Starmer’s remarks came as he disembarked from a carbon-spewing jet upon arrival in Azerbaijan to attend the UN-sponsored COP29 climate conference.
The annual COP conferences, remember, are where the world’s elites gather each year to discuss ways to leverage climate-alarm dogma as a means of destroying western democracy and trapping the world’s masses in energy poverty while they consume $1,000 Wagyu steaks and $2,000 bottles of wine over dinner.
“I have repeatedly emphasized the importance of global leadership when it comes to the climate challenge,” said Starmer, “and therefore it is very important for me to come to COP… I see the climate challenge as a huge opportunity for the UK if we get it right, and that is why we have made it one of our missions to have clean power by 2030.”
Among the means Starmer’s government is using to show “global leadership” on the climate alarm front is to provide heavy subsidies for costly, low-efficiency offshore wind farms and cover up vast swaths of the UK’s farmlands and countryside with enormous solar arrays. Starmer’s government has simultaneously presided over the closing of the UK’s last remaining coal power plant and one of its last steelmaking factories as part of what appears to be a focused effort to deindustrialize its once-powerful economy.
Trump has made it crystal clear that his approach to energy policy will be diametrically opposite that of Starmer’s Labor government. Trump has already said he plans to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate agreement again, an action he took during his first term, but which was reversed by President Joe Biden.
Trump has also laid out plans to re-industrialize America’s economy with a carrot-and-stick approach that will include incentives for companies building new factories and assembly plants in the United States and imposing tariffs on those who choose to invest in capacity overseas. In a recent pre-election interview, Trump detailed plans to address instability and capacity shortages on the U.S. electric grid by implementing policies to speed up permitting and building of new natural gas and nuclear power generation.
“We have to produce massive electricity that we don’t have. But the environmental impact statements won’t allow us to do that. The rules and regulations that we currently have won’t allow us to do any of it,” Trump said. “But if I’m president, we’ll be able to do it and we’ll do it through natural gas, which is clean. And we’ll do it through primarily natural gas and nuclear.”
While on the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised to bring back his first-term policies designed to stimulate the domestic oil-and-gas industry and return the United States to the position of “energy dominance” it enjoyed under his previous administration.
In kicking off the COP29 festivities, Azerbaijan leader Ilham Aliyev created a stir among the climate zealots who make up the preponderance of attendees by appearing to endorse the Trump approach.
Referring to oil and natural gas as a “gift of God,” the Azerbaijani President said, “Countries should not be blamed for having them and should not be blamed for bringing these resources to the market because the market needs them. The people need them.”
At another point, Aliyev appeared to lecture western elitists like Starmer, saying: “Unfortunately double standards, a habit to lecture other countries and political hypocrisy became kind of modus operandi for some politicians, state-controlled NGOs and fake news media in some Western countries.”
In an interview at the summit, Starmer displayed a shocking lack of self-awareness by claiming his government has no plans to “start telling people how to live their lives. We are not going to start dictating to people what they do.”
That is of course exactly what Starmer is doing, and exactly the sort of thing Trump plans to avoid doing regardless of any demands from the globalist climate-alarm industry. Americans stand to be the main beneficiaries from the contrast in policy approach.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
A few days before last week’s election, Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a dire warning to voters. If Trump won, “the struggle against climate change will be over.”
He had that right.
Climate change fanaticism was effectively on the ballot last week. That green energy agenda was decisively defeated.
It turns out the tens of millions of middle-class Americans who voted for Trump weren’t much interested in the temperature of the planet 50 years from now. They were too busy trying to pay the bills.
The result shouldn’t be too surprising. Polls have shown climate change ranks near the bottom of voters’ concerns. Jobs, inflation and illegal immigration register much higher on the scale of concerns.
But if you asked the elite of America in the top one percent of income, climate change is seen as an immediate and existential threat to the planet. Our poll at Unleash Prosperity earlier this year found that the cultural elites were so hyper-obsessed with climate issues, they were in favor of banning air conditioning, nonessential air travel and many modern home appliances to stop global warming. Our study showed that not many of the other 99 percent agree.
Wake up, Bernie and Al Gore.
Climate change has become the ultimate luxury good: the richer you are, the more you fret about it.
