It is billed as the largest ever gathering of climate change challengers, a convention that kicked off last night with a title suggesting global warming is a thing of the past, and a guest list that includes a sitting European president.
Entitled Global Warming: Was It Ever Really a Crisis? and featuring some of the most prominent skeptics in the climate change debate, this week's conference in New York sets out to escalate its confrontation with the political establishment, the majority of which is aggressively promoting the view that humans are the principal cause of climate change.
Conference organisers were celebrating something of a coup in securing as a keynote speaker the Czech president, Václav Klaus, at a time when his country holds the rotating presidency of the EU. Klaus, a Eurosceptic, believes that efforts to protect the world from the impact of climate change are an assault on freedom."The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy, and prosperity, at the end of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st century, is no longer socialism. It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism,"
Klaus will say, according to prepared remarks provided by the organisers. He adds:"Environmentalism and the global alarmism are challenging our freedom."
This week's gathering brings together some of the more vocal critics of the scientific consensus, which maintains that climate change has been caused by human activity and that rising temperatures are now so dangerous to people's existence as to warrant urgent action... [snip]
A poll by the Pew Research Centre this year showed that climate change ranked last among topics of public concern to Americans; only 30% put global warming as their top priority, far down the scale from the economy, jobs, terrorism, moral decline, and even trade policy...
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Czech leader joins meeting of climate change challengers
Mexican cartels plague Atlanta
[HT:JK]
Atlanta — In a city where Coca Cola, United Parcel Service and Home Depot are the titans of industry, there are new powerful forces on the block: Mexican drug cartels. Their presence and ruthless tactics are largely unknown to most here.
Yet, of the 195 U.S. cities where Mexican drug-trafficking organizations are operating, federal law enforcement officials say Atlanta has emerged as the new gateway to the troubled Southwest border...
[We need a Manhattan-project-like effort to develop the technology to build a fence.]
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Let parents pick: Harlem proves moms and dads are clamoring for school choice
Long trapped in dead-zone local schools, Harlem's mothers and fathers are figuring out that they now have a remarkable range of options. That's because charter schools have blossomed in the community, making the neighborhood a national epicenter for reform.
Among competitors were traditional public schools - getting more than a run for their money now that Harlem has 24 charter schools, with a student body of 6,000 and growing. [snip]
Harlem's District 5 has been a victim of educational neglect by a system with a monopoly on public education. More than 70% of the district's eighth-graders and half the third-graders don't read at grade level. Last year, more than 84% of city charter school students scored at or above grade level on math exams...
This explains why tens of thousands of parents have kids on waiting lists for charter admissions. They want rigorous academics. They want a challenging curriculum. They want accountability. They want success.
Choice is the way to get it. Opening more charters would force all schools to raise performance. The obstacle is the Legislature, notably Assembly Democrats, who have capped charters in the city and state.
They are wrong. They are defending an atrocious status quo to the detriment of children...
[If run privately, they succeed every time - Highly Recommended > ]
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The unfairness of a Fairness Doctrine
Proposals by some Democrats are really just aimed at cracking down on conservative talk radio.
The Obama administration may say that it doesn't back a new Fairness Doctrine, but it has suggested it might support another reform, called "localism," which should also worry defenders of media freedom.
Localism would impose greater "local accountability" on broadcasters -- that is, it would force stations to carry more local programming. Localism, as sketched out in a recent FCC report, also could require stations to set up permanent community advisory boards (including "underserved community segments") that would have to be regularly consulted on "community needs and issues."
This measure -- a kind of community organizing applied to the airwaves -- could complicate life for national syndicators like Salem Radio, which make conservative and Christian shows available from coast to coast.
As a candidate, Obama supported both localism and the idea of relicensing stations every two years, rather than eight, as is currently the case -- which would make the new monitors a constant worry for stations...
[Different name, same game: silence your critics. Recommended > ]
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Free Speech Alliance -
and as always, pass it on...].
McGovern vs. unions
The Employee Freedom Action Committee (EFAC) is running ads in “targeted markets and on national cable” featuring 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern decrying the card-check legislation that is currently being deliberated in the legislative branch.
The organization’s website calls the card-check “fundamentally wrong” and McGovern himself says in the ad,“I’ve always been a champion of labor unions, but I fear that today’s union leaders are turning their backs on democratic work place elections. I’ve listened to all their arguments, and I’ve reviewed the facts on both sides. Quite simply, this proposed law cannot be justified.”
McGovern’s denouncement is all the more striking because his presidential nomination is viewed as one of the most liberal and once electorally disastrous choices for the Democratic Party. EFAC reached out to him after he wrote a op-ed in the Wall Street Journal a year ago.
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The Need for the Ancient Wisdom and Values
[Victor Davis Hanson]
... They sense that if one collapses — can't pay taxes, can't pay credit cards, can't pay mortgage, can't pay the monthly health care premium, can't pay college tuition — the Obama administration will have some sort of new program for the can'ts. But they suspect there won't be a bailout for them, the cans, and they will inevitably end up paying in increased taxes, fees, or inflated dollars for these spread-the-wealth efforts.
Obama's challenge will be to assure the millions of Americans who pay all their bills, and who scrimped, and passed on gratuitous expenditures, that their capital is safe from the greed of Wall Street, the tentacles of government, and the redistributive demands of their fellow citizens.
