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Daily Caller

Kamala Harris Is Full On Hiding Her Climate Agenda From Voters

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Marc Morano

 

Climate change does not poll well so Vice President Kamala Harris is downplaying the whole issue. Gone is the drumbeating that nothing is more important to the next generation than addressing climate change.

During the presidential debate with former President Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris turned the moderator’s question about climate change into a discussion about housing insurance costs.

She declared climate change was “very real” and then she pivoted to what NPR described as morphing climate change into a “pocketbook issue.”

“You ask anyone who lives in a state who has experienced these extreme weather occurrences who now is either being denied home insurance or it’s being jacked up; you ask anybody who has been the victim of what that means in terms of losing their home, having nowhere to go,” Harris said during the debate.

Why has the climate issue, formerly known as an “existential threat” — complete with doomsday tipping points — now turned into a question of mere insurance costs for the Democratic presidential nominee? The Washington Post reported that Democratic Party leaders “appear to have calculated that climate silence is the safest strategy.” The Post explained, “Democrats see talking about the environment as a lose-lose proposition.”

When Harris was finally asked about “climate change” during her first sit-down media interview on CNN, she addressed her recent campaign reversals on fracking, EVs and net zero issues by claiming her ‘values’ have not changed.

Harris told CNN that there is a “climate crisis” and the way to solve it was by spending “a trillion dollars” and applying “metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.”

Huh? So, Harris’ position on the alleged threat of man-made climate change still duplicates her 2019 brief presidential run. Her repeated claims that she will no longer seek to “ban” fracking do not address the fact that continuing Green New Deal and Inflation Reduction Act policies will result in a death by a thousand cuts on fracking and other U.S. energy production methods.

She pledged to continue the ideological net zero fairy-tale that government spending and mandates can alter the Earth’s climate system. Harris’ energy plans will continue to hammer America first.

Let’s remember that Harris’ “values” have included being an original co-sponsor of AOC’s Green New Deal, casting a tie-breaking vote in 2022 for the Inflation Reduction Act, supporting gas-powered car bans, gas stove bans, looking at climate change as one of the “root causes” of illegal immigration, and meat restrictions via the administration’s EPA regulations on agricultural methane emissions.

In addition, the Biden-Harris administration has talked openly about the possibility of declaring a national climate emergency which — according to NBC News — “can unlock special powers for a president in a crisis without needing approval from Congress.”

Bypassing democracy to impose a Green New Deal on America appears central to Harris’ “values.” But somehow her “values” have rapidly gone silent on the alleged “existential” climate threat of the 21st century during this heated presidential campaign.

If you listen closely, the Harris “silence” fades away. The Harris campaign raucously boasted to Reuters, that the “climate silence” is all part of her master election plan.

“She has been pursuing a policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ on energy policy, [Harris] aides told Reuters last month. She is anxious not to put off undecided voters in swing states, especially gas-producing Pennsylvania, by trumpeting her climate credentials too loudly.”

“Too loudly?!” The only Harris climate “values” that seem to matter are “strategic ambiguity” — otherwise known as deception.

The reality is that Harris’ “climate silence” is a concession to scientific reality and the failed solar and wind promises that are causing a pointless drain on the U.S. economy. The public has been hearing for years of how solar and wind are “cheaper” than fossil fuels and how they are about to replace fossil fuels. But the reality is starkly the opposite of these claims and the Democrat Party knows this.

Despite trillions of dollars in subsidies, green energy mandates, UN climate summits, net zero commitments and restrictions on fossil fuels, solar & wind power made up just 13.9% of the world’s electricity in 2023. Meanwhile, the U.S. still consumed 82% of our energy from fossil fuels in 2023.

When these energy realities are screaming in your face, silence may be the only answer.

The most surprising aspect of the Harris-Walz climate shush campaign may be why the climate establishment has no qualms about muzzling climate change. The New York Times reported that “[Harris] has mentioned climate change only in passing” and noted that “[c]limate leaders say they are fine with that.”

Why are climate activists suddenly “fine” with their standard bearers hushing up on climate during a heated presidential race? Perhaps the answer can be found in the advice of Democratic Party activist Rev. Mark Thompson at the August DNC convention in Chicago, when he declared, “We got 70 days to act right, y’all. Now, after 70 days, we can go back to acting crazy, right?” he said. Thompson added, “Just wait 70 days to go back, please. Be good.”

Let’s hope Americans can glean the climate “crazy” blaring from Harris-Walz’s sham “climate silence” campaign.

Marc Morano, a former senior staffer for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is the executive editor and chief correspondent for ClimateDepot.com.

Daily Caller

Bureaucrats Worry Democracy Will Get In The Way Of Their Climate Agenda

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

 

By David Blackmon

I have frequently written over the last several years that the agenda of the climate-alarm lobby in the western world is not consistent with the maintenance of democratic forms of government.

Governments maintained by free elections, the free flow of communications and other democratic institutions are not able to engage in the kinds of long-term central planning exercises required to force a transition from one form of energy and transportation systems to completely different ones.

Why? Because once the negative impacts of vastly higher prices for all forms of energy begin to impact the masses, the masses in such democratic societies are going to rebel, first at the ballot box and if that is not allowed by the elites to work, then by more aggressive means.

This is not a problem for authoritarian or totalitarian forms of government, like those in Saudi Arabia, China and Russia, where long-term central planning projects invoking government control of the means of production is a long-ingrained way of life. If the people revolt, then the crackdowns are bound to come.

