Climategate, Part Duh! ... Alan Caruba

Climategate, Part Duh!

By Alan Caruba

At what point will it finally occur to the pea-brained legion of journalists, academics, alleged scientists, United Nations propagandists, and others still blathering about “global warming” and “climate change” that there is no global warming and that the climate has been changing for the past 4.5 billion years on planet Earth?

It would appear that no amount of the evidence of fraud is sufficient to convince them they have either participated or been taken in by the greatest hoax of the modern era.

Perhaps, though, the latest release of thousands of emails between the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change perpetrators may push them toward a rational conclusion and release the rest of humanity from the penalties and costs imposed by the global warming hoax.

It’s not that the IPCC is not relentless in this ugly business. A report released on November 18 by these reprehensible liars predicted “more extreme weather events.”

Well, duh! There isn’t a day that goes by without an extreme weather event occurring somewhere on the Earth. One might consider the weather at the northern and southern poles extreme. Or the heat of the Earth’s deserts? Then throw in the usual blizzards, floods, and droughts—and you have a non-stop variety of “extreme weather events” to which to point.

To put it another way, the whole hoax was working just fine until the Earth began to cool around 1998. So naturally the IPCC had to (1) change the terminology from global warming to climate change, (2) deny that its “scientists” were lying, and (3) continue the pathetic prediction scheme by pointing to “weather events.”

As reported in The Wall Street Journal, “The scientific link between climate change and extreme weather, however, isn’t uniformly clear, according to the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, established in 1988 to assist policy makers with climate change.”

That’s right, this whole farce has been going on since 1988. At what point will the “enablers” of global warming accept defeat? Not soon if one considers that the IPCC is laying on another climate conference to be held in Durban, South Africa from November 28 to December 9. It will be the 17th opportunity for these deceivers to gather to wine and dine while taxpayers from the many nations they represent pick up the tab.

Here’s the kicker. “Christina Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said “the report also underscored the need for governments to take action to reduce emissions.”

What emissions? Carbon dioxide? A trace gas in the atmosphere (0.038%) that has no effect whatever on climate or weather?

Does anyone grasp how costly all the lies about “emissions” have been and continue to be? The Christmas tree to be erected at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. comes complete with the purchase of so-called “carbon offsets” to pay for its transport 4,200 miles across the country from California. Eighty million tons of “carbon credits” were purchased.

Bear in mind, that tree and all others depend on carbon dioxide in the same way humans and other creatures depend on oxygen! CO2 is vital to the growth of all vegetation on Earth. Without it, we all die.

But what is one Christmas tree compared to an entire nation, Australia, whose government just imposed a carbon-emissions tax on everything? The tax will drive existing heavy industry and other generators of CO2 from the nation that can afford to leave and make those who cannot less competitive with global manufacturers and other businesses. Some business will just shut their doors.

This kind of deception is global. The International Energy Agency announced in early November that “dangerous climate change will be essentially irreversible within little over five years.” The news report concluded saying “The IEA uses conclusions from research collated by the United Nations. Most climate scientists agree with the U.N. conclusions, although recent polls show a growing proportion of the public in many countries is skeptical of climate change.”

No, most climate scientists do not agree with the U.N. data because they know how flawed and frequently fraudulent it is. This kind of casual journalistic reference is a lie, along with all the rest of the global warming and/or climate change data from “official” sources like the IPCC and IEA, et al.

In early November the U.S. Department of Energy published “estimates” of global carbon dioxide emissions for the year 2010. Writing in Forbes, James Taylor of The Heartland Institute, took note that the Department concluded that “emissions rose by 6% from 2009 to 2010. This constitutes the largest rise yet recorded.” And then he added that “global temperatures have not risen during the past decade.”

There is no correlation. Never was.

Whether it is the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, the U.S. Departments of Energy, Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency, all depend on people being too ignorant or indifferent to grasp the truth that everything done in the name of global warming, climate change, or carbon dioxide emissions is a costly, evil deception.

© Alan Caruba, 2011
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

Super Committee Redux 

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Back in August of this year (2011) I wrote an article declaring that the so-called Super Committee was a farce.  Time has proven the little ole “Swamp Pundit” (“Yours Truly”) has the ability to predict the oh, so obvious!   Had I been truly adventurous, I would have also said it was a “hoax.”  

It has become clear the Super Committee was intended to fail so our less than esteemed President could campaign against what he will, no doubt, refer to as a “do nothing Congress.” 

