Global Warming - A Cause in Search of a Problem

In real science, when something is discovered that is not understood real scientists set in motion to seek out an explanation.  Unlike real scientists, environmental extremists create an agenda driven cause and then diligently seek out a problem to tie it to, no matter how scientifically unsupported it might be.

So is the case with Global Warming a cause that was set ablaze back in 2007 when the prediction was made by the now infamous climate scientist Wieslaw Maslowski and echoed by Al Gore during his 2007 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech where he stated that, due to global warming, the arctic ice would melt by 2013.  Of course this did not happen and as a result Maslowski’s team revised their model which then predicted that the arctic ice would be gone by 2016.  This despite the fact that the in 2013 the summer ice in the arctic increased from the year prior.  But a little extra ice can’t stop the environmental whack jobs who cling to any modicum of scientific data that they can force fit into their argument while at the same time eagerly discard any real science that contradicts their claim.

Certainly our mother earth is being inundated by the use of fossil fuels, nobody denies this but this does not mean the end of the world as we know. 

The doomsday scenario of global warming, constantly being projected by environmental extremists, is without scientific merit.  This however, does not stop these environmental loons from flooding their misinformation throughout social media and main stream platforms.  There hope in doing so is to gain the attention of any like minded zealot willing to ignore facts and help perpetuate their fiction.  While environmental activists are quick to claim human caused CO2 as the source of global warming they repeatedly fail to provide verifiable scientific proof as to the effect human caused CO2 is actually having on the environment, if any. 

The hypocrisy behind the global warming claim is astounding.  Typically, the argument against Republicans is that they are driven by greed {let us not forget that the left constantly claims that the right starts wars over oil}.  So why is this not the case with global warming?  If driven by greed then why are Republicans not taking a ride on the global warming bandwagon that would yield them billions upon billions of dollars by pushing green energy technologies, technologies that come without the hassles and the astronomical cost of fighting the mountains of environmental regulation and legal challenges that fossil fuels face?   The answer is simple, doing so would be irresponsible. 

If you want to get down to the science of it all, which the global warming extremists do not, the earth’s atmosphere has been in a cycle of heating and cooling for millions and millions of years.  These cycles are largely driven by the earth’s volcanic activity and is currently at the peak of one of its cooling cycles.  With roughly 150 volcanoes currently active on earth, the natural occurring CO2 emissions are at a very low cycle.  Tens of thousands of years from now the earth’s volcanic activity may be 3 or 4 or maybe 100 times greater than it is today and the natural occurring CO2 emissions will increase just has it has thousands of times before, to a level I might add that will be exponentially higher than that of our current human CO2 emissions activity.  When this happens the atmosphere will warm up ever so slightly, as it has thousands of times before, but life on earth will not come to an end nor will the ice caps melt and flood the lands.  If history repeats itself, as it has like clockwork for millions of years, what will happen is that the volcanic activity on earth will again subside, the natural occurring CO2 emissions will go down and the planet will go into another cooling cycle just as it has thousands of times before.  Of course, none of this really matters if you are buying votes through the sale of snake oil and vowing to derail the apocalyptic end of life as we know it by terminating the use of fossil fuels.

The global warming scheme serves two purposes for the left.  It of course gives them a platform by which they can demonize rational thinking Republicans and second, it ensures them the vote of the majority of environmentalist who selfishly pledge their allegiance to any candidate that sides with their cause while ignoring ever other significant national issue as well as the qualifications of the person they are backing.

Doomsdayers, such as Maslowski and our friend Al Gore, have been proven wrong in there extremist claims while the more realistic environmental scientist state that the overall negative effects on the environment, as a result of human interaction, are difficult to quantify.  The current environmental changes are fractionally small and are effected by so many naturally occurring factors, not just human interaction alone.

This by no means gives us a free pass to continue to spew toxic poisons into our earth’s atmosphere but it does mean that a more responsible and cautious approach should be taken, one driven by scientific fact rather than by extremist hoo-ha that the left leverages for political gain.

The global warming rhetoric being spewed by the large activist groups and supported by the vote seeking agenda of the political left remains to have little scientific merit.  Until there is solid proof otherwise, the responsible development of clean burning fossil fuels is the most efficient and cost effective way to meet the global energy challenges of today.

