Still the Biggest Missing Story in Politics
sixty percent of the American people described themselves as "conservative" or "very conservative."
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Several readers have asked me to comment on what the Empire State Building is doing: The people in charge are lighting up the building red and yellow, in honor of Communist China, which is marking its 60th anniversary.
This regime, of course, is responsible for the physical destruction of tens of millions of people. This is a country with a gulag, called laogai. It is a country that deprives people of rights that we in the Free World take for granted. It is a country against which very, very credible charges of organ harvesting have been made. It is a country constantly attacking America electronically, monitarily and eventually - they say - intends to replace the US as the worlds superpower.
I thought of calling up some friends of mine in the Chinese democracy movement, to see what they think of what the Empire State Building is doing. I decided not to: I know what they think. And this sort of thing simply torments them. It is disgusting. And, to them, bewildering: Why would people in a free country honor a police state?
Incidentally, the Empire State Building is a few blocks from where I now write. What a sickening thing they have done. I should say more, I know, but that’s all I can muster for now.
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While all eyes were on the rantings of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations, the United States — under President Obama — was surrendering its economic sovereignty at the G-20 summit.
The result of this conclave, which France's president Nicolas Sarkozy hailed as "revolutionary," was that all the nations agreed to coordinate their economic policies and programs and to submit them to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for comment and approval. While the G-20 nations and the IMF are, for now, only going to use "moral suasion" on those nations found not to be in compliance, talk of sanctions looms on the horizon.
While the specific policies to which the U.S. committed itself (reducing the deficit and strengthening regulatory oversight of financial institutions) are laudable in themselves, the process and the precedent are frightening
We are to subject our most basic national economic policies to the review of a group of nations that includes autocratic Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. Even though our gross domestic product is three times bigger than the second-largest economy (Japan) and equal to that of 13 of the G-20 nations combined, we are to sit politely by with our one vote and submit to the global consensus. Europe has five votes (Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the EU), while we have but one.
And the process will be administered by the IMF, whose counsel to less-developed nations over the past two decades has consistently called for social pain and economic austerity. The IMF's misguided policies have been responsible for more revolutions than Marx, Engels, and Lenin combined. Its bureaucrats' arrogance is legendary, and its search for appropriate punishments to fit the crime of spending too much on the poor smacks of colonialism and imperialism. They are our new overseers.
This combination of the IMF and the G-20 will not only work to structure national economic policies but to limit executive compensation at financial institutions.
The watchful, wise leaders of such nations as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia — among others — will monitor Wall Street to assure themselves that their compensation is not out of line. One particularly looks forward to the views of the Saudi monarchy on this question of excessive personal enrichment
Perhaps as part of his public spasm of apology, President Obama also strove successfully to increase the voting strength of the debtor nations on the IMF from the current 43 percent to 48 percent. This is the economic equivalent of giving deadbeat debtors more votes on their bank's governing board of directors.
Thus, the world's most successful economy, ours — which is the only one that has produced reliable economic growth for three decades and has lifted real personal incomes almost every year — is going to subject itself to the burden of justifying its own economic policies in front of a global community of 20 nations, some of which do not even embrace free-market economies in the first place.
Indeed, it is only through access to our markets that nations have been able to escape poverty. Japan, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China and India have sequentially trod this path into prosperity.
Obviously, we live in a global economy. But the United States is 24 percent of it. We are entitled to more than one-twentieth of a voice, and it is the world that should be following our policies — not the other way around.
Much of the damage of the Obama administration can be undone at the next election. But such grants of sovereignty to autocratic, backward, bureaucratic and even communist nations will be hard to undo.
The world is recovering from its leftist obsession — e.g., the Angela Merkel victory in Germany. But by the time the voters discover how phony, failed and fraudulent these policies are, we may have given it all away already.
Irrevocably.
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" RETAIN OUR ECONOMIC SOVEREIGNTY -ubject: txt 1st hcare -
"I know a lot of Americans who are satisfied with their health care right now are wondering what reform would mean for them, so let me be clear: If you like your doctor or health care provider, you can keep them. If you like your health care plan, you can keep that too."- President Obama
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One reason Max Baucus's (D-Mont.) health care bill allegedly "pays for itself" over 10 years is because it would break all 50 state budgets by permanently expanding Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for the poor, says the Wall Street Journal.
Consider:
- Starting in 2014, Baucus plans to spend $287 billion through 2019 -- or about one-third of ObamaCare's total spending -- to add some 11 million new people to the Medicaid rolls.
