The Grinding Wheel

Warning
Obama administration officials said on Sunday that the president had warned for more than a year of the danger that Islamic State fighters pose to Europe, the United States and beyond. (New York Times, 11/15/2015)

So what say Liberals who have blamed Bush for 9/11 saying that he should have heeded the warning that Al Qaeda was determined to strike the U.S? Obama apparently was warned in the same way. Is Obama to blame for Paris? You decide. 


It's Working
Many Say High Deductibles Make Their Health Law Insurance All but Useless (New York Times headline, 11/15/2015)


Lowly
By all means, read Bill McKibben’s victory proclamation on Keystone XL posted by the New Yorker, first for its infantile analysis. He sees Keystone as a harbinger, which it surely is: President Obama waited seven years to kill the pipeline, then did so when he no longer had to face voters and when gasoline prices are near an all-time low in real terms. If abundant fossil fuels is what it takes to afford Mr. McKibben such victories, well, you can see the paradox. (Holman Jenkins, Jr., Wall Street Journal, 11/15/2015)

We'll admit that we enjoy it when Middlebury College's Bill McKibben gets batted about by his intellectual superiors. It happens quite often. 


Dazed and Confused
Abedin: Have you been going over her calls with her? So she knows singh is at 8? [India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh]

Hanley: She was in bed for a nap by the time I heard that she had an 8am call. Will go over with her

Abedin: Very imp to do that. She’s often confused. (Judicialwatch.org, 11/16/2015)

Prediction: The Washington Post, New York Times and MSNBC will ignore this admission by Hillary Clinton's closest aide that she is mentally impaired. The business of electing the first woman president is too important. 

Liberals Complain: Mitt Romney was too successful in business; Carly Fiorina not successful enough

Tweaks
But the truth is, people like Mr. McKibben can’t afford practical, meaningful progress—because it would be unnoticeable and undramatic. Modest tweaks to incentives, then seeing how energy technology and the energy economy adapted over time, would not fulfill their need for a pressing global crisis that casts them as moral warriors (well-funded ones) whose victory over deniers and climate criminals is always just around the corner—and must remain so in order to keep the money, media attention and political fealty flowing. (Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., Wall Street Journal, 10/27/2015)

Jenkins skewers Middlebury College's Bill McKibben who - you may have heard - in desperate need of attention just got himself arrested by blocking access to a Burlington, Vermont gas station. McKibben was processed at police headquarters and then walked back to Middlebury.

CORRECTION: We have just received word that McKibben drove back to Middlebury in a car that contained an internal combustion engine. We apologize for the error. 


An Open Letter to Ashley Parker
Of course, attacking the media, especially the so-called liberal media, is a popular and time-tested Republican trope. (Ashley Parker, New York Times, 10/31/2015)

Dear Ash:
The Liberal Media is real! Read RedStateVT regularly for the proof. 

(Hint: Your paper is part of the Liberal Media.)

Regards

RedStateVT


It's Working! Obamacare is Working!
In Tennessee, the state insurance commissioner approved a 36 percent rate increase for the largest health insurer in the state’s individual marketplace. In Iowa, the commissioner approved rate increases averaging 29 percent for the state’s dominant insurer. Health insurance consumers logging into HealthCare.gov on Sunday for the first day of the Affordable Care Act’s third open enrollment season may be in for sticker shock, unless they are willing to shop around. Federal officials acknowledged on Friday that many people would need to pick new plans to avoid substantial increases in premiums.
...

“Shopping can save you money,” said Richard G. Frank, an assistant secretary of health and human services, who unveiled a huge collection of data on health plans that will go on sale on Sunday in the 38 states served by HealthCare.gov.
...

The Obama administration said nearly nine out of 10 consumers with marketplace coverage would be able to choose from three or more insurers in 2016. That is important, Mr. Frank said, because in insurance and other industries, “competition intensifies when there are three or more firms in a market.” (New York Times, 10/31/2015)

The big news is not that Obamacare premiums are going up. That was inevitable and entirely predictable. No the big news is that Obama administration officials admit that competition results in market efficiencies. 

