Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are glad to see Jill Stein’s quixotic recount journey get shut down in Michigan and headed towards an anticlimactic finish in Wisconsin. They slam the media for only now realizing that many of the new jobs created in the Obama years are low-wage, part time openings that aren’t a long-term solution for families. And they unload on CNN for suggesting that racism was behind the fierce Republican opposition to President Obama’s agenda.
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Three Martini Lunch 12/1/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America have all crazy news today. They slam Pres. Obama for suggesting that Fox News being on in restaurants and bars is the reason Democrats fell short in 2016. They also unload on BuzzFeed for demanding to know whether popular HGTV hosts agree with their pastor about homosexuality being a sin – which leads to a bunch of fun tangents about HGTV in general. And they rip Democrats and the media for throwing a hissy fit about the Electoral College and even intimidating electors just weeks after clutching their pearls about Trump possibly not accepting the election results.
Energy Industry Wants Help from Trump
President-Elect Donald Trump is vowing to unleash American energy and begin scrapping burdensome regulations on his very first day in office, announcements welcomed by the energy industry, although they still have other goals they want to see the new administration pursue.
In a short video, Trump outlined several directives he will issue on his first day in office on issues ranging from trade and immigration to national security and ethics reform. However, promoting domestic energy and rolling back regulations were right near the top of the list.
“I will cancel job killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high paying jobs,” said Trump in the video.
“On regulation, I will formulate a rule which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated,” said Trump.
The energy industry is hopeful that the next four years will offer it a more hospitable environment than what it received during the Obama administration.
“We’re certainly encouraged by the fact that the president-elect understands that one of the key drivers to a strong economy is energy security,” said American Petroleum Downstream Group Director Frank Macchiarola.
Macchiarola believes Trump understands the need to champion domestic energy production and is fully confident the American people are on board.
“Survey after survey tells us that the American public is concerned about economic growth and believes that we need to be energy secure,” he said, but notes that Obama has left a pretty complicated knot for the new president to untangle on energy regulation.
“I think what happened over the course of the Obama administration is that there was a lot of consolidated power in the administration. I think with the division in Congress and the stalemate between both parties in the House and Senate, I think the administration took that opportunity to consolidate it’s power through a stronger regulatory agenda,” said Macchiarola.
He says those regulations had a clear impact on the energy industry.
“We have 145 current regulations that directly impact the oil and natural gas sector, whether it’s issues related to public land and access or issues related to the downstream or issues related to air or water or an issue like the Renewable Fuel standard. It’s a broad spectrum,” said Macchiarola.
Macchiarola and his allies want the Trump administration to go over every single one of those regulations and provide as much relief as possible.
“What we really would like to do is to have the new administration, with a fresh set of eyes, take a look at this regulatory onslaught that we’ve seen. And, again, consistent with their message and principles that they stated during the campaign about the need for less burdensome regulations here in Washington, free up capital to be invested in the private sector and the nee for secure U.S. domestic energy production,” said Macchiarola.
One of the policies Macchiarola is most concerned about is the Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS, and the increasing amount of ethanol being required in our fuel. He says the RFS was created last decade to help boost energy independence at a time when the U.S. was importing vast amounts of energy.
He says the policy no longer fits the reality.
“What they didn’t know is that we would have an American energy renaissance. Because of the shale revolution here in the United States and the energy renaissance, we’re now producing greater and greater amounts of oil and natural gas. We’re the world’s leading producer of oil and natural gas,” said Macchiarola.
“At the same time, demand for energy has essentially flat-lined. So what you’ve seen is America become more energy secure over that time,” he added.
Macchiarola says addressing the RFS is critical now because the amount of ethanol about to be required in gasoline is incompatible with the vast majority of American vehicles.
“(It) creates an issue because it potentially adds cost to the consumer both through food and fuel. And these higher ethanol blends above E10 are incompatible with the cars we have on the road today. So the bottom line is the RFS is a mess, and it really needs to be fixed,” said Macchiarola.
Bipartisan legislation to address the Renewable Fuel Standard exists in the House of Representative but has not yet been considered.
Three Martini Lunch 11/21/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss the fairly easy road to confirmation for the Trump cabinet thanks to Harry Reid’s nuclear option. They also groan as the New York Times reports Pres. Obama plans to break from tradition and be a very vocal ex-president to keep the heat on Trump. And they discuss the Hamilton kerfuffle and how only Pence ends up looking good.
Three Martini Lunch 11/15/16
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Ian Tuttle of National Review have only crazy stories today. They discuss Pres. Obama urging Donald Trump to reach out to those who didn’t support him, after Obama spent eight years dismissing and demonizing the opposition. They also cringe at reports that Donald Trump is trying to get cabinet-level security clearances for three of his children. And they sigh as faculty and students at the University of Virginia condemn the school’s president for quoting Thomas Jefferson, who founded the University of Virginia.
Three Martini Lunch 10/26/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America enjoy WikiLeaks expose the Democratic panic after Pres. Obama publicly said he only learned of Hillary Clinton’s email server through the media. They also unload on both Megyn Kelly and Newt Gingrich for their exhausting and devolving debate on Tuesday night. And they shake their heads as Mike Pence is sent to Utah to shore up that state for the GOP ticket.
Three Martini Lunch 10/21/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are pleased to see Pat Toomey and Marco Rubio in stronger positions in their key Senate races. They also shred Pres. Obama’s patently dishonest speech calling Obamacare a great success, proposing more government involvement, and demonizing Republicans. And they groan as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump can’t even do humor well at the Al Smith dinner.
Did Humans Cause Hurricane Matthew?
President Obama hailed his unilateral ratification of the climate change accords this week and his allies went so far as to say the agreement goes a long way to stopping major storms like Hurricane Matthew, but a leading climate change expert says that’s nonsense.
