On New Year’s Eve At Zuccotti Park

Hey, they just wanted to make some mayhem and assault the symbol of the new year

(USA Today) Dozens of Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested on New Year’s Eve as they tore down barricades surrounding New York City’s Zuccotti Park, the former home of their encampment that was dismantled several weeks ago.

About 500 protesters gathered in the park Saturday evening, where they rang in the new year with songs and their now-familiar chant of “We are the 99 percent.”

About 11 p.m., after a relatively quiet evening, some protesters began to tear down the barricades that have surrounded the park since New York police officers evicted Occupy Wall Street members on Nov. 15, protesters said Sunday. Police then moved in.

“They (police) got very aggressive and started pushing people and pepper-spraying people,” protester Jason Amadi, 27, of San Jose, California, said Sunday. “I got pepper-sprayed in the face.”

Well, yeah, you’re tearing down barricades around a privately owned park. The NYPD told you not to do that. You were rushing in in small teams to grab the barricades and put them in the middle of the park. You got what you deserved. You should feel lucky the NYPD didn’t release the dogs to munch on your testicles.

The New York Police Department said 68 people were arrested, and at least one person was accused of assaulting a police officer, who suffered cuts on one hand. Other charges included trespassing, disorderly conduct and reckless endangerment.

Yeah, that cop was assaulted with a pair of scissors. Nice of the AP to include that part in their story, eh?

“Many of us there felt that it was a symbol of the new year, of what was to come,” he said. “People protesting peacefully, but without fear.”

If tearing down barricades and assaulting police officers is “peaceful”, can you imagine what happens when they get violent?

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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January 1, 2012

A New Year’s Prediction Challenge For Climate Alarmists – 2012 Edition

Happy New Year’s! Welcome to 2012, and a new decade. And one year closer to End Of Life As We Know it. 2050 and 2100 are fast approaching, the primary dates that the climate alarmists always want to use to denote when Earth is going to burn, baby, burn in fire, dan dan daaaan, fire, dan dan daaaaan.

New Year’s is usually a time when we make resolutions which we abandon when we realize that chocolate, bacon, and beer are great (and bacon cooked in beer and covered with chocolate!) In the blogosphere, we often make predictions for the New Year. Instead, how about a challenge? You’ll remember that I offered this same one last year, and virtually no Warmists took me up on it.

For a long time, the alarmists have been making predictions as to what the climate will do. They say in 10 years, 50, 100. Instead, why not, say, make predictions for……2012! What I want for them to do, from the biggest of big climahypocrites, such as Al Gore, James Hansen, Barack Obama, and Leonardo DiCaprio, to the smallest climate dupes, is tell us exactly what the climate will do this year. For some of these questions, I’m using the USA, but, alarmists from around the world can use their own country/region, if they like:

What will the average temperature of the Earth be for 2012? Most scientists place it at 59 degrees F (15 C). How far above, or below, will it be?
What will the average temperature be for the USA? The rough average for the USA is 53 F.
How many tropical systems will there be in the Atlantic? How many will hit the USA?
What will the four seasons do in 2012? Warmer, colder, hotter, wetter? Tell us
What will each month look like in the USA? How about in your home state?
Which months will be above average, and which ones below, temperature wise?
What states will have big floods, and during what months?
What will tornado season look like?
How many destructive thunderstorms will there be, and in which states?
How many “extreme” weather events will there be?
How much ice will the poles gain/lose?
Will the Arctic be ice free this summer?
What will the average precipitation be for your home city? Average temperature? Average low’s and highs?
How many earthquakes will there be (since, apparently, climate change/globull warming creates earthquakes)?
Pick an island, and tell us how much the sea will rise around it.

There are many, many, many more questions that can be asked, but, I know what the alarmists are thinking: “Teach, that is weather, not climate! I refuse to participate!” Ah, but, what, exactly, is climate? Let’s pull a couple good definitions

Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time
Climate is the average weather conditions at a particular place over a long period of time. Climate is the long-term predictable state of the atmosphere. It is affected by physical features such as mountains, rivers, positioning of the globe, plateaus, deserts, depressions and much more.
The general or typical atmospheric conditions for a place and/or period of time. Conditions include rainfall, temperature, thunderstorms, lightning, freezes, etc.

Notice, “long term predictable.” Weather and other natural forces create climate. And right now the alarmists are saying “but, Teach, one year is not considered to be a “long period of time!”” Well, you have plenty of data available for the long term, and, with all your vast knowledge of what the climate is doing, due to man’s release of greenhouse gases, surely you alarmists can make predictions for 2012 based on that long term data, and be mostly correct, right? Surely, you aren’t afraid to make predictions for this year, and tell us what the climate during 2012 will do, right? But, you have to make your predictions, and can’t go back and change them up as the year goes on. And at the end of the year, we will see how well you have done.

