What is the Stimulus Bill Actually Stimulating?

In yesterday’s article I laid out the need to force fiscal responsibility upon the Federal government. As if on cue, the government was kind enough to provide me with more examples of their excesses. But first, why hasn’t the stimulus bill brought jobs back to the private sector? The easy (and correct) answer is that government is a parasite that lives off the blood of its people. It consumes, it does not produce and therefore, will never create jobs outside of its own bloated bureaucracy.

The other truth is that government does not understand what a job is, particularly when the government is now controlled by progressive Democrats. A job is not an entitlement, it is not an offshoot of a government program and it is definitely not something that can be created in the stroke of a pen held by someone that has never worked outside of the lurid world of politics. Jobs exist for one reason and one reason only…because someone has more work than they can do themselves. Many of today’s large corporations had modest beginnings and in many cases, the original owners worked by themselves or with a small core group of people until they created a demand that they could no longer meet. To expand, they needed more money than they personally had on hand and the banks for the most part, do not lend on dreams. They lend only to those that already have the means to pay them back and the best business plans in the world are still, for the most part, the dreams of the owners.

Business owners would all love to be able to create an enterprise that will grow into something lasting and something bigger than themselves. This begins with an idea and a plan that excites investors who in turn, place their faith and money behind those ideas to set them in motion. It is an educated gamble with the hope that a small investment will yield larger results and give the investors a reward in return for risking their money on a dream. That is the essence of Capitalism.

So let’s take a close look at some of what the government invested your money in through the stimulus bill as reported in “The Hill”, a Congressional newspaper.

$54,000,000.00 for the Napa Valley Wine Train
$2,200,000.00 to help a failing golf course in San Francisco
$1,700,000.00 for fossil research in Argentina by Penn State
$400,000.00 for Malt Liquor and Marijuana Journals
$220,000.00 to study sex habits of birds and rats and the caste system and division of labor within an ant colony.
$200,000.00 for a study on how college students “hook up”
$100,000.00 for socially conscious puppet shows in the “Heart of the Beast” theater in MN (the theater is named after a Che Guevera quote)
$50,000.00 for a Facebook study

A White House spokesperson said “Even if there were a few unwise projects, it’s only a handful out of the over 50,000 projects approved to date.” With the United States $12 trillion dollars in debt, why should we accept any “unwise” projects or are these more payoffs for votes?

First I would say that it is very curious that the two projects that top the list of irresponsible waste are in or near Nancy Pelosi’s neck of the woods. The Wine Train is a tour business that uses vintage rail cars to tour the Napa Valley Wine Country. Of course we know that Nancy Pelosi owns a winery in Napa Valley. I’m sure San Francisco golf courses are important to the Congresswoman from San Francisco, even though we know golf courses use extraordinary amounts of water in an area that cries out for the responsible use of water. Oh, I forgot….the rest of us are supposed to use water responsibly not actually San Francisco, the birthplace of the American Environmental movement. They have apparently paid their dues by wearing ribbons and carrying signs to make us all aware of the problem so they are exempt from actually doing the heavy lifting.

Why are infusing $2.2 million to save a golf course while the EPA has shut the water off to farmers in the nearby San Joaquin Valley? Their land was once an abundantly fertile area that supplied 15% of America’s produce and it has been left to dry up and return to desert conditions because a two inch fish on the EPA’s protected list was getting sucked into the irritation pumps. Why hasn’t there been any stimulus money to fund a technical solution to what is in essence, a dumb fish problem that would save the forty-thousand lost jobs in the San Joaquin farms? Because our government is apparently dumber than the fish are. But maybe their not dumb….

I am a big believer in the premise that when something makes no sense at all, it’s time to follow the money. Since shutting off the water is forcing America to buy foreign produce to replace what can no longer be grown in the San Joaquin Valley, I would be curious to know which one of this administration’s friends was uniquely positioned to capitalize on the importation of foreign produce. Of course it could be something even simpler. These were mostly private farms with non-union workers. Was this punitive measure against those farms offered as a gift to the SEIU? Unfortunate, the tide of interest has turned against the farmers and all eyes are on healthcare and the climate debate so we may never know the truth.

What we do know is that seven million jobs have been lost since the recession began and over four million of those were lost since Obama was inaugurated; three million since passage of the stimulus bill. Obama does have a jobs program though…the Federal government has been recently adding new jobs at the rate of ten-thousand per month. Not only that, but the existing jobs are getting better compensation than ever before. While the nation slides deeper into recession, the number of Federal employees whose salaries are over $170,000 rose from a pre-recession total of one to over one-thousand six-hundred and ninety today. The average salary in the United States is $40,331 while the Average Federal employee salary is $71,206 and lawmakers are now seeking to eliminate the mandated caps on Federal salaries even as they debate adding salary caps to the banking industry. In fact, Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee recommended a $14,000 raise for one of his people….that is until we discovered that he was romantically involved with her. Tiger Woods would be proud of old Max!

The Congress recently voted to raise our national debt ceiling by an additional $1.8 trillion dollars to be able to continue their reckless spending spree. We already owe $12 trillion and while many experts say that debt level is unsustainable now, the White House estimates our national debt will double to $24 trillion dollars by 2019 and that is without the cost estimates for healthcare and cap and trade added in.

