Are you now or have you ever been a climate change denier?

Climate has fallen somewhat into the background, in some small part because the planet is not actually warming. Not that it matters to some: AG Lynch: DOJ Has Discussed Whether to Pursue Civil Action Against Climate Change Deniers

Attorney General Loretta Lynch acknowledged Wednesday that there have been discussions within the Department of Justice about possibly pursuing civil action against so-called climate change deniers.

“This matter has been discussed. We have received information about it and have referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for which we could take action on,” Lynch said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Justice Department operations.

So stay tuned. The comparison with tobacco is so spurious that even to have raised it shows how intellectually challenged these people are. But as they say, if you can’t beat ’em, jail ’em.

#NeverTrump

Apparently this is becoming a common hashtag among Republicans who will vote Clinton before they let a Donald Trump become President. The article is titled, What Would Hamilton Do? which is based on a request among established Republicans to answer the question, What’s Wrong with Donald Trump? Before I continue, I will note that hundreds of emails is a drop in the ocean, but this is what we have:

Hundreds emailed; the breadth of response — across all regional, social, professional, and class divides and every conceivable wing of the party; and the depth of feeling, with her correspondents being “appalled, repulsed, afraid, and dismayed” at the prospect of Trump being either nominee or president. Their concerns included his authoritarian conduct, his lack of principle, his racism, his conduct toward women, his erratic behavior, and his potential access to the nuclear arsenal. They were party stalwarts who had voted Republican on a regular basis, served in Republican administrations, and raised money for and volunteered in campaigns.

Out of which a profile emerged:

“I’m a 40-year-old National Review and Instapundit-reading conservative who has voted for the Republican in every election since 1996. I intend to vote for Cruz in the primary and would be happy to vote for Cruz or Rubio in November. My opinions about Hillary Clinton are about what you would expect, and if it’s Hillary vs. Trump, I’ll most likely vote Libertarian. I’ve spoken with many of my friends from my College Republican days and it seems they all have the same thoughts. I will never vote for Trump. Ever. And if that brings about the end of the GOP, so be it. Any party that picks Trump as its voice is not a party I want to be affiliated with. He has no moral compass and no abiding principles except for self-promotion. Being in the wilderness, politically speaking, is preferable to being complicit in the election of Donald Trump, and with it the destruction of the party I have supported my entire adult life.”

Well, let us get down to it then. First, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to destroy the Republican Party as it now is. As useless at protecting what matters to me as the Democrats. I will happily exchange your aimless and worthless hides for the millions who are seeking a refuge from the mess you have made of the United States.

Second, if Hillary Clinton President does not fill you with horror then you are dead from the neck up. Your views and your values are dead to me. You have nothing you can say that will get us to agree. Off you go, you Democrat numbskull.

Third, if you are looking for a moral compass, you will not find it looking inside your own misbegotten souls. You cannot see what is at stake and care little about preserving your own society as it was and as millions wish it to be. Every new refugee hostel should be put up within princincts that have voted Clinton in the next election and then we will see how things go in 2020.

Fourth, you have no idea what democracy means. One vote per person, and no more than one vote per person. If you really do side with those who seek a borderless USA, then you have no clue what a nation state is and why there really is value in a continuity between something called America in 1816 and that entity with the same name in 2016. What exactly you are trying to preserve by voting Clinton escapes me since absolutely nothing that truly matters will survive eight more years like the the last eight have been.

Fifth, speaking about those last eight years, where have you been? The clamour you have been making about Obama all this time has been so quiet that I am not sure it could even have been detected. You have been given votes and seats year after year and have achieved nothing at all. So something else is going to be tried, and you can sit there with your hands covering your eyes but this is your fault since you allowed the system to break and did nothing to fix it.

So be off with you, you useless cowards. There is a new American about to be made, which we hope will be more like the old one you have been so willing to see go by.

The champion of the non sequitor

And an arrogant ignoramus as well. You tell me how what Obama said is in any way related to what Netanyahu said:

In an interview with veteran American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg for The Atlantic, Obama described one particularly charged meeting in which Netanyahu “launched into something of a lecture about the dangers of the brutal region in which he lives,” i.e. the Middle East.

Obama said he felt Netanyahu was being condescending towards him, and responded: “Bibi, you have to understand something. I’m the African American son of a single mother, and I live here, in this house. I live in the White House. I managed to get elected president of the United States. You think I don’t understand what you’re talking about, but I do.”

Seriously, what is the relationship between what Netanyahu said and what Obama replied? Indeed, what evidence is there that Obama understands anything of importance about the Middle East, or about anything else for that matter? Read the whole article. What comes across is how out of depth he is about some of the most difficult issues any president must deal with. Even more what comes across is how little he cares whether he causes harm to Israel. Seven years down and one to go, but it will still be a close-run thing.

Sarah Palin on Ted Cruz – she doesn’t seem to like him

It’s from Sarah Palin’s Facebook Page where you can find all of the links to the points she makes.

