The Tea Party Makes GOP Mean
In the Washington Post, Greg Sargent asked Pew and CBS to give him a breakdown of recent poll data, and has some useful insights into the Republican Party.
These days, the GOP blames poor people for being poor, blames the unemployed for not having jobs, blames the sick for being sick, these are their official platform positions. It's weird, can you imagine that anyone thinks we should stop paying unemployment insurance benefits to people who are put out of work by a bad economy? How did they get so mean?
Looking into the data, Sargent says that the Republican Party's official positions represent the beliefs of Tea Party members a lot more than the regular membership of the party.
A couple of years ago Paul Ryan evoked that stereotype when he said, "We don't want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives."
The Post tells us what people think about that:
It is a subculture of meanness, a denial of empathy, the tea party people are not usually the wealthy capitalists of the party, it is a working-class populist movement that builds on white workers' resentment when less fortunate citizens need help.
As Sargent writes:
These days, the GOP blames poor people for being poor, blames the unemployed for not having jobs, blames the sick for being sick, these are their official platform positions. It's weird, can you imagine that anyone thinks we should stop paying unemployment insurance benefits to people who are put out of work by a bad economy? How did they get so mean?
Looking into the data, Sargent says that the Republican Party's official positions represent the beliefs of Tea Party members a lot more than the regular membership of the party.
As Jonathan Chait explains, this [GOP economic] agenda continues to be premised on the ideas that there is, if anything, too much downward redistribution of wealth, that government shouldn’t interfere in the market by, say, raising the minimum wage, and that safety net programs lull people into dependency (Paul Ryan’s Hammock Theory of Poverty).The "welfare queen" is a kind of latently-racist image that has rallied the Nutty Ones since the Reagan Years. People too lazy to get up off their fat butts and find a job, living off welfare while the rest of us work hard for a living, oh yeah, that'll get white folks to the ballot box on election day. But sometimes it's you and me who need some help, and then what're you going to do?
But here’s the thing. That basic set of assumptions — and the resulting positions on some of the individual policies being discussed – are held overwhelmingly by Tea Party Republicans; and not nearly as much by non-tea party Republicans. Key findings:
On government action to combat inequality:
On unemployment benefits:
- The Pew poll finds Republicans divided on whether government should do a lot or some to reduce inequality, versus doing little or nothing, by 49-46. But tea party Republicans overwhelmingly tilt against government doing something by 66-28, while non-tea party Republicans overwhelmingly favor doing something by 60-35.
- The CBS poll is less pronounced, but even here, Tea Party Republicans overwhelmingly oppose government acting to reduce the gap between rich and poor by 82-17, while non-Tea Party Republicans believe this by 66-29 (so nearly a third of non-Tea party Republicans believe it).
The Tea Party and the Hammock Theory of Poverty
- The Pew poll finds Republicans oppose extending unemployment benefits by 53-44. But Tea Party Republicans overwhelmingly oppose this by 70-29, while non-Tea Party Republicans support it by 52-44.
- Similarly, the CBS poll finds that Republicans oppose extending unemployment benefits by 49-40. But Tea Party Republicans overwhelmingly oppose it by 58-31. Non-Tea Party Republicans favor extending them by 46-43.
A couple of years ago Paul Ryan evoked that stereotype when he said, "We don't want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives."
The Post tells us what people think about that:
On the Hammock Theory of Poverty:Somehow the Republican Party has let the teabaggers dominate their agenda. I think it's because you have to appear rabid to the GOP base in order to win a primary election, it is much better to appear to be a mean-spirited, greedy nutcase than somebody who would negotiate with liberals. So the whole party kowtows to the extremists, even though most people who call themselves Republicans do not agree with them.
- The CBS poll finds that Republicans believe unemployment benefits make people less motivated to look for a job by 57-40. But Tea Party Republicans overwhelmingly believe this by 67-32. By contrast, only a minority of non-tea party Republicans believe this (47-51).
- The Pew poll has a similar finding: Republicans believe government aid to the poor does more harm than good by making people dependent on government, rather than doing more good than harm, by 67-27. But Tea Party Republicans overwhelmingly believe this by 84-11, while non-tea party Republicans are somewhat more closely divided, 59-35.
It is a subculture of meanness, a denial of empathy, the tea party people are not usually the wealthy capitalists of the party, it is a working-class populist movement that builds on white workers' resentment when less fortunate citizens need help.
As Sargent writes:
Both the Pew and CBS polls find large majorities believe the income gap is growing, and both find that more Americans want government to do something about it. Both also find solid majority support for raising the minimum wage, extending unemployment benefits, and (in Pew’s case) taxing the rich to help the poor.Those are the beliefs of Americans, except for tea partiers. Most Americans -- Democrats as well as mainstream Republicans -- are sympathetic to those who are experiencing hard times, most Americans want the government to make our lives better, more prosperous and more secure. Most Americans do not want to see a tiny greedy minority end up with all the money and all the power. Yet somehow a band of extremists is driving the dialogue, speaking for the Republican Party, and forcing the whole rest of the country to stop everything and deal with them.
posted by JimK at 3:57 PM
61 Comments:
It is meaner to encourage people not to work, because sometimes they develop a lifetime of it.
not working results in low self esteem and a life time of laziness.
you need to look no further than Priya.
and what would you do about single moms that continue having kids to receive the welfare check ? and the resulting harmful impact on the children born into this environment....
did you miss the latest Harvard study on the SINGLE greatest predictor of success is whether a kid comes from a two parent home ...
so perhaps we should FORCE all couples to get divorced just to equal the playing field and FORCE all teenagers to play video games and not have summer jobs just to equal the playing field.
this line of argument by our dear president is not only WRONG, it is harmful to society.
and no comments Jim on the President's announcement that he intends to willfully trash the constitution and ignore Congress ?
what would have been your reaction Jim if BUSH had made such an announcement ? I know what your reaction would be... you would apoplectic.
WASHINGTON (AP) - From the White House to the Vatican to the business elite in Davos, Switzerland, one issue keeps seizing the agenda: the growing gap between the very wealthy and everyone else.
It's "the defining challenge of our time," says President Barack Obama, who will spotlight the issue in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. A Gallup poll finds two-thirds of Americans are unhappy with the nation's distribution of wealth. Experts say it may be slowing the economy.
Why has the issue suddenly galvanized attention? Here are questions and answers about the wealth gap - what it is and why it matters.
Q. Hasn't there always been a wide gulf between the richest people and the poorest?
A. Yes. What's new is the widening gap between the wealthiest and everyone else. Three decades ago, Americans' income tended to grow at roughly similar rates, no matter how much you made. But since roughly 1980, income has grown most for the top earners. For the poorest 20 percent of families, it's dropped. Incomes for the highest-earning 1 percent of Americans soared 31 percent from 2009 through 2012, after adjusting for inflation, according to data compiled by Emmanuel Saez, an economist at University of California, Berkeley. For the rest of us, it inched up an average of 0.4 percent. In 17 of 22 developed countries, income disparity widened in the past two decades, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Q. So who are the top 1 percent in income?
