Wednesday, December 9, 2009
POLL: Most Americans Skeptical of Science Behind Global Warming
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Most Americans (52%) believe that there continues to be significant disagreement within the scientific community over global warming.
While many advocates of aggressive policy responses to global warming say a consensus exists, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 25% of adults think most scientists agree on the topic. Twenty-three percent (23%) are not sure.
But just in the last few days, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs seemed to reject any such disagreement in a response to a question about global warming,
“I don't think … [global warming] is quite, frankly, among most people, in dispute anymore.”
Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Americans say it’s at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming. Thirty-five percent (35%) say it’s Very Likely. Just 26% say it’s not very or not at all likely that some scientists falsified data.
This skepticism does not appear to be the result of the recent disclosure of e-mails confirming such data falsification as part of the so-called “Climategate” scandal, as just 20% of Americans say they’re aware of the particulars about those e-mails...[I.e., censorship works: 14 days and still no story on any of the three networks morning or evening 'news' programs...]
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Climate Treaty Reparations would cost $50-$200bn - a year
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The 181 page draft of the climate treaty in Copenhagen includes massive "climate reparations" paid by developed countries to developing nations
Here's a quiz. What's the worst thing on the table at the UN Climate Control Conference in Copenhagen December 7-18? If you guessed cap-and-tax, you would be wrong. The reparations could be much, much worse.
The draft of the treaty encompasses 181 pages and recites that it shall be the obligation of the developed countries (Europe, United States, Japan, Australia, etc.) to pay the developing countries (China, India, Africa, etc.) huge reparations, annual sums to erase poverty and to share technology with them.
In the behind-the-scenes negotiations, the developed countries have already agreed to pay $167 billion per year, but the developing countries are holding out for $400 billion per year according to BusinessGreen.com...
President Obama will pull out all of the stops to get the treaty negotiated in Copenhagen next week and ratified in 2010 by the U.S. Senate. He knows that time is against him. Given time, more and more Americans will discover the new scientific realities. Moreover, his huge Democratic Party majority in the Senate will likely disappear in November 2010, and he may never again get another chance to get the two-thirds vote needed to ratify it.
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Greens' Real Target: U.S. Economy
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Economy: The 16,000 delegates to the two-week-long orgy of self-flagellation known as the Copenhagen Climate Conference want to shrink global output of CO2 not because of hard science, but out of envy.
Having decisively lost the great debate between capitalism and socialism, the only way the global warming socialists can do this is by imposing restrictions on U.S. output in response to the ginned-up "emergency" of global warming.
The dynamics of this can be readily seen in the chart (above right). It shows that, contrary to what you might have heard, America's share of the world economy has remained remarkably stable over 40 years. The same can't be said for the European Union's.
As recently as 2000, in its Lisbon Declaration, the EU asserted it would "leapfrog" the U.S. in productivity and output by 2010. By the time of its midterm review in 2005, however, the chest-thumping was over. It was clear the EU wasn't "leapfrogging" the U.S. — or even staying up with it.
Instead, its share of world output was falling at an even faster rate...
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Take our playbook, please
I grow weary of the wide-spread argument that President Obama is an inexperienced, bumbling innocent who is simply naïve of history when it comes to foreign policy
The time for words has passed. President Obama and Eric Holder are placing American lives in danger and openly aiding and abetting America's enemies. President Obama and Holder want to give civilian trials to confessed 9-11 mass-murderer Kalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and his accomplices.
President Obama couldn't find a precedent if he wanted one. The only prominent Supreme Court cases granting terrorists rights in civilian court are irrelevant in the case of KSM. The Supreme Court decision Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, which ruled that US citizens held in Guantanamo are entitled to Habeas Corpus, fails because KSM is not a US citizen.
Giving civilian trials to non-US citizens and unlawful combatants not even protected by the Geneva Convention is both unconstitutional and a violation of the oath of office to defend Americans against all enemies foreign and domestic.
If America allows President Obama to proceed unchallenged in his move to give citizens' legal rights to foreign terrorists, what's next? How can a nation control its destiny when virtual agents of our enemies control policy? It's time to call things what they are, and act accordingly.
[Recommended > ]
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'Homegrown' Muslim extremists seen as major threat
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An article in the Los Angeles Times of all places details the rising concern of US terrorism experts over the "homegrown" jihadists who have been very active over the last year.
Sebastian Rotella writes:
Europe had been the front line, the target of successive attacks and major plots, while the U.S. remained relatively calm. But the number, variety and scale of recent U.S. cases suggest 2009 has been the most dangerous year domestically since 2001, anti-terrorism experts said:
- * There were major arrests of Americans accused of plotting with Al Qaeda and its allies, including an Afghan American charged in a New York bomb plot described as the most serious threat in this country since the Sept. 11 attacks.
- * Authorities tracked other extremism suspects joining foreign networks, including Somali Americans going to the battlegrounds of their ancestral homeland and an Albanian American from Brooklyn who was arrested in Kosovo.
- * The FBI rounded up homegrown terrorism suspects in Dallas, Detroit and Raleigh, N.C., saying that it had broken up plots targeting a synagogue, government buildings and military facilities.
- Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued her strongest public comments yet on the homegrown threat.
- "We've seen an increased number of arrests here in the U.S. of individuals suspected of plotting terrorist attacks, or supporting terror groups abroad such as Al Qaeda," Napolitano said in a speech in New York. "Home-based terrorism is here. And, like violent extremism abroad, it will be part of the threat picture that we must now confront."
Reasons for the increased radicalization of American Muslims include greater access to extremist rantings on the internet as well as increased numbers of American Muslims finding their way to terrorist training camps in Pakistan and other hot spots of radicalism.And this from a NY City Police terrorism expert
"Radicalization is clearly happening in the U.S.," said Mitchell Silber, director of analysis for the Intelligence Division of the New York Police Department. "In years past, you couldn't say that about the U.S. You could say it about Europe."
Let's do a little arithmetic: Take increased homegrown jihadis; add one extremely high profile terrorism trial; include the fact that it will be held in one of the media centers of the western world.
What do you get when you add all those factors together?
Irresistible temptation for those with a martyr complex and an automatic weapon.
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Export-Import bank opposes Iran sanctions
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Michael Goldfarb is reporting over at the Weekly Standard that the Export-Import Bank is attempting to scuttle Iran sanctions legislation that is working its way through the House .
This set of sanctions would target Iran's import of refined oil products-gasoline and heating oil. Despite vast quantities of petroleum, Iran has made a shambles of its own refinery network and relied on outside companies (Indian and others) to provide its gas stations with fuel. Iran has met with protests from its citizens when it has tried to ration and raise the price of its heavily subsidized gas. One of their weakest points is precisely the one that the House is focusing on as a way to dissuade Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
It appears that Barack Obama's appointee as head of the Export-Import Bank is operating behind the scenes to thwart these attempts to bring a halt to Iran's nuclear program...
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Iran Reminds Students That Anti-Americanism Is a ‘National and Religious Duty’
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Fearful that a traditional students’ solidarity day on Monday would turn into an anti-regime event, Iranian authorities took steps to clamp down on potential trouble while reminding young Iranians of the anti-U.S. origins of the state-sponsored commemoration. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Israel, the U.S. and other enemies are trying to sow dissent and division, having failed to weaken Iran in other ways.
[Wasn't all that suppossed to end with the election of Obama?]
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Pelosi Endorses ‘Global’ Tax on Stocks, Bonds, and other Financial Transactions
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) endorsed the idea of a “global” tax on stock trades and other financial transactions, At her weekly press briefing on Thursday, Pelosi said the financial transactions tax (HR4191) currently before Congress would have to be made “global” to keep U.S. investors from taking their business overseas and out of taxable reach.
[Again and again; they consider it their money that we're allowed to keep only portions of as they consider 'fair'.]
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U.S. And Singapore Sing With Free Trade
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Six years ago, when tiny Singapore (population 4 million) was up for a free-trade agreement with the U.S., doomsayers were out in force:
“Manufacturing job losses grow every day,” wrote John Sweeney, then-president of the AFL-CIO, in a July 2003 warning to Congress. He called the Singapore pact “deeply troubling” and “disastrous” if it were to be duplicated.
“The trade deficit continues to expand to record levels as a result of harmful trade policies,” Sweeney wrote.
The free trade agreements with Singapore (and Chile) “do not promote the economic interest of the United States,” intoned the Labor Advisory Committee in February 2003. “These agreements repeat the same mistakes of NAFTA and are likely to lead to the same deteriorating trade balances, lost jobs, trampled rights, and inadequate economic development.”
Among the luminaries making these doleful recommendations were such experts on the private sector as the AFSCME public employee union, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the urban planners at Wayne State University, and the American Federation of Teachers.
Still, the Senate ratified the Singapore trade pact 66-32 in May 2003. It went into effect on Jan. 1, 2004.
Five years since, every tocsin caw they made has turned out to be false. New figures from the U.S. Trade Representative’s office reveal a bevy of glowing news about the U.S.-Singapore pact..
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Most Americans Oppose Second Stimulus and Using Bailout Funds for States
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President Obama hopes to use money still unspent from the $787-billion economic stimulus plan to fight the nation’s 10% unemployment rate, and one of the ideas on the table is to channel money to states to keep them from laying off public employees. But a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 22% of Americans favor providing federal bailout funds to states with serious financial problems.
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10 Million Could Lose Employer Coverage Under Senate Health Bill, CBO Says
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The Congressional Budget Office estimates that up to 10 million people could lose their employer-based insurance coverage under the Senate's health care reform bill. In new figures out Monday, the nonpartisan office said the net loss would add up to about 5 million -- the anticipated loss of employer coverage on one end would be offset in part by the expectation that a new mandate would drive other employers to drop their current benefits...
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The summoning of Mara Liasson
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Mara Liasson is National Public Radio's top political correspondent. She also helps hold down the left flank on panels where she appears as a FOX News contributor such as Special Report with Bret Baier. Josh Gerstein reports that NPR management has asked Liasson to reconsider her appearances on Fox News because of what they perceive -- in accord with the teaching of the Obama administration -- as the network's political bias:
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comment: "The left's strategy seems to be as follows: coerce left of center figures into refusing to appear on Fox and then claim that Fox is becoming more partisan.