GOP Majority Voters in Primary are Wayyyyyy Beneath Cruz, So Says Cruz

* Calling GOP frontrunner supporters “low information” disengaged voters, Ted Cruz’s insinuation reeks of all the reasons America knows “the status quo has got to go.” The arrogance of career politicians is something at which the rest of us chuckle, but Cruz’s latest dig strays from humorous into downright nasty. Cruz is right, though – independent, America-first, commonsense conservatives supporting Donald Trump ARE “low information” when it comes to having any information on Cruz’s ability to expand the conservative movement, beat Hillary Clinton, unify and lead the nation.

* Where’s information on any Cruz success whilst in his short, half-term U.S. Senate seat, proving his resume’s advantage over another career politicians’s lawyerly executive inexperience that includes never having created a single private sector job, but boasting of his constitutional law teacher creds? (Remember America experimented with that resume before; how’d that work out for the country?)

* Where’s info on his reasoning in inviting more illegal aliens to flood our porous borders by enticing families with benefits and literal gifts (like teddy bears and soccer balls)?

* Any info on why he won’t denounce his highest-profile campaign buddy, despite Glenn Beck’s proclamation that he “hates” America’s innocent victims of 9/11 and calls the families crybabies? nor hold accountable his campaign manager for abhorrent tactics that mirror Alinsky’s Politics of Personal Destruction?

* Info on why he continues to stand on stage with that most prominent supporter who slurs millions of patriotic Americans supporting the GOP frontrunner, calling them Nazi “brown shirts”?

* Info on consistency with his big endorsement this week, as Carly tells it like it is so very recently?

“Ted Cruz is just like any other politician. He says one thing in Manhattan, he says another thing in Iowa. He says whatever he needs to say to get elected, and then he’s going to do as he pleases. I think people are tired of a political class that promises much and delivers much of the same.” – Carly Fiorina 1/2/16

* Info on his support for his crony capitalists’ insistence that he fast-track Obama’s unbalanced trade agenda, then lied about it?

* Info on why he’s fine with increasing U.S. debt?

* Info on how it helps make America great again by arrogantly disenfranchising this Primary season’s majority voters who are fed-up, inspired, optimistic, and engaged? How does it help unify the party or the nation when that holier-than-thou narcissism manifests itself through negative, biting, deceptive tactics… when he’s had so many opportunities to disavow his campaign’s shenanigans and apologize for his own?

The information we’ve sought is nonexistent, thus “low information voters” comprising the GOP majority support Cruz staying in the Legislative branch, while hopefully gaining understanding of the private sector’s need to reduce the big government he’s a big part of.

Trump’s energized, positive campaign has led to this record setting stat: of all 24 states that have voted so far, ALL smashed previous GOP turnout records! 4,347,317 votes nationwide for Trump already. Now THAT’S “enlarging the tent.” Any info, Ted, on where you think that “disengaged” momentum will take us?

Raking over old coals

Is this a former Prime Minister raking over old coals to tell us not be be raking over old coals. Why yes it is.

John Howard says he told former prime minister Tony Abbott to remove his chief of staff Peta Credlin, as he warned Coalition MPs to “stop raking over old coals” and focus on the re-election of a Turnbull government.

Just days after political commentator Niki Savva’s new book The Road to Ruin revealed NSW Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells personally warned Mr Abbott of the perception he was having an affair with Ms Credlin and needed to move her on, Mr Howard confirmed he had urged the former prime minister to dump his chief of staff.

Whatever Peta Credlin did or did not do, that is not why Malcolm continually did all he could to “pull the rug from underneath Tony Abbott”. Malcolm is now the author of his own mess because it turns out he is nowhere near as good as he thinks he is. He had better not lose this election, that’s all there is to say. And if anyone has been stoking the flames of division of late, it’s been that confessed teller of untruths and Malcolm Turnbull shill, Nikka Savva and no one else.

Obama is beginning to see how his legacy will be written and he doesn’t like it

A couple of stories, mostly straws in a wind that will become more hurricane-like after January 2017. First this one, Obama: Trump’s rise not my fault. A Trump presidency will be due to Obama, worst president in American history that he is. But the whiny sot is already recognising that the history books may not end up treating him all that well:

Some well-known Republicans have said, however, Obama bears responsibility for voters’ affinity to Trump.

“After seven years of the cool, weak and endlessly nuanced ‘no drama Obama,’ voters are looking for a strong leader who speaks in short, declarative sentences,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this month.

“Middle-class incomes are stagnant, and radical Islam is on the march across the Middle East,” the former 2016 candidate wrote. “No wonder voters are responding to someone who promises to make America great again.”

But the more interesting story is how difficult it is to be in public life and criticise Obama. This story is noteworthy because someone actually tried to say what they really thought: Mike Ditka is replaced on ESPN Sunday NFL Countdown one week after calling Obama the ‘worst president we’ve ever had’. You have to appreciate that he is one of the greatest football players in American history but not even someone with his name and background could withstand the instant blowback:

Mike Ditka will be replaced as a panelist on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown, it has been revealed.