In such a climate, one must tread carefully and speak about uplifting the American people. Yet, so far we've heard the opposite. Serial citations of the Great Depression, fiscal meltdown, and catastrophe coupled with finger-wagging lectures about cowards, the new California dust bowl, and the wrongs the U.S. committed abroad now seem to come daily from the new cabinet.
It is a reflection of an entrenched anti-establishment culture suddenly given the reins of power that has not adjusted to the idea that trashing incumbent conservatives is not the same as the responsibility of governance.
Or it could be that we are in perpetual us/they and "we are on the brink of disaster" campaign mode, deemed necessary to alter radically American government, the economy, and culture — or all three combined.
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Inner cities a snapshot of America's future
Blacks are not given enough credit for being trendsetters in America.
Black women got into having babies without marriage. Then white women started getting into it and the incidence of white out-of-wedlock births today -- almost 30 percent -- is higher than the black rate in the 1960's.
Blacks for years elected politicians championing public policy that destroyed their own communities. Now the rest of America has installed a new political leadership with the perfect formula -- run roughshod over private ownership, disdain traditional values, substitute political power for personal responsibility.
Why, then, when poor immigrant families readily move in one generation into the middle class, does one fourth of black America remain poor, generation after generation?
It's what happens when lives get politicized and people are instructed to be helpless... [snip]
Blacks bought into dependency and the welfare state. Now the rest of America has bought in. We can expect the rest of America to reap the same benefits that blacks have enjoyed from this lunacy...
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UNFUNDED HEALTH COSTS FOR CALIF. WORKERS TOPS $48B
CALIFORNIA
As if the state's budget problems weren't big enough, California's unfunded obligation for future government retiree health benefits has now topped $48 billion. According to state Controller John Chiang:
- The amount California is obligated to pay but has not funded is $340 million more than previously projected.
- Future obligations now stand at $48.2 billion.
- The tab would have been higher had the California Public Employees' Retirement System not used surplus money to offset rising health care rates.
A bipartisan panel appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger handed over a voluminous report in January 2008 recommending pension reforms.
[ 'recommending reforms'? WE'RE BANKRUPT, they're civil servants, why do we allow them to unionize in the first place?]
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Online News Sources Seen As Reliable As Local Papers
Fifty-two percent (52%) of Americans say they go online and use the Internet every day or nearly every day, and most of those adults now find online reporting comparable to that in their local newspaper.
Seventy-four percent (74%) of these daily Internet users say that reporting from web sources is as reliable while 69% say the same about local newspaper reporting.
[As reliable? That's a five point spread - presidents call that a mandate...]
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Monday, March 9, 2009
Obama's Left Turn
Having praised President Obama's job performance in two recent columns, it is with regret that I now worry that he may be deepening what looks more and more like a depression and may engineer so much spending, debt, and government control of the economy as to leave most Americans permanently less prosperous and less free.
Other Obama-admiring centrists have expressed similar concerns. Like them, I would like to be proved wrong. After all, if this president fails, who will revive our economy? And when? And what kind of America will our children inherit?
But with the nation already plunging deep into probably necessary debt to rescue the crippled financial system and stimulate the economy, Obama's proposals for many hundreds of billions in additional spending on universal health care, universal postsecondary education, a massive overhaul of the energy economy, and other liberal programs seem grandiose and unaffordable.
The house is burning down. It's no time to be watering the grass.
With little in the way of offsetting savings likely to materialize, the Obama agenda will generate trillion-dollar deficits with no end in sight, or send middle-class taxes soaring to record levels, or both.
All this from a man who told the nation last week that he doesn't "believe in bigger government" and who promised tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans...
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Newsweek Cover Story: Conservative Frum's 'Why Rush is Wrong'
With "Why Rush is Wrong" getting published at Newsweek's website Saturday evening, it is also sure to be fodder for discussion on all of the Sunday political talk shows, as well as Monday's morning programs thereby guaranteeing the article's contents maximum exposure.
To give you an idea of just how much the liberal media are going to devour Frum's words as if the finest champagne and caviar, here's a taste: [snip]
See what I mean?
We've entered the predictable phase of the media attack on Limbaugh: mainstream news outlets paying well-known conservatives to bash the talk show host.
Who's next? [snip]
That they gave Frum's article cover status suggests that this is them hoping to create a self-fulfilling prophecy for they want him to BE right, and are willing to risk giving Rush more publicity if it ends up hurting Republicans.
In fact, that's what this whole Emanuel-Carville-Begala-Stephanopoulos cabal is all about. These folks are scared to death that Limbaugh is going to revive conservatives within the GOP, and they want to do everything and anything to stop it before the midterms in 2010 so as not to allow a repeat of their disappointment in 1994.
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A Reason for Concern
As I've said repeatedly, not a Rush fan. But we should all be concerned over the orchestrated witch hunt being perpetrated against Rush Limbaugh - he's a private citizen being targeted by the White House - with the help of the MSM, of course....
Obama WH Secret Phone Conferences Bear Fruit With TV Media's Limbaugh Attack
CNN's Bill Schneider: Limbaugh Speech Was 'Angry, Mocking, Bullying, Harsh, and Full of Contempt'
Tina Brown: Liberal Ad Elevates 'Blow-hard Bullfrog' Rush Limbaugh
Matthews Calls Limbaugh and Republicans 'Trolls Under the Bridge'
MSNBC Graphic Frets, 'Who Elected Rush Limbaugh?'