A. They're bankers, lawyers, hedge fund managers, founders of successful companies, entertainers, senior managers and others. One trend: Corporate executives, doctors, and farmers made up smaller shares of the top 1 percent in 2005 than in 1979. By contrast, the proportion of the wealthiest who work in the financial and real estate industries has doubled. The top 1 percent earned at least $394,000 in 2012. Through most of the post-World War II era, the top 1 percent earned about 10 percent of all income. By 2007, that figure had jumped to 23.5 percent, the most since 1928. As of 2012, it was 22.5 percent.
Q. How has the middle class fared?
A. Not well. Median household income peaked in 1999 at $56,080, adjusted for inflation. It fell to $51,017 by 2012. The percentage of American households with income within 50 percent of the median - one way of measuring the middle class - fell from 50 percent in 1970 to 42 percent in 2010.
Q. Does it matter if some people are much richer than others?
A. Most economists say some inequality is needed to reward hard work, talent and innovation. But a wealth gap that's too wide is usually unhealthy. It can slow economic growth, in part because richer Americans save more of their income than do others. Pay concentrated at the top is less likely to be spent.
It can also trigger reckless borrowing. Before the 2008 financial crisis, middle class households struggled to keep up their spending even as their pay stagnated. To do so, they piled up debt. Swelling debt helped inflate the housing bubble and ignite the financial crisis. Experts note that the Great Depression and the Great Recession were both preceded by surging income gaps and heedless borrowing by middle class Americans.
Q. Has it become harder for someone born poor to become rich?
A. The evidence is mixed. Countries that have more equal income distributions, such as Sweden and other Scandinavian countries, tend to enjoy more social mobility. But a study released last week found that the United States isn't any less mobile than it was in the 1970s. A child born in the poorest 20 percent of families in 1986 had a 9 percent chance of reaching the top 20 percent as an adult, the study found - roughly the same odds as in 1971.
Other research has shown that the United States isn't as socially mobile as once thought. In a study of 22 countries, economist Miles Corak of the University of Ottawa found that the United States ranked 15th in social mobility. Only Italy and the Britain among wealthy countries ranked lower. By some measures, children in the United States are as likely to inherit their parents' economic status as their height.Q. So why has income inequality worsened?
A. There's no simple answer. Globalization has created "superstars" and concentrated pay among corporate executives, Wall Street traders, popular entertainers and other financial elite. At the same time, factory workers now compete with 3 billion people in China, India, eastern Europe and elsewhere who weren't working for multinational corporations 20 years ago. Many now make products for Apple, Intel, General Motors and others at low wages. This has depressed middle-class pay. And pay has risen much faster for college graduates than for high-school graduates. These trends have contributed to a "hollowed out" labor market, with more jobs at the higher and lower ends of the pay scale and fewer in the middle.
Social factors contribute, too. Single-parent families are more likely to be poor than other families and less likely to ascend the income ladder. Finally, men and women with college degrees and high pay are more likely to marry each other and amplify income gaps.
Q. Does wealth distribution follow a similar pattern?
A. It's even more pronounced. A Pew Research Center study found that the wealthiest 7 percent of households grew 28 percent richer from 2009 through 2011. For the bottom 93 percent, collective wealth fell 4 percent. That's largely because wealthy households own far more stocks and other financial assets than others. By contrast, whatever wealth middle-class Americans have is mainly in their home equity.
Since the Great Recession ended, stock-market averages have soared, setting records in 2013. Home values, though, remain far below their peaks reached in 2006. That divergence has benefited the richest and left others struggling.
Q. Where do the 1 percent live?
A. Investor Warren Buffett famously lives in Omaha, Neb. Les Wexner, whose fashion empire includes Victoria's Secret, is an Ohioan. But the wealthy mainly cluster around the largest cities. Of the 515 U.S. billionaires, 96 live around New York City, according to the intelligence firm Wealth-X. Los Angeles is home to 22, Chicago 21, San Francisco 20, Houston 14. Millionaires are more widely dispersed. Maryland has the highest concentration. Of all its households, 7.7 percent have $1 million or more in financial assets. New Jersey, Connecticut, Hawaii and Alaska have the next-highest concentrations, according to a report from Phoenix Marketing International.
Q. Is anything being done to narrow the wealth gap?
A. President Barack Obama has made the issue a priority and wants the government to act to reduce the disparities. The president managed to restore higher tax rates on incomes above $398,350 last year. And he's pushed other steps that might narrow the gap slightly, such as a higher minimum wage. But congressional Republicans say those steps could hurt economic growth and have resisted most such measures.
Q. Is everyone concerned about the wealth gap?
A. Some conservative economists question much of the data. They note, for example, that Saez's figures don't include government benefits, such as Social Security or food stamps, or employer payments for health insurance, that benefit the less-than-rich. Yet the Congressional Budget Office did include government benefits and the effect of taxes in its own study and still found a sizable gap: For the top 1 percent, income jumped 275 percent, adjusted for inflation, from 1979 to 2007. For the middle 60 percent of Americans, it grew less than 40 percent.
Q. So what do experts say is the best way to shrink the wealth gap?
A. Most ideas break down along political lines. Liberal economists tend to support a higher minimum wage, greater access to pre-school and college education and more spending on roads, bridges and other infrastructure to help generate good-paying jobs. Most favor higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for such programs.
Conservatives tend to back tax cuts, government deregulation and other steps they say will accelerate hiring and growth and raise living standards for everyone. They tend to focus on the need to advance income mobility.
In a speech this month, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio acknowledged the enormous pay disparity between a fast food company's cashier and its CEO.
"The problem we face is not simply the gap in pay between them, but rather that too many of those cashiers are stuck in the same job for years on end," Rubio said.
The mayor of Sochi has informed the media that there are no gay people in his city.
Anatoly Pakhomov spoke with the BBC ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics and discussed how gay visitors would be treated in the Russian region with the country's "homosexual propaganda" law in place. Pakhomov said gays are welcome at the Games in spite of this, so long as they "respect the laws of the Russian Federation and don't impose their habits on others."
"we just say that it is your business, it's your life. But it's not accepted here in the Caucasus where we live. We do not have them in our city," he said.
Nikolay Alekseyev, a Russian gay rights activist, compared Pakhomov's comments to those of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who once reportedly said, "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals." Alekseyev said gay people are present “in any city, any country, any culture and any historical epoch."
Russia's anti-gay law makes it illegal to disseminate information about "nontraditional sexual relations" or "relations not conducive to procreation" to minors. Individuals found in violation of the law could face fines up to 5,000 rubles ($156) or up to 1 million rubles ($31,000) for media organizations. Tourists have already been detained under this law.