And, let’s not forget, you Warmists spent all of 2011 complaining about “extreme weather”, blaming every weather event on someone (else) being decidedly non-carbon neutral.

Any Warmist up for the challenge? And no cheating by reading the Farmer’s Almanac, which tends to be right way more than the Met, NASA, UN IPCC, and other alarmist groups are. Forget about your PR blitzes, “spreading awareness” campaigns, your advocacy, your stunts, and tell us what will happen. If you’re correct, for a change, maybe people will start to believe you again.

Oh, and a second challenge: live your life in 2012 in the manner you tell everyone else to live. Because you darned sure didn’t do that in 2011, just like every other year you’ve been complaining.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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» Filed Under AGW hyposterics, Agenda based science, Collapsing Science, Fraud/misrepresentation, Global Warming, Hypocrisy/Situational Ethics, News, Science/pseudo-science, Video

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December 31, 2011

How Ron Paul Might Win Iowa and STILL Get No Hawkeye Delegates

-By Warner Todd Huston

BERJAYA My friend Michael Bates has raised some interesting — if technical — points. He notes that Ron Paul could very well win Iowa but still come away with few or even no Iowa delegates. After looking over Bates’ points, I think he has it right. But one thing he said is really trenchant when he noted that journalists don’t bother to read the party rules of correlate past history to see if Paul’s win in Iowa would really mean anything at all.

But first, we should note that the winner of the Iowa Republican caucus rarely becomes president. Many others have noted that the Iowa caucuses don’t pick winners. In fact, over the last six GOP presidential contests, only one Iowa winner became president (George W. Bush). Two others won the caucuses in Iowa but did not win the White House (Bob Dole and Gerald Ford).

That aside, Bates makes some important points in the delegates process. He finds that Ron Paul might win a plurality in Iowa and still come away with no delegates. The most important point he makes is to remind us all that the Iowa Caucus is not a primary election. It is only a straw poll and what happens there is not binding. This is a point that the media almost never make.

As the popularity polls are telling us, Ron Paul is neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney with Santorum having a last minute surge. But this shows that Paul will not be running away with it all, here. This also means that his support will be spread all over the state in numbers that will not commandingly control too many districts. This leaves the door open for the other candidates to band together to prevent Paul delegates from getting any traction and just might result in Paul having few or even no delegates at the state convention.

As Bates has it:

If Paul is to have any backers at all at the state convention, it will only happen if [his] campaign successfully mobilizes its supporters to constitute a majority of the caucusers at a majority of the precincts in at least one county. If Paul’s 25% support is spread evenly across the state, he will have no delegates at the Iowa state convention and no delegates from Iowa in Tampa.

This outcome would not be the result of a grand establishment conspiracy against Ron Paul. It would be a reflection of how Paul polarizes the Republican electorate. While Santorum, Perry, Bachmann, and Gingrich supporters may disagree about the relative merits of their candidates, they are all likely to agree with each other and differ strongly with Paul supporters on issues like Iran, Israel, drug legalization, and whether 9/11 was an “inside job.”

Seem unlikely? Bates begs to differ. After all, this happened in Oklahoma in 2008 when Paul’s delegates were shut out by more mainstream GOP operatives that prevented his representatives from getting any traction at the Sooner State’s GOP convention that year.

Bates wraps up saying, “Ron Paul may “win” the Iowa caucuses straw poll by a narrow margin with a tiny plurality, and that result may boost fundraising and volunteer activity, but it won’t boost his delegate count at all.”

Please do read all of Bates’ analysis because he has some points we all need to remember when looking at all this Hawkeye hooplah.

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Obama Uses Final 2011 Weekly Address to Whine Some More

And, yes, he also gets rather snippy and partisan, as well

(The Hill) President Obama ended 2011 by predicting a contentious 2012.

In his final weekly address of the year, the president said he was hopeful about making progress on his agenda in the coming year but warned that it wouldn’t be easy.

“We’ve got some difficult debates and some tough fights to come,” Obama said. “As I’ve said before, we are at a make-or-break moment for the middle class. And in many ways, the actions we take in the months ahead will help determine what kind of country we want to be, and what kind of world we want our children and grandchildren to grow up in.”

And how right Obama is: do we want a country like Greece, which is where Obama and the Democrats are leading us? Or, do we want to have a country which is self sustaining?