Capitalism works!

Of course this will all be forgotten the next time that Liberals push for single-payer. Then we will only hear about the great inefficiencies of the private sector insurers. 

How NOT to Convince Someone That Climate Change is Real

For the third time in the last few years, Al Gore, founder and chairman of the Climate Reality Project, spoke at the festival on Friday. Naturally, his interactive discussion focused on addressing the climate crisis. The former vice president focused on the need to “punish climate-change deniers, saying politicians should pay a price for rejecting ‘accepted science,'” said the Chicago Tribune.

Gore said forward-thinking investors are moving away from companies that invest in fossil fuels and towards companies investing in renewable energy. “We need to put a price on carbon to accelerate these market trends,” Gore told the Chicago Tribune, referring to a proposed federal cap-and-trade system that would penalize companies that exceeded their carbon-emission limits. “And in order to do that, we need to put a price on denial in politics.” (Ecowatch.com, 3/16/2015)

If you want to convince RedStateVT that man-made climate change is real...

...here are some things that you should not do or say:

Please do not insult us or call us names.  If we are "climate-deniers" then you are "climate-truthers."

Please do not threaten to punish us (see above). That just makes us dig in our heels.

Please do not tell us that the answer to climate change is a tax. How does that make sense? Plus we think Americans pay too much in taxes already.

Please do not announce that climate change is "settled science." You can't say "accepted science" either. We have studied the issue and come to a different conclusion.  Plenty of people, including many scientists, disagree with you.

Please do not blame oil companies. No one, including you can live one day without fossil fuels. Oil is legal. Thank God for oil.


...here are some things that you should do or explain:

Please explain Climategate. Remember when scientists were found to have been colluding on the "science" of climate change? We do. Please explain.

Please explain exactly how Federal and state grant money flows to scientists and others who believe in man-made climate change. Just how much does Bill McKibben pull in?

Please separate out what you believe to be man-made climate change from naturally occurring climate change. 

Please factually refute just one thing found on Climatedepot.com. 

Please tell Al Gore to shut up. Really, do you want this phony to be your spokesperson? By the way, please ask Al Gore how many millions of dollars he has personally made from ginning up this issue.

Eric Holder Resigns, Nation of Cowards Rejoices!

Allowances
President Obama has put America at the center of a widening war by expanding into Syria airstrikes against the Islamic State, the Sunni extremist group known as ISIS and ISIL. He has done this without allowing the public debate that needs to take place before this nation enters another costly and potentially lengthy conflict in the Middle East. (New York Times editorial, 9/24/2014)

New York Times editors lambaste President Obama over the decision to bomb terrorist groups in Syria. Which is definitive proof that it is the right thing to do.


Demonized
Also in keeping with past practice, he acknowledged that the United States is wrestling its own demons. “In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe,” he said, “I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Mo., where a young man was killed, and a community was divided.” (New York Times, 9/25/2014)

Why does he constantly do this? In a vastly under-reported story Obama goes to the U.N. and delivers a tough talk on terrorism. Good job. And then he cannot leave it there. He has to pander to the world audience by criticizing America. What is the moral equivalency between ISIS beheadings and Putin's military takeover in the Ukraine and a contested police shooting in the U.S.? Obama has always been and continues to be a classic Blame America Liberal.


Pause Button
During the 1980s and 1990s, new all-time record-high anomalies were occurring about every 3-4 years. But then, we hit the “hiatus.” The rise in the Earth’s average surface temperature basically stopped, “global warming” morphed into “climate change,” and it has been 16.5 years since the last all-time all-month record monthly temperature anomaly was set.

Just-published research from University of Guelph’s Ross McKitrick pegs the length of the hiatus, or “pause”—the period of no statistically significant rise in the earth’s average temperature—at about 19 years. Looking back even further, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that since the mid-20th century, observed global warming has been less than expected....Global warming is not proceeding as planned.  The climate appears less sensitive to our emissions of greenhouse gases than expected. The urgency to grant the government the authority to limit energy choice is not justified. (Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger, Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, Foxnews.com, 9/23/2014)

To which climate change liars responded.... 

