American Solutions
Supporters of the Senate energy tax, for which there are hearings taking place this week, have repeatedly claimed that cap and trade will create "green jobs" in America by taxing traditional energy production, which will supposedly lead to an economic boom of new energy technologies.
The official name of the Kerry-Boxer energy tax is even the "Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act."
It all sounds like a wonderful and fantastic future for America. Too bad it's a complete hoax.
To believe that a national energy tax will create jobs in America requires us to believe that we can tax our way to prosperity and that it is okay for the government to pick winners and losers in the economy. It demands that we reject basic economic principles about how to grow the economy and instead accept the notion that higher costs for companies will somehow allow them to hire more employees.
The reality is simple: Cap and trade will kill jobs. The Congressional Budget Office admitted this as recently as a few weeks ago. The Heritage Foundation predicts 1.8 million jobs will evaporate as soon as 2012 under the Senate energy tax. The National Association of Manufacturers predicts 2.4 million jobs lost by 2030 under cap and trade. The National Black Chamber of Commerce says by 2015 America will have lost 1.5 million jobs if we impose a new energy tax.
European countries even are starting to learn that green jobs are a myth.
In Germany, a recent study found that green jobs only existed if taxpayers churned out more than $200,000 for each job. Researchers also concluded that the high costs of green job creation in Germany would lead to higher employment in countries such as China.
In Denmark, where wind generates around 20% of their electricity but also where half of that wind energy has to be exported to other countries, taxpayers also suffer from the government's green jobs efforts. One Danish study revealed that each green job requires a taxpayer subsidy to the tune of 250 times the wage earned.
Indeed, green jobs require that the government pick winners and losers in the economy, and even then the result is fewer total jobs. Can America afford that kind of shortsighted policy when unemployment is close to 10 percent?
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
1110 GreenScam (SuperFreakOnomics)
SuperFreakonomics
Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
JUST RELEASED ON OCTOBER 20TH!
The highly anticipated sequel to the best-selling Freakonomics has finally arrived! Steven Levitt, professor of economics at the University of Chicago, and author Stephen Dubner have teamed together again to weave their tales of economics. As with the original Freakonomics book, SuperFreakonomics will be based largely upon the innovative research of Professor Levitt, who has tackled problems inside and outside the field of economics. 288 pages, William Morrow, ISBN 0060889578, ISBN-13 978-0060889579.
Table of contents:
* Introduction: Putting the Freak in Economics
* Chapter 1: How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa?
* Chapter 2: Why should suicide bombers buy life insurance?
* Chapter 3: Unbelievable stories about apathy and altruism
* Chapter 4: The fix is in---and it's cheap and simple
* Chapter 5: What do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo have in common?
Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
JUST RELEASED ON OCTOBER 20TH!
The highly anticipated sequel to the best-selling Freakonomics has finally arrived! Steven Levitt, professor of economics at the University of Chicago, and author Stephen Dubner have teamed together again to weave their tales of economics. As with the original Freakonomics book, SuperFreakonomics will be based largely upon the innovative research of Professor Levitt, who has tackled problems inside and outside the field of economics. 288 pages, William Morrow, ISBN 0060889578, ISBN-13 978-0060889579.
Table of contents:
* Introduction: Putting the Freak in Economics
* Chapter 1: How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa?
* Chapter 2: Why should suicide bombers buy life insurance?
* Chapter 3: Unbelievable stories about apathy and altruism
* Chapter 4: The fix is in---and it's cheap and simple
* Chapter 5: What do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo have in common?
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
1118 GreenScam (takes a hit)
Ambrose: Warming theory takes a hit
GJ Sentinel Oct 15, 2009
Where I live in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, we just had one of the coolest, wettest summers in memory, and we've already had snow this fall. I looked at the thermometer the other day, seeing it was just 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and said to my wife, "This darned global warming is going to be the death of us yet."
Hold on, you true believers. Before you don your sheets and start burning crosses in my front yard on the grounds that I misunderstand basic concepts about climate change theory, let me say a couple of things.
One is that I know that local temperatures say next to nothing about global averages (even though warming alarmists are forever citing hot, dry local temperatures as evidence of their contentions).
I am also perfectly well aware that the stable, non-warming temperatures of the past decade and more is scarcely proof that warming is now definitively a thing of the past, especially since these 11 years have still been comparatively hot.
What this increasingly publicized fact does underline, however, is the unreliability of the computer models used to predict a warming calamity caused by human-emitted greenhouse gases, especially carbon. The models simply did not predict this stretch of years without temperature increases, and yes, I know, the defenders of the models say it's tougher to predict the short term than the long term, that the models overall are improving despite some uncertainty and that the warming will still get us if we fail take decisive steps internationally.
But missing something as significant as what has been happening illustrates the great flaw the models suffer from: There are just too many climate variables out there, too many things we do not know, for these models to give us prognostications either short or long term that you can have much faith in.
"Models solve the equations of fluid dynamics and do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and oceans," says the highly respected physicist Freeman Dyson in a quote I found in an Internet article. "They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and biology of fields, farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. They are full of fudge factors that are fitted to the existing climate, so the models more or less agree with the observed data. But there is no reason to believe the same fudge factors would give the right behavior in a world with different chemistry, for example, in a world with increased CO2 in the atmosphere."
In a 2008 piece in The New York Review of Books, Dyson also takes on the tough question of what to do if you assume the dire predictions of the often-cited United Nations forecasters are right. He discusses a book by the economist William Nordhaus, who has shown that the Kyoto treaty or the kind of cap-and-trade program Al Gore advocates would do far more harm than good, causing generations of impoverishment in places like China. Nordhaus favors a relatively small, gradually phased-in carbon tax with a backup technology plan including bioengineered, carbon-gobbling trees.
Dyson especially likes the tree idea. He figures it virtually inevitable we will have such trees in another 20 to 50 years, points out they will serve as an economic advantage for lands poor and rich and says they could solve any carbon-related warming problem.
Dyson, by the way, also thinks the emphasis on global warming as the greatest evil the world faces is as much an expression of a secular, environmentalist religion as it is of science, cannot understand why those who subscribe to the theory are so dogmatic and notes that skeptics are often right on science issues. Just recently, the warming skeptics scored some points.
(Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado. He can be reached at SpeaktoJay(at)aol.com.)
