Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Former Guardian climate columnist Dana Nuccitelli has inadvertently provided a good reason for politically flexible Republicans to stop pretending to be Climate Change Democrats.
What are the climate change consequences of the midterm elections?
By Dana Nuccitelli, November 9, 2018
Over the past two years, the Trump administration, aided by the Republican-controlled Congress, has eroded the Obama administration’s policy efforts to curb global warming. Climate activists had hoped to reverse some of those losses in this year’s midterm elections, but the results were a mixed bag. Here is the rundown of where we stand.
…
Climate Solutions Caucus shrinks. The Climate Solutions Caucus was a bipartisan group of 45 Republicans and 45 Democrats whose goal was to explore climate policy solutions. However, the Caucus was heavily criticized for its lack of action, and its members were labeled ‘Climate Peacocks.’ For example, in a purely symbolic vote, only four of the Republican Caucus members voted against condemning carbon taxes. Republican leader Carlos Curbelo introduced a carbon tax bill of his own, but only two fellow Republican Caucus members were willing to co-sponsor it.
It was a rough night for Republican Climate Solutions Caucus members. Curbelo lost his election, along with a dozen of his cohorts. Eight more Republican members retired from Congress. That leaves about 24 of the 45 Caucus conservatives in office starting in 2019, having lost their leader.
This was an expected outcome – the moderate Republicans who are more likely to be relatively realistic about climate change also tended to be the most vulnerable in a wave election. Democrats can now control the legislative agenda in the House, but there are fewer moderate Republicans left in office who might work with them on climate bills. On the one hand, that means climate legislation won’t be watered down by compromise; on the other hand, even fewer Republicans will sign on.
…
Read more: https://thebulletin.org/2018/11/what-are-the-climate-change-consequences-of-the-midterm-elections/
For once Dana and I agree on something. Political cross dressing no longer protects vulnerable candidates. In the internet age, everyone rapidly learns where politicians really stand on issues they care about. The attempt by soft Republicans to pretend to support climate action by joining the do nothing citizens climate lobby climate solutions caucus was a total failure.
Why vote for the counterfeit when you can vote for the real thing?
If the soft Republicans who lost had shown some guts, had stood up for what they were supposed to believe in, some of them would still have lost. But I suspect some of those who lost might have retained their seats.
Soft centrist crowd pleasing on climate change, on a whole range of issues, no longer works. In this age of unprecedented distrust of politicians and the political process, voters are desperate to find politicians who keep their faith. Showing a bit of backbone and principle, risking criticism, demanding reporters consider alternative viewpoints, inviting controversy rather than avoiding upset, is one way to win that trust.
In Stork They Trust.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Cooling… Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming… Global Warming… Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change… Climate Change… are hypotheses dependent on a conflation of logical domains and popular emotional appeal. As with selective-child, a liberal and progressive population defend it… them, as a means to an end.
As the Modern Minimum continues to kicks in, “change” won’t work too well. But never fear….
We will have to worry about Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Sameness.
The Republicans who lost in the house were mostly those who were vocally against the President’s agenda and refused to campaign with him or support him. Those that retired did so because they knew their opposition to the President was going to create significant headwinds with their base and increase the likelihood of an embarrassing defeat. Several of those empty seats were lost in part because the incumbent didn’t make the decision not to run until the spring, leaving their state parties scrambling to find a replacement and raise funds. It is almost as though the way they decided to not run was their last thumbing of the nose at the White House and the basket of deplorables that put him there.
The fact that many of them were also warmunists isn’t surprising as squishy thinking and wet finger in the air decision making was the hallmark of that wing of the Republican party. Indeed, in that respect they resembled Democrat lite.
My own Congresscritter retired after 12 terms. He could have easily won another term. He wasn’t on anybodies’ radar and had a pretty safe district. However, that district (NJ 11th) went into play immediately. The Dems ran an ex-Navy helicopter pilot, former prosecutor, and mother of 4 (Mikey Sherrill). Her optics were just too good. Also, Soros-sourced money poured into the district for THE most expensive House race ever. If Frelinghuysen had stuck it out one more term I think it would have gotten us over the hump.
Sounds like he had the right idea though. I don’t think anyone should be in the House of Reps for more than 20 years. At 24 years he was about 2 elections too long as it is.
I don’t agree with the extreme term limits people. In the first term, they have no idea how or where anything happens in government. In the second term, they finally start to figure out who is who as far as their committee assignments go. By about the fourth term, they finally have a feel for all the related areas and committees that can help them get ideas pressed home. By 20 years though, the power starts to go to their heads and they start to think they are bigger than their constituents. (For some that happens by the 12 year mark, and that is when they need to go!)
If we went back to a strict constitutional government, then citizen legislators could be a thing again and changing them out every 6 year or so would be prudent.
A problem with term limits is that they have been tried by various state governments, and yielded poor results. Do you really regard California as a good example?
What poor results?
California is basically run by the lobbyists and legislative staff, for whom there are no term limits. Unless one is a diehard SJW, Calizuela is resembling a third world country, with the ruling class and peons, with a tiny middle class.
CA has so many problems that trying to blame everything on a single cause is nonsense.
