Walking through this one:

• Last week former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reacted strongly to the White House’s allegation that military commanders in Afghanistan were denied troop requests under the previous administration.  Actually, that’s too weak a statement: Rumsfeld denied that anything of the sort had happened under his watch.
• Which, in point of fact, it did not: the administration was referring to events in 2008 - under Rumsfeld’s successor, Robert Gates (who is also the current SecDef, by the way) - and said events can be more accurately described as a ‘delay,’ not a ‘refusal.’  The requests were made by General David McKiernan.
• Yes, the David McKiernan that Gates fired.
• When pressed on this, current White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs must have felt backed into a corner.  After all, he was trying to justify the White House sneering at a policy implemented by a Secretary of Defense that the new administration had retained, and at the expense of a military general that the new administration had sacked.  Gibbs being Gibbs, he took the opportunity to try to change the subject by sniping at Rumsfeld some more.
• Because, of course, this administration is terrified of ever, ever admitting being wrong about anything.  Sort of like what the Left pretended that the previous administration was like, only for real.

All of this is context for the response from Rumsfeld’s office:

The administration now claims President Obama was actually referring to denials of troops by his own Secretary of Defense in 2008.  This is obviously not what the President meant.  If it is what the President meant, he owes an apology to General McKiernan for dismissing him, for it was General McKiernan who sought additional forces in 2008.

This looseness with the facts seems to be a pattern in the current administration’s efforts to blame their challenges on their predecessors.  Nearly one year into this administration, that approach is wearing thin.

My only quibble with that is the use of the phrase  ‘wearing thin.’  It wore bare months ago.

Full statement after the fold.

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…here is your reward:

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded greenhouse gases are endangering people’s health and must be regulated, signaling that the Obama administration is prepared to contain global warming without congressional action if necessary.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson scheduled a news conference for later Monday to announce the so-called endangerment finding, officials told The Associated Press, speaking privately because the announcement had not been made.

And by ‘reward’ I mean of course ‘betrayal.’  The intention here is to use the EPA to impose by executive fiat what the Senate has sensibly refused to do by legislative action: use the Clean Air Act to shut down businesses that they don’t like.  And, given that the dislike is based on religious grounds - and much, much, much worse; the people with the religious objections don’t see themselves as being religious - forget about trying to compromise.  The ‘compromise’ is that the industrialists don’t go to jail, a monastery, or the gibbet*.

In short: elections have consequences.  Here, have some.

Moe Lane

(H/T: AoSHQ)

*Obviously, being burned at the stake isn’t really carbon-neutral.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

[UPDATE]: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) summed up my reaction to this pretty nicely:

“With double-digit unemployment and over 3.5 million jobs already lost this year, the administration inexplicably continues to push for a job-killing national energy tax—either through legislation or regulation.”

We like to say that we have the safest, most abundant, most affordable food and fiber supply in the world.  But this isn’t just a boastful expression, it is a reality.  Our farmers and ranchers are responsible for feeding folks living in our country and throughout the world.

But, cap and tax legislation threatens that safe, abundant and affordable food and fiber supply.  The agriculture industry, as we know it, will not survive under the heavy burdens of a cap and tax policy.

This week the Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research held two important hearings to learn more about the economic impact of climate change legislation.  Despite the fact that the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed the Waxman-Markey climate change bill last June – a bill that I voted against—this is only the second time Members of the Agriculture Committee have had the opportunity to explore specifically the economic impact of climate change legislation on the agriculture sector.

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I hope that faithful RedState readers are also taking time on a daily basis to check out The New Ledger, which in January will celebrate its 1-year anniversary online. We have an excellent stable of writers at TNL, including current and former RedStaters as well as some other voices you may not have encountered before, and only limited overlap with the content you see here. The site is intended as a complement, not a competitor, to RS - more long-form essays, podcasts, pop culture and other topics, less activism. I remain proud to be both a Director here at RS and a contributor at TNL.

Anyway, I generally don’t plug my TNL work here because the political stuff I write there is mostly cross-posted here anyway (the rest is sports and pop culture). But I do have a long essay up today that’s not posted here, the second part of my mammoth 3-part series on Science and Its Enemies on the Left.

Part I is here.

Part II is here.

Excerpt below the fold.