On Wednesday, President Obama hailed the accords as the “best possible shot to save the one planet we’ve got.” NBC News White House reporter Ron Allen took the significance even further.
“It’s very interesting that this is happening on a day when there is a hurricane bearing down on the United States and in the Caribbean. Because these severe storms, beach erosion, intense weather episodes that we’ve had are perhaps the most practical example of what the president is talking about as the threat that the planet faces,” said Allen.
“This is what this whole climate agreement, signed by 190 nations and ratified by about 60 or so, is designed to stop,” continued Allen.
So is human activity in any way to blame for Hurricane Matthew?
“Absolutely not,” said Dr. Tim Ball, former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg. He is also the author of “The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science” and “Human Caused Global Warming: The Biggest Deception in History.”
“By the way, Hurricane Matthew arrived off the coat of Florida on the four thousandth day of no recorded landfall hurricanes in the United States. This is why they had to hype it so much,” said Ball.
Ball says it’s not hard to refute the supposed scientific consensus on the impact of human activity on our climate. He says they’ve been wrong all along.
“If you look at the forecasts of the [United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] since 1990, every single one of them has been wrong,” said Ball. “The basics of science is that if your prediction or forecast is wrong, you’re science is wrong, But they’re not admitting that. They’re pushing ahead anyway.”
He says those trying to get the public on board with the climate agenda don’t even have the basics of climate science correct.
“From a science point of view, it’s an absolute disaster and completely unnecessary. CO2 is less than four percent of the total greenhouse gases and the human contribution of that is .04 percent. Yet they completely ignore water vapor, which is 95 percent of the greenhouse effect,” said Ball.
Ball also has a problem with some of the data presented about Matthew and other storms. He asserts that the experts consistently over-estimate the power of hurricanes.
“They determine the wind speed of the hurricane over water because they have no surface wind speed measurements. They determine it by flying an aircraft through at 30,000 feet. It gets a wind speed up there and then, using a computer model, it calculates the wind speed at the surface,” explained Ball.
“In every single case, that has been wrong. It happened with Katrina. They said it was a Category Five and it was actually barely a Category Three by the time it got ashore. The same thing is happening with Matthew,” said Ball.
Ball is also pouring cold water on the celebration of the climate accords. He says it’s not nearly the global consensus that Obama would have us believe.
“It is, of course, a non-binding treaty and that was demanded by countries like China and Russia, who said, ‘We’re not going to tie our hands with this.’ And of course China has gone ahead with building two coal-burning plants every five days. It’s just laughable,” said Ball.
He says the whole point of the Paris accords was not to line up commitments to reduce carbon emissions but to establish the Green Climate Fund, an idea that has been pursued by climate activists since the Kyoto Accords in the 1990s.
And what is the Green Climate Fund?
“The developed nations had to pay for their sins according to the amount of CO2 they were producing. Then the money was going to be given over to the developing nations because they were suffering from the sins of the developed nations,” said Ball. “It was just a great wealth transfer.”
Ball says it’s important to note that less than a third of the nations that signed the accords have actually ratified it. He also says the nations of the world are expected to contribute $100 billion to the fund every year, but so far it has less than five billion dollars.
In his Wednesday statement, Obama admitted the accords would not solve climate issues but would be a good start.
“The Paris agreement alone will not solve the climate crisis. Even if we meet every target embodied in the agreement, we’ll only get to part of where we need to go,” said Obama, while saying the deal would help to delay or avoid looming problems.
Ball fears the next steps will only involve more government or even United Nations demands on the American taxpayer. He also says many climate activists admit all this action won’t accomplish anything with respect to the climate, which was also the case with the highly trumpeted Kyoto Accords years ago.
“Even if [Kyoto] was implemented in its full form, even the scientists were saying it will not be a measurable difference. The Paris climate agreement is even worse,” he said.
“It’s a travesty from the start. It was the use of science for a political agenda and it’s properly collapsing around its ears,” said Ball.
Three Martini Lunch 10/7/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America point out Republicans should be making the Obamacare disaster into a huge political issue but so far they aren’t. They also discuss President Obama’s lofty approval numbers and note how they started to go up as Americans realized who the 2016 nominees were likely to be. And they slam Shep Smith of Fox News for telling Floridians to get away from Hurricane Matthew or they would all die, along with their children and everyone they know.
Obama Lawsuit Labeled ‘Political Stunt’
By Ryan Brown
Amid growing Republican discontent with President Obama’s actions, the House of Representatives passed a measure to file a lawsuit against President Obama. Though the resolution passed with a vote of 225 – 201, the vote was clearly divided on party lines.
At an event in Kansas City, Obama garnered applause from the crowd as he voiced his opinion that the lawsuit votes are simply “political stunts.”
“Everybody recognizes that this is a political stunt, but it’s worse than that because every vote they’re taking like that means a vote they’re not taking to actually help you,” said Obama.
But accusations of political stunt-making came back to the President from Speaker of the House John Boehner, and Republican representatives are quick to note that the lawsuit doesn’t mean they’re trying to get the President impeached. Boehner said, that the word impeachment, is being thrown around more by those close to the President than by conservatives:
“This whole talk about impeachment is coming from the President’s own staff, and coming from Democrats on Capitol Hill. Why? Because they’re trying to rally their people to give money and to show up in this year’s election,” he said.
And in an attempt to downplay the significance of the House-led lawsuit, Boehner was also quick to mention that the House has no plans to impeach the president.
“We have no plans to impeach the President. We have no future plans. It’s all a scam started by Democrats at the White House,” said Boehner.
Scam or political stunt notwithstanding, it’s obvious that both Republicans and Democrats see potential in the lawsuit, whether that comes in increased votes, or reduced political power.