If I had my “‘druthers”, I would have tern limits that were a bit different than most that I have heard or read about. I would limit individual Senators to 2 eight year terms and individual Representatives to 2 four year terms. I personally see a change in the frequency of our Congressional elections to be a very desirable outcome. Additionally, with all of our elections, our Presidential elections included having been scheduled for us more than two centuries ago to be held every 4 years, a natural result my 4 year and 8 year term lengths combined with the 4 year presidential term is the possibility for having all Congressional elections being held in years when there is no Presidential election. In that case, perhaps the importance of Congressional elections could would be perceived in a way that more closely matches the importance with which they seem be thought of by the framers of The Constitution rather than being seen as something of a sideshow that is judged by how well Congressional elections support the agenda of the bozo who happens to be in the Oval Office at that particular time.
I think that to a considerable extent having a Constitution that prescribes a national government that would function as a republic and then having a President who has been given the power of a dictator has proven to be not just unhealthy, but a potential tragedy that is potentially terminal for this once-great nation.
ThomasJK – November 10, 2018 at 4:56 am
Here ya go, ….. ThomasJK, …… I’ll fix this for you, to wit”
Obama was afforded the “free reign” of a Dictator, …… whereas Trump gets hammered by a liberal, … Democrat partisan, …. Federal Judge bout every time he tries to do what’s right for America.
And ThomasJK, …… how’s come you made no mention of reverting back to the original Constitutional dictated means to be employed by each State in “selecting” of US Senators?
What concerns me is the tendency of all politicians to be captured by the bureaucracy over time.
My own Congressman was Dave Brat (VA-7) until strongly-Republican Hanover County was moved from House District 7 to H.D. 1 (Robert Wittman, another Republican, easily won that seat). Brat, however, was narrowly defeated in spite of his strong allegiance to Trump and conservatism, simply because he is now in a Democrat district. Deliberate gerrymandering? Suspicions arise. Brat is a strong skeptic on climate change, so his loss may be significant; but he certainly did not compromise his principles in the race. (Brat was the man who unexpectedly defeated Eric Cantor, then the most powerful Republican in the House, back in 2014. At first that result displeased me, but the longer Brat served, the better I liked him.)
John M Ware,
I liked Brat. Unfortunately, I couldn’t vote for him. I live in Norfolk and the one Democrat runs uncontested. My 18 year-old son got his first house vote and doesn’t even know it (my wife got all the previous write-in votes).
I’ve voted every election since I was 18 (or 19, Reagan was the first president I voted for), but this was the first time I felt my vote was a waste of time. Don’t know how what the results for the amendments were, and not that interested.
OweninGA is correct.
Those Republicans who lost their races were never-Trumpers who fought against the president every time they thought they could get away with it. Or they were RINOs, (Republican in Name Only) who rarely met a democrat program/budget/bill/claim they disliked.
On top of that, they were also the core Republicans who the Greens and eco-loons happily claimed supported action against “climate-change”.
Curbelo and his pals submitted or supported Curbelo’s carbon-tax bill.
Never-Trumpers refused Trump’s campaigning for them, if he offered any. I’m not aware of Trump offering to campaign for determined RINOs, but Trump did campaign for a few Republicans who bordered on being RINOs.
Never-Trumpers and RINOs thoroughly ticked off their constituents over the past two years.
* As trump fixed bad international treaties,
* Inspired investment in America as evidenced by the Stock market,
* Stoked employment numbers across all America, especially in America’s heartland while driving unemployment to record lows Republicans and causing salaries to climb,
* Cut massive amounts of red-tape and unnecessary regulations,
* Pounding and is destroying ISIS, with Syria and Iraq declaring ISIS beaten,
* Enabled GDP to start seriously increase; Qtr 2 2018 at 4.2% with 3.25% GDP increase for Qtr 3,
which kicked off a roaring economy lowering the GDP to Debt ratio,
* Began restoring America’s military,
* Brought North Korea to the peace table,
* Is extricating America from addiction to dumped junk product from China and is forcing manufacturing jobs to return,
* Is combatting China’s theft of Intellectual Property,
* Moved America’s Embassy in Israel to Tel-Aviv,
* Is addressing Iran’s fakery surrounding the bogus nuclear agreement Obama faked,
* Told the European Nations to start supporting their defense and NATO,
* Said “No!” to the sham Paris agreement,
* Is refusing funds to UN agencies taking anti-American actions or verbiage,
* Refuses Pakistan “Security Assistance and funds” until they stop harboring terrorists,
* Has put many other countries with bad human rights records and handling, on notice,
* Dismantling Obama’s absurd climate change initiatives.
* Travel bans for individuals from a select number of countries embroiled in terrorist atrocities.
* Enforcing regulatory reform.
* Protecting Law enforcement.
* Mandating for every new regulation that two regulations are eliminated,
* Rebuilding the military,
* Building a border wall,
* Cutting funding for sanctuary cities,
* Approving Keystone and Dakota pipelines,
* Reducing regulations on manufacturers,
* Placing a hiring freeze on federal employees,
* Exiting the US from the TPP.
Then there is dana nuttifuitticelli twisting facts, inventing strange aspects and reasons for a few RINOs and never-Trumpers who lost their elections.
Not that dana has any credibility left to lose, now dana is throwing his unemployed self into fake political nonsense.
Is that an indication he wants to work for the democrat elitists and their “climate change” attempt to destroy America?
