Hillary Clinton: The Democratic Party's ticking time bomb

 Bernie Sanders is leading in New Hampshire. That cheers me — though not because he's my ideal candidate, and certainly not because I think he could win in the general election. I'm convinced he would almost certainly lose against all but the loopiest or scariest Republican opponent.

Then why am I — someone almost certain to vote for a Democrat, and hoping to vote for a woman, in 2016 — so pleased by Sanders' ascent? Because it helps to puncture the aura of inevitability around Hillary Clinton. Yes, she continues to lead in every national poll by a large margin, which is why few formidable opponents have shown an interest in challenging her for the Democratic nomination. That has always been foolish, given the mountain of baggage she and her husband carry around with them everywhere they go. But now it's become downright irresponsible.

The Democrats desperately need more serious, viable candidates in the race, or at least poised to jump in at a moment's notice. (And it sure would be great if they were more appealing than Al Gore.) The point wouldn't be to catch up to her in a mad dash. The point would be to serve as a strong back-up for when the nearly inevitable happens.

What's the nearly inevitable? The scandal that, sooner or later, is bound to sink Hillary Clinton's campaign.

This isn't paranoia, right-wing spin, or baseless panic. It's a sober assessment of the situation.

At the moment, the ongoing email imbroglio is the time bomb that seems to pose the greatest risk to the campaign. It's hard to know which is most alarming: the way the candidate and her team have handled the scandal since it broke in March; the latest swirl of half-truths, denials, reversals, and revelations; or what new explosive information might come to light a month, six months, or a year from now

For the past five months, those of us old enough to have lived through the 1990s have been enduring a deeply unpleasant bout of déjà vu-inspired dread. First the news breaks, inspiring the unavoidable thought, "How could [insert member of the Clinton family here] possibly have failed to realize that this would be a problem?" Then the barrage of counter-attacks from the Clinton machine against the story, poking holes, impugning motives, kicking up just enough dust to convince fair-minded observers that maybe, just maybe, there's less to the story than it originally seemed. And finally, because journalists make mistakes and actually care about being able to stand behind the truth of what they publish, even those who ran the original story begin to backtrack, express uncertainties, and airself-doubts.

And then: Ka-Blam! The story is back and bigger than ever. Oh, that server we wouldn't give to you? You can have it now, cleaned up all nice and tidy. There certainly weren't any classified documents on there. Oh, there were? Oops, well, only those two — oh, I mean four — and don't worry about how that's just a "limited sample" of 40 emails out of tens of thousands; the inspector general of the Justice Department just got lucky. And hey, we deleted them, so who cares? (Freedom of information is for suckers.) Yes, of course, my "shadow" had access to that server and those classified emails, too. Why is that a problem? What, are you a member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?

Tick, tick, boom.

Via: The Week

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POLL: CLINTON TRAILS THREE REPUBLICAN CONTENDERS IN KEY STATES

If this news doesn’t have Joe Biden, Al Gore, or Elizabeth Warren seriously considering entering the presidential race — and serious Democrats urging them to do so — then nothing will. According to a Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll, Hillary Clinton trails Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Scott Walker in Colorado, Iowa and Virginia.

Two of the three Republicans Clinton trails are neither well known nor in possession of a well known name. Thus, the poll results should be viewed mostly as a referendum on Hillary.

This assessment is confirmed by Clinton’s favorability ratings. In Virginia, they are 41-50. In Colorado, they are 35-56. In Iowa, where Clinton has been a fairly constant presence, they are 33-56 — a tribute to her skill as campaigner.

Clinton runs ahead of these numbers against the three GOP hopefuls, but behind all three. Against Rubio, she trails by 8 points in Colorado and Iowa and 2 in Virginia. Against, Walker she is down 9 points in Colorado, 8 in Iowa, and 3 in Virginia. As for Bush, he of the burdensome family name, Clinton is 5 points down in Colorado, 6 down in Iowa, and 3 down in Virginia.

Clinton is losing ground. In April Quinnipiac, Clinton didn’t trail in of these match-ups against the three Republicans, and she was ahead in five of the nine.

Naturally, Clinton is suffering as a result of the various revelations and scandals of the past several months. According to Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll, she has lost ground on the question of her honesty.

In addition, she has lost ground on the question of being a strong leader. It’s difficult to look like a strong leader when you’re unwilling to face the press or answer other than softball questions.

Ominously, perhaps, for Clinton, Quinnipiac’s Brown points out that “Vice President Joseph Biden, who is considering a 2016 run, does better than Clinton on honesty and on caring about voter needs, always a key Democratic strong point.”