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• Google CEO: Secrets Are for Filthy People
  Remarkable. You know, it is funny that Google's motto is "Don't be Evil." Reminding workers not to do something suggests that the default is to do just that. In other words, evil is their default behavior. Contrast that with . . say . . .the Golden Rule which exhorts you to do good, expressing a positive instead of a negative.
• January 2010: Adam Ciralsky on Blackwater
  I think this is supposed to be a hit job on Erik Prince, but the dude comes across as a total bad ass. I want him on my team. Oh wait! He is. That's why the left hates him.
• It’s Time to Ask: Who Could Replace Ben Bernanke?
  Yes it is. And by the way, why aren't you reading the New Ledger daily?
• Is "Rube" Sarah Palin Redefining E-Campaigning?
  Dan Riehl has a great post up on Sarah Palin and her e-campaign effort. Very thoughtful.
• Cream Biscuits
  My wife made these for me. They were delicious. I got off the airplane and there they were waiting for me. Yum.

The online left has been busy selling the narrative over the last several month that the Democrats’ electoral problems are due to problems with their base.  The theory being touted by the leading luminaries of the leftist fever swamps is that if only Democrats were more liberal, they’d be doing better in the polls.  The only problem with this theory, of course, is that it represents the exact opposite of the truth.

See Exhibit A, a poll conducted by Mason Dixon released Sunday showing Incumbent Democrat Congresswoman Dina Titus tied with relative unknown Joe Heck in the race for the Congressional seat in NV-3.  You may never have heard of Dina Titus before; that’s because her district is one of the more reliably Democrat districts in the entire country - Democrats have an 18 point registration advantage in this district.  In keeping with what you would expect from a representative of such a heavily Democrat district, Rep. Titus voted “Yes” on all three of the major prongs of the Democrat legislative agenda for this year: Yes on the Obama Stimulus, Yes on cap-and-trade, and Yes on Obamacare.  Furthermore, Dina Titus does not have any major corruption or personal issues driving up her unfavorables like Jon Corzine did or like Chris Dodd does. It also can’t be that voters are punishing Titus for the failure of the Democratic legislative agenda in general; the House passed all three measures and Titus was a contributing factor to all three.

The only reasonable explanation of the evidence here is that even in this heavily Democrat district, the policies currently being pushed by Obama and the Democrats are simply not popular.  The Mason-Dixon poll indicates that Obamacare is currently opposed by residents of the district by a margin of 47-41.  Although crosstabs aren’t available for this poll yet, Mason Dixon claims the respondents are appropriately weighted for the district’s party registration, which leads to the conclusion that Titus (like Corzine and Deeds) is getting clobbered among independents by a huge margin.  The problem is not that the American people don’t know what the Democrats stand for; the problem is that they have seen clearly what the Democrats stand for and they don’t like it.

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We’ve written about this before. Over at Human Events, Jed Babbin has more.

December 7th is usually a day we remember the brave men who died at Pearl Harbor.  Many of them died fighting, responding instantly to the cowardly Japanese attack that  came without warning.  

This is a day to honor bravery, resolve and sacrifice.  But this December 7th is different.  Today — because lawyers are far too involved in running this war and commanders are deferring to them far more than they should — two Navy SEALs are being arraigned on charges they abused an Iraqi terrorist after they captured him three months ago. A third will be arraigned at a later date and their courts martial could occur next month.

As Rowan Scarborough reported two weeks ago, the three SEALs — Julio Huertas, Jonathan Keefe and Matthew McCabe — were part of a platoon from SEAL Team 10 that captured one of the most-wanted terrorists in Iraq, Ahmed Hashim Abed, in a nighttime raid on or about September 1.   Abed is believed to be the man behind the barbaric March 2004 ambush of Blackwater security guards in which four were murdered, their bodies mutilated and then hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

We have all heard the saying “nice guys finish last.” Why is that exactly? It seems to me that nice guys only finish last if we let them.

In this coming election year, we have the chance to get some nice guys (and ladies) elected.

Over the past few years, the establishment GOP has become bloated, corrupt, greedy, inept, licentious, devoid of ideas, and weak. It has passed legislation to grow government while talking about cutting it. Its leaders have excoriated the lobbyist culture while lining their pockets. It has bungled campaigns and strategy to block Barack Obama’s legislation. The problems extend from Washington into the states.