GJ Sentinel Oct 15, 2009
Where I live in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, we just had one of the coolest, wettest summers in memory, and we've already had snow this fall. I looked at the thermometer the other day, seeing it was just 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and said to my wife, "This darned global warming is going to be the death of us yet."
Hold on, you true believers. Before you don your sheets and start burning crosses in my front yard on the grounds that I misunderstand basic concepts about climate change theory, let me say a couple of things.
One is that I know that local temperatures say next to nothing about global averages (even though warming alarmists are forever citing hot, dry local temperatures as evidence of their contentions).
I am also perfectly well aware that the stable, non-warming temperatures of the past decade and more is scarcely proof that warming is now definitively a thing of the past, especially since these 11 years have still been comparatively hot.
What this increasingly publicized fact does underline, however, is the unreliability of the computer models used to predict a warming calamity caused by human-emitted greenhouse gases, especially carbon. The models simply did not predict this stretch of years without temperature increases, and yes, I know, the defenders of the models say it's tougher to predict the short term than the long term, that the models overall are improving despite some uncertainty and that the warming will still get us if we fail take decisive steps internationally.
But missing something as significant as what has been happening illustrates the great flaw the models suffer from: There are just too many climate variables out there, too many things we do not know, for these models to give us prognostications either short or long term that you can have much faith in.
"Models solve the equations of fluid dynamics and do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and oceans," says the highly respected physicist Freeman Dyson in a quote I found in an Internet article. "They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and biology of fields, farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. They are full of fudge factors that are fitted to the existing climate, so the models more or less agree with the observed data. But there is no reason to believe the same fudge factors would give the right behavior in a world with different chemistry, for example, in a world with increased CO2 in the atmosphere."
In a 2008 piece in The New York Review of Books, Dyson also takes on the tough question of what to do if you assume the dire predictions of the often-cited United Nations forecasters are right. He discusses a book by the economist William Nordhaus, who has shown that the Kyoto treaty or the kind of cap-and-trade program Al Gore advocates would do far more harm than good, causing generations of impoverishment in places like China. Nordhaus favors a relatively small, gradually phased-in carbon tax with a backup technology plan including bioengineered, carbon-gobbling trees.
Dyson especially likes the tree idea. He figures it virtually inevitable we will have such trees in another 20 to 50 years, points out they will serve as an economic advantage for lands poor and rich and says they could solve any carbon-related warming problem.
Dyson, by the way, also thinks the emphasis on global warming as the greatest evil the world faces is as much an expression of a secular, environmentalist religion as it is of science, cannot understand why those who subscribe to the theory are so dogmatic and notes that skeptics are often right on science issues. Just recently, the warming skeptics scored some points.
(Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado. He can be reached at SpeaktoJay(at)aol.com.)
Monday, September 21, 2009
1143 - GreenScam (cold is coming?)
GlobalWarmingHoax
We all know that the artificial construct known as "cap and trade" is nothing more than a fraud to get companies to pay more taxes. It will have very little, to no, impact on CO2 levels, much less global warming.
Even if anthropogenic global warming existed there are much more effective and less costly ways of dealing with it. But those would not be income producers for our greedy governments thus they receive little attention (see Bjorn Lomborg 's Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming). At last someone is doing something about it, the Space and Science Research Center is calling for a SEC review of Cap and Trade. Especially now that global "warming" is over Cap and Trade needs to be investigated as possibly being illegal as “worthless securities”.
Space and Science Research Center
www.spaceandscience.net
PRESS RELEASE, Monday June 15, 2009
SSRC 3-2009
Reviewing Climate Change and Cap and Trade Programs to Insure Investor Protection
Based upon information supplied to it by the Space and Science Research Center (SSRC), the Securities and Exchange Commission has begun a review of the Obama administration’s carbon trading, ‘emission allowance,’ and climate change permitting programs to insure investors are adequately protected.
According to SSRC Director, John Casey, “The reason for our request to the SEC is straightforward. Since global warming has ended, there simply is no need to implement a massive government tax or investment/trading programs in a vain attempt to control it. The natural repeating cycles of the Sun which caused the past global warming have now reversed to a normal though potentially dangerous cold phase. The unbelievable $646 billion tax on the people paid for through cap and trade programs and spelled out in the proposed 2010 federal budget is the largest environmental tax in the history of the United States. It is also completely unnecessary. Here we are creating a huge tax and investment system to counteract something that does not exist and yet not spending the first dollar to get our country prepared for the rapidly advancing coldest weather in over 200 years!
As a result, the SSRC in conjunction with its parent company, have asked the SEC to insure that publicly traded companies and their investors are protected from the real prospect of what I believe could be highly risky if not illegal (“worthless securities”) trading in climate change control instruments. In a March 19, 2009, letter to SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, I have asked that she take several definitive steps to protect investors. The least of these steps is that the SEC needs to insure investors are provided full and accurate disclosure of climate change investment risks. Investors should be told that there is no global warming and that the coming cold weather may make any such investment vehicles worthless in a few years as the world comes to recognize man made climate change for the failed concept that many experts believe it is. I can see investors, Wall Street firms, and public companies losing tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars because of these climate change control efforts by the Obama administration.”
On whether a political appointee such as Chairman Schapiro will do anything to interrupt the climate change and global warming programs of the Obama administration, Casey voiced optimism saying, “Chairman Schapiro has been given a free hand and wide ranging mandate to revamp the SEC and toughen its investor protections in light of a wave of scandals and other financial crises that have rocked Wall Street over the past two years. I am hopeful that she will stand up to partisan politics by making all such climate change controlling investment programs contain full disclosure of the risks involved. I would like her to go beyond that as specified in my letter by for example, halting all carbon trading. I have not announced the SEC’s review previously to allow them sufficient time to look into the matter. Now that the SEC has had the ball in their court for the past three months, I hope we will see a ruling soon, especially with climate legislation now being considered by Congress.”