Did I mention Trump is trying to restore the Department of Justice while draining the swamp?
Add in that now without interfering never-Trumpers or RINOs, Trump will seat judges and appointees at a record pace.
Establishing proper legal due process, prosecuting corrupt lawyers and law departments, impeaching misbehaving judges, properly inspiring and rewarding investigators and prosecutors for lawful process and punishing lawbreakers may change employment supporting the democrat elites.
He moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
An extraordinary achievement, and an open recognition that an endless status quo in the middle east is a recipe to the liking only of Hamas, Hezbollah and the PLO.
Yeah, whatever. But he didn’t cure cancer and that is why he has to go.
And far, far worse “thingy” than “NOT CURING CANCER” is the fact that Trump doesn’t badmouth, berate and/or criticize Sarah Palin or any of her family members.
Iffen you wanna see a “Party-loyal” partisan Democrat ….. go ballistic, … with “foaming” at the mouth and uncontrollable stuttering, ….. just mention the name “Sarah Palin”.
He could do that and CNN would still find a way to make it sound like a bad thing.
If Trump cured cancer, the New York Times headline would read, “Trump Causes Mass Unemployment Among Oncologists”.
If Trump cured cancer, the New York Times headline would read “Trump Causes Mass Unemployment Among Oncologists”.
And to top it all off, he had Russian prostitutes urinate over each other in the same hotel bedroom that Barry and Michael Obama stayed in.
It was a bad year for squishes of either party.
It was a bad year for squishes of either party.
And the duplicate comment filter is acting up again.
It looks to me that whilst control of the house is now with the Democrats the mid terms resulted in an effective draining of the Republican swamp. These conservative fraudsters eventually get exposed. I wish the same could happen in Australia where the conservative members “ in name only “ have nearly destroyed the government. At least we got rid of the swamp leader ( Turnbull) to at least give us a chance to get a properly Conservative party in power.
As much as I agree with the sentiment, I don’t think that this can happen in practical terms. Not this close to an election. It will need another six years of Greens/Labor misrule before another conservative government is put in.
Be prepared for mass blackouts and being told it’s our fault.
It doesn’t help when you have the likes of Brenda Snipes repeatedly violating state election law with impunity. The last time she screwed around with the ballots a liberal judge cleared her of wrong doing. Now, a few years later, she’s at it again. Replacing “damaged” ballots with replacement ballots WITHOUT party representatives present.
Fortunately, a judge just declared that the state constitution was violated by Broward County. Look for more fireworks in South Florida.
As to the mid-term election results, many factors came into play.
JRF Do you have a link? I saw the news several hours ago and it was presented as Rick Scott accusing those counties of electiral fraud by ‘liberals’.
Easiest is to check Fox News at fnc.com.
Surely you’ve seen this by now but:
https://miami.cbslocal.com/2018/11/09/judge-rules-in-gov-scotts-favor-in-broward-elections-records-request/
And, guess that Rick Scott won another emergency hearing regarding Palm Beach County. Looks like a state recount will occur and that great scrutiny will occur regarding votes from these two counties.
Numerous election rules’ violations occurred in these two counties. Look for the feds to get involved before its all done.
Going to get very ugly in South Florida. Brenda Snipes has missed the deadline as ordered to produce state-required data and Contempt of Court could be the next step. Also, apparently, security is not allowing access by Republicans to the building but not sure of the identity of those republicans.
I have to wonder how many Democrats believe it is moral to cheat in elections so they can save the planet from climate change? According to Al Gore, climate change is the moral issue of our time. So does that mean it is more imperative than preserving the integrity of our elections? I can see leftist election officials, who believe the ends justify the means, cheating in an election and feeling morally superior for doing so. Dr. Jonathan Gruber is a good example of this mindset. He was secretly recorded admitting that they lied to Congress and deceived the public in order to get Obamacare passed. He’s proud of what he did. The only thing he’s sorry for is getting caught.
From the liberals I’ve talked to. Any activity is justified so long as they win.
Democrats never want to discuss climate policy plans during the campaign. They can’t win by promising high energy costs for consumers. They know their policies hurt the poor and bolster the elite. This midterm was all about healthcare costs for the poor. I saw no ads that mentioned any environmental promises or attacks on incumbents on climate issues.
Now that the IPCC has issued a call for heightened alarm among the commoners, the Dems will no doubt begin another round of clubbing the public over the head with reasons why there should be a global socialist governing body meting out resources, and all should be paying carbon taxes.
Of course, the center ring of the circus will be the skirmish between the house and senate over impeachment, so hopefully that will divert them for a while. 🤹♂️🎪🤡
I see the public in general as “Little Red Riding Hood” and the Progressives as the wolf dressed up as Grandma.
I would vote for the Democrat that could get the wind turbines tore down.
I will consider voting for Dems once the progressives are purged from the party and forced to form a socialist party in the US. Until then, #walkaway.
I don’t want to walk away, I want to figure out how to get the wind turbines tore down. I have serious doubts though that a Demoncrat would even begin to consider such an atrocity.
I hope the windmills remain standing as monuments to the mass delusion that caused their construction. Names should be placed on them to dishonor those involved in this huge waste of public money.
Perhaps with turbine oil running in a continuous stream down the mast to signify the wasted petroleum and other precious resources.