LATimes Claims GOP 'Uneasy' About Rush, Yet Offers no Proof
Rush Limbaugh = Political Peril? So Says PBS
ABC's Diane Sawyer to McCain: 'Are You Offended' by Rush Limbaugh?
MSNBC Brings on Nation Writer to Bash Rush, Tout Limbaugh Error
WaPo Reporter on MSNBC: Next GOP Nominee Must ‘Stand Up To Rush’
'Today' Blames Limbaugh for GOP 'All-Time Low'
MSNBC's David Shuster Badgers Ron Paul: 'Even You' Won't Slam Rush
Politico Exposes White House and Media's Anti-Limbaugh Strategy
Envious Ed Schultz Likens Limbaugh to Hitler
'Maybe Limbaugh Should Be Executed For Treason'
David Shuster: GOP Members Who Don't Slam Rush 'Appear Unpatriotic'
Reporter Calls 'Clown' Limbaugh a 'Sweaty, Swollen Man'
MSNBC: GOP ‘Sinking Fast’ Because of Rush Limbaugh
Newsweek’s Alter on MSNBC: GOP ‘Party of Jell-O’ For Not Standing Up to Limbaugh
Globe Column: A Perfect Example of Lies About Rush
CNN: Rush is the 'Anti-Obama' Since He 'Isn't Black, Slim...or Well Schooled'
Newsweek’s Wolffe: Limbaugh Is GOP’s ‘Jeremiah Wright’ Cornering ‘Hate Obama’ Market
Is this the kind of behavior we want to see from the White House?
FLASHBACK >
WH Secret Phone Conferences Bear Fruit With TV Media's Limbaugh Attack
Back on January 29, we discussed the daily strategy phone call engineered by Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for friendly TV commentators and "reporters." Politico reported that Emanuel has a daily phone conference call with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, and CNN's James Carville and Paul Begala. With Rush Limbaugh's raucous CPAC address, as he termed it
his "first address to the nation," we can see at least one example of what is likely an attack strategyresulting from the Emanuel phone session with a rush to bash Rush the day after the appearance.As soon as the sun rose on the day after Limbaugh's CPAC appearance, three of the four of the phone call participants attacked Limbaugh with the same talking points. It seems obvious that they coordinated their attack together in the Obama secret strategy session. It is amazing that a president's staff can have such power over major media figures without a peep being heard from those that only months ago bashed former presidents over a perceived undue, even "dangerous," control of the media.
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Pope invited to Iraq
[HT:SC]
Amman - Iraqi leaders have invited Pope Benedict XVI to visit Baghdad, his envoy to Jordan said today, as the Pontiff confirmed he will visit the Middle East in May. ''One thing I can tell you about the visit to Baghdad is that both President (Jalal) Talabani and the Prime Minister (Nuri) al-Maliki have personally invited the Holy Father to visit Iraq,'' the apostolic nuncio to Jordan, Archbishop Francis Assisi Chullikat, said.
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As war ebbs, Europe returns to Iraq
President Bush was hardly out of the White House before his European opponents to the invasion of Iraq began lining up for what are expected to be lucrative contracts to rebuild the oil-rich country.
In recent weeks, France and Germany, which Donald Rumsfeld, former secretary of Defense, once chided as "Old Europe" for their opposition to the war, spearheaded Europe's forceful return to Baghdad. On separate visits with similar goals, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier swung through Baghdad. Their message was clear: As the danger subsides and the US scales back, Europe should move in quickly:
"German companies should study the possibility of increasing their presence in Iraq, given the improvement in the security situation,"
Steinmeier is the second German government official to visit Iraq in recent months. His visit was preceded by Germany's former economics minister Michael Glos. But Steinmeier's visit, coupled with political meetings, was the first solid evidence of a shift in German foreign policy.
And it is an indication that Germany is now intent on reestablishing* its once strong political and economic ties with Baghdad...
[*get it?]
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Iran's Ahmadinejad Gets Shoe Thrown At Him, Will Media Care?
Consider what was published by Israel's Haaretz Saturday:
A shoe was recently hurled at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while he was in the city of Urmia, an Iranian Web site has reported.Will American media care about this? After all, according to LexisNexis, there were almost 1,000 reports in December when it happened to President Bush.
The incident in the Iranian city was an apparent imitation of a similar attack on former U.S. president George Bush in Iraq last year.
Urmia News, the Iranian site, reported that Ahmadinejad was in a car en route to an election rally when the shoe was thrown.
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Obama switches line on Mid-East
[HT:SC]
BARACK Obama has embarked on a radical reversal of Washington's approach to the Middle East in a series of developments over the weekend that add to the ambitious reach of policy changes for the US President.
But it worries Arab and Israeli leaders, who already question whether Mr Obama is making too many concessions to Iran, while eastern Europeans feel the same about the dramatic reversal in tone of the relations between Washington and Moscow...
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Gym club banned from holding classes at girls school after Muslim parents complain about boy members
A gymnastics club was forced to stop holding classes at an independent girls school after Muslim parents complained about boy members of the group. Colin Perry, who runs the Shirley Gymnastics Club, said he was saddened by the decision which he said compromised the school's commitment to multiculturalism because of fears of offending a minority. He is now desperately searching for a new home for the club's 250 members - including 36 boys .
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EU membership costs each Briton £2,000 a year
The Taxpayers' Alliance figures for the cost of belonging to the EU are much higher than the narrow budget contributions reported by the Treasury.
