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Hannity: Snow Storms ‘Seem To Contradict Al Gore’s Hysterical Global Warming Theories’

By Ben Armbruster on Feb 9, 2010 at 8:10 pm

Last night on his Fox News show, Sean Hannity claimed that the recent spate of winter snow storms in the Washington, D.C. region clearly means that the planet isn’t warming. He then attacked Vice President Gore, calling his anti-global warming advocacy “hysterical”:

HANNITY: And tonight’s “Meltdown” is brought to you by the D.C. snow storm, you know, the storm that dumped about two feet of snow on the Washington area over the weekend causing thousands of power outages and keeping many people home from work today. And it’s the most severe winter storm in years, which would seem to contradict Al Gore’s hysterical global warming theories. [...]

Pretty unbelievable. I bet the snow even kept Al Gore’s jet from taking off.

Watch it:

Because of the recent snow storms in the Northeast, many conservatives like Hannity have taken the opportunity to take cheap shots at Gore. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and his family mocked the former Vice President by building an igloo on the National Mall and calling it “Al Gore’s new home.” And Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) joined in as well, tweeting today that, “It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries ‘uncle.’”

As the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has explained, “winter snows do not invalidate the reality that the planet just experienced the hottest decade on record. Scientists have been warning for decades that global warming would increase the severity of winter storms.” And a recent National Wildlife Federation report has found that winter storms are getting fiercer even as the season gets warmer.

Climate expert Dr. Jeff Masters notes, “It’s not hard at all to get temperatures cold enough for snow in a world experiencing global warming. … Global warming theory predicts that global precipitation will increase, and that heavy precipitation events…will also increase,” he said, adding that this “occurs because as the climate warms, evaporation of moisture from the oceans increases, resulting in more water vapor in the air.” Indeed, the IPCC has said that atmospheric moisture has increased 5 percent over the last century.

Related Posts

Justice

‘Actions Speak Louder Than Words’: DADT Dischargee Lt. Dan Choi Called To Service With National Guard

By Igor Volsky on Feb 9, 2010 at 8:05 pm

Lt. Dan Choi

Lt. Dan Choi

The Bilerico Project is reporting that Lt. Dan Choi — a DADT advocate who was discharged from the military after he came out as gay on The Rachel Maddow Show — has been called to “attend training” with his National Guard unit. “Apparently, Lt. Choi’s commander has always been in full support of him, and even after Lt. Choi came out on The Rachel Maddow Show, his commander did not press for his discharge,” Jeff Sheng, a BP contributor who spoke to Choi, explains. “The military did eventually serve Lt. Choi a discharge notification – essentially firing him from his job, but he was allowed to fight this at trial, and as it currently stands, the discharge has not been finalized“:

I was heartened though to hear Lt. Choi’s response, when I asked him what he thinks his new voice might be as the repeal of DADT takes shape. He spoke about perhaps helping the military implement a future non-discrimination policy, and advising in issues involving sensitivity trainings on LGBT issues. But the comment that struck me the most was when he said, “Actions speak louder than words.” It made sense all of a sudden, that the sheer act of him rejoining his unit and serving with everyone else, could be his most powerful voice in the debate so far. That seeing an openly gay service member train and fight with his unit, is something that truly does speak louder than words.

Alex Nicholson, Executive Director of Servicemembers United, clarifies that Choi has not been re-called or activated for active duty, as some have reported. Rather, “Choi is still in the New York Army National Guard, so he is completing a regularly scheduled drill weekend, which he has continued to do all along.” “This is still significant because he is continuing his regularly scheduled drills with his unit with the full support of his command, peers, and subordinates,” Nicholson wrote in an email. Indeed, Choi’s participation in the drill reaffirms what Choi himself has suspected — soldiers “care about what a person can do for the team. We’re in a time of war. We have bigger things to worry about than people being gay.”

Choi “served as an infantry officer, translator and language instructor in Iraq in 2006 and 2007.” Under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the army “has discharged 59 gay Arabic linguists and nine gay Farsi linguists in the last five years, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defence Network.”

Health

Why Kit Bond’s Medicare Privatization Proposal Is A Bad One

By Igor Volsky on Feb 9, 2010 at 7:00 pm

Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO)

Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO)

In the midst of President Obama’s call for new Republican health care proposals, Matt Corley digs up this idea from retiring senator Kit Bond (R-MO). Bond is proposing “giving Medicare enrollees a voucher to buy health insurance on their own.” “You’re going to have to means-test the benefits,” he said, adding that upper income retirees wouldn’t “get much of a voucher.”

