Obama When Teleprompter Goes Down

US admin pays hundreds of millions for foreign mosques

It appears this has been going on for many years, not just during the Obama administration. I wonder why our taxpayer money can be used for religious purposes abroad, but that there has to be a finite separation here in the USA. It is time that we get our finances in order and eliminate all foreign aid. Most of it never reaches the poor anyway.

Daily Light - 2/24/2011 Another Global Warming Tale

Arrived in sunny Palm Springs on Tuesday and nearly froze on the golf course yesterday. Temperatures are averaging 10 degrees below normal here. Leaving for a weekend in Las Vegas. Visiting Dotty's cousin Russ. He says they are expecting snow Sunday, the first snowfall in about 26 years.

Just read that Chicago is expected to exceed their all time snowfall record this weekend.

Wish that global warming would commence. I hear it would do wonders for the food crops and help to cure world hunger. But then, all Al Gore cares about is power and money, and environmentalists are definitely not people persons.

My postings have been a little sparse this week due to travel. Should be back to normal next week.

Morning Joe Takes On The Distasteful Union Signs

Republicans Remain Firm As Wisconsin Democrats Shirk Their Job

Democrats continue to ignore the results of the November election that elected Republicans in great numbers, counting on them to restore some semblance of fiscal responsibility. Catering to their major contributors, the government employees' unions, they continue to be no'shows in order to prevent voting on major fiscal cuts involving the unions.

As FDR once said, "All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters."

Excerpt: Wisconsin Assembly Democrats sent Republican Gov. Scott Walker an alternate proposal that would keep the budget-balancing measures of his bill but strip its most controversial provisions, including a move to eliminate the state's 170,000 public workers of most collective-bargaining rights.

The proposal was rejected by Republicans in the Assembly and Mr. Walker had no immediate comment.

Republican lawmakers had expected the bill to pass the Assembly Thursday. Final passage on the bill remains far from certain, as the state's 14 Senate Democrats remain in northern Illinois, halting action in the Senate. On Thursday morning, Senate Republicans dispatched state troopers to the homes of the absent senators but did not find any of them.

Back in Wisconsin, tensions flared from the state Senate to the Assembly, as Democrats accused Republicans of cutting off discussion on Mr. Walker's bill by limiting the number of amendments. The Democrats have presented more than 100 amendments over two days, in the hope of stalling a vote.

Read full WSJ article here.

Public Employee Unions Should Be Made Illegal

Unions by their very nature are the antithesis of efficiency. With their onerous work rules, the inability to readily fire for cause or ineptness, and seniority rules that protect the status quo and make it difficult to hire new blood with new ideas, unionization results in costs that far exceed those in comparable non-unionized areas.

Added to the above, public employee unions have saddled the taxpayers with benefit packages that far exceed those of the vast majority of citizens and burdened our children with billions in unfunded benefits. Those benefits are driven by the ability of these unions to hold the citizens hostage, and demand never ending increases from politicians that use OPM (other peoples money) to buy support, both campaign funding and votes from the union hierarchy.


President Franklin Roosevelt, the Progressive icon, recognized this problem back in 1937. In a letter to Luther Steward, then President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, he wrote that "meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government". He went on to say that government employees should not have bargaining rights or a closed shop similar to private sector unions.

Public employee unions should be made illegal.

Excerpt: For the large majority of our history, public employee unions have been illegal. It is only since the 1960s and 1970s that they have been allowed. Currently, they are legal in roughly half the states. The United States has carried on a four-decade experiment in legalization, and the results are in: public employee unions are a cancer on our country.

Public employee unions flourish because government is, by its nature, a monopoly. Thus, there is no need for unionized government units to compete against non-unionized units. Moreover, public officials who negotiate with public employee unions generally lack the same incentives that private employers have to keep costs down. The result has been a fiscal disaster, with numerous states and municipalities now going over the waterfall of bankruptcy.

Enough is enough. Legalization of public employee unions has been a disaster. It is time to end the experiment and make them illegal once again, at both the federal and state levels. I expect that this will become one of the great political issues of the next decade.

Read full Power Line article here.

FDR's Letter To Union President Luther Steward Regarding Public Unions

My dear Mr. Steward:

As I am unable to accept your kind invitation to be present on the occasion of the Twentieth Jubilee Convention of the National Federation of Federal Employees, I am taking this method of sending greetings and a message.

Reading your letter of July 14, 1937, I was especially interested in the timeliness of your remark that the manner in which the activities of your organization have been carried on during the past two decades "has been in complete consonance with the best traditions of public employee relationships." Organizations of Government employees have a logical place in Government affairs.

The desire of Government employees for fair and adequate pay, reasonable hours of work, safe and suitable working conditions, development of opportunities for advancement, facilities for fair and impartial consideration and review of grievances, and other objectives of a proper employee relations policy, is basically no different from that of employees in private industry. Organization on their part to present their views on such matters is both natural and logical, but meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government.

All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.

Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that "under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government."

I congratulate the National Federation of Federal Employees the twentieth anniversary of its founding and trust that the convention will, in every way, be successful.

Very sincerely yours,

Deception and the Unseen Consequences of "Green Jobs"

For those of us that remember "way back" when we had a press that actually performed the job of investigative reporting, lies that were told by our elected officials somehow had a way of coming to the surface and biting them in the rear. Today, with the MSM in bed with the liberal/progressive/left, and full of pretty faces rather than true journalists, it is much harder for the average American to know what to and what not to believe.

Was watching the news the other day and found out that the statements, that Obama made about the proposed budget; that it would, in a few years, bring revenues and spending in sync and everything would be "peaches and cream" thereafter, are somewhat less than true.

The problem was that he forgot to mention that his calculation omitted interest on the $14 billion of debt. This interest, that amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars each year would be added to the debt in a never ending cycle. So much for the "truth" from our elected politicians.

Now we find out that the "Green Jobs" so highly touted by Obama in his State Of The Union address are not what we might expect. It turns out that the majority of the jobs are temporary, ala the stimulus, and he failed to take into account the job losses caused by the diversion of funds. In addition, the increased cost of energy will give the average family less disposable income to buy other things, thus destroying many jobs along the way.

Then there comes the topic of energy self sufficiency that Obama attaches to his green initiative. It turns out that much of the hardware required, will be produced in China. Why you say? Well, cheaper non-unionized labor is one reason, but another more important one, is that China has a near monopoly on certain of the rare earth elements needed for storage batteries, light bulbs, solar cells and magnets in wind turbines. Now we will be at the mercy of one country for our energy needs, China, instead of the 60 or so countries that are now exporting oil to us. A recent article I read put it this way, “Obama’s green power builds China’s red power”.

Are we confident that the government is telling us the whole truth about the “Green Jobs” program’s benefits? Probably not. Is this initiative doing more harm than good to our economy? Most likely.