As President, I promise to do everything I can to make America a place where hard work and responsibility are rewarded – one where everyone has a fair shot and everyone does their fair share. That’s the America I believe in. That’s the America we’ve always known. And I’m confident that if we work together, and if you keep reminding folks in Washington what’s at stake, then we will move this country forward and guarantee every American the opportunities they deserve.

He forgets that he is part of Washington, and part of the problem. But, don’t forget to sign up for Obama 2012 emails. Team Obama is using whitehouse.gov, the official website of the office of the POTUS, to mine email addresses to solicit campaign donations again.

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Wash. Post Plays Hate-The-Rich-Republicans With Graphic Chart

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Wednesday morning the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake posted an infographic that was a perfect example of how one can use a graphic chart to influence the public in subtle ways, ways that we of the center right better start employing in our own efforts if we want to win over the public.

Blake’s post, “Why People Hate Congress,” fits in well with President Obama’s class warfare rhetoric as employed in his campaign to set different economic classes against each other in a desperate and cynically populist bid to get reelected next year. There is little of substance to Blake’s post other than to fan the flames of the sort of hatred that he wants to see grow in order to aid Obama in 2012.

The Post’s Blake also ended up having to pull the graphic off his The Fix blog post because it simply did not illustrate what he claimed it did in his story — but that is another issue that we’ll deal with at the end of this report.

Blake begins his piece asking, “Want to know why Americans hate Congress?” He then goes on to claim it is in part because our elected representatives in Washington D.C. are members of the eeeevil rich.

The fact that members of Congress are getting richer (and 57 members come from the top 1 percent, according to USA Today) confirms what Americans suspect about the people who are running this country: that they don’t empathize with normal people.

Of course, with a dispassionate application of logic, having a few dollars more than the next guy does not ipso facto make the richer guy so out of touch that he cannot empathize with anyone in a lower salary range. Only those filled with hate make this assumption. Empathy has nothing to do with class, money, or politics. It has to do with one’s character.

Further there are plenty of members of Congress with the character to understand and have empathy with others. Then there are some that don’t. People are people, rich or poor.

It is also telling that even Blake admits that Congress has always been filled with “the rich.” The founders were not groveling in poverty, after all. It often takes a person that has achieved a certain place in society to become elected. I mean, should they be elected, how can anyone expect “the poor” or even the lower middle class to afford to fund homes both in D.C. and back in their district? Who can afford to leave their family and business if half the year off more to fly off the D.C. to attend to government business? And with the costs of elections and the Byzantine election laws these days causing many candidates to self fund, it will only be natural that “the rich” end up being our representatives in Congress.

But special attention has to be paid to the graphic Blake used to illustrate his story. And what a masterwork of subtlety it is. Blake claimed that the illustration made by a well-known hate-the-rich researcher from California showed in graphic form the distribution of wealth among both chambers of Congress. The graphic depicts the “top 1%” and the “next 9%” in the color red. Then it uses blue to show the “following 10%” and the “bottom 80%.” Notice what is going on? That’s right, this graphic uses the color red to depict the eeevil rich. And what is the color red in politics these days? None other than the color the Old Media has assigned to the Republican Party.

This graphic is a great illustration of the way the left influences the emotions of the viewer toward their positions. George Scoville puts it perfectly in his post about this graphic.

If you don’t make your living thinking strategically about political communications, this might not have jumped out at you. But this is a very clever and very deceptive messaging tactic. If Democrats… are going to use this type of tactic, then Republicans and pro-liberty advocacy organizations need to take a page from this playbook quickly. We certainly can’t rely on the media to apply the kind of scrutiny that pulls back the curtain for casual political observers.

Exactly right. We on the right don’t think of this type of messaging often enough.

Then there is the rest of this story. In truth, the graphic that Blake claimed illustrated the riches of Congress directly, in fact did not. It actually meant to illustrate the wealth distribution of all Americans as a percentage of Congress.

A little later on Wednesday morning, Aaron Blake removed the graphic and issued this mea culpa:

This post initially used a chart that included data that we and others misunderstood. It did not reflect the wealth of Congress, but instead the wealth of the country, described according to numbers of seats in Congress. The Fix regrets the error.

Ooops. I guess the facts were “too good to check for the good folks at the Washington Post.”