Various celebrities and political figures have in turn backed a boycott of the Sochi but most of the world's citizens have no problem with the Russian laws constraining homosexual influence
A Florida high school senior who was supporting his family with an after-school job as a gay porn actor was allowed back into class on Wednesday, a week after he was suspended.
Robert Marucci, 18, known as "Noel" on adult film website Sean Cody, was sent home from Cocoa High School on Jan. 15 after his classmates learned about his after-school job.
Brevard County School District spokesperson Michelle Irwin said the suspension was because he "made statements that were of a nature that prompted the administration" to investigate. She noted the school district has has a responsibility to secure the safety of the school.
"We have other students that have chosen inappropriate lifestyles and we have always provided the appropriate support and options for them," Irwin said. "It is our number one goal for students to graduate," she added.
Dozens of students staged a walkout on Friday to protest the suspension, which his mother, Melyssa Lieb siad had been characterized to her by the principal as an "expulsion."
Lieb said she supports her son, and said he became a target of bullies when students found his gay porn video online. She said he was suspended because the principal, Dr. Stephanie Soliven, didn't approve of his "explicit lifestyle" career.
Marucci said that school officials removed him from classes for being a "disruption." He denied the charges.
A campus monitor overheard a group of students discussing Marucci's off-campus job on Jan. 14 and Marucci was brought in to discuss it later that day with administration, she said. Marucci was suspended the next day.
"I think he's the most awesome person in the world, he stood up and he was the man of the house when I couldn't be," citing financial hardship, Marucci's mother said.
In 2010, Shawn Loftis, who directed and acted in a series of gay porn films, was dismissed from a substitute teaching gig in the Miami area. But the Florida Education Practices Commission subsequently ruled he was eligible to apply for a permanent teaching position.
Democrats take control of Virginia Senate
"Taken together, our energy policy is creating jobs and leading to a cleaner, safer planet. Over the past eight years, the United States has reduced our total carbon pollution more than any other nation on Earth."
Barack Obama, January 28, 2014
Mystery solved. Now, we know why global warming has halted and the northern hemisphere is gripped in a polar vortex.
America reduced its carbon pollution so much.
And it started with George Bush.
You heard it straight from Sir Barry himself.
It must be true.
President Barack Obama took pride in presiding over the nation's "lowest unemployment rate in over five years" during his State of the Union address on Tuesday. But while this statement is technically true -- the jobless rate dropped to 6.7 percent in December -- it's not exactly something to write home about.
That's because a large part of the most recent decline in December was the result of 347,000 people giving up the search for work entirely and dropping out of the labor force. Such a decision helps the unemployment rate look better on paper, since it pushes those people out of the unemployment picture altogether. But in reality, it is not a great sign for the millions struggling to find work.
Economists refer to the statistic that accounts for these labor market drop-outs as the labor force participation rate.
Some of the drop in the labor force participation rate has to do with Baby Boomers retiring, but it doesn't explain most of the drop.
Much of the decline can be explained by the share of young people working or looking for work dropping to an all-time low, according to a December 2013 paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Some job creation does account for a portion of the drop in the unemployment rate, but many of those jobs aren't great. In fact, 75 percent of the jobs created roughly midway through 2013 were part-time, and half of the jobs created in the past three years have been of the low-wage variety.
you think the planet is warming up?
ask the mayor of Atlanta
I just saw the poor guy on TV trying to explain why he wasn't ready to get hit by the polar vortex, in a place where 100 degree summers are the norm
Dear Peachtree Blizzard,
"Global Warming" was a shorthand phrase to describe human-generated changes in the atmosphere which destabilize weather conditions and threaten everyone.
Rabid climate change, whose causes are largely (or maybe exclusively) human-generated, is a reality we cannot ignore.
David, I can't believe you would comment on this defunct and debunked site.
So now global warming is not the reason for the government to intervene in the economy but instead it's destabilized weather systems.
Interesting because I don't think there's any evidence that the weather is currently less stable than ever before. It is a little warmer than the average for the last century but there's no evidence this has destabilized the environment. Things happening now seem to be fairly typical, if not a little milder.
As Drought Persists, 17 California Communities Almost Out Of Water
Monarch Butterfly Populations Hit Record-Low
Warm Alaska winter breaks records, confuses plants
"The state’s top leaders on Wednesday apologized for mistakes that brought metro Atlanta to a standstill in the aftermath of an icy storm, but defended their reactions as a necessary response to unpredictable weather.
Gov. Nathan Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed are the target of considerable fury from residents stranded on roadways as minutes-long commutes turned into nasty all-evening affairs. In the face of that backlash, both politicians lamented the near-simultaneous release of school children, office workers and government employees.
Deal, who deemed his administration’s response to the snowstorm as “reasonable,” apologized for the gridlock gripping Atlanta streets. But he said if he would have been accused of “crying wolf” if he had ordered a shutdown and a storm didn’t materialize..."
it never rains in California
I lived there in the late seventies for two years
there was a drought during that entire period
nothing unheard of
butterfly populations down?
why would climate change do that?
butterflies can fly wherever they want
poor Alaska
they are having mild weather
sounds stable to me
flowers confused?
they must be upset about Pete Seeger's passing
remember, the alarmists now say warming is not the problem
instability is the new "problem"
our planet is amazingly stable
it really is
Bad anonymous, you have a long history of insisting its certain what you want to believe is true and must happen. And you've been wrong far more often than would be expected if you were making your predictions based on random chance alone.
The truth is the overwhelming evidence refutes your claims that everything is going to be wonderful. There have been wide climate swings in the history of the planet and rapid change has always resulted in mass extinctions as animals aren't able to adapt fast enough to the changes to survive. In fact the http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/1955/20130516/scientific-consensus-global-warming-man-made-study-97-climate-scientists.htm"> overwhelming consensus of scientists is that global warming is happening and man made. The scientific predictions about global warming have been remarkably accurate with temperature predictions from the 90's being almost exactly dead on. At that time scientists predicted a rise in global temperatures for the last decade that has been within a few hundredths of a degree of what has actually happened. Just as scientists predicted we've seen more severe weather such as superstorms Sandy and Katrina, global sea and glacier ice disappearing and ocean levels rising. Climate change deniers try to mislead people by pointing to a record amount of antarctic ice and last years 29% increase in arctic ice but the recent upsurge in Antarctic ice is much less than all the ice that has been lost so far in the Arctic and 75% of all the Arctic ice has been lost in the last 30 years. That 29% increase in the remaining 25% of Arctic ice doesn't remotely begin to make up for all that has been lost. Last years Arctic ice was the sixth-lowest extent of Arctic sea ice in 35 years of record-keeping. A growing body of evidence demonstrates a link between the melting of Arctic sea ice and worsening summer heat waves and other extreme weather in the United States and elsewhere in the world. http://news.yahoo.com/warming-report-sees-violent-sicker-202328542.html">A nobel prize winning international panel of climate scientists report concludes that starvation, poverty, flooding, heat waves, droughts, war and disease that already lead to human tragedies are likely to worsen as the world warms from man-made climate change.