Just kidding! They did not respond because they refuse to take their fingers out of their ears.

Speaking of climate change liars, we noticed that Peter "Burger Boy" Shumlin is bowing to pressure from head Vermont scare-monger Bill McKibben and threatening to divest state funds of oil and gas companies. (There is apparently no place in the portfolio for companies engaged in the legal business of fossil fuels. Which will lead to lower investment returns, by the way.) 

All of which validates RedStateVT's contention that Bill McKibben runs the state.

Echo Chamber

Merely
But the mere fact that after 34 years of estrangement, the United States and Iran have signed a diplomatic accord — even if it is a tactical, transitory one — opens the door to a range of geopolitical possibilities available to no American leader since Jimmy Carter. (NYT, 11/25/2013)

And we all remember well what a raging success the Carter presidency was when it came to foreign policy involving Iran...

For Mr. Obama, resolving the threat of Iran’s nuclear program might be worth taking that chance. (NYT, 11/25/2013)

But the point is that Obama has not resolved the threat. He has emboldened Iran by proving what they suspected all along; that they could easily trick a naive president into a deal.

The agreement allows Iran to preserve most of its nuclear infrastructure, and along with it the ability to develop a nuclear device, while the United States keeps in place the core oil and banking sanctions it has imposed. (NYT, 11/25/2013)

So Iran preserves its ability to develop a nuclear bomb. What does a successful accord look like to Obama?


Toxicity
These days the word is particularly toxic at the White House, where it has been hidden away to make the Affordable Care Act more palatable to the public and less a target for Republicans, who have long accused Democrats of seeking “socialized medicine.” But the redistribution of wealth has always been a central feature of the law and lies at the heart of the insurance market disruptions driving political attacks this fall. (NYT, 11/24/2013)

“Americans want a fair and fixed insurance market,” said Jonathan Gruber, a health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who advised Mr. Obama’s team as it designed the law. “You cannot have that without some redistribution away from a small number of people.” (NYT, 11/24/2013)

This comes as no surprise to Republicans who took Obama at his word when he told Joe the Plumber during his first presidential run that spreading the wealth around was a good thing. 

The Democrat electorate will eventually learn that Obama's redistribution plans include them...and they will not like it either. 


Friends and Mice
In energy-friendly Wyoming, oil and gas companies are getting a clear message: Drill, baby, drill — but carefully.

Last week, state regulators approved one of the nation’s strongest requirements for testing water wells near drilling sites. The measure is intended to address concerns that groundwater can become contaminated from drilling activities.

It is the latest of several groundbreaking regulations related to energy production issued by Wyoming, which in 2010 became the first state to require disclosure of some of the chemicals used in the drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

“I am not going to accept the question of do you want a clean environment or do you want energy,” said Gov. Matthew H. Mead, a Republican who championed the water-testing regulation. “The fact is that in Wyoming, we want and need both.” (NYT, 11/22/2013)

Above you have an explanation of how a Republican governor goes about the business of safely developing an important energy source which makes America less dependent upon foreign oil.

Here is how the discussion takes place in Vermont: Enviro-capitalist Bill McKibben shows up in Montpelier. He says Vermont should not frack. He gets a standing ovation from the Vermont legislative mice who then vote to outlaw fracking. 

You decide. 


Fixed
In response, the administration rolls out ObamaCare delays or stopgap fixes just a month after Republicans were labeled extremists for proposing delays and fixes. (Pete du Pont, WSJ, 11/25/2013)

Democrats respond by saying...nothing. 

Dime Dancing

Egged On
The more honest Obamacare advocates are, in effect, admitting that to make this omelet you have to break 8 million eggs — roughly the number of people with individual plans who are expected to lose them. Obama, however, goes on as if he can conjure omelets out of thin air.