The UK pays more than £6 billion a year in direct support for the European Commission and other EU projects."The EU's waste, mismanagement and incompetence costs all of us a fortune. It's wrong that these unaccountable bureaucrats are allowed to run up such a huge bill for ordinary people, particularly with everyone struggling in a recession."
The TPA says the real cost of EU membership is actually many times higher than the EU claims due to complying with European regulations, the cost of Government bureaucracy to administer those rules, and other consequences of membership like food prices inflated by farm subsidies...
[Pop quiz: everyone who's surprised, raise your hand. Just as I thought, smart bunch.
Quiz 2: What's the difference between Brussels managing its 27 member states and Washington managing 50? {Hint: we've twice the states...}]
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Obama stimulates the wrong jobs
The jobs report (or jobless report ) is out for February. There was a loss of 651,000 jobs in the month, but of that total , there was a loss of 660,000 private sector jobs.
Which means government jobs grew by 9,000.
And this was in February, before any stimulus money arrived, and when supposedly state and local governments were under tremendous pressure, and cutting jobs...
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GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY
The recently enacted $787 billion "stimulus" program appears to be the down payment on a sweeping "new New Deal" that will include many other ambitious government programs.
Given the size and scope of such interventions into the economy, it's important to remember that big government programs often have results that are very different than what was intended.
Take for example, the experience of FDR's most ambitious infrastructure program, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA):
- Heralded as a program to build dams that would control floods, facilitate navigation, lift people out of poverty and help American recover from the Great Depression, it actually flooded more land than it protected.
- The TVA morphed into America's biggest monopoly, dominating an 80,000 square mile region with 8.8 million people.
- It pays none of the federal, state, and local taxes that private businesses pay; it's estimated that annual cost-of-capital subsidies exceeded $1.2 billion and currently, the TVA has about $26 billion of debt.
- Moreover, it doesn't have to incur the costs of complying with myriad federal, state, and local laws, and when it wants to acquire more assets, it has the power of eminent domain.
Too bad today's advocates of a new New Deal seem determined not to learn from their predecessors' mistakes.
[Lessons are repeated until learned.]
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You Can’t Earn Living in U.S. Without Government Help
George Lakoff, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, recently stated that“the moral mission of government is simple: no one can earn a living in America or live an American life without protection and empowerment by the government.”
Thirty-four percent (34%) of voters nationwide agree with Lakoff’s assertion while 46% disagree in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Twenty percent (20%) are not sure.
Half (51%) of Democrats agree with the professor while Republicans and unaffiliated voters strongly disagree. Republicans reject Lakoff’s statement by a 3-to-1 margin, unaffiliateds by a 2-to-1 margin.
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[but we elected Democrats, so...]
Obama's Budget Seeks to Shrink Tax Benefits of Owning
The cluster of special federal tax benefits and subsidies for homeowners has long seemed politically untouchable. Those include deductions for mortgage interest, local property taxes and capital gains exclusions on up to $500,000 in sale profits. Is the Obama administration serious about beginning to limit at least some of these subsidies?
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Tea Parties? What Tea Parties?
Coverage of "tea party" protests in various cities around the country (this March 4 Pajamas Media press release, HT to FreeRepublic, cited 22 locations on February 27 and seven this weekend) has been sparse to non-existent, especially at major establishment media outlets.
Most notably, based on a search on "tea party" (not in quotes) at its ap.org home page at about 10:00 a.m., there has been no coverage of this weekend's or last weekend's protests by the Associated Press, the self-described "essential global news network":
What's more, even though over 20 of the protests had already taken place, the AP's David Bauder, in his coverage of a dispute over the prominent use of CNBC's Rick ("Rant Hear 'Round the world") Santelli's name at a protest web site (the March 2, 8:06 p.m. item above), either did not know that the protests had occurred, or didn't care to inform his readers that they had.
Looking at this weekend's coverage thus far, a 10:15 a.m., with the exception of a one-paragraph blog post at the New York Times, searches at the Washington Post and the Times on "tea party" (not in quotes) indicate that there was no coverage of the protest events.
Maybe the tea partiers should have told the press that they were holding Iraq War protests.
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Swedish Nukes Revival Has German Right Asking for More
After Sweden decided to scrap its ban against building new nuclear power plants, several politicians from Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) said Germany should do the same.
"When European countries are planning to build nuclear plants again, Germany can't be the odd one out," CDU parliamentarian Katherina Reiche, told Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
Sweden announced last week that it was revoking a 1980 referendum decision to phase out nuclear power. Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and the leaders of the three other parties in the coalition described the deal as "historic."
[everyone but US]
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Has Obama Killed Nuclear Power?
That's what Steve Sailer asks, and he's got good reason for asking because buried in the budget is a clue that under the radar that's exactly what Obama has done: It looks like Obama's budget intends to give up on implementing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
So, nuclear waste would continue to sit around nuclear power plants. Which means nobody is going to build anymore nuclear power plants in the U.S. - ever.
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SWEDEN'S GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE
Sven R. Larson tells about some of Sweden's problems in "Lesson from Sweden's Universal Health System: Tales from the Health-care Crypt,"
For example:
- One Gothenburg multiple sclerosis patient was prescribed a new drug but his doctor's request was denied because the drug was 33 percent more expensive than the older medicine; he then offered to pay for the medicine himself but was prevented from doing so because the bureaucrats said it would set a bad precedent and lead to unequal access to medicine.