Praise for the President appears more like Desperation

As I read through the various news feeds over the weekend I stumble across a number of different articles that seemed to share a common thread, that being that last week was history making for President Obama.  One article I read inferred that the week secured the president’s legacy while another called the week Obama’s best ever.  In each of the articles there was praise given to a president for a number big ticket items that culminated throughout the week.

But is President Obama in fact worthy of the praise that is being doled out to him for the highlights of last week’s news cycle?   When you put in to perspective the impact or influence that the president may have had on any of these events, one would be hard pressed to conclude that he was.

Let’s take for instance the presidents reaction to Friday’s Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage and his history on the subject.  Following the ruling the president tweets:

 "Today is a big step in our march toward equality. Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else. #LoveWins."

This reaction is in line with the president’s 2012 flip flop which now puts him in support of gay marriage.  Hey, we all grow right and certainly Obama is not the first president to conveniently “evolve” their positions on a hot button issue.   However, this is not the first time that the president has flip flopped on this particular topic. 

Back when Obama was running for the Illinois State Senate he was questioned by a Chicago based gay newspaper as to his position on gay marriage.  Obama answered that he supported gay marriage and that he would fight any effort to prohibit such.  It was just a couple of years later that Obama shifted to an “undecided” position on gay marriage which later then evolved in to the position that he supported civil unions but not gay marriage, a position he held during his 2004 run for the US Senate.  Obama has provided a number or explanations to his constant shifting on the position of gay marriage over the years, none of which holds much water but of course are accepted by his devout supporters.

As for the Supreme Court’s decision in support of gay marriage this past Friday, I don’t think we can honestly consider President Obama’s two decades of flip flopping position on the matter to be credible and certainly not worthy of any praise being given to him by the media and his supporters.  His ever changing position on the matter of gay marriage proves that he is either indecisive or that his actions are politically motivated.  Neither is a very attractive trait in a leader.


And what about Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling on King vs Burwell.  The left has claimed this as a major victory that has sealed the president’s legacy.  Someone somehow concluded that this decision ensures that ObamaCare is engraved in stone and safe from repeal yet reality draws a much different conclusion.  The same problems that plagued the controversial healthcare law before Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling were still there after the decision was read and the problems facing ObamaCare continue to mount.  As for the President’s involvement in this decision, there was none.

If however the president must be recognized in some way for his contribution to ObamaCare, he should be chastised instead of praised as had the Supreme Court ruled in favor of King then the tax subsidies for over 6 million individuals would have been toppled by four words contained in a poorly written law which bears his name.

Then there was the President’s recent trade agreement that after an early defeat and fierce debate in congress, was finally passed.  One of only a few check marks on the President’s “to do” list, since he took office in 2009, and hardly one that should foster any praise for him or any democrat for that matter.  How ironic is it that one of the very few key legislative accomplishment of President Obama’s terms in office happened at the will of Republicans while facing heavy opposition by his own party.  If there is any praise to be handed out over this trade agreement, it needs to go to those on the right who made the deal possible for the president.

And this past Friday, President Obama delivered the eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the pastor who died in the senseless shooting on June 17^th during a prayer meeting.  It was a moving and memorable moment without question but certainly not a defining one, presidentially speaking, as it was described in many of the articles that gave praise to the president over the weekend.

One article in particular that I read was titled “Barack Obama is officially one of the most consequential presidents inAmerican history”.  This particular article, while inspired by the events of the King vs Burwell ruling, was more a recap of what the author felt were the grand achievements of President Obama.  However, just as the events of last week were overblown as some type of presidential achievements, so were the talking point in this article.  The opening paragraph of this article reads as follows:

After Thursday's Supreme Court ruling, there's no longer any doubt: Barack Obama is one of the most consequential presidents in American history — and he will be a particularly towering figure in the history of American progressivism.

It may in fact be true that Barack Obama will be recognized as a significant figure in the history of American progressivism, however, those expecting favorable recognition for Obama might find disappointment in the forthcoming history books. 