This rather bizarre belief in the unlimited power of the speech arises from Obama’s biography. Isn’t that how he rose? Words. It’s not as if he built a company, an enterprise, an institution. He built one thing — his own persona. By persuasion. One great speech in 2004 propels him to the presidential level. More great speeches and he wins the White House.

But then comes governance. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 11/4/2013)

Krauthammer nails it. Obama is an empty suit with a teleprompter and a so-so speechwriter. He has proven monumentally inept at governing. His signature legislative accomplishment was passed solely because at one brief moment in time he had full control. Now it turns out to be a national joke that even Democrats are running from. 


Emitted
Developing countries want the West — historically responsible for emissions, for the most part — not only to take the lead in reducing the use of fossil fuels, but to put up huge amounts of money to help poorer countries adapt to climatic changes that have already become inevitable. Western governments, which in some cases are already starting to consider their own adaptations to climate change, agree in principle that they should help poor countries. (NYT, 11/12/2013)

And so now we have it in writing. The whole climate change nonsense is nothing more than a wealth transfer scheme. It is designed to work on a large scale as described above and an individual scale (see McKibben, Bill). 


Consumed
Americans are growing more comfortable with marijuana, with 58 percent favoring legalization, according to the latest Gallup poll. At the same time, some researchers believe they have identified a side benefit to increasing availability of the drug: It could lead to decreased consumption of alcohol among young people. (New York Times editorial, 11/3/2013)

Sheer brilliance from the geniuses at the Times. Legal dope will result in fewer drunk teens. 

(Of course, there will be more stoned teens....)

If Only

Borrowed Time
President Obama and House Republicans failed to reach agreement on a six-week extension of the nation’s borrowing authority during a meeting Thursday at the White House, but the two sides kept talking, and the offer from politically besieged Republicans was seen as an initial step toward ending the budget standoff. (NYT, 10/10/2013)

President Obama's latest approval rating is 37%. Who exactly is "politically besieged?"


Warmed Over
Vermont global warming scare-monger Bill McKibben got caught on camera filling up his grocery cart with eco-unfriendly plastic bags. No reusable canvas totes for Bill!

The article by Twitchy spotlighting McKibben reminds us that the global warming cult figure is a prominent member of the Plastic Pollution Coalition, who’s website blares on its front page, “Disposable plastics are the greatest source of plastic pollution. Plastic bags, straws, bottles, utensils, lids, cups and so many others offer a small convenience but remain forever.  REFUSE disposable plastics! Follow the “4 Rs” of sustainable living: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” (Ethanallen.org, 10/7/2013)

Another Liberal hypocrite. 

Exhort people to take public transportation and then fly off in a private jet.
Decry guns except for your private security.
Bemoan big money in politics, but gladly take millions from George Soros.

The examples go on.

Government Shutdown Edition

Breaking News from RedStateVT: Federal Government Shuts Down, World Does Not End


Links
After being criticized by the Senate once again, House Republicans emerged Monday afternoon from their closed-door meeting with their latest distinctly political offering to the Senate, a bill that would link further government spending to a one-year delay of the new insurance requirement for individuals, as well as a proposal to force members of Congress, their staff, and White House staff, to buy their health coverage on the new exchanges without any government subsidies to offset the cost. (NYT, 9/30/2013)

Well, what is wrong with a one year Obamacare delay for individuals? The same deal given to corporations. 

And what is wrong with requiring that Congress get the same deal as the rest of America?

Liberals will never say. 


Black and White
A closer look at the shooting shows it was not about race. One of the three suspects was white, another had a white mother and a third had many white friends, including a girl he had been dating. “It was not a black-on-white crime,” District Attorney Jason Hicks of Stephens County said. (NYT, 9/30/2013)

Immediately and preemptively the New York Times announces that there was no racial element to the murder of a white Australian. This after Liberals at the Times immediately concluded that Hispanic George Zimmerman (he who tutored black youths) murdered Trayvon Martin out of racial malice. 

Logic is never the strong point of Liberal thinking.