- Malmo, with its 280,000 residents, is Sweden's third-largest city to see a physician, a patient must go to one of two local clinics before they can see a specialist; the clinics have security guards to keep patients from getting unruly as they wait hours to see a doctor and the guards also prevent new patients from entering the clinic when the waiting room is considered full.
- Uppsala, a city with 200,000 people, has only one specialist in mammography; Sweden's National Cancer Foundation reports that in a few years most Swedish women will not have access to mammography.
"In our budget-government health care there is no room for curious, young physicians and other professionals to challenge established views. New knowledge is not attractive but typically considered a problem (that brings) increased costs and disturbances in today's slimmed-down health care."
These are just a few of the problems of Sweden's single-payer government-run health care system, says columnist Walter E. Williams. We have problems in our health care system but most of them are a result of too much government.
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Media Routinely Ignores Govt.-Controlled Health Care Problems in Other Countries
Mark Levin bought this matter up on his show Thursday. His web site's home page (near the bottom left) points to a post at Liberty-Page.com, where there are compilations of dozens of articles on how socialized medicine is not working out well in Britain, Canada, and elsewhere.
Looking at just one country, here are just six relevant results from the past three weeks obtained from a Google News search on "NHS BBC" (not in quotes):
- March 5 -- "Disgust" over Wheelchair Delays"; "One child has been waiting for 20 months and the North Wales NHS Trust says it has cut times and is aiming to ensure no child waits more than a year." That would be an accomplishment?
- March 5 -- "NHS charges to rise in England"; "The British Medical Association (BMA) said the current system was not working and was 'iniquitous' for many patients." It wants every single solitary prescription to be free.
- March 2 -- "Prime Minister's health records breached in database attack; Scottish rich and powerful victimized"; so much for mediard records security.
- February 25 -- "Hospital lost patient data disks." Ten years' worth.
- February 17 -- "Stroke services are 'UK's worst'" -- "Dr Tony Rudd, who assessed services in Wales, England and Northern Ireland two years ago, said services in Wales were 'scandalously bad.'"
- February 17 -- ''New computer delay costs NHS Trust £500,000" -- "THE next London hospital in line to install the problem-hit NHS computer system has had its start date postponed for a second time."
But apparently there's no time for that. Michelle Obama's right to bare arms is apparently more important.
[The 'service' provided by our professional media]
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Allowing concealed weapons in national parks to get review
The nation's Interior secretary plans to review a decision to allow concealed weapons in Rocky Mountain National Park. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar directed the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct a 90-day review of environmental issues [?] that are a product of the rule, which as of Jan. 9 allowed loaded, concealed guns at the country's national parks and wildlife refuges.
[Anything to disarm the people.]
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75% Believe Constitution Guarantees Right To Own A Gun
Seventy-five percent (75%) of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of an average citizen to own a gun, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Just 14% say gun ownership is not a constitutional right. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.
[But we elected Democrats...]
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PHILANTHROPY AND ITS ENEMIES
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy's (NCRP) recommendation that philanthropic organizations should ignore donor intent and give grants based on political considerations, nonprofits have taken a big hit, says Naomi Schaefer Riley of the Wall Street Journal.
The NCRP is following in the footsteps of other philanthropy groups that have released similar mandates:
- In 2007, San Francisco's Greenlining began pushing for legislation mandating that foundations report to the public the percentage of their dollars given to "minority-led" organizations and the percentage of their boards and staffs made up by racial and ethnic minorities.
- The legislation was dropped when several foundations promised to donate money to causes Greenlining favored.
- Now Greenlining has put out reports in Florida, Pennsylvania and New York trying to shame foundations into distributing grants differently, as well as pressure them into recruiting more "diverse" board and staff members.
Looking at the recipients of grants doesn't tell you anything about who the real beneficiaries are. Which brings us to another one of NCRP's recommendations -- that at least 25 percent of grant dollars be used for "advocacy, organizing and civic engagement to promote equity, opportunity and justice in our society."
Philanthropists give money to foundations with a particular cause in mind. And promoting "justice in our society" may not have anything to do with it. Indeed, foundations that redirect funding to match the NCRP criteria may have to violate donor intent in order to do so.
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Lotto winners give £3.9 million to company they work for
Andy Whitaker, 44, has managed to keep the family-run motor repair company going despite a dismal year for the car industry. Now he is to be helped after his winning employees asked to pledge much of their £300,000 shares into the firm ASK Rewinds in Accrington, Lancs so they could become investors.
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Who Attacked Our Economy? Why Does No One Care?
I want you to read something. It's a snatch of transcript from a Jan. 27 C-SPAN interview with Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., that has received zero coverage in what we think of as the mainstream media.
To set the C-SPAN scene, Kanjorski is harkening back to the middle of last September, when, as it happens, John McCain was enjoying his brief lead in the presidential polls and the economy as we knew it was imploding. Here's what Kanjorski said:
"I was there when the Secretary (of the Treasury Hank Paulson) and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve (Ben Bernanke) came those days and talked to members of Congress about what was going on. It was about Sept. 15. Here's the facts, we don't even talk about these things.
"On Thursday at about 11 o'clock in the morning, the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous drawdown of money market accounts in the United States to the tune of $550 billion, as being drawn out in the matter of an hour or two.
"The Treasury opened up its window to help. It pumped $105 billion into the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn't be further panic out there, and that's what actually happened."