I can’t imagine why the Federal government does not seem to realize we are racing towards a brick wall. Foreign interests have already spoken about replacing the dollar as the currency of international trade and there is talk about downgrading our bond status from triple “A”, which has never happened before, even during our worst financial crisis’s. Maybe they all ready believe all is lost and this is a race to do as much as possible while other nations will still lend us money. They will worry about how to restructure our nation after the collapse when everyone will be busy fighting for survival instead of marching on Washington. If it all goes to hell, imagine the power these people will have then and no matter what, it is all about power…isn’t it.

Recent gains in the stock market have given some a sigh of relief but is that a real indicator that the economy is recovering? Unfortunately, the stock market is reflecting an increase in activity from casual traders and retirement portfolios. The people with real wealth like Soros and institutions with large sums of money to protect are fleeing the market and buying T-Bills even though the current rate of return is 0%. Why would they invest in bonds that offer nothing in return? That is the billionaire’s equivalent of hiding their money in their mattresses. They have such a fear over the state of the economy that they are willing to hand over their fortunes to the Federal government for safe keeping; in essence, “Don’t worry about paying interest, just make sure I get it back later.” Keep a close eye on these people…when they start bailing out of T-Bills and investing in gold and real estate, that will signal a real fear that they believe the economy will actually and irretrievably, collapse.

Paul

Foreign Aid and American Debt

In breaking news on Sunday, we learned that an American citizen had been arrested on December 5th in Cuba. The yet, unnamed detainee is described as a “development worker” employed by Development Alternatives, a company under contract to the United States Agency of International Development. Curiously, this development worker was engaged in his mission of giving away lap top computers and cell phones when he was apprehended. The Cuban government says he was giving the devices to “activists” which is a pretty loose term in Cuba to define anyone that the government isn’t quite sure about.

It is apparent that the State Department hasn’t gotten the memo yet that we are in debt up to our eye-balls and I find it very curious that we are giving electronics away in a country where we have no diplomatic mission while the schools in this country are facing major budget cuts that will impact the amount of teachers, let alone computers that are available to American students.

The United States Agency of International Development is a throwback to the post World War II Marshall Plan and the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Created in 1961, the US Agency of International Development or “USAID” has a current annual budget of roughly $39.5 billion dollars for foreign aid and foreign development projects. While forty-billion dollars does not seem like a lot of money in the context of a $3.6 trillion dollar Federal Budget, remember that FY2009 saw a Federal deficit of $1.4 trillion dollars so this agency, in essence is borrowing from China only to give it away to other nations.

The Marshall Plan sounded like a great idea in the days after World War II since many blamed the dismal conditions after World War I for the ascendancy of Adolph Hitler. The rationale was that rebuilding war-torn nations and encouraging economic development would create positive conditions and prevent the acts of desperation that directly lead to the carnage of the second world war; or at least, this is how it was sold. What we now know is that the Marshall Plan was not so much about the philanthropic efforts of a benevolent United States as it was about early developments and the first shots of the cold war with Soviet Russia. The infusion of American cash into Western Europe was intended to build a bulwark against communist advances. I believe that if that money had never been spent, we would be looking at a totally different and unrecognizable political landscape today so I don't particularly have a problem with that; at least in that context.

Having said that; the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991 and with their dissolution, the need for the Marshall Plan and the Foreign Assistance Act should have faded away as well. Reagan had warned that the closest thing to eternity that man would ever see was a government program. Some programs defy logic but are so bloated with heavily connected bureaucrats that they have Congressional assistance in guaranteeing their existence in perpetuity. On this particular program, foreign aid became a distasteful word when American businesses began downsizing or moving manufacturing operations overseas. The people began to demand that the interest of Congress should be on the plight of suffering Americans and that foreign aid was money best spent right here at home.

There were three possibilities. One- Continue foreign aid and hope you can find a good reason to sell it to the American people before Election Day. Two- End foreign aid and use the funds to reduce the budget deficit or to fund essential programs within the United States. Then there was number three and the one that Congress opted to adopt….change the name. There are dozens of agencies and administrations in the Federal government all designed to give taxpayer money away; the USAID being just one. The curious part of this is that with all the money the United States has distributed in aid and assistance to foreign countries, we have never bought one friend. So why do we keep doing this especially when our own financial security is in question? It’s still politics but now it is a completely different ideology.

There are many within the progressive movements that believe that capitalism is evil and consumerism promotes greed. These are the same people that drank the socialist Kool-Aid back in the ‘60’s and fervently believe that the key to a utopian society, free from war and capitalist greed is the institution of a single world government Many of the more radical activists have taken control of the environmental movement which is why their focus has shifted from responsible conservation to international government control with the UN as the base of operations. Even the progressives in our own Congress are in on this and that is why we see this massive attempt to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to a climate panel in the UN that would ultimately determine our industrial might and standard of living.

Without the knowledge of the American people, we have been using taxpayer money to fund transportation projects in foreign nations while our own infrastructure is collapsing. We have massive programs to feed famine stricken nations while churches and private charities operate food banks to feed our own poor. We are funding economic development and green initiatives in foreign lands while we allow our own business to shrivel and die under the economic weight of trying to compete with foreign companies that are not burdened with the government restrictions or taxes that we impose on our businesses at home.

I will go even further. I would say that there is sufficient waste in the Federal government to warrant a radical move to impose responsibility. We have all seen these enormous bills pass through Congress with billions of unnecessary expenditures added just to buy the votes of those that play hard to get. Congress is rife with political whores that sell their votes as long as they can show a little sugar to the voters back home. Our recent favorite is Senator Mary Landrieu, (D-LA); she peddled her vote on healthcare to Harry Reid for a measly $300 million dollars (Hi Mary!) How can we begin to solve our financial woes when every unpopular bill that passes through Congress contains bribes to obtain votes to guarantee passage?