Climate change deniers are generally not climate scientists and do not debate the science with the climate scientists directly. Instead, they focus their attention on the media, the general public and policy-makers with the goal of delaying action on climate change. If there was any truth in what they say or evidence to support their position they would publish it in peer-reviewed scientific journals and participate in international conferences on climate science. They don't do this because they can't make a scientific case for their climate change denial and they don't want to make that obvious by participating in scientific evidence based debates.
Bad anonymous, if you were as certain as you claim to be that global warming isn't happening then you'd have nothing to worry about and you wouldn't be expending so much effort to deny that its happening. The fact that you're so desperate to deny that global warming is happening is proof that underneath your bluster you're really scared it is happening. Your fears are fully justified.
Bad anonymous is trying to convince himself that global warming isn't happening more than he's trying to convice us.
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Obama's policies help the economy despite Republican efforts to block growth:
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Strong household spending and robust exports kept the U.S. economy on solid ground in the fourth quarter, but stagnant wages could chip away some of the momentum in early 2014.
Gross domestic product grew at a 3.2 percent annual rate in the final three months of last year, the Commerce Department said on Thursday, in line with economists' expectations.
While that was a slowdown from the third-quarter's brisk 4.1 percent pace, it was a far stronger performance than had been anticipated earlier in the quarter and welcome news in light of some drag from October's partial government shutdown.
"The economy was firing on almost all cylinders as 2013 came to a close. For today, the sun is out and shining," said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ in New York.
Early in the quarter many economists were expecting a growth pace below 2 percent given that an inventory surge accounted for much of the increase in the July-September period.
Taking both quarters together, growth came in at a 3.7 percent pace, up sharply from 1.8 percent in the first six months of the year. It was the biggest half-year gain since the second half of 2003."
Economists agree that in order to maintain growth Obama needs to increase the minimum wage in order to increase consumer spending. Since the Regan administration the gap between the rich and poor has exploded with the Rich getting huge increases in their percent of income while the poor have had their income stagnate. Increasing the minimum wage stimulates the economy and benefits all because poor people spend all they get on goods and services whereas increases in income that go to the rich are mostly hoarded rather than spent thus removing money from the economy.
"you have a long history of insisting its certain what you want to believe is true and must happen"
you can't be serious
you clearly want an environmental catastrophe that requires governmental intervention so bad that you are willing to grasp at any straw to justify it
"trying to convince himself that global warming isn't happening"
as I've said repeatedly, there has clearly been some warming of the planet
but the trend has levelled off
and it seems to me it's resulted in more environmental stability
is spite of this year, winters have generally been warmer in the last twenty years
but, at the same time, during the same period, summers have generally been milder
and we have hardly any hurricane activity since Katrina
"Just as scientists predicted we've seen more severe weather such as superstorms Sandy and Katrina"
just isn't true
whether you categorize storms by strength or deadliness, a look at the historic record will show that the period of 1890-1950 was the most active in recordation
Katrina is the only storm since 1957 in the top ten of deadliness and isn't even in the top ten for strength
so, the loss of sea ice doesn't seem to be having any adverse effect
and, while not fully to its largest extent, is currently trending in that direction rather than the other
if you believed warmist alarmists in the 90s, the Himalayan glaciers would be gone now and so would the Arctic polar ice cap
quit while it's still only a little embarrassing rather than a lot
Gallup Poll Finds Democrats More Compassionate; Republicans More Psychopathic
"Gallup headlined on 28 January 2014, "Democrats and Republicans Differ on Top Priorities," and reported that the biggest difference between supporters of the two Parties concerned "The environment," where 71% of Democrats said it's important to them, versus only 32% of Republicans who did: a whopping difference of 39%, between the two Parties, considered that issue to be important. The second-biggest difference was on "The distribution of income and wealth": 72% of Democrats, versus only 38% of Republicans - a 34% difference. Third came "Poverty and homelessness": 82% of Democrats, versus 53% of Republicans - a 29% difference. Fourth came "Education": 91% of Democrats, versus 70% of Republicans - a 21% difference.
Here were the four issues on the conservative end, the four issues where Republicans scored the largest amount higher (more concerned) than Democrats: First, "The military and national defense": 76% of Republicans, versus 61% of Democrats - a 15% difference - considered that issue to be important. Second, "Taxes": 69% of Republicans, versus 56% of Democrats - a 13% difference. Third, "Terrorism": 77% of Republicans, versus 68% of Democrats - a 9% difference. Fourth, "Government surveillance of U.S. citizens": 45% of Republicans, versus 37% of Democrats - an 8% difference (but if the President had been a Republican, Democrats might have been more concerned about that issue than Republicans would have been).
Clearly, selfish fears swept concerns on the Republican side, whereas concerns for others (and especially the weak) swept concerns on the Democratic side.
One can therefore reasonably infer from this survey that the main difference between Democrats and Republicans is the difference between compassion versus psychopathy.
If these findings are accurate, then one will expect that in political primary elections, where candidates make their appeals to members of their own Party, Democratic candidates will compete with one another mainly on the basis of their proposals for improving things for everyone but especially for the most vulnerable; whereas Republican candidates will compete with one another mainly on the basis of their proposals for improving things for their individual voters. And, in the general election, one will expect that the Democratic nominee will have been chosen on the basis of his concern for everyone, while the Republican nominee will have been chosen on the basis of his concern for Republicans."
"Economists agree that in order to maintain growth Obama needs to increase the minimum wage in order to increase consumer spending. Since the Regan administration the gap between the rich and poor has exploded with the Rich getting huge increases in their percent of income while the poor have had their income stagnate. Increasing the minimum wage stimulates the economy and benefits all because poor people spend all they get on goods and services whereas increases in income that go to the rich are mostly hoarded rather than spent thus removing money from the economy."
"economists"?
hey, STOOOOPID!
raising the minimum wage would not do a thing to end income inequality
most people on minimum wage are not heads of households, they are part-time, they receive raises within six months
over half live in households with income above 57K, a quarter live in households above 75K
in short, they're mostly kids or spouses of people making better wages
the reason Obama wants to raise the minimum wage is because unions often have wages pegged to the minimum wage
raising union wages will only result in less competitive American exports, causing layoffs
participation in the work force is near all-time lows
and it's not because baby boomers are retiring
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"Increasing the minimum wage stimulates the economy and benefits all because poor people spend all they get on goods and services"
then, why not give 'em a tax cut
oh that's right, they don't pay taxes because Republican administrations have ended taxation of the lower 50% in spite of howls from the Democrats
so the economy is growing is spite of making the Bush tax cuts permanent and the sequester and the government shutdown
why not keep moving in that direction?
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"Just as scientists predicted we've seen more severe weather such as superstorms Sandy and Katrina, global sea and glacier ice disappearing and ocean levels rising"
are they rising?
ask Al Gore
who has three waterfront residences
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long-time Democratic fool, who wrote the infamous Obamacare bill, knows the gig is up:
CAMBRIDGE, Md. — Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, a diminutive Democrat whose 40 years in the House produced some of the most egregious legislation of the era, will announce on Thursday that he is retiring at the end of the year.