Kanjorksi continued:
"If they had not done that, their estimation was that by 2 o'clock that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy system of the United States and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed.
"Now we talked at that time about what would happen if that happened. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it. And that's why when they made the point we've got to do things quickly, we did."
These are staggering revelations.
Given their sudden appearance out of the blue, you have to wonder, first, could they possibly be true? If so, why weren't we the people told about this $550 billion electronic run on the banks? And why haven't we heard a word of it since? Even since Kanjorski spoke on C-SPAN last month, there has been scant MSM coverage. The story's biggest exposure came when Rush Limbaugh played the audio and analyzed it on the air this week. Otherwise, the story has been little more than blogfodder, appearing at places such as Politico.com and the Economist blog with little comment. Writing at Portfolio.com this week, Felix Salmon quite decisively dismissed the whole story as "fiction."
Is it? If what Kanjorski says is "fiction," Americans, particularly Americans in Kanjorski's 11th district of Pennsylvania, need to know. After all, this isn't a story that just goes away on its own, particularly not when Paul Kanjorski is chairman of the Capital Markets Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee. Of course, incredible as Kanjorski's revelations were, almost equally incredible was the interviewer's failure to ask the next obvious question of national interest: Who or what was responsible for that electronic run on the banks "to the tune of $550 billion"?
That's where Limbaugh went with the story. "Now, let's assume for a second here that elements of this are true," Limbaugh said of Kanjorski's statement. "Let's assume that there was a $550 billion ... electronic run on the banks and money market accounts in one to two hours. The question is who was doing this? Who was withdrawing all this money? And the next question is why? That's where my mind starts exploding, and this is dangerous to have these explosions going this way. Could it have been George Soros? Could it have been a consortium of countries -- Russia, China, Venezuela -- countries that are eager to have Barack Obama elected because they know that will make it easier for them to continue their own foreign policies in the world?"
I've heard serious people float similar theories regarding financial attacks on our economy emanating from the Middle East, but again, who knows?
One thing we do know is that former President Bush made extremely cryptic public statements regarding the stability of our markets at this time in question last September, statements noted by Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid. These began with a Sept. 18 Bush announcement that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was stepping up its enforcement action "against illegal market manipulation." As Kincaid wondered, manipulation "by whom or what? The President didn't say." On Sept. 19, President Bush further announced that the SEC had "launched rigorous enforcement actions to detect fraud and manipulation in the market. Anyone engaging in illegal financial transactions will be caught and persecuted (sic -- good ol' W.)." Again, what was Bush talking about?
On that same day, Kincaid reports, "the SEC announced a `sweeping expansion of its ongoing investigation into possible market manipulation in the securities of certain financial institutions.'" Why? What was going on? If ever there was a vital, compelling reason for congressional hearings, Kanjorski's "electronic run on the banks" story is it.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Senate Defeats Effort to Remove Earmarks
In his latest crusade against the process lawmakers use to finance home-state projects known as earmarks, Senator John S. McCain took to the Senate floor this week with an arsenal of numbers, sharply criticizing the $410 billion omnibus spending bill as 2,967 pages of text, teeming with 9,000 earmarks.
But the only numbers that mattered on Tuesday were 63 to 32: the vote by which the Senate defeated Mr. McCain’s amendment to strip the earmarks from the spending measure, which is needed to finance the federal government through September.
The House majority leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, said Congressional Democrats were not willing to relinquish their budget authority. Driving home his point, Mr. Hoyer called the spending items not earmarks but “Congressional initiatives.”
[Translation: PORK]
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Obama to Sign Spending Bill With Earmarks
President Barack Obama will sign a $410 billion government-spending bill, even though it includes thousands of the spending ''earmarks'' that he had criticized on the campaign trail, a top White House aide said.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, speaking on CBS's ''Face the Nation'' Sunday, said the president wasn't happy with the 9,000-or-so earmarks that lawmakers added to the legislation. But
[I believe the year is 2009, and it's Obama's desk the bill will land on and his hand which will sign it into law. How stupid do they think we are?...................
{rhetorical}]
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Airbrushing Obama's name off earmarks
The evidence Obama sponsored earmarks (which he is publicly speaking against) will be destroyed. Jonathan Allen of CQ Politics reports on the process of hiding the evidence:
Congress will scrub President Obama's name from a list of earmark cosponsors in the $410 billion omnibus spending bill.
The reason: Whether Obama cosponsored the earmarks depends on what the definition of earmarks is and when an earmarks becomes earmarks, according to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Subsequently, Senate Appropriations Committee spokesman Rob Blumenthal said Obama's name would be removed from future versions of the congressional report identifying earmarks and their sponsors.
History is written by the victors, so they say, and Obama famously declared, "I won."
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Adding Insult to Injury
.
Congress wants to boost spending on itself by nearly 11 percent this year, an increase that's part of a massive spending bill that has smaller increases for most agencies that deal with public health, education, energy, and other domestic needs.
The congressional budget, which the Senate is considering this week as part of a $410 billion fiscal 2009 spending bill, is higher than the 8 percent overall boost for most domestic programs.
['smaller increases' averaging 8% - no recession in Washington]
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Mullen: Iran has fissile materials for bomb
[HT:NR]
The top U.S. military official says he believes Iran now has enough fissile material to build a nuclear bomb. Adm. Mike Mullen issued that assessment after the world's nuclear watchdog said last week that it was wrong in earlier reports and now has evidence that Iran has enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon...