Among the elite, obsessing about climate change has become a favorite form of virtue-signaling at the country club and in the faculty lounges. There is almost no cross that the green elites — the people who donate six figures or more to groups like the Sierra Club — aren’t willing to make lower income Americans bear to stop global warming.
Herein lies the political curse of the climate issue. A millionaire doesn’t care much if the price of gas rises by $1 a gallon or if they have to pay another $100 a month in utility bills. But the middle class hates paying more.
It wasn’t just economic concerns that turned the voters against climate crusaders like President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Workers weren’t too thrilled with the heavy fist of government commanding them to buy an electric vehicle — whether they wanted one or not.
It hasn’t helped the greens’ cause that the same progressives who are out to save the planet with grandiose transformations and global government, seem to have no problem with the garbage polluting the streets of our major cities or the graffiti or the feces and urine smell on the street corners of San Francisco and New York. That’s real pollution. And it’s affecting us here and now.
The good news is this year’s voter revolts against the radical green agenda are not a vote for dirtier air or water. The air that we breathe and the water we drink is cleaner than ever — a point that President Donald Trump correctly made. We will continue to make progress against pollution.
To try to sell middle America on the climate-change agenda of abolishing fossil fuels, the greens peddled bogus arguments that climate change would hurt poor communities most. In reality the financial costs of the climate policies and the paychecks lost were felt by the non-elite.
Democrats forgot to visit the steel-mill construction sites or the auto plants or the oil patch and ask those workers what they thought.
Well, now we know the reality. Americans think their shrinking paychecks and the higher price of gas they pay at the pump is the real clear-and-present danger. If Democrats don’t start to get that, they too will go to bed worrying about their jobs.
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity. His latest book is titled: “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
Against all odds, former President Donald Trump appears to have won a decisive victory and will become the 47th president of the United States. He will be only the second American in history reelected to a non-consecutive presidential term. Trump prevailed despite the opposition of every institution in America, including the corrupt media and government.
Far from merely a defeat for his notional opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, a stand-in for the status quo, or the failed presidency of dotard Joe Biden, Trump’s victory marks a consolidation of the New Right. What lies ahead will be such a radical break that it will make Trump’s first term look like a warmup.
Many pundits across the political spectrum will hope that the election result is an aberration: that Trump is a populist who bewitched the Republican Party and then duped the electorate. Perhaps he won because of Biden’s decay, the late switch to Harris, or an electorate that the elite deems too stupid to understand how good it has it.
Unfortunately for the doubters, the reality is far more stark than merely a transient setback or misunderstanding. Trump is the vehicle. The force behind his victory marks a fundamental turning point in U.S. history and the politics of the right around the world. This is not the high-water mark of the fight against the system. Rather this marks a critical mass in the effort to replace that system.
Trump’s first victory in 2016 was a willingness by a public angered by a lost decade of economic stagnation and lost wars to give an unknown outsider a chance to mix things up. His second victory is a decision by that electorate, which now has his measure precisely, to supplant a corrupt system that runs through American and western society — a feckless compilation of self-appointed referees known also as the “elite” or the “establishment.”
What was whimsy then is now determination and it is much bigger than just Trump. The system put everything it had into this election and it lost.
Those at home and abroad who have estranged themselves from the MAGA movement will take false solace from Trump’s previous term. This time will be different. The degree to which Trump changes America will depend on the effectiveness of his administration and an always-disappointing Congress. But it will be different.
In broad terms, one should assume that Trump will reduce regulations and taxes to spur the productive part of the economy. Conceptually, his polices will supplant globalism with nationalism, including higher tariffs.
He will dispense with the progressive religions of climate change alarmism and racism under the banner of diversity. Despite being a late addition to his campaign, he will seek reductions in government spending except Social Security and Medicare.
Internationally, he will devote fewer resources and less time to irrelevant or exotic alliances and partnerships, focusing instead on ones that matter most. He will order the largest deportation program since the Eisenhower administration. However, he will otherwise seek the reduction of the national security state, especially the intelligence bureaucracy, the Justice Department and the secret police, all of which sought to undermine his presidency and reelection campaigns.
The big question is how far Trump wants to go and how far he will be able to go. In a nation of 335 million, it theoretically should not be hard to find effective and loyal people to fill the roughly 4,000 politically appointed positions in the executive branch. Yet subject-matter expertise in government and a willingness to confront the swamp while living in it are evidently rare qualities.