But wait. Don’t get upset at Mr. Blake too quickly. After all, this graphic stirred the liberal heart. A quick glance makes viewers imagine that it is showing the number of eeevil Republicans compared to the nice, poor Democrats in Congress. In fact, that is precisely the emotion that the graphic is intended to evoke. So, we can fault Mr. Blake for not looking close enough at the graphic to discern its statistical facts, but we cannot fault him for having instantly grasped the subliminal message it was intended to relay. The fact is, the graphic works beautifully.

These are the sort of tactics the left employs, folks. We’d best become hip to them fast.

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December 30, 2011

New Hampshire “Scientists” Urge GOP Contenders To Embrace Climate Change Hoax

The Warmists just won’t give up their cultish beliefs, and The Hill is there to run with the story without any fact checking

Fifty New Hampshire scientists Thursday called on the Republican presidential candidates to accept the “overwhelming” scientific evidence behind climate change.

The scientists issued the joint statement just weeks before the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary, a key early test for the GOP White House hopefuls.

“We urge all candidates for public office at national, state, and local levels, and all New Hampshire citizens, to acknowledge the overwhelming balance of evidence for the underlying causes of climate change, to support appropriate responses to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases, and to develop local and statewide strategies to adapt to near-term changes in climate,” the scientists said.

“Ignoring the issue of climate change places our health, our quality of life, our economic vitality, and our children’s future at risk.”

Funny how these “scientists” are worried about our children’s future, considering that the majority of the Believers are left of center and back the huge spending of Big Government, which will destroy the future of our kids through unsustainable debt, deficits, and unpaid liabilities. Also, if they were being precise, they would at least call it global warming, instead of the catch all “climate change”, which allows the Warmists to embrace everything that happens under the banner of someone (else) having driven a car.

And then there is this, as explained by Drew Cline at the Union Leader

It is a funny little bit of propaganda made all the more humorous by its labeling as “scientists” a historian, a sociologist, two political scientists, a professor of health economics, several civil engineers, two medical doctors, and some Ph.D. candidates.

Nothing says “We are serious scientists; heed our doomsday predictions!” quite like the overstating of credentials. If they’ll overstate their credentials, then why wouldn’t they overstate the connection between recent weather events and human behavior?

Nonetheless, the petition got written up in The Hill, which lent it some undue legitimacy. Voters ought to ignore it.

Hence the reason I put scientists in quotes. But, then, the majority of people that bloviate about the need to Do Something about anthropogenic global warming aren’t climate scientists. Al Gore isn’t. Nor is James Hansen. Nor most of the people who work on the UN IPCC panel and write their press releases and documents. Nor most that attend the yearly UN climate change (hoax) conferences in exotic vacation spots, as well as all the other conferences.

But, anyhow, if we are supposed to listen to these 50 “scientists” on the issue, why are we supposed to ignore the 31,000 who signed the petition against AGW?

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Gallup: GOP Contenders Come Closer To American Views

Here’s something we all intrinsically know, and knew prior to the 2008 election: Americans are center-right, and the GOP’s viewpoints are closer to their own than what Obama pushes

(Gallup) Americans perceive Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney, and Ron Paul as closest to themselves ideologically, and Michele Bachmann and Barack Obama as furthest away.

A USA Today/Gallup poll asked Americans to rate their own ideology — and the ideology of the eight major presidential candidates — on a 5-point scale with 1 being very liberal and 5 being very conservative. Americans’ mean score on this scale is 3.3, meaning the average American is slightly to the right of center ideologically. Huntsman’s score matches that at 3.3, but that mean rating excludes the 45% of Americans who did not have an opinion of Huntsman. Of the better known candidates, Romney’s and Paul’s 3.5 scores are closest to the average American’s ideology.

Obama scores a 2.3, the furthest from the mean score. Even Michelle Bachmann scores better at 4.0. Of course, does this really mean anything?

If Americans chose their president solely on the basis of the fit between their own ideological views and their perceptions of the candidates’ views, Huntsman, Romney, and Paul would be in the best position for the 2012 election. While a close ideological fit is clearly a political asset, many other factors go into selecting a president, including evaluations of national conditions, such as the economy, the performance of the president and his party, and the platform each candidate is running on.

Indeed, Obama’s mean ideology rating four years ago was 2.5, essentially the same as now, and he was perceived to be slightly more liberal (with a score of 2.2) immediately before the election. Americans’ own ideology ratings in December 2007 (3.2) and October 2008 (3.3) were essentially the same as now, and closer to John McCain’s (3.4 in December 2007 and 3.7 in October 2008) than Obama’s.

