Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu blames high temperatures on 'climate deniers'



Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California has blamed hot weather on "climate deniers."

"Suffering from excessive heat? Blame a climate denier. Climate deniers were wrong. Scientists were right. You have the power to vote out elected officials who refuse to deal with facts, and vote in officials who understand we are in a climate crisis," Lieu wrote in tweets on Sunday and Monday.

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Actor Dean Cain responded to Lieu's post by urging people to vote the congressman out of office. "Please vote OUT @RepTedLieu," Cain tweeted.

"Someone tell Ted about summer," Kurt Schlichter tweeted.

"Let me be perfectly clear. There is not a thing that a politician can do that will change the future weather. If you think otherwise... you may be in a cult," tweeted Dr. Matthew Wielicki, who describes himself as "an expert in earth science."

Lieu is just one voice within a chorus of climate alarmists.

In a tweet last week, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blamed Republicans for the weather. "Hot enough for you? Thank a MAGA Republican. Or better yet, vote them out of office," Clinton tweeted.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres used the phrase "global boiling" while purveying climate alarmism last week. "Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning," he declared. "The era of global warming has ended," he asserted. "The era of global boiling has arrived. The air is unbreathable. The heat is unbearable. And the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable."

President Joe Biden has previously claimed that climate change "is the existential threat to humanity."

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Democrats call on President Biden to surrender sole control of nuclear weapons



Congressional Democrats sent a letter to President Joe Biden this week urging him to give up his sole authority to launch nuclear weapons, Politico reported Tuesday.

The lawmakers said they want to reform the "the decision-making process the United States uses in its command and control of nuclear forces."

Currently, only the president has the authority to launch U.S. nuclear weapons. Though he has advisers available to consult on any such decision, there is nothing that says he must.

And that is worrisome, the 31 Democratic letter-signers stated, citing actions of both former Presidents Donald Trump and Richard Nixon:

[V]esting one person with this authority entails real risks. Past presidents have threatened to attack other countries with nuclear weapons or exhibited behavior that caused other officials to express concern about the president's judgment.

While any president would presumably consult with advisors before ordering an attack, there is no requirement to do so. The military is obligated to carry out the order if they assess it is legal under the laws of war. Under the current posture of U.S. nuclear forces, that attack would happen in minutes.

The passage above included footnotes linking to stories of former President Trump threatening a nuclear attack on North Korea, Nixon Defense Secretary James Schlesinger's concerns about outgoing President Nixon's stability in the days before he resigned, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's futile demand that the Joint Chiefs of Staff remove the nuclear football from Trump following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), who spearheaded the letter, said in response to the Politico report, "Vesting a single person with nuclear authority entails real risks. I'm leading a group of my colleagues with @RepTedLieu in calling for reform to our nuclear command-and-control structure. It's time to install additional checks and balances into this system."

The letter offered a number of alternatives, including:

  • Requiring officials in the line of succession, beginning with the vice president and the House speaker, "to concur with a launch order";
  • Requiring certifications from the defense secretary and the attorney general that a launch order is valid and legal, as well as "concurrence from the chair of the Joint Chiefs of staff and/or the secretary of state";
  • Requiring both a declaration of war and specific authorization from Congress before a nuclear strike can occur; and
  • Creating a council of congressional leaders that would regularly meet with the executive branch on national security issues and require the president to consult with at least part of the council before using nuclear weapons.
Nearly three dozen House Democrats on Monday called on Biden to relinquish his sole authority to launch nuclear wea… https://t.co/9t6eb8LPpA
— POLITICO (@POLITICO)1614097835.0

Though the letter asked the president to implement such changes on his own, Congress could pass a law to implement any one or all of these restrictions and dare the president to veto it, HotAir's Ed Morrissey noted. After all, it's Congress' job to be the checks and balances they are currently asking the president to impose on himself.

CNN reports a Dem rep grabbed a crowbar during Capitol attack. He actually grabbed an energy bar.



CNN made a mistake on Thursday that left several on social media in stitches after originally reporting that a Democratic congressman grabbed a crowbar from his office as the Capitol was attacked last week when, in fact, the representative had actually grabbed an energy bar.

What are the details?

In an article titled "How a swift impeachment was born under siege," CNN added a correction to the bottom of the lengthy piece that reads, "A previous version of this story misstated that Rep. Ted Lieu [D- Calif.] grabbed a crowbar before leaving his office. He grabbed a ProBar energy bar."

Fox News reported that CNN clarified "that Lieu was simply hungry as opposed to the original report that misled readers into thinking he grabbed a crowbar to defend himself."

Twitter had a field day.

Security Studies Group president Jim Hanson tweeted, ".@CNN published this piece on the Storming of the Capitol with a claim @RepTedLieu grabbed a crowbar as he left his office...as if he was going to fight the mob." Hanson added, "It was actually a PowerBar & Ted had to make sure it was vegan before he could eat it."

Steve Krakauer, executive producer of Megyn Kelly's podcast tweeted, "Imagine four reporters at CNN and countless editors who saw the piece before it was published thinking Ted Freaking Lieu grabbed a crowbar in the midst of the Capitol riots (instead of a "ProBar" energy bar)..."

Imagine four reporters at CNN and countless editors who saw the piece before it was published thinking Ted Freaking… https://t.co/lU9StU8K14
— Steve Krakauer (@Steve Krakauer)1610640126.0

Author Tom Woods wrote, "Just a minor correction: he fled with a ProBar energy bar, not a crowbar," while Washington Post reporter Seung Min Kim replied after seeing the mistake, "I spit my coffee out laughing."

Others argued that while CNN made a flub, it is entirely plausible that Lieu, a veteran, might have kept a crowbar around just in case.

Anything else?

Lieu told Bloomberg that as pro-Trump supporters attacked the Capitol building on Jan. 6, at one point he sheltered in another Congress member's office where he "began a group text imploring the House to begin drafting article of impeachment" against President Donald Trump.

Rep. @TedLieu says that as he and other Congress members sheltered in place during the U.S. Capitol siege, he began… https://t.co/GCkzZKTxQC
— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Bloomberg Quicktake)1610666545.0