This societal dynamic is a simple reality of life that the pushers of the climate alarm narrative and forced energy transition in western societies have been loath to admit. But, in recent days, two key figures who have pushed the climate alarm narrative in both the United States and Canada have agreed with my thesis in public remarks.

In so doing, they are uttering the quiet part about the real agenda of climate alarmism out loud.

Last week, former Obama Secretary of State and Biden climate czar John Kerry made remarks about the “problem” posed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that should make every American’s skin crawl. Speaking about the inability of the federal government to stamp out what it believes to be misinformation on big social media platforms, Kerry said: “Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence,” adding, “I think democracies are, are very challenged right now and have not proven they can move fast enough or big enough to deal with the challenges that we are facing.”

Never mind that the U.S. government has long been the most focused purveyor of disinformation and misinformation in our society, Kerry wants to stop the free flow of information on the Internet.

The most obvious targets are Elon Musk and X, which is essentially the only big social media platform that does not willingly submit to the government’s demands for censoring speech.

Kerry’s desired solution is for Democrats to “win the ground, win the right to govern by hopefully having, you know, winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to, to, implement change.” The change desired by Kerry and Vice President Kamala Harris and other prominent Democrats is to obtain enough power in Congress and the presidency to revoke the Senate filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, enact the economically ruinous Green New Deal, and do it all before the public has any opportunity to rebel.

Not to be outdone by Kerry, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland of Canada, who is a longtime member of the board of trustees of the World Economic Forum, was quoted Monday as saying: “Our shrinking glaciers, and our warming oceans, are asking us wordlessly but emphatically, if democratic societies can rise to the existential challenge of climate change.”

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the central governments of both Canada and the United States have moved in increasingly authoritarian directions under their current leadership, both of which have used the climate-alarm narrative as justification. This move was widely predicted once the utility of the COVID-19 pandemic to rationalize government censorship and restrictions of individual liberties began to fade in 2021.

Frustrated by their perceived need to move even faster to restrict freedoms and destroy democratic levers of public response to their actions, these zealots are now discarding their soft talking points in favor of more aggressive messaging.

This new willingness to say the quiet part out loud should truly alarm anyone who values their freedoms.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

 

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Some dockworkers earn more than $400,000 a year

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From The Center Square

By 

Some longshoreman regularly earn more than the president of the United States along with most other U.S. workers.

Under the existing contract with the East Coast union, a top-scale longshoreman could earn up to $39 an hour, which translates to about $81,000 a year. However, many workers take overtime and extra shifts that have higher rates.

Some 50,000 International Longshoremen’s Association members went on strike Tuesday against the East and Gulf Coast ports, hampering the flow of goods in what some predict could be the most disruptive strike in decades.

Dockworkers often earn more than $100,000 a year because of work rules and overtime requirements.

More than half of 3,726 dockworkers at the Port of New York and New Jersey earned more than $150,000 in the fiscal year that ended in 2020, according to the port’s regulator, the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor. About one in five dockworkers at the port earned more than $250,000 that year.

Eighteen dockworkers brought in more than $450,000 that year – more than the annual salary as the U.S. President ($400,000) and more than most U.S. workers. The real median household income for all Americans was $74,580 in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Some dockworkers get paid even if they don’t work.

“Every terminal within the Port still has special compensation packages given to certain ILA longshore workers, the majority of whom are white males connected to organized crime figures or union leadership,” according to the Commission’s 2019-2020 annual report. “Based on the industry’s reported figures, the Commission has again identified over 590 individuals who collectively received over $147.6 million dollars last year in outsized salaries, or for hours they never worked.”

The report noted the special packages were not memorialized in the applicable collective bargaining agreements. Rather than eliminate or cap them, the NYSA and ILA negotiated a 2013 Memorandum of Settlement of Local Conditions in the Port of New York-New Jersey. That guarantees special packages to certain people. Those individuals are paid for hours not worked or hours worked by others, as long as they are at the Port for 40 hours each week, according to the Commission’s report.

Such conditions have endured for decades, according to the Commission’s report.

“The hearings revealed that the hiring, training and promotion practices of the industry led to low-show jobs, favoritism and nepotism, the abusive and illogical interpretation of collective bargaining agreements, and the impact of those practices both on the competitiveness of the Port and on the morale and career prospects of decent, hard-working Port employees,” according to the report. “Connected individuals are awarded high paying, low-show or no-work special compensation packages, in some cases earning salaries in excess of $500,000. Such positions were overwhelmingly given to white males connected to organized crime figures or union leadership.”

The ongoing strike, which extends from Maine to Texas, could affect everything from bananas to European beer and automobiles.

The International Longshoremen’s Association blamed the United States Maritime Alliance for refusing a contract offer.

It’s the first strike at these ports since 1977. The strike will affect 36 U.S. ports handling about half of U.S. ocean imports. Included are Boston, New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia.

Negotiations have been tense since June. The disagreement is between the International Longshore Association and Warehouse Union, which represents port workers across the country, and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents terminal operators and ocean carriers.

Wages of East and Gulf coast workers are a base wage of $39 an hour after six years. The union is asking for a 77% pay increase over six years. It is also asking for more restrictions and bans on the automation of cranes, gates, and container movements used to load or unload cargo.

Investigative Reporter

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