The article provided significant discussion on the history and the failed attempts of past administrations to impose national healthcare upon the states.  In contrast, the article dedicated only a few lines to ObamaCare, mentioning only its success in expanding Medicaid.  No other successes were mentioned and of course there were no mentions of the laws numerous failures.

The article moved on to the president’s early stimulus package without addressing the fact that it ultimately failed to create any shovel ready jobs nor did it simulate the economy in any measureable way.  It author of the article also pointed out the bold yet ineffective use of Executive Actions by the president aimed to curb greenhouse gases and grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, along with a list of others.  Of course there was mention of the president’s historic yet meaningless action to reestablish relations with Cuba and the Iranian nuclear deal which looks as though could be the worst foreign policy move of his presidency, which is saying a great deal.

In all fairness, the article did point out some of Obama’s failures are president although it tamped them down significantly, leaving out the worst policy errors altogether.  The article was predictably void of  mention to the mountain of scandals that surrounds Obama’s Presidency nor was there any mention made that President Obama is responsible for creating the least transparent administration of any in all US history.

While I understand that the left must capitalize on every opportunity that presents itself to bolster their lame duck presidents appearance, they probably should reel in the rhetoric a bit as the weakness of President Obama’s past weeks achievement make their praise come off more as desperation than an affirmation of presidential successes.

Obama Has His Sights Set on the History Books

President Obama seems to have already checked out as the nation’s chief executive and instead looks to have his sights set on the history books!

As the president comes to terms with the fact that he will serve the last quarter of his presidency as a lame duck, he seems dead set on leaving more to show for his eight years in office than a half dozen scandals, the slowest economic recovery on record and a troubled and unpopular healthcare law that bears his name.

With little to look forward to other than a mountain of legislation that will hit his desk once Republicans take full control of congress in January, the president has been reviewing his first year agenda to see what he might be able to get done through executive action over the next two years.

The president has already started on his quest for historic relevance with his recent executive actions on immigration.  Neither executive action was ground breaking nor will either do anything towards a permanent solution to the immigration problem in this country but to his supporters, they see them as a bold and historic move by their beloved president.

The executive actions in immigration will likely earn the president little more than a brief mention in the history books but as a legal and political matter, they will be fodder for republicans to chastise democrats with for decades to come.

Obama has also begun an effort to close the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  A first year pledge that he has largely ignored, it looks as though the president is going to make a real charge at putting a checkmark next to Gitmo before he leaves office, even if it means the release of war criminals, many of which will likely return to the fight.

A move viewed by his critics as putting politics in front of the security of the nation, the motives behind the president’s push to close Gitmo are much more cynical.  Obama will not be in public office in two years but he will be in history books forever.

President Obama will likely do some kind of end around on minimum wage, gun control and maybe even something on education.  Any executive actions taken on these issues will be of little consequence as the president cannot create legislation and there is no precedence or existing law to piggyback an executive order on.

But a memorandum signed by the president means a great deal to liberal academia which is filled with those just dying to immortalize the achievements of the first black president of the United States into print, as insignificant as these achievements may be.

Obama Should Have Thanked Bush not Blamed Him!

President Bush could not have handed the United States first black president a better chance at success if he tried.

Even before Barack Obama won the democratic presidential nomination in 2008, it was reasonably safe for him to assume that if he were to win the presidency he would do so with Democrats in full control of congress.  A war weary American had already handed control to Democrats during Bush’s 2nd term in office and there was no scent in the air that that was going to change.  Congress was just the first of many political advantages that President Bush provided to Barack Obama, of which he would fail to capitalize on during his presidency.

And so it was, Barrack H. Obama was sworn in as the 44^th President of the United States on January 20, 2009.  With his “to do” list of promises in his breast pocket and congress ready to do his bidding, President Obama set out to make history with his progressive agenda of Hope and Change.

But Obama fumbled away the greatest gift that can be given to a president, a congress controlled by his own party! 

During his first two years in office and with the luxury of a democratic controlled congress, President Obama managed to sign in to law only one major piece of legislation, his namesake healthcare reform law aka ObamaCare.  Certainly the president had his hands full in dealing with the recession however, he squandered away an easy opportunity to move legislation forward on immigration reform, gun control, income inequality and a list of other progressive line items on his “to do” list while the balance of power was in his favor.  

