Let’s talk about the weather (as if you haven’t been already).
As you may have noticed, NH and the rest of the world have been afflicted by record-high temps, historic flood water levels, massive, brutal wildfires whose toxic smoke shrouds areas thousands of miles away. These have not been your typical Don Kent weather days.
The weather has pretty much consumed the planet, literally and figuratively. In fact, it’s pretty much Topic Numero Uno for most everyone — very well aware of the changing climate and the havoc, and in many cases, the dread it’s causing.
But as we also know, there are still people who are displaying a breathtakingly willful ignorance about the whole thing. And NH has been graced with their presence on a relatively regular basis, thanks to the FITN prez primary.
Yes, it’s the calvacade of candidates itching for a chance to occupy the White House, promising along the route to make all of our troubles go away.
But even as the rest of us are dealing with the historic rains and heat of the Summer of ’23, there’s nary a peep about what climate change has wrought. Or, worse, we’re being told that it really isn’t happening, right here, right now.
While some of the 11 majors occasionally talk on the stump about addressing climate change — notably ND guv Doug Burgum and Miami mayor Francis Suarez — most are acting as if the weather we’ve been experiencing is nothing more than the weather being the weather.
Some do pay lip service by “acknowledging” that climate change is man-made, as if that acknowledgement’s gonna do anything about it. They’re pretty much shrugging off the idea that the world is changing around us — and them.
Then there’s the candidates who barely, if ever, address the topic seriously. They pretty much ignore it or make light of it.
Case in point is the ex-prez who wants to be prez again. For him, climate — and remember during his first go-round he did all he could to sabotage efforts to address climate change — is a non-issue. In fact, he calls any discussion of climate a “hoax.” (It’s a word he likes to use. A lot.) Then again, most issues are non-issues for him, since the focus of his campaign, as always, is himself. His impeachments, his indictments, the election he so badly lost, etc.
Following close behind is the guv from Florida, Ron DeSantis, governor of a state that is, in many ways, the poster child for what’s coming to a state and country near you, climate change-wise. But to him, discussion of the climate is “the politicization of weather.” Which is odd, considering out of the same mouth he’ll take credit for taking initiatives to beef up the state’s resilience to sea-level rise. (When the ocean temps are 95 degrees — well, is that just a focus group?) Then there’s the fast-talking Vivek Ramaswamy, who not surprisingly calls “climatism” a secular religion. (He’s really good at that kind of glib putdown.) But he does have a typically glib plan to tackle climate change: “Abandon the climate cult and unshackle nuclear energy.” Oh, and use of fossil fuels is “a requirement for human prosperity.”
On the other side, there’s the guy who’s got the Kennedy name.
If you check out his campaign website, he calls himself an “environmentalist” and cites some achievements from way back in history. But, interestingly, there’s no mention of “climate.” Nada.
However, he does like to talk, and this nugget about the “climate crisis” emerged from his mouth in an interview that appeared earlier this year on the website UnHerd:
“The crisis has been, to some extent, coopted — by Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum and the billionaire boys’ club in Davos — the same way that the Covid crisis was appropriated by them to make themselves richer, to impose totalitarian controls and to stratify our society, with very powerful and wealthy people at the top, and the vast majority of human beings with very little power and very little sovereignty over their own lives. Every crisis is an opportunity for those forces to clamp down controls.”
Once a conspiracy theorist, always a conspiracy theorist.
MAKING THE ROUNDS
So now that the guv has put us out of our misery and made his decision about not running for another term, or for prez, is he just gonna head back to Waterville Valley and groom some slopes?
It’s becoming clear that, even with Chuck Morse in the race, Kelly Ayotte’s got a big chunk of GOP muckety-mucks in her camp.
It’s certainly not much of a stretch to say that the organization that calls itself “No Labels” could just as easily be named “The Committee to Re-Elect the Ex-President.” Another CREEP.
The Ed Dept. has set up a program to provide “microcredentials” to teachers. Must be the kind of qualifications he was pointing to during his confirmation — the kind you need a microscope to find.
This isn’t the first time we’ve asked: How the hell does someone with such a criminal record and creep factor as alleged child porn distributor Stacie Laughton, a Dem, get a chance to be elected THREE TIMES to the NH Legis.?
And when does the ed commish announce that he’s officially running for guv?