Well if this is the “horse-trading” as they love to call it, maybe that is what needs to be capped. Demand that the Federal budget be cut by 50% and tell them this is your allowance. This is all you get so make it work. No? The banks were collapsing and needed nearly a trillion dollars or our financial system would crash. Isn’t it amazing how many of those banks are finding the resources to pay back TARP money ever since the Fed began discussing the moral necessity of capping CEO salaries of the companies that took bailout money? The salary of government workers are nearly double the national average thanks to union influence. We have had a nasty habit of funding idiotic studies because the research labs are located in states where key votes have to be “purchased”. In essence, if we actually need two billion dollars to purchase body armor to protect our soldiers in battle, we have to pay an additional million or two for a study of the sex habits of Asian transgender prostitutes in order to get the appropriations bill passed.

Now a Federal Judge in New York said it was unconstitutional for Congress to cut funds to ACORN because it was a punitive act against one group taken without due process. Excuse me? Are you saying we have to continue funding an organization that a Congressional committee identified as a criminal enterprise until we have an administration that is willing to investigate them? Can we not use the same “due process” the IRS uses against the citizens of the United States? Due process in tax cases is to freeze the assets of the accused until they can prove they are innocent so the subjects of tax inquiries are not afforded the “due process” required everywhere else in our legal system. If defunding ACORN is unconstitutional, then how is it constitutional for the IRS to ignore the presumption of innocence and force the burden of proof onto the accused? Something is very wrong.

The only research program I am willing to fund at this point is a complete and independent audit of the Federal Government. The IRS can dive back seven years into your past if they see a “red flag” on your return. I think that a $12 trillion dollars debt is a sufficiently large red flag to warrant a complete examination of what they have been doing with our money.

Paul

Pass the "Creamer" please!

While the main stream media was consumed with finding out exactly who Tareq and Michaele Salahi are and how they managed to get past three levels of Secret Service security screenings, gaining entry into a White House State Dinner, the press apparently missed the bigger story of at least one of the invited guests.

Robert Creamer, husband of Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), was an invited guest of the same White House function that the Salahi’s snuck into. The Salahi’s are merely publicity hounds seeking attention for a reality show Bravo reportedly has them competing for. While they may eventually face charges for their bold move, the Salahi’s, unlike Robert Creamer, are not convicted felons.

While Congress holds hearings on the lapse of security that allowed the Salahi’s to waltz through the front door of the White House I wonder if they will take up the question of how effective White House security really is when a convicted felon can receive a bona fide invitation to a State dinner. I’m sure if the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh were asked, he would probably have preferred the company of the Salahi’s over that of a Chicago felon but then again, this whole concept of a Presidential “Thugocracy” is new to the White House and it will take world leaders some time to adapt.

Robert Creamer plead guilty to charges of bank fraud in 2004 and received five months in prison and eleven months of house arrest for defrauding banks of $2.3 million dollars in an elaborate check kiting scheme. Prosecutors had wanted a three-year sentence, but U.S. District Judge James B. Moran said five months was fairer because no one suffered "out of pocket losses" and Creamer acted not out of greed but in an effort to keep his community action group going through a period of financial difficulty.

James Moran (1930-2009) was not only a Federal Judge but a self described liberal Democrat who supported many liberal and progressive causes. To Judge Moran, the ends obviously justified the means and he couldn’t bring himself to mete out a harsh punishment to someone that wasn’t committing fraud for personal gain, but had only broken the law to help his struggling progressive group, the Illinois Public Action Council, from failing. After all, Creamer was a political organizer and strategist, a lobbyist for George Soros and a progressive (Marxist) just like the good judge. Sentencing Creamer to the three years the prosecutor had asked for would be akin to political cannibalism and we all know that liberals, like cannibals, don’t eat their friends no matter what they’ve done.

Like many other felons, Robert Creamer had to find himself in prison. He wrote a book while he was serving his sentence titled: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win. This book was lauded by David Axelrod as the blueprint for progressive politics and I suppose, as Obama’s top political advisor, his glowing review probably placed this book high on the President’s reading list. Curiously, many of the bullet points that Creamer named in his strategy appear to have been adopted, verse and chapter by this administration in their plan to advance their agenda. It’s all there…creating a crisis, naming enemies, shaming opponents, etc, etc.

I’m just not sure if Axelrod really believes Creamer’s book is that brilliant or if he just sees Creamer as a kindred spirit. After all, Axelrod was born to a middle class family living in the lower east side of Manhattan, New York City. He never held a job outside of politics, political reporting or political consulting but has managed to amass a comfortable fortune reported to be between $6.9 and $9.5 million dollars. Last year he reported a $900,000 salary from AKP&D and more than $650,000 in partnership income from his two firms. It always amazed me that so many of our political figures seem to make millions, virtually overnight. Oh sure, there are many that were just born into money like Rockefeller and Kennedy or married it like John Kerry but for many, it is an almost miraculous transformation into wealth.

Who would ever think that devoting your life to Democratic principals and service to your nation could be so…..so rewarding! Not like those corrupt corporate heads and Wall Street fat cats that deserve to have their salaries capped by the Federal Government at $500,000. They are evil and Democrats are only working for the good of the people. I bet that Mr. Axelrod would forgo his excessive salary altogether if it weren’t for the fact that he wants to pay as much income tax as possible to help support the government. If it were not for the progressive tax structure, he would probably despise himself for being so loaded with filthy, evil, capitalist money. What a guy!