Pumped Up
Between 1998 and 2012 the global economy more than doubled in size—to some $71 trillion in GDP from $30 trillion. That's the good news. Over the same period the world pumped more than 100 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That is supposedly the bad news. Yet global surface temperatures have remained essentially flat. That's the mystery: If emitting CO2 into the atmosphere causes global warming, why hasn't the globe been warming? (WSJ, 9/30/2013)

Nothing to see here, folks. Climate change is settled science. Evidence to the contrary is, dare we say, inconvenient. And Bill McKibben will continue to get standing ovations in Montpelier.

Never Before Seen

Generally
The Obama administration on Tuesday provided the first detailed look at premiums to be charged to consumers for health insurance in 36 states where the federal government will run new insurance markets starting next week, highlighting costs it said were generally lower than previous estimates. (NYT, 9/25/2013)

Even the Times admits that Obama cherry-picked the data.

Of course, in Vermont true high deductible insurance plans will no longer be offered, thus tripling premiums for some residents. Thank you Democrats.


Suddenly
... it was a somewhat diminished American leader who faced a skeptical audience of world leaders here. After first threatening, then backing off, a military strike against Syria, and now suddenly confronting a diplomatic opening with Iran, Mr. Obama has employed a foreign policy that has at times seemed improvisational and, in the view of many critics, irresolute.

The president acknowledged as much, saying his zigzag course on military strikes had unnerved some allies and vindicated the cynicism of many in the Middle East about American motives in the region. But he said the bigger threat would be if America withdrew altogether. (NYT, 9/25/2013)

Obama essentially confirms what RedStateVT has argued. Namely that he is a foreign policy rube. And once again, note how Obama uses his tired straw dog rhetorical trick, here suggesting that he is being pressured to withdraw from the Middle East. If such a threat exists, its origin is with Obama's Liberal base.


Quote of the Day
“We will be engaged in the region for the long haul. For the hard work of forging freedom and democracy is the task of a generation.” (President George W. Bush speaking about the Middle East)

RedStateVT CORRECTION: The quote above attributed to former President George W. Bush was actually made by President Barack H. Obama on September 24, 2013 at the United Nations. We apologize for the error. 


Allegedly
The U.N. has charged the IPCC with weighing the evidence on climate change in an objective manner. The problem is that numerous IPCC personnel have ties to environmental groups, many of which raise funds by hyping the alleged dangers of climate change. This relationship raises a legitimate question about their objectivity. (Donna LaFramboise, WSJ, 9/25/2013)

Excellent article on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the name kind of gives it away, doesn't it?).

We particularly liked this point - no climate change, no money. Put another way, would Vermont's Bill McKibben have a job if climate change could not be scientifically proven? Of course he hypes it. It pays his bills. 

Worthy of Trust

Crudely
U.S. crude-oil production grew by more than one million barrels a day last year, the largest increase in the world and the largest in U.S. history.
...
Most of this new production is coming from dense shale-rock formations, such as the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas. In recent years, the oil industry has developed techniques to hydraulically fracture, or frack, these shales, freeing up previously trapped oils. (WSJ, 6/12/2013)

This exciting new technology which has the potential to free America from its dependence on Middle East oil is banned in Vermont, thanks to the efforts of the state's governor, Bill McKibben....


Vividly
Perhaps the most vivid example of this came Tuesday afternoon, when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg rolled out his $19.5 billion plan to “prepare for the impacts of a changing climate,” with proposals ranging from coastal levees to the protection of hospitals. Last year, Bloomberg cited climate change as his main reason for endorsing President Obama’s reelection, praising Obama’s “major steps to reduce our carbon consumption.” But speaking Tuesday from a Brooklyn greenhouse damaged last fall by Hurricane Sandy, Bloomberg addressed the inevitability that rising temperatures and sea levels would bring even worse.