The kids at East Anglia U art dept can’t match that…
There is new-ish local housing development that was promoted, and opened by, Prince Charles sometime in the 90’s. Much of it is architecturally varied and generally OK.
But they also installed a solitary, and quite pathetic, wind turbine in the adjacent open space. I estimate that it was only functional for 10% of the time, max. It was a noteworthy event to actually see it repaired and turning. A better advert for the most expensive way possible to power a dog kennel is difficult to imagine.
I was slightly disappointed when they finally threw in the towel and removed it altogether. I don’t know who actually got to pay the incessant repair bills and receive the paltry income from it during its troubled existence, but I’m sure that a lot of the yuppies in the expensive new housing estate got the take-home-message about the reality of wind power.
In the UK, this effect led to the destruction of the LibDems after they formed a coalition with the Tories.
This was a good thing. Only politicians of conviction can be trusted to vote consistently.
US politicians should have looked and learned.
Meh, all ours can manage is to be worthy of conviction.
This is completely disingenuous. The dems strategically decided to not make climate change an issue in this election because the know it is a looser for them.
I hope you’re right Craig. This issue is a looser for everyone.
Hear in Ontario the “Al Gore” scary climate narrative is the correct position for all three political parties.
To be otherwise is to be politically irrelevant. I kid you not
Ontario Premier Doug Ford knows this, so all he can do is fight the carbon tax for what it is…a tax on the poor.
Eventually he will be able to articulate the double digit $billions wasted via the Green Energy Act….shutting down coal, $25 billion to refurbish old nukes (that should have been decommissioned), investing over $30 billion in wind/solar with the required conventional back up…another $5 billion and finally $1-2 billion annual give away of “intermittent” power via the spot market.
And now….a carbon tax…these people disgust me.
From the article: “Democrats can now control the legislative agenda in the House, but there are fewer moderate Republicans left in office who might work with them on climate bills. On the one hand, that means climate legislation won’t be watered down by compromise; on the other hand, even fewer Republicans will sign on.”
The Democrats will be wasting their time writing bills if they don’t get the Republicans in the U.S. Senate and the Republican in the White House on board. The Republican House over the last couple of years has sent upwards of 500 bills to the U.S. Senate where they sit there gathering dust. That’s where all of Pelosi’s bills will go too, if she doesn’t make compromises.
If Pelosi really wanted to pass some legislation there are several areas where Trump and the Republicans might cooperate such as immigration and health care and infrastructure. Go for it, Nancy.
Tom,
I am bemused. Trump and the Republicans had 2 years where they had control of the
house, senate and presidency. Yet in that time they failed to pass any major legislation
on issues such as immigration, health care or infrastructure (they did manage to give the
rich a large tax cut and expand the deficit to over one trillion dollars so it wasn’t all bad).
Why do you think they would start co-operating now especially on health care when Trump’s basic position is to undo anything and everything that Obama did which includes the affordable care act.
As usual, Percy pipes in to proclaim his ignorance.
It’s not a dictatorship. We leave those up to you liberals.
Each representative is free to vote however they chose. Just because Republicans or Democrats have a majority is not proof that they can get everything they want passed.
Obama had super majorities of Democrats in both houses and he couldn’t get most of his agenda through either.
Gotta agree with you on this one, Percy. The moron RINO’s in Congress have behaved most stupidly. They had (yet another) opportunity and they blew it.
Nevertheless, good news for the citizenry! Trump has already figured out how to get important things done without them:
156,562,000: Record Employment for 12th Time Under Trump
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/156562000-record-employment-12th-time-under-trump
Payrolls smash estimates with gain of 250,000, wage gains pass 3% for first time since recession
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/02/us-created-250000-jobs-in-oct-vs-190000-jobs-expected.html
Manufacturing Jobs Up 32,000 in October, 434,000 Under Trump
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/manufacturing-jobs-32000-october-434000-under-trump
Wages Rise at Fastest Rate in Nearly a Decade as Hiring Jumps
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wages-rise-at-fastest-rate-in-nearly-a-decade-as-hiring-jumps-in-october-1541161920
Boom times: 72% blue collar are ‘optimistic about future,’ 67% ‘happy’
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/boom-times-72-blue-collar-are-optimistic-about-future-67-happy
Jobless Claims Remain at Half-Century Low
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jobless-claims-remain-at-half-century-low-1536842053
U.S. job openings climb to record 6.9 million
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-job-openings-climb-to-record-69-million-2018-09-11
Thanks to GOP Tax Cuts, Utilities Are Lowering Rates
https://www.atr.org/thanks-tax-reform-utilities-are-lowering-rates
Youth Unemployment Hits 52-Year Low
https://www.wsj.com/articles/youth-unemployment-hits-52-year-low-1534455755
Black Unemployment Rate Lowest in 17 Years
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/black-unemployment-rate-lowest-17-years
N.Y. Fed raises U.S. fourth-quarter GDP growth view to near 4 percent
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-nyfed/n-y-fed-raises-u-s-fourth-quarter-gdp-growth-view-to-near-4-percent-idUSKBN1E9292?il=0
Percy, the Republicans had control of both Houses of Congress, that is true, but there is a roadblock in the U.S. Senate where many bills require 60 votes to pass. The Republicans only have 51 votes total so need at least nine Democrats to vote with them in order to pass the legislation. The Democrats are in resist mode and vote no in concert so legislation goes nowhere. So it is a little difficult to get things passed through the U.S. Senate. Now if the Republicans held 60 seats in the U.S. Senate, then I would say your criticism would be valid. But they don’t.