Conspiracy advocates are usually denigrated because most conspiracy theories are such a stretch of the imagination and if they have proof, it is nearly invisible. This administration, however, is surrounded by curious characters with very troubling views. None of the allegations about communist beliefs or links between his agenda and radical third parties have ever been disputed by the White House which only deepens the mystery. The links to 1960’s militant radicals, Czars with ties to socialist organizations and alliances with Marxist union chiefs are all well know and the most damning evidence is documented by their own statements made in speeches and other appearances or in black and white on the pages of their own books.

Cash for Clunkers and training prison labor for “green Jobs” are now known to have been the brain child of Van Jones, the self-proclaimed communist and the only Czar that was too radical, even for this administration. Now we have policies adopted by the White House that appear to be part of a plan crafted by an ex-con detailed in a book he wrote in prison. How much lower can they go? It is all filthy politics designed around the absolute control of America with or without the consent of Congress but that sounds like the kind of plan a common criminal would come up with; doesn’t it.

The inspirations that Obama has based his life and career on were, until a very few years ago, the people and plans that the radical left discussed in dark closets and University courses in political science. Lenin, Mao Zedong, Saul Alinsky and now Robert Creamer are all part of the equation. Can anyone deny that the healthcare reform bill now under discussion is not the first brick in a socialist cathedral? The foundation was laid by FDR in the 1930’s and reinforced by Johnson in the 1960’s. Both would have preferred to have universal healthcare brought to life under their administrations but Americans then, as now, have no stomach for a massive and all powerful Federal government. Can anyone deny that Cap and Trade otherwise known as the Climate Bill, would give government express control over every industrial and economic activity in this nation? We were shocked when the Feds took over GM and now it appears that this was the tip of the iceberg. Cap and trade will give the government power to regulate everything and in essence, seize control of industry without having to “buy” control as in the case if GM.

Now that the evidence to support global warming is known to have been manufactured for political reasons, the Congress is rethinking their commitment to Cap and Trade, as well they should. Well that throws a good old fashioned monkey wrench into their plans for national domination so Obama’s appointee to the EPA steps in and declares carbon dioxide is a pollutant that can be regulated by the EPA under existing law. The White House is now threatening Congress to either pass cap and trade or the EPA will do something even worse. They will impose cap without the trade and just shut industry down all together.

You know, I am really beginning to believe we have been looking in all the wrong places for terrorists. After all, only a terrorist would threaten to collapse the entire American economy unless we concede to their demands. Only terrorists would intentionally surround themselves with radicals, militants and criminals. Aren’t terrorists driven by ideology? Aren’t they driven by the “teachings” of like minded individuals? Don’t they believe they are the soldiers of fundamental change?

Well it is another Friday so I will be keeping my ear to the ground again. The other trait this administration has in common with terrorists is in their tendency to strike without warning and when least expected. They love making surprise announcements and personnel changes during the wee hours of the night during weekend when few are looking. I only hope that 2010 isn’t too far away to stop these people and the things they manage to push through can be undone while we still have a nation and a Constitution to protects.

Paul

The Manchurian Candidate

The climate debate is raging in Copenhagen and as I suspected, is turning into a money issue between poorer and richer nations. After all, the UN promised that there would be a major shift of wealth from the suckers, I mean the western industrial nations to the parasites…oops…I mean developing nations. I am not disparaging the poor. They have an awful existence but one would have to be foolish to ignore that the impoverished people of those nations are the victims of massive government corruption within their own countries and not suffering because the west prefers I-Pods to drums and cars to ox carts.

EPA Chief Lisa Jackson is there to calm the nerves of Obama’s globalist friends in the UN by laying out her plan to negate Congressional authority and bypass the democratic process by unilaterally enacting sweeping regulations in the US to cap greenhouse gases through a dangerous loophole crafted into the clean air act. This, my friends, is what happens when you elect a radical to the Presidency. They appoint radical environmentalists to positions of power such as Carol Browner, and the radicals in turn, use our own laws against us to bring about their own twisted agenda based on bad science and egalitarian socialist principals.

Half of Obama’s appointees believe in a one world government responsible for controlling every facets of human existence and the other half have a world first, people last eco-fascist mentality. Both of these factions believe their ideology is too important to worry about the sovereignty of the United States and if we must cease to exist as a nation for the greater good of the world, then that is a small price to pay. Don’t believe me? Then why, when all evidence points to a massive, international and concerted effort to conceal the fallacies of the global warming theory, has the EPA decided to “go rogue” and continue these insanely damaging policies to cripple business in the US in the name of reducing greenhouse gasses?

Global warming proponents are disregarding the evidence contained in these e-mails stating that there is sufficient corroboration in the work of other climate scientists to validate the existence of man-made global warming. Really? Does it matter that the believers in global warming, as a body, have collaborated on their work and many use the same data sources; data that is proven to have been manipulated? Does it matter that dissenting views and research by serious scientists that contradict the theory of global warming have not only been locked out of the discussion but that any peer paper or organization that even print their work have been ostracized as well?

The religious leaders of the global warming camp have pointed to NASA and NOAA as collaborative proof of global warming, noting studies and reports that confirm their findings. Unfortunately for them, NASA has been brought under fire and the researcher that issued the report validating global warming has refused to release his data, even under the threat of a Freedom of Information law suit. We all know that Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia had sent e-mails warning colleagues to destroy damning communications and data before a Freedom of Information Act suit could be brought. The CRU recently announced that its climate data from 1960 to present has been “irretrievably lost” but denies that this has anything to do with Mr., Jones’s e-mails. Add to this that NOAA personnel have also actively sought to silence dissenting views and have recently been caught eliminating the input of live satellite data from their computer model to better show the rise in sea temperature.

Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. There is nothing in the explanation of the scientific method that would allow a researcher from distorting or deleting “observable, empirical and measurable evidence” because it contradicts their pre-conceived ideas about what should be happening. If the evidence does not correspond, then the theory is wrong….plain and simple; at least it should be.

There is far too much effort being exerted to force everyone into the acceptance of global warming, or climate change as it is now called, to be a matter of scientific rationale. Let’s face it, if the empirical evidence is there; if this is a solid scientific fact then why aren’t the climate change proponents opening the books and showing the world their proof? Instead all we have heard is “So what….a few e-mails do not negate the science.” Then where is the science?

In 1917, Albert Einstein applied his general theory of relativity to the universe and was stunned at what he found. According to his theories, the universe must be expanding but as a devout creationist, he believed that a universe created by God had to be static and eternal. The evidence was there and the mathematics were solid, but his faith in God prevented him from believing in his own work. It wasn’t until Edwin Hubble correctly interpreted the Doppler shift in 1929 that the expanding universe became part of our store of scientific knowledge. I believe in God, but I also believe that God would put all of the physical laws in place to sustain whatever he created; so I can exist quite comfortably with science and religion. Einstein could not believe that a created universe could be dynamic and expanding so he suppressed his own theory.

Similarly, climate change fanatics are so convinced that man is destructive to the planet that our industrial society must be harmful. The theory of global warming was written in part, because of recurrent and persistent droughts in certain areas of the world. Even though there was sufficient evidence of historically massive swings in earths climate that occur as part of the natural cycles of the sun’s output coupled with fluctuations in the earth’s orbital path, the seemingly religious fervor of environmental radicals refused to acknowledge anything that did not lay the blame squarely at man’s feet. Let’s not forget that these are the same people that warned of an impending ice age during the first “Earth Day” back in 1970. According to the same eco-nuts that are pushing global warming now, the earth was being thrust into an ice age because our industrial pollution was blocking the sun’s warming and nurturing rays, giving us only decades to avert disaster.

The last and most dangerous part of this equation is that there are always malevolent forces hiding in the shadows waiting to exploit man’s foolishness. The threat of global catastrophe has long been viewed by those that seek absolute political power as the one thing that would entice people to act without reason. We would deal with economic woes and even the threat of war but when the future of our children is brought into question, all bets are off. We will do anything for our children; even give up our wealth and sovereignty as long as we can guarantee their safety. This is well known to our enemies.

It wasn’t Russia that tried to crush us in the ‘60’s, it was communism. They tried to subvert our culture and for some, it worked; but the majority of America resisted because it threatened our children’s future. They tried to engage us in a war of economics but communism cannot out-produce capitalism because they have no profit motive. They threatened war and again, we resisted with a massive arms buildup to protect our children. Now they have the ultimate weapon, the threat of world annihilation at our own hands. They are hell bent on convincing us that we are killing our own children through our corrupt way of life, expecting that we will finally surrender and for the first time in history, they have a willing ally in the White House.

Do I believe that Obama is a willing part of this conspiracy? No, I think that like the bulk of his radical czars and other friends, he has been brainwashed only because Joe McCarthy was never able to finish his work of routing communists and Marxists out of our government and Universities. He is, in essence, the quintessential Manchurian Candidate. Scripted and schooled by the left, ready to strangle our nation and her people as soon as someone turns over the Queen of Hearts.

Paul

Copenhagen, Climate and the EPA

The global warming argument is falling apart at the seams since the disclosure of evidence that scientific groups assembling the so-called proof of global warming were manipulating data to create a false validation of their theories. The evidence also shows that they were actively engaged in discrediting scientists that even questioned the theory of global warming and sought to exclude them and their work from any discussion on the subject.

Andy Revkin of the New York Times is finding out what happens to people that haven’t drunk their weekly dose of “Klimate Kool-Aid”. Andy wrote a blog piece on the climate conference in Copenhagen that is trying to recover momentum in the wake of the University of East Anglia’s “climate-gate” scandal. He included what he thought was an amusing story about Copenhagen Prostitutes. Copenhagen Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard sent postcards to city hotels warning summit guests not to patronize Danish sex workers during the upcoming climate conference.

That did not sit well with the ladies of the evening and they are fighting back. Although I imagine that heavy breathing could be construed by global warming fanatics as creating an increase in carbon dioxide emissions from the delegates, prostitution is still a legitimate and otherwise, environmentally friendly business in Copenhagen. In retaliation, the ladies announced that they would offer free “services” to anyone that brought in one of the Mayor’s postcards.

Michael Schlesinger, a climatologist at the University of Illinois wrote a scathing note to Mr. Rivken that contained more that just his disgust about some silly story about Copenhagen prostitutes. Apparently Mr. Schlesinger didn’t get the memo about the damage that is caused when scientists try to squash dissenting opinions on global warming. It reeks of a cover-up and worse, it gives the appearance that global warming proponents are on some kind of religious fundamentalist quest to limit even the discussion of global warming to only the faithful.