In looking at the climate change question objectively Casey injected, “The SSRC is the leading independent science research organization in the United States on the science of and planning for the next cold climate era. I was the recipient of heavy and often irrational criticism from all sectors when I first announced my research and the forecast of the next climate change to the media, US government, and the scientific community. Now that my predictions have come to pass, scientists and prominent leaders from around the world have now joined the fray in the effort to spread the word about the dramatic changes taking place in the Sun and what really causes climate change on Earth. Accordingly, the SSRC is now the most quoted source on the world wide web on the subject of the climate change to this new cold era. I will continue my efforts to alert the media, our government, and the American people on how this next climate period will unfold and what effects it will have on everyone. This request to the SEC for investor protection and disclosure of the inherent risks of carbon trading is another logical step in support of that mission. The on going process of the SSRC to speak the truth about climate change will also accelerate as the cold weather gets closer. This Wednesday for example, the SSRC will issue a new climate forecast, the most important of its kind in over two years. It will provide a more detailed schedule for how soon the deepest cold will arrive and start to create food shortages in the United States because of expected crop damage. In the meantime, let’s hope the SEC does the right thing by protecting investors from the folly that is called ‘man made climate change.’ ”
We all know that the artificial construct known as "cap and trade" is nothing more than a fraud to get companies to pay more taxes. It will have very little, to no, impact on CO2 levels, much less global warming.
Even if anthropogenic global warming existed there are much more effective and less costly ways of dealing with it. But those would not be income producers for our greedy governments thus they receive little attention (see Bjorn Lomborg 's Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming). At last someone is doing something about it, the Space and Science Research Center is calling for a SEC review of Cap and Trade. Especially now that global "warming" is over Cap and Trade needs to be investigated as possibly being illegal as “worthless securities”.
Space and Science Research Center
www.spaceandscience.net
PRESS RELEASE, Monday June 15, 2009
SSRC 3-2009
Reviewing Climate Change and Cap and Trade Programs to Insure Investor Protection
Based upon information supplied to it by the Space and Science Research Center (SSRC), the Securities and Exchange Commission has begun a review of the Obama administration’s carbon trading, ‘emission allowance,’ and climate change permitting programs to insure investors are adequately protected.
According to SSRC Director, John Casey, “The reason for our request to the SEC is straightforward. Since global warming has ended, there simply is no need to implement a massive government tax or investment/trading programs in a vain attempt to control it. The natural repeating cycles of the Sun which caused the past global warming have now reversed to a normal though potentially dangerous cold phase. The unbelievable $646 billion tax on the people paid for through cap and trade programs and spelled out in the proposed 2010 federal budget is the largest environmental tax in the history of the United States. It is also completely unnecessary. Here we are creating a huge tax and investment system to counteract something that does not exist and yet not spending the first dollar to get our country prepared for the rapidly advancing coldest weather in over 200 years!
As a result, the SSRC in conjunction with its parent company, have asked the SEC to insure that publicly traded companies and their investors are protected from the real prospect of what I believe could be highly risky if not illegal (“worthless securities”) trading in climate change control instruments. In a March 19, 2009, letter to SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, I have asked that she take several definitive steps to protect investors. The least of these steps is that the SEC needs to insure investors are provided full and accurate disclosure of climate change investment risks. Investors should be told that there is no global warming and that the coming cold weather may make any such investment vehicles worthless in a few years as the world comes to recognize man made climate change for the failed concept that many experts believe it is. I can see investors, Wall Street firms, and public companies losing tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars because of these climate change control efforts by the Obama administration.”
On whether a political appointee such as Chairman Schapiro will do anything to interrupt the climate change and global warming programs of the Obama administration, Casey voiced optimism saying, “Chairman Schapiro has been given a free hand and wide ranging mandate to revamp the SEC and toughen its investor protections in light of a wave of scandals and other financial crises that have rocked Wall Street over the past two years. I am hopeful that she will stand up to partisan politics by making all such climate change controlling investment programs contain full disclosure of the risks involved. I would like her to go beyond that as specified in my letter by for example, halting all carbon trading. I have not announced the SEC’s review previously to allow them sufficient time to look into the matter. Now that the SEC has had the ball in their court for the past three months, I hope we will see a ruling soon, especially with climate legislation now being considered by Congress.”
In looking at the climate change question objectively Casey injected, “The SSRC is the leading independent science research organization in the United States on the science of and planning for the next cold climate era. I was the recipient of heavy and often irrational criticism from all sectors when I first announced my research and the forecast of the next climate change to the media, US government, and the scientific community. Now that my predictions have come to pass, scientists and prominent leaders from around the world have now joined the fray in the effort to spread the word about the dramatic changes taking place in the Sun and what really causes climate change on Earth. Accordingly, the SSRC is now the most quoted source on the world wide web on the subject of the climate change to this new cold era. I will continue my efforts to alert the media, our government, and the American people on how this next climate period will unfold and what effects it will have on everyone. This request to the SEC for investor protection and disclosure of the inherent risks of carbon trading is another logical step in support of that mission. The on going process of the SSRC to speak the truth about climate change will also accelerate as the cold weather gets closer. This Wednesday for example, the SSRC will issue a new climate forecast, the most important of its kind in over two years. It will provide a more detailed schedule for how soon the deepest cold will arrive and start to create food shortages in the United States because of expected crop damage. In the meantime, let’s hope the SEC does the right thing by protecting investors from the folly that is called ‘man made climate change.’ ”
Saturday, September 19, 2009
1144 - GreenScam (Cash for Clunkers)
wizbangpop
For Clunkers" program would spur more new car sales and put more high mileage automobiles and trucks on the streets. It was intended to be a win-win business marketing program. Indeed, at least 700,000 total new units were sold during the campaign. However, the program was not without some highly negative consequences for the auto business. Many top selling used auto lots now find themselves in a real shortage for quality used cars and trucks as so many good quality vehicles that were hardly classified as true "clunkers" were turned in and destroyed in the program. Even many new car dealers who sell used cars find themselves being forced to run ads offering cash or high trade values for quality used vehicles to sell.
NY Times negative comments
Surprisingly Negative Comments re: Cash for Clunkers from NY Times readers
New York Times
Posted on Friday, July 31, 2009 7:35:53 PM by Ge0ffrey
Many NY Times readers seem to be bashing Congress's cash for clunker program. That's surprising because comments posted to NY Times articles usually run 9-1 (rough guess) in support of wacky left-wing causes.
Here's an example:
This is classic American legislation:
1. Reward the wrongdoers (i.e., those who bought and drive gas hogs). For this crowd: Drive a polluting, climate-changing, Al Qaeda-supporting pick-up or SUV for a few years, then get a $4,500 credit toward a new car.
2. Punish the responsible citizens (i.e., those who made frugal choices, but are enlisted to help pay for the free ride given to the wrongdoers). For this crowd: nothing but driving their well-made but certainly not immortal Hondas, Toyotas and Nissans toward the 200,000 mile mark, and crossing fingers that they will make it.