November 23^rd is upon us -- and the “ship is about to hit the sand.”  There will be much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth -- and it will all be for SHOW! 

So, what’s going to happen?  Not much.  Look for the Congress to legislate around those 1.2 trillion dollar “automatic” cuts.  So the Super Committee and Congress will have labored mightily and brought forth – NOTHING.  But, hey, this was the intended goal from the beginning.

Below is the article from last August.  If you missed it, somehow, you might want to read it for a clearer understanding of the Kabuki Theatre we have been witnessing in Washington for the past few months. 

Have a great Thanksgiving!

J. D. Longstreet

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The so-called Super Committee is a FARCE. It is doomed to failure. 

Can anyone reasonably believe there is even the smallest chance that a 12-member committee made up of party loyalist from each side can, somehow, be miraculously overcome by celestial waves of bipartanship?  Come on now.  Really?  Seriously?  Naah.  Ain’t gonna happen.

This committee has to develop a plan that features both spending cuts and tax increases.  Seven members of the 12-member committee must approve any debt-reduction plan before it comes up for a Congressional vote.

Now here’s the “kicker”:  If the committee fails to recommend up to $1.5 trillion in savings by Thanksgiving, as much as $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts will be enacted, including up to 2 percent cuts in Medicare payments to healthcare providers.

OK.  Lets look at who, exactly, is on that committee. On the GOP side, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have chosen Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), Dave Camp (R-Mich.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Pat Toomey (R-Penn.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio)..

On the Democratic side, Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has appointed Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.).  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi chose Reps. James Clyburn (D-SC), Xavier Becerra (D-Ca), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md).

This Super Committee (The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.) it seems to me, has been set up to fail.  I simply do not see any way a deadlock can be avoided.  In my opinion, the committee should be dissolved immediately and the Congress should suck it up -- and do their darn jobs!

The “poor excuse for a committee” committee is somehow expected to do what the Congress, as a whole, could not do -- and even the President and the Speaker of the House could not do it. 

OK.  So what IS this so-called “Trigger Mechanism, anyway?”  Well, it works like this:  The trigger mechanism is the product of months of unsuccessful negotiations among congressional Republicans, Democrats and the White House to strike a broader deal to rein in entitlement programs like Medicare and to overhaul the tax code. It would split spending reductions equally between U.S. defense and domestic programs.

Understand:  This would be a HUGE cut back in funding for the Military.  At a time when America is fighting three wars, if the trigger mechanism kicks in defense spending would be cut by 9.1 percent over a decade and non-defense programs would be cut 7.9 percent.  If this is allowed to happen, we are looking at a hollowed-out military right when America is sitting square in the middle of our enemies collective bulls eye.

Medicare would be cut by 2 percent.  But that cut would be aimed at the healthcare providers – doctors who care for Medicare patients.

Already, a huge number of doctors are refusing to see Medicare patients.  If their reimbursement is further cut, expect even more doctors to refuse taking Medicare patients.  This will impact America’s seniors tremendously.

The legislation that created this super committee calls for the committee to find savings through spending reductions and tax increases.  REALLY?

Look.  The Democrats will not agree to spending cuts and the Republicans will not agree to raise taxes.  Can you say:  “Deadlock?”

The more I investigate this super committee, the more I am convinced it was set up from the outset for failure. 

And consider this:  If the panel does just happen to agree on a plan, Congress has until Dec. 23 to hold an up-or- down vote on the plan or the trigger will be pulled, setting off $1.2 trillion in automatic, across-the-board spending cuts over nine years.  Of course, this avalanche of spending cuts will not begin until after the presidential election in 2012.  No, the cuts aren’t even scheduled to begin until sometime in 2013.  Heaven forbid the politicians should rile the electorate just before the election!

Now, here’s the thing:  Even if the trigger mechanism goes into effect, the Congress can get around it. They can delay the cuts or even override the cuts if they choose.  (Who said the cuts were “automatic,” anyway?) 

Even if the spending cuts were to actually go into effect, the Congress has the power to turn around and INCREASE the spending by way of so-called “emergency funding,” which, by the way, falls outside the super committee’s caps.  Some have suggested it would not be outside the realm of possibility for Congress to do exactly that.  I mean, they DO have a history of getting, shall we say – “creative,” when it comes to finding ways to spend our money.