“By mid-century, up to a quarter of all New York City’s land area, where 800,000 residents live today, will be in the flood plain,” he said, and “40 miles of our waterfront could see flooding on a regular basis just during normal high tides.” We no longer have the luxury of ideological debate, he said. “The bottom line is we can’t run the risk.” (Mayor Michael Bloomberg quoted in Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 6/11/2013)

Maybe Mayor Bloomberg, a native of Massachusetts, doesn't realize it, but NYC ain't high ground. Lower Manhattan was created by bringing in fill, lots and lots of fill. We think the idea of flood protection for the city makes sense, but don't build in the flood plains and then complain that global warming is the culprit....when it floods.


Red Zone
The Obama administration has concluded that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime has used chemical weapons against the opposition seeking to overthrow him, U.S. officials said Thursday, crossing what President Barack Obama has called a ‘red line’ that would trigger greater American involvement in the crisis.

The officials said earlier intelligence assessments that indicated Assad likely used such weapons had now been corroborated. However, the officials said the administration has not determined how it will respond. (Washington Post, 6/13/2013)

The "red line" now having been crossed, Assad can expect a strong response from the Obama administration. Likely to take the form of a sternly worded letter to be personally delivered by SOS Kerry. That'll show 'em.

Cooking The Books

Forthright
The back-and-forth was a blunt reminder that Mr. Obama remains a polarizing figure as the two parties seek common ground on an emotional issue that has defied resolution for more than two decades. (NYT, 2/17/2013)

Obama a polarizing figure? How did that get by the censors at the New York Times?


Totally Gross
University of California at Irvine economist David Neumark has looked at more than 100 major academic studies on the minimum wage, and he says the White House claim of de minimis job losses "grossly misstates the weight of the evidence." About 85% of the studies "find a negative employment effect on low-skilled workers." (WSJ, 2/15/2013)

Our political mentor - we call him The Master - told us a story years ago that we have never forgot. He grew up in the deep south and once had a job picking cotton. Even at an early age he realized that the only thing standing between his job and automation was a rise in the minimum wage, i.e. if his weekly wages increased, he would be replaced by a machine. The Master is wise indeed.


Stoked
Some bankers hoped that Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the liberal firebrand who helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, would be subdued in her first term as she learned the ways of the Senate. Warren’s avoidance of the Beltway media appeared to stoke these hopes. Well, forget it.

Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, came out blazing Thursday in her first high-profile appearance as a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, ripping into regulators and starkly suggesting banks may be cooking the books. (POLITICO.com, 2/15/2013)

It will be interesting to see if the banks who supported Obama now run to him demanding that he call off Warren. 


Far Away
Tens of thousands of people converged on the National Mall on Sunday to urge President Barack Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline, a project they say will cause irreparable damage to the climate. The rally, which was organized by the Sierra Club, 350.org and the Hip Hop Caucus, was billed as the largest climate rally in American history. Organizers estimated that about 35,000 people participated in the rally. The U.S. Park Police does not give crowd estimates.

“All I ever wanted to see was a movement of people to stop climate change and now I’ve seen it,” Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, said to the crowd of protesters, who traveled to Washington from dozens of states. “I cannot promise you we’re going to win, but I’ve waited a quarter century to find out if we were gonna fight. And today, at the biggest climate rally by far, by far, by far, in U.S. history — today, I know we’re going to fight.” (POLITICO.com, 2/17/2013)

Angry about $4/gallon gasoline? Blame McKibben. America needs the oil and is going to buy it from some country. McKibben's position means that we will buy it from countries that may be hostile to us, rather than a friendly neighbor. This is Liberal Logic.


Head Fake
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) just released its latest batch of Head Start data, revealing, once again, that its students are receiving far less than a “head start.” The study, which was finally released the weekend before Christmas after more than a year’s delay, examines the third-grade outcomes of two groups of Head Start students: those who began the program at age three and another who began at age four.

In 2010, HHS released a similar report looking at first-grade outcomes. Both studies show similar results: Not only does Head Start have no impact on children’s academic outcomes, but it also has little to no impact on other measures of child well-being and, in some cases, even has some negative impacts. (Rachel Sheffield, Heritage.org, 1/13/2013)

Head Start doesn't work. Which is why Obama (and fellow bloggers) want to see more of it. Also Liberal Logic.