Mr. Waxman, 74, joins the growing list of House Democrats who are calling it quits, many in fear oiver facing the electorate.
“It’s been frustrating because of the popularity of Tea Party Republicans,” Mr. Waxman said in an interview on Wednesday.
Mr. Waxman’s departure after 20 terms in the House comes as onne of his most notorious actions, the Affordable Care Act, which he was instrumental in writing, is shaping up as the centerpiece of campaigns all over the country, not as a triumph but as a Republican strong point. And the expansion of Medicaid that he has championed has been challenged in a number of states.
The sprawling bill to combat climate change that he wrote was passed by the House in 2009 but died in the Senate, and President Obama has given up on efforts to push it through. Mr. Waxman has also spent years trying to strengthen the powers of the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, but those efforts are under fire from the Republicans who control the House.
"it never rains in California
I lived there in the late seventies for two years
there was a drought during that entire period
nothing unheard of"
Climate change gets more severe as we continue to ignore the problem.
On Thursday, the National Drought Mitigation Center upgraded about 9 percent of the state to an “exceptional drought,” the organization’s most intense level of drought severity. It’s the first time that any part of California has registered an "exceptional drought."
The Central Sierra Snow Lab near the Donner Summit reports 8 inches of snow on the ground, the lowest for this time in January since at least 1946. In the general vicinity of Monterey to Bakersfield, conditions warranted a 1-category [upgrade], from extreme to exceptional drought. A few of the impacts within the exceptional drought area include fallowing of land, wells running dry, municipalities considering drilling deeper wells, and little to no rangeland grasses for cattle to graze on, prompting significant livestock sell off.
That puts the current California drought on par with recent major droughts in Texas (2010-11) and the Midwest (2012), both of which were multibillion-dollar disasters.
Late Wednesday night, the Bay Area picked up its first legitimate rain (not counting fog or drizzle) since December 6. This ends the longest spell without significant rain during the climatological winter season on record, there, since at least 1850.
When food prices soar later this year, you can thank climate change deniers like yourself who keep their heads in the dry sand.
"When food prices soar later this year, you can thank climate change deniers like yourself who keep their heads in the dry sand"
why would that be?
the U.S. famously did not sign up for Kyoto and yet the President said this on Tuesday night:
"Over the past eight years, the United States has reduced our total carbon pollution more than any other nation on Earth."
so, it doesn't seem like those who think global warming is not that catastrophic have had any effect
the U.S. has reduced carbon output more than any nation anyway
and California has particularly stringent state laws
yet, California has a drought that this anon-alarmist above implies is caused by global warming
I doubt warming is the cause but, assuming for a second it is, what do you suggest?
declare war on China and destroy their factories?
end the technological progress that has doubled our lifespans in the last century and brought us to the verge of another level of existence?
impose a carbon tax that will cause widespread unemployment in the developed world?
reducing our carbon output more than any other nation has given us a drought in California, so what do you propose next, ignoramus-anon?
redouble our efforts and have only Americans suffer the burden?
that wouldn't have any effect anyway
btw, the worst droughts in U.S. history happened from the 1930s to 1950s
indeed, the drought in the Southwest U.S. lasted well over a decade from 1941 through the mid-50s
California had a huge drought in 61 and again in 76-77
the snowpack in California reached an all time low in 1977
yet, about ten years ago, there was so much snow in California that people in Lake Arrowhead had to go down the mountain on the east, down to Palm Springs and around to get to L.A. until early summer
that year, the road that traverses Yosemite was not cleared of snow and opened until mid-July
no doubt that was due to global warming too
face it, there is nothing unusual going on
the weather is always a topic of conversation
we will always have alarmists
they're not caused by global warming either
when we cool down, they'll sound the alarm about that too
these TTF lunatics are a piece of work
the best they can cite is a drought in California
don't they know?
it never rains in Southern California
We'll always have people who selectively ignore facts they find inconvenient, such as the heat waves and/or droughts in California, Alaska, Australia, and Argentina.
Sticking your head in the sand will not stop climate change but go ahead while you're at it, stick your fingers in your ears, say "blah blah blah" over and over again, as you continue to ignore all evidence except for a couple of arctic vortices.
"We'll always have people who selectively ignore facts they find inconvenient, such as the heat waves and/or droughts in California, Alaska, Australia, and Argentina"
not selectively ignoring anything
California has droughts regularly, that's why they have frequent wildfires
this is the worst in California, like ever?
so what?
other parts of the Midwest and Southwest have had worse, more than half a century ago
Alaska having a mild winter?
good for them
doesn't sound like a disaster
they should enjoy it
Argentina and Australia are having a heat wave in January?
that's when those usually hit in the Southern Hemisphere
this alarmism might fool young kids, with no extensive memory but those who have been around know that a current topic is always how strange the weather is
same as it ever was
the funny thing is that any time you bring up increasing ice at both poles or cold snaps in the southern U.S. or snow in the Mid-East, the alarmists say you can't judge by short-term events
and they then point to short-term events all the times, like the alarmist-anons above
according to lazy Priya, you have to look over 15 years for any meaningful event
which is inconvenient since global warming has largely halted the last 15 years
let us know when California has had 15 years of drought
"Sticking your head in the sand will not stop climate change but go ahead while you're at it, stick your fingers in your ears, say "blah blah blah" over and over again, as you continue to ignore all evidence except for a couple of arctic vortices."
I've cited four events and you've cited four events
1. polar vortexes in Alabama and Georgia
2. snow in the Mid-East
3. record ice in Antarctica
4. growing ice in the Arctic
keep sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the coming ice age
we need to increase our carbon output to avoid it
right?
"Sticking your head in the sand will not stop climate change"
well, if that won't do it, can I ask what will?
c'mon, give us an idea we can discuss rather than just saying it's a problem
I think you'll find that most of your proposed solutions will cause more problems than your imaginary climate change catastrophe
LOL, you can always tell when bad anonymous has lost the argument. He loses his temper (oops, I mean gets "dispassionate") and this starts happening:
" it really is said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator."
And then he follows it up with page after page of raging impotent spittle flecked rants because he can't stand that his bubble has been burst.
Hahahahahahahahaha!