3. Fail to account for the true cost of the program.
What we should have in place of this boondoggle for the undeserving is a surtax on all vehicles with under 18 MPG, with all proceeds of the surtax going to renewable energy, energy conservation and mass transit projects. Rather than reward these slobs, make them pay.
For Clunkers" program would spur more new car sales and put more high mileage automobiles and trucks on the streets. It was intended to be a win-win business marketing program. Indeed, at least 700,000 total new units were sold during the campaign. However, the program was not without some highly negative consequences for the auto business. Many top selling used auto lots now find themselves in a real shortage for quality used cars and trucks as so many good quality vehicles that were hardly classified as true "clunkers" were turned in and destroyed in the program. Even many new car dealers who sell used cars find themselves being forced to run ads offering cash or high trade values for quality used vehicles to sell.
NY Times negative commentsSurprisingly Negative Comments re: Cash for Clunkers from NY Times readers
New York Times
Posted on Friday, July 31, 2009 7:35:53 PM by Ge0ffrey
Many NY Times readers seem to be bashing Congress's cash for clunker program. That's surprising because comments posted to NY Times articles usually run 9-1 (rough guess) in support of wacky left-wing causes.
Here's an example:
This is classic American legislation:
1. Reward the wrongdoers (i.e., those who bought and drive gas hogs). For this crowd: Drive a polluting, climate-changing, Al Qaeda-supporting pick-up or SUV for a few years, then get a $4,500 credit toward a new car.
2. Punish the responsible citizens (i.e., those who made frugal choices, but are enlisted to help pay for the free ride given to the wrongdoers). For this crowd: nothing but driving their well-made but certainly not immortal Hondas, Toyotas and Nissans toward the 200,000 mile mark, and crossing fingers that they will make it.
3. Fail to account for the true cost of the program.
What we should have in place of this boondoggle for the undeserving is a surtax on all vehicles with under 18 MPG, with all proceeds of the surtax going to renewable energy, energy conservation and mass transit projects. Rather than reward these slobs, make them pay.
Friday, September 18, 2009
1145 - GreenScam (cost kept from us)
CBS news blog
The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.
A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.
A second memorandum, which was prepared for Obama's transition team after the November election, says this about climate change policies: "Economic costs will likely be on the order of 1 percent of GDP, making them equal in scale to all existing environmental regulation."
The documents (PDF) were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute and released on Tuesday.
These disclosures will probably not aid the political prospects of the Democrats' cap and trade bill. The House of Representatives approved it by a remarkably narrow margin in June -- the bill would have failed if only six House members had switched their votes to "no" -- and it faces significant opposition in the Senate.
One reason the bill faces an uncertain future is concern about its cost. House Republican Leader John Boehner has estimated the additional tax bill would be at $366 billion a year, or $3,100 a year per family. Democrats have pointed to estimates from MIT's John Reilly, who put the cost at $800 a year per family, and noted that tax credits to low income households could offset part of the bite. The Heritage Foundation says that, by 2035, "the typical family of four will see its direct energy costs rise by over $1,500 per year."
One difference is that while Heritage's numbers are talking about 26 years in the future, the Treasury Department's figures don't have a time limit.
"Heritage is saying publicly what the administration is saying to itself privately," says Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who filed the FOIA request. "It's nice to see they're not spinning each other behind closed doors."
"They're not telling you the cost -- they're not telling you the benefit," says Horner, who wrote the Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming. "If they don't tell you the cost, and they don't tell you the benefit, what are they telling you? They're just talking about global salvation."
The FOIA'd document written by Judson Jaffe, who joined the Treasury Department's Office of Environment and Energy in January 2009, says: "Given the administration's proposal to auction all emission allowances, a cap-and-trade program could generate federal receipts on the order of $100 to $200 billion annually." (Obviously, any final cap-and-trade system may be different from what Obama had proposed, and could yield higher or lower taxes.)
Because personal income tax revenues bring in around $1.37 trillion a year, a $200 billion additional tax would be the equivalent of a 15 percent increase a year. A $100 billion additional tax would represent a 7 or 8 percent increase a year.
One odd point: The document written by Jaffee includes this line: "It will raise energy prices and impose annual costs on the order of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX." The Treasury Department redacted the rest of the sentence with a thick black line.
The Freedom of Information Act, of course, contains no this-might-embarrass-the-president exemption (nor, for that matter, should federal agencies be in the business of possibly suppressing dissenting climate change voices). You'd hope the presidential administration that boasts of being the "most open and transparent in history" would be more forthcoming than this.
The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.
A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.
A second memorandum, which was prepared for Obama's transition team after the November election, says this about climate change policies: "Economic costs will likely be on the order of 1 percent of GDP, making them equal in scale to all existing environmental regulation."
The documents (PDF) were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute and released on Tuesday.
These disclosures will probably not aid the political prospects of the Democrats' cap and trade bill. The House of Representatives approved it by a remarkably narrow margin in June -- the bill would have failed if only six House members had switched their votes to "no" -- and it faces significant opposition in the Senate.
One reason the bill faces an uncertain future is concern about its cost. House Republican Leader John Boehner has estimated the additional tax bill would be at $366 billion a year, or $3,100 a year per family. Democrats have pointed to estimates from MIT's John Reilly, who put the cost at $800 a year per family, and noted that tax credits to low income households could offset part of the bite. The Heritage Foundation says that, by 2035, "the typical family of four will see its direct energy costs rise by over $1,500 per year."
One difference is that while Heritage's numbers are talking about 26 years in the future, the Treasury Department's figures don't have a time limit.
"Heritage is saying publicly what the administration is saying to itself privately," says Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who filed the FOIA request. "It's nice to see they're not spinning each other behind closed doors."
"They're not telling you the cost -- they're not telling you the benefit," says Horner, who wrote the Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming. "If they don't tell you the cost, and they don't tell you the benefit, what are they telling you? They're just talking about global salvation."
The FOIA'd document written by Judson Jaffe, who joined the Treasury Department's Office of Environment and Energy in January 2009, says: "Given the administration's proposal to auction all emission allowances, a cap-and-trade program could generate federal receipts on the order of $100 to $200 billion annually." (Obviously, any final cap-and-trade system may be different from what Obama had proposed, and could yield higher or lower taxes.)
Because personal income tax revenues bring in around $1.37 trillion a year, a $200 billion additional tax would be the equivalent of a 15 percent increase a year. A $100 billion additional tax would represent a 7 or 8 percent increase a year.