Donald Trump fares even worse than Clinton among those polled in the three swing states. But the GOP won’t be saddled with Trump as its nominee. And the poll tends to confirm what common sense tells us — voters aren’t holding Trump against Rubio, Walker, or Bush.

The real Trump problem lies in the possibility that he will run as a third candidate. As poorly as she’s faring, Clinton might well carry the three states polled by Quinnipiac pretty handily in a three-way race involving Trump.

Via: Powerline

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Why The Left Needs Climate Change

Try this out as a thought experiment: what would happen if, tomorrow morning, we had definitive proof that catastrophic climate change was impossible, wasn’t happening, and would never happen. Would Al Gore breathe a big sigh of relief and say—“Well good; now we can go back to worrying about smoking, or bad inner city schools, or other persistent, immediate problems.”

Of course not. The general reaction from environmentalists and the left would be a combination of outrage and despair. The need to believe in oneself as part of the agency of human salvation runs deep for leftists and environmentalists who have made their obsessions a secular religion. And humanity doesn’t need salvation if there is no sin in the first place. Hence human must be sinners—somehow—in need of redemption from the left.

I got to thinking about this when reading a short passage from an old book by Canadian philosopher George Grant,Philosophy in the Mass Age:

“During the excitement over Sputnik, it was suggested that the Americans were deeply depressed by Russian success. I thought this was a wrong interpretation. Rather, there was a great sigh of relief from the American elites, for now there was an immediate practical objective to be achieved, a new frontier to be conquered—outer space.”

This tracks closely with Kenneth Minogue’s diagnosis of liberalism in his classic The Liberal Mind.  Minogue compared liberals to medieval dragon hunters, who sought after dragons to slay even after it was clear they didn’t exist. The liberal, like the dragon hunter, “needed his dragons. He could only live by fighting for causes—the people, the poor, the exploited, the colonially oppressed, the underprivileged and the underdeveloped. As an ageing warrior, he grew breathless in pursuit of smaller and smaller dragons—for the big dragons were now harder to come by.”

Via: Forbes

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Education System now Graduating Al Gores from public schools

Meanwhile, that little Noah and Amanda you sent off to school will be coming back home as another Al Gore

The next generation of global warming-spouting Al Gore type activists are already in training in America’s classrooms.

The big lie called man-made global warming, birthed by the United Nations and lib-left world leaders out to make a fast buck in the impossible-to-fail money maker advanced on society by global warming/climate change, is here to stay.

As permanent a fixture in modern society as career politicians and rising taxes, the future of global warming will be played forward by school children, who although they can’t read or write, will fill the ranks of the environmental protest movement calling attention to the supposed inherent dangers of man-made global warming.

Teaching school age children how to be politically correct far exceeds educating them. In education, indoctrination has become a lucrative cottage industry, because it can count of the support of generous government grants. 

Rather than school kids wanting to talk about the family’s next planned trip to Disneyland, they will be probing the size of their parents’ carbon footprint, per the instructions of their classroom teacher—and coming up with creative ways to shrink it.

With a colossal number of parental eyes fixed on Common Core, added to the never-ending worry of why so many school children still struggle with reading and writing, this is what the Department of Education slipped in:

“Under the guise of the first new K-12 science curriculum to be introduced in 15 years, the real goal seems to be to expose students to politically correct climate-change orthodoxy during their formative learning years. (Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2015).

Via: Canada Free Press

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Study Predicts Decades Of Global Cooling Ahead

A new study out of the United Kingdom predicts the Earth is about to go through a major climatic shift that could mean decades of cooler temperatures and fewer hurricanes hitting the United States.

Scientists at the University of Southampton predict that a cooling of the Atlantic Ocean could cool global temperatures a half a degree Celsius and may offer a “brief respite from the persistent rise of global temperatures,” according to their study.

This cooling phase in the Atlantic will influence “temperature, rainfall, drought and even the frequency of hurricanes in many regions of the world,” says Dr. Gerard McCarthy. The study’s authors based their results on ocean sensor arrays and 100 years of sea-level data.

“Sea-surface temperatures in the Atlantic vary between warm and cold over time-scales of many decades,” said McCarthy, the study’s lead author. “This decadal variability, called the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), is a notable feature of the Atlantic Ocean and the climate of the regions it influences.”

Via: Daily Caller

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Gore, Obama and Socialist LibDems Back on Big Lies Again

Science derives its objectivity from robust logic, honest evidence, not just those paid to support administration's version of Global Warming, Climate Change, Climate Disruption

They’re baaaaaaaack.  The people from the left, or as they say more properly in Latin, la sinistra, or ‘sinister ones’, are back at their lies, cheating, duplicity and sheer untrustworthiness.

