Archives for September 2013

Far from being the final word on climate change, last week’s United Nations report suggesting near certainty that human activity is causing a rise in earth’s temperatures is actually further proof that the conventional wisdom is dead wrong and the earth is cooling right on schedule, according to one of the leading scientists who is skeptical of the climate change premise.

Last week, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported it was 95 percent certain that climate change was the result of human activity, specifically the burning of fossil fuels that emit “greenhouse gases”.

“That’s the result that they get when you premeditate your science,” said Dr. Tim Ball, former professor of climatology at the University of Winnepeg.  “When you set out to establish a certain scientific outcome and you program your computers to do that, you shouldn’t be surprised if that’s the result you get.  The problem is what they’re getting out of their computers is not fitting with what’s actually happening.  Of course, that’s been the problem with the IPCC all along.”

Ball says the deception of the IPCC and its allies can be seen in how the reports are released, with the policy statement drawing headlines while the scientific information comes later and is largely ignored.

“(The summary for policymakers) is a document written to scare to public and scare the politicians into providing more funding for their own research and their own political agenda.  The actual science report, which it supposedly is based on isn’t going to be released right away,” said Ball.  “They’ve always done it his way because the summary for policymakers completely disagrees with what the science report is saying.  They know that the media and the public are not going to read the science report.  And they also know that if any of them get into it, they won’t understand it anyway.”

The latest data actually show temperatures have dropped in recent years.  The IPCC and other scientists have branded this as a “pause” in climate change.  Ball says that characterization implies that temperatures are temporarily holding steady and will inevitably rise again soon.  He says that conclusion is dead wrong.

“The temperature is going down and has for 17 years while carbon dioxide increases.  According to their hypothesis and model, that’s simply not supposed to happen,” said Ball.  “Rather than doing what they should do and coming out and saying, ‘Our science is wrong, our models are wrong and we apologize for all the inconvenience we’ve caused you,’ they’re just plowing ahead.”

The long-held contention of those who warn of climate catastrophe is that rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere lead to higher temperatures.  So if that belief is incorrect, why are temperatures getting cooler?

“The sun is causing the cooling that’s going on.  The sun reached a peak of activity around 2000 and has been declining ever since,” said Ball, who says the cooling trend will continue for years to come.

“We’re heading toward what occurred around the year 1800.  It was called the Dalton Minimum of low sunspot activities.  We certainly are down to that in number of sunspots this year.  That means the cooling will continue at least until 2030 and yet the government is preparing for warming which is outrageous,” said Ball.  “Some people think that this cycle of sunspot activity and global cooling will take us down to as cold as it was around 1680, which was the nadir of the Little Ice Age.”

More evidence backing up Ball’s position comes from the polar regions.  New reports from the National Snow and Ice Data Center suggest Antarctic ice levels are at record highs.  Ball says the southern hemisphere has been cooling for some time.  He believes the clinching evidence comes from the Arctic Circle.

“This was the year that even one scientist at NASA predicted that the Arctic ice in the summer would be gone completely.  Well, there’s 60 percent more ice this year than last year and the reason is because of the cooling sun and the cooling temperatures,” said Ball.

Ball also rejects the contention that climate change brings on more extreme weather events, not just higher temperatures.  Ball says hurricane season was very quiet this year and tornadoes were down as well.  He chalks up record high and low temperatures to the jet stream shifting from a west-east flow to more of a north-south line.

The “pre-meditated” science is a major culprit for the climate change concerns, according to Ball.  But he also blames the media.

“The main reason they were able to get away with what they’ve gotten away with is that a majority of the mainstream media were complicit in what (the IPCC and other scientists) were doing,” said Ball.  “This is where the Founding Fathers have been corrupted because they believed the media would be the watchdogs, the gatekeepers.  The mainstream media have failed completely.”

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review rip Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for showing no urgency in addressing the latest House budget bill.  They’re also pleasantly shocked that Saturday Night Live opened a new season by mocking Obamacare.  And Geraghty rips the GOP strategy of attaching Obamacare rollbacks to government funding as a political loser while Corombos counters with questions on behalf of those pushing for the House to stay the course.

The U.S. Senate approved a measure to fund the government until mid-November but stripped House language that would defund the Obama health laws.  That puts the ball back in the House, where GOP lawmakers insist they will not rubber stamp spending without some concessions on Obamacare.

Friday’s Senate vote to restore Obamacare funding comes as no surprise and Republicans will talk through a number of options in a Saturday conference.  One option that is not on the table is backing down and passing what Democrats are calling a “clean” continuing resolution.

