Yesterday we mentioned Obama’s nuclear option event, and now the fallout begins. |
From Timothy Cama and Scott Wong, The Hill
![keep-calm-and-run-for-your-life-66[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/keep-calm-and-run-for-your-life-661.png?quality=75)
President Obama’s election-year plan to win a new international climate change accord is making vulnerable Democrats nervous.
The administration is in talks at the United Nations about a deal that would seek to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by “naming and shaming” governments that fail to take significant action.
The State Department on Wednesday denied a report in The New York Times that the plan is to come up with a treaty that would not require Senate confirmation, but that appeared to provide cold comfort to Democrats worried the issue will revive GOP cries about an imperial Obama presidency.
One Democratic strategist said the proposal would put swing-state candidates who are critical to the party keeping its Senate majority “in front of the firing squad.”
“You’re … making it more difficult for them to win and certainty putting them in a position to lose,” the strategist said.
Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who pushed a climate change bill through the House in 2009, said the Times story was inaccurate but had no further comment.
Other Democrats immediately distanced themselves from the proposal.
“This administration’s go it alone strategy is surely less about dysfunction in Congress than about the president’s own unwillingness to listen to our coal miners, steelworkers, farmers and working families,” Rep. Nick Rahall (W.Va.) said in a statement. Rahall is in a difficult reelection race.
Republicans in tight Senate contests, for their part, quickly seized on the issue.
Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who’s trying to unseat Udall, called on the incumbent to denounce Obama’s “latest executive power grab.”
“Coloradans don’t elect Senators to watch them toss their power to the president, whether Republican or Democrat,” Gardner said.
Republicans have been seeking to make the 2014 elections all about Obama, whose approval numbers remain low. They’ve sought to tie candidates such as Udall and Landrieu to Obama, and the Democratic strategist said the climate change proposal gave them ammunition.
Republicans have also sought to portray Obama as a figure abusing his power with executive actions. House Republicans approved legislation in August that would allow Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to file a lawsuit challenging Obama’s actions.
“Once again, the president is circumventing the wishes of the American people and their elected representatives, and doing so in a fashion that will destroy more jobs,” Boehner said Wednesday of the climate report.
Both the White House and State Department said the climate agreement is still being discussed, and they denied that it was a sure thing that the administration would seek to go around Congress.
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“don’t just do something, stand there”
First we (well, the US gov’t, not me!) listen in on Chancellor Merkel’s phone, then we put he in stocks for buying US coal. That’ll teach her!
It is political suicide – and also very impotent. Any treaty he signs will have no weight – either in law or enforcement. It will only apply to Obama.
But it will cost him a lot of seats in congress.
At every opportunity the populous should be reminded that Democrats own the AGW FARCE and the foolish war on energy.
They are obstructing pipelines, production and independence while plotting to carbon tax our economy into calamity.
They must be made to wear the zealous movement and all of it’s mendacity.
Most Dems back Obama? You are living in dreamland. Most of them are cringing at the mention of his name. I live in SF and he is a dead duck here excwept among some gays.
It could simply be that Obama figures that he has already lost the Senate, so he is trying to lose big.
The plan could seriously be to make a vain attempt at a climate change “treaty” while his big Democratic donors hedge with new investments in fracking and coal. Two years from now he leaves office with a “do nothing” private sector job that allows him to golf every day.
‘..spokesman for Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), who heads a House climate task force, said it was premature to comment on a plan with so few details.’
I know Scott. Don’t tell me. Lemme guess: ‘We’re going to have to pass the plan to find out what’s in it.’
“This administration’s go it alone strategy is surely less about dysfunction in Congress than about the president’s own unwillingness to listen to our coal miners, steelworkers, farmers and working families,”
Sorry hard working people of the US, you are expendable just so O can look good with his thug friends at the UN.
Don’t our brilliant world leaders have real problems to manage?
World war/peace, national defense, unemployment, poverty, education, infrastructure, diplomacy, immigration, ethnic rivalry/racism, health policy, fiscal management, culture wars, crime, prison population, militarization of municipal police forces who terrorize and murder the innocent, and, and, and….
But Global Warming that hasn’t materialized in the last 15-17 years, isn’t a problem at all, but gets a big shout-out from the person holding the title of US President.