The Gift of the Great Recession

Officially taking office late in the month of January, President Obama went straight to work on his $831 billion plan to buy they economy out of the recession he inherited from the Bush Administration, and on February 17th, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), better known as “the stimulus” was signed in to law.  Popular only amongst democratic lawmakers, even those economists who did support the Keynesian approach of the stimulus felt that the effort was far too small to have any measureable effect on the back broken economy.  Republicans had a different view and saw the stimulus as nothing more than a spending bill to fund the liberal agenda Obama laid out when he was campaigning for president.   As it turns out, both the economist and republicans were correct.

By the time any funds from the stimulus were distributed, the economy had already turned the corner thus robbing the president from take credit for ending the recession, something he did anyway.  The economy was at its lowest point and had no place to go but up making it all but impossible for President Obama to come out smelling like anything but roses even though he arrived late for the party. 

Instead, the failed stimulus, along with a long list of other bad economic policies put forth by the president, all worked together in creating the worst US economic recovery in the history of our nation.  There was so much uncertainty created by Obama’s plan for recovery that people lacked the confidence to spend heavily, fearing that the policies being put in place by the new president were going to slip the economy back into a recession.  President Obama somehow blundered an economic growth opportunity, handed to him by George W Bush, that was virtually impossible to foul up.

A Hole Left in the Job Market

Bush handed President Obama a massive hole in the job market some 8 million deep.  With an economy that was just starting to bounce back, a brief and measurable surge in new employment was expected at some early stage, a phenomena which occurs in every economic recovery, perpetuated by a renewed security in spending.  But in this recovery, a jobs surge never transpired.  

Obama’s plan was to buy jobs.  He vowed that if congress would pass his $831 billion stimulus package, unemployment would drop to 5.6%, by the end of his first term in office.  The president missed the mark by almost 3% with the unemployment rate dropping to only 8.3% (from 9.5%) four years and hundreds of billions of dollars later.  To add insult to injury, when Obama was lobbying for his stimulus package, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that unemployment would have dropped to 6.0% without the massive stimulus.  It seems that Obama’s economic recovery policies were doing more harm in creating jobs than good.

Not since the Great Depression has it taken longer than 2 years to recover the jobs lost in a recession however, it took the policies of the Obama Administration over 5 years to do so.  Another sure fire opportunity for Obama to claim success, handed to him by George W Bush and subsequently squandered away.

Debt and the Budget Deficit

Driven by a large expansion of the federal government and the cost of fighting 2 wars, Bush handed President Obama 8 years of massive growth to the nation’s debt and deficit.  This created an easy success story for Obama, all he needed to do was slow down the growth of both.

When Obama took office in January of 2009, the Status of Forces agreement which marked the coming end to the Iraq war had already been signed and troop drawdown began the following month.  Three years later, all combat troops had been removed from Iraq as well, the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan commenced.  The close of the month of June, 2009 also marked two consecutive months of positive economic growth, officially bringing the Great Recession to an end.  The wheels of debt and deficit reduction looked to be well in motion.

Fiscal years 2009 through 20012 each brought budget deficits in excess of $1 trillion.  In full disclosure, the FY 2009 deficit fell largely on the Bush administration and skyrocketed over previous years deficits due to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) spending which Bush signed in to law as one of the measure to prevent the worsening of the 2007 financial crisis.  The subsequent 3 years President Obama maintained a deficit more than double that of any year during the Bush administration excluding FY 2009 of course.

With the financial crises and auto industry bailout far behind him, the war in Iraq over and the withdrawal in Afghanistan started, President Obama was finally able to reduce the federal budget deficit below the $1 trillion mark in FY 2013 but deficits still remained historically high.  As a result, the national debt has increase by well over $7 trillion in less than 6 years that President Obama has been in office.

President Obama did in fact stand by his pledge to cut the deficit of $1.4 trillion, his administration inherited, in half however, the pledge he made was disingenuous knowing that the FY 2009 budget deficit was an anomaly created by the financial crisis.  In all other years Obama has failed to reduce the deficit lower than Bush’s worst year in office and is likely not going to do so in his final two years as president.