As Jennifer G. Hickey writes online in Newsmax.com on 18 May 2014 in ‘Scientists Rebut White House Global Warming Claims’, “A group of independent scientists, economists and meteorologists has issued a pointed response to the scientific foundation of the Obama administration’s claims that humans are drastically changing the climate by burning fossil fuels.”

I am personally pleased that the Libs, the “lyin left” as we so better know them, have stopped blaming George W. Bush for all the imaginary visions these people suffer through just to not have to face the truth of their failings not only of themselves but of their dealings with the whole socio-communist Party so improperly named Democrat, a derivative of the word democracy which today is totally foreign to them. 

No, their left-minded actions now blame Republicans and Conservatives for all the ineptness and floundering of their Islam-Communist-inspired Party leadership from Farrakhan, Alinsky, Soros, Obama, etc.  No longer do we hear, “It’s all Bush’s fault.”  Now we hear and read in the newspapers’ ‘Letters’ columns, that the declining economy is all the fault of the Republicans.  Those writers have yet to hear about the staggering national debt that Obama has amassed.  Typically, though, they ignored Obama’s VA, which allowed war veterans to die for lack of VA care.

Via: Canada Free Press

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More Scare Tactics: Al Gore brings climate change message to Kansas City

Al Gore has been known for his climate change warnings since the 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth.”

But the former vice president, speaking Saturday in Kansas City, cited many more recent examples how heavy use of fossil fuels is contributing to extreme weather events and trends, in his view.

Gore filled a Westin Crown Center ballroom with a 90-minute presentation, using photos and videos to illustrate a litany of floods, wildfires, torrential rains, droughts, dust storms, rising sea levels and increasing world temperatures.

To those attending the Folk Alliance International conference, he noted examples of flooding in locations both remote and closer to home, such as in Manitou Springs, Colo., where high water barreled down mountain highways last year, carrying cars along with it.

Via: Kansas City Star

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Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/02/22/4843012/al-gore-brings-climate-change.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/02/22/4843012/al-gore-brings-climate-change.html#storylink=cpy

     

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/02/22/4843012/al-gore-brings-climate-change.html#storylink=cpy

Global-warming ‘proof’ is evaporating

The 2013 hurricane season just ended as one of the five quietest years since 1960. But don’t expect anyone who pointed to last year’s hurricanes as “proof” of the need to act against global warming to apologize; the warmists don’t work that way.

Warmist claims of a severe increase in hurricane activity go back to 2005 and Hurricane Katrina. The cover of Al Gore’s 2009 book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” even features a satellite image of the globe with four major hurricanes superimposed.

Yet the evidence to the contrary was there all along. Back in 2005 I and others reviewed the entire hurricane record, which goes back over a century, and found no increase of any kind. Yes, we sometimes get bad storms — but no more frequently now than in the past. The advocates simply ignored that evidence — then repeated their false claims after Hurricane Sandy last year.

And the media play along. For example, it somehow wasn’t front-page news that committed believers in man-made global warming recently admitted there’s been no surface global warming for well over a decade and maybe none for decades more. Nor did we see warmists conceding that their explanation is essentially a confession that the previous warming may not have been man-made at all.

Via: New York Post

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Al Gore: Keystone XL Is 'Ridiculous'

Former Vice President Al Gore speaks during the Center for American Progress' 10th Anniversary Conference in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 24. (JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) | Getty

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WASHINGTON -- The proposed Keystone XL pipeline is "ridiculous" and "an atrocity," said former Vice President Al Gore on Thursday.

Speaking at an event honoring the 10th anniversary of the progressive think tank Center for American Progress, Gore praised President Barack Obama's efforts on climate change, stating that he thinks the president is sincere and that it will be a legacy issue for him. But on Keystone XL, which is waiting to hear its fate from the Obama administration, Gore was unequivocal. 

"I hope as he gets down to the licklog, as he gets down to the decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, that he understands what this means," Gore said. "This should be vetoed. It's an atrocity, it's a threat."

Gore, who just concluded his third annual 24 Hours of Reality event, compared the reliance on fossil fuels -- particularly those derived from tar sands, which the Keystone pipeline would spur further development of -- to a drug addiction.

"Junkies find veins in their toes when their arms and legs go out," Gore said. "We are now at a point where we are going after dangerous and dirty fuels."

Because the proposed pipeline crosses an international border, the northern part of it must get approval from the State Department before it can go forward. The issue has been a major source of controversy for the Obama administration, as environmental groups argue that the pipeline would exacerbate global warming.

In his climate speech last June, Obama said the pipeline should be approved only if it "does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution."

Via: Huffington Post

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New Study: ’2013 ranks as one of the least extreme U.S. weather years ever’– Many bad weather events at ‘historically low levels’

'Whether you’re talking about tornadoes, wildfires, extreme heat or hurricanes, the good news is that weather-related disasters in the US are all way down this year compared to recent years and, in some cases, down to historically low levels.'

Tornadoes: 'lowest total in several decades'

Number of wildfires: 'On pace to be the lowest it has been in the past ten years'

Extreme Heat: The number of 100 degree days may 'turn out to be the lowest in about 100 years of records'

Hurricanes: 'We are currently in the longest period (8 years) since the Civil War Era without a major hurricane strike in the US (i.e., category 3, 4 or 5)' ( last major hurricane to strike the US was Hurricane Wilma in 2005)

Via: Climate Depot

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Would Democrats Embrace a JFK Today?

 As Democrats begin maneuvering for the 2016 presidential race, there isn't one who would think of disparaging John F. Kennedy's stature as a Democratic Party hero. Yet it's a pretty safe bet that none would dream of running on Kennedy's approach to government or embrace his political beliefs.

Today's Democratic Party — the home of Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Al Gore — wouldn't give the time of day to a candidate like JFK.

The 35th president was an ardent tax-cutter who championed across-the-board, top-to-bottom reductions in personal and corporate tax rates, slashed tariffs to promote free trade, and even spoke out against the "confiscatory" property taxes being levied in too many cities.

He was anything but a big-spending, welfare-state liberal. "I do not believe that Washington should do for the people what they can do for themselves through local and private effort," Kennedy bluntly asserted during the 1960 campaign. It was a message he memorably restated in his inaugural address: "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country." One of his first acts as president was to institute a pay cut for top White House staffers, and that was only the start of his budgetary austerity. "To the surprise of many of his appointees," longtime aide Ted Sorensen would later write, he "personally scrutinized every agency request with a cold eye and encouraged his budget director to say 'no.'"

Via: TownHall

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Global warming documentary to premier on fossil fuel funded Al Jazeera

It wasn’t that long ago that environmentalist Bill McKibben was criticizing former Vice President Al Gore for selling Current TV to fossil fuel-backed Al Jazeera. But in an ironic twist of fate, McKibben’s group will be debuting its global warming documentary on the Qatar-funded network.

McKibben and 350.org are premiering their documentary “Do the Math” on Al Jazeera. The documentary will go “after the fossil fuel industry directly, energizing a movement like the ones that overturned the great immoral institutions of the past century, such as Apartheid in South Africa,” according to PF Pictures.

The network is partly financed by the government of Qatar. The OPEC member produces 734,000 barrels of crude oil per day as well as 157 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

The trailer for “Do the Math” opens with McKibben saying, “If it’s wrong to wreck the climate, it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage” — something critics argue he is precisely doing by airing his documentary on a fossil-fuel funded network.

“We did the math a long time ago on Bill McKibben and determined he argues from positions of emotionalism and rationalization. His actions are a prime example of ‘Noble Cause Corruption’ — anything for the cause,” global warming skeptic blogger Anthony Watts told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“We already knew that Al Gore is the most lavishly funded fossil fuel player in the global warming debate today,” said Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depot, a global warming skeptic news site. “Now it turns out that Bill McKibben’s principles are as dodgy as his understanding of climate science. Say it ain’t so Bill.”

McKibben criticized Al Gore when he sold the left-leaning Current TV to Al Jazeera, and still doesn’t like to talk about how Gore sabotaged his own credibility among environmentalists by doing so.

Bloomberg Businessweek reported: “McKibben doesn’t like to talk about Al Gore, but he shakes his head sadly when I bring up the recent sale of Gore’s Current TV to Al Jazeera — a media company funded in part by the emir of Qatar’s fossil-fuel fortune — and how that seems to have diluted Gore’s credibility. McKibben raises his eyebrows, smirks, and says, ‘You think?’ McKibben sees himself as part of a tradition of environmental writer-activists, from John Muir to Henry David Thoreau to Rachel Carson.”

Via: Daily Caller

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About that whole global warming thing. Leaked U.N. Report Confirms Global Warming Is Nonexistent, Planet Actually Cooling…

Global warming alarmists, Al Gore, we need to talk.

Well, this is awkward. A leaked report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that the world is not warming but actually cooling, and will continue to get colder until the middle of the century.

You remember the IPCC, right? It’s the group whose 2007 report on global warming said that snow would disappear from everywhere but the highest mountains, icebergs would melt causing sea levels to rise, deserts would spread, people would die in heat waves and pretty much the earth was going to end if we didn’t immediately destroy our carbon-fueled economy with job-killing government regulations.