One odd point: The document written by Jaffee includes this line: "It will raise energy prices and impose annual costs on the order of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX." The Treasury Department redacted the rest of the sentence with a thick black line.
The Freedom of Information Act, of course, contains no this-might-embarrass-the-president exemption (nor, for that matter, should federal agencies be in the business of possibly suppressing dissenting climate change voices). You'd hope the presidential administration that boasts of being the "most open and transparent in history" would be more forthcoming than this.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
1162 Obama - Vote criteria
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,544163,00.html
1. I believe in a balanced budget and therefore will vote for a freeze in government spending until that goal is realized.
2. I believe government should not increase the financial burden on its citizenry during difficult economic times therefore I will oppose all tax increases until our economy has rebounded.
3. I believe more than four decades of U.S. dependence on foreign oil is a travesty therefore I will support an energy plan that calls for immediately increasing usage of all domestic resources including nuclear energy, natural gas, and coal as necessary.
4. I believe in the sovereignty and security of our country and therefore will support measures to close our borders except for designated immigration points so we will know who is entering and why and I will vehemently oppose any measure giving another country, the United Nations, or any other entity, power over U.S. citizens.
5. I believe the United States of America is the greatest country on earth and therefore will not apologize for policies or actions which have served to free more and feed more people around the world than any other nation on the planet.
1. I believe in a balanced budget and therefore will vote for a freeze in government spending until that goal is realized.
2. I believe government should not increase the financial burden on its citizenry during difficult economic times therefore I will oppose all tax increases until our economy has rebounded.
3. I believe more than four decades of U.S. dependence on foreign oil is a travesty therefore I will support an energy plan that calls for immediately increasing usage of all domestic resources including nuclear energy, natural gas, and coal as necessary.
4. I believe in the sovereignty and security of our country and therefore will support measures to close our borders except for designated immigration points so we will know who is entering and why and I will vehemently oppose any measure giving another country, the United Nations, or any other entity, power over U.S. citizens.
5. I believe the United States of America is the greatest country on earth and therefore will not apologize for policies or actions which have served to free more and feed more people around the world than any other nation on the planet.
Friday, August 28, 2009
1166 Obama - GB's Round 4 ?'s
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/29631/?ck=1
- Why do we need a civilian force?
- Who is posing a threat to us?
- Who will this "force" be made up of?
- Who is the real enemy?
- Does the president know of a coming event? If not, who builds an army against an unrecognized enemy?
- Why won't the media get off their butts and look into these radicals in the White House? And into this civilian army?
- Why do we need a civilian force?
- Who is posing a threat to us?
- Who will this "force" be made up of?
- Who is the real enemy?
- Does the president know of a coming event? If not, who builds an army against an unrecognized enemy?
- Why won't the media get off their butts and look into these radicals in the White House? And into this civilian army?
Thursday, August 27, 2009
1167 Obama - GB's Round 3 ?'s
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/29631/?ck=1
- Why does the FCC have a diversity "czar"?
- Who is Mark Lloyd and how does he plan to "balance" the airwaves?
- Will he bring back the Fairness Doctrine or worse?
- Cass Sunstein once said he wants to balance the Internet; is that next?
- Will broadcasters who leave the airwaves be allowed to go to satellite or Internet without government regulation?
- Is there any place (that has a mass audience) where the government wont regulate free speech?
- Why does it seem every member of the Obama advisory team hates capitalism, unless those companies (like G.E.) are in bed with the administration?
- If Lloyd has his way, stations who don't comply to the governments definition of the "public interest" will have to pay a massive fine — that helps support public broadcasting:
- What will be the definition of "public interest"?
- Who defines "public interest"?
- Why should it be balanced? Because it's public airwaves? (Well, there are public roads that go by my house and I don't count how many Republicans and Democrats are driving on them)
- Why does the FCC have a diversity "czar"?
- Who is Mark Lloyd and how does he plan to "balance" the airwaves?
- Will he bring back the Fairness Doctrine or worse?
- Cass Sunstein once said he wants to balance the Internet; is that next?
- Will broadcasters who leave the airwaves be allowed to go to satellite or Internet without government regulation?
- Is there any place (that has a mass audience) where the government wont regulate free speech?
- Why does it seem every member of the Obama advisory team hates capitalism, unless those companies (like G.E.) are in bed with the administration?
- If Lloyd has his way, stations who don't comply to the governments definition of the "public interest" will have to pay a massive fine — that helps support public broadcasting:
- What will be the definition of "public interest"?
- Who defines "public interest"?
- Why should it be balanced? Because it's public airwaves? (Well, there are public roads that go by my house and I don't count how many Republicans and Democrats are driving on them)
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
1168 Obama - GB's Round 2 ?'s
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/29631/?ck=1
- Who is "surrounding" the President in the White House?
- Do any of the President's advisers have criminal records?
- Are the President's advisers working to better the country or their own ideals?
- Who are the anti-capitalists in Washington?
- What roles do they have in crafting bills?
- What was "STORM"? What happened to the founders, where are they now?
- What qualifications must one have to be a Presidential adviser?
- What is the difference between a community organizer and a community activist?
- Do the czars have power?
- Should a communist have the ear of the President of the United States?
- What role did the Apollo Alliance play in crafting bills?
- Does the President know the co-founder of the Weather Underground is a board member of the Apollo Alliance?
- How many people in the administration are connected to the movement for a democratic society?
- What role does George Soros play... CONSTITUTIONALLY?
- Who is "surrounding" the President in the White House?
- Do any of the President's advisers have criminal records?
- Are the President's advisers working to better the country or their own ideals?
- Who are the anti-capitalists in Washington?
- What roles do they have in crafting bills?
- What was "STORM"? What happened to the founders, where are they now?
- What qualifications must one have to be a Presidential adviser?
- What is the difference between a community organizer and a community activist?
- Do the czars have power?
- Should a communist have the ear of the President of the United States?
- What role did the Apollo Alliance play in crafting bills?
- Does the President know the co-founder of the Weather Underground is a board member of the Apollo Alliance?
- How many people in the administration are connected to the movement for a democratic society?
- What role does George Soros play... CONSTITUTIONALLY?
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
1169 Obama - GB's Round 1 ?'s
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/29631/
- Our unfunded liability for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is close to $100 trillion. Is there any way to pay for these programs without bankrupting America?