George W Bush could not have provided President Obama with a better chance of look like a political success if he had tried, but the president’s progressive policies and lack of experience turned opportunity into failure.

More Fiscal Irresponsibility From Our President

In a less than amenable position forced upon House Republicans, on Tuesday the House voted in favor of New Years Day Senate legislation that put a stop to tax increases imposed on the middle class and the automatic tax cuts that took effect at midnight on January 1.  However, this piece of legislation did not include cuts necessary to reduce deficit spending and the national debt but instead, once again, kicked the can down the road of fiscal irresponsibility.

In a statement following the House vote, Speaker of the House, John Boehner stated "Now the focus turns to spending," but the harsh reality is that no real spending reform is likely to transpire.  The Speaker has to be, at best, guardedly optimistic in thinking that President Obama has any intention of working towards spending reforms that could pass muster with Conservative Republicans.  Most of the House Conservative Republicans balked at the January 1 Senate legislation, giving the thumbs down to a deal which included tax increases on the wealthy and ignored spending cuts.

President Obama has been on a spending spree since the day he took his Presidential Oath.  Posting an annual deficit in excess of $1 trillion each year he has been in office, the President fails to accept culpability for his hand in the deficit, instead placing blame on two wars and a recession he inherited.  However, what the President fails to acknowledge is his infamous campaign pledge of cutting the deficit in half by the end of his first term, which incidentally, he made while the two wars were in play and the economy was already in downturn.  The real contributor to the deficit is Obama himself, having increased domestic government agencies spending by over ten percent and non-defense discretionary spending nearly 25%.  Additionally the President has wasted billions of dollars on failed stimulus packages and auto industry bailouts, all of this in his first two years in office alone!  What might be the most telling tale of President Obama’s fiscal irresponsibility is his own administration’s failure to have passed a single budget since entering office.

The latest act of fiscal irresponsibility, on the part of President Obama, has been playing out for over a year now, starting with his failure to lead lawmakers down a path of fiscal reform during the 2011 debt-ceiling crises.  As a result of this failure, the nation’s debt-ceiling was raised by $400 billion which resulted in our nation’s credit rating being lowered for the first time in history.  To prevent the need to raise the debt-ceiling again, in the near future, a deal was made that deferred the task of deficit reduction to a newly appointed Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction which, in August of 2011, also failed to produce deficit reduction legislation, as mandated by law.  Since that time, complete inaction, on the part of the Obama administration, led the nation right up to and over the fiscal cliff this past Monday. 

In what the main stream media describes as ‘an extreme difference in political ideology’ that is preventing the two parties from coming together on fiscal matters, the fact still remains that President Obama has an obligation to Americans to reduce the nation’s debt, regardless of ideology.  To date, the President has reneged on virtually every promise he has made to the American people in regards to the reduction of the national debt and deficit spending, simply refusing to take any realistic actions towards spending reform while continuing to add new government spending and demanding new revenue in support of his socialist ideals.

The President continues to play a very dangerous game with our nation’s financial well being.  With a mannerism that many critics have described as ‘dictator like’, President Obama has adopted the ‘my way or the highway’ approach to negotiations, an approach where the word compromise simply does not exist.  Stemming from his own arrogance, the President has made modern history with the fiscal failures he has achieved during his first term in office and judging from the mandates he recently placed on those Democratic Party leaders responsible for trying to hammer out a fiscal cliff deal, his second term as President will be equally filled with failure and fiscal irresponsibility. 

Pushing His Agenda - Obama Shows No Sign of Leadership

It should come as no surprise to Americans that we have found ourselves standing on the edge of the fiscal cliff just waiting for our President to give us all the OK to jump off.

Since early in his term as president, Obama has been chastised by Republican leaders for his spendthrift attitude in support of his social agenda.  The undisputed ‘King of Debt’ President Obama has raised the bar on uncontrolled government spending to new heights.  Party arguments, from either side of the fence, as to how and why are inconsequential, the fact of the matter is the president’s personal mandate, to achieve the goals of his social agenda, is void of fiscal control.