"LOL, you can always tell when bad anonymous has lost the argument. He loses his temper"
unfortunately for you, lazy Priya, everyone can read the posts and see that I neither lost my temper nor the argument
but let's recap:
warmist alarmists talk in circles
icy roads in Georgia prove nothing but a hot day at the Australian Open is caused by global warming
sure...
nothing is happening weatherwise that hasn't happened before with more severity and more frequently
global temperatures are moderately but there is no indication this is a threat to humanity
even if the alarmists were right about the consequences, all their proposed solutions would cause more suffering than even their wildest predictions
the U.S. has already reduced its carbon output more than all other nation, most of whom signed up for Kyoto, making one wonder if these global manipulations have any value
technology is likely to reduce carbon output with more telework and the booming natural gas market
"(oops, I mean gets "dispassionate") and this starts happening:
" it really is said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.""
no, as Jim has indicated before, he deletes things when he "gets pissed off", code for "liberal agenda looks stupid"
"And then he follows it up with page after page of raging impotent spittle flecked rants"
those are called facts
you might want to familiarize yourself with a few
"because he can't stand that his bubble has been burst."
the weather balloon is still afloat
"Hahahahahahahahaha!"
lazy Priya repeating what she hears from all the other residents at the nut house all day and night
This comment has been removed by the author.
Western U.S.'s crisis. The colorado river is drying up and 14 year drought is reaching a critical point.
But, hey, if crops fail and people die of thirst in the Western U.S. and other massively populated drought areas around the world you can trust bad anonymous that its all worth it because people in sparsely populated Alaska won't be as cold.
lazy Priya is really getting desperate now
I can assure you that no one in the Western U.S. will die of thirst because of global warming
a few elderly residents of Saskatchewan may stand a better chance getting through the winter though
a brief history of drought in the southwestern United States from 1944-1978:
Drought began in the Southwestern United States in 1944 and continued through the entire rest of the decade; one of the longest recorded droughts observed there. This drought continued into the 1950s.
Other severe drought years in the United States happened through the 1950s. These droughts continued from the 1940s drought in the Southwestern United States, New Mexico and Texas during 1950 and 1951; the drought was widespread through the Central Plains, Midwest and certain Rocky Mountain States, particularly between the years 1953 and 1957, and by 1956 parts of central Nebraska reached a drought index of -7, three points below the extreme drought index. From 1950 to 1957, Texas experienced the most severe drought in recorded history. By the time the drought ended, 244 of Texas’ 254 counties had been declared federal disaster areas. Drought became particularly severe in California, with some natural lakes drying up completely in 1953. Southern California was hit hard by drought in 1958-59, badly straining water resources.
Drought continued in parts of California in the early 1960s. Southern California recorded their worst drought of the 20th century in 1961.
Droughts hit particular spots of the United States during 1976 and 1977. California's statewide snowpack reached an all-time low in 1977. Water resources and agriculture (especially livestock) suffered; negatively impacting the nation's economy. This drought reversed itself completely the following year.
If bad anonymous had a brain he'd be down on the floor playing with it.
a brilliant comment, lazy Priya, but you still haven't explained why the California drought now is a result of global warming when sever droughts have long been common in that area
the case that global warming has caused any problem or will cause any problem is reed-thin...and soon to snap
that's a brilliant comment by lazy Priya
it really is...
Scientists have long predicted that climate change would bring on ever-worsening droughts, especially in semi-arid regions like the U.S. Southwest. As climatologist James Hansen, who co-authored one of the earliest studies on this subject back in 1990, told me this week, “Increasingly intense droughts in California, all of the Southwest, and even into the Midwest have everything to do with human-made climate change.”
“The U.S. may never again return to the relatively wet conditions experienced from 1977 to 1999.” If this and other projections are correct, then there may be no greater tasks facing humanity than 1) working to slash carbon pollution and avoid the worst climate impact scenarios and 2) figuring out how to feed nine billion people by mid-century in a Dust-Bowl-ifying world.
Remarkably, climate scientists specifically predicted a decade ago that Arctic ice loss would bring on worse droughts in the West, especially California. As it turns out, Arctic ice loss has been much faster than the researchers — and indeed all climate modelers — expected. And, of course, California is now in the death-grip of a brutal, record-breaking drought, driven by the very change in the jet stream that scientists had anticipated.
Climate change makes Western droughts longer and stronger and more frequent in several ways, as reported in the journal Nature:
"Precipitation patterns are expected to shift, expanding the dry subtropics. What precipitation there is will probably come in extreme deluges, resulting in runoff rather than drought alleviation. Warming causes greater evaporation and, once the ground is dry, the Sun’s energy goes into baking the soil, leading to a further increase in air temperature. That is why, for instance, so many temperature records were set for the United States in the 1930s Dust Bowl; and why, in 2011, drought-stricken Texas saw the hottest summer ever recorded for a US state. Finally, many regions are expected to see earlier snowmelt, so less water will be stored on mountain tops for the summer dry season."
And then we have the observed earlier snow melt, which matters in the West because it robs the region of a reservoir needed for the summer dry season — see “US Geological Survey (2011): Global Warming Drives Rockies Snowpack Loss Unrivaled in 800 Years, Threatens Western Water Supply” and “USGS (2013): Warmer Springs Causing Loss Of Snow Cover Throughout The Rocky Mountains.”. Calendar year 2013 was the driest on record in California’s 119 year formal record, and likely the driest since at least the Gold Rush era.”
There is broad agreement in the climate science research community that the Southwest, including New Mexico, will very likely continue to warm. There is also a strong consensus that the same region will become drier and increasingly snow-free with time, particularly in the winter and spring. Climate science also suggests that the warmer atmosphere will lead to more frequent and more severe (drier) droughts in the future. All of the above changes have already started, in large part driven by human-caused climate change.
Beyond the expansion and drying of the subtropics predicted by climate models, some climatologists have found in their research evidence that the stunning decline in Arctic sea ice would also drive western drought — by shifting storm tracks.
“Given the very large reductions in Arctic sea ice, and the heat escaping from the Arctic ocean into the overlying atmosphere, it would be surprising if the retreat in Arctic sea ice did *not* modify the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere in some way,” Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, told me this week. “We now have a healthy body of research, ranging from Lisa Sloan’s and Jacob Sewall’s work a decade ago, to Francis’s more recent work, suggesting that we may indeed be seeing already this now in the form of more persistent anomalies in temperature, rainfall, and drought in North America.”
Birds in Argentina and Antarctica are dying from shifts in weather. Many chicks die from extremes of temperature and rainfall and in some years, climate change was biggest cause of death
A pair of new studies highlight the plight of penguin colonies trying to cope with the effects of global warming in Argentina and Antarctica.. At both locations, the beguiling birds face an uncertain future.
Climate change is killing chicks from the world’s biggest colony of Magellanic penguins at Punta Tombo, Argentina, by increasing the rate of drenching rainstorms and heatwaves, say scientists.. Meanwhile Adelie penguins on Ross Island, Antarctica, are finding it harder to feed as melting sea ice fragments form giant icebergs. Protected only by a downy coat, the Magellanic chicks can be left to struggle and die when rainstorms hit their colony. At other times, faced with extreme heat, their lack of waterproofing means they cannot cool off by taking a dip.
