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GOP Lawmaker Says Climate Change Is 'The Greatest Deception In The History Of Mankind'

The Huffington Post | By Shadee Ashtari

Posted: 06/30/2014 7:17 pm EDT Updated: 4 hours ago

Louisiana state Rep. Lenar Whitney (R) is accusing liberals, such as former Vice President Al Gore, of advancing "the greatest deception in the history of mankind" -- man-made climate change -- in a scheme to empower the executive branch and increase taxes.

“A specter is haunting America,” Whitney, who is running for Congress in Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District, warned in a campaign video released Wednesday. “It is perhaps the greatest deception in the history of mankind.”

Mocking Gore’s 2006 Academy Award–winning climate change documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth,” Whitney claimed that the planet "has done nothing but get colder each year since the film’s release.”

“Quite inconveniently for Al Gore, and for the rest of the politicians who continue to advance this delusion, any 10-year-old can invalidate their thesis with one of the simplest scientific devices known to man: a thermometer,” Whitney said, citing record sea ice in the Antarctic sector.

Numerous GOP lawmakers and climate change contrarians have pointed to below-zero temperatures and seasonal snowfall as evidence against the legitimacy of human-induced climate change, despite numerous scientific reports debunking their claims.

Although many parts of the U.S. witnessed record-low temperatures this past winter, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are still rising, winters have become increasingly warmer over the past century and Arctic sea ice is still melting.

Whitney’s own state is one of the most vulnerable regions in the country to climate change, with rising coastal sea levels estimated to submerge the Louisiana coastline by 2100.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by ProblemAgain on August 31, 2014 at 4:13pm

great minds and kind of indicative of the mentality...we want the services but we don't worry about paying the peons or feeding them

Texas National Guard Troops At Border Can't Afford Food

Posted: 08/29/2014 1:58 pm EDT Updated: 08/29/2014 1:59 pm EDT

WASHINGTON -- National Guard troops deployed to the border in Texas are visiting a food bank because they can't afford food and gas ahead of their Sept. 5 payday, according to a report Friday by local station Action 4 News and a state senator.

Action 4 News reported that a Rio Grande Valley food bank had been contacted about 50 Texas National Guard troops who needed assistance. The troops are reimbursed for their meals, but pay for them upfront, stretching the finances of some troops who were called to southern Texas earlier this month to address an increase in unaccompanied minors crossing the border illegally.

State Rep. René O. Oliveira, a Democrat, called the situation "heartbreaking," and offered to buy meals for troops serving near his district in Brownsville, Texas.

"These brave men and women have apparently been sent on a mission without accommodating for their most basic needs," he said in a statement. "We need to find immediate solutions for these hungry soldiers."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced in July that he was deploying up to 1,000 National Guard troops to the southern border, which has borne the brunt of a recent influx of unaccompanied minors. Texas officials said at the time that the project, dubbed Operation Strong Safety, would cost about $12 million per month, which they plan to bill to the federal government.

The Texas National Guard said in a statement that it offers financial support services to its service members and will continue to do so in light of the recent reports.

"The well-being of our service members remains a top priority, and all members supporting the operation are furnished with lodging, meals, transportation, and the equipment required to perform their mission," it said in a statement. "Service members supporting this operation receive pay, allowance for housing, and per diem for meals on the normal state payroll schedule."

Permalink Reply by P.A. on August 31, 2014 at 4:49pm

Perry, who has called for Texas to secede from the United States is going to bill them for something he did on his own. I think the only people in Texas that are dumber than Perry are the people who voted for him, over and over.

Permalink Reply by ProblemAgain on August 31, 2014 at 4:57pm

and those glasses he got to try to convince people he is smart are 560 bucks frames only....so all they really show me is that he is too stupid to be trusted with any decision more important than over or under for the toilet paper

Permalink Reply by LoveLife&Laughter on August 31, 2014 at 8:50pm

Really? LOL ... I got the same frames for $9.

Permalink Reply by ProblemAgain on August 31, 2014 at 9:27pm

exactly....

Permalink Reply by ProblemAgain on September 7, 2014 at 2:12am

Posted in: Politics Posted: September 7, 2014

Erick Erickson: If You Make Minimum Wage ‘You’ve Failed At Life,’ Conservative Radio Host Says

Erick Erickson failed at life minimum wage

Erick Erickson, the conservative pundit and former CNN political analyst, offered his opinion on the fast food workers strikes that hit about 150 cities nationwide Thursday, and his opinion was not a kind one.

