Chris White Tech Reporter
- July 23, 2019 4:49 PM ET
House Democrats rolled out a climate agenda Tuesday as their caucus attempts to draw a distinction between New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s approach to tackling global warming and a more moderate plan.
Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee announced they would pursue legislation calling for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a far less ambitious plan than the Green New Deal, which aims to complete the emissions target by 2030. Democrats criticized Ocasio-Cortez’s idea during the roll-out.
“The majority of the Democratic caucus is behind aggressive, but not socialist, climate policies,” Paul Bledsoe, who advised former President Bill Clinton on climate issues, told reporters, according to Bloomberg. “They worry the Green New Deal rhetoric could alienate rather than attract swing voters needed in 2020.”
U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) hold a news conference for their proposed “Green New Deal” to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in 10 years, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. February 7, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
“The climate crisis is here, and it requires serious federal leadership that’s up for the challenge,” Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey told reporters.
Reps. Paul Tonko, head of the Environment and Climate Change subcommitee, and Bobby Rush of Illinois, head of the energy subcommittee joined Pallone in the press conference. Ocasio-Cortez didn’t attend, Bloomberg reported.
The GND, as it has come to be known, sought for a “10-year national mobilization” to shift the country to 100% “zero-emission energy sources” — a lofty mission given that fossil fuels account for more than 80% of U.S. energy consumption in 2018. (RELATED: The Green New Deal Would Cause ‘Significant Environmental Damage,’ Report Finds)
Ocasio-Cortez’s brainchild was torpedoed in the Senate in March after Republicans voted en masse against the resolution while most Democrats voted present.
Tuesday’s proposal also comes as President Donald Trump attempts to associate moderate House Democrats with left-wing members of the caucus. Some House Democrats believe they played right into the president’s hands after they voted on a July 17 resolution condemning Trump’s tweets targeting Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
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“The majority of the Democratic caucus is behind aggressive, but not socialist, climate policies,” Paul Bledsoe, who advised former President Bill Clinton on climate issues, told reporters, according to Bloomberg.
Oh my. Is that an admission that climate change is a political, not a scientific issue?
My thoughts, too, HotScot. They are admitting that they think voting for a communistic agenda (let’s call it as it is) is part of what voters are being asked to vote for, or against, when global-warming is the subject under discussion.
Remarkably candid.
Wise? We shall see. Unlike climate models, we don’t have to wait the best part of a century before a politician is seen to be a failure.
They are saying the “Squad,” Markley, et. al. are socialists. Its going to be hard to deny that when the Republican fact checkers get started for the next election.
Especially since they all have publicly proclaimed themselves proud socialists. Words have meanings, and in the electronic age the words you speak in public are eternally available for said public to review.
“…..in the electronic age the words you speak in public are eternally available for said public to review.”
..provided you take a screenshot and save it somehow, before a ‘reputation manager’ scrubs it.
They can try. As Shrillary learned, even bleachbit does not remove what has entered the intrawebsthingy, and smashing hard drives only works if that drive had never been connected to the intratubes. Once it is out there it is always out there and someone can dredge it up.
Yes and not only that, HotScot, it’s even modified science to win an election. Outright Socialism is tooo much, so let’s throttle it back to a level that is just normal stupid. There, fixed it.
“They worry the Green New Deal rhetoric could alienate rather than attract swing voters needed in 2020”
says absolutlely its politics, and politics of the Left which is all about what message the electorate will swallow.
Not about what policies will achieve necessary and desired change.
What sort of change are we talking about, Leo? The world seems to be on mostly good trajectories now. Lifespan, etc.
calling the GND socialist is clever misdirection. None of the socialist/communist countries are restricting carbon or care about warming: China, NK, Cuba, Venezuela ( Russia maybe??).
this is a typical RICH COUNTRY self deprecation scheme, nothing to do with Socialism. NOTHING.
But you have it bass-ackwards… the GND (IIRC, climate change is in the first paragraph) has nothing to do with climate and everything to do with socialism. The latest press release (I’d call it GND-Light, but wasn’t that title already stolen by some Republican’s stinking pile of manure Cap-And-Trade bill?), changing the timescale from 11 years to 31 years, is the same thing only slower. So in a way you are correct, Climate Change and these socialism bills have nothing to do with each other!