Government Worker Unions: The Long Good-bye

What more is there to say. Democrats in the Wisconsin legislature left the state to prevent the vote on union largess. Obama and the Democrats funneled $160 billion of the stimulus funds to save union jobs. Obama stole investments from GM bondholders, many of whom were retirees, and gave ownership of the company to the autoworkers union. Obama has grown the Federal bureaucracy in two years by 200,000 employees, many of whom are unionized. Obama and the Democrats are protecting and expanding their union base and cashing in on political contributions at the expense of the taxpayers. This is government corruption at its best.

Excerpt: The "Madison Uprising" is the beginning of the end of the incestuous relationship between government and the unions. That fact has been recognized by the public sector unions and the Democratic Party and is why they have pulled out all the stops and reverted to their 1960's playbook in order to maintain the status quo. However, it is a battle that the unions and the Democratic Party will lose regardless of the immediate outcome in Wisconsin.

There is nothing wrong with private people or organizations, including private unions, spending money on political campaigns as institutional sources are disclosed. However, AFSCME, the NEA, the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) or the public union sector of SEIU are government employees. Their salaries are paid by the taxpayers and a portion of their salaries go to union dues which are slush funds for political activity and the promotion of left-wing causes. In 2008 the NEA and the AFT made contributions and grants totaling over $96 million of union dues; all to liberal organizations irrespective of the desires of the rank and file or the taxpayer.

It is wholly inappropriate for public employees to spend dues money on political contributions. Public officials are chosen through popular elections and the government employee should be indifferent as to the outcome of the election. However, by maintaining such a heavy hand in not only monetary contributions but election activity the politician becomes too dependent upon the union largess and is essentially blackmailed into acquiescing to all the demands of the union, particularly pay and benefits which have sky-rocketed and are now unsustainable.

President Franklin Roosevelt, the Progressive icon, recognized this problem back in 1937. In a letter to Luther Steward, then President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, he wrote that "meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government". He went on to say that government employees should not have bargaining rights or a closed shop similar to private sector unions.

Government workers have access to elected officials during negotiations to set wages and benefits and can hold the promise of campaign contributions over these politicians' heads during negotiations. There is, in effect, no one representing the taxpayer who is the source of all income to the government.

This means runaway compensation for government workers, higher taxes for the general public and higher deficits. The taxes go from the electorate to government paychecks to union dues-then to more campaign contributions until the state, municipality or the federal government faces bankruptcy.

It has taken Wisconsin and the near bankruptcy of the country and of many states and municipalities to finally awaken the American people to this fraud and theft. They must demand that public-sector unions can only be associations that can seek better workplace conditions or to facilitate employer-employee disputes but cannot have bargaining rights or mandatory dues.

Read full American Thinker article here.

Obama’s green power builds China’s red power

Obama's insistence on promoting and subsidizing more costly green energy at the expense of energy self-sufficiency here at home is putting us at the mercy of China, our biggest deficit supporter. We stand to lose an even larger percentage of our manufacturing jobs to our overseas competitor if we persist in thinking green energy is currently the answer to all our problems.

Let us open up our oil and gas fields, get new nuclear power plants on line, and even expand the current energy producing coal plants, thus creating jobs here at home and helping to solve our balance of payments deficit. Get those "libtards" out of Washington.

Excerpt: Environmentalist dogma threatens job growth and national security
Increasing the United States’ reliance on “clean” energy, as touted by President Obama yet again in this week’s budget proposal, would leave Americans just as dependent on unreliable foreign suppliers as we are now on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries‘ stranglehold on oil. Instead of a handful of mostly Middle Eastern states, we would be dependent on a single nation for critical energy supplies - China. The threat to both national security and the U.S. economy is obvious to anyone who isn’t blinded by environmentalist dogma.

The president’s claim - that his program of subsidies, government grants and tax breaks for green-energy technologies will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and thus improve the United States’ national security - is wrong. Rather, the greater our embrace of green-energy technologies, the worse off the United States likely will become geopolitically.

Key components of every green-energy technology, wind turbines, solar cells, energy-efficient lighting, high-tech batteries and other goods, are made from a small class of minerals known as rare-earth elements and other rare minerals. Despite their name, these elements are rather abundant, but at the moment and for the near future, they are found in economically exploitable concentrations only in the People's Republic of China. With 96 percent of the global market, China has a de facto monopoly on the trade in these rare elements.

Sadly, this dependence on China is driven purely by politics, not consumer demand. Absent huge government subsidies, grants and mandates, green energy, being more expensive and less reliable than traditional energy production, would not be so much in demand, and thus China would not be in the catbird seat.

The push to adopt rare-earth-powered energy technologies involves swapping one form of dependence for a much more restrictive one. The old saying “out of the frying pan into the fire” comes to mind.

If the U.S. government stopped interfering in domestic energy production and ended all energy mandates and subsidies, China‘s dominance of rare earths would become a non-issue. Absent government support, green-energy technologies would largely fade from the scene until entrepreneurs figure out a way to make them cost-competitive and more reliable. Nor would environmentalists have reason for complaint because fossil fuels would no longer receive subsidies, either. This would be a win-win for both fiscal hawks and green doves.

Read full Washington Times article here.

Michael Savage-February 18, 2011 On Wisconsin Unions

The Dems' tantrum

This is what the Milwaukee paper had to say.

Excerpt: In a snit, Senate Democrats run and hide - making a mockery of the democratic process.

Democrats in the state Senate threw a temper tantrum Thursday - essentially they took their ball and went home.

Actually, they didn't go home. They apparently went to Illinois, just out of reach of their obligations.

By boycotting an expected vote on Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill, they were able to prevent action on the measure. Twenty senators are required for a quorum; the Republicans have only 19.

The Walker plan is deeply divisive. We're not supportive of some aspects of the bill, either, including those that will make it nearly impossible for unions to negotiate. And we think that police and firefighter unions should not be excluded as they are now. But public worker benefits need to be reined in, and Walker is right to target them.

One leading Democrat - Obama was his name, as we recall - put it well after winning the White House in 2008: "Elections have consequences," he told Republicans at the time. Indeed they do. The Democrats' childish prank mocks the democratic process.

There were no classes in Madison schools. Port Washington High School had to close. The same was true at other schools around the state. Do these teachers care more about their jobs than their kids? We wonder.

Both Senate Democrats and teachers should get over their snits and get back to work.

Read full Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article here.

House blocks funding for health care law

True to their word, House Republicans are attempting to rein in spending and stop the implementation of ObamaCare. Hopefully this is not just "posturing" and they will follow through even in the face of a Government shutdown. What the Democrats are not telling you is that even in a Government shutdown, essential services are maintained. After all, isn't that all we conservatives want from the Federal Government?