Immediately following the horrific fall in the nation’s economy in late 2007, the then new president responded by making ObamaCare his top priority, an egregious act of fiscal irresponsibility in the wake of the worst recession that this nation has faced since the Great Depression.  Sadly, ObamaCare was only the first on a long list if fiscally irresponsible acts undertaken by the president, most in pursuit of achieving socioeconomic equality through the re-distribution of wealth and the growth of government.

And so, here we find ourselves once again, with our president holding American hostage to his agenda by threatening to raise taxes on all Americans if Republicans do not concede to his proposal of raising taxes on the wealthy and spending cuts that do not even offset his new spending plan much less put a penny towards reducing the nations rapidly growing debt.  This has clearly been the president’s plan all along, one packed full of campaigning and void of compromise and leadership.

There does not exist a president in modern history that has been as flamboyant and overstepping with his presidential powers as has President Obama.  But let’s not be so quick to blame the President himself as public polls constantly show a pretty even division in the president’s popularity but then again, being the president is not a job of popularity but one of leadership and in that regard, Obama has earned himself a big F-.

Could Benghazi Lead to Impeachment for President Obama?

More than two months have passed since the 9/11 terrorist attack on a pair of US diplomatic compounds in Benghazi, Libya, which left U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, one US diplomat and two former Navy Seals dead.  In the days and weeks that followed, it seemed as though a cloak of secrecy had fallen upon the events surrounding the attack with both the White House and State Department remaining tight lipped on any details of the tragedy.

The mainstream media showed little interest in reporting on the deaths of four Americans, at the hands of terrorist, giving the story only cursory coverage and allowed the tragedy to be overshadowed by the pending election.  As well, the White House made little attempt to share details of this horrific event and only when pressured, did they indicate that they would provide a full account of the attack, once all the evidence was collected and sorted out.

Missteps in Benghazi Could Have Damaged Chances for Re-Election

As the election clock ticked down, it became ever more apparent that the White House was attempting to downplay the Benghazi tragedy, possibly to prevent revealing missteps made by the President, leading up to and during the attacks.  A peculiar unwillingness to speak on the attacks, combined with a seemed inability for government agencies to gain access to the site and key witnesses, fueled speculation of an administration cover-up. 

Under pressure, by a handful of key Republicans and Fox News, conflicting stories began to emerge, from the White House, creating further speculation.  Reluctance to share information persisted as did the pressure for President Obama to address the nation on the events surrounding the Benghazi attack and subsequent loss of four American lives.  As days passed and the nation inched closer to Election Day, it became undeniably clear that President Obama was attempting to distance himself from Benghazi and the possibility of having to explain any missteps that he may have made, missteps that could be damaging to his chance for re-election.

A Criminal Act Has Been Commit

While the White House somehow manages to avoid providing any tangible information on Benghazi, Republicans continue to press for answers although, with limited success.  U.N. ambassador Susan Rice clearly has become The White House’s sacrificial lamb, parroting carefully crafted answers that so far have been able to evade incriminating the President.  There is still no clarity as to exactly how engaged the President was, during the seven hour Benghazi ordeal, and at who’s direction it came to essentially do nothing to save American lives. It is clear however, that the White House made every effort to steer clear of any admission of direct involvement, by the President.
   
If it is learned that the White House intentionally withheld information which could be construed as potentially having affected the outcome of the election, Republican Representatives would almost certainly pass a vote on an Article of Impeachment related to withholding information for political gain.  However, with a Democratic controlled Senate, nothing short of a full confession from Obama himself would likely gather enough votes to actually convict the President of any wrong doings. 

The Cover Up Continues

Having made it through the election, the White House and State Department remain tight lipped on the matters surrounding the Benghazi attack.   During the ongoing investigation, the White House must maintain a position which absolves the President from any political missteps that could be viewed as leaving the US diplomatic compounds, in Benghazi, and its staff, vulnerable to attack as well as any direct involvement the President may have participated in, during the actual attack, which ultimately resulting in the loss of four brave Americans.

The cover-up of Benghazi is a national travesty and it seems that, at the will of the Obama Administration, Americans may never get a full and accurate account of what actually happened on that tragic day.