2010 Redux: Team Obama goes all in on global warming

2010 ALL OVER AGAIN: TEAM OBAMA GOES ALL IN ON GLOBAL WARMING
“Climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” – Secretary of State John Kerry in a speech in Indonesia.
Republicans credit their landslide victory in 2010 to opposition to ObamaCare, yes. But GOP strategists also credit Obama Democrats’ focus on global warming for a considerable slice of their historic midterm gains. Five years ago today, President Obama signed a stimulus package of nearly $1 trillion and then immediately pivoted to other issues even though Americans were still deeply concerned about the economy. At the top of Obama’s to-do list, right behind the pledge of universal insurance coverage, was action on global warming. Obama’s preferred plan was to have the government sell costly carbon-emission permits to industrial corporations that could then re-sell and trade them on a commodities market. The so-called “cap and trade” program had a vogue with moderate Republicans since it sounded free-market-ish, but that support quickly evaporated in the face of the recession that followed the Panic of 2008.
[AP: “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday … mocked those who deny its existence or question its causes, comparing them to people who insist the Earth is flat. … ‘We simply don't have time to let a few loud interest groups hijack the climate conversation,’ he said, referring to what he called ‘big companies’ that ‘don’t want to change and spend a lot of money’ to act to reduce the risks…"We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts,’ Kerry told the audience at a U.S. Embassy-run American Center in a shopping mall. ‘Nor should we allow any room for those who think that the costs associated with doing the right thing outweigh the benefits.’]
That was then - Democrats, though, pressed on. In a pivotal moment for the 2010 election cycle, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi whipped anxious Democrats into line behind an even more restrictive and expensive carbon crackdown, one which had already been waved off by the Democrat-controlled Senate. House members took the plunge on July 25, 2009, including many from Rust Belt and coal-producing states. One of Pelosi’s admirers called it “a little bit genius.” It was not. The Senate squelched the bill and Republicans are still flaying Democrats for supporting something so expensive and disruptive to address an issue that Americans are increasingly unconcerned about.
[“Does John Kerry really believe that carbon dioxide is a bigger threat than al Qaeda? Or Iran?  If so, maybe the House Foreign Affairs Committee could inquire as to whether State Department diplomacy now reflects the Secretary’s priorities.” – James P. Pinkerton, former Deputy Assistant to the president for policy planning under George H. W. Bush]

Trio of California cases challenge big union power in Golden State

Fed up with increasing union dues and a decreasing say in how the money is spent, three California groups are challenging their big labor bosses in landmark cases that could change how unions operate in the Golden State.
In one, a group of 10 public school teachers is trying to change a state law that forces them to pay union dues as well as pay for an opt-out procedure for members’ political contributions to unions.
They argue in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association that being required to pay dues violates their constitutional rights because part of the money goes to promote a political agenda they don’t necessarily support.
Public school teachers in California operate under an “agency shop” that allows all teachers in a district to be represented by one union. Nonunion teachers, though, must still pay fees for the union’s collective-bargaining work.
The issue, they say, is that they don’t necessarily agree with the union’s political agenda, which includes greater tenure protections and bumps in pay.
“What you have are teachers increasingly finding themselves disagreeing with how the money is spent and they lose leverage,” Terry Pell, president of the Center for Individual Rights, which filed the suit on behalf of the teachers and the nonprofit religious organization Christian Education Association International, told FoxNews.com.
Pell believes the suit, which has reached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, is likely headed for a national showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court. But it won’t be an easy case to win.
The annual union fees for nonunion teachers are more than $1,000, which includes about $350 in fees for political union activities they can choose to opt out of, according to the complaint. But Pell argues it’s a complicated and cumbersome process.
“In one way, it’s an uphill struggle for us going against one of the most powerful unions in California, but we do know now the court is interested,” Pell said.
“There are a number of different cities in California that are bankrupt and many of the parents of the children are either underemployed or out of a job,” Pell said. “If you are a teacher on the ground and you are seeing that, you may have a different take on what’s appropriate and what’s in balance.”
In Sacramento, a group of state workers is fighting a similar opt-out procedure for political dues.
In Hamidi v. SEIU, workers say they don’t want to be forced to “opt out” of paying dues that fund the Service Employees International Union’s political agenda. Instead, they want the court to allow an “opt in” system for those who want to contribute.
Ken Hamidi, with help from the National Right to Work Foundation, filed the federal class-action complaint in which he argues that the union didn’t give members a fair chance in 2005 and 2006 to opt out of a special assessment that funded political activities.
If Hamidi wins, the union would have to ask nonmember fee payers’ permission before collecting full dues.
Legal experts are also keeping a close eye on another California case that tackles the topic of teacher tenure.
In Vergara v. California, nine Los Angeles public school students are challenging the state law that grants teachers tenure after being on the job for only 18 months. The students argue that California’s code on seniority, tenure and dismissal of teachers violates their rights to an adequate education.
In recent years, dozens of states have eliminated or toughened standards on giving teachers permanent employment protection. The unions argue that getting rid of the laws removes an important support system to a profession that has lost good public school educators to the private sector.
Josh Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers, recently told the LA School Report that the lawsuit lacks merit.
"It ignores the real problems of education and demonizes teachers and teachers unions for the perceived problems of public education,” he said.