Dr Ginger Rebstock, from the University of Washington, took part in a 27 year-long study of the 400,000-strong Argentinian colony. He said: 'We’re going to see years where almost no chicks survive. If climate change makes storms bigger and more frequent during vulnerable times of the breeding season, as climatologists predict.' William J. Sydeman, senior scientist at the Farallon Institute in California, who was not involved in the research, said the study linked changes in climate, which occur on a scale of decades, to the daily scale of life in the colony. “That’s a unique contribution,” he said.
“They didn’t used to have to contend with this variability in the climate,” Dr. Boersma said. “And they certainly didn’t have to contend with all this rainfall.”. Since 1987, the number of breeding pairs in the colony has declined 24 percent, Dr. Boersma said. Dr. Boersma said the increasing frequency of heavy storms was most likely directly affecting other seabird species that were breeding in the region. In fact, the same direct effect is being seen half a world away, in a terrestrial bird.
In a study of a population of peregrine falcons in the Canadian Arctic that was published last year in the journal Oecologia, researchers reported that heavy rains killed large numbers of hatchlings, and documented an increase in the frequency of such rains over decades. Alastair Franke, a University of Alberta scientist who led the study, said he was stunned when he read Dr. Boersma’s paper. “It’s amazing that we’re seeing such similarity between the two studies,” he said.
In her work, Dr. Boersma showed that the mortality caused by storms was in addition to those from other causes. Dr. Franke said that was one of the most interesting aspects of Dr. Boersma’s study. “This is a double whammy for the penguins,” he said. “You’re still going to get all the starvation and predation. But now you get increased mortality from rainfall as well.”
This is the problem with climate change, there are more extremes of weather with some places getting heavier than normal rainfall and flooding and other areas getting less than normal rainfall and droughts.
Industry Awakens to Threat of Climate Change
WASHINGTON — Coca-Cola has always been more focused on its economic bottom line than on global warming, but when the company lost a lucrative operating license in India because of a serious water shortage there in 2004, things began to change.
Today, after a decade of increasing damage to Coke’s balance sheet as global droughts dried up the water needed to produce its soda, the company has embraced the idea of climate change as an economically disruptive force.
“Increased droughts, more unpredictable variability, 100-year floods every two years,” said Jeffrey Seabright, Coke’s vice president for environment and water resources, listing the problems that he said were also disrupting the company’s supply of sugar cane and sugar beets, as well as citrus for its fruit juices. “When we look at our most essential ingredients, we see those events as threats.”
Coke reflects a growing view among American business leaders and mainstream economists who see global warming as a force that contributes to lower gross domestic products, higher food and commodity costs, broken supply chains and increased financial risk. Their position is at striking odds with the longstanding argument, advanced by the coal industry and others, that policies to curb carbon emissions are more economically harmful than the impact of climate change.
At the Swiss resort of Davos, corporate leaders and politicians gathered for the annual four-day World Economic Forum will devote all of Friday to panels and talks on the threat of climate change. The emphasis will be less about saving polar bears and more about promoting economic self-interest. In Philadelphia this month, the American Economic Association inaugurated its new president, William D. Nordhaus, a Yale economist and one of the world’s foremost experts on the economics of climate change. “There is clearly a growing recognition of this in the broader academic economic community,” said Mr. Nordhaus, who has spent decades researching the economic impacts of both climate change and of policies intended to mitigate climate change.
In Washington, the World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, has put climate change at the center of the bank’s mission, citing global warming as the chief contributor to rising global poverty rates and falling G.D.P.’s in developing nations. In Europe, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Paris-based club of 34 industrialized nations, has begun to warn of the steep costs of increased carbon pollution.
In the United States, the rich can afford to weigh in. The California hedge-fund billionaire Thomas F. Steyer, who has used millions from his own fortune to support political candidates who favor climate policy, is working with Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, and Henry M. Paulson Jr., a former Treasury secretary in the George W. Bush administration, to commission an economic study on the financial risks associated with climate change. The study, titled “Risky Business,” aims to assess the potential impacts of climate change by region and by sector across the American economy. “This study is about one thing, the economics,” Mr. Paulson said in an interview, adding that “business leaders are not adequately focused on the economic impact of climate change.”
Although many Republicans oppose the idea of a price or tax on carbon pollution, some conservative economists endorse the idea. Among them are Arthur B. Laffer, senior economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan; the Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw, who was economic adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign; and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the head of the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank, and an economic adviser to the 2008 presidential campaign of Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican.
because bad anonymous would have pretended not to see it otherwise, emphasized from a previous comment:
Remarkably, climate scientists specifically predicted a decade ago that Arctic ice loss would bring on worse droughts in the West, especially California. As it turns out, Arctic ice loss has been much faster than the researchers — and indeed all climate modelers — expected. And, of course, California is now in the death-grip of a brutal, record-breaking drought, driven by the very change in the jet stream that scientists had anticipated.
"Remarkably, climate scientists specifically predicted a decade ago that Arctic ice loss would bring on worse droughts in the West, especially California. As it turns out, Arctic ice loss has been much faster than the researchers — and indeed all climate modelers — expected. And, of course, California is now in the death-grip of a brutal, record-breaking drought, driven by the very change in the jet stream that scientists had anticipated."
I read the article from the alarmist propaganda site
there was one climate researcher quoted, based in California, that said this, assuming the article is factual
it was a pretty safe bet there would be future droughts in California
there have been numerous droughts in the past, as I documented above
in 1953, lakes in California dried up
in 1977, snowpack in California was at an all-time low
this is a reliable old tactic of fortune tellers and charlatans
predict something that is bound to happen anyway and claim credit for some special insight
this tactic has been tried by warmists before and failed
around the same time as this researcher in California, other alarmists were predicting continual super-hurricanes in Florida
they felt they could pull a fast one since Florida has hurricanes regularly
there are so common, the University of Miami's football team is the Hurricanes
what a surprise for the pseudo-scientific alarmists then when no hurricanes have since hit the Eastern seaboard
who would have think it?
surely not the "climatologists"
that's not all: they predicted the northern polar ice cap would be gone by now
they thought the Himalayan glaciers would be gone
they thought the temperature would keep climbing at the same rate, which it hasn't
they thought the Antarctic ice sheet would have shrunk by now, instead it's larger than ever
chillax everyone
they don't know what they're talking about
on January 31, 2014, lying lazy Priya Lynn said:
"As it turns out, Arctic ice loss has been much faster than the researchers — and indeed all climate modelers — expected."
in December 2008, lying lazy Al Gore said:
“the entire North ‘polarized’ cap will disappear in 5 years.”
so, which is it?
did the Arctic melt faster than expected, as lazy Priya said?
or did the experts expect it to all be gone by now, as lying Al Gore said?
anytime you examine the claims of the warmist alarmists, nothing adds up
Al Gore is a politician, not a research scientist with the IPCC.
How is Inhofe's igloo on the National Mall doing?
"The biggest problems that we're facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that's what I intend to reverse when I'm President of the United States of America" Sen. Barack Obama 3/31/08
what say you know, TTF hypocrites ?