Indeed, Colin. It looks more like a political religion, where you must «believe» in alarming climate change/global warming, because it’s «the Truth». No dissent. In that sense you could call it the religious right. However, the taxpayers’ money spending and the impact of the government with Cortez’ Green New Deal in the economy is typical leftwing and is bad for structural growth.
Except that it is the blueprint for socialism in America. You know that.
‘Climate policies’ are aggressive socialism. There’s no escaping the fact that ‘climate change’ is the green face of the socialist agenda.
Democrats are against white people. They are actively creating concentration camps for anyone born with white skin colors, including Latinos that “look too white.” Protect yourself, don’t where sunscreen. If you look white you will be a victim of their racism! They are primarily targeting Jews, but every white person can be a victim of their concentration camps. Specifically avoid @A0C pages, this is where they find their victims. Anyone @AOC defines as white is kidnapped and sent to a camp to die!
I’m trying to think of some sort of rebuttal but this one is too far out there. Perhaps you could identify by GPS (Google Earth) coordinates some of these camps. They might turn out to be ordinary Boy Scout camps.
The Democrat leadership wants to go to socialism over 30 years rather than within 10 years? No cost estimate? Yeah, the American voter will go for that.
Monopolies and practices, and democratic leverage to suppress the population. Their old mainstays of alleging diversity, phobias, and other prejudices have a progressive effect in a population that is growing wary of witch hunts and warlock trials, and, of course, the liberal bigotry (i.e. sanctimonious hypocrisy).
Unbelievable! The Hill is reporting on how the Republican establishment is using Frank Lutz to help them message Democrat insanity for conservative voters. I guess the old Soviets were right in saying they would sell the West the rope to hang themselves.
Any Republican that jumps on the Democrat’s climate bandwagon deserves what he gets from an electorate that won’t pay a dime for green fantasies. Wife, where did you put my Yellow Vest?
Principles are general statements of character. However, beware overlapping and converging interests.
Intersectionality on steroids.
Whores by any other name.
I’m to much of a gentleman, I’m still going to call her Hillary.
It’s like starting the frog in cold water and slowly turning up the heat.
Gillibrand unveils $10 trillion plan to combat climate change
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is pledging that if elected to the White House, she’ll spend $10 trillion over the next 10 years in both taxpayer dollars and private funding to tackle climate change and implement the goals of the ‘Green New Deal.’
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gillibrand-unveils-10-trillion-plan-to-combat-climate-change
Hitting yourself on the head with a 5 lb sledge hammer isn’t much different than using a 10 lb hammer, especially when there’s no good reason to hit yourself in the head with a hammer in the first place.
A.O.C. – Annoying Obtrusive Conundrum.
Annoying Obtrusive COMMUNISTA
FIFY
No quandary about her at all.
An Obnoxious C******
Cow?
Oh, oh – lets play Charades!
Pulls on earlobe
Sets stance as if to bunt
That’s the first time I’ve seen that one, Walter, and I think it is (sadly) the best yet.
Walt, it is perfectly acceptable to say:
Communist
Clashist
Cash-seeker
Cretin
Child
Chartist
High level discourse.
Those being ridiculed always seek to end the discussion.
Nice discussion we have on this thread.
High level discourse.
And YOU are participating in it. The sarcasm, thus, would seem to apply to yourself.
The attempt to find a non-socialist central planning for energy is to reveal the notion is an oxymoron. Central planning is socialism, no matter what one calls it.
Not exactly, Tom.
Fascism is strong, autocratic central control of a private economy. Communism is the same, with a government economy.
So “central planning” could be fascism. It depends on who owns the means of production.
With 170,000 pages in the Federal Register, it is clear the U.S. is fascist. Not socialist as people still own businesses, not the government.
Whether it is brown socialism under the Fascists, or Red socialism under the Marxists, it is still socialism. Trying to call the Fascists and NSDAP “right wing” was a Stalinist bit of agitprop. Try paying attention to what the Italian or German fascists did as far as economic planning, and it was quite socialist.
Yup, Tom. Fascism was “Third Way Socialism.” Our *ahem* beloved Franklin D. Roosevelt was enamored with the idea. Our Billy and Hilly Clinton were also partial to it… ripe for kickbacks from those the government favored, don’cha know. What’s not to like?
socialism noun
so·cial·ism | \ ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm
\
Definition of socialism
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
You are simply wrong, Tom.