American’s knew he was a far left progressive prior to the election, and the independents and some ultra-squishy Republicans voted for him (as well as a big get out the vote campaign for Obama, particularly young people who were able to vote for the first time). Obama’s hopey changey kumbaya “I’ll give you free stuff and take care of you” talk did the trick. Also, John McCain imploding with his “I’m suspending my campaign” pandering then failing to force a good TARP bill. The question for 2012 is: can Obama dupe Americans into voting him in for a 2nd term, after the disaster his first term was?

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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December 29, 2011

What are ‘cradle to career data systems’? And why should you care?

Big Brother is here. How the feds are tracking your kid:

◼ Student privacy at risk from Feds – NY Post

Would it bother you to know that the federal Centers for Disease Control had been shown your daughter’s health records to see how she responded to an STD/teen-pregnancy-prevention program? How about if the federal Department of Education and Department of Labor scrutinized your son’s academic performance to see if he should be “encouraged” to leave high school early to learn a trade? Would you think the government was intruding on your territory as a parent?

Under regulations the Obama Department of Education released this month, these scenarios could become reality.

The department has taken a giant step toward creating a de facto national student database that will track students by their personal information from preschool through career. Although current federal law prohibits this, the department decided to ignore Congress and, in effect, rewrite the law. Student privacy and parental authority will suffer.

How did it happen? Buried within the enormous 2009 stimulus bill were provisions encouraging states to develop data systems for collecting copious information on public-school kids. To qualify for stimulus money, states had to agree to build such systems according to federally dictated standards. So all 50 states either now maintain or are capable of maintaining extensive databases on public-school students.

Get it?

Remember last week – ◼ California ‘qualified’ for “Race To The Top” monies. Not a dime of which is going to educate your kids, but is instead being used for the creation of ‘cradle to career data systems.’

Watch the terms. Language is being used to obscure the true meaning and intent. Most people only hear the easy rhetoric… “raise academic standards, improve teacher and principal quality, build cradle to career data systems and turn around persistently low-performing schools.”

Ask yourself. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? You already know what happens when they try to fire teachers, or go for merit pay. What school doesn’t already work to “raise academic standards”? Why is all this money, which the schools, we are told, are in desperate need of, being wasted on another bureaucratic program? Does privacy matter? Now, what does the Federal Government need with all that personal information? Does your elected representative know about this? can he/she explain it?

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“Build an echo chamber and the media laps it up.”

◼ The Colorado Model & The Left’s Stratagem For Turning Red States to Blue – RedState

Although it’s being deployed in several states like Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and others, there are still many who have never heard of the Colorado Model. What’s worse, despite all the Left’s bemoaning of the “vast right wing conspiracy,” Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or whatever enemy they can dream up, there is still nothing like the Colorado Model on the Right….

Unfortunately, the Right still doesn’t seem to embrace or, more importantly, understand the Colorado Model. What’s worse, because the Colorado Model requires cooperation, it is unlikely the Right will ever be successful in creating a model similar to that which the Left is deploying across the country.

Unlike Barack Obama’s OFA, which coordinates with the institutional Left, the Moveon.orgs of the world, hundreds of 527s, think tanks, unions, and the like, the Right largely consists of groups who work disparately, in disagreement with, and, often, openly fighting with one another. On the Right, we have the Keystone Cops facing the Red Army on the Left.

…While the Colorado Model isn’t a secret, it hasn’t drawn much national attention either. Democrats, for now anyway, seem wary of touting it. One reason for their reticence is that it depends partly on wealthy liberals’ spending tons of money not only on “independent expenditures” to attack Republican office-seekers but also to create a vast infrastructure of liberal organizations that produces an anti-Republican, anti-conservative echo chamber in politics and the media. Read the rest at RedState

◼ The Colorado Model – Weekly Standard
◼ The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado (and Why Republicans (and Greens and Libertarians) Everywhere Should Care) – get it at Amazon
◼ Become A Force Multiplier: Five simple tasks for American Activists – scribd doc

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Mitt Romney: My Mass. Healthcare Plan Is ‘Fundamentally Conservative’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Romney did it again. On Fox News he linked Romneycare to conservative principles, an outrageous act in the eyes of any conservative. But hold the boat, people, because Romney didn’t exactly say that Romneycare itself is a conservative policy. And therein lies the weasel words that Romney has used to describe the Massachusetts healthcare plan he was so proud to pass when he was the Governor of the state.

To the video…

Transcript:

I’m happy to stand by the things I believe. I’m not going to change my positions by virtue of being in a presidential campaign. What we did was right for the people of Massachusetts. The plan is still favored there by 3:1 and it is fundamentally a conservative principle because the people take personal responsibility rather than turning to the government for free care.