- About 59 million people are on Medicaid today -- which means that a decade from now about a quarter of the total population would be on a program originally sold as help for low-income women, children and the disabled.
- State budgets would explode -- by $37 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) -- because they would no longer be allowed to set eligibility in line with their own decisions about taxes and spending.
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Democrats in Washington yesterday pressed ahead with their ill-advised efforts to control one-sixth of the US economy through a massive overhaul of the nation's health-care system.
And the public be damned.
That's right: A new Rasmussen poll shows support for "reform" slipping to just 41 percent, the lowest level ever -- while opposition has risen to 56 percent.
Yet congressional Democrats seem to be chomping at the bit to push through some kind of package.... [snip]
The fact is, Democrats control both branches of Congress. And, despite public opinion, they just might be able to push through some awful new plan.
If so, expect even more taxes, less choice, higher bills for states, more government interference . . . and here's the kicker: Health care in America will surely be worse, not better.
Is there a more foolish exercise than this? We sure can't think of one.
[Its never been about improving health care.]
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image toon - 1st hcare mny = CBO = Oby wrong re hcae with no deficit
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Yesterday State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley referred to Gitmo terrorists as ''refugees.'' During the daily State Department briefing, the Assistant Secretary of State unveiled the new terminology:
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President Obama called New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to thank him for his efforts in thwarting a planned terrorist attack on the city's subway system, which counterterrorism experts describe as the most serious terror plot since 9/11. But Obama should have also thanked his predecessor in the White House.
The arrest and indictment of Najibullah Zazi on charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction was made possible by the "roving wiretaps" allowed by the Patriot Act, which was signed into law in 2001 by President George W. Bush.
"All the layers of defense President Bush set up after Sept. 11 are working,"[snip]
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Even if their intentions were good, the activists, lobbyists and politicians making a last-ditch push for hugely expensive carbon-cut promises could easily end up doing hundreds of times more damage to the planet than coal ever could...
Imposing steep immediate cuts on carbon dioxide emissions in an attempt to slow man-made global warming will cause far more harm than it will do good, says Bjorn Lomborg, who heads up the Copenhagen Consensus Center, a Danish think tank.
Why? The costs of carbon rationing would far outweigh the benefits.
To get a sense of what would be involved in trying to achieve even moderate carbon dioxide reductions, Lomborg looks at the case of Japan:
- Japan's commitment in June to cut greenhouse gas levels 8 percent from its 1990 levels by 2020 was scoffed at for being far too little.
- Yet for Japan -- which has led the world in improving energy efficiency -- to have any hope of reaching its target, it needs to build nine new nuclear power plants and increase their use by one-third, construct more than 1 million new wind-turbines, install solar panels on nearly 3 million homes, double the percentage of new homes that meet rigorous insulation standards, and increase sales of "green" vehicles from 4 percent to 50 percent of its auto purchases.
- Japan's new prime minister was roundly lauded this month for promising a much stronger reduction, 25 percent, even though there is no obvious way to deliver on his promise; expecting Japan, or any other nation, to achieve such far-fetched cuts is simply delusional.
- The result will be a global price tag of $46 trillion, to avoid expected climate damage costing just $1.1 trillion, according to climate economist Richard Tol, a contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's drive to tackle global warming gets a boost on Wednesday, when Democrats in the Senate are expected to unveil a bill aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next four decades.
The Senate Democrats' draft legislation, which was circulating on Capitol Hill, embraces major elements of a controversial bill that passed the House of Representatives in June...
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Earlier this year the U.S House of Representatives approved the Waxman-Markey bill to establish a so-called cap-and-trade program designed to reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.
Cap-and-trade is a gee whiz name, but all it means is that the government would establish a total limit for annual CO2 emissions, auction or otherwise distribute ration coupons for the right to emit, and then allow the holders to buy and sell coupons in a legal secondary market.
The Senate is considering a vote on similar legislation this fall. Without regard to party or ideology, I believe that the evidence is clear that such a law, if it is anything like Waxman-Markey, would be contrary to the public interest... [snip]
As Capitol Hill prepares to take up climate change legislation once again, senators should cast a far more critical eye at the chief cap-and-trade proposal than their House counterparts did in June. Waxman-Markey would impose costs at least 10 times as large as its benefits, would not reduce the deficit, and wouldn't even really cap emissions.
What, then, is the point?
[Exactly. It has nothing to do with improving the environment.
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"OPPOSE ALL ENERGY TAXATION "
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