As for healthcare, Trump is already taking steps to reduce healthcare costs by expanding the choice of medical coverage to include any insurance company in the country instead of limiting choice to those one or two insurance companies within a State (can you say monopoly?). I’ve heard claims of reductions of 50 percent on premium payments for some of the new healthcare plans Trump has enabled.
Trump will continue to improve healthcare whether Nancy jumps on board or not, but since that is the case, she might just decide to sign on to get some of the credit. The one thing Trump is not going to agree to do is to call the new healthcare plan Obamacare. It will be Trumpcare.
Trump will do deals with the Democrats. They almost had an immigration deal not so long ago. They can do it again. Nancy wants to look like she is getting things done so she will deal if the right deal comes along.
I don’t remember who said it first:
When given the choice between a real Democrat and a Republican pretending to be a Democrat, the voters will chose the real Democrat every time.
It’s a lesson that Republicans seem to be congenitally incapable of learning.
McCain was honestly hurt when the media abandoned him when he ran for president. After years of being their darling every time he attacked real Republicans, he was sure that they would support him.
Guys like Senator Jeff Flake and Congressman Curbelo are democrats pretending to be a Republicans. (They both still have their jobs until the new Congress is sworn in on January 3rd.)
Cryptocrats.
“When given the choice between a real Democrat and a Republican pretending to be a Democrat, the voters will chose the real Democrat every time.”
Nonsense comment. All Republicans are not hard core right wingers. All Democrats are not hard core leftists. The entire New England wing of the Republican Party used to be pro choice, pro environment. Suburban voters want moderates, they don’t want staunch right wingers, and they don’t want hard core leftists. The reasons Rs lost those seats is that suburban women have tired of Trump, and Dems in most cases ran good candidates.
The US is urbanizing, if the Republican Party wants to stay hard core right wing, they will become a marginal party in the House. And Rs won’t be able to count on gerrymandering to save their seats – anti gerrymandering referendums passed in Colorado, Ohio, Missouri and Michigan this year, and it is slightly ahead in Utah.
“The reasons R[epublican]s lost those seats is that suburban women have tired of Trump, and Dems in most cases ran good candidates.”
The Democrats did run good candidates. A lot of military veterans, for example.
Most races for the House of Representatives are more focused on local issues than national issues and you would have to delve into the details of each individual race to understand why people voted the way they did.
One very large handicap the Republicans had this time around was about 40 incumbents decided to retire and so 40 newcomers, who voters were not as familiar with, were running. Had the 40 incumbents run one more time, I think it would be a good bet that the Republicans would hold the House.
And, of course, the Democrats spent a ton of money on these races. It seems there are more politically active Democrat billionaires than Republican billiionaires.
You can always count on the suburban vote if you are proposing an increase in free stuff paid for by people who actually work.
“And Rs won’t be able to count on gerrymandering to save their seats – anti gerrymandering referendums passed in Colorado, Ohio, Missouri and Michigan this year, and it is slightly ahead in Utah.”
How does that work? Someone has to decide the boundaries of the voting districts. That someone could be accused of gerrymandering. Right? How do you make a law against that?
Of course it’s been the Democrats who have benefited the most from Gerrymandering, but then Chris never was much on reality.
Another fact free post from Mark. Here’s a list of which party benefits most by gerrymandering. Gee, a lot more red than blue.
https://www.azavea.com/blog/2017/07/19/gerrymandered-states-ranked-efficiency-gap-seat-advantage/
Tom – you can read about the different approaches here: https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/current-citizen-efforts-reform-redistricting
An example would be a commission that has 10 registered Democrats, 10 Republicans, and 10 Independents. Majorities of both Ds and Rs would need to approve the new boundaries, which would drive them to a fair compromise.
It really is nice of Chris to pipe in and shoot down a claim that I never made.
But then, it’s not like he has anything intelligent to say.
Of course Chris is so far to the left that he considers all Republicans to be hard core conservative.
Mark, can you come back when you’ve taken a comprehension course? By the way, what are we up to now? 50,000 MarkW posts without a supporting link? Or is it closer to 60,000?
And I also with Dana Nutti-cello on this. RINOs like Curbelo in the House and Jeff Flake in the Senate were doomed political creatures. They tried to play the Climate Change scam to their advantage (as a political cross-dressers is apt), but it bought them no Democratic votes and only alienated Conservatives.
A note I sent to both of my senators and my congressman:
I would like to take this opportunity to inform you of the game changing climate change analysis authored by our fellow Montanan Dr. Ed Berry (https://edberry.com/blog/climate-physics/agw-hypothesis/contradictions-to-ipccs-climate-change-theory/). His work builds on that of other respected atmospheric physicists and shows that human emissions of carbon dioxide are only a small part of the atmospheric content and are not increasing that percentage from year to year. His paper will be presented at the American Meteorological Society meeting in January.