Well, that’s not happening. In fact, the Arctic ice cap has grown by 60 percent since 2012.

Thanks to the IPCC’s original predictions, billions of dollars were spent on supposed green measures to curb global warming, according to the Telegraph. Now, either those measures really, really paid off, or the skeptics were right all along.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Al Gore: Pounding the Pulpit ... Again

Gore: Climate change ‘deniers’ like 'an alcoholic father’

Former Vice President Al Gore is optimistic that climate change deniers are falling by the wayside, but the environmental crusader’s recent comments have sparked controversy.

In a wide-ranging interview, Gore told the Washington Post that Republicans are growing weary of those who reject the notion of climate change, likening them to “an alcoholic father who flies into a rage every time a subject is mentioned so everyone avoids the elephant in the room to keep the peace.”

What impact is Gore’s heated rhetoric having on the climate change debate?

Carly Fiorina, former chairman and chief executive of HP, said Gore’s name calling is hurting the environmental cause.

“I think he is becoming such a polarizing figure. I think there are many people who suspect this is more about Al Gore than it is about global warming,” she said.

“I think anyone who is serious about global warming needs to be complete and factual in their assessment.”

“There are many things that Al Gore does that makes me want to sigh,” said Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank.

Via: The Lead with Jake Tapper CNN

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OBAMA COLLAPSE IN ILLINOIS: TIED IN DISTRICT HE WON BY 23 POINTS IN '08

Back in August, a poll showed Obama with just a 12-point lead over Romney in Cook County, Illinois. While he posted a huge lead in the city of Chicago, the poll found him actually losing to Romney in suburban Cook County. It was a shock that I set aside as an outlier. 

A new poll of Illinois' 10th Congressional District, which includes parts of Cook County, however, suggests the August poll might not be such an aberration. The poll, from WeAskAmerica, finds Obama with just a 2 point lead over Romney, 47-45 in the suburban district. Obama won the district in 2008 by 23 points. 

I know the district well. It is affluent, with high levels of education, and very socially liberal. Voters there take pride in being politically "moderate" and wear the label as a badge of honor. Since the 1980s, the district has been represented by a Republican in Congress, but not by anyone who could be mistaken for a conservative. Al Gore and John Kerry both carried the district comfortably in 2000 and 2004. And, in 2008, Obama won over 61% of the vote in the district. 

Last year, during redistricting, the Democrats in Illinois made the district even more Democrat, looking to unseat freshman GOP Congressman Bob Dold. In this poll, Dold leads his opponent by 2 points, 47-45. It should be noted that this poll was conducted before last night's debate, so the surprising results don't reflect Obama's lackluster performance in Denver. 

Obama's performance in this district in 2008 was emblematic of the appeal he had then to moderates and independents. No Democrat had ever come close to posting the kind of vote he got here. It was also an enormous source of campaign donations for his election. Being essentially tied with Romney, and under the 50% threshold, shows the greatly diminished appeal he has to independents.

"For Mr. Obama to be in a statistical tie in an area that he won by around 20 points in 2008 truly reveals the failure of his Presidency," said Illinois-based political consultant Paul Miller. "The economy is undoubtedly the key factor, but in suburbs with a large Jewish population, his treatment of Israel is also taking its toll."

There is a sizable Jewish vote in the district. It could account for the rising dissatisfaction with Obama here. Also a factor could be the lack of leadership from Illinois' Democrat legislative leaders, who dominate state government and are quickly bankrupting the state. The state's debt level has exploded and recent massive tax hikes have done nothing to plug the state's gaping budget deficits. 

I should note that the sample in the poll is evenly split between GOP and Dem voters. That may be a bit generous to the GOP, but even this can't explain the collapse in Obama's numbers here. A drop of more than 20 points one month out from the election is damning for Obama. Of course, the poll also deliberately oversampled women. They make up around 65% of the poll's universe. Given the purported advantage Obama has with women voters, his margin in this poll should be considerably higher. 

Miller continued: "Unfortunately for the GOP, they wrote off Illinois before the campaign season began. Considering that President Obama may under-perform by a large percentage, and that his numbers in Cook County are not nearly as strong as they were four years ago, Illinois could have been in play. It may not be too late to make Illinois purple."

Given the state of the GOP in Illinois, I'm not certain Romney could have made Illinois competitive this year. Certainly, Obama continues to have the edge in his adopted home state. But, among the base of some of his core supporters, the thrill is clearly gone. 

Via: Breitbart

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