Excerpt: The GOP-led House voted today to block funding to implement the nation's health care law.

The action came on several amendments to a must-pass spending bill that would pay for government operations from March through September.

Specifically, the House voted to prohibit any funds be used by the Internal Revenue Service to carry out the law's mandate that Americans buy health insurance. The individual mandate, one of the law's key tenets, has been struck down by federal courts.

The House also adopted an amendment by Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., to bar the Labor and Health and Human Services Departments from spending any money for the rest of fiscal year 2011 on the health care law. Still another provision adopted today would ban the government from paying the salaries of any federal employee involved in implementing the health care law.

Senate Democrats, who blocked a GOP effort last month to repeal the health care law, will try to remove these provisions when the spending bill goes to their chamber after the Presidents Day recess. President Obama has vowed to veto the House bill, which seeks to cut at $61 billion in federal spending for this year.

Read full USA Today article here.

House votes to overthrow 'czars'

What began in the Clinton Administration, grew with Bush, has now flourished with Obama. Obama is now running a "shadow government" that is proliferating regulations that usurp the power of Congress. As an example, Obama and his Czar, has stated that if Congress does not pass Cap & Tax, the EPA will do it through regulations.

I guess he, in his student days, forgot to read the part of the Constitution that states, Congress makes the laws and the Office of the President enforces them.

Hopefully, withdrawal of funding will begin the recovery efforts to re-establish the Constitution as the true law of the land.

Excerpt: The House voted Thursday to dethrone nine White House “czars.”

Republicans successfully added an amendment to the continuing resolution that would leave President Barack Obama’s senior advisers on policy issues including health care, energy and others out of a job.

The vote was 249-179.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) offered the amendment that blocks funding for various policy advisers to combat what he called “a very disturbing proliferation of czars” under Obama.

“These unappointed, unaccountable people who are literally running a shadow government, heading up these little fiefdoms that nobody can really seem to identify where they are or what they’re doing,” Scalise said Thursday. “But we do know that they’re wielding vast amounts of power.”

The jobs on the chopping block: White House-appointed advisers on health care, energy and climate, green jobs, urban affairs, the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, oversight of TARP executive compensation, diversity at the Federal Communications Commission and the auto industry manufacturing policy.

Read full POLITICO article here.

White House Insider: Beware of Issa

How valid this warning is, I do not know. When the Republicans came in, there was a lot of print about the investigations Issa was going to open. Now you don't hear anything. Here's hoping that it is only a matter of time that justice begins to take shape.

Excerpt: Follow Up: Again, you sound defeated. Are you saying Congressman Issa is not going to investigate the White House as promised?

Insider: Yes. Either his office has successfully shut off all leaks indicating otherwise, which as much as I would like to believe, I don’t, or a deal was made between the White House and his office. And that means that the Republican leadership signed off on it as well. Why they would do that I just don’t know. It’s like the Pelosi deal right after the midterms. That woman was gone and then suddenly she was back in. Somebody talked to somebody and she was once again safe and keeping her mouth shut. Whatever promises she made were null and void. For that kind of stuff to go down without people like me being able to know about it????? -Expletive-. That is not supposed to happen.

Question: What should we look for in the coming days and weeks?

Insider: Keep watching Issa. Maybe he’s got us fooled. I sure hope so. There is a current transition process quietly underway for the Geithner departure. Actually a bit of infighting over that. Jarrett wants him out, Daley is a supporter. That bit of info is something entirely new. Was not aware of that. Will be interesting to watch how it plays out between Jarrett and Daley. The war between those two may be an opening for us. As you already know, I have great respect for Bill Daley. Also look for a party scandal to emerge. This is being used to deflect from the White House, so don’t get too excited when it breaks out. Even though it involves Democrats, it is being manufactured to deflect from the White House. That would indicate a member of the party is being sacrificed to protect Obama and/or someone in the administration. Pretty common. Have been involved in those scenarios personally.

Read full White House Insider article here.

Wisconsin's Gov. Walker takes broad swipe at public employee unions

With State's deficits mounting across the country, newly elected Governors are focusing on the real problems. For years, politicians have caved in to the powerful public employee labor unions, giving away OPM (other peoples money) to satisfy unreasonable demands. Each cycle, contracts became more and more burdensome for the taxpayer until finally, this last election, the public had enough. In many states, conservatives were elected to rein in these unions. Even Democrats, elected in November, are looking for cutbacks in this area, after hearing the message of the voters.

Gov. Walker of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Legislature is now attacking the public unions head on. Knowing that there would be union unrest, because of safety concerns, police and firemen unions were exempted from the legislation. This, in itself, tells you the coercive effects the powerful unions have on our society. Why should we fear those hired by us to defend our liberties?

Walker needs all the support he can get.

Excerpt: Officials alerted the Wisconsin State Employees Union on Friday that expired collective bargaining agreements would be canceled March 13. State unions have been operating under the terms of their previous contracts, an arrangement that can be terminated with 30 days notice.

The news came on the same day the governor unveiled a budget repair bill that would remove nearly all collective bargaining rights for nearly all public employees in the state and make it easier for employers to fire workers that engage in some form of labor unrest.

To union leaders, and many Democratic lawmakers, the governor's moves represent an all-out effort to end the influence of organized labor in Wisconsin.

Read full Wisconsin State Journal article here.
More info here and here.

A Cowboy Named Bud

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote pasture when suddenly
a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust. The driver, a
young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie,
leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many
cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?"

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully
grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it
to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the
Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his
location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area
in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it
to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he
receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and
the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC
connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few
minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech,
miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have
exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.
He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with
amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your
business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're an aide in the Obama Administration", says Bud.
"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though
nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a
question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment
trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a
thing about how working people make a living or about cows, for that matter.
This is a herd of sheep. ...

Now give me back my dog.

CHANGE" is coming!!

The Forgotten Man - Jon McNaughton

This Computer Could Defeat You at 'Jeopardy!' Q: What is Watson?

Now Watson is moving beyond Jeopardy to tackle more practical problems. Read WSJ article, "IBM Moving Watson Supercomputer Beyond 'Jeopardy' To Health-Care", here.

Chris Christie's Govt Shut Down Story: I'll Open A Beer, Order A Pizza & Watch The Mets!

The Unseen Consequences of "Green Jobs"

For those of us that remember "way back" when we had a press that actually performed the job of investigative reporting, lies that were told by our elected officials somehow had a way of coming to the surface and biting them in the rear. Today, with the MSM in bed with the liberal/progressive/left, and full of pretty faces rather than true journalists, it is much harder for the average American to know what to and what not to believe.

Was watching the news this morning and found out that the statements, that Obama made about the proposed budget, that it would, in a few years bring revenues and spending in sync and everything would be "peaches and cream" thereafter, are somewhat less than true.