This proof should end the efforts to control CO2 emissions as these efforts are ineffective. Along with the recent paper by John Christie and Ross McKitrick showing the fundamental flaw in the IPCC accepted climate models and dozens of new papers demonstrating the lack of correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperatures should put an end to the hypothesis that we are ruining the climates of the world by using fossil fuels and allow the reassignment of the massive funding to more important things.
I hope that you will use this factual information to help form your decisions concerning Montana’s and the nations future direction.
DMA,
Excellent! I suggest all other readers of WUWT provide similar missives to their Senators and Representatives, at both the state and federal levels.
Here in Australia the cross-dressers run what’s called the Liberal Party, with their energy policies lifted straight from the Green Party. The Liberal Party not only introduced the Renewable Energy Target, but raised it to the point where all existing coal-fired power stations are scheduled to close, and no new ones will ever be built. The bipartisan policy is that we are aiming for a future with frequent blackouts and energy too expensive for any type of industry.
I know I’ve harped on about Australia before on these pages, but there’s a reason. It’s a sad example of politics gone completely wrong, where there’s no longer a sensible voice in government. The rest of the world should look and learn from this awful mistake.
Amen!
Poor fellow my country.
Labor and the faux-Liberal Party will beggar us all. No, they will bugger us. Sorry, they will bugger us and then beggar us and then bugger us again once we’ve been beggared.
“The rest of the world should look and learn from this awful mistake.”
That’s the one good thing that will come of all this: The world will be given a good example of what *not* to do.
The Australian politicians seem to be determined to turn Australia into the first national CAGW crash-test dummy.
It’s extremely frustrating when one sees fools being foolish and there doesn’t seem to be a thing that can be done to change their thinking or behavior. In this kind of case, the only solution is to have a Trump come out of the wilderness and put things right, or to crash and burn, and then the population wakes up and demands change, after the damage is done.
Maybe you will get somewhere if you switch the conversation from temperatures to the vitality of the biosphere. This is not easy to do. Alarmists and WUWT have grooved a chasm a mile deep in our brains about temperatures and mechanics. A couple of days ago, I posted a comment here that alarmists were COMPLAINING about increased tree growth. Every reply was about the mechanical flaws in Mann’s and Briffa’s ridiculous “science.”
In two decades, we have gotten across to half the public that there is great fraud in climate alarmism. So it will take a while to get across to our own, and then the public, the definition of “climate optimum” and the reality that more carbon dioxide means increasing the carrying capacity of the Earth for life.
“Greens” are willing to do absolutely anything to the natural world in order to kill or hurt human beings. They have cost the world economy at least a trillion dollars. Nor do they mind devastating the poor as long as they can feel good by throwing charity or tax dollars at them.
But let the general public find out that lowering either CO2 or temperatures will hurt also the teddy bears and the seals–and alarmism will fall.
Trump is a fool for trying to please both sides (which there’s no doubt he’s doing).
No NASA/NOAA clean-out. No red/blue team.
You only get one chance and he’s ‘progressively’ blowing it.
Between now and 2020, if there’s no wall and no crushing of climate alarmism (public service) and Obocare, then he’s finished.
Actually I’m calling it now – he’s finished – (to repeat what Steve Bannon new a long time ago).
His ego (self preservation instinct) and ‘advisers’ have consumed him so he’s a shell of what he was.
Very disappointing really!
Trump’s response to mid-terms will be a greater desire to please both sides.
The exact opposite of what he must do.
When Democrats with in 2020, you’ll have two terms of socialist hell then a young Trumpy type on steroids will appear to do the job Trump could never do.
After two more terms of Democrats, the rules will have been rigged to the point that no Republican will ever win again.
So Atomic Scientists are political morons! Figured that one out a long time ago. Time of trash collection is a bigger issue for more Americans than “climate change”.
True Eric, but isn’t it also true that Repubs soft on climate change were soft on climate change as they were in more Democratic districts to begin with? It would only make sense for a politician to cater to their district, even if that district was leaning against them.
“True Eric, but isn’t it also true that Repubs soft on climate change were soft on climate change as they were in more Democratic districts to begin with?”
In Carlos Curbelo’s case, I think he was a True Believer in CAGW. It wasn’t just politics to him.
Compared to Obama’s first midterm, President Trump has been incredibly successful.
President Trump has been moderate in nearly every aspect of his Administration’s policies.
He has chosen to pursue what works for all Americans who seek to work, raise families and immigrate here legally.
The lefty extremists, who have sold out to be billionaire sock puppets, only make the President look extreme due to their relative position in exploring new frontiers of hard left loser ideas.
The Republican congressmen who retired made all the difference.
They gave the House to extremists who seek to punish Americans with policies that never work and are running election fraud and rebellion as their main tools of governance.
If those 47 had stuck to their guns not even the House would have flipped.
And for that President Trump is partially to blame.
He did not build bridges or provide reasons for those who doubted him to give him a chance.
He has antagoized nearly everyone who dislikes him into a derangement syndrome reactionary position.
Even Fox news is starting to turn on him.
Now, with democrats openly breaking ballot counting laws, the press is cheerleading open election theft.
This could get much worse before it gets better.
Trump is SO successful that a large majority of voters in the exit polls said they voted mainly to put limits on Trump. And gave the Democrats their largest mid-term election victory since 1932.
Somehow your definition of Trump’s “success” does not jibe with what a clear majority of voters define as “success.”