There is no way to prevent a congress in, say, 2014, from simply reducing the amounts of the spending cut(s) or just overturning the super committee’s so-called automatic spending cuts.  It would be as if the super committee never existed in the first place.

Yep.  I’m convinced the super committee is a farce. It is just more “slight of hand” by our national leaders to placate irate voters who would like to see America saved from pending destruction.

Prepare for a humongous fight between now and Christmas over spending and raising taxes. 

How do we get past this and get America back on a financially firm footing?  We will do it by replacing Obama in the White House with a fiscally conservative President and with conservative control of both houses of the Congress.  It is only going to get progressively worse until we do.

J. D. Longstreet

Enough, Already, With The Debates

Enough, Already, With The Debates

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

I am not a debater… never have been.  Although I have been speaking publicly since the age of nine, I hate debates.

You may have noticed that I DO tend to favor commentaries.  In a commentary I am allowed to express my views completely, without interruption, and then sit back and wait for the fur to fly. 

I have no interest in arguing my positions or opinions.  Once stated -- that’s it!   I don’t argue.  Its not worth the time and effort necessary to sway someone else’s opinion my way.  I simply don’t care if you disagree with me.   Once my personal deliberations are complete and I make my opinions known, I am finished.  (I know the shrinks would have a field day with this!) 

All this leads me to the so-called debates between the GOP candidates seeking the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States.  Only a child would confuse the debates with a press conference … for that is all they are … press conferences.  They are “gotcha” sessions.  Little is learned from them though they make for grand spectacle.

We Americans have a strange way of choosing whom we send to Washington to represent us on The Hill and in the Oval Office.  It is more than “passing strange.”

One quality we Americans demand from a candidate that I see nowhere else in the free world is… “purity.”  We conservatives absolutely demand purity in our conservative belief.   We never really get it – but we continue to demand it anyway. 

Election cycle after election cycle we swear we will never “settle” – never choose the lesser of two evils – then we go right ahead and do it anyway.

The debates are really just theatre.  Most conservatives already know whom they want as the nominee long before the first debate.  But we watch and we listen and we wince when the candidates stumble and fumble and make ridiculous mistakes while under the tremendous pressure of millions of viewers – not to mention well-versed questioners (with notes from weeks of research) making every effort possible to trip them up or, in a myriad of ways, make them look foolish. 

Then there is this:  Why are there so many candidates on the stage, anyway?  It is ridiculous.  We all know there are maybe two or three candidates who have even a prayer of a chance at the nomination.  Why not have only those two or three candidates and allow for a more relaxed atmosphere and more time for the candidates to formulate answers in their minds before responding to a question.  It would certainly give the viewers and listeners a bit more insight into the way a candidate thinks.

As a former broadcaster, I have to tell you, in my view; the debates are more for the broadcasters and press than for the electorate.  Its sort of like the Oscars -- Hollywood stars salivating and honoring themselves while preening before the cameras assuring us all of their deep concern for their fellowman.  Malarkey! Hogwash! 

Never, ever, believe the Mainstream Media doesn’t do the very same thing.  They are “stars” in their own right.  If you don’t believe it – ask them! 

I’ve done pressers and news conferences.  I have been the guy with the pad and pencil furiously taking notes as the center of attention babbles on.  I’ve been the guy trying desperately to shove his microphone into the face of some politician, or other, in hopes of catching some rare pearls of wisdom dripping from those esteemed lips. I have been there.   I know a little about how news folks work.  I also know what a bit of public adulation can do to the egos of a few very insecure news personalities. 

The whole debate thing really ought to be dumped.  Rather, a roundtable discussion between the candidates and a few members of the electorate would be far more informative to the public. 

The debates, as they are staged today, are more about entertainment and the star quality of the press corp than they are about genuinely informing the American electorate.

It is a shame, really.  Much COULD be learned -- important stuff, too.  But so long as we stick with the current format of the “debates” the electorate will have to glean their information elsewhere.

And then – there is this:  The GOP debates are the best weapon Obama and the Democratic Party have … at the moment.  There are no Democratic Party debates because Obama has no democratic challenger.  So all the screw-ups, all the mistakes, all the brain freezes, all the “space-outs” are happening to the republican candidates.  It makes them look weak, confused, even a little, well, dumb.  The Mainstream Media, which is in the tank for Obama and the Democratic Party, will play all the screw-ups and glitches of the Republicans to the hilt in order to make their extraordinarily weak President look better. Obama is SOOO bad, it doesn’t take much to make him look better.