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Six powers commit to "direct diplomacy" with Iran
The United States and five other powers said on Tuesday they were committed to direct talks with Iran to defuse a standoff over its disputed nuclear work, underlining a U.S. turnabout from a policy of confrontation. [I.e., strength.]
Speaking at a U.N. nuclear watchdog meeting, the six voiced serious concern at Iran's atomic advances and increasing restrictions on U.N. inspectors trying to keep track of them but did not mention toughening sanctions as a way to rein in Iran."We remain firmly committed to a comprehensive diplomatic solution, including through direct dialogue,"
the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China said in a statement to the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors
[I.e., Iran wins. The only question is how big the bribe - all paid by America - will need to be. When will we learn; conveying weakness emboldens enemies.]
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The Iran-Israel nuclear endgame is now much closer
In recent days, four key developments have clicked in to edge Iran and Israel much closer to a military denouement with profound consequences for American oil that the nation is not prepared to meet.
Binyamin Netanyahu has just become prime minister of Israel. He is determined to take action before - not after - Iran achieves its nuclear potential...
[Well, at least we've had time to prepare by drilling our own ... oh.
Nevermind.]
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Obama's plan for unfree trade
Not once in the agenda is free trade defended or presented as a policy objective, unless you consider the following reference-- the only sentence in the agenda to actually use the word "free" -- to be an indicator of trade liberalism."If we work together, free and fair trade with proper regard for social and environmental policy and appropriate political accountability will be a powerful contributor to the national and global well being."
Otherwise, the Obama trade agenda is anti-free trade. All presidents have recently taken to talking about "free and fair" trade, compromising the basic objectives of trade liberalization for political reasons. But even George W. Bush, no stranger to compromise on trade, made trade freedom a dominant objective, constantly hammering away at the "benefits of free trade" and the need to "knock down barriers."
Nothing comparable appears in Mr. Obama's agenda, which is tellingly entitled to capture the administration's prime trade objectives: "Making Trade Work for American Families." The opening sentences are a declaration of trade confusion -- trade as a social program...
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Big Brother Twofer
.
Outrage brewing over proposed 1,900% beer tax hike
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Five Oregon state lawmakers want to impose a hefty tax on beer and have introduced a bill that brewers say would cripple them. Four Portland legislators joined a Springfield senator to introduce Oregon House Bill 2461, which would impose a $49.61 tax on each barrel of beer produced by Oregon brewers.
[the inevitable path of 'sin' taxes, when government decides what's sin {with a profit motive thrown in}]
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[yet another one]
Adult download tax proposal awaits climax in Albany
This is the best tax you ever had. A state proposal to add a 4% tax for downloading movies and music will also apply to Internet porn. Gov. Paterson recently suggested the so-called iPod tax to help close a $15 billion budget deficit, but few realized the levy would also apply to XXX-rated material.
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GOVERNMENT POLICIES LED TO WALL STREET'S RISKY BUSINESS
Many observers blame the current financial crisis on a breakdown of private markets. A more careful look shows that government policy, step by step, led to the current crisis, says Randall G. Holcombe, an economics professor at Florida State University. Consider:
- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created to help provide mortgages for people who didn't qualify for conventional mortgages; as government-sponsored enterprises (GSE), they rapidly grew to where their debt was nearly half the size of the federal government's debt.
- A related problem began with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977; if lenders wanted to expand their lending, they had to balance their loans to financially secure buyers with loans to buyers who did not meet the conventional mortgage criteria.
- A third factor was easy-money policy adopted by the Federal Reserve Bank early in the decade to mitigate the effects of an incipient recession exacerbated by the after-effects of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; low rates meant lower-cost mortgages, further enabling people to buy houses, however, the increased demand pushed prices up, and many buyers wouldn't have qualified for mortgages except for the relaxed standards.
As long as interest rates remained low and housing prices rose, the problems were hidden, says Holcombe. But then from 2004 to 2006 the Fed boosted the Federal Funds rate to 5.25 percent, pushing up mortgage rates and bringing the artificial housing boom to an end.
So government policy, not the free market, created much of the current financial crisis, explains Holcombe. Market participants aren't blameless - nobody forced Wall Street's large investment banks to take big risks - but the conditions that have led to today's mess weren't a product of a free market but rather one warped by government meddling.
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For Banks, Help Isn't On The Way
Financial System: Banks, it seems, are everyone's favorite villains these days. Blamed for much of the financial crisis by everyone from the president to the media, they are routinely vilified. But do they deserve it?
Our government is largely to blame for our current problems. (Snip) many of the same people who caused these problems — Rep. Barney Frank and Sens. Chris Dodd and Chuck Schumer(Snip)— are now making new laws to "fix" them.
[There is no justice.]
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Bankrupting the Coal Industry
From a San Francisco Chronicle interview on January 17, 2008 with then candidate Obama regarding the coal industry:
"Let me sort of describe my overall policy. What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there. So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."
President Obama's first budget proposal includes $75 billion in tax revenues by 2012 from a cap-and-trade system that requires companies to buy credits if they exceed greenhouse gas limits. We don't have to guess which utilities this targets because POTUS told us last year: coal. This is part of his plan to bankrupt the coal industry.