Word-smithing in the dictionary from the progressives/socialists/marxists/communists/leninists/stalinists/statists to cause confusion such as you demonstrate — those are all different flavors of the same basic government-controlled systems. In fascism, government simply dictates/controls the pseudo-private industries.
Without control, ownership is meaningless.
Controlling industry without technically taking control of it may not meet the dictionary definition of socialism, but those who suffer under it can’t tell the difference.
They don’t suffer, Mark. They eventually stop fighting and cooperate with the government. If your company is well capitalized, you can kill competition by cooperating with government regulators. Yeah, it will cost you more, but you get a monopoly.
Controlling something absolutely is de-facto ownership, even if one does not have nominal title. The Nazis and Italian Fascists were control freaks, as an earlier commenter noted, controlling wages, prices, and what was to be produced.
“Not socialist as people still own businesses, not the government.”
Government controls essentially all business in the United States through a blizzard of laws and regulations. The “administration” of the means of production is almost entirely and exclusively government regulated, right down to mandating the pronouns that you must use when referring to employees and customers (EEOC regulations).
A minor distinction between Socialism and Communism is that in the latter, government does actually own businesses, where in Socialism, a human person nominally “owns” the business but is still managed by government regulations.
The distinction also plays into who receives the profits, if any, of the operation. High rates of taxation effectively transfer “ownership” to government; it gets the proceeds of the business, it deploys the regulations governing the operation of the business.
In theory, the company need not be taxed at all since employees and owners are taxed personally. But taxing the company reduces the available income for employees and owners, who then pay less tax; in the end it probably works out the same, maybe even worse for government.
Two words end this debate.
Eminent Domain.
Under fascism the businesses may have been, technically, still in private hands, but the Nazi Party (fascists) told them what to produce, how much to produce, who to hire and what to pay them. The same central control. A rose by any other name that, in this case, would still stink!
Exactly. What I wonder is how so many are fooled by such kindergarten-level deceptions such as changing the names.
+ whatever it takes to show contempt for central planners.
There is no two different levels of Climate Change Policy out of the Democratic Party. The “squad show” is pure theatre.
Ye old “Good Cop – Bad Cop” routine.
The goal isn’t climate, it’s socialism.
Anthony Watts is a very bright guy…and powerful too.The women find him electrifying because he’s such a light- hearted guy ! He’s always the power company’s employee of the month.His favorite band is the Electric Light Orchestra – E.L.O.
Well, I heard that when he was a kid, he was so bright they called him “Sunny.”
: > )
I said from day one that GND would be a “good cop / bad cop” ruse. Here comes the sighs of relief and eager graspings of the “sensible climate control” (sound familiar, gun owners?) mandates.
The Nut from New York gets the headlines because she makes the rest of the nuts sound less cracked.
One can only wonder how democrats will expect to get the labor unions to agree with their plans, either the GND or others, when they want to put 2 million people out of work. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Fossil-Fuel-Industry-May-Not-Help-the-Planet-But-It-Employs-Millions.html#
I actually see not difference between any democrat plan that wants to get to zero carbon emissions in any amount of years. It simply cannot happen, nor should it. There simply is no way to run the economy on electricity alone and it would be incredibly expensive to try to do so, as we all realize. So what do the Dems think they will gain by pushing this agenda when it is so easy to prove it futile by just looking at the growth of CO2 emissions in China, let alone the rest of the developing nations. This will be easy pickings in a debate.
Don’t write them off so soon, Dr. Bob. The Dems will convince the union bosses that all the new green jobs will be union.
Don’t even need to do that. Just pay off the bosses, or put the squeeze on them by other, more thuggish means…
So… it’s no longer anthropogenic or catastrophic. A welcome development, that may justify mitigation, assuming that they can make a case for their hypothesis, without appeals to empathy/emotion.
Always in favor of finding new ways to mitigate socialism! 😉
Hey, wait a minute here… (Checking my calendar…)
Aren’t we supposed to all be dead by 2031? So they are proposing a plan that they know they will never have to implement, or they are admitting that global warming is way over-hyped…which is it?
Exactly. They are swapping one doomsday for a different doomsday. Hold on a second!! What happened to the first doomsday???