Michael Schlesinger wrote:

“Andy:Copenhagen prostitutes?Climate prostitutes?Shame on you for this gutter reportage. This is the second time this week I have written you thereon, the first about giving space in your blog to the Pielkes.The vibe that I am getting from here, there and everywhere is that your reportage is very worrisome to most climate scientists. Of course, your blog is your blog. But, I sense that you are about to experience the 'Big Cutoff' from those of us who believe we can no longer trust you, me included. Copenhagen prostitutes?
Unbelievable and unacceptable. What are you doing and why? Michael”

Hmmm? The most worrisome part of that to me is: “The vibe that I am getting from here, there and everywhere is that your reportage is very worrisome to most climate scientists. Of course, your blog is your blog. But, I sense that you are about to experience the 'Big Cutoff' from those of us who believe we can no longer trust you, me included.”

If you are not in lock step with the “Church of Climatology” they apparently excommunicate you. So is that how they maintain such tight control of the media when stories like the CRU of the University of East Anglia is concerned? The main stream media ignored that for as long as humanly possible but the word still managed to get out. We now know they already hand select data that fits their needs and dispose of the troublesome facts that don’t but if they are really attempting to control what is written and what is spoken, then all of their research is suspect.

Did you notice the remark about giving blog space to “the Pielkes”? Roger Pielke is a professor of environmental studies at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder but Mr. Pielke is also a skeptic of global warming. Andy Rivken obviously violated the “Big Cutoff” of Roger Pielke by giving him mention in his blog and that is why Rivken can no longer be trusted by the clergy of the Church of Climatology. Maybe in Gore’s next film we’ll be able to watch Tom Cruise grill Salinger and we’ll finally find out who ordered the “Code Red”!

Of course the Obama administration is leaving nothing to chance. When Obama took office, global warming was being called a confirmed science and he had the threat of global disaster on his side to enable him enact insanely powerful climate legislation; legislation that would give the government control over every business, enterprise and activity in this nation.

If you recall some of my earlier articles, I reported the blatant admission of socialists that the environmental movement would help them achieve their goals faster than any other strategy they could employ. People began to question my logic when climate-gate surfaced. After all, if this were actually some deeply rooted Marxist plot, then they wouldn’t let that slip away from them. Well, they probably wouldn’t if they didn’t have a “plan B”.

On December 7, 2009, the Administrator of the EPA, signed two distinct findings regarding greenhouse gases under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act:

1- Endangerment Finding: The Administrator finds that the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases--carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)--in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.

2- Cause or Contribute Finding: The Administrator finds that the combined emissions of these well-mixed greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines contribute to the greenhouse gas pollution which threatens public health and welfare.

Isn’t it funny that the President announced that he was reneging on his agreement to place defensive missiles in Poland on the 70th anniversary of the invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union? Now his EPA chief announces on the 68th anniversary of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that the Obama administration is going to do an end run around Congress and the Constitution to enact the most damaging parts of the “cap and tax” legislation through loopholes in the Environmental Protection act that would allow this agency to act without congressional approval if a “danger to the public” exists.

Carol Browner, Obama’s Climate Czar, threatened to use the EPA and the Supreme Court to obtain authority to ram these massive regulatory actions down our throats if the Climate Bill failed. They probably would have waited for the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor before announcing their sneak attack on America but things aren’t looking so good for them in the 2010 election and they probably feared that a Congress that was no longer full of Democrat stooges might use the power of legislation to append the EPA to close the loophole before they could do their supreme damage to our economy and our way of life.

It is clear that we are running out of time with the pace these people are taking. I just hope that 2010 isn’t too late to put the brakes on. Like Nazi Germany, I fear this is a scorched earth administration and if they can’t control it, they will burn it to the ground so no one else can out of nothing but sheer spite.

Paul

NASA-Gate? More evidence of climate foul play

What's become known as "Climate-gate" involving Phil Jones of the CRU, may be about to explode right here at home. Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has threatened a lawsuit against NASA by the end of this year if the agency doesn't honor his Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for information on how and why its climate numbers have been consistently adjusted for errors.

"I assume that what is there is highly damaging," says Horner, who suspects, based on the public record, the same type of data manipulation and suppression that has occurred at Britain's East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU). "These guys (NASA) are quite clearly determined not to reveal their internal discussions about this."

NASA has been stonewalling any effort to obtain their climate data for over two years blaming oil and coal companies for trying to discredit their reports. Jim Hanson of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has not only refused to release his data to global warming naysayers but to other researchers as well; a curious strategy for someone that claims to have found the smoking gun linking global warming to the activities of man. One must remember that even though they wear the NASA logo, the GISS is located in the liberal bastion of Colombia University, one of Obama’s support centers for his socialist and globalist policies. Through Columbia’s collection of think tanks on public policy and political science, they have collectively endorsed nearly every ideological pursuit of this President and his radical inner circle of czars.

Hanson and NASA may have a good reason to try to shift public attention away from their “work” and onto the people that question the science behind the claims of global warming; after all….

1- NASA’s James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, announced that 1998 was the country's hottest year on record, with 2006 the third hottest despite authoritative climate data collected by other government agencies that refute those claims.

2- NASA and Goddard were forced to correct the record in 2007 to show that 1934, decades before the advent of the SUV, was in fact the warmest; in fact, the new numbers showed that four of the country's 10 warmest years were in the 1930s.

3- Hansen, who began the climate scare some two decades ago, was caught fudging the numbers again in declaring October 2008 the warmest on record. This despite the fact that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

4- Scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on that October's readings at all; figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

Is Hansen, like his British counterpart Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, trying to "hide the decline" in temperatures, asks the Investor’s Business Daily? Hansen has said in the past that "heads of major fossil-fuel companies who spread disinformation about global warming should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature." What penalties would he recommend for himself and his CRU colleagues, asks IBD?