“I don’t think there are 218 votes in the House of Representatives to pass a continuing resolution of any duration that doesn’t have some fundamental reforms to Obamacare,” said Georgia Rep. Tom Price, a former chairman of the Republican Study Committee, which is comprised by House conservatives.  “I just don’t think that those votes are there.”

But what the GOP plan will be isn’t immediately clear.

“The question is what can we unify around and where we can get the overwhelming majority of our conference on board.  Those are the discussions that are occurring literally as we speak.  They center around whether or not to send back a delay of Obamacare, whether or not we ought to be addressing the Office of Personnel Management decision (to grant members of Congress and staffers special exemptions), whether it ought to be something more scaled back like a repeal of the Independent Payment Advisory Board or the medical device tax.  Those kinds of things are what we’re talking about right now,” said Price.

House Republicans will determine their next move on Saturday and the new resolution will be approved Sunday at the latest.  Different members have different wish lists on what to attach to the new continuing resolution.  Price says it’s vital to get as many members on board for whatever the new strategy will be but he believes an admission by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin that he would support a one-year delay of the individual mandate is a major breakthrough.

“I was really heartened by the fact that Senator Manchin is beginning to break with his obstructionist leadership in the United States Senate with Harry Reid at the helm and say that he could support an individual mandate delay.  I think that’s the first indication we have that there may be some negotiating room on the other side,” said Price.

The congressman is also firing back at the administration and most Democrats for declaring there will be no negotiations on the continuing resolution or debt ceiling increase.

“If Harry Reid and the president want to shut down the government, then they will do it.  As the Speaker has said, this is a negotiating process.  This is a compromise process.  For Senator Reid, the obstructionist leader of the United States Senate to simply say, ‘No, it’s my way or the highway and have the president continue to echo that, that’s not the way the process works,” said Price.

Louisiana Sen. David Vitter says proponents of defunding Obamacare may have lost the votes on Friday but made great progress in highlighting the problems of the soon-to-be-implemented law.  The senator also explained what other terms would be acceptable in a continuing resolution and how fractured the Senate GOP Conference is right now.

On Friday, 54 Democrats were joined by 25 Republicans in moving forward on the House bill to fund the government while defunding Obamacare.  Sixty votes were needed on that motion to invoke cloture.  Vitter and 18 other Republicans opposed the move, knowing Democrats would then need just 51 votes to approve an amendment blocking the defunding provision.  All 54 Democrats approved the amendment and the same members then passed the whole bill.

The votes followed just days after Texas Sen. Ted Cruz held the Senate floor for 21 straight hours to rail against Obamacare and demand it be defunded.  Many Democrats, most members of the media and even several Republicans considered the Cruz speech a waste of time because Obamacare defunding could never succeed in the U.S. Senate.  Vitter strongly disagrees.

“First of all, it called a lot more attention to this issue and Obamacare’s implementation and the importance of the October 1 date,” said Vitter as the cloture vote began.  “The proof of the fact that it caused a lot more attention and debate about that is the cloture vote on the Senate floor.  I expect Harry Reid will win but I think there’ll be a lot more no’s than their would have been before Ted went to the Senate floor.”

The 19 “no” votes were noticeably more than the dozen members who backed defunding at the outset of the debate.  Still, the effort fell 22 votes short of blocking cloture.

The past several days also exposed a divide within the GOP conference that bubbled up on multiple occasions.  Sens. Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), John McCain (R-Arizona), Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) and Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) took the most public shots at Cruz and no members of leadership backed the strategy either.  They argued that Republicans should simply try to pass the House bill that defunded Obamacare and try to win five Democrats to their side to keep the provision in place.

So how fractured is the GOP delegation?

“There’s always been a divide among establishment Republicans and bolder conservatives, so that’s nothing new.  This is a pretty clear example of that.  Hopefully, we’re going to get beyond that divide.  The House is not going to just swallow and accept a so-called clean spending bill.  I think they’re going to send something back,” said Vitter.  “I think the best thing they could send back is our ‘no Washington exemption’ language with either a one-year delay of all of Obamacare or of the individual mandate.”

Vitter is the leading voice behind the effort to strip lawmakers and their staffers of special Obamacare exemptions and subsidies.  The law forbids such special treatment but the Obama administration approved them in early August.  Vitter attempted to attach an amendment to remove those exemptions to the continuing resolution but was denied by the Democrats.

“I was blocked out of any vote just as I was blocked out of any vote on this important issue for two weeks on the energy efficiency bill by Harry Reid, the majority leader.  He and his group desperately want to prevent a vote on this because they know they’re in the wrong and because they know the American people are incensed over this issue,” said Vitter.  “I’ll keep fighting for a vote and I’ll get a vote eventually because I’m going to keep fighting for one until that happens.”