2013 Government Waste

$11 Million On Luxury Private Jets For DOJ Political Appointees  - $11,000,000

Political appointees at the DOJ also use millions of taxpayer dollars for personal travel. According to the Government Accountability Office, both the attorney general and FBI director spent more than $11 million on luxury private jets for nonmission trips from 2007 through 2011. The attorney general took more than 28 percent of these flights for personal reasons.

Florida's Crist takes heat for more flip flops in Dem run for governor

Florida gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist is taking heat for his call to lift the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba -- the latest episode in which Democrats and Republicans have attacked him for flip-flopping on everything from policy to his choice of political party.

Crist, now a Democrat, was squeezed from both sides earlier this week after saying he was in favor of lifting the 52-year-old embargo on communist Cuba, calling it an obviously “failed” policy that needs revamping.
The 57-year-old Crist took to social media to better explain himself after his remarks on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
“After more than 50 years of hoping the embargo would bring freedom to Cuba, it’s time to admit that it has failed,” he posting on his Facebook account. “We should replace it with a policy that facilitates more trade and more exchange of ideas and values, while simultaneously keeping the pressure on the regime for their human rights violations.”
However, the flood gates had already opened.
“It is not the time to unilaterally go in and lift the embargo until we see some iron-clad guarantees that freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of the assembly is being allowed inside Cuba by the police state that is still run by the Castro brothers,” said Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.
The Florida Republican Party said Crist’s position was “so far out the mainstream” that he’s gone to the left of Nelson, who voted last year with President Obama 100 percent of the time.
Among the first Washington Republicans to attack was Florida’s junior Sen. Marco Rubio.
“It’s just the latest in a series of flip-flops that he’s undertaken on public policy,” Rubio, who parents immigrated from Cuba in 1956, told The Miami Herald on Monday. “My interests in Cuba are about the freedom and liberty of the Cuban people. I wish he’d make that a priority.”
Florida Reps. Illena Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart were among the other Republicans to hammer Crist.
While serving as Florida governor from 2007 to 2011, Crist, then a Republican, signed into law a bill that forced travel agencies to post a $250,000 bond to book flights to Cuba. A federal court eventually struck down the law.
And in 2010, while Crist was running as an Independent for U.S. Senate seat in Florida, he agreed with other candidates that the embargo should remain.
“Democrats have to be wondering, will [Crist] use us to be something else next year," Florida Senate President Don Gaetz, a Republican, recently told Reuters.
Though Crist’s shift might appear like a political misstep, it could be an astute political move.

The older generations of Cuban exiles in Florida vote overwhelmingly Republican. But Crist could be trying to win votes from their children and grand-children, who lean Republican but are more open to ending the embargo, according to 2012 general election data.  

President Obama eased travel restrictions Cuba in January 2009 but is opposed to lifting the embargo.
The conservative-leaning magazine The National Review compiled a list several years ago of Crist’s apparent flip-flops including him suggesting that as a  senator he would have voted for ObamaCare, then saying within hours the legislation was too big and expensive.
Crist also denounced offshore drilling when running for governor in 2006, then embraced the “drill baby, drill” mantra when the possibility arose that he might be 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain’s running mate, according to the magazine.