There’s success, and then there’s whatever ill-informed morons on the left believe.
That the economy is doing great is easily demonstrated by just looking at the numbers.
That the media is lying in order to defeat Trump is also easily demonstrated by looking at the numbers.
…As to Dana, his essay is a predictable, ill informed excercise like his climate obsessed writing.
His essay is childish, as ignorant as his position on climate.
Just remember a few election tidbits.
The mid-term wave (turnover of seats to the other party) was much smaller than many of the previous elections, including Bush, Clinton, and Obama.
Also, everything the House passes has to make it through the Senate where the Dems actually lost seats. Overriding a Presidential veto is not happening. So, pretty much the Dems are neutered, except for the favorable media coverage platform they are granted with all of the yelling. The possibility of another SC appointment is becoming much more likely, as well. Heads will explode over that.
Not true at all.
The Democrats picked up 35 House seats – their largest uptake in any midterm election since 1930. They also won 7 governorships, wiping out most of the GOP advantage in those, and took control of state houses in another 6 states, and won over 400 net new seats in state legislatures.
The 2018 midterms were a wipeout for the GOP. The only area where the GOP held its own was in the US Senate, the final totals yet to be determined, but they only picked up a maximum of 2 seats and perhaps, after the recounts, no new seats, even though the Dems were defending almost three times as many seats as were the Republicans, with 10 of those seats in Trump hard red states. In 2020, the Senate election map will be just the opposite, with GOP defending far more seats than the Democrats. Look for a total GOP wipeout in the Senate in 2 years, as well as loss of the White House.
Duane, you are pulling numbers from your metaphoric nether regions. Both Obama and Clinton lost more House seats in their first midterm than Trump.
Soft on climate change or simply soft and wishy washy on everything?
Well, this is a pretty obvious outcome, with “crossover” GOPers going down to defeat to Democrats, much as “blue dog democrats” disappearing years ago. There are two control dynamics at work in US political vote outcomes:
1) Purely partisan – i.e., support of the party above all else, regardless of ideology
2) Purely ideological -i.e., support of ideological purity, regardless of party affiliation
Real world voters tend to vote one or the other, when they have very strong feelings and affiliations, and tend to vote a combination of the two when they lack such strong feelings and affiliation.
Why vote for a Republican who agrees with you, even on an issue that is important to you, when he or she still supports the GOP and its leadership – especially including POTUS if of the same party – on most matters?
Ditto on the flip side of that for Democrats.
The other thing that voters, at least many of them, tend to consider is in dealing with government that is totally dominated or controlled by one party. Generally, radical governance is the result of one party control, no matter which party it is. When one party controls, the ideological extremists tend to get their way, thus extreme results ensue. In America, most voters don’t much like extremism or extremists, and so tend to vote the controlling party out of office shortly thereafter, at least since the 1990s. This result is also a symptom of the increasing polarization of the two major parties in America, where there is very little room today for ideological impurists in either radicalized major party.
Consequently, in America the trend in recent years has been the rejection of partisanship and extremism as evidenced by the growth of “none of the above” voters, unaffiliated with either party. Today, the largest party of all is the non-party – the no party affiliation voters who now are a plurality and constitute nearly half of all American voters.
Does this mean that the two major parties are going to disappear, or be replaced by new parties? Perhaps so. That happened twice before in America, in the early 19th century with the passing of the “era of good feeling” that resulted in the formation of two new parties, the Democrats and the Whigs … followed by another rejigging when the Whigs died out and were replaced by the Know Nothings and the Republicans, followed shortly thereafter by the death of the Know Nothings. The Civil War then tended to reinforce the bipartisan division of the nation.
Maybe we are headed for another mass realignment. It is pretty clear to a plurality of voters today that neither party is effective at governing, and neither party is effective in representing their interests in government. And both parties give way too much power to the extremists of both left and right.
Of course the other thing that voters vote on is candidates. Likeable and credible candidates tend to do well even if they don’t check all the boxes of ideology or partisanship. And unlikeable candidates tend not to do so well regardless of ideology and partisanship.
We had the very interesting choice of POTUS in 2016 with two very unlikeable candidates competing. It was basically a draw, with one candidate taking the majority of electoral votes and the other candidate taking the majority of actual votes. The guy who legally won the election has since done his level best to exacerbate the culture and political wars, and to create chaos and maximize hate and discontent, on his betting that his energized voters will come to the polls and the other guys, even if representing majority opinion, won’t come to the polls.
Given the results this week, Trump lost that bet. I expect he will lose it again in 2020.
To most voters, likable means that they are the one who promises the most free stuff.
Trump’s policies are popular, but 90% negative media coverage has biased their ignorant viewers against him personally.
The voters this week, and the polls, say that Trump and his policies and his party’s policies are very UN-popular. If you think the GOP policies are popular, then you probably get most of your news from Fox News Channel, Rush Limbaugh, and InfoWars. Note that the world and theUS voting public does not consist of those biased flackery outlets.
“The guy who legally won the election has since done his level best to exacerbate the culture and political wars, and to create chaos and maximize hate and discontent”
Or rather, that is the negative spin put on everything Trump does by the Leftwing News Media.