Michael Mann was also implicated in the Climate-gate scandal, his name appearing in messages from Phil Jones, suggesting that damaging e-mails and data be deleted before any Freedom of Information Act requests could be processed. Fortunately for the western world, those scandalous e-mails were released by a yet, unknown, whistleblower. Mann’s e-mails contain his ideas to discredit skeptics of global warming by downgrading the status of scientific journals that publish dissenting views. The idea being that if those journals are no longer considered “peer reviews” then the dissenting views no longer possess scientific credibility.

Mann is an Associate Professor at Pennsylvania State University, in the Department of Meteorology and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, and Director of the university's interdepartmental Earth System Science Center. Much of Mann’s work including his famous “hockey stick graphs” appeared prominently in IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports. Sources claim that Mann specifically selected tree rings that enhanced his theory of global warming and ignored those that didn’t fit his climate model. The “hockey stick” graph that showed a sharp rise in global temperatures beginning with the industrial revolution is apparently the result of the careful selection of data to reinforce a pre-determined model and is not a graph based on the actual compilation of data from a complete and unfiltered source.

While NOAA’s data disproves many of NASA’s climate reports, they are not completely innocent themselves. NOAA recently removed satellite data input into their model of ocean temperatures and boasted that the move showed an immediate jump of two tenths of a degree Celsius in ocean temperature readings. Somehow, NOAA does not see the exclusion of real data previously used to refine the accuracy of their computer model as manipulation. I find that troubling that since the importation of real data did not show the warming they predicted, they simply stopped using real data. In fact, some evidence has recently appeared that indicates that NOAA embarked on its own mission to silence climate critics using Mann’s idea of discrediting peer reviews that contain contradictory analysis.

So why would government agencies intentionally misrepresent scientific data? Well, the economy has certainly turned the heat up on law makers to trim the Federal budget. Now that climate alarmists like Al Gore, The IPCC and the UN have stated how sweeping climate initiatives are key to the survival of the planet; any government agency that performs climate research is guaranteed billions in funding at a time when they would ordinarily be struggling to validate their very existence. Funding, like drugs, can make the addict say or do anything to guarantee another dose and an agencies research that supports a President’s chosen agenda is likely to receive more funding that those results that do not.

Then there are the Phil Jones’s, the James Hanson’s and the Michael Mann’s of the world. Their religious devotion to the theory of global warming is obviously no longer a search for truth; it is however, the modern equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition. Climate change skeptics, in their eyes, are heretics that must confess their sins or be destroyed. The Church imprisoned Galileo for the rest of his life because his science disputed established doctrine. He looked through his newly created telescope and saw moons orbiting Saturn. Church teachings said that the Earth was the center of the Universe but Galileo speculated that this could not be true if moons were circling other planets. Much like the CRU or the IPCC, the Church was not interested in Galileo’s evidence or in a true understanding of the Universe; they were interesting in preserving the unchallenged power the Church held over the people for centuries. If Galileo were not a man with great reputation he would most certainly have been killed for his beliefs. Instead, the Church chose to destroy Galileo’s evidence and secluded him in an attempt to prevent his ideas from spreading. Hmmm? That sounds familiar.

I am all for clean air and pure water but if we are chasing red herrings based on false science aren’t we diverting needed resources away from addressing real hazards? There is nothing in the Copenhagen proposals or in our own Climate Bill that does anything about the climate. It does take $145 Trillion dollars from western industrial nations and gives it to developing nations in what can only be called a “global welfare scheme”. No, this is not about pollution or global warming; this is just more socialist philanthropy. Capitalist philanthropy is the when the wealthy offer some of what they have earned as a gift to the society that allowed them to succeed. Socialist philanthropy, like the philanthropy of our own Democratic Party, is the perverse habit of governement leaders to hand out gifts of everyone else’s money. I suppose that’s a lot more palatable than using their own money but it just doesn’t seem as noble, now does it?

Paul

Obama's job summit - Maybe we should wear ribbons to show we care?

Now that we’ve gotten a peek into Obama’s ideas for job growth I am more convinced than ever that he is more than inexperienced, he is clueless. There are so many things about the so-called “job summit” that prove this administration focus is on paving a single lane highway to socialism and their sudden attention to the plight of unemployed Americans is nothing more than political window dressing to quiet the murmuring peasants so his circle of brilliant advisors can continue with the work that is truly important to the “Hammer and Sickle Gang”.

The list of those that were invited to Obama’s job summit should say more about the President’s focus than anything else. While everyone knows that small business is responsible for 80% of the jobs that exist in the country; the true essence of small business was not represented in Thursday’s job summit. There were representatives for three companies invited by the Obama administration as “small businesses” but when you look at who they are, they were hardly representative of companies that create the types of jobs that this summit was reportedly focused on.

The first, Air Tractor, is a manufacturer of small specialty aircraft. While I am sure they make a positive contribution to the economy, their employees require special skills and their product line serves a niche market; neither of which describes a company that has the potential to expand very much beyond where they already are.

Next is Diversapack. Diversapack is a manufacturer of flexible packaging for a myriad of products such as paper towels. While Diversapack is a manufacturer that is certainly qualified to speak on job creation within small business, one of the members of the owner’s group may have had more to do with their invitation than what they produce and how many people they hire; that member is Andrew Young. Most of Mr. Young’s experience lies in politics within the Democratic Party. How convenient that Mr. Obama found a willing ally right there in the halls of small business!