In light of all this -- even more debates are in the offing. Wouldn’t it make more sense to STOP DEBATING?  But, hey, this is politics.  Who said it is supposed to make sense? 

J. D. Longstreet

Super Committee Suicide ... Alan Caruba

Super Committee Suicide

By Alan Caruba

By the weekend, news reports indicated that the congressional Super Committee was closing in on an agreement. The deficit-cutting panel is mandated to trim at least $1.2 trillion in federal spending over the next ten years and, failing an agreement, automatic cuts would begin in 2013, after the national elections.

In days, however, it was clear that there was no agreement and the Super Committee, as Congress has always done, was looking at a variety of gimmicks and magical thinking to avoid having to address what is now a $15 trillion national debt, more than an entire year’s Gross Domestic Product.

The Super Committee was and is a bad idea on many levels if for no other reason than the Constitution requires that all bills involving expenditures must originate in the House of Representatives (Article 1, Section 7), but “the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.” The Constitution, however, has mattered less and less to U.S. Congresses for a very long time.

On November 8, ABC News reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “suggested that the White House is pulling for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction…to fail because success would step on their storyline of Republican obstructionism.” Because Washington is a house of mirrors, the news of the past week has been of Democratic obstructionism.

By the end of the week, the President said that he would not sign any bill that repeals the automatic spending reductions that would occur if the Committee does not come to an agreement. “That veto threat,” said a Wall Street Journal article “was a response to GOP lawmakers’ proposals to shield the Pentagon from such cuts.”

On Veteran’s Day, November 11th, a Wall Street Journal editorial, “If Iran Gets the Bomb", took note of the International Atomic Energy Agency report that Iran was closing in on having its own nuclear weapons, saying that “The serious choice now before the Administration is between military strikes and more of the same. As the IAEA report makes painfully clear, more of the same means a nuclear Iran, possibly within a year.”

So, while Iran closes in on becoming a nuclear power, national election campaigns will be raging in 2012 with Obama’s only hope of reelection being to claim that the Republican Party is blocking his efforts to tame unemployment, revive the economy, and keep America safe. Meanwhile, Democrat members of the committee keep pushing for new taxes in the midst of a “recession” that rivals the Great Depression.

If it wasn’t so absurd, it would be laughable, but it is also the worst possible time to have automatic budget cuts that would take as much as $500 billion out of the Pentagon’s budget over the next decade if the Super Committee cannot find agreement. Reportedly, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was looking for potential savings in the budget by cutting the Pentagon’s nuclear arsenal!

The state of our military equipment is geriatric and it is dwindling. The F-15 fighter jets that make up half the fleet, have an average age of 25 years! Air force strategic bombers average 34 years of age and refueling aircraft are 47 years old. The Navy has fewer ships today than on 9/11; 284 now compared to 316 in 2001.

Equipment and vehicles in use since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq are in need of replacement. If the automatic cuts kick in, the Pentagon budget will be cut by $500 billion over the next ten years, precisely at the time the military will need the means to fight a war that would presumably start in the Middle East if Iran’s threats mean anything.

Cutting the Pentagon budget at this time and into the near future is the worst idea to come out of Congress when a kindergartner could find ways to cut $1.5 trillion from the U.S. budget.

Iran’s leaders, from the day in 1979 they seized American diplomats and held them hostage for 444 days, have been in a state of war against America. An Iranian truck bomb was used against the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon and against Marine barracks in 1983. Iranian-made IEDs killed many U.S. military personnel in Iraq. Within recent weeks we learned of a thwarted Iranian plan to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador in a Washington, D.C. restaurant.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei has called for the destruction of Israel, the “little Satan” and America, the “big Satan.”

Ignoring such threats is suicidal.

Israel destroyed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor with a preemptive strike in 1981 and did the same to Syria’s secret nuclear program in 2007. It is unimaginable how events would have played out if Iraq had acquired nuclear weapons. The notion that the United States of America must depend on Israel to end the Iranian threat is cowardly and shameful.

Cutting the Pentagon’s budget now or over the next decade would be suicidal.

© Alan Caruba, 2011
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

Is Israel Bluffing?

Is Israel Bluffing?



A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet


The world press is assuring us that Israel will strike Iran by Christmas. Hedging their bets, a bit, some proclaim: early in the New Year.