The problem was that he forgot to mention that his calculation omitted interest on the $14 billion of debt. This interest, that amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars each year would be added to the debt in a never ending cycle. So much for the "truth" from our elected politicians.

Now comes this article about the "Green Jobs" so highly touted by Obama in his State Of The Union address. It turns out that the majority of the jobs are temporary, ala the stimulus, and he failed to take into account the job losses caused by the diversion of funds, and the increased cost of energy. More harm than good? Probably.

Excerpt: A new report, "Defining, Measuring, and Predicting Green Jobs," by University of Texas economist Gurcan Gulen, issued by the Copenhagen Consensus Center, takes apart many studies predicting that policies mandating alternative energy production, energy efficiency, and conservation will create a boom in employment.

First, Gulen notes that many such studies fail to define clearly what they mean by green jobs. He points out that many pro-green jobs studies do not distinguish temporary construction jobs from more permanent operation jobs. Many studies also assume that green jobs will pay more than jobs in conventional energy production. But why would a construction job at a wind farm pay more than one at a conventional power plant?

Even more disturbingly, many green job studies have no analyses of job losses. Clean energy costs more than conventional energy, which means consumers and businesses will have less income with which to buy and invest. This reduces their consumption of other goods and services, resulting in job losses in those sectors—one of Bastiat's "unseen" effects. In addition, many studies simultaneously count on protectionist policies to exclude clean energy imports while assuming that domestic companies will be freely exporting to other countries.

Read full Reason.com article here.

TWELVE TRUTHS ABOUT LEGISLATION

This from Freedom Keys
TWELVE TRUTHS ABOUT LEGISLATION 

---

1) Any law the electorate sees as being open to being perverted from its original intent will be perverted in a manner that exceeds the manner of perversion seen at the time.  
2) Any law that is so difficult to pass it requires the citizens be assured it will not be a stepping stone to worse laws will in fact be a stepping stone to worse laws.  
3) Any law that requires the citizens be assured the law does not mean what the citizens fear, means exactly what the citizens fear.  
4) Any law passed in a good cause will be interpreted to apply to causes against the wishes of the people.  
5) Any law enacted to help any one group will be applied to harm people not in that group.  
6) Everything the government says will never happen will happen. 
7) What the government says it could not foresee, the government has planned for.  
8) When there is a budget shortfall to cover non-essential government services the citizens will be given the choice between higher taxes or the loss of essential government services.  
9) Should the citizens mount a successful effort to stop a piece of legislation the same legislation will be passed under a different name.  
10) All deprivations of freedom and choice will be increased rather than reversed.  
11) Any government that has to build safeguards into a law so that it will not be abused is providing guidelines for abusing the law without violating it.  
12) Any legislator up for re-election will vote against a bad law if and only if there are enough other votes to pass it

A Tipping Point Is Nearing - Hyper-Inflation?

The lack of seriousness by the Obama administration and the meager attempts by the Republicans to reverse our debt spiral, does not bode well for the survival of our way of life. It saddens me to think that my generation is the one that allowed the progressives, both Democrat and Republican, to take control of our government and run this great nation's economy into the ground.

There are already signs that the rest of the world no longer believes in the stability of the dollar and are becoming hesitant to buy US debt.

Bernanke's continuing monetization of our debt is increasing interest costs that, if the rates reach their historical highs, threaten to consume 100% of our incoming tax revenues.

Another shocking revelation is that 11% of all homes in the US stand unoccupied. This is a death knell for the building trades industry and for those that have their savings invested in rental properties.

We have a Social Security system that is solvent only if you count the interest paid to the "fund" by the government from borrowed money. There is no trust fund, it has all been spent by politicians eager to buy votes to perpetuate their reign.

Environmentalists have exercised unwarranted political might in stalling our quest for energy independence and have forced us into ever increasing costs to heat and cool our homes, produce
food and transport us to our places of employment.

Yes, we of our generation should be ashamed that we let this happen. But, there is a bright side. Last November we took the first step by electing what we hope to be a new breed of politician. We can build on this in 2012. Only time will tell whether the end is near or it is the beginning of a new prosperity for our children and our children's children.


Excerpt: So why do these developments argue for a crisis of Great Depression proportions? Because they speak unequivocally of our pathway to insolvency, and the potential of currency failure via hyperinflation, despite the hopes of conservatives and market participants to see a halt of such direction. Housing prices, the foundation of so much of private citizen debt loads, are destined for stagnation -- not inflation -- as the supply of homes is far greater than the demand -- 11% of the nation's homes stand empty today. When the world begins to recognize that there is no fix for America's borrowings, a fast and brutal exodus from our currency and bonds can send us a shock in mere weeks or months.

Unlike the Great Depression, however, we will enter such a shock in a weakened state, with few producers among us and record mountains of debt. More cataclysmic is the specter of inadequate food, as less than 4% of us farm, and those that do may cease to be as productive or may not accept devalued currency as payment, should the tipping point be crossed. Corn and wheat prices in the U.S. have nearly doubled in less than 12 months, using our rapidly evaporating currency as the medium of exchange.

The time for action has passed, which may only become apparent as the "aid" of easy money becomes seen as the harm that it is. May we all be spared the worst, but I offer no such prayers for those responsible. The harm that comes will be swifter, and more severe, than most of them thought possible.

Read full American Thinker article here.

Singularitarians - Artificial Intelligence - Predicting The Future

In this rather extensive Times article "2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal" the author takes a look at the rapid progression of computing power, artificial intelligence and the very real possibilities of the reverse engineering of the human brain. When artificial intelligence equals or exceeds that of the humans, what is the next step? Will machines be friend or foe?

Technologist Raymond Kurzweil thinks you will know by the year 2045.

Excerpt: Computers are getting faster. Everybody knows that. Also, computers are getting faster faster — that is, the rate at which they're getting faster is increasing.

True? True.

So if computers are getting so much faster, so incredibly fast, there might conceivably come a moment when they are capable of something comparable to human intelligence. Artificial intelligence. All that horsepower could be put in the service of emulating whatever it is our brains are doing when they create consciousness — not just doing arithmetic very quickly or composing piano music but also driving cars, writing books, making ethical decisions, appreciating fancy paintings, making witty observations at cocktail parties.

If you can swallow that idea, and Kurzweil and a lot of other very smart people can, then all bets are off. From that point on, there's no reason to think computers would stop getting more powerful. They would keep on developing until they were far more intelligent than we are. Their rate of development would also continue to increase, because they would take over their own development from their slower-thinking human creators. Imagine a computer scientist that was itself a super-intelligent computer. It would work incredibly quickly. It could draw on huge amounts of data effortlessly. It wouldn't even take breaks to play Farmville.