In essence, Medicare enrollees would receive a voucher to either purchase traditional coverage in Medicare or buy into a private insurance program. The idea sounds simple enough, but it’s actually fairly radical. Republicans want to transform Medicare from a fixed benefit to a fixed contribution. Beneficiaries would have to make up the difference between the value voucher and the cost of a particular health insurance plan — an amount that will only increase over time as health care costs outpace the value of a income-based voucher. The voucher will buy less coverage every year, forcing seniors to pay more for the same coverage. Essentially, they’re shifting the cost of insurance from the government to the individual.

As one analysis of a voucher proposal concluded, “this approach would undermine the basic protections offered by Medicare as a social insurance program, by relegating lower-income beneficiaries to lower-cost, and possibly lower-quality, plans.”

But that’s only the beginning. If Medicare becomes a fixed premium program, it will be much easier for Washington to control Medicare costs by simply trimming the level of the fixed contribution — undermining the health security of America’s poorest senior citizens.

Politics

Sen. Kit Bond Wants To Privatize Medicare With Vouchers

By Matt Corley on Feb 9, 2010 at 6:30 pm

Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO)In his interview with CBS News’ Katie Couric before the Super Bowl earlier this week, President Obama said that he was going to ask Republicans to put their health care ideas “on the table.” “What I want to do is to look at the Republican ideas that are out there,” said Obama. “How do you guys want to lower costs?”

Just days before Obama made his call for GOP health care ideas, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) offered a radical proposal for reform in a conversation with the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. According to a blog post by the editorial board, Bond called on Friday for giving means-tested vouchers to Medicare enrollees:

Even before he asked, Missouri’s senior U.S. senator was outlining his: Privatize Medicare and limit benefits for upper-income retirees. Meeting with Post-Dispatch editors and reporters on Friday, Mr. Bond called for radical changes to the federal health insurance program that covers 45 million elderly and disabled Americans.

Since its inception in 1965, Medicare has provided the same basic package of benefits to everyone, regardless of income. On Friday, Mr. Bond called for giving Medicare enrollees a voucher to buy health insurance on their own. “You’re going to have to means-test the benefits,” he said, adding that upper income retirees wouldn’t “get much of a voucher.”

Though Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and RNC Chairman Michael Steele have made protecting Medicare part of their argument against President Obama’s health care reform plans, Bond isn’t the alone in dreaming of dismantling the system. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told ThinkProgress last weekend that Americans should be weaned off Medicare. In his recent alternative budget proposal and the one he released in April 2009, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) advocated giving vouchers to everyone 54 and younger instead of having them enter the traditional Medicare program. It is unclear whether Bond is referring to current enrollees or just future enrollees.

Bond also isn’t the only Missouri Republican with disdain for Medicare. In July 2009, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), who is hoping to succeed Bond after he retires, suggested to a conservative Missouri radio host that the “government should have never” started Medicare or Medicaid.

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Feb 9, 2010 at 6:14 pm

I still find notes tucked in my pockets:

— DC is second only to Syracuse in snow accumulation this winter.

— Of course “a carefully constructed book” is valuable, does anyone deny this?

— Anyone interested in cities should read Douglas Rae’s City: Urbanism and Its End about New Haven.

— Non-eurozone countries leery of Greece bailout idea.

— Shouldn’t it have been former Senator Barack Obama’s job to bring Senate experience to the administration?

— More details emerge on Andrew Sullivan’s history of Jew-hating.

I’m not sure how this band is different from Art Brut except for having a much more tedious name, but I liked Everyone Was in the French Resistance . . . Now’s “G.I.R.L.F.R.E.N.”.

Security

Chertoff Claims U.S. Might Permanently Import Terrorists By Trying Them In The U.S.

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Feb 9, 2010 at 5:50 pm

Yesterday, at an event at the conservative Hudson Institute, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested that trying terrorists in the U.S. could give them special rights under immigration laws that would prevent the government from deporting them:

Sometimes they [alleged terrorists] raise legal objections to going back and you can’t send them back. Our position was and I believe it to be true, you don’t want to bring them to the United States. Once you bring them into the United States soil, they will have a set of rights under the immigration laws that could well put you in a difficult position of being ordered to release somebody and not being able to deport them. I think the last thing we want to do is import terrorists into the U.S.