Reports that NPR is in the vanguard of this strategy come as no surprise. NRP is a national disgrace. I'd rather listen to the commercials on sports talk radio."
[Your tax dollars at work.]
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New poll shows 'Tea Party' more popular than Republican Party
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A new Rasmussen poll [which always restricts itself to VOTERS, vs. other polls] finds that the tea party movement's popularity is growing, so much so that it garners more support than the Republican party on a generic Congressional ballot. The poll hints that the burgeoning discontent among conservatives within the GOP threatens to splinter the party at a time when the popularity of President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress are waning as we head into an election year.
The tea party movement was conceived out of antipathy for President Obama's economic stimulus plan and cultivated by groups like Freedom Works and conservative commentators such as Glenn Beck. Its guiding principals are centered around opposition to tax increases and the expansion of federal government spending. The movement rose to prominence when it organized highly-publicized protest gatherings across the country on April 15th of this year.
As reported by Talking Points Memo, the respondents to the Rasmussen poll were asked the following question:
"Okay, suppose the Tea Party Movement organized itself as a political party. When thinking about the next election for Congress, would you vote for the Republican candidate from your district, the Democratic candidate from your district, or the Tea Party candidate from your district?"
The response of all those who were polled was Democratic 36%, Tea Party 23% and Republican 18%. Further, the poll found that independents are more inclined to vote for a tea party candidate over Democratic or Republican candidates...[We're likely stuck with the Democrats through 2010 as the Republican party is set to split in two. The media will portray this as the fault of intolerantly conservative tea-partiers breaking away from the GOP - when in fact it's the rino's listening to the MSM that's resulting in their betraying their base - and consequently paying the price.
I.e., anyone, including politicians, that get their news from the MSM is eventually duped into believing the untrue...]
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Social Democrats versus a GOP in search of an ideology
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In the struggle between the two major political parties, the advantage goes to the one that can articulate that for which it stands. Democrats have the advantage
The 20th Century Progressive movement in America was a first cousin of the Fabians. Their agendas were widely compatible. And, although Democrats today deny it, the Democrat Party has, at least since FDR's New Deal, been incrementally morphing into the Social Democrat Party.
"[T]he principle of equality is most acclaimed by those who expect to gain more than they lose from an equal distribution of goods. Here is a fertile field for the demagogue. Whoever stirs up the resentment of the poor against the rich can count on securing a big audience."
(Socialism, 1981 LibraryClassics edition)
Meanwhile: Where is the ideological opposition? Who speaks as a political counterforce? What is the Republican rebuttal?
On balance, the weight of GOP language today leans more heavily on less government than on more freedom. Today's GOP is positioned as Shaw's "Unsocialists."
To survive and thrive in the 21st Century the GOP must claim clearly and forcibly that for which it stands. And do it soon.
The second decade of 21st Century will witness an historic battle between American political ideologies. Democrats have one already defined. Republicans will struggle to find theirs. The future profile of the nation depends on the outcome.
Meanwhile, conservative citizens, not elected GOP officials, are pushing the rebuttal to socialism into the arena of public discussion...
[Recommended > ]
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MSNBC Shows Video of Man Being Teabagged in Gay Bar
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Rachel Maddow on Friday played a video of a man in underwear banging his genitals against another man's forehead in a gay bar.
This was done to explain to her MSNBC audience the derivation of the term "teabagger," the sexually-charged double entendre that sadly became popular this spring and summer as Tea Parties swept the nation.
According to Maddow,
"This is where "teabag" comes from..."
Stay classy, MSNBC.READ MORE
The Palinistas....
MPR's Tim Nelson reports that several hundred people are in line at the Mall of America with the hopes that they get former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to sign her book, Going Rogue, for them. Palin is scheduled to appear at the Mall of America at noon today.
Update: The DNC is also keeping tabs/commenting on Palin's visit. The DNC's Frank Benenati sent out this statement:
In advance of Sarah Palin's stop in Minnesota today, please find below everything you need to know about Going Rogue - a memoir that has been received as 1) political payback for Palin's rivals that adds to the tabloid nature of her profile rather than provide a display of substantive policy chops that would reset her ability to be taken as a serious leader; and 2) substantively more fiction than fact compounding the credibility problems she earned during the 2008 campaign. These factors are reflected in recent polling which shows extraordinary disapproval numbers and small minorities who feel she's qualified to be President. The sensational nature of Palin's book continues to dominate news cycles - and does so to the detriment of the Republican Party. Combined with her dismal polling numbers and Republican willingness to cede the party to her and her polarizing tea party following, the political impact of her re-emergence, spells political disaster for the GOP going into 2010 and beyond.
You can find some of the links in the Benenati's e-mail here.
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Sarah Palin rises in polls as Obama slips, new surveys show
President Obama’s job approval rating has hit a new low, even as Sarah Palin’s popularity continues to climb, new polls show. The latest USA Today/Gallup Poll puts Mr. Obama’s job approval rating at 47 percent, a new low for his 10-month administration an a statistical tie with Palin's 46%...
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