(continued) Here's what the exponential curves told him. We will successfully reverse-engineer the human brain by the mid-2020s. By the end of that decade, computers will be capable of human-level intelligence. Kurzweil puts the date of the Singularity — never say he's not conservative — at 2045. In that year, he estimates, given the vast increases in computing power and the vast reductions in the cost of same, the quantity of artificial intelligence created will be about a billion times the sum of all the human intelligence that exists today.

The Singularity isn't just an idea. it attracts people, and those people feel a bond with one another. Together they form a movement, a subculture; Kurzweil calls it a community. Once you decide to take the Singularity seriously, you will find that you have become part of a small but intense and globally distributed hive of like-minded thinkers known as Singularitarians.

Kurzweil admits that there's a fundamental level of risk associated with the Singularity that's impossible to refine away, simply because we don't know what a highly advanced artificial intelligence, finding itself a newly created inhabitant of the planet Earth, would choose to do. It might not feel like competing with us for resources. One of the goals of the Singularity Institute is to make sure not just that artificial intelligence develops but also that the AI is friendly. You don't have to be a super-intelligent cyborg to understand that introducing a superior life-form into your own biosphere is a basic Darwinian error.

Read the full Times Health & Science article here.

2011 GM Car

Just had to post this one that I received by email today.

William Shatner On Gun Control

CPAC 2011: Mitch Daniel's Speech (Audio)

Energy Independence? Not on Obama’s Watch!

The Obama Administration was recently found in contempt by a District Court Judge in New Orleans over its continuation of the Gulf drilling moratorium after the policy was struck down. By refusing to issue drilling permits, the EPA, in essence, ignored the edict and showed total disregard for the law.

In another recent development, Shell Oil put on hold their exploration in Alaska until 2012. The reason, again, was the failure of the EPA to issue the necessary permits. Because of the short summer months, timing is critical. Because of the delay the EPA has effectively blocked, yet again, another effort to put the US on the road to energy self sufficiency.

This is another case of "what he says" and "what he does". President Obama says he lifted the ban on offshore drilling in the Gulf, but introduced more restrictive regulations that resulted in drilling permits not to be issued. We all know what his objective is, and that is Cap & Tax, total regulation of carbon emissions, total government control of our energy resources and redistribution of wealth, not to the poor, but to his political cronies, Gore, Soros and others.

The current run-up in prices for food can be directly related to the price of energy and the co-opting of a food staple, corn, for foolish energy use. Who does this hurt the most? The poor. When will the poor minorities wake up to the fact that it is the liberal progressive Democrats that are keeping them in bondage and treating them like slaves. They should ask themselves, how many more generations will it take for their children and children's children to wean themselves from the burdensome welfare state? If the Democrats have their way, the answer is never. After all, a vote is a vote.

Star Spangled Banner Sung Properly - Aguilera, Eat Your Heart Out

P.S. - I especially like this because the young lady looks a lot like my granddaughter.

Blacks And Mexicans - Their Leaders Evade The "Melting Pot"

The article, "Minorities Running From Freedom", starts with the premise that the majority of immigrants learn the English language and the knowledge to gain entry into the "melting pot" that is the US of America. The noted exceptions are Blacks and Mexicans, whose leaders demand special favors, and, therefore, have been unable to assimilate into our society and claim true freedom.

Paraphrasing the author, "I will care about the Mexican cause the day when I pick up my phone and it says "press 2 for Polish, or Korean, or Italian, or German, etc". Obviously that was said "tongue in cheek", but it points out the fact that the politically correct crowd has made an exception for Spanish speaking immigrants, legal and illegal. The effect is the start of multiculturalism here in the US, something England and France as well as other European countries are finding to be the ruin of their sovereignty and identity.

Excerpt: Some people just say they are special. I say, no way. That is not America.

But the other problem is that by marching in the streets and constant complaints THEY create the racism. And they are very foolish. The second issue is that if a country can give you special favors because of your country of origin or your race, it also has the power to take it away any time it wishes and make you a slave. As I said above, there is no true freedom without equality.

Read RNHunter article here.

White House Insider Update 2/10/11

Read the current White House Insider update here.

Obama's "tough budget cuts" in pictures

This from Doug Ross @ Journal:

President Obama's 2012 budget will be roughly $3,800,000 million ($3.8 trillion).

The anticipated 2012 budget deficit will be $1,500,000 million ($1.5 trillion). This means we are borrowing that amount from our children to fund all of the Democrats' Utopian spending programs.

Finally, the president has proposed "tough budget cuts" that total $775 million. No, that's not a joke.

Let's illustrate the magnitude of Obama's cuts

Obama's cuts aren't even visible in this chart. Let's zoom in.

Blowing it up about ten times allows us to see a tiny little sliver: those are the cuts.

Blowing the chart up a further ten times still barely exposes Obama's proposed cuts

President Obama's budget director Jack Lew in a Sunday opinion piece outlined some off the "tough choices" Obama is willing to make to cut spending in his 2012 budget request due out on Feb. 14... The cuts are relatively small, however, in the larger scheme of things. In total, the $775 million in detailed cuts fall far short of demands by congressional Republicans and will do little toward tackling the deficit, which is estimated to be $1.5 trillion this year by the Congressional Budget Office...

...Lew said that the Valentine's Day budget will propose cutting in half community service block grants to grassroots groups in poor communities... He said "this cut is not easy for" Obama.

Not easy.

Our country's going bankrupt and he can't find anything to cut.

These Democrats are so far off the reservation that there's really no hope left for them as a political party. You need to expose this irresponsible President and his sycophants to everyone you know. We must begin laying the groundwork for 2012.

OBAMA - BORN IN THE USA? Supreme Court told: Don't avoid eligibility

Evidently the courts do feel that someone in the country has "standing" to pursue Obama's eligibility. It is also obvious to most that Justices Kagan and Sotomayor have a conflict of interest and should recuse themselves from all pertinent proceedings.

It is time for the Supremes to put an end to this mystery and rule on Obama's credentials once and for all. Any attempt to again sweep it under the table will cause great concern and raise the question as to why those given the responsibility to defend our Constitutional rights are not obeying their oath of office.

Excerpt: A veteran attorney who has pursued a lawsuit challenging Barack Obama's presidential eligibility since he was elected is telling the U.S. Supreme Court that if its members continue to "avoid" the dispute they effectively will "destroy the constitutional rule of law basis of our legal system."

And he asks whether the justices still are committed to the principle of considering the Founders' intent when ruling on constitutional issues.

The warning comes from attorney John D. Hemenway, who is representing retired Col. Gregory Hollister in a case that alleges Obama never was eligible under the Constitution's requirements for a president to occupy the Oval Office.

"We have not exaggerated in presenting the question of the constitutional rule of law being at stake in this matter," Hemenway wrote in a petition for rehearing before the high court. "A man has successfully run for the office of president and has done so, it appears, with an awareness that he is not eligible under the constitutional requirement for a person to be president.