The unintended (or intended?) consequence comes from the companies pass their costs to consumers principle: companies don't absorb costs, they pass them on to the consumer. How long will it be before the electric bills in areas where coal is the main provider of electricity are doubled or tripled? What is the consumer going to do? Switch power company providers? This isn't an option. These are monopolies.
Sadly, the administration feels that they can raise taxes and fees on companies and say that they're not hurting anyone. But when the administration raises taxes and imposes fees on business, they're really raising taxes and imposing fees on you and me, all of us, regardless of our income bracket. But don't expect to be reminded of that by the MSM.
[55% - the amount of our electricity supplied by coal.]
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How Regulation Harms
[HT:JK]
A New York City doctor's flat-fee, $79-a-month medical practice has run afoul of state insurance regulators who have told him to shut it down.
Dr. John Muney said Wednesday he's negotiating to try to keep the arrangement at his AMG Medical Group centers. The fee . . doesn't cover treatment requiring hospitalization or specialized care.
But the state Insurance Department says Dr. Muney's system amounts to insurance and requires a license...
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FREE THE ENTREPRENEUR
In normal markets, entrepreneurs in search of profit often spur cost efficiencies and quality improvements. Under Medicare, by contrast, entrepreneurial efforts find their greatest reward when they exploit the system rather than improve it.
Entrepreneurs are creating new products to fill needs that traditional health insurance does not meet. For example:
- People can purchase blood tests via the Internet and get results in 24 hours.
- They can get low-cost care with very little waiting at walk-in clinics in shopping malls.
As a regulator of care, government has erected many obstacles. For example:
- It is illegal for a doctor practicing on the Texas side of Texarkana to treat a patient by phone on the Arkansas side of the same city.
- It is illegal for a doctor practicing in East St. Louis (Illinois side) to interpret x-rays taken for a patient treated in west St. Louis (Missouri side).
Most importantly of all, a national market for provider services should be established quickly, and the protectionist practice prohibiting interstate insurance providers abolished .
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New Orleans, Unguarded
In discussing Hurricane Katrina, people never tire of maintaining there was “enough blame to go around.” Every sensitive American knows to cite “the failure of local, state, and federal governments to respond more effectively.”
Which means, in real terms, that New Orleans’ mayor, Ray Nagin, should have gotten citizens out of the city and kept police in; Louisiana’s governor, Kathleen Blanco should have immediately asked for National Guard troops; and President Bush should have . . . not been photographed looking out of an airplane window?
There’s a story today highlighting that the federal government not only saved the day three and a half years ago, but also continued to outshine Louisiana’s local and state entities ever since. The last members of the patrolling National Guard are pulling out of New Orleans by the end of this weekend, and residents are petrified at the prospect of not having federal troops around to aid and protect them...
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Democrats strike different tone on Katrina
WASHINGTON (AP) — The economic stimulus signed by President Barack Obama will spread billions of dollars across the country to spruce up aging roads and bridges. But there's not a dime specifically dedicated to fixing leftover damage from Hurricane Katrina.
And there's no outrage about it.
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Montana loading another shot for states' rights
HELENA - Montana lawmakers are betting the words 'Made in Montana' might be able to trigger a court showdown with the federal government, while also freeing some gun owners and dealers from background check and licensing requirements.
Under a proposed law before the Legislature, firearms, weapons components and ammunition made in Montana and kept in Montana would be exempt from federal regulation, potentially releasing some Montanans from national gun registration and licensing laws...
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What Kind of President Seeks to Effectively Tax Charitable Contributions?
Those of us who disagree with Obama need to break through apolitical Americans' general sense of "he's a good guy, I trust him, I'm not going to look too closely at what he's doing."
I suspect his proposal to lower the deductions on charitable contributions is a good example of talk differing from action. By lowering the deduction, Obama is effectively raising taxes on donations to charity.
Of all the places to raise taxes, why here? Why does Obama want the government to take more from those who donate to good causes? Can he really believe that the government should be punishing those who make these donations?
[A: by reducing charitable giving the have-nots will have less, thereby strengthening the class-warfare arguments on which he depends.]
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'Name That Party' Reaches House Floor
On NewsBusters we have for a few years now been chronicling the constant failure of the media to label a criminal or troubled politician with his party affiliation when that politician is a Democrat, we all know.
Every couple of days we detail a new "name that party" story where an Old Media outlet reports on a Democrat politician arrested, convicted, or accused of a crime though he seems never to be labeled as such. We've also noted many times the opposite tale where a recalcitrant pol that happens to be a Republican finds his party receiving top billing in the Old Media. We have dozens and dozens of examples.
Well, it appears that at least one member of Congress has noticed the same thing and has mentioned the media's penchant for Democrat Party passing on the floor of the House of Representatives. The Hill's Briefing Room blog gives us the story.
But, I just had to laugh at The Hill's headline. It went a little something like this:
You got it... The Hill made darn sure that party affiliation was first up in the headline.
Sigh.
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Drunk Rides Gravy Train
He got so drunk that he fell into the path of a subway train - costing him his right leg - but a Manhattan jury still awarded him $2.3 million after finding that NYC Transit was to blame.
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Across the table,
a collective tyranny saying,
Submit.
On the lawn oustide,
a hostile media saying,
Submit.
In his faraway land,
a faction of partisans saying,
Submit.
And on his shoulders,
the fate of the free world:
One Man.
One man stood his ground,
he just said,
"Nyet."
President Ronald Reagan
Reykjavík Summit
October 12, 1986
