Pirate's Cove

Hillary Clinton doesn’t seem to have the same passion for the Cult of Climastrology as Barack Obama, but, she certainly wouldn’t do away with his job killing, cost of living increasing regulations, and would most likely expand on them in a way that would benefit her and her donors. In the pages of the Washington Post, Ed Rogers argues that this will hurt her this election cycle

…the president’s insistence on continuing to make climate change a central part of the past few months of his presidency is having an impact on the 2016 presidential election. (Disclosure: My firm represents interests in the fossil fuel and nuclear power industries.) Hillary Clinton has already repeatedly promised to expand on President Obama’s executive actions on climate-change-related regulations and policies. Her campaign website explicitly states, “Hillary’s plan will deliver on the pledge President Obama made at the Paris climate conference — without relying on climate deniers in Congress to pass new legislation” — and that’s just one small part of her frightening plan. The Democrats like to pretend that global warming is an environmental issue, but in fact, they make it an economic issue and do so at their own peril. If the Democrats are going to make climate change a campaign issue, Republicans have an opportunity to call Clinton out when she is unable to reconcile her calls for more regulation and more spending on global warming measures with the more urgent need to revive economic growth and foster a friendlier business environment for job creation.

Here’s the problem: Republican candidates and campaign managers aren’t very good at getting on message and shifting the topic. Most people do not care about ‘climate change’. As has been noted time and time again, it comes in last or next to last when stacked up against most other issues on what Americans care about. The Republican political class therefore ignores the subject, rather than using it to attack Democrats. It’d be a huge benefit to Trump and down ballot Republicans to start attack Dems for their so-called belief in AGW, which results in more governmental control of people, private entities, and the economy, all while harming citizen’s cost of living.

What do Clinton’s global warming plans mean for the U.S. economy? They mean more of the same: more of the malaise that produced Donald Trump, stalled GDP growth, deprived the U.S. economy of trillions of dollars and kept it from being the spark that could have helped bolster economies around the world.

What have Obama’s ‘climate change’ policies done? They sure haven’t grown the economy, except for some of his donors, who received lots of money from the taxpayers to create failing “green energy” projects.

The Democrats can’t have it both ways when they talk about expanding costly programs to combat climate change and the need to create jobs. Republican candidates need to hold the Democrats’ feet to the fire and force them to be more precise. Exactly how much do Obama and Clinton want a gallon of gasoline to cost? Exactly how much do they want your electricity bill to go up? What else do they want you to pay for, and what else about your behavior do they demand you change in the name of saving the world? They should be specific. Does Clinton agree with Obama that global warming is one of America’s biggest national security threats? If so, she should say so. And, if it is so important, she should talk in more detail on the campaign trail about the legislation, regulations, agreements and treaties related to climate change policies that she would pursue as president. The Trump campaign doesn’t appear to have the wherewithal to delve deep on this issue or others, so it will be up to GOP congressional campaigns to reveal the Democrats’ hypocrisy.

Instead of avoiding the debate because Republicans, and most Americans, really do not care about the issue, they should embrace it and attack Democrats, much as the few, such as Senator Jim Inhofe, does. Stop thinking that this is any way a science issue. It’s politics and power. Get Hillary and Democrats to attempt to defend the hard numbers and policies, exposing exactly what is going on, which ain’t science, folks.

And oh, by the way, the fact that the costs of these measures won’t ever personally impact Obama or Clinton makes for good campaign rhetoric. Obama and Clinton will travel with cars and drivers supplied by American taxpayers for the rest of their lives. They will never fly on anything but a private airplane unless they want to. They will probably never have another mortgage, and their kids will always have plush jobs. It’s hypocritical for them to continue to push for punitive measures that will negatively impact American families while having no discernible positive impact on the climate.

Get Hillary and the Dems who push this claptrap to attempt to defend their own giant carbon footprints while pushing for Everyone Else to be forced to comply with the policies they’re pushing. Force them to defend their hypocrisy. As the saying goes, “if you’re defending, you’re losing.”