Now, let’s look at what Romney said here. He didn’t exactly say that Romneycare itself is “fundamentally conservative.” He said the concept that people should take responsibility for their own healthcare is a fundamentally conservative idea.

Such as it is, he’s right. That IS a fundamentally conservative idea.

But as Romney has repeatedly done since he signed that disastrous, socialist, far from conservative piece of legislation, he has weasel worded his description of that law. As he’s done before, in this clip he illicitly linked conservative principles to Romneycare by focusing at a micro level on the single idea that we should take care of our own healthcare and linking that real conservative principle to his actions as if conservative principles are the guiding forces behind Romneycare. The problem with Romney’s characterization of the issue is that his legislation is fundamentally not conservative. It is big government, socialist, authoritarian nonsense. It’s not conservative at all. Romney tries to [sell] us that one tiny conservative idea buried under miles of socialist ideas as misdirection for the ills that Romneycare forces on the people of the Bay State.

Romney also tries an additional rhetorical trick by focusing on Tenth Amendment ideals, saying that his effort in Mass. was a “state only” effort, one that he would not recommend for every state. Romney correctly notes that one of our founding principles is that the states should be free to experiment with policy and implement what voters want free of interference by the federal government — a Tenth Amendment ideal. But what Romney is doing here is slyly trying to cloak his monumentally non-conservative healthcare law in the conservative idea of the Tenth Amendment as if Romneycare is conservative when it isn’t conservative in any way at all.

It would be like using a cop’s position as an officer of the law as cover for his breaking, entering, and stealing from a citizen’s home, like saying it is OK simply because he’s a police man. Just because this mythical cop is an officer of the law does not mean his actions are legitimate. In a like way, just because we have a conservative idea of the Tenth Amendment this does not mean that a Romneycare law implemented under the principle of that Amendment is a conservative idea or even an advisable policy, for that matter.

We should also point out that even as this particular issue is the only item he’s not fully flip flopped on — much to the consternation of conservatives everywhere, Romney has flip flopped on whether or not he thinks Romneycare is as good for the nation as it was for Massachusetts. Not long ago Romney was saying that he felt Romneycare was a model for the nation. Now, all of a sudden, he says he never said that, he says that Romneycare was only good for Massachusetts (even though it clearly isn’t) and that he would not recommend it for the nation.

In any case, the point here is that Romney makes it impossible to logically sustain the idea that Obamacare is bad and should be repealed when there isn’t anything substantively different between Romneycare — which he constantly defends and says is great — and Obamacare. The core issue that Republicans and many independents would rally to vote for Romney over is nullified by his constant defense of Romneycare.

This is the main reason why Romney cannot beat Obama in 2012.

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Newt: Sitting On Couch With Nancy Was “Dumbest Thing….”

Unfortunately, he doesn’t walk back his globull warming beliefs, and, more importantly, his belief in legislation and regulation to “stop” globull warming

(Huffington Post) Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was pressed again Tuesday on one of the ghosts of his political past, when a notorious advertisement on climate change featuring him alongside then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was brought up on the campaign trail.

“The dumbest thing I’ve done in the last four years was sit on a couch with Nancy Pelosi,” Gingrich said, according to The Hill’s Mike O’Brien. “I can’t defend it.”

In the ad, Gingrich and Pelosi share a seat on a sofa in front of the Capitol and declare that “the country must take action to address climate change.”

While Newt is (supposedly) against any sort of federal cap and trade system, he has yet to say, like Romney has, that he would nix any “climate change” legislation and regulations as president. Some people may not care too much about this, but, to my mind, the entire issue of “climate change” is about putting even more power and forcibly taken taxpayer money in the hands of government elites, giving them more control over our lives and the economy. None of the plans actually solve what the Warmists say is killing the Earth, merely supposedly slowing it.

This is a question Newt needs to answer.

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Posted by William Teach at 8:18 am | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

» Filed Under AGW hyposterics, Anti-Capitalism, Cap & Trade, Collapsing Science, Elections, Global Warming, Nancy Pelosi, News, Republicans

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Suddenly, Eric Holder’s Worried About “Undocumented” Guns

The current US Attorney General is probably the last person who should be discussing illegal guns, er, undocumented boom sticks, but, then, Fast and Furious seemed to be more about creating a situation to implement more gun controls on legal owners

(Politico) The number of officers killed in the line of duty jumped 13 percent in 2011 compared with the year before — and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder condemned the increase as “a devastating and unacceptable trend” that he blamed on illegal firearms.