- We are in so much debt, why spend more borrowed money on cap-and-trade and healthcare programs before we stop the flow of red-ink?
- The stimulus package funneled billions of dollars to ACORN. How does giving billions of dollars to ACORN stimulate the economy?
- If it was so important for congress to pass the stimulus bill before they even had time to read it why has only a fraction of the stimulus money been spent 6 months later?
- Bush said he had to abandon free market principles in order to save them, how exactly does that work?
- Why won’t members of Congress read the bills before they vote on them?
- Why are citizens mocked and laughed at when they ask their congressman to read the bills before they vote on them?
- Was the cash-for-clunkers program meant to save the earth or the economy? Did it accomplish either?
- How did Van Jones, a self-proclaimed communist become a special advisor to the president?
- Did President Obama know of Van Jones’ radical political beliefs when he named him special advisor?
- The Apollo Alliance claimed credit for writing the stimulus bill—why was this group allowed to write any portion of this bill?
- If politicians aren’t writing the bills and aren’t reading the bills, do they have any idea what these 1000 page plus bills actually impose on the American people?
- If the ‘public option’ health care plan is so good why won’t politicians agree to have that as their plan?
- If town hall meetings are intended for the politicians to learn what’s on our mind—why do they spend so much time talking instead of listening?
- Politicians are refusing to attend town hall meetings complaining, without evidence, that they are scripted. Does that mean we shouldn’t come out and vote for you since every campaign stop, baby kiss and speech you give is scripted?
- Why would you want to overwhelm the system?
- Is using the economic crises to rush legislation through congress what Rahm Emanuel meant when he talked about "not letting a crises go to waste"?
- What are the czars paid? What is the budget for their staffs/offices?
- Our unfunded liability for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is close to $100 trillion. Is there any way to pay for these programs without bankrupting America?
- We are in so much debt, why spend more borrowed money on cap-and-trade and healthcare programs before we stop the flow of red-ink?
- The stimulus package funneled billions of dollars to ACORN. How does giving billions of dollars to ACORN stimulate the economy?
- If it was so important for congress to pass the stimulus bill before they even had time to read it why has only a fraction of the stimulus money been spent 6 months later?
- Bush said he had to abandon free market principles in order to save them, how exactly does that work?
- Why won’t members of Congress read the bills before they vote on them?
- Why are citizens mocked and laughed at when they ask their congressman to read the bills before they vote on them?
- Was the cash-for-clunkers program meant to save the earth or the economy? Did it accomplish either?
- How did Van Jones, a self-proclaimed communist become a special advisor to the president?
- Did President Obama know of Van Jones’ radical political beliefs when he named him special advisor?
- The Apollo Alliance claimed credit for writing the stimulus bill—why was this group allowed to write any portion of this bill?
- If politicians aren’t writing the bills and aren’t reading the bills, do they have any idea what these 1000 page plus bills actually impose on the American people?
- If the ‘public option’ health care plan is so good why won’t politicians agree to have that as their plan?
- If town hall meetings are intended for the politicians to learn what’s on our mind—why do they spend so much time talking instead of listening?
- Politicians are refusing to attend town hall meetings complaining, without evidence, that they are scripted. Does that mean we shouldn’t come out and vote for you since every campaign stop, baby kiss and speech you give is scripted?
- Why would you want to overwhelm the system?
- Is using the economic crises to rush legislation through congress what Rahm Emanuel meant when he talked about "not letting a crises go to waste"?
- What are the czars paid? What is the budget for their staffs/offices?
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
1194 Obama - Beer Summit
By MARGARET TALEV
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON -- Different suds for different buds?
Each man's beer of choice was respectfully made available in glass mugs for their meeting at a table on the White House South Lawn Thursday evening: Bud Light for President Barack Obama, Sam Adams Light for Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, and Blue Moon for Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley.
Vice President Joe Biden joined the group with a glass of Buckler, a nonalcoholic beer.
As Obama likes to say, they could disagree without being disagreeable.
However, the high-profile happy hour with an elite black professor, a white cop and the nation's biracial president and white vice president won't erase the tensions that led to it. Despite Obama's election, Americans at all levels of society still struggle with racial friction.
Obama's regrets were clear; he knew he screwed up. Initially last week he said that the police "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates for lashing out at them after they showed up to see if he had broken into what turned out to be his own home. In saying that, the president polarized Americans, enraged police, went off-message on health care and lost standing with the public.
A Pew poll released Thursday found four in five Americans are aware of his remarks - and disapprove of them by 41 to 29 percent. Among whites alone, the split was 2-to-1 against him, and hurt his overall approval rating. Obama's support among whites fell following his comments from 53 to 46 percent in a couple of days.
Last week Obama quickly declared his first reaction unhelpful, professed his appreciation for police and allowed that Gates bore responsibility for escalating things. The president called it a "teachable moment" and set up Thursday evening's meeting.
Journalists were summoned to take pictures of the staged event, but not to ask questions or listen to the conversation. In retrospect, what would Gates and Crowley have done differently? What did they tell each other around the picnic table? In their hearts, did Thursday's meeting change anything? No answers were forthcoming Thursday night.
Gates and Crowley were permitted to come early for the 6 p.m. affair, bring entourages including family members, tour the White House and take official photos. These interactions also weren't public.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the meeting was worthwhile "even if you're not able to hear each and every word of it," and that such a dialogue "is what has to happen at every level of our society."
However, he struggled to explain how ordinary Americans should apply the example of a presidential invitation that neither Gates nor Crowley could reasonably refuse to less mediated instances of racial tension in their own lives.
"I don't think the president has outsized expectations that one cold beer at one table here is going to change massively the course of human history," Gibbs said. But Gibbs hoped the images would "provide a far different picture than what we've seen to date of this situation."
Valerie Fairley, 46, a black teacher from Mississippi, who was waiting for a White House tour on Thursday with her family, interpreted the beer meeting as political theater.
"I knew it was going to get to that point," after Obama said the police acted "stupidly," she said. "He was under the gun then."
Fairley first assumed that Gates was a victim of racial profiling, but said the more she learned about the 911 call and Gates' behavior before his arrest, she realized it wasn't that simple.
Fairley supports teaching cultural diversity and having laws to protect minority rights, but cautioned, "You cannot legislate love. You cannot legislate history."
"If we can get over slavery and get an African-American president in the White House," she said, "we can get past this incident, believe you me."