Watch it:

The concerns Chertoff has expressed aren’t new amongst Republicans . Back in November, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) drilled Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. on whether alleged 9/11 plotters will have an immigration status or be able to apply for asylum if and when they are tried in the U.S. At the time, Holder seemed baffled by Cornyn’s line of interrogation and said that he would get back to him with more information.

It’s unclear whether Holder ever responded to Cornyn’s fear-mongering, however, immigration experts from the National Immigration Law Center informed the Wonk Room that detainees would most likely be brought to the U.S. but kept in custody on criminal charges — without an immigration status. In the extremely unlikely event that they are acquitted, they could still be kept in custody and put in removal proceedings.

It’s even more implausible that suspected 9/11 plotters would be granted asylum — let along a green card — if they are found innocent. Syracuse University further points out that there’s a common misconception that the U.S. asylum system is abused by people who endanger national security. However, “asylum applications are subject to stringent review procedures by adjudicators in the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice and to rigorous background and security checks.” Terrorism concerns essentially lead to an automatic disqualification from asylum and immediate deportation.

In fact, a study by Human Rights First showed that immigration law has instead created a situation in which refugee and asylum seekers who pose no risk to the U.S. are unfairly denied U.S. residency due to the “pervasive, unintended consequences of the ‘terrorism’ provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act.”

Yglesias

The Fine Art of Negotiating

By Matthew Yglesias on Feb 9, 2010 at 5:15 pm

Civrev box 1

Lately I’ve been playing Civilization Revolution on my XBox. One feature of the game is that you need to choose a form of government for your empire. Democracy has a lot of advantages in terms of economic production. But the Civ version of democracy works the opposite way from the American version—the player remains unconstrained in his conduct of domestic affairs, but Congress likes to meddle with your foreign policy. In particular, any time a country you’re at war with offers you peace without reparations, congress makes you accept the offer. Consequently, anyone can start a war with you, see how it goes, and if it looks clear that you’re going to get the better of him and start seizing your cities, offer peace just when you’d already obtained the upper hand.

That’s obviously not how any real country would conduct its affairs. When you get the upper hand you want to press your advantage.

In other news “the White House hopes the summit will lay the groundwork for a modest bipartisan bill that would fall far short of Democrats’ original goals, but would give the president and his allies a success to show voters this fall.” And, yes, this is the typical Obama method but I don’t see any evidence that it works. None of the administration’s considerable successes were actually brought about in this way.

Politics

DeMint Appeases Beck On McCain, Threatens To Be His ‘Biggest Opponent’

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Feb 9, 2010 at 5:01 pm

Demint5 Fox News host Glenn Beck’s arch-nemesis is progressivism. He calls the movement the “poison in our Republic” and has accused it of genocide. In addition to attacking Democrats, Beck often condemns of Republicans he deems to be “progressive,” including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

On his radio show today, Beck hosted Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) — “one of the only people I trust in Washington.” DeMint has capitalized on the Tea Party movement to position himself as a right-wing kingmaker. Beck asked DeMint whether he would support his colleague John McCain in his tough primary fight against former right-wing congressman J.D. Hayworth. DeMint demurred and even threatened to oppose his party’s former presidential nominee:

BECK: I’m convinced that John McCain is going the one of the guys who pushes through a health care compromise. And I don’t want any health care through the federal government. Because you know and I know senator that they’re going to build this damn machine whether we like it or not, and they’re going to build it one piece at a time and a Progressive like John McCain will help them build it.

DEMINT: Well, I’m not going to get involved with this race in Arizona. And if John McCain goes with this health care bill, I’ll be his biggest opponent and I think he knows that. But I don’t know that he’s going to do that. But what we’re trying to do is get some new senators from around this country who will stand with us on these key issues.

BECK: This is great news to me. So you are not endorsing him or helping him in Arizona?

DEMINT: No I’m not. I’m not getting involved with — I know J.D. well, and they can have their own race.

Listen here:

Though Beck has often said that he’ll never endorse candidates, he clearly seems to be whipping DeMint to oppose McCain. DeMint has built a powerful organization to fund and support right-wing Senate candidates in GOP primaries and appears eager for Beck’s backing. DeMint is a frequent guest of Beck’s and repeatedly thanked him during today’s appearance for the “opportunity” to talk up his stable of conservative candidates.