Trump One had more than its fair share of appointees who were indifferent or opposed to the president’s wishes, joined by two million federal civilian employees, most of whom hated his guts. Trump’s own aides recognized the failure with personnel and were planning big changes in a second term. Trump himself acknowledged the problem in his recent podcast with Joe Rogan.
If Trump and his top lieutenants manage personnel better — acknowledging that some duds and flops among appointees are impossible to avoid entirely — his impact will be magnified greatly. His term could see big tech broken up, the military transformed radically and reoriented to the Pacific, the seeds planted for the type of news media that America deserves, the border secured and all illegals deported, mass reductions in government employment and handouts in order to balance the budget, and universities regulated to teach real things instead of disdain for America.
However, no matter how well Trump does, one thing is already clear. The New Right he has helped to create is now not only dominant but insurmountable on its side of the political spectrum. The “NeverTrump” Republicans may still land some media money, but they no longer exist as a political force.
They have gone the way that Rockefeller Republicans did during the Reagan administration. The fact that anyone under fifty will have to look up what a “Rockefeller Republican” was is a testament to their extinction — and that of today’s opponents of Trump and the New Right among Republicans.
A final point is that this election’s rebuke of the system is not just political but cultural as well. Trump and the rise of the New Right are not just about the economy, inflation, tax rates and America losing. It is also a cultural shift. The system told Americans that voting for Trump would lead not just to bad policy but was morally wrong. He is a (fake) felon. He is a (fake) fascist. He is a lout and a liar — or so came the word from the system’s hypocrites projecting their own traits on Trump.
Electing Trump was a rejection of this schoolmarmery. It is a rejection of they/them pronouns, tampons in boys’ rooms, school shutdowns, neurotic Karens who politicize everything, celebrities who deign to preach, attempts to emasculate the military and everything else in America, and all of the other progressive passions. Trump’s election marks a return to normalcy in which merit and achievement are celebrated instead of politics and preening.
Like President Calvin Coolidge observing that “the chief business of the American people is business,” it is a deliberate turn inward, a focus on real life, and a decision to keep politics in its place.
Presumably there will be much emoting ahead. Who can forget the screaming woman at Trump’s first inauguration or the boo-hoo look on the faces of reporters for most of the following four years? (I was reminded of my own return to State Department headquarters after President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection — I had Darth Vader’s “Imperial March” tune in my head as I enjoyed all of the sadder-than-usual faces.) Less amusing were the Russia hoax, the phony Ukraine impeachment, and the “Summer of Love” riots orchestrated by Antifa and BLM.
Who knows what lies ahead this time. But it is important to keep in mind that Trump and his policies have a clear mandate from the republic he will soon lead again. The country has spoken. And the country and the world will be changed.
Christian Whiton is a contributor to the Daily Caller News Foundation. He was a State Department senior advisor in the Trump and Bush administrations. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest and a principal at DC International Advisory. The author of “Smart Power: Between Diplomacy and War,” he co-hosts the “Domino Theory” podcast and edits “Capitalist Notes” on Substack. This article was first published on “Capitalist Notes.”
Democrats are trying to win a Republican-leaning legislative seat in the southern Arizona area with a candidate who has been endorsed by several progressive organizations.
Kevin Volk is running for the Arizona House of Representatives in Arizona Legislative District 17. Volk was the only Democrat running in the primary for the chamber as his party attempts a ‘single-shot’ strategy to win enough votes for a first or second-place finish in November’s General Election. He obtained 26,330 votes in the July 30 Primary Election.
While my primary was uncontested, it is humbling to have received over 26,000 votes, and to become the Democratic nominee to represent Legislative District 17 in the Arizona State House.
On his campaign website, Volk lists several endorsements from left-leaning organizations for his bid to ascend to the state House, including the National Organization for Women Arizona Political Action Committee, the Arizona Education Association, the Sister District Project, Moms Demand Action, Human Rights Campaign PAC, Climate Cabinet, and the Sierra Club.
Should Volk manage to win a seat in the Arizona House, his endorsement from the Arizona Education Association (AEA) shows that he would likely join with this organization and his fellow Democrat colleagues to undermine – and even dismantle – the state’s historic opportunities for school choice and educational freedom. The AEA has been a staunch opponent of the Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) program, which has unlocked a chance for tens of thousands of students around the state to receive the education that best unleashes their learning abilities.