"Al Gore is a politician, not a research scientist with the IPCC"
the IPCC's purpose is to get people alarmed about this
if global warming was debunked as a threat, it would have no purpose
one of the times Gore said this (and, yes, he said it repeatedly) was at an IPCC conference where he'd ben invited to speak as an "expert" and kept touting special information he had from the "U.S. Naval Postgraduate School"
he's also received a Nobel Prize for his alarmist efforts
the IPCC, in one of its many scandals, made false claims about the Himalayan glaciers melting
Yesterday we reached a high of 51 degrees in Washington DC. The average high temp for Jan 31 in Washington DC is 44 degrees.
It was plenty warm enough to melt any igloo Inhofe might have built, if any would have been possible to build this year out of our few inches of snow.
As for Obama's change of opinion on by-passing Congress as he moved from Senator to President, let's remember:
-The economy was in SURPLUS when Bush became President, not careening off a cliff like it was when Obama became President.
-The House never voted over 40 times to repeal any single piece of legislation enacted during the Bush administration as it has for the Affordable Care Act.
-Bush didn't face a Senate Majority leader who proudly and publicly vowed his number one priority was to ensure he wasn't reelected.
-Bush only faced an average of 17.6 cloture votes per year while Obama faced an average of 26.3 per year. The total number of cloture votes Bush faced was 141 in 8 years vs. the 158 in 6 years Obama has faced, so far.
It's no wonder President Obama has changed his views on by-passing the do-nothing Congresses these days.
And don't forget Bush by-passed Congress by issuing 161 signing statements affecting 1,100 provisions of 160 enacted laws, approximately 20 per year during his 8 year term, while in Obama's first 5 years in office, he's issued only 21 signing statements affecting 20 enacted laws, or approximately 4 per year.
Bad anonymous said "I've said repeatedly, there has clearly been some warming of the planet but the trend has levelled off".
That is a lie. The past decade has been the warmest on record and on average temperatures have continued to increase throughout the 20th century
Bad anonymous said ""climatologists..that's not all: they predicted the northern polar ice cap would be gone by now.".
That's a lie as is proven by the articles I posted. In any event 75% of the arctic ice cap is gone, its not far from completely gone.
Bad anonymous "they thought the Himalayan glaciers would be gone".
That's another lie. While a minority of glaciers haven't melted much or at all on the whole the total mass of glaciers around the world is down significantly. Once again, you rely on cherry picking the data to create a dishonest impression of what is going on on the planet as a whole.
Bad anonymous said "they thought the temperature would keep climbing at the same rate, which it hasn't".
That's a lie, no climatolgist has ever asserted that there would be a constant rate of temperature increase. That's obviously not going to happen from any glance at the record of global average temperatures. The scientific predictions about global warming have been remarkably accurate with temperature predictions from the 90's being almost exactly dead on. At that time scientists predicted a rise in global temperatures for the last decade that has been within a few hundredths of a degree of what has actually happened.
Bad anonymous said "they thought the Antarctic ice sheet would have shrunk by now, instead it's larger than ever".
The increase in the size of the Antarctic ice sheet is much smaller than the amount of Arctic ice that has been lost and sea ice is down as well. The total amount of ice on the planet has declined signficantly just as climatologists predicted. Once again, you're cherry picking the data to create a false impression of what's going on. You constantly ignore what's happening on a global basis over the long term and point out only isolated short term regional events that support your attempt to deceive.
Bad anonymous said "and we have hardly any hurricane activity since Katrina".
LOL, you are a pretty bad BS'er. The rest of us haven't forgotten superstorm Sandy and the scientific record shows there have been increasing amounts of severe whether
Good anonymous said "Al Gore is a politician, not a research scientist with the IPCC."
And given bad anonymous's record of lying I think its extremely unlikely he said "the entire North ‘polarized’ cap will disappear in 5 years.”. He might have said "it MIGHT disappear in 5 years" but we certainly can't trust bad anonymous that he even said that.
In any event 75% of the polar ice cap has disappeared in the last 35 years - global warming is real and its man-made. There is no debate about this in the scientific community
Bad anonymous relies on two tactics to create a false impression that global warming either isn't happening or has "leveled off"(he shifts back and forth between claims as it suits him). Firstly he repeats several standard lies like "global warming predictions haven't come true" (they predictions have been remarkably accurate), "the warming has leveled off" (it hasn't as can be seen from the graph I've posted), "scientists predicted temperatures would keep climing at the same rate" (utterly absurd, no climate scientist has ever said such a thing as it is obvious that has never happened and won't happen). Secondly, he cherry picks the data by pointing out the isolated short term regional events where things have temporarily cooled while ignoring what's happening to the planet as a whole over the medium and long term.
Climate change deniers are generally not climate scientists and do not debate the science with the climate scientists directly. Instead, they focus their attention on the media, the general public and policy-makers and attempt to decieve by using the same tactics bad anonymous relies on.. If there was any truth in what they say or evidence to support their position they would publish it in peer-reviewed scientific journals and participate in international conferences on climate science. They don't do this because they can't make a scientific case for their climate change denial and they don't want to make that obvious by participating in scientific evidence based debates.
"It's no wonder President Obama has changed his views on by-passing the do-nothing Congresses these days."
We have a constitution. It defines a set of laws and rules we are supposed to live by...
we have a President who doesn't even bother to write an executive order, but announces via a PRESS CONFERENCE that insurance companies should ignore passed laws and re-extend insurance policies that are now illegal.
If the President doesn't have to follow the laws of our country, why should anyone else ?
I again would encourage you to reflect how you would feel if Bush had made such a proclamation.
"we have a President who doesn't even bother to write an executive order, but announces via a PRESS CONFERENCE that insurance companies should ignore passed laws and re-extend insurance policies that are now illegal."
Just lie all you want. Do not check for a single fact before you go spouting off your bull-oney lies about the man you can't stand living in the White House.
Executive order revives cancelled insurance policies
"...Some of the world’s biggest international enterprises recently announced that not only is climate change “a fact,” it’s also an economic threat. One that companies like Coca-Cola and Nike aren’t willing to mess around with.
“Increased droughts, more unpredictable variability, 100-year floods every two years,” Jeffrey Seabright, Coke’s vice president for environment and water resources, told the NY Times. “When we look at our most essential ingredients, we see those events as threats.”
Nike learned this lesson the hard way last year, when four of its factories in Thailand were shuttered due to flooding. According to the same NY Times article, the company is also concerned about the threat extreme weather events pose to cotton harvests and, as a result, cotton prices. [In 2012, insurers paid out $58 billion in losses due to weather events, the second-highest on record. The largest loss also came within the last decade, in 2005.]
As a result, both companies now have policies that help mitigate the effects of climate change on their end product–including water and resource conservation programs and measures to reduce environmental pollution. And they’re not the only ones. Environmental Leader reports that, “Air France, BMW, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft are also among the 79 global companies leading in climate change performance.”
...“You can’t do business on a dead planet.”..."
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