On Marco Rubio, who is running for the Republican nomination for Florida’s U.S. Senate seat, DeMint assured Beck that he doesn’t have a “Progressive bone in his body” and is the “real thing” who “stands up for the principles that you talk about everyday, Glenn.”

It’s not unusual for Beck to condemn McCain, but it’s surprising to see a sitting senator condone Beck’s world view and publicly threaten to oppose his colleague for compromising with the other side.

Security

The Administration’s Middling On Missile Defense

By Max Bergmann on Feb 9, 2010 at 4:55 pm

Don't play Star Wars

Don't play Star Wars

The Administration’s new Ballistic Missile Defense Review, which came out last week with the QDR, is strategically refreshing. Unfortunately, however, the corresponding budget for long-range missile defense is anything but. And when it comes to defense programs, money talks.

The Ballistic Missile Review talks importantly about not investing in exotic unproven programs designed to protect against threats that may never materialize, which is a direct swipe at missile defense programs focused on stopping long-range inter-continental ballistic missiles. This in many ways builds off the Obama administration’s previous actions on missile defense such as: focusing on more proven theater based systems that protect against short and medium range missiles (such as those held by Iran); abandoning a strategically useless ground-based missile system in Europe, cutting futuristic programs such as the Airborne Laser and the Multiple Kill Vehicles, as well as reducing funds for the fanciful ground based program in the US. All of these are definitely steps in the right direction, and have consequentially irked missile-defense-hugging neoconservatives.

However, despite the nice talk in the recently released review and all the talk of fiscal discipline, the Administration has failed to follow through in its current budget. Fred Kaplan of Slate notes:

There’s a mismatch, however, between Gates’ words and his actions. His proposed missile defense budget for fiscal year 2011 amounts to a staggering $10.4 billion. This is $2 billion less than George W. Bush requested (and received) for missile defense—his most cherished military program—in his last year as president. But it’s $700 million more than Gates himself received in FY 2010. The program is getting more expensive and, in some respects, more exotic—not less.

Kaplan also points out the strategic dissonance of the Administration’s middling approach. By killing off programs that focus on shooting down a missile in its initial boost-phase, such as the Airborne Laser, Gates is essentially cutting off one of the major conceptual legs of Bush’s multi-phased missile defense system. Not only is this a kin to the Administration acknowledging that the whole concept behind the program is deeply unsound, but by removing one of the system’s legs, Kaplan explains, the system simply can’t stand.

But if boost-phase intercept is a vital part of a missile-defense system, if all the ideas for boost-phase intercept have washed out, and if the only thing going for it is a laser-research project that’s not likely to bear fruit for decades, if ever—then the whole vision of a multi-phased missile-defense system is in deep trouble. If that’s the case, and if there’s no way around it, the idea of spending $10.4 billion on a dream system begins to sound like a fool’s errand.

In other words, Gates has effectively determined that the concept behind Bush’s multi-phase system is bunk, yet the Administration is still funding the rest of the system as if it were strategically sound and nothing had changed. Instead of putting the long-range missile program out of its misery and diverting that money to more essential programs – such as paying for the wars we are fighting – the Administration is just middling around the edges on long-range missile defense.

Yglesias

Uncompensated Care

By Matthew Yglesias on Feb 9, 2010 at 4:34 pm

Stethoscope

One group of people who really wishes congressional Democrats would get their s*&^t together and pass a health care bill are the currently uninsured, who could really use access to affordable health care. Another group are those who wind up charged with treating those who are unable to pay when they show up at hospitals badly ill:

For the nation’s hospitals, at least, the cost of doing nothing in Washington translates into tens of billions of dollars each year in medical bills that go unpaid by patients with little or no insurance.

Nationwide, the cost of unpaid care for hospitals, which includes charity care as well as money that could not be collected from patients, was around $36 billion in 2008. It is expected to spiral higher. The number of people without insurance in this country could increase to as high as 58 million by 2014, from about 49 million now, according to an estimate by the Urban Institute.

This is good context for the House GOP Medicare privatization plan. First, Paul Ryan will take away your Medicare and replace it with private insurance that costs the government the same amount. But since private insurers have higher payment rates and higher administrative costs, that same cost to the government will equal less treatment for you. You deal with that with a slice of foregone medical care and a slice of unpaid treatment at the hospital. Then over time, treatments grow more expensive and your Ryan Voucher grows much more slowly in value. Even more foregone medical care and even more unpaid treatment at the hospital.

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