The case doesn't have the "standing" dispute that has brought failure to so many other challenges to Obama's eligibility, the pleading explains, because Robertson "found that it had jurisdiction of the case, and therefore that petitioner Hollister had standing."

John Eidsmoe, an expert on the U.S. Constitution now working with the Foundation on Moral Law, has told WND a demand for verification of Obama's eligibility appears to be legitimate.

Eidsmoe said it's clear that Obama has something in the documentation of his history, including his birth certificate, college records and other documents that "he does not want the public to know."

Read full WorldNetDaily article here.

How The Free Market Succeeds - Spontaneous Order

In this article "Passenger Trains: Clearly the Change We've Been Waiting For", John Stossel asks the question: how does Obama know that we need high speed rail? In answering the question he discusses "spontaneous order" or the natural response of the free market to the wants and needs of the people.

This is one of the better articles that I have seen that supports the conservative/libertarian view that the government should get out of the way and let the "spontaneous order" or free enterprise take care of the jobs and deficit problems.

Excerpt: Lawrence Reed, of the Foundation for Economic Education, explains it this way:

"Spontaneous order is what happens when you leave people alone -- when entrepreneurs ... see the desires of people ... and then provide for them.

"They respond to market signals, to prices. Prices tell them what's needed and how urgently and where. And it's infinitely better and more productive than relying on a handful of elites in some distant bureaucracy."

This idea is not intuitive. Good things will happen if we leave people alone? Some of us are stupid -- Obama and his advisers are smart. It's intuitive to think they should make decisions for the wider group.

"No," Reed responded. "In a market society, the bits of information that are needed to make things work -- to result in the production of things that people want -- are interspersed throughout the economy. What brings them together are forces of supply and demand, of changing prices."

"We have this engrained habit of thinking that if somebody plans it, if somebody lays down the law and writes the rules, order will follow," he continued. "And the absence of those things will somehow lead to chaos. But what you often get when you try to enforce mandates and restrictions from a distant bureaucracy is planned chaos, as the great economist Ludwig on Mises once said. We have to rely more upon what emerges spontaneously because it represents individuals' personal tastes and choices, not those of distant politicians."

Read John Stossel's article at Townhall.com here.

Freed young leader energizes Egyptian protests - Online Organizer

It is the youth and the internet that have sparked the dissent in Egypt and throughout the Mideast.

Excerpt: CAIRO (AP) - A young leader of Egypt's anti-government protesters, newly released from detention, joined a massive crowd of hundreds of thousands in Cairo's Tahrir Square for the first time Tuesday, greeted by cheers, whistling and thunderous applause when he declared: "We will not abandon our demand and that is the departure of the regime."

Many in the crowd said they were inspired by Wael Ghonim, the 30-year-old Google Inc. marketing manager who was a key organizer of the online campaign that sparked the first protest on Jan. 25 to demand the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Straight from his release from 12 days of detention, Ghonim gave an emotionally charged television interview Monday night where he sobbed over those who have been killed in two weeks of clashes.

He spoke softly and briefly to the huge crowd from a stage, starting by offering his condolences to the families of those killed.

"I'm not a hero but those who were martyred are the heroes," he said, then breaking into a chant of "Mubarak leave, leave."

When he finished speaking, the crowd erupted in cheering, whistling and deafening applause.
In his first television interview Monday night, Ghonim dubbed the protests "the revolution of the youth of the Internet" and proclaimed defiantly: "We are not traitors."

He arrived in the square when it was packed shoulder-to-shoulder, a crowd comparable in size to the biggest demonstration so far that drew a quarter-million people.

Read full MyWay article here.

How Do You Stop An Executive Order?

Congress can override an executive order by the President if they have a 2/3 majority vote. They can also pass legislation that won't allow funding for whatever the President wants to do. This keeps our government from becoming a dictatorship like our current President wants it to be.

Read more:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_stop_an_executive_order#ixzz1DP8mzHxI

Obama And EPA Guilty Of Treason? Energy Policies And Alex Jones Say Yes!

Reagan Super Bowl XLV Tribute

Shell: No Beaufort Sea drilling in Arctic for 2011 - EPA The Problem

I think Lisa Murkowski had it right when she said "We talk a lot about the economy, but rarely do our actions match our rhetoric."

On Feb 3rd a District Court Judge in New Orleans ruled that the Obama Administration was in contempt for ignoring a previous ruling opening up the Gulf for more drilling. Obama says he is for drilling but uses his henchmen in the EPA to stall and stall and stall.

Because of the short drilling season in Alaska, the purposeful delays by the EPA have effectively shut down exploration of one of our greatest natural resource basins.

Not only is there a loss of well paying jobs but also a furtherance of our dependence on foreign oil. Obama and the EPA have an agenda, and that agenda is not in the best interests of the American people.

Excerpt: ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- Shell Alaska has dropped plans to drill in the Arctic waters of the Beaufort Sea this year and will concentrate on obtaining permits for the 2012 season, company Vice President Pete Slaiby said Thursday.

The recent remand of air permits issued by the Environmental Protection Agency was the final driver behind the decision, Slaiby said at a news conference.

Alaska receives upward of 90 percent of its general fund revenue from the petroleum industry, and top state officials reacted strongly to the decision. U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, blamed the Obama administration and the EPA.

"Their foot dragging means the loss of another exploration season in Alaska, the loss of nearly 800 direct jobs and many more indirect jobs," Begich said. "That doesn't count the millions of dollars in contracting that won't happen either at a time when our economy needs the investment."

Shell's primary drilling ship has been moved to prospects off New Zealand and the company will look for other ways to use support vessels. The backup drilling ship will remain in Dutch Harbor, a port in the Aleutian Islands, Slaiby said.

Alaska officials have been unwavering in their support for drilling. The trans-Alaska pipeline operates at about one-third capacity, and state officials have looked to offshore sources to keep it viable. Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell said it was unfathomable that a company could buy federal leases but not get onto them within five years.

"It's also unfathomable that they cannot get an air permit after five years when they can get one in the Gulf of Mexico within months," he said.

Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said actions taken by the Obama administration will result in higher gasoline prices and a loss of jobs and revenue.

"We talk a lot about the economy, but rarely do our actions match our rhetoric," she said. "That's unfortunate."

Read full AP article here.

Reagan's Humor

Tennessee County School Board Fires Teachers Union

All school districts should examine their collective bargaining agreements to see if the unions are indeed authorized under the terms of the contract to bargain for the teachers. Some of you may be able to rid yourselves of the costly and inefficient unions and finally have some say in how your children are educated.