The number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty rose to 173 this year, from 153 in 2010, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund announced Wednesday. This year’s figure is 23 percent higher than 122 killed in the line of duty in 2009.

So, the guns themselves are illegal? Er, no

Holder said “too many guns have fallen into the hands of those who are not legally permitted to possess them,” in explaining the increase.

So, what does Holder propose to do?

“This is a devastating and unacceptable trend. Each of these deaths is a tragic reminder of the threats that law enforcement officers face each day,” Holder in a statement. “I want to assure the family members and loved ones who have mourned the loss of these heroes that we are responding to this year’s increased violence with renewed vigilance and will do everything within our power — and use every tool at our disposal — to keep our police officers safe.”

You know what else is a devastating and unacceptable trend? Hundreds of Mexicans being killed by guns allowed to walk into Mexico illegally, thanks to operations under the Department of Justice. Also, an AG that lies about it.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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Posted by William Teach at 8:04 am | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

» Filed Under BATFE, DoJ, Fast and Furious/ Gunrunner, Government corruption, Government incompetence, Government malfeasance/misfeasance, Government tyranny, Gun Control, Guns, High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Hypocrisy/Situational Ethics, Journalistic Malpractice, Journalistic Prostitution, Journalistic incompetence, Law Enforcement, Liberal Media/Bias, News, Politico, Politics As Usual, State-sponsored terrorism, government media, liberalism, transparency/accountability

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December 28, 2011

Politico’s Top 10 Political Blunders: Mostly GOP Blunders?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Top ten lists at year’s end are always subjective, to be sure. But some lists seem rather obviously out of whack at first glance. Politico’s “Top 10 political blunders of 2011” is one of those lists that is glaring for what isn’t present as opposed to what is. And what isn’t seems to bespeak that Politico wanted to avoid focusing on Democrat failures in a year when there are so many Democrat failures.

Politico bills this list as one of the “worst political strategic decisions” of 2011. Strangely enough, this list contains fully seven GOP “blunders” yet only three Democrat goofs. Some of the GOP blunders are also questionable for any top ten list considering what is missing from the thing.

First we need a rundown on what is on this list, and in the order Politico places them.

Obama pivots to deficits
Republicans vote on the Ryan budget
Tim Pawlenty bets it all on Ames
Mitt Romney hides
Rick Perry debates
Jon Huntsman returns from China
Mr. Daley goes to Washington
Mitch and Haley stay home
Dems pick Charlotte
John Kasich pushes S.B. 5

Isn’t it fascinating that some of these “top blunders” did not actually result in a major reversal of great import of some type or another? Take the Jon Huntsman point, for instance. Jon Huntsman is not consequential and his decision to enter the GOP primary race instead of staying in China is not going to make much difference to anyone, anywhere. The Mitch Daniels point is also specious for such a list as Daniel’s decision to sit out 2012 did not necessarily end his career. Further the blunder of Democrats picking Charlotte, North Carolina, while certainly a messy proposition fraught with mistakes, is hardly any kind of end of the world goof, is it?

Now let’s talk about what is not on that list. Solyndra is not on that list. How can this be? This is a political blunder of epic proportions. Even the left-wing Washington Post is saying that the decision supposedly based on science and good economics was instead “infused with politics at every level.” Millions of tax dollars were thrown away during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression at a failing company just to suit Obama’s desire to tout his fantasy of “green jobs.”

If you don’t want to pick Solyndra, why you can reach for the debacle of Fast And Furious for inclusion on such a list. Here we have a program that was supposed to track guns used by Mexican narco-terrorists so that these evil cretins could be ferreted out deep in Mexico. Instead, thousands of American guns sold to these criminals right here in America were lost in the Mexican interior and then were turned to kill hundreds of Mexicans and perhaps two U.S. law enforcement officers. Then, making matters worse, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder — an Obama appointee — has lied repeatedly about what he knew about the program and when he knew it. Now over 90 government officials are calling for Holder’s resignation. If this isn’t a major political blunder, what is? This has made Eric Holder an embattled Attorney General, at the least. Yet, it makes no spot on this top ten blunder list.

Another thing missing is GOP House Speaker John Boehner’s blunder with the recent tax fight that seemed to show that he had no control over his own majority in the House of Representatives, revealing him to be somewhat hapless. I’d think that blunder outweighs anything Jon Huntsman could do and it is most certainly a worse blunder than Rick Perry’s debating style in import to the country

I’d also like to assign a bad strategic decision to Obama’s Osawatomie, Kansas speech that he disgorged onto the nation, a speech so filled with class warfare and un-presidential, overly harsh rhetoric. Also, where is Anthony Weiner on this list? Weiner went from one of the most up-and-coming, young Democrats in Congress to a resigned disgrace over his decision to claim that his Internet account was hacked instead of admitting that he sent nudie pictures of himself to some young woman clear across the country. It totally torpedoed his bid to step from Congress to higher office and greater fame. That seems like a major strategic blunder to me. How about you?

While I agree with the Kasich example — his effort to mirror Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s success at paring down union power was a major legislative abortion — I should say that the Democrat’s efforts to recall all sorts of GOP officials in Wisconsin is a bigger failure. Not to mention the idiotic flee-bagging engaged in by Indiana and Wisconsin Democrats during Walker and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniel’s efforts to enact those same fiscally sane measures. Democrat’s fleeing their states early this year to attempt to hamper Republicans efforts to cut state budgets was a huge strategic flop and likely led to their inability to recall Republicans in Wisconsin. It may also lead to stronger GOP support in both Indiana and Wisconsin.

In any case, I could go on and on with blunders that occurred in 2011 that Politico ignored, but I think you get the picture. Granted it is hard to settle on a mere ten examples of any top blunders, but it just seems that some of the “top blunders” Politico chose are not so consequential as those they left off the list.

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Posted by Warner Todd Huston at 2:29 pm | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

» Filed Under Barack Obama, Democrats, DoJ, Fast and Furious/ Gunrunner, GOP, Government corruption, Government incompetence, Government malfeasance/misfeasance, Gun Control, House, John Boehner, Journalistic Prostitution, Journalistic incompetence, Liberal Media/Bias, News, Politico, Republicans, Taxes, class warfare

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Occupy DC: Rats, Meth, Terrorist Flags

At what point is the following representative of the 99%? (via OWS Exposed)

(Washington Times) People monitoring the Occupy D.C. movement tell Inside the Ring that the two encampments are fast becoming health hazards. Numerous protesters also recently were sickened with unusual respiratory illnesses.

The major emerging problem for the leftists camped out in tents at McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza is rats. The rodents appear to be moving into the area by the hundreds, and their numbers are increasing daily.

The McPherson camp appears be where more radical leftists are based. An observer familiar with the McPherson camp said one distinctive smell coming from the park area is that of methamphetamine being smoked.

Among the flags being flown by some protesters are those from the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and al Qaeda.

Such lovely people, aren’t they? Has anyone ever noticed that, despite deeming themselves smarter than everyone else, oh so enlightened, liberals seem to love living in squalid conditions? Come on, a rat infestation? Then there’s the Meth.

Oh, and flying the flags of terrorist organizations is oh so diverse of you, Occupiers. Why not go and try to live with those groups, see what happens.

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Posted by William Teach at 8:38 am | Comments (2) | Trackback (1)

» Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Anti-Capitalism, Communist Front groups, Liberal World, News, Occupy Wall Street, Rent-A-Mob, Socialism, Stupidity, Treason, liberalism, social parasites

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The Perfect Leftist Drug | Daily Pundit pinged this post.

Hey, How’s Obama’s “Let’s Talk” Approach With Iran Going?

The other day, MSNBC had an article on Team Obama’s “let’s talk” approach to foreign policy, and declared that it wasn’t going to well when it comes to Iran (and most countries). Yesterday, it got worse

(NY Times) A senior Iranian official on Tuesday delivered a sharp threat in response to economic sanctions being readied by the United States, saying his country would retaliate against any crackdown by blocking all oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for transporting about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.

The declaration by Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, came as President Obama prepares to sign legislation that, if fully implemented, could substantially reduce Iran’s oil revenue in a bid to deter it from pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Now, I don’t blame Obama for attempting to get tough on Iran, if you call sanctions, which typically end up hurting the common people, rather than the rulers, tough. But, I do find it interesting that Iran has so little fear of an Obama led America that they would make these threats. It’ll be interesting to see if this affects the oil markets today.

Also, if only there were alternative oil sources on US soil and right off-shore, along with right across the border with our friend to the north. Alas, we apparently have no oil sources domestically at all, and have to rely solely on the wind blowing and the sun shining for power.

Prior to the latest move, the administration had been laying the groundwork to attempt to cut off Iran from global energy markets without raising the price of gasoline or alienating some of Washington’s closest allies.

And there is the problem with much of liberal led government: “laying the ground work to attempt…” It’s the politics of “we’ll talk about creating a plan to actually eventually make a plan.” They aren’t actually Doing Something.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.