This year, the story the media is not covering is the rise of the GOP grassroots against the GOP establishment. From Florida with Marco Rubio, to Texas with Michael Williams, to California with Chuck DeVore, and to Pennsylvania with Pat Toomey, we the conservative grassroots have a chance to defeat the GOP Establishment that has led us from a majority to a minority, from 55 Senate seats to 40, from a small government to a large one.

But it is not just at the federal level. We have an obligation, regardless of where we live, to help at the state level too. We must make sure the nice guys who fight with us are successful across the board.

That requires us, whether we live in South Carolina or not, to help Nikki Haley.

There are several good people running in South Carolina, but all of them are products of the Republican Establishment. They are men who talk of smaller government without actually fighting for it. They are men who talk of less regulation while regulating. They are men of good will who mean well, speak well, but will not government well.

Then there is Nikki Haley. She worked in her parents’ small business. She knows first hand the way government screws the little guy. She is not a big business supporter, but an entrepreneur’s best friend. Nikki Haley is worth supporting.

We have until the end of this month to make a serious impact for her. I want December to be Nikki Haley month at RedState. The whole nation is talking about Marco Rubio because of what we have done. Same with Michael Williams. Same with Chuck DeVore. Now let us help Nikki Haley in the same way.

We must help within the states too — if the federalist experiment is to survive, it must be supported inside the states, not just at the federal level. Supporting Nikki Haley does just that.

Nikki Haley is one of us. Now we need to stick up for her and fund her. If you have money, give it. If you have time, give it. If you have prayers, offer them up. Let’s pray for her, fund her campaign, and work to get Nikki Haley elected as the next Governor South Carolina.

In 2002, Republicans took over the Georgia State Senate and Governor’s Mansion for the first time since the Civil War.

In 2004, the GOP took over the State House of Representatives.

In 2006, the GOP completed its take over of the State of Georgia, capturing the Lt. Governor’s seat, the Secretary of State’s Office, and solidifying its hold on the legislature.

In 2008, when the GOP was crumbling everywhere, it was a banner Republican year in Georgia.

In 2010, the Republicans might be annihilated from the State of Georgia. They would deserve it.

A Lt. Governor caught with his pants down, a Speaker of the House who tried to commit suicide, and a host of potential leaders waiting in the wings all with adultery problems — the GOP deserves destruction in Georgia if it does not clean its own house immediately.

Put simply, while breaking out the guillotine to chop off Speaker Glenn Richardson’s head, the Georgia Republican Party needs to line up Mark Burkhalter, Ben Harbin, Casey Cagle, and a few others behind him. Do it all at one time.

Cleaning up all the blood at once will be far cheaper in the long run.

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RedState Morning Briefing
For December 7, 2009

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

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There is some suggestion that the Russians are behind the recent embarrassing Climategate data dump:

Suspicions were growing last night that Russian security services were behind the leaking of the notorious British ‘Climategate’ emails which threaten to undermine tomorrow’s Copenhagen global warming summit.

An investigation by The Mail on Sunday has discovered that the explosive hacked emails from the University of East Anglia were leaked via a small web server in the formerly closed city of Tomsk in Siberia.

(Via JammieWearingFool) Specifically, the Russian FSB, which is of course the successor organization to the KGB. You know: the organization that Vladimir Putin used to run.  And if you’re wondering why a slightly institutionally paranoid nation-state that’s a major producer of fossil fuels might be interested in publishing compromising materials involving groups trying to cut fossil fuel production… well, read that again until you work it out.

On the bright side, maybe this will encourage Democrats to start pushing back on (unrelated) Russian attempts to aggrandize themselves at our expense.  It could happen: Ted Kennedy is dead, after all.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

I linked to Steven Hayward’s Weekly Standard article below, but you’ve got to read this too.

A prominent global warming scientist has threatened New York Times reporter Andy Revkin because Revkin dared to run a lighthearted piece about the prostitutes in Copenhagen.

Schlesinger emailed Revkin and told Revkin he was about to experience “the ‘Big Cutoff’ from [scientists]” who think they can no longer trust Revkin to just parrot their talking points.

Wow.

As Steven notes, these people really are humorless.

You just have to read this.