As thousands of fast food workers engaged in acts of civil disobedience Thursday, demanding a raise in the minimum wage to $15 per hour, Erickson — serving as guest host on the Rush Limbaugh radio show — told the fast food workers, “you’re probably failed at life.”

“The minimum wage is mostly people who failed at life and high school kids,” Erickson said on the nationally syndicated radio show. “Seriously, look. I don’t mean to be ugly with you people. If you’re a 30-something-year-old person and you’re making minimum wage you probably failed at life.”

Erickson dismissed the notion that people stuck in minimum wage jobs may have come from unfortunate circumstances, or been unlucky enough be looking for jobs at a time when better-paying jobs simply are not available.

A study earlier this year showed that the job recovery since the 2008 recession has come almost entirely in the low-wage sector, mainly fast food, as high-and-middle earning jobs have largely disappeared.

“Fast food is driving the bulk of the job growth at the low end — the job gains there are absolutely phenomenal,” Michael Evangelist, of the National Employment Law Center, explained. “If this is the reality — if these jobs are here to stay and are going to be making up a considerable part of the economy — the question is, how do we make them better?”

But Erickson refused to acknowledge the economic facts.

“It is not that life dealt you a bad hand,” opined the former CNN commentator. “Life does not deal you cards. It’s that you failed at life.”

Not content to make his point simply via the airwaves, Erickson then posted a tweet, also condemning minimum wage workers for having “failed at life.”

If you’re a 30-something making minimum wage and blocking traffic to demand a $15 minimum wage you have failed at life.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) September 5, 2014

Erickson’s tweet elicited a series of like-minded responses from fellow conservatives.

@EWErickson I agree.. It’s a clear sign they don’t want to try to better them selfs, and work for something give me attitude!!

— Mr. Remington! (@stryker350) September 5, 2014

@EWErickson How do they stay so fat if they are starving?

— Neil Kille (@NeilKille) September 5, 2014

Though even some of Erickson’s fans were offended by the seeming callousness of his remarks.

@EWErickson That’s a terrible thing to say. I stopped listening to you on Rush after you started that. Uncool, unchristian, and weird

— Michael Fry (@PrometheusAdvoc) September 5, 2014

According to a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in March, there are now about 260,000 college graduates holding minimum wage jobs. Another 200,000 minimum wage workers graduated from two-year junior colleges.

The actual numbers, as the political site Think Progress noted, are likely to be even higher, because the BLS report took into account only workers making the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. In the 21 states where the minimum wage is higher, there are likely thousands, or tens of thousands more Americans with higher education degrees working minimum wage jobs such as fast food.

Two Democratic congressmembers, Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona and Keith Ellison of Minnesota, issued a statement calling the Erickson remarks “degrading” and “out of touch,” and suggesting that he interview some fast food workers on the radio, because, “maybe then he will learn what real work is.”

Permalink Reply by LoveLife&Laughter on September 7, 2014 at 11:46am

Technically he may be right in some cases, but not all. That's painting it with a pretty broad brush.

But then again the majority in every Western Industrialized Country and ~50% of Americans think Republicans are Failures-At-Life. Look at what they believe in -- they are obsessed with their silly bibles and guns, they hate women, gays, minorities, and all other religions. They especially hate anybody who isn't just like them. White, Protestant, and carrying a gun. They're a pretty fk'g goofy bunch. Who are they calling failures?

Permalink Reply by ProblemAgain on September 9, 2014 at 10:29pm

The Washington Post

Opinions

Mitch McConnell’s 47 percent moment

By Katrina vanden Heuvel September 3

A year ago, President Obama convulsed the White House Correspondents Dinner when he responded to complaints that he wasn’t meeting enough with the Republican leaders in the Congress: “Why don’t you get a drink with Mitch McConnell?’ they ask. Really?” Obama asked the audience incredulously. “Why don’t you get a drink with Mitch McConnell?”

The Kentucky senator, continuously partisan and mean spirited in public, earned the jab by leading a record number of filibusters as Senate minority leader during Obama’s tenure, forcing more than a quarter of all cloture votes in the history of the Senate since the beginning of the Republic.

Now, many political bookies, however prematurely, have made Republicans favorites to win the Senate majority. What will McConnell do if he must go from opposition to governing? Last week, the Nation Magazine, which I edit, along with Lauren Windsor of the Undercurrent, released an audiotape of McConnell’s revealing remarks to a private June strategy session of deep-pocket Republican billionaire donors, convened by the Koch brothers.

Introduced by the general counsel of Koch Industries, McConnell begins by paying tribute to his patrons, thanking the Koch brothers personally “for the important work you’re doing. I don’t know where we’d be without you . . . rallying, uh, to the cause.”

