Global Warming Warnings Called 'Gravely Flawed'

Six years ago, the BBC cited climate scientists in predicting that the Arctic would be ice-free in summer by 2013.

Instead, Arctic ice this August covered nearly a million more square miles of ocean than in August 2012 — an increase of 60 percent.

This has led Britain's Mail on Sunday to report: "Some eminent scientists now believe the world is heading for a period of cooling that will not end until the middle of the century — a process that would expose computer forecasts of imminent catastrophic warming as dangerously misleading."

The newspaper also asserted that global warming had paused since the beginning of 1997.

The pause is "important," the Mail stated, because predictions of ever-increasing global temperatures "have made many of the world's economies divert billions of pounds into 'green' measures to counter climate change. Those predictions now appear gravely flawed."

Arctic ice now extends from Canada's northern islands to Russia's northern shore, blocking the Northwest Passage, and more than 20 yachts that had planned to sail it from the Atlantic to the Pacific have been left ice-bound.

Professor Anastasios Tsonis of the University of Wisconsin, who has investigated ocean cycles, said: "We are already in a cooling trend, which I think will continue for the next 15 years at least. There is no doubt the warming of the 1980s and 1990s has stopped."

The Mail article, which has been criticized and even dismissed by some global warming proponents, points to evidence that Arctic ice levels are cyclical. There was a massive melt in the 1920s and 1930s, followed by an intense re-freeze that did not end until 1979 — the year the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the shrinking of Arctic ice began.

Maryland counties join movement to secede from largely Democrat-run state

A group of Maryland residents frustrated with its state’s liberal government is joining a recent movement across the country of regions trying to secede.
Western Maryland is made up of five counties whose residents largely vote Republican and feel under-represented at the state capitol, run by Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley and a Democrat-controlled legislature.
The movement began in July as a social-media effort, with activist Scott Strzelczyk starting a Facebook page titled the Western Maryland Initiative.
The movement, however, has since garnered significant media attention, with Strzelczyk talking to everybody from National Public Radio to The Washington Post.
“We are tired of this,” he said during an interview Thursday with Washington-area NPR affiliate WAMU. “We have had enough.”
Strzelczyk said the biggest concerns are increasing taxes, and the Democrat-controlled legislature gerrymander voting district so that the state’s big metropolitan areas have the most representation and tighter gun laws enacted this year, which he calls “the last straw.”
The movement is just one of several across the country that includes the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, Northern California and several conservative northern Colorado counties.
The Colorado effort is backed by the Tea Party movement and has gotten the issue put on the November ballot as a non-binding referendum. The movement was also driven in large part by state lawmakers passing tighter gun-control legislation this year that was signed by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.
Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, argues the movement goes beyond disgruntled conservatives, pointing out Democrats in South Florida and western Arizona counties want to break from their states, which they consider run by Republicans.
“This is about folks who just do not believe they are being represented, whether it's Democrats and Republicans,” he told WAMU.
Still, secession will not be easy, for a variety of reasons, including that many of these remote, rural regions rely on money generated in their state’s more commercial and populated cities. And secession leaders would need state and federal approval, which seems unlikely considering the last time a region broke off was 1863, when 50 western Virginia counties split to form West Virginia.
Strzelczyk acknowledges he is helping lead a longshot effort but says the movement will go forward with such efforts as starting policy committees, reaching out to lawmakers and forming a nonprofit 501 (c) (4) group that is allowed to engage in political activities.
“This is about popular support,” he said. “Ultimately, if the people of these five western counties do not support this effort, we’re not going to force them to leave.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/15/maryland-counties-join-movement-to-secede-from-largely-democrat-run-state/?intcmp=latestnews#ixzz2f2wAKwyi

Out of Control Government Armed EPA Agents!