The announcement came less than a week after Ditka, both a former player and coach for the Chicago Bears, revealed he believed Barack Obama was the worst president ‘we’ve ever had’.

Ditka, who has been a main panelist for the ESPN show since 2006, said Obama was a ‘fine man’ but not a leader when he went on WABC’S The Bernie & Sid Show last Thursday. . . .

‘He’s not a leader. This country needs leadership. It needs direction. It needs somebody that steps up front.’

You cannot say this now in the United States but soon you will be and everyone will be saying it. Worst president in history, and this is even said by people who remember Jimmy Carter.

And now we can add this which is almost definitive, although it is only about Obama’s one and only “accomplishment”: NPR and Harvard say Obamacare is a complete failure. Add that to the debt, deficits and unemployment and you have pretty well summed up the domestic disaster he has overseen.

Pulling the rug from underneath

This is a quote from Alan Jones via Andrew Bolt. The “he” here is Malcolm Turnbull:

I might add he asked me to talk to Tony about it and I did. Malcolm was always ringing around on anything that might pull the rug from underneath Tony Abbott. The point is Malcolm Turnbull’s now Prime Minister and he’s doing exactly what he criticised Tony Abbott for doing…. Malcolm Turnbull seems in government to have been struck with rigamortis. But as I said, when Tony Abbott announced a plebiscite, Malcolm Turnbull’s opposed to [this] and rang me to express that opposition.

It is just said so nonchalantly, hardly worth mentioning, really. What else would anyone do, except that no one else did. That Malcolm asks anyone for loyalty demonstrates how lacking in insight he really is.

We are mad as hell

Maurice Newman has a post this morning on What the media missed: if not Donald Trump, it’d be another. It is about as pro-Trump as you are likely to find in Australia – aside from here. It’s not as if he says this is the man to vote for because he is far and away the best person for the job. It’s more tepid, but still:

What the mainstream media misses is that a very large number of Americans, and especially Trump supporters, have had enough of the establishment’s political dynasties.

They reject political correctness, illegal migration and the crony capitalists who use Wall Street to make a fortune at their expense, particularly when their incomes are basically frozen. They believe the government manipulates the unemployment numbers and, as they struggle to find and hold permanent jobs, they know welfare cheats and disability fraudsters are gaming the system with impunity. They see government waste everywhere and think Obamacare is a failure. They resent President Barack Obama’s condescending lectures and his use of moral equivalence when comparing Islam to Christianity.

They are mad as hell.

It would be better if he said “we” are mad as hell, but the idea is right. If you want someone who says all that, then you have to go to John Voit.

It is true that we Americans have been part of Donald Trump’s life for many years. We were part of his weddings. We were there to see all his children’s births. We were part of his great shows: Miss Universe, The Apprentice — and all know, without a doubt, his life has been an open book.

I, Jon Voight, can say, without hesitation, that Donald is funny, playful, and colorful, but most of all, he is honest. When he decided to run for president, I know he did it with a true conviction to bring this country back to prosperity. He is the only one who can do it. No frills, no fuss, only candid truths.

There are many Republicans fighting to keep him from winning the Republican nomination. You know why? Because he has no bull to sell, and everyone will discover the bull most politicians spew out is for their own causes and benefits. They never dreamed they would be losing control.

I am very disappointed at the talk show hosts, also spewing out lies and propaganda against Donald. Why, I wonder? The only thing I can think of is he represents a form of freedom none of them ever saw before, and they are bewildered about it, and frightened about it.

I pray all Americans who have seen and felt the meltdown of America with the Obama years, to please fight for Donald Trump. He will not let us down. I pray for all good people to see clearly what faces us now. The right vote will save our nation.

And the wrong vote will continue America’s decline, and ours as well.

Disgusting and repulsive

This is from Bar Bar in the comments on Nikki Savva and journalistic ethics:

I’d like to remind the Liberal-supporting Abbott/Credlin-haters that Turnbull and most of his senior cabinet go back with Credlin in senior staff positions at least 6 years and some of them 9/10. And yet they say nothing.

I witnessed the Labor party imploding via Rudd’s background briefings, but none of them were salacious. Far from it. The silence of Turnbull and his senior ministers including Bishop, Cash, Payne, Ley and O’Dwyer signifies consent to the sliming of Credlin and Abbott in the service of their own personal political ambitions.

I can’t see the Liberal Party base staying inert at this daily shame being wreaked on the party.

As disgusting as what Savva wrote is, more disgusting is that there has been no one at the top of the Liberal Party saying a word on behalf of Abbott or Credlin and criticising Savva for wallowing in the gutter. Their value systems are sick and distorted. Abbott is the single most decent person to rise to high office in this country. It is shameful that even those on his own side of Parliament won’t say a word in his defence because they believe there is some minuscule political advantage in keeping silent.