Slowly and mostly unnoticed by the major news media, the air has been going out of the global warming balloon. Global temperatures stopped rising a few years ago, much to the dismay of the climate campaigners. The U.N.’s upcoming Copenhagen conference–which was supposed to yield a binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction treaty as a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol–collapsed weeks in advance and remains on life support pending Obama’s magical intervention. Cap and trade legislation is stalled on Capitol Hill. Recent opinion polls from Gallup, Pew, Rasmussen, ABC/Washington Post, and other pollsters all find a dramatic decline in public belief in human-caused global warming. The climate campaigners continue to insist this is because they have a “communications” problem, but after Al Gore’s Nobel Prize/Academy Award double play, millions of dollars in paid advertising, and the relentless doom-mongering from the media echo chamber and the political class, this excuse is preposterous. And now the climate campaign is having its Emperor’s New Clothes moment.

Read the whole thing.

Oops.

Professor Sinninghe Damste’s research, as discussed on the site of the Dutch Organization of Scientific Research (DOSR) — a governmental body — shows that the icecap of Kilimanjaro was not the result of cold air but of large amounts of precipitation which fell at the beginning of the Holocene period, about 11,000 years ago.

The melting and freezing of moisture on top of Kilimanjaro appears to be part of  “a natural process of dry and wet periods.” The present melting is not the result of “environmental damage caused by man.”

Guess that Al Gore’s going to come up with a new talking point - HA! I kid, I kid. He’ll ignore it completely, of course. Doesn’t fit the religious orthodoxy.  It’s too good an iconic image for proselytizing efforts.  Can’t confuse the faithful, no?

[pause]

Eppur e’ meno umido.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

And all the kings horses, and all the kings men, couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again…OK, we aren’t there, yet.

But the left is starting to flex its muscles and are beginning to be annoyed, and really concerned about all the compromises that have been made thus far.

The pro-abortion forces know that there is a good chance the bill will not go to conference, where the leadership can change it at will. The first thing that would go would be the abortion restrictions — but having a House-Senate conference is not a certainty. The fastest way to the President’s desk, is to send the Senate bill directly to the House for an up or down vote – if it passes.

As you, dear reader know, I do not think the bill will make it past the Senate floor, but many on both sides disagree — pessimistic opponents and rose-colored-glasses-wearing-proponents. I am mentioning the “ping-pong” strategy of skipping conference because the pro-abortion forces cannot take the risk that Senator Nelson’s demands make it into the bill and the bill goes to the House, without going to (as they see it) the cleansing conference.

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• 15 Failed Predictions about the Future - Oddee.com
  Interesting list.

Up until now, Google has been able to avoid being hoisted by its own Net Neutrality due to the fact that the firm has not been directly involved as an ISP, but rather has been a partner of ISPs such as T-Mobile. We can point out all we want how they have more money and more market power than any ISP, but until they started providing the services that ISPs provide, we could only get so far.

But now, the day comes that Google gets further into the ISP business. Google is launching its own public DNS server. Ignore the misleading Register header, but read the content. The Google Public DNS is a direct launch of a service that ISPs provide, and that puts Google even further into the role of a gatekeeper. They can already make a site disappear from the Internet from the perspective of their searchers, with no transparency in the process whatsoever. Now they can make a site entirely inaccessible to its users because without a DNS lookup, your webpage, your email, your everything will create error messages instead of connectivity.

So here’s the question: Will Google obey its own Google/Obama/Genachowski Net Neutrality principles, or will Google Public DNS be as non-neutral and non-transparent as every single other service Google provides? Will Google deny DNS forwarding for any domain they deem a ’spammer’ and deny ‘Pagerank’ to?

The world awaits an answer.

Carly Fiorina gave a very good Republican response today on health care. It cannot be denied. I am glad she is on our side.

I do not dislike Carly Fiorina. I don’t really know her, though we’ve met a couple times. She seems like a very nice person. One day I’m sure she will be an excellent elected or appointed official.

Today is not that day in my mind.

I have tried to stay out of California. My gut tells me California is a sink hole that Republicans will not get out of. Barbara Boxer, as obnoxious as she is, is probably safe, though I understand the rationale of giving her a run for her money to distract the DSCC. However, as the NRSC has already broadcast that this is their goal, the DSCC will probably not be distracted.

Carly Fiorina gave a very good speech today, but I think it was inappropriate of the Republicans to put her, a candidate in a highly contested primary, up as their spokesman on health care.