So what is the cause? Putting Americans to work? Rebuilding the middle class? Unleashing free market answers to catastrophic climate change?

No, McConnell can’t seem to get himself to address a positive agenda. He envisions only more obstruction. If he is majority leader, he promises, “we’re not going to be debating all these gosh darn proposals. That’s all we do in the Senate is vote on things like raising the minimum wage . . . extending unemployment . . . the student loan package the other day, that’s just going to make things worse.”

With Republican majorities, McConnell tells the fat cats, “We own the budget. So what does that mean? That means that we can pass the spending bill. And . . . we will be pushing back against this bureaucracy by doing what’s called placing riders in the bill. No money can be spent to do this or do that”

So what parts of government would McConnell starve of funds? Although many Republicans are campaigning as faux populists against crony capitalism, McConnell doesn’t suggest that he’ll cut subsidies to Big Oil or the lard-filled budgets of the Pentagon. No, McConnell pledges to his millionaire funders “We’re going to go after them on health care, on financial services, on the Environmental Protection Agency, across the board [inaudible].”

For all his posturing about Obama’s dictatorial usurpations, McConnell reassures the millionaires that “we now have, I think, the most free and open system we’ve had in modern times.” Why? Because in the Citizens United decision, the conservatives on the Supreme Court overturned established precedents to give corporations the right to spend unlimited funds in elections. This is a victory for “open discourse,” McConnell argues, making clear just how he expects the corporations to make their opinions known:

“The Supreme Court allowed all of you to participate in the process in a variety of different ways. You can give to the candidate of your choice. You can give to Americans for Prosperity, or something else, a variety of different ways to push back against the party of government.” (Americans for Prosperity is the right-wing Koch funded political vehicle that has been called the “third-largest political party in the United States.”)

For McConnell, the court’s decision to unleash corporate contributions helped heal the pain from what he described as the “worst day of my political life.” Not the 9/11 terrorist bombings or the disastrous vote to invade Iraq. No, according to McConnell, the worst day of his political life was when a Republican congress passed and George W. Bush signed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms, that put some limits of big money in our politics.

Mitch McConnell is surely a man for these times. Big money dominates our politics and corrupts our politicians (including, most recently, McConnell’s campaign manager, who resigned because of his possible involvement in bribing an Iowa state legislator to change his support from Michele Bachmann to Ron Paul in the 2012 Iowa Republican presidential primary). Legislators like McConnell openly serve “the private sector,” currying their donations while serving their interests.

As Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said while campaigning for Alison Lundergan Grimes, McConnell’s underdog challenger: “Mitch McConnell is there for millionaires and billionaires. He is not there for people who are working hard playing by the rules and trying to build a future for themselves.”

Voters aren’t stupid. Given his views and his record, it is not surprising that McConnell is one of the most vulnerable of Republican incumbents, with Grimes running only a few points behind him. Nor is it surprising that more than $100 million may end up being spent on the race, making it one the most expensive contests in Senate history. Millionaires know they can count on McConnell.

McConnell ended his talk by repeating the Republican mantra against taxes and regulation, arguing, “If we want to get the country going again, we need to quit doing what we’ve been doing. Was it Einstein that [sic] said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result?” Let’s hope the voters of Kentucky come to the same conclusion about reelecting a senator who represents donors far better than voters.

Permalink Reply by ProblemAgain on September 10, 2014 at 9:51pm

hey it worked before and they need the money...oh and i saw a talking point the other day that now some republicans claim the bush administration had nothing to do with negotiating the status of forces agreement and the failure to come to an agreement....see? just like texas, history gets rewritten

Dick Cheney Tells GOP It's Time To Restart The Iraq War Machine

Posted: 09/09/2014 1:36 pm EDT Updated: 09/10/2014 12:59 pm EDT

WASHINGTON -- The United States needs to rev up the war in Iraq, former Vice President Dick Cheney told Republicans Tuesday on Capitol Hill -- and most lawmakers seemed to agree with the man perhaps best known as a lead architect of America's ill-fated 2003 intervention there.

Cheney met with the House GOP a day before President Barack Obama is set to address the nation on the threat posed by the Islamic State, the militant group also known as ISIS. Republican lawmakers trickling out of the meeting said Cheney warned that American security is jeopardized around the world and it's time to act.

Obama has been saying for the past year that "we're going to bring all the troops home, and that we're going to basically be out of Iraq and Afghanistan," said Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.). "Now the president's basically saying, one way or the other, we're going back into Iraq. Dick Cheney was here to support that."

