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How do you solve a problem if you refuse to admit you have one — or if you delude yourself into thinking it's not as bad as it actually is? The answer: You don't. You might minimize symptoms and make some progress. But unless you address the root cause, you will not find a real long-term solution. Unfortunately, far too many politicians in Washington refuse to acknowledge — and as a result, never accurately describe — the challenges currently facing America. I'm not sure why so many choose to keep their heads in the sand, but their state of denial...

Former Vice President Al Gore made some disgraceful statements about the Koch brothers Tuesday. Participating in a Google+ Conversation, Gore accused two of the nation's largest employers of being "purveyors of the dirtiest energy on earth" (video follows with transcript and commentary): Gore Calls the Koch Brothers 'Purveyors of the Dirtiest Energy on Earth' AL GORE: [Obama’s] got a big decision coming up on the XL Pipeline for these awful, filthy tar sands that, you know, Canada just said, "Don’t take it across British Columbia. We’re not going to put up with that. It’s just too dirty and too dangerous."...

Our democracy has been hacked. The operating system has been taken over." That was the message former Vice President Al Gore brought to Stanford Tuesday night. The 65-year-old paced the stage as he rattled off a litany of dark news from climate change-related superstorms and droughts to the U.S. Senate's failure to pass meaningful gun safety legislation. He offered blunt assessments of the Iraq War, saying it was about "a country that just happens to have a lot of oil." He spoke of the interest in energy-intensive Canadian tar sands oil extraction, the driving force behind plans for the controversial...

The former vice-president and climate champion, Al Gore, has called on Barack Obama to seize the moment and use his re-election victory to push through bold action on climate change. The president has faced rising public pressure in the wake of superstorm Sandy to deliver on his promise to act on global warming. But none of those calling on Obama to act carries the moral authority of Gore, who has devoted his post-political career to building a climate movement. Now, Gore said, it is the president's turn. He urged Obama to immediately begin pushing for a carbon tax in negotiations...

Two years after Al Gore’s shocking announcement that he and his wife of 40 years were separating, he’s got another, younger, woman in his life. According to the Washington Post’s Reliable Source blog, the former presidential candidate and former VP is dating Elizabeth Keadle, a wealthy Democratic donor and environmental conservationist. Ms Keadle, who hails from southern California, is in her 50s, and travelled to Antarctica with Mr Gore at the beginning of the year to raise awareness about climate change and global warming, according to the Post. She and Mr Gore share a deep interest in environmental issues, and...

05/18/2012 Al Gore Has A Girlfriend: California Donor And Activist Elizabeth Keadle [Pic in URL] By The Reliable Source Al Gore has been seriously dating Elizabeth Keadle, right, of California. (Joe Kohen/Getty; Jon Clark/Rancho Santa Fe Review) It’s never easy to re-enter the dating pool after years away — probably especially so if you’re one of the most famous men in the world. But things seem to have worked out for Al Gore. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former VP has a serious girlfriend, we’ve learned. Her name is Elizabeth Keadle — better known as Liz — a well-heeled...

It has been over a week now since the Gore-a-thon, a.k.a. “24 hours of climate reality,” where Al Gore sent his latest message of global warming doom to the world. The front page of the Climate Reality Project has changed from “live mode” to offering clips of videos shown during the 24-hour presentation. One of the video clips there, “Climate 101,” tells the story of how to do a “simple experiment” at home to prove carbon dioxide causes global warming. But if you watch closely, you’ll see an “inconvenient truth” of the worst kind. Watch the portion of the video...

An effort to "expose" climate change skeptics will instead show that Gore is a charlatan. Unfortunately for Al Gore, but fortunately for the rest of us, much of what we will hear in his 24 Hours of Reality extravaganza starting Wednesday evening is pure fantasy. Gore is completely wrong when he tells us that the science of climate change is settled. If his “Climate Reality Project” actually did promote climate realism, he would tell us that the science is in a period of negative discovery — the more we learn, the more we realize we do not understand about this,...

Gore in 24-hour broadcast to convert climate skeptics Photo 8:10am EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Former President Al Gore will renew his 30-year campaign to convince skeptics of the link between climate change and extreme weather events this week in a 24-hour global multi-media event. "24 Hours of Reality" will broadcast a presentation by Al Gore every hour for 24 hours across 24 different time zones from Wednesday to Thursday, with the aim of convincing climate change deniers and driving action against global warming among households, schools and businesses. The campaign also asks people to hand over control of their social...