Excerpt: Now this is more like it. Back in October of 2010 the Summer County, Tennessee School Board decertified the Sumner County Education Association (SCEA), the union for county teachers, because it no longer satisfied the law by counting as members fifty percent plus one of the total number of employees requiring a teaching certificate. This, school board officials said, means that the SCEA can no longer engage in collective bargaining for teachers.

The school board has used this opportunity to immediately begin rewriting the relationship between teachers and schools.

Naturally, the union is running straight to what is usually the last bastion of mindless obeisance to union obstructionism, the courts, and is suing to force the school board to accede to union demands regardless of the law.

For its part, the union says that just over fifty-two percent of the county schools employees are union members and so they are still in charge. The school board points out, though, that this percentage actually does not satisfy the law because the requirements are that fifty percent plus one of the actual teachers -- those employees requiring a teachers certificate to work -- need to be in the union, not over fifty percent of all school employees -- which includes janitors, administrators and other non-teacher employees.

But the union doesn't care about the law. SCEA representatives want the courts to force the school board to deal with them anyway. As State Senator Stacy Campfield says, "I fail to see why anyone has the guaranteed right to force an employer to negotiate with a union if they don't want to. Where else besides government does that happen in the real world?"

It is good to see government bodies making efforts to eliminate public employee unions. These anti-democratic, budget-killing entities should never have been allowed to exist in the first place. Public employee unions are antithetical to good government certainly.

But there might be even better news in Tennessee on this subject. Tennessee State Representative Debra Young Maggart has introduced a bill that would make it illegal for any school board to have to negotiate with a teachers union at all HB 0130 would eliminate collective bargaining for teachers in the state.

Let's hope this bill passes. If you are in Tennessee you should urge your reps to support it. And if it does pass it should serve as a model for other states to emulate. It will be a giant step toward taking back control of our schools as well as a strike for fiscal responsibility.

Read full Right Wing News article here.

White House Insider: Obama is Clueless. Totally Clueless

Ulsterman proposes to have an insider in the Obama White House that feeds him info from time to time. This is his latest.

Published by Ulsterman on February 4, 2011 in World Politics

Note: While not expecting this email from Insider, we are very thankful to have received it. Here is that email in its entirety.
______
Had to send you this quick message. Feel free to publish all of it if you wish. First, I am so disappointed in the response by Obama White House to the crisis in Egypt. White House was caught completely off guard on this one despite indications they were informed of just such a scenario a number of times over the past year or so. They ignored the warnings. When the protests started did you notice the confused messaging from the administration? Hillary says one thing. Biden says another thing. Obama says basically nothing. These are the situations where an American president can either rise to the occasion and show strength and wisdom or where they appear weak and uncertain. I don’t need to explain to you what our current president did. If this goes badly, and it appears it very well could, American interests in the region will be placed in very grave danger. The parallels to Carter are stunning. Oh how I miss the days when the party was led by the likes of Scoop. I fear the mishandling of the Egypt situation is going to result in a total chaos in that country soon.

Obama is clueless. Totally clueless. I am not talking a little out of step here. I am talking the man has no idea what is going on around him. This is not coming from me. I am relaying it from some still around him on a regular basis. These people are getting increasingly concerned over just how “out of it”, that is the phrase repeated to me, Obama has become. His primary focus is now getting elected in ‘12. Everything else has been given over to Jarrett and her group. Everything. The president has no interest in policy. None. No interest in working legislation. None. No interest in forging a specific agenda. None. He is being told what he needs to say and that is it. That is the extent of his interest. “Just make it look good.” Exact words right there. President Obama is obsessed 24/7 with just “looking good”. If something goes well, he gets happy and outgoing. If something makes him look badly, he lashes out and pouts. The man is bouncing off both of those extremes even more now than he used to and it appears to be getting worse and worse. The word “manic” is being used more and more regarding his moods these days.


FYI there was a closed door meeting recently under the guise of discussions on Egypt. That meeting did not involve Egypt much if at all. This information is relayed second hand but I believe it to be completely reliable. Source told that meeting was run by Jarrett from start to end. Obama said very little. Asked no questions. The primary focus was how to protect Obamacare so it was not a “liability” in 2012 campaign. White House already spending significant time/resources preparing legal argument for the Supreme Court case that is coming.

Second focus was apparently “birther” related. Jarrett expressed concern over possible newly passed eligibility requirements in states. If only one or two states clarify eligibility in order to run for office, White House will simply use those states as examples of “anti-Obama racism”. They would likely not win the electorals in those states regardless, but could use the scenario to gain sympathy and support over the challenge from other moderate states. This is the tactic Jarrett and crew have prepared. She is worried though that if more than one or two states challenge the president’s eligibility, the issue would turn against them. Measures are being taken to make certain that does not happen. What those measures are, I don’t know at this point. Oh, and while discussion over eligibility was underway, Obama sat motionless. He said nothing. That strikes me as pretty damn odd don’t you think? People are discussing whether or not you are actually eligible to run for re-election in 2012 and you don’t say a word on the subject? “He just sat there with a weird little smile and didn’t say anything.” Go ahead and print that quote word for word. Others are now willing to let their observations be more known. Concern for the country is now winning over concern for their own political interests. Finally.

As stated before, Geithner is leaving. That was repeated to me again this past week.

More to come soon.


Please visit Ulsterman's site here.

Al Gore's Real Agenda - Generation Investment Management

Al Gore is heavily invested in his so called "Global Warming" scam, perhaps not so much for environmental purposes, but for personal financial gain. He is still holding to the story that the cold and heavy snows are somehow caused by "Global Warming", even while more and more climate scientists are abandoning that mantra.

He founded Generation Investment Management in 2004. In 2006 he came out with his scientifically flawed movie "An Inconvenient Truth". Was this out of concern for the environment or a promotional gimmick for his investment company?

The company's site lists these key areas of focus:

Among the many investment opportunities in the transition from a high-carbon to low-carbon economy, Generation has prioritized four initial areas of focus for the Climate Solutions product:

Renewable Energy Generation and Distribution

Energy Efficiency and Demand Destruction

Carbon Markets and Climate-Related Financial Services

Solutions for the Biomass Economy

I love the third item regarding Carbon Markets. This fits right in with the Cap & Tax legislation being pushed by Obama and the Democrats in Congress.

There is a lot of money to be made out there in the form of carbon credits, if we allow this climate hysteria to take hold. The power is in the allocation; the profit is in exchanges and speculation. How could the liberal/progressive control freaks lose?

Most Republicans and Tea Party members have seen through this farce and united in their opposition to any such legislation. If Congress can rein in the EPA, then maybe this costly movement can be stopped.

Read about Al Gore's company's investment strategy regarding Climate Solutions, on their own website here.

Read about Republican efforts to block the EPA from carbon control here.

Michigan Carpenters Union "Bannering"

As if unions have not destroyed Detroit, the carpenters union is now trying to close legitimate businesses throughout Michigan. The South is rising as businesses flee the Northern union scare and bullying tactics.