Governments, bad ones that is in modern times, seem to show a pattern of identifying problems that do not actually exist, and proposing solutions that will do nothing but harm. I don’t care what your party affiliation is, vote such officials out of office.
Real problems are hard to solve. Fake problems are easy.
But I think we can safely say that Obama will be lucky if history looks on his actions during the demise of the American Empire as favourably as it did on Nero’s during the demise of the Roman Empire.
But… but… “climate change” is a fake problem, and it’s the hardest one of all to solve!!!
for those with a stake in such things:
28 Aug: Bloomberg: John H. Cushman Jr.: U.S. Auditors Say Obama Climate Math Checks Out
InsideClimateNews.org — Government auditors have taken a close look at a disputed calculation used by federal regulators to assess the long-term costs of carbon pollution. Their verdict: It was all done by the book.
The hotly contested economic calculation, known as the “social cost of carbon,” or SCC, sailed through a review by the Governmental Accountability Office, whose audits often feature scathing criticisms of the bureaucracy…
The review was requested by several of Congress’ most outspoken critics of the administration’s methods, who have called the SCC’s development “a black box.”…
The administration’s methods, the GAO said, “used consensus-based decision making”; “relied on existing academic literature and methods”; and “took steps to disclose limitations and incorporate new information.”…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-27/u-s-auditors-say-obama-climate-math-checks-out.html
about the writer, formerly with NYT, includes previous articles:
John H. Cushman Jr.
http://insideclimatenews.org/author/john-h.-cushman-jr.
This administrations calling a “Do Nothing Congress” is code for “They will not do what WE want”.
Maybe the Do-Nothing’s can just read a poll on Right Direction – Wrong Track.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/right_direction_or_wrong_track
Since Jan 1, 2010 “Right Direction” has never been above 50 percent and only 5 weeks above 40 percent.
You often do not get where you want to be when your going the Wrong Direction.
“It’s annoying that we have to fight elections for our cause The inconvenience–having to get a majority”
Of course, it only matters if you have to worry about elections…
Democrats are “worried the issue will revive GOP cries about an imperial Obama presidency.”
Revive? Huh? When did the cries ever subside?
Greg Gutfeld (The Five) 8/28 17:30 EDT.
:The President plans to sign an international climate change accord in 2015 with the approval of Congress. It’s nuttier than elephant poop. The New York Times says the thing would compel countries, including ours, to cut carbon. Even though our Constitution demands Senate approval for such Treaties, the White Houses bypasses that by inking a politically binding deal that Names and Shames countries into submission.
There are 4 problems here. It’s Illegal. … It’s Wrong. …. It’s Crazy….. And It’s Evil.
First, It’s Illegal. “Politically binding” is as legally binding as a Ouija board. If that is a Treaty, then so is graffiti. To Obama, the Constitution is like waiting in line for BBQ — its for other people.
Second, It’s Wrong. The Journal Science says the 17 year pause in Global Warming will last another decade. A natural fluctuation in Global Climate creates 30 year warming and cooling periods.
This is what Obama is about to punish us for: inevitable variability.
Third, It’s Crazy. Addressing Global Warming before Global Terror makes as much sense as worrying about indigestion while playing in traffic. To him Terror is a nuisance hindering his march into the abyss.
And that’s the Evil Part. Masked as “established science”, this is wealth redistribution on a global scale, draining our economy in a spasm of Socialism.
And he wishes to shame US? Don’t bother. We’re ashamed, but not of us.
——–
Kimberly, I love how their tactic is to Name and Shame, as if countries, like in China?, —- would react to that. “Oh my gosh, their up set with us!”… …
————————–
Kruthammer: 8/27/14 Special Report: “The idea of shaming the Butchers of Tiananmen Square, or of shaming a country that just a week ago buzzed a US airplane at 20 feet, a country that is expanding into the eastern and south China Seas is sort of the dumbest ideas since the “Russian Reset Button”. It is also based upon the same ideas that the Russians and the Chinese and other act like Obama does with adolescent idealism when it comes to Foreign Policy. So it is an incredibly stupid idea.”
A video link to the Gutfeld essay on Breitbart
“naming and shaming”, eh? That’s gonna work about as well as his Ukraine policy.
Is he planning to try this with ISIS as well?
Searching for shame elsewhere by the little “o”? Now THAT is the granddaddy of all oxymorons…