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are encouraged that West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin wants to delay the individual mandate and ABC News actually reported that some people will be worse off with Obamacare.  They also groan as the federal government announces it will pump more than $300 million into a bankrupt Detroit.  And they rip White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer for saying the president will not negotiate with “people with a bomb strapped to their chest.”

In addition to the budget and debt ceiling showdowns expected to play out in the coming days, congressional Republicans are planning to make another public push for President Obama to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline to be built across the U.S.-Canadian border.

Backers of the plan say the project is a double win for the U.S. because they contend it will create jobs and decrease our dependence upon foreign energy.  But opponents say the economic benefits are greatly exaggerated and the environmental risk is severe.

State Department estimates suggest the project would create about 20,000 construction jobs and advocates of the pipeline say another 20,000-plus jobs would be created in supporting roles.  But Keystone critics aren’t buying it.

“The KXL Pipeline may create at the most 2,000 jobs during a year or two while it’s being constructed.  In terms of long-term, permanent jobs it will be creating something between 50-100 jobs,” said Labor Network for Sustainability Co-Founder Jeremy Brecher.  “So the idea that this is somehow a major part of the solution to our terrible unemployment problem, it’s hard to describe it as something other than a cruel hoax.”

Keystone supporters point back to the State Department estimate to back up their claim of 20,000 construction jobs.  They also admit that the permanent jobs will be limited but that shouldn’t be a deterrent.

“The president is right.  The same study at the State Department says 50-100 permanent jobs,” said Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry, in an interview with us last month.  “Keep in mind this is a construction infrastructure job.  So when the construction is done…there will be minimal permanent employees.  But go on a bridge and tell me how many permanent employees are on that bridge that was finished right now.”

“The president, in his own stimulus package, was advocating for these type of projects to create jobs, but now when it’s the pipeline, he uses it to criticize,” said Terry.

For Brecher, not all construction projects are created equal and he says comparing Keystone to President Obama’s infrastructure goals is wrongheaded.

“What we get with infrastructure jobs are a reduction in our gas explosions and our water and sewer line breakage and we get something that’s good for us.  With the pipeline, what we get is more devastating climate change,” he said.

Energy independence is also a divisive issue in this debate.  Rep. Terry said the amount of oil coming from Canada would offset all imports from Venezuela.  Brecher says that’s simply not true.

“There was a fascinating article in The Wall Street Journal whose headline was ‘U.S. Refiners Don’t Care If Keystone Gets Built.’  And it says, ‘There’s so much oil sloshing around the U.S. from its own wells that refiners don’t need lots more heavy crude from the north to keep busy,'” said Brecher, who also asserts that a lot of any additional crude would simply be refined in the U.S. and then exported overseas.

“The idea that this is somehow going to replace oil that’s coming from foreign countries just doesn’t fit with the facts as reported by The Wall Street Journal,” he said.

One feather in the cap of Keystone supporters is that several labor unions have embraced the pipeline and job-creating potential they believe it provides.  Brecher says the labor community is split, since the nurses union and some transportation unions remain opposed.

“The labor movement is divided and I think you can tell who’s looking to the past and who is looking to the future,” he said.

The two sides of this debate agree on very little, except how Keystone became a focal point of the larger energy debate.  Rep. Terry says environmental extremism that doesn’t match up with the science is pressuring President Obama to hold off on approving the pipeline.  Brecher says environmental concerns are the trigger for this fight, but for good reason.

“People like world-leading climatologist Jim Hansen and a lot of other people threw it up and said, ‘This is really a place to draw the line with those who are destroying our climate, destroying our environment, and claiming that they’re doing so in the name of creating jobs when actually they’re just after more profits for the most rapacious energy corporations,” said Brecher.

Brecher says the fight is not just about the environment.  He says shifting to different fuels will not only help our atmosphere but boost our economy.  He says climate change is responsible for destructive storms like last October’s Superstorm Sandy and believes the damage will only get worse without meaningful change.

“Our whole economy is going to look like a place that was hit by Hurricane Sandy if we don’t start drawing the line against the greenhouse gases that are creating climate catastrophe and start building an alternate economy, which by the way will be a much more jobs-intensive economy,” he said.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review discuss three more Obamacare headaches.  They also discuss why Ken Cuccinelli can’t seem to get ahead of Democratic schmoozer Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor’s race.  And they discuss New Jersey U.S. Senate frontrunner Cory Booker’s interaction with an Oregon stripper.