On June 18, the AEA posted, “Happy to be endorsing John McLean and Kevin Volk in LD 17. This is a vital district to win to achieve a pro-education majority in the state legislature, and we’re so glad to have two strong advocates for public education and for Arizona working families in the race!
Happy to be endorsing @JohnMcLean4AZ@KevinVolkAZ in LD17. This is a vital district to win to achieve a pro-education majority in the state legislature, and we're so glad to have two strong advocates for public education and for Arizona working families in the race! pic.twitter.com/jzNe826ayd
The Pima County Democratic Party cheered on the endorsement of Volk from the AEA in a post on X, writing, “This is simple. Kevin Volk and John McLean are champions for the public schools in Marana, SaddleBrooke, Picture Rocks, Tanque Verde, Rita Ranch, East Side, Tucson, and Oro Valley. Good public schools benefit all of us, and all of our community.”
— Pima County Democratic Party (@PimaDems) June 18, 2024
While not on his website, on May 7, Volk also acknowledged an endorsement of his campaign from Save Our Schools Arizona, another organization committed to the end of ESAs and other mediums of school choice in the state. He wrote, “Thank you, Save Our Schools Arizona for your endorsement! As a former public school teacher, I believe that all children in Arizona – more than 90% of whom attend public schools – deserve an excellent education, and that means making sure that our schools are fully funded and fully staffed.”
Thank you @arizona_sos for your endorsement! As a former public school teacher, I believe that all children in Arizona – more than 90% of whom attend public schools – deserve an excellent education, and that means making sure that our schools are fully funded and fully staffed. https://t.co/7jQfAY9eSF
Earlier this year, in April, Volk announced that he had obtained the endorsement of Sister District Project, which has targeted Arizona to help Democrats win competitive races around the state. The organization states that it “prioritize[s] endorsing where we can build momentum at the bottom of the ticket to decrease roll-off in naturally higher turnout environments with strategic higher-ticket Democratic opportunities.”
I am proud to have received the endorsement of @Sister_District, a national organization that is dedicated to helping state legislative candidates in the most critical battleground districts in the country. #LD17
To receive an endorsement from Sister District Project, Volk, like all other candidates who have been endorsed by the organization, had to agree to a six-prong policy plank, including more gun control policies and protection against climate change.
Volk’s support from Sister District Project and its devotion to the radical beliefs around the issue of climate change closely mirrors an endorsement of the LD 17 Democrat candidate from another climate-oriented organization, Climate Cabinet. This organization thanks a number of other likeminded partners – one of which is the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter.
Voters might find it hard to decipher what Volk believes (or does not believe) thanks to his nonexistent record, but as with the endorsements he has received and announced, there are concerning signs that he would be an unwavering vote for the Democrat Party in the Arizona Legislature. In an opinion piece for the Tucson Daily Star on March 6, Volk wrote against an election integrity proposal from Republican Representative Rachel Jones, stating that her legislation would mean that “politicians in our state could potentially choose the winner of the presidential election – regardless of your vote.” He added, “Bypassing Arizonans’ votes for president does not secure elections, it silences voters. I believe that Arizonans, not politicians, should help decide who the next president is.”
However, Volk’s sentiments appear to be hypocritical when it comes to recent actions from his own party at the top of the ticket, where President Joe Biden stepped aside from the votes of millions of Democrats around the country, including Arizonans, after an overwhelming crescendo of voices from his party’s elite forced his hand. What Volk raged against in the southern Arizona publication became reality, not with a Republican policy, but actually with his party’s presumed and eventual nominee who was elected by the votes of political delegates in Chicago, Illinois – not the votes of Arizonans and other men and women from states around the United States.
According to the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, Legislative District 17 has an 8.34% vote spread between Republicans and Democrats in the last nine state elections. In those nine elections, Republicans have won all nine contests.
Volk will face off in the November General Election against Republicans Cory McGarr and Jones, who are both incumbent State Representatives. McGarr and Jones emerged over Anna Orth in the July Primary Election.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
A middle-of-the-road legislative district in the Phoenix-metro area will be key to deciding the future political makeup of the Arizona State Legislature.