Now, while I am all for an Israeli strike on Iran to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities, I am troubled by all the extremely public saber rattling. It isn’t like the Israeli military to make a public show of military preparations for a raid.

Having read and consulted Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” on numerous occasions, I can see the importance of keeping the enemy guessing and off balance by playing the world’s media like a Stradivarius. First class militaries, the world over, know one of the greatest weapons they have at their disposal is the near total ignorance of military maneuvering by the press. Call it misinformation or propaganda; the world’s premier armed forces spoon-feed it to the world press. That’s what I think is happening now.
Yes, Israel is going to strike Iran. I haven’t a clue when. And that is the way Israel wants it. In the meantime they have Iran’s nerves on edge and that gives Israel the advantage.

I remember a scrawny kid in my high school class. He was the bookworm of our class. Plus, he wore glasses. You just KNOW he caught the dickens, right? You’d be wrong. See, he earned the reputation of being that “crazy kid who would hurt you badly if you messed with him.” And that was true. He would attack, with the least provocation, his classmates, even his adult teachers, if he felt threatened. Only the unenlightened messed with him … and then only once. That kid spent a lot of time in the Principal’s office, and in the Superintendent’s office. Yet, somehow, he managed to graduate at, or near, the top of his class and win election as the student body president … and he dated some of the prettiest girls in his class.

Yes, I knew him very well. He was small – but he was determined not to be bullied – and -- he would HURT you! He didn’t give a darn whether you liked him, or not. But you would be very wrong not to respect him.

See, he learned to harness and channel that fears and his concerns and make them work to HIS advantage.

Normal human beings understand that a frightened human being is earth’s most dangerous animal. A cornered, frightened, animal (including human beings) will lash out and commit totally unexpected actions risking everything, including their lives, because they believe they have absolutely nothing to lose. Often they are successful in extricating themselves from harm simply because their behavior was unexpected.
Now. Refocus on Israel. Israel is small, arguably frightened, and -- Israel will most certainly hurt anyone suffering from the lack of common sense that would cause the wary to avoid a military confrontation with (some would argue) the second best military on earth.

But, then there are fanatics, all over the globe, blinded by religious zeal that are more than ready to sacrifice their lives to appease some god or other. They are the people who pose the greatest danger to all normal human beings on the earth. I have long accepted that when confronted with a man intent on giving his life in an effort to take mine, the kind thing to do is expedite his journey and send him on to his afterlife and allow him to sort it all out with his personal deity.

One must consider that Israel is confronted with this sort of paradise mania every day. For the most part, we here in the west have come late to this fray. Only in the past decade, or so, have we really come to understand the toll of living under conditions of constant threat. And we Americans STILL do not comprehend that Israel can lose its entire country, its very existence, in a single “lucky” blow from its enemies.

Iran intends to wipe Israel from the map. They have told us so in plain English. That was no threat. It was a statement of intent. Israel would be foolish to believe otherwise. And Israel is NOT foolish.

Iran with nuclear capabilities is a threat that cannot be tolerated by Israel. It ought not be tolerated by the European nations and the United States. But, unfortunately, we have a President who feels more at home with the weak-kneed European governments than with real warriors like the Israelis.

I am satisfied that Israel is going to attack Iran -- and soon. If things were, as they ought to be in Washington, DC, the United States would be flying alongside those Israeli aircraft dropping bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities. One must remember that Iran has boasted that their first nuclear bomb is for Israel and their second nuclear bomb is intended for the United States. We Americans are under a nuclear threat from Iran just as the Israelis.

When we step back and look objectively at current events on this planet, it is easy to ascertain that Israel has a much better leader in Benjamin Netanyahu than the United States has in B. Hussein Obama. That is VERY clear.

I honestly think there is a streak of envy in Mr. Obama, envy over Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership capabilities. That would explain Obama’s public snubbing of Mr. Netanyahu.

The differences are so clear. Mr. Netanyahu, as a former Israeli Special Forces officer, understands that a leader leads from the front. Mr. Obama has PUBLICLY proclaimed his preference for leading from behind. The two men could not be MORE different.

While the leaders of these two nations are so different the peoples are more alike than different. Many Americans consider Israel something of an extension of the United States. We feel drawn to offer protection to Israel and we hate it when the US government fails to back Israel to the hilt.

If Israel is forced to go it alone against Iran, President Obama will most certainly feel it at the ballot box next year. That is a promise.

J. D. Longstreet