Secretary of State John Kerry signing the a United Nations small arms treaty is nothing more than empty symbolism and President Obama will get nowhere in his latest attempt to advance gun control legislation, according to Bill Frady, host of “Lock ‘n’ Load Radio” presented by Gun Owners of America.

Kerry signed the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty this week while in New York City for the opening of the UN General Assembly.  Supporters say it would clamp down on weapons trafficking between rogue regimes and terrorist organizations.  Frady says it would have a restricting effect on law-abiding gun owners in the U.S. as well.

“It also dictates to the signing states that they have to impose new rules and regulations within their nations to make sure they’re able to comply with this treaty and that covers small arms,” said Frady.  “Terrorists are not running around with American-made weapons.  They’re running around with AK’s.  There’s various nations that will underwrite any cause (such as) Russia, China.  The AK is the prevalent weapon on the planet.  So we’re not the problem.  I did notice that along the way (Obama) did manage to get in there and back Syrian rebels to the tune of $340 million.

“I’m sure he wants to arm them.  The United States Army has been buying AK’s and AK magazines and AK ammo.  I’m just presuming that they want to send that to our Syrian brethren, the great rebel freedom fighters so they’ll have something they’re accustomed to,” he said.

Like any treaty, this one would need two-thirds support in the U.S. Senate to be ratified in this country.  A procedural vote months ago shows the plan cannot even draw a simple majority in the Democratically controlled chamber.  As a result, Frady says Kerry and Obama embracing the treaty is just window dressing.

“For a moment, it’s a symbolic victory for him, but that’s going to last about five minutes,” said Frady, who believes Obama will try to tell his base this is the best he can do given the current makeup of Congress.

Other gun rights advocates are more fearful that Obama may try to implement the treaty through executive orders if the Senate continues it’s opposition.  Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Bob Corker has written the president and strongly discouraged enforcing any component of the treaty without Senate ratification.  Frady believes Obama could pay a hefty price if he defies the Senate.

“If he were to actually try to do that, that might be a turning point for a lot of people.  Clearly, he doesn’t have the mandate that he thinks he does.  Gun control is not on the minds of too many people right now in the wake of everything that’s been going on around here.  The gun free zone is what’s on everybody’s mind,” said Frady.  “I think that would be a very bad move.”

The Democratic push for additional gun control legislation failed to advance in the U.S. Senate earlier this year.  Nonetheless, President Obama made another plea for Americans to demand new laws earlier this week.  At the memorial service for Washington Navy Yard shooting victims, Obama asked if Americans “care enough” about the victims to press relentlessly for additional gun restrictions.

“Of course we care enough.  The gun-owning populace cringes, not because we know we’re having to gird ourselves for more gun control talk but because we don’t like innocent lives being snuffed,” said Frady.    “Sixty-nine hundred times a day, people defend themselves with guns.  A gun is a tool.”

Frady points to a recent slashing spree on a Texas campus as proof that people need guns to defend themselves because threats to life can come in many forms.

“He went into a college where they didn’t have any guns and he slashed with impunity.  The fact that nobody died is just dumb luck,” he said.  “It’s a very blatant reality that where you don’t allow people to arm themselves, they are fish in a barrel.”

The gun debate may be off the front burner in Washington but it’s red hot in some states.  Maryland’s new gun control laws take effect next week and voters recalled two Colorado lawmakers who backed new restrictions in that state.

One of the marquee races this November is the race for governor of Virginia between state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and former Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe.  In a state where Democrats have historically shied away from gun control rhetoric and even court the National Rifle Association, McAuliffe is now rolling the dice by backing universal background checks, magazine capacity limits and a return to Virginia’s former policy of only allowing one gun purchase per month.  Some of those positions mirror the new laws in Colorado.

“It’s sort of like Terry McAuliffe is trying to parachute into Virginia and tell everybody in Virginia that is law-abiding that ‘I’m smarter than you and I know how to take care of you.’  Go ahead and embrace Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia.  You will not be sorry,” said Frady.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review cheer Ted Cruz for his marathon floor speech detailing the horrors of Obamacare and the need to defund it.  They also wonder if the GOP should have given more attention to the effort to scrap congressional exemptions for members and staffers.  And they discuss Terry McAuliffe’s decision to embrace gun control in Virginia.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Betsy Woodruff of National Review are pleased to see a record number of Americans concluding the government has too much power.  They also discuss the ugly, public brawl between Republicans trying to defund Obamacare and Republicans fearful of getting the blame for a possible government shutdown.  And they react to Nancy Pelosi saying there’s no more areas in the budget that can be cut and that Obama has honored his vow to cut the deficit in half within four years.