State Representative Seth Blattman, a Democrat, is running for reelection in Arizona Legislative District 9.
The Democrat lawmaker has been endorsed by liberal groups in his reelection bid, including National Organization for Women Arizona, AEA Fund for Public Education, the Progressive Turnout Project, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Jane Fonda Climate PAC, Save Our Schools Arizona, and Stonewall Democrats of Arizona.
Blattman’s support from the Fonda PAC may be one of the most concerning for voters researching his record and determining which direction they want to see for their district. On August 7, Blattman boasted of this endorsement, saying, “I am incredibly honored to announce the endorsement by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC! Their tireless efforts in combating climate change and advocating for sustainable policies are crucial for our planet’s future. Together, let’s create a healthier and sustainable Arizona for generations to come.”
I am incredibly honored to announce the endorsement by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC! Their tireless efforts in combating climate change and advocating for sustainable policies are crucial for our planet's future. Together, let's create a healthier and sustainable Arizona for… pic.twitter.com/qXZVxxZDJs
The mission of the PAC, however, is not as agreeable to a wide swath of constituents. On her website, Fonda writes, “Our planet is on fire and our leaders are failing us, so if we can’t change the minds of the people in power, we need to change the people in power. It is for that reason that I started Jane Fonda Climate PAC, which is laser-focused on one goal: Do what it takes to defeat fossil fuel supporters and elect climate champions at all levels of government.”
This PAC asserts that “major solutions are stopped cold: the Green New Deal, Build Back Better, clean energy investments, ending billions in tax subsidies to the fossil fuel industry – all because of politicians backed by Big Oil.”
The Green New Deal pushed by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC is the same championed by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who is one of the most progressive lawmakers in the U.S. Congress. On Sanders’ presidential campaign website, he wrote about the deal, that “the climate crisis is not only the single greatest challenge facing our country; it is also our single greatest opportunity to build a more just and equitable future, but we must act immediately.”
Sanders added that as president he would “launch the decade of the Green New Deal, a ten-year, nationwide mobilization centered around justice and equity during which climate change will be factored into virtually every area of policy, from immigration to trade to foreign policy and beyond. Part of the details of the Green New Deal, according to Sanders, includes, “declaring climate change a national emergency, commit[ing] to reducing emissions throughout the world, [and] expanding the climate justice movement.”
Though Arizona has so far resisted an extreme move to the globalist agenda of the climate change lobby – thanks, in large part, to its previous Republican governors (Brewer and Ducey) and a Republican-led legislature – Blattman’s recent votes indicate that he might help usher in more of the Green New Deal policies should Democrats retake the legislature alongside Governor Katie Hobbs. He voted against HCR 2050, which would have “constitutionally prohibit[ed] Arizona or any political subdivision or public body of Arizona from restricting the manufacture, use or sale or a device based on the energy sources used to power the device.”
Additionally, Blattman voted against HCR 2018, which would have “prohibit[ed] this state and any city, town, county, municipal corporation or other political subdivision of this state from imposing a fee or tax based on vehicle miles traveled by a person in a motor vehicle or enacting any rule or law to monitor or limit the vehicle miles traveled by a person in a motor vehicle.”
Another of Blattman’s endorsements, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, also highlights its efforts to fight for the Green New Deal. The organization promotes itself as “a proud supporter of Elizabeth Warren since her first run for Senate and was the first national political organization to endorse her for president in the 2020 election.”
Warren, also one of the most liberal and progressive members of the U.S. Congress, presents herself as a top supporter of the Green New Deal. On her campaign website, Warren writes, “This is a crisis. We need bold, aggressive action. We need a Green New Deal – and we need it now. Elizabeth is proud to be an original cosponsor of Senator Ed Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal resolution, which commits the United States to a ten-year mobilization to achieve domestic net-zero emissions by 2030. It provides the framework for an ambitious effort to transform our economy and save our planet.”
According to the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, Legislative District 9 is one of the most competitive in the entire state, with a 2.6% vote spread between Democrats and Republicans in the past nine statewide elections. In those contests, Democrats have emerged victorious five times, compared to four for Republicans.
Blattman will attempt to return to the Arizona House of Representatives alongside his seatmate, Lorena Austin. The two Democrats are facing off against Republicans Mary Ann Mendoza and Kylie Barber for the right to represent the district in its two slots.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