Asked if he saw any irony in Cheney coming to talk to Republicans about next steps in Iraq, King said firmly, "No, because most of us think we did the right thing in Iraq."

Although a growing number of Republicans have expressed doubts in recent years over the United States' aggressive foreign policy actions, and some have criticized Obama for launching military strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq over the past couple of months, they were apparently silent in the meeting with Cheney.

"Really [there was] no controversy over the comments that were made," said Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.). "No one challenged the vice president. I think that his analysis and the information he shared was accepted as pretty accurate."

Cheney's remarks might have sounded familiar to most people who have listened to bellicose GOP rhetoric for decades.

"What he talked about was we've, Republicans, have had a position on peace through strength. You look at all the Republican presidents we've had back to [Dwight] Eisenhower. You know they all understand, if you're not strong, then you invite aggression. When you invite aggression, you end up with people getting killed," said Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee who recently returned from the Middle East.

"It's important to be strong, and that's what he talked about," he added.

Although no one challenged Cheney, some Republicans have signaled greater reluctance to respond militarily to every new threat.

Rep. Tom Massie (R-Ky.) said last month that Obama should have sought congressional approval before the latest round of airstrikes. And since Iraq poses no imminent threat to U.S. national security, he said he would vote against authorizing the use of military force in the country.

He was mum coming out of Tuesday's meeting with Cheney, however. "I don't want to comment," said Massie as he walked quickly from reporters. "His advice was mainly to spend more money on the military."

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), who is among the most vocal opponents of a new war, said that his recent primary election win was evidence many regular Republicans actually do not agree with the Cheney worldview.

Asked by The Washington Post's Robert Costa whether Republicans should stop listening to Cheney, Amash was blunt.

"Yeah ... Because Republicans don't agree with him," Amash said in an account on Brietbart. "They don't agree with him on foreign policy."

Still, others thought the former vice president offered a strong tonic for the GOP.

"It was a great message, something we needed to hear, and hopefully it sticks with a lot of my colleagues who've kind of had this creep towards isolationalism in the Congress lately," said Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), an Iraq veteran. "Hopefully this is an awakening that we have to be very strong and very serious."

Reichert added that Cheney -- who in 2003 erroneously linked Iraq to the 9/11 attacks despite the lack of evidence -- did so again in his pitch Tuesday.

"He mentioned the 9/11 attack was accomplished by people who came to this country with airplane tickets and box cutters and killed over 3,000 people," Reichert said. "What he said is that as ISIS and other terrorist groups -- the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, al Qaeda, etc. -- gain strength and no action is taken or perceived weaknesses are seen, there's a greater chance America could be attacked again, and this time it won't be box cutters and airplane tickets."

A number of the lawmakers said neither they nor the public want to look back at the mistakes of the past.

"This is a complex issue. I don't want to relitigate the past -- why we went in in the first place, the president's decision in 2011 to withdraw every last troop," said Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.). "At this point, I think we have to look forward not backward."

Permalink Reply by ProblemAgain on September 11, 2014 at 3:35pm

Palin Family Allegedly Involved In A Brawl

2 hours ago

A majority of the Palin family — Sarah, Todd, Bristol, and Track — was allegedly involved in a booze-filled brawl over the weekend in which the former vice presidential candidate reportedly screamed, “Don’t you know who I am?”

According to reports from local bloggers, the Palin crew showed up at a party in Wasilla following a day at the Iron Dog snowmobile race.

According to local blogger Amanda Coyne, witnesses at the scene said Palin’s eldest son, Track, showed up to the party in a stretch Hummer. He then confronted a man who had previously dated one of his sisters, according to Coyne and another blog called Immoral Minority.

“That led to some pushing and shoving, which escalated somehow to the family being asked to leave the premises,” Immoral Minority, reported.

“Word is that Bristol has a particularly strong right hook, which she employed repeatedly, and it’s something to hear when Sarah screams, “Don’t you know who I am!” Coyne reported.

“This isn’t some damned Hillbilly reality show!” a party-goer allegedly yelled, making a possible reference to “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” a failed reality series that ran for nine episodes between Nov. 2010 and Jan. 2011.

“As people were leaving in a cab, Track was seen on the street, shirtless, flipping people off, with Sarah right behind him, and Todd somewhere in the foreground, tending to his bloody nose,” a witness told Coyne.

Anchorage police declined to provide details told Immoral Minority that none of the parties involved wanted to press charges. No arrests were made.

Anchorage police did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller’s request for a police report.