Saturday, July 25, 2009
1200 Obama - Red Pill Blue Pill
Washington Examiner, July 23, 2009
Take the red pill, Mr. President
By: David Freddoso
Commentary Staff Writer
07/23/09 6:56 AM EDT
President Barack Obama responds to questions during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
"If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?" -- President Obama
In last night's press conference, President Obama seemed to be reliving that famous scene from The Matrix. The main character is offered a choice between a red pill that makes him see reality for what it is, and a blue pill that allows him to continue living in a pleasant world of illusions.
Last night, President Obama appeared to have taken the blue pill before his press conference. How else could he convince himself, the Congressional Budget Office's numbers notwithstanding, that his health care reform bill will not increase both health care costs and the federal deficit? How else can he continue to make the argument that a massive expansion of government spending on health care will solve rather than exacerbate the current problems? How can he repeatedly express such absolute certainty that such a measure will easily pay for itself several times over in the long run? Why can he not at least acknowledge the possibility that it will become a costly and useless trillion-dollar boondoggle that follows in the footsteps of his stimulus package?
With his example of the red and blue pills, and another about whether a child's hypothetical tonsils should be removed, President Obama unwittingly presents the real problem with his plan for reform. Here is a well-meaning government official who so fails to grasp the problem in health care that he can present such absurd oversimplifications and suggest that this sort of thing is the real problem -- doctors simply lack the common sense to make obvious medical decisions. President Obama wants us to solve this problem by putting himself and other government officials in charge of rescuing medicine from the medical profession. If medical doctors with a decade of schooling cannot distinguish between good cures and ineffective ones that must be discontinued, then by gosh, we're lucky that the good folks from the government can.
President Obama thus frames the issue as a false choice between doing nothing at all and handing over to Washington complicated, case-by-case medical decisions that cannot possibly be legislated or dictated by government.
This transfer of medical authority to the bureaucracy is intended to curb costs. Unfortunately, there is exactly one thing that government can do to control costs in health care: it can insist on paying below cost. This shifts the cost burden to private insurance companies, which in turn pass along higher premiums to their patients. This is what government-run Medicare does today for many treatments, including cancer. Government will do more of this kind of "saving" when it assumes greater responsibility for funding citizens' health care, particularly if a government-option health care plan is established.
The Mayo Clinic which President Obama praised in his speech last night is the same Mayo Clinic whose president signed onto a letter to Congress yesterday, expressing fears that a government-option health care plan Obama wants to establish will do more of this cost-shifting. The letter states:
President Obama brushed off this concern last night near the end of his press conference, citing a hopeful but very vague blog post on Mayo's website that went up a day before the letter was sent. In addition to ignoring budgetary and medical concerns, he repeated his dubious promise that his plan will not force millions of Americans out of health insurance plans they already have and like. He had no comforting words to convince anyone of the wisdom of creating two new taxes on employers -- one of them a tax that punishes small businesses with a higher tax rate if they create more jobs -- in the middle of a recession.
The one thing President Obama did not do last night was address directly any of the concerns that Americans have about his pending reform proposals. With this sort of rhetorical detachment from reality, it is not surprising that public support for his vision of health care reform is gradually eroding.
President Obama needs to take the red pill, even if it does cost twice as much.
Take the red pill, Mr. President
By: David Freddoso
Commentary Staff Writer
07/23/09 6:56 AM EDT
President Barack Obama responds to questions during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
"If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?" -- President Obama
In last night's press conference, President Obama seemed to be reliving that famous scene from The Matrix. The main character is offered a choice between a red pill that makes him see reality for what it is, and a blue pill that allows him to continue living in a pleasant world of illusions.
Last night, President Obama appeared to have taken the blue pill before his press conference. How else could he convince himself, the Congressional Budget Office's numbers notwithstanding, that his health care reform bill will not increase both health care costs and the federal deficit? How else can he continue to make the argument that a massive expansion of government spending on health care will solve rather than exacerbate the current problems? How can he repeatedly express such absolute certainty that such a measure will easily pay for itself several times over in the long run? Why can he not at least acknowledge the possibility that it will become a costly and useless trillion-dollar boondoggle that follows in the footsteps of his stimulus package?
With his example of the red and blue pills, and another about whether a child's hypothetical tonsils should be removed, President Obama unwittingly presents the real problem with his plan for reform. Here is a well-meaning government official who so fails to grasp the problem in health care that he can present such absurd oversimplifications and suggest that this sort of thing is the real problem -- doctors simply lack the common sense to make obvious medical decisions. President Obama wants us to solve this problem by putting himself and other government officials in charge of rescuing medicine from the medical profession. If medical doctors with a decade of schooling cannot distinguish between good cures and ineffective ones that must be discontinued, then by gosh, we're lucky that the good folks from the government can.
President Obama thus frames the issue as a false choice between doing nothing at all and handing over to Washington complicated, case-by-case medical decisions that cannot possibly be legislated or dictated by government.
This transfer of medical authority to the bureaucracy is intended to curb costs. Unfortunately, there is exactly one thing that government can do to control costs in health care: it can insist on paying below cost. This shifts the cost burden to private insurance companies, which in turn pass along higher premiums to their patients. This is what government-run Medicare does today for many treatments, including cancer. Government will do more of this kind of "saving" when it assumes greater responsibility for funding citizens' health care, particularly if a government-option health care plan is established.
The Mayo Clinic which President Obama praised in his speech last night is the same Mayo Clinic whose president signed onto a letter to Congress yesterday, expressing fears that a government-option health care plan Obama wants to establish will do more of this cost-shifting. The letter states:
- Under the current Medicare system, a majority of doctors and hospitals that care for Medicare patients are paid substantially less than it costs to treat them. Many providers are therefore already approaching a point where they can not afford to see Medicare patients. Expansion of a Medicare-type plan without a method to define, measure, and pay for healthy outcomes for patients will move many doctors and hospitals across this threshold, and ultimately hurt the patients who seek our care. We should not put more Americans into the current unsustainable system.
President Obama brushed off this concern last night near the end of his press conference, citing a hopeful but very vague blog post on Mayo's website that went up a day before the letter was sent. In addition to ignoring budgetary and medical concerns, he repeated his dubious promise that his plan will not force millions of Americans out of health insurance plans they already have and like. He had no comforting words to convince anyone of the wisdom of creating two new taxes on employers -- one of them a tax that punishes small businesses with a higher tax rate if they create more jobs -- in the middle of a recession.