So, GND with a different name attached. Okey dokey, then.
As always – what will be the returns on these ‘climate policies’?
Nothing? Or just so damn near nothing we can’t measure it?
But it will be a real expensive damn-near-nothing.
Paul Bledsoe, who advised former President Bill Clinton on climate issues, received a B.A. with honors and a M.A. in English from Ohio State University.
There’s the guy we should look to to advise us on climate issues, alright. An honors graduate in English.
He had Climate Pope-to-be Al Gore running the Clinton climate show in reality. No science needed. Just a belief in a narrative and how best to push the message.
English majors are good at understanding historical instances of employing written propaganda and theater (they did a lot of writing in College) and understanding culturally-based canned narratives.
Showmanship, in other words, is what Bill wanted, when he wasn’t getting his other needs serviced by interns.
The same “duly elected Democrat representatives” doing the will of their constituents by pretending they will get Trump impeached are likewise pretending they can provide free energy. …and free everything else (bunch of id***s).
Many are far from being idiots. Thinking they are diminishes their danger. Some are intelligent but romantically deluded. Others are intelligent and malevolent.
They seem to have forgotten about science. They are negotiating for what the people will accept while trying to get the same outcome.
I think they are saying that whatever the science says, they want “this” conclusion. They’ve forgotten the catastrophic rise in temperature and we’re all doomed. Lets just pretend it’s not so bad, but just bad enough that we still need to impose socialism regardless.
“Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee announced they would pursue legislation calling for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a far less ambitious plan than the Green New Deal…”
It’s still an INSANE goal, yet the Daily Caller lends it legitimacy with its wording, why? Why is Sen. Graham and other republicans now pretending the climate change fraud is legitimate? This is a dangerous development that needs a strong FACTUAL response: CO2 is NOT affecting climate; CO2 rises following a rise in temperature, it doesn’t precede it; MORE CO2 is BETTER; and the climate change fraud is the eco-fascist foundation of totalitarian world government!
“Why is Sen. Graham and other republicans now pretending the climate change fraud is legitimate?”
Good question. President Trump should have Dr. Happer have a talk with Senator Graham and the other Republicans who seem to think something needs to be done about CO2, and get them up to speed on the science and the CAGW propaganda.
Don’t you get it? As the Daily caller said, they are all after the swing voters.
Even though it is obvious to many of us that “The Squad” is actually “The Committee to Re-Elect Trump”.
Each time any of these chicks speak they create more, new Trump voters.
Man these disgusting leftist pigs infuriate me. I wish the absolute worse for them politically. They are dangerous in every meaningful way.
The delusional leftists *are* dangerous. Let’s hope the majority of voters see it the same way and rock the socialists world in Nov. 2020.
Are politicians the only ones to really blame ? After all they are opportunistic predators elected to be on the top of the food chain by supposedly sober and sane electors.
Therefore I have news, slavery has not been abolished but extended to proportions large enough to render it unnoticeable by the lack other referential.
Our societies have totally lost any trace of situational and social position awareness. They fly to the indications of instrumented media which makes the winds blow in the most convenient to the food-chain top predators.
The problem is that they have convinced half the population that they have a right to leach of the labor of the other half.
Turning the country into another Cuba in 30 years rather than 10, yeah that sounds like a deal that people who shouldn’t voting in the first place could go for. The problem with that is the same as ten years. Any project that has a long term payout never gets build and that investment leaves the country and the jobs disappear. Along with the creation of origin wealth, and everyone continues to get poorer and poorer.
Many of these Central Planners pushing this will be dead or at least have one foot in the grave in thirty years. Power is not a means to an end, it is the end.
When they say ten years they mean Now. When they say thirty years they mean tomorrow.
Everyone wants to save the world but no one wants to pay for doing it or reduce their standard of living. All the large Left leaning cities …. LA, NY, Seattle, etc. …. are big on virtue signalling and talk but neither care nor are willing to really do anything substantial about it. They can double, triple, quadruple their electric bills and still maintain their lifestyle but force them to use mass transit or forgo their lavish homestead for high density living and the shit will hit the fan. For them, making $200K+ a year doesn’t mean much if you can’t show it off or buy something the average Joe can.
10 years, 30 years, what difference does it make? It is economically destructive at either time horizon. Death by strangulation vs. death by starvation.