The recent uproar over armed EPA agents descending on a tiny Alaska mining town is shedding light on the fact that 40 federal agencies – including nearly a dozen typically not associated with law enforcement -- have armed divisions.
The agencies employ about 120,000 full-time officers authorized to carry guns and make arrests, according to a June 2012 Justice Department report.
Though most Americans know agents within the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Federal Bureau of Prisons carry guns, agencies such as the Library of Congress and Federal Reserve Board employing armed officers might come as a surprise.
The incident that sparked the renewed interest and concern occurred in late August when a team of armed federal and state officials descended on the tiny Alaska gold mining town of Chicken, Alaska.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/14/armed-epa-agents-in-alaska-shed-light-on-70-fed-agencies-with-armed-divisions/?intcmp=trending#ixzz2exgKv7cx

Biden Slams House Conservatives as 'Neanderthals'

Vice President Joe Biden Thursday blamed conservative Republicans in the House for slowing down the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, calling them a "Neanderthal crowd" out of touch with the problems and realities that women have to confront in today's world.

"I'm going to say something outrageous," Biden said. "I think I understand the Senate better than any man or woman who's ever served in there, and I think I understand the House . . . I was surprised this last time . . . the idea we still had to fight? We had to fight to reauthorize?"

"Did you ever think we'd be fighting over, you know, 17, 18 years later to reauthorize this?" he asked an audience at an event celebrating the 19th anniversary of the original law passed in 1994. "Well, you know what? The thing they didn't like, they said we like it the way it is."

According to Politico, Biden applauded the new version of the bill passed in March, which added protections for Native American women, members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community, and immigrants.

The Huffington Post also reported that he told his audience he was "stunned" that House Republicans, whom he described as "this sort of Neanderthal crowd," had fought so hard against the reauthorization. He credited the work of women in the Senate for finally getting it through.

"It makes a difference with women in the Senate," he said to applause. "It does. It does, man . . . Because they go and look all the rest of those guys in the eye and say, 'Look. This is important to me.'"

"Nothing, nothing, nothing I've ever been engaged in matters to me more than what you've made real," he added.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/biden-gop-violence-women/2013/09/13/id/525536?ns_mail_uid=5689450&ns_mail_job=1537560_09142013&promo_code=14DFE-1#ixzz2es1Rc6sq
Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!

Emails show IRS official Lerner involved in Tea Party screening

May 22, 2013: IRS official Lois Lerner is sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington.AP

Embattled IRS official Lois Lerner appeared to be deeply involved in scrutinizing the applications of Tea Party groups for tax-exempt status, according to newly released emails that further challenge the claim the targeting was the work of rogue Ohio-based employees.
One curious February 2011 email from Lerner said, "Tea Party Matter very dangerous" -- before going on to warn that the "matter" could be used to go to court to test campaign spending limits.
Much of the email, released along with others by the House Ways and Means Committee, is redacted, so the full context is not clear.
But the same email warned that "Cincy" -- presumably a reference to the Cincinnati IRS office -- should "probably NOT have these cases." That and other emails show Lerner and other Washington, D.C., officials playing a big role in dealing with Tea Party cases.
The emails could raise more questions for Lerner, who refused to testify before Congress earlier this year in the Tea Party targeting scandal. While the case seemed to hit the backburner as Congress went on recess, and then returned to take up the debate over Syria, investigations are still ongoing.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said there are "mountains of documents to go through."
"There is increasing and overwhelming evidence that Lois Lerner and high-level IRS employees in Washington were abusing their power to prevent conservative groups from organizing and carrying out their missions," he said in a statement. "It is clear the IRS is out of control and there will be consequences."
The emails show several D.C. officials involved in the screening process, despite early claims after the scandal broke that the Cincinnati office was to blame.
Another February 2011 email from IRS official Holly Paz said "no decisions are going out of Cincy" until the D.C. office goes through the process. Lerner wrote back giving further guidance.
More than a year later, Lerner was alerted via email that the inspector general's office was looking into how they were dealing with applications for tax-exempt status, and that they were taking a "skeptical tone."
"It is what it is," Lerner wrote back, while claiming that management tried to "change the process" and "better educate our staff" to get applications moving.
"We will get dinged, but we took steps before the 'dinging' to make things better," she wrote.
Another email from July 2012 also raises questions about Lerner's political leanings. After being forwarded an article about Democrats claiming anonymous donors were financing attack ads against them, Lerner wrote: "Perhaps the (Federal Election Commission) will save the day."
IRS officials, though, have said the screening program was not politically motivated. The inspector general's office has said it has no evidence to support such claims either.
The IRS said in a statement this week that while it cannot comment on "individual employee matters," newly appointed Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel "made a commitment to transparency and getting the facts out to Congress as well as fixing the underlying mismanagement in the IRS tax-exempt area."
The statement said the IRS is cooperating with Congress while taking "corrective actions," and supports a "complete review of these documents."
Lerner was put on administrative leave after the inspector general's office issued a scathing report claiming the IRS had subjected conservative groups to additional scrutiny as they applied for tax-exempt status. Lerner got ahead of the report's release and confirmed the practice during a Washington event.
While Congress investigates, Tea Party groups are still registering complaints. A Washington Times report said more than 50 applications were still pending or had been pulled as of July.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/13/emails-show-irs-official-lerner-involved-in-tea-party-screening/#ixzz2ep9buKXk