The one thing President Obama did not do last night was address directly any of the concerns that Americans have about his pending reform proposals. With this sort of rhetorical detachment from reality, it is not surprising that public support for his vision of health care reform is gradually eroding.
President Obama needs to take the red pill, even if it does cost twice as much.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
1202 Obama - Health Care hype
New York Times July 22, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Obama showed great fluency in the intricate details of health policy at his news conference on Wednesday night, but experts said some of his points were debatable.
Steve: doctors, nurses support overhaul of health care
WASHINGTON — President Obama showed great fluency in the intricate details of health policy at his news conference on Wednesday night, but experts said some of his points were debatable.
Steve: doctors, nurses support overhaul of health care
- a half-dozen state medical societies have sharply criticized provisions that would establish a new government-run health insurance plan
- Far from supporting this proposal, the American Hospital Association is urging hospital executives to lobby against it.
- Hospitals say the cuts could indeed cut services in some rural areas and from teaching hospitals, which receive extra payments because of higher costs.
- Republicans said many of the amendments involved technical provisions and did not alter the fundamental features of the bill.
- America’s Health Insurance Plans, the main lobby for insurers, contends that “for every $1 spent on health care in America, approximately one penny goes to health plans’ profits.”
- But, under his plan, it is not clear who would take responsibility for patients and coordinate care in traditional fee-for-service medicine.
- In fact, $1.5 trillion of those “savings” are mainly based on an assumption that the United States would have had as many troops in Iraq in 10 years as it did when Mr. Obama took office. But before leaving office, President George W. Bush signed an agreement with Baghdad mandating the withdrawal of all American forces within three years.
- So Mr. Obama is claiming credit for not spending money that, under the policy he inherited from Mr. Bush, would never have been spent in the first place.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
1217 Obama - Anne Wortham
Dr. Anne Wortham is the author of "The Other Side of Racism: A Philosophical Study of Black Race Consciousness". She is Associate Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University and continuing Visiting Scholar at Stanford University 's Hoover Institution. She is a member of the American Sociological Association and the American Philosophical Association. Pretty strong credentials, don't you think?
In researching Anne Wortham I also found that she is a follower of Ayn Rand. That's why I haven't heard of her before. A black university professor who is a Rand fan?
Why bring her up? Because I've just come across a letter she wrote to her fellow Americans on November 6th of last year. I thought you might enjoy it ... so here goes:
Fellow Americans,
Please know: I am black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a black president to love the ideal of America.
I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival - all that I know about the history of the United States of America, all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America. Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn't look like them. I would have to be wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration - political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
I would have to believe that "fairness" is equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.
Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting "Yes We Can!" Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead - and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.
So you have made history, Americans. You and your children have elected a black man to the office of the president of the United States, the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over - and that Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a black person. So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America. Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley. You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to - Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine - what little there is left - for the chance to feel good. There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness.
November 6, 2008
Saturday, July 4, 2009
1221 Obama - Declaration of Independence
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
- He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
- He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
- He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
- He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
- He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
- He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
- He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
- He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
- He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
- He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
- He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
- He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
- He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
- For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
- For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
- For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
- For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
- For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
- For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
- For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
- For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
- For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
- He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
- He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
- He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
- He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
- He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
SORT BY NAME
Name, State, Column
John Adams, Massachusetts, 6
Samuel Adams, Massachusetts, 6
Josiah Bartlett, New Hampshire, 6
Carter Braxton, Virginia, 3
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland, 3
Samuel Chase, Maryland, 3
Abraham Clark, New Jersey, 5
George Clymer, Pennsylvania, 4
William Ellery, Rhode Island, 6
William Floyd, New York, 5
Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania, 4
Elbridge Gerry, Massachusetts, 6
Button Gwinnett, Georgia, 1
Lyman Hall, Georgia, 1
John Hancock, Massachusetts, 3
Benjamin Harrison, Virginia, 3
John Hart, New Jersey, 5
Joseph Hewes, North Carolina, 2
Thomas Heyward, Jr., South Carolina, 2
William Hooper, North Carolina, 2
Stephen Hopkins, Rhode Island, 6
Francis Hopkinson, New Jersey, 5
Samuel Huntington, Connecticut, 6
Thomas Jefferson, Virginia, 3
Francis Lightfoot Lee, Virginia, 3
Richard Henry Lee, Virginia, 3
Francis Lewis, New York, 5
Philip Livingston, New York, 5
Thomas Lynch, Jr., South Carolina, 2
Thomas McKean, Delaware, 4
Arthur Middleton, South Carolina, 2
Lewis Morris, New York, 5
Robert Morris, Pennsylvania, 4
John Morton, Pennsylvania, 4
Thomas Nelson, Jr., Virginia, 3
William Paca, Maryland, 3
Robert Treat Paine, Massachusetts, 6
John Penn, North Carolina, 2
George Read, Delaware, 4
Caesar Rodney, Delaware, 4
George Ross, Pennsylvania, 4
Benjamin Rush, Pennsylvania, 4
Edward Rutledge, South Carolina, 2
Roger Sherman, Connecticut, 6
James Smith, Pennsylvania, 4
Richard Stockton, New Jersey, 5
Thomas Stone, Maryland, 3
George Taylor, Pennsylvania, 4
Matthew Thornton, New Hampshire, 6
George Walton, Georgia, 1
William Whipple, New Hampshire, 6
William Williams, Connecticut, 6
James Wilson, Pennsylvania, 4
John Witherspoon, New Jersey, 5
Oliver Wolcott, Connecticut, 6
George Wythe, Virginia, 3
Saturday, June 27, 2009
1228 Obama - 1/2 Doomed
FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 477
(Democrats in roman; Republicans in italic; Independents underlined)
H R 2454 RECORDED VOTE 26-Jun-2009 7:17 PM
QUESTION: On Passage
BILL TITLE: American Clean Energy and Security Act
AYES 219 NOES 212
Let's Hope the Senate doesn't complete the DOOM
My rep Salazar, D, CO voted with the NOES
(Democrats in roman; Republicans in italic; Independents underlined)
H R 2454 RECORDED VOTE 26-Jun-2009 7:17 PM
QUESTION: On Passage
BILL TITLE: American Clean Energy and Security Act
AYES 219 NOES 212
Let's Hope the Senate doesn't complete the DOOM
My rep Salazar, D, CO voted with the NOES
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