The last time former US Vice President Al Gore discussed the climate change issue with Discovery News, the Copenhagen treaty discussions were in full swing, and Gore expressed at the time that "I choose to be optimistic" about their outcome. That was a shade under two years ago, and since then, for those concerned that human activities are changing the planet's climate, the outlook seems bleaker. The Copenhagen process failed. "I think there’s great cause for optimism despite the fact that the US political process has been paralyzed largely by a determined effort by the global warming polluters and their...

My last blog focused on Bill Clinton’s vegan diet; and now, Al Gore is telling us not to eat meat. It seems that whole 1994 White House administration is telling us that we need to start with meat—or the lack of it—when it comes to health. Vice President Al Gore said consuming meat contributes greatly to global warming, and he recommended people cut back on the amount of meat in the diet in order to help reduce the environmental impact. Gore didn’t say he himself gave up eating meat or that veganism is the way to go, but he said...

Al Gore: Obama bows to polluters By: Dan Berman September 7, 2011 03:09 PM EDT Former Vice President Al Gore is unhappy with Barack Obama. In a blog post Wednesday afternoon, Gore took Obama to task for his decision late last week to scrap EPA’s proposed update of George W. Bush-era smog regulations. “Instead of relying on science, President Obama appears to have bowed to pressure from polluters who did not want to bear the cost of implementing new restrictions on their harmful pollution — even though economists have shown that the U.S. economy would benefit from the job creating...

Can some Freeper please explain how SS works to me? So far, there are two theories...

  Social Security Scam Now Obvious David C. Stolinsky July 18, 2011 Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money.− Margaret Thatcher If there is a silver lining to the dark clouds hanging over our economy − and that’s a big if − it is highlighting the sad fact that Social Security is an enormous fraud. This fraud goes beyond even the fact that it is a Ponzi scheme − that it depends on enough new workers joining the workforce to pay for older people retiring. Yes, Social Security is as...

Prev Previous Article Editorials Print Comments 3 Debt crisis punctures Social Security myth By: Examiner Editorial | 07/14/11 9:00 PM "I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on Aug. 3,” President Barack Obama warned “CBS Evening News” viewers about Social Security on Tuesday night. “There may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.” But how can that be? Haven’t Washington, D.C.’s professional politicians been telling us for decades that Social Security is in no danger of bankruptcy because of those trillions of dollars supposedly just sitting there in the Social Security Trust Fund? Why can’t...

Seven years ago the Cedar Falls City Council passed an ordinance requiring lock boxes on commercial buildings and larger apartment complexes. Hardly a soul made a peep about it. On Monday the council voted 6-1 on a third and final reading to expand the ordinance to include more apartment buildings. In the days leading up to the vote, they received hundreds of phone calls and e-mails from people all over the country from people upset about the issue. Some calls came in the middle of the night. Some writers threatened them and called them scumbags, or worse. The issue had...

Last week, President Obama’s budget chief, Jack Lew, took to his White House blog to repeat his claim that the Social Security trust fund is solvent through 2037. And to chide me for suggesting otherwise. I had argued in my last column that the trust fund is empty, indeed fictional. If Lew’s claim were just wrong, that would be one thing. But it provides the intellectual justification for precisely the kind of debt denial and entitlement complacency that his boss is now engaged in. Therefore, once more unto the breach. Lew acknowledges that the Social Security surpluses of the last...

KINGSLAND, Ga. -- Kingsland police have charged two men with burglarizing three churches in two days. Edward Stanley Gilbert, 20, and Lloyd Odis Sams, 19, both of Kingsland, each face three counts of felony burglary, said Lt. Todd Tetterton, police department spokesman. When arrested, the suspects had been free on bail on charges stemming from another theft case, Tetterton said. Both remained in custody at the Camden County jail on Thursday. Gilbert and Sams are charged with stealing a variety of items including canned food, prepackaged juice drinks, hot chocolate mix, a portable clock radio and a small lock box-style...

In Al Gore revival, Senate Dems eye the lockbox for Social SecurityBy Alexander Bolton - 02/24/11 08:20 PM ET Senate Democrats want to put the Social Security trust fund in a lockbox and insulate it from a broader budget-cutting package designed to reduce the national deficit. It’s a revival of the concept that former Vice President Al Gore (D) made famous when he sparred with George W. Bush over a proposal to invest a portion of Social Security funds in the private market. Eleven years late, Social Security is again a hot political topic. President Obama during his State of...

Today’s CBO report has some bad news about the deficit. But CBO has some really, really bad news about Social Security: It’s officially broke. The CBO’s revenue/expenditure estimates now place the program in permanent deficit. There had been some hope that payroll taxes would recover sufficiently post-recession to put the program back into the black (the theoretical black) for at least a few more years, putting off the day of reckoning for an election cycle or more. No more: The new CBO estimates put Social Security in the red for as far as the eye can see. But there’s a...