Andrew Young served in Congress for Georgia’s 5th Congressional district for just over four years until 1977 when he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as the Ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Young was replaced as the Ambassador to the UN by Donald McHenry after the election of Ronald Reagan but did not leave politics. He was elected Mayor of Atlanta Georgia and held that office from 1982 until 1990 when he ran an unsuccessful race for Governor of Georgia.

Even though Diversapack is a company that would be deeply harmed if the Climate Bill were passed into law, Andrew Young and Barack Obama are kindred spirits where political ideology is concerned. After Mr. Young left public office, his work in community development and education was his principal vehicle to promote and advance an almost religious belief in what he considers social and economic justice. He firmly believes in the globalization of government and in international policies to create “socially responsible for-profit corporations”. For those that have never heard that term before, socially responsible for-profit corporations is radical leftist speak for the nationalization of industry. Chavez’s Venezuela has a lot of “socially responsible for-profit corporations” these days and will have a lot more of them before he’s done. In other words, Young is just another Democrat that feels it is his duty to improve world conditions with generous amounts of your money and is part of the problem, not the solution.

Oddly enough, none of Young’s core principals create jobs. In fact, his core beliefs call for the destruction of the American economy and the redistribution of our wealth and industry to poorer nations. Much as Japan’s idea of a perfect baseball game is one that ends in a tie, the globalists idea of a perfect world is one were everyone has the same amounts of wealth and opportunity even if that wealth and opportunity is considered poverty by our current standard of living.

The last so-called small business invited to the job summit was the Binary Group. Binary Group is an IT or Information Technologies company headed by Rose Wang. Ms. Wang has personally consulted or worked as principal technologist on Binary Group strategies for MCI, Fannie Mae, Sprint, Cable & Wireless, the Army, the Federal Railroad Administration, and the Department of Energy. While the company has seen expansive growth under her leadership, there is no doubt that much of that growth is linked to government projects and I suspect it is her knowledge of government based spending that earned her company a seat at the table this past Thursday. It’s just too bad that government based spending does not create lasting jobs with living wages which was proven to be an abysmal failure by the hundreds of billions already spent in stimulus money.

The balance of the attendees were representatives of enormous multi-national corporations which have proven interests in creating jobs in whatever country will give them the lowest possible cost for labor, representatives of Princeton and Columbia Universities which are metaphorical kitchens that specialize in cooking up global Socialist cuisine, labor unions which are quite possibly the only entity in this nation responsible for killing more jobs and destroying more companies than the Federal Government has and last but not least, environmental groups that are only interested in shifting the US into a “green economy”. Unfortunately, thanks to Cass Sunstein and Van Jones we already know that green initiatives are really tools for redistribution that will cost more American jobs and cripple our economy without one measurable benefit for Earth’s climate or biosphere.

In the end, the job summit was nothing more than a lame attempt to show the unemployed that he (Obama) really cares. If the subject were jobs and the mission was to rescue the economy there would have been more notepads and fewer news cameras there. Obama already knows that the job market will not improve as long as business cannot predict their short term liabilities from taxes and government mandates. It is the President’s own policies that are preventing business from committing to expanding the work force. Healthcare, Cap and Trade, Card Check…there is nothing in any of those goals that does not spell doom for business and they frankly, business is refusing to play the game until they know what the rules will be.

Of course it doesn’t help when the Senate policy has shifted from consent of the governed to the buying and selling of votes because they have become so blatantly partisan. Oh Mary! I bet you thought I forgot you! Nope, it’s Monday so it’s time to remind everyone about the spotlight that Harry Reid has shown squarely upon our favorite political prostitute, Mary Landrieu. Remember Mary? She sat on the fence during the healthcare debate until Harry-the Senate Pimp-Reid offered her $300 million dollars for her vote. To give her credit, $300 million is an awful lot of money…after all, it’s not like he waved a twenty dollar bill at her in some dark hallway of the Capitol Building.

Yes, $300 million is a lot of money. In fact, since it is linked to a cut in Medicaid reimbursements that Louisiana will be exempted from in the healthcare bill, it is representative of what this will cost other states that don’t have someone “hooking” for them in Congress. It’s a shame for other states that are already in financial trouble that these cuts in Medicaid reimbursements will only deepen their budgetary problems. But hey, this is healthcare we are talking about!

We must, as a compassionate nation, make sure that illegal immigrants and all of those products of the welfare state that have never even held a job before have access to affordable healthcare insurance and to provide it for them, if need be. So what if states like California, New York, Florida or Arizona to name just a few, have to lay off hundreds of teachers and police officers; it is all for the common good. So what if our infrastructure collapses and our mass transportation network screeches to a halt; if we can pass the healthcare bill, millions will lose their jobs so less people will need those things anyway. So what if the CBO score is a lie because the bill takes in ten years worth of income but only pays out six years of benefits to give the illusion of breaking even; if we start to add too much to the national debt after the first ten years we can always raise taxes again.

Oh Mary, you are going to be an awfully popular person. Of course Harry told you that the exemption will expire right? I believe the exempted states would have to have been able to qualify for Federal Disaster aid for seven of the last ten years. Katrina struck in 2005 so you still have a couple of years before your State will be absorbing those funding cuts just like everyone else. Then you will be even more popular! Even if your constituents can’t understand the wonderful thing you did for them and wind up voting you out of office; fear not! We will never forget you here at the Vigilance Project where every Monday is Mary Landrieu Day!

Paul