Republicans move to halt ObamaCare 'bailout' for angry unions

Capitol Hill Republicans are trying to stop the Obama administration from offering labor unions a sweetheart deal on ObamaCare, as the White House tries to quell a simmering rebellion from Big Labor over the health care law. 
President Obama and White House officials reportedly have called union leaders to try and persuade them to tone down their complaints, pledging an accommodation. The AFL-CIO, though, on Wednesday approved a resolution anyway calling the law "highly disruptive" to union plans.
But reports have surfaced on a plan that would give union workers -- and only union workers -- subsidies to help pay for health insurance even if they're covered through their job. The purported "carve-out" could soothe the simmering discontent within Big Labor. The loyal Democratic supporters and early champions of ObamaCare say they have been slighted by the act’s final regulations, which they say is pushing some employees into part-time work and threatens their health insurance plans.
At least three congressional Republicans are trying to stop any effort to give the unions special treatment, which could cost $200 billion over 10 years.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., on Monday introduced the "Union Bailout Prevention Act," which would stop the granting of subsidies to offset premium costs for the multi-employer plans held by many union members. Separately, the House voted on Thursday to stop all subsidies until the administration launches a system to verify recipients are eligible.
Big Labor argues that workers without additional subsidies will switch to less-expensive, major-insurer plans, creating a withering effect on the so-called Taft-Hartley plans.
Thune and others argue the plans are already government-subsidized and the workers’ contributions are already tax-exempt.
“A deal such as this by the administration for the union would be illegal,” Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and Michigan Rep. Dave Camp said in a letter Tuesday to the Treasury Department. “Giving union workers exchange subsidies in addition to the income-tax exclusion would be double dipping.”
News reports about the plan have been circulating for days, including an early one by the Inside Washington news service. The Health and Human Services Department did not return calls or emails from FoxNews.com asking about the veracity of those reports.
Labor unions launched a multi-targeted attack this summer to force changes to ObamaCare, including one on the mandate for employers to offer insurance to full-time employees, which they say has resulted in more part-time jobs. Though that provision has been delayed, the concern is that employers are shaving the number of full-time employees in order to stay under the law's threshold for when they have to start offering coverage.
“Unless you and the Obama administration enact an equitable fix, the (Affordable Care Act) will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40-hour work week,” union leaders wrote in a letter this summer to congressional Democratic leaders.
The letter, co-signed by the Teamsters union, was sent to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada, and followed a resolution by a Nevada chapter of the AFL-CIO hammering on the same issues.
“The unintended consequences of the ACA will lead to the destruction of the 40-hour work week … and force union members onto more costly plans,” the resolution stated.
Labor unions also feel slighted because low-income Americans are eligible for subsidies to help them purchase insurance through exchanges or marketplaces created by ObamaCare, when enrollment begins Oct. 1.
“Other stakeholders have repeatedly received successful interpretations for their respective grievances,” the unions told Pelosi and Reid in the July letter.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/12/hill-republicans-launch-pre-emptive-strike-on-union-subsidies-for-obamacare/#ixzz2elNxVGVZ

Putin