The Green Blob loves the GND. The GB is mindless, reactionary, anarchy. They are motivated by emotional brainwashing about the environment, about Saving the Planet nonsense. They want totalitarianism to force government’s will on the people.
The GreenSlime is calculating, intelligent, and motivated by Greed, not the environment. They use government and its police and taxing powers for money which comes from having political power. They are all about wealth accumulation. The climate most understand isn’t going to change becasue the West fleeces the middle class with higher taxes and electricity bills, because they want that money in their bank accounts. Climate change is just their Trojan Horse to riches.
The GS was undoubtedly furious with the idiotic Socialism-Marxism on full-display in the GND and the unrelenting ridicule it brought on Democrats. That most of Democratic presidential candidates endorsed it blindly speaks to how much climate is knee-jerk, emotional issue with the Left.
Now this “moderate” climate proposal by these 3 Democrats (above mentioned) in the GS’s attempt to get their fleecing of America’s middle class back on track after a serious derailment by the diots AO-C and Markey. It does highlight the rift that is building between the ignorant Far Left Democrats and those Democrats who simply want to win elections for political power.
Crony Capitalism isn’t.
My point is this schism that is breaking open in the Democratic Party represnets to very distinct views of what Climate Change action is for.
The Green Blob are the socialists: Those who want to bring down Western-style capitalism. The AO-C and her squad. They are ignorant. They are mindless. They eat their own on a perceived blasphemy.
The GreenSlime on the other hand is intelligent. It thinks. It plans. It organizes the most wide-ranging, well-financed propaganda campaign ever seen to sell their climate hustle on a naive public, a middle-class to be fleeced using guilt.
The GreenSlime is about Power and Money, not Marxism. But it also knows capitalism is the golden goose to be milked, not killed. It has just decided that destroying fossil fuel and nuclear power based electricity and replacing it with their renewable schemes, using the power of the state, is the paths to their riches. Riches that Democrats are eager to feed on for their power.
Good analysis of the situation/problem. In the political ecology, the GreenSlime is the life sucking parasite which destroys it’s host.
As Big Ears said, Dems have only 18 months left to get out of the GND trap.
🙂
All I can say to my fellow Americans is that I refuse to be taxed or otherwise penalized for any production of the essential atmospheric component CO2 by me, or by the manufacture of goods I use and consume. I will fight mea usque ad mortem to see its removal from pollutant status.
Darn it. I used the banned “K” word in a reply to Dave Fair. Comment is lost in moderation now.
Note to self: Use the spelling “Ki11” instead.
Note to Joel: That won’t work either if I see it – I didn’t see the original comment and I don’t see it in the ‘trash’ so I can’t comment on the content or the context in which it was used. If you advocated killing someone it generally doesn’t pass muster.
Mod
Joel, who are you killing?
Moderators, I refuse to use euphemisms for common words to meet some political correctness standard.
Fair enough
And, to ban a common word regardless of context because someone might say something offensive is wrong.
It bans the moral imperative “Thou shalt not kill” (KJV), and I suppose ban it’s better translation “Thou shalt not murder” (JPS). Is the “M” word banned too ? Today is Friday, and Chicago could use those Civilization Positive phrases this (any) weekend.
Has anyone done a survey of what the man in the street understands by “ Green New Deal”? Is it popular?
If “ Green” is in favour and the public generally has happy memories of FDR’s “New Deal”, then “Green New Deal” must be an absolute winner.
At least the Squad obviously think so.
I hope that the man in the street can see through this ruse but perhaps only a Presidential election will tell if the Democrat nominee runs on a GND platform.
None will run on the GND “platform.” The Senate vote showed that the Dems are running away from that loser. Any specific “green” platform will be destroyed by opponents delineating the costs. The Dems will try to stay vague.
I’d wager a good bit that the ‘People in the street’ have not read the Resolution referred to as the “Green New Deal’, they tend to rely on the interpretation of it provided by the political commentator of their choice. If they have read it (I struggled through it), and they are honest, they would have to acknowledge it is a monumental ‘word salad’ with multiple conflicting goals and 0 effort to provide even the roughest cost estimate – requests for cost estimates are met with dismissal — “the world’s gonna end in 12 years and you want to know how much it’s gonna cost?” (To fix it I presume.)