Permalink Reply by ProblemAgain on September 11, 2014 at 5:49pm

Missouri Lawmaker Sues to Stop His Daughters' Access to Obamacare Birth Control

By Arit John 23 hours ago

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Missouri Lawmaker Sues to Stop His Daughters' Access to Obamacare Birth Control

A federal appeals court is currently considering whether Obamacare's birth control mandate violates the religious rights of the parents of teenage girls.

Last year a U.S. District Court threw out Missouri State Rep. Paul Joseph Wieland and his wife Teresa's lawsuit, but since then the Supreme Court ruled that "closely-held corporations" — companies like Hobby Lobby — can opt out of the contraceptive mandate due to religious exemptions. Attorney Timothy Belz argued Monday that Hobby Lobby opened the door to the Wieland's suit.

In this analogy the Wielands are Hobby Lobby and their three daughters — ages 13, 18 and 19 — are employees. According to MSNBC, Belz also compared the requirement that health care plans cover birth control to a law requiring parents have a "stocked unlocked liquor cabinet in their house" for teens to use. Birth control is also, according to Belz, like sending a kid to college when the only TV channel is pornography.

A judge on the appeals court panel argued that parents could just tell their kids not to get birth control — in other words, parent their kids. “Well, we all have high hopes for our kids, that is true," Belz said. "We all expect and want them to obey us, they don’t always.”

Another solution might be for the Wielands to get a different insurance plan. The family currently gets insurance through the state, since Rep. Wieland is a state employee. But as St. Louis Public Radio notes, he could also buy an insurance plan that doesn't cover contraceptives through his business (in an interview he said such insurance would be too expensive).

Alisa Klein, a lawyer representing the government, argued that group plans like the state's can't be tailored to meet the specific needs of every parent. “Different people will have different beliefs,’’ she said. “Here we have 100,000 beneficiaries in the Missouri group health care plan and there is no precedent for having the employer design the plan 100,000 ways.”

Permalink Reply by ProblemAgain on September 11, 2014 at 8:26pm

Ted Cruz Was Booed Off Stage Because No One Told Him Not to Talk About Israel

By Arit John 3 hours ago

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Ted Cruz Was Booed Off Stage Because No One Told Him Not to Talk About Israel

Sen. Ted Cruz abruptly cut short his keynote speech addressing Arab Christians last night after members of the group started heckling him for calling on the group to consider Israel an ally. Now the senator's office is saying that, if someone had told him not to mention Israel he just wouldn't have shown up.

Cruz was speaking at a conference hosted by In Defense of Christians, a group dedicated to raising awareness about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. During his speech Cruz pointed out the parallels between Christians and Jews being persecuted in the Middle East. But when he said “Christians have no greater ally than Israel," members of the audience started yelling at him to focus on Christians. Cruz said it "saddened" him that some in the audience were "consumed by hate" and cut his speech short.

Cruz’s communications director, Amanda Carpenter, told The Daily Signal that he never would have agreed to the event if he'd known his pro-Israel message would be taken that way. “It is crystal clear to anyone who observes Ted Cruz that he stands with Israel,” she said. “If organizers had asked us not to discuss our support of Israel, we would have declined the event.”

And yet, if Cruz was going to raise awareness about the plight of persecuted Arab Christians, he probably should have known that support for Israel is not universal among the persecuted. As The Jewish Daily Forward noted, Cruz grouped Hezbollah, the Syrian and Iranian governments, ISIS and Hamas into one group. At the same time:

A number of Christians in Lebanon and Syria are in loose alliance with the Syrian government and its Shi’ite Hezbollah allies in pushing back against a motley assortment of rebels that include Sunni Islamist groups that have targeted Christians.

Several conservatives blogs also disapproved of Cruz remarks. The American Conservative wrote that he "fractured" the unity between the various Christian groups in attendance, and The Federalist argued that he's "not a hero for insulting a room full of persecuted Christians."

Rep. Charles Dent, a moderate Republican who represents several people of Syrian and Lebanese descent in Pennsylvania, told The Washington Post that while he supports Israel he didn't support Cruz's remarks. "I support Israel, but what Senator Cruz did was outrageous and incendiary," Dent told The Post. "He showed a true lack of sensitivity for the people he was speaking to, especially the religious leaders who were there. It was a political speech, inappropriate and, overall, an uncomfortable moment."

Dent argued that Cruz made the speech to fire up the Tea Party, and he's not the only one who's skeptical of the whole thing. Mark Tooley, the president of the conservative Institute on Religio... that Cruz knew exactly what he was doing. "Likely Cruz, a savvy politician, knew the reaction he would provoke from some by commending Israel, and he maximized his political moment before the many cameras," Tooley wrote.