The NRSC has, every time anyone has pointed out they have endorsed Fiorina, said they have not. They have. Frankly, I haven’t blamed them. I thought Fiorina was a good recruit and I have said so.

But I think Chuck DeVore has done everything he has needed to do to be treated as a credible candidate. His fundraising is good. His message is solid. His support is growing. His polling is equal to Fiorina’s.

The NRSC has not learned its lesson. The Republican establishment has not learned its lesson. Mitch McConnell, in his effort to lose the health care debate by making Olympia Snowe the foundation for victory, John Cornyn, who claims to want conservatives, but keeps supporting moderates, and a host of other Senators have come out for Fiorina.

Where the establishment goes, we should all be worried. Just as they led us from 55 seats to 40 seats in the Senate and just as they are leading us off a cliff in the Senate through failed messaging tactics, the establishment is going to lead us off a cliff in 2010.

I just can’t keep my mouth shut on this one. I have no problem with Fiorina, but my heart and mind are with Chuck DeVore. He is one of us. He will be a leader, not a Mitch McConnell follower. DeVore will stand with Jim DeMint. Fiorina would be no better and no worse than Kay Bailey Hutchison, drifting with the present failed Senate GOP leadership.

Friends, we need men and women of action. Chuck DeVore fits the bill. I know there are some here who will support Fiorina. That is fine by me. California is not my hill to die on. But as we fight our way back to power, I stand with Chuck DeVore because Chuck DeVore stands with me.

He can win this primary. He can give Barbara Boxer a tough race. But we must help. And better still, a DeVore victory means the GOP Establishment will not deserve and will not get any credit.

Join me. Stand with Chuck DeVore for California.

It’s going to take a while for them to cycle through the process, though. As in, more than a week. A lot more than a week.

The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.

The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.

The Met Office database is one of three main sources of temperature data analysis on which the UN’s main climate change science body relies for its assessment that global warming is a serious danger to the world.

Just in time for Copenhagen, which relied heavily on the climate change data that CRU provided, and can no longer even remotely back up.  Meanwhile, the President - who seems to have a real gift at walking into these controversies at the worst possible moment for him - seems determined to use the luster of his name to ensure results at the Copenhagen thing.  Personally, I think that it’d be good for the planet, the country, and his political party if the President just dropped the trip entirely.  Which he won’t, of course.

Via Q&O, who thinks that they should completely cancel Copenhagen; and Hot Air, who thinks that the British government should stop trying to keep the Met Office from pushing the reset button.  And if either actually happens, all three of us will be massively surprised.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan is allegedly running for Senate in 2010 against Republican Rep. Roy Blunt.  But you wouldn’t know it from listening to her.  In fact, she’s pretty much been MIA since announcing her intent to run.  We’ve beat on her here on RS, the Missouri GOP has mocked her, and there’s even a “Where’s Robin?” Twitter presence.  She’s a pretty easy target, as she - at least up ’til last week - has steadfastly refused to tell anyone what she thinks about pretty much anything.

Those of us on the Right have noted for a while now that Carnahan has been ducking from any examination of her positions on key national issues… and now even the left is starting to mock her for it.  This week, the (at least borderline) liberal blog “St. Louis Oracle” poked Robin about her near-silence.  The Oracle seems to have been awakened not as much by Carnahan’s emergence from her political hibernation as by the fact that she (unsurprisingly) kissed up to Barack Obama by supporting his newfound hawkish position on a troop surge in Afghanistan.  To those of us on the Right, this is unsurprising - we fully expect Carnahan would be an Obama/Reid lapdog.  But to the Left, this troop surge is akin to Obama donning a GWB mask, and Carnahan’s support does not play well with the anti-war pacifists on their side.

Aside from his opposition to Carnahan’s troop surge support, the Oracle makes a very interesting point about her behavior - he notes that Carnahan is employing a strategy referred to as the “Rose Garden” strategy:

Actually, it’s an embodiment of an old political ploy called the “rose garden” strategy. It evolved from the conduct of incumbent presidents seeking to look presidential by busying themselves with the duties of the office while publicly ignoring the campaign. Ms. Carnahan seems to be trying to look busy as secretary of state and ride into office on her reputation from that office and her unmistakable family name.

Wait… what?  This is from a “progressive”?  Progressive or not, his observation is dead on target.  This is exactly what Robin is doing.

But there’s more…

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