I notice you don’t blame the MSM for doing their best “to exacerbate the culture and political wars, and to create chaos and maximize hate and discontent”. Of course, that is exactly what the MSM is doing. They lie about Trump constantly for partisan political purposes. Their coverage is 90 percent negative when it comes to Trump.
It’s the Leftwing News Media who are causing all the trouble. Trump is just responding to their outrageous lies. If they played nice, then Trump would play nice. But they aren’t going to play nice, so Trump is going to continue to hammer them and I and millions of other Republicans couldn’t be happier about it. We’ve waited a LONG time for a Republican to fight back against the Leftwing propaganda put out constantly by the Leftwing News Media. We finally have one who not only fights back, he wins!!!
Thank God for Donald Trump!
“The other thing that voters, at least many of them, tend to consider is in dealing with government that is totally dominated or controlled by one party. Generally, radical governance is the result of one party control, no matter which party it is.”
In the case of the United States, the U.S. Constitution is there to prevent unlawful manipulation of government power. As long as it is followed and as long as those who do not follow it are punished, to set an example for future generations.
The Obama administration and the Hillary Clinton campaign have trashed the U.S. Constituion and tried to manipulate the presidential election and then overtrhow the Trump administration using the Power of the State unlawfully.
They should all, each and every one of them, be held accountable and charged with, among other things, sedition.
Trump needs to pick a new Attorney General who will see that justice is done. When then representative Jason Chavez asked Attorney General Sessions to prosecute a certain person, Sessions said he would not because that person was too close to Hillary Clinton. So, for whatever reason, we see where Jeff Sessions is coming from. But no longer. His failure to prosecute the perpetrators of this coup against Trump has cost him his job.
The American people deserve to know the truth about what happened during and immediately after the Obama administration and they deserve to have those who broke our laws prosecuted for their crimes.
If these Obama/Hillary Democrats are not held to account, they will resume undermining the U.S. Constituion and our personal freedoms the very next time they occupy the White House. They may just rig it so they can stay in power in perpetuity. That is certainly what the Democrats desire. In the case of Obama and Clinton, they tried to accomplish this illegally and criminally.
We can’t let this pass.
Let it be understood what is going on. It should be understood that today’s Democrats are DINOs. Democrats in name only. They are really socialists using the Democrat label. Today’s Democrat Party has almost nothing in common with the Democrats of JFK or Truman. The stealth socialists are fully aided and abetted by the MSM. The MSM portrays their positions as center left and reasonable when they are really hard left.
RINOs fail to understand what is happening and become useful idiots to the modern stealth socialists. RINOs are really useless for anybody else, including their constituents. This is confirmed by their wishy washy positions on global warming. They lose the conservative base, and “moderate” voters are not going to vote for them anyway. The votes they pickup are mostly votes against their DINO opponents. A predictable outcome. We seen this with McCain and Romney.
In my opinion, Trump understands where the various actors are positioned. His conciliatory tone post the midterm is just lip service, setting up the DINOs to look bad once they do what he knows they are going to do.
There is no such thing as independently thinking Democrats. DINOs do what they are told. If any of these newly elected “Democrats” think otherwise they are in a for a reality check. Who tells them what they are told? Besides their leaders/henchmen such as Chuck Schumer, it is the army of unelected bureaucrats at every level from the UN down to the county and city managers, and also the university campus, where free speech and academic freedom are dead. The Democrat Party is the Party of the government class, who remain from election to election and from administration to administration. DINO politicians become figureheads rather than autonomous individuals.
The Republican leadership decided decades ago that the key to winning was to be just a little bit less liberal than the Democrats. That way the would guarantee to themselves that everyone to the right of wherever they happened to be, would vote for them.
As a result, as the Democrats drifted further left, the Republicans followed them to make sure there was as little difference between them as possible.
Until the Trump Train came along and started emptying their precious swamp….
Here is an interesting tidbit from SpaceWeather, “…Aug. 2nd, 1972, giant sunspot MR11976 began to explode, …One CME (cloud of plasma) rocketed across the sun-Earth divide in only 14.6 hours–a record that still stands today. , …On 4 August (1972) TF-77 aircraft reported some two dozen explosions in a minefield near Hon La over a 30-second time span…Ultimately the Navy concluded that the explosions had been caused by the magnetic perturbations of solar storms, the most intense in more than two decades.”..”
Pretty amazing stuff. Think of the negative impacts which might occur in today’s high tech world.
Await the next Carrington.
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Three Blind Political Mice ran up the Doomsday Clock.
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Good post. Climate science is weather science on steroids. Hell we can’t predict next weeks weather without satellite visions and still, it’s iffy. Predicting the so called “Climate Change” agenda is nothing short of magic and wizardry. It was used during the middle ages to control witches and warlocks. The nuts and bolts have caused the modern day climate change wizard wheels to fall off. Exiting the Paris accord was a wise choice. When the EU completely falls into chaos due to the UNs agenda 21, maybe, just maybe the rets of us can be spared becoming a third World s**t h**e country.
Oh, but wait, now it’s social, racial, economic and environ-mental (pun intended) ‘justice’. IOWs, socialistic spreading the wealth from successful tax payer nations to third World countries via the UN puppets and their Puppet Masters. Regards, George Reagan, retired engineer, physicist, astronomer and petroleum geologist, a REAL scientist and a US Navy vet 1966-1969