Senate repeals part of health care law - 1099 Requirement

The Democrats have thrown us a carrot to show that they are responsive to the people. This was a well known flaw in the legislation passed last year and yet, the Democrats insisted in its inclusion. Makes me wonder if it was kept so that they could look good in the fury that followed. Skeptic that I am.

Excerpt: The Senate voted Wednesday for the first time to repeal a piece of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, rolling back a new tax reporting requirement that’s been universally panned by business owners.

The amendment to repeal the 1099 reporting requirement passed 81-17 with broad bipartisan support.

The provision was one that Obama identified in his State of the Union speech as something that Democrats were willing to change.

The Senate voted several times last year on repealing the requirement, but all the attempts failed amid partisan bickering over how to pay for it. Republicans made an attempt to repeal the provision by taking money from the health reform law’s prevention and wellness fund. Democrats tried to repeal it without paying for it.

The provision would have required business owners to file 1099 tax documents on all cumulative purchases from a single vendor that total more than $600 in a year.

It was included in the health law because it would have raised about $17 billion in previously uncollected taxes. A bipartisan collection of business groups have opposed the provision, arguing that it would bury them in paperwork.

Read full POLITICO article here.

U.S. Adminstration In Contempt Over Gulf Drilling Moratorium, Judge Rules

Another case of "what he says" and "what he does". He says he lifted the ban on offshore drilling in the Gulf, but introduced more restrictive regulations that resulted in no drilling permits to be issued. We all know what his objective is and that is Cap & Tax, total regulation of carbon emissions, total government control of our energy resources and redistribution of wealth, not to the poor, but to his political cronies, Gore, Soros and others.

The current run-up in prices for food can be directly related to the price of energy and the co-opting of a food staple, corn, for foolish energy use. When will the poor minorities wake up to the fact that it is the liberal progressive Democrats that are keeping them in bondage and treating them like slaves. They should ask themselves, how many more generations will it take for their children and children's children to wean themselves from the burdensome welfare state? If the Democrats have their way, the answer is never. After all, a vote is a vote.


Excerpt: The Obama Administration acted in contempt by continuing its deepwater drilling moratorium after the policy was struck down, a New Orleans judge ruled.

Interior Department regulators acted with “determined disregard” by lifting and reinstituting a series of policy changes that restricted offshore drilling, following the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, U.S. District Judge, Martin Feldman of New Orleans ruled yesterday.

“Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance,” Feldman said in the ruling.

“Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re- imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium, and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt,” Feldman said.

“President Obama claims to have lifted the Gulf moratorium, yet not a single deepwater permit has been issued in nine months,” Jim Adams, the association’s president, said in a release after the ruling. “As a result, thousands of workers are out of jobs, Americans are paying more for gasoline and heating oil, and our nation is becoming even more dependent on unstable nations for our energy needs.”

Read full Bloomberg article here.

Bastardi: Three of Next Five Winters Could be as Cold or Colder

More evidence that Al Gore's science is faulty.

Excerpt: This winter is on track to become the coldest for the nation as a whole since the 1980s or possibly even the late 1910s. According to AccuWeather.com Chief Long Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi, three or four out of the next five winters could be just as cold, if not colder.

He is worried that next winter, for example, will be colder than this one.
Bastardi adds that with the U.S. in the middle of one of its worst recessions in its history and the price of oil in question, he is extremely concerned about the prospect for more persistent cold weather in the coming years putting increased financial hardship on Americans.

"Cold is a lot worse than warm," Bastardi said, "and that's why your energy bill goes up during the winter time: because of the fact that it takes a lot to heat a house."

While there are many different factors that are playing into Bastardi's forecast, one of the primary drivers is La Niña and the trends that have been observed in winters that follow the onset of a La Niña.

Current La Nina Signals More Cold Winters Ahead

La Niña occurs when sea surface temperatures across the equatorial central and eastern Pacific are below normal. La Niña and its counterpart, El Niño, which occurs when sea surface temperatures of the same region are above normal, have a large influence on the weather patterns that set up across the globe.

The current La Niña, which kicked in this past summer, is unprecedented after becoming the strongest on record in December 2010. Bastardi thinks this La Niña will last into next year, though it will be weaker, and will not disappear completely until 2012.

According to Bastardi, studies over the past 100 years or so show that after the first winter following the onset of a La Niña, the next several winters thereafter tend to be colder than normal in the U.S.

He says the first winter during a La Niña tends to be warm. The next winter that follows is usually less warm, and the winter after that is usually cold.

"There's a natural tendency for that to happen because of the large-scale factors," Bastardi commented. "What's interesting about what we're seeing here is that [the current La Niña] is starting so cold."

Temperatures this winter so far are averaging below normal across much of the eastern two-thirds of the country.

He adds, "If the past predicts the future, then the first year La Niña is warmer than the combination of the following two."

He said that with the exception of the winters of 1916-1917 and 1917-1918, the first year of every moderate or stronger La Niña available for study has featured a warmer-than-normal winter from the Plains eastward. This winter, it has been colder than normal.

In Summary

Overall, Bastardi is predicting three or four of the next five winters to be colder than normal for much of the U.S., based on trends observed in La Niñas throughout history.

He is concerned that, amid the current recession, more colder-than-normal conditions in the winters ahead will put extra financial strain on families in the form of higher heating bills.
Bastardi is also predicting the long-term climate to turn colder over the next 20 to 30 years with global temperatures, as measured by satellite, returning to levels they were at in the late 1970s.

Read full AccuWeather article here.

Al Gore And Democrats On Global Warming

It seems to me that the science that the Democrats are using is a bit flawed. When you realize the control that the Democrats and their cronies would have over the US energy complex under the Cap and Tax legislation and the profits to be made by Gore, Soros, and other Democrat supporters in trading and awarding carbon credits, you will understand how record cold weather and record snowfall is caused by humans and global warming. Or will you?

Al Gore yesterday: An Answer for Bill February 1, 2011 : 11:43 AM

Last week on his show Bill O’Reilly asked, “Why has southern New York turned into the tundra?” and then said he had a call into me. I appreciate the question.

As it turns out, the scientific community has been addressing this particular question for some time now and they say that increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they have been predicting as a consequence of man-made global warming:

“In fact, scientists have been warning for at least two decades that global warming could make snowstorms more severe. Snow has two simple ingredients: cold and moisture. Warmer air collects moisture like a sponge until it hits a patch of cold air. When temperatures dip below freezing, a lot of moisture creates a lot of snow.”

“A rise in global temperature can create all sorts of havoc, ranging from hotter dry spells to colder winters, along with increasingly violent storms, flooding, forest fires and loss of endangered species.”

Democrats of yesteryear: