Who's the Extremist?

Let me see if I get this right. Democrats passed a 2000 page radical overhaul of health care, a 2000 page radical overhaul of our financial system, spent nearly $1 trillion to "stimulate" our economy, and almost passed a 2000 page radical overhaul of our energy policy. Yet, it's the Tea Parties that are extremists because they want to reign in government, cut spending, and lower taxes. Good luck with that strategy.

The Green Economy of HIlda Solis

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis knows the answer the our sluggish economy.

This Labor Day, many people throughout Indiana are struggling just to get by. Families that have played by the rules are being forced into incredibly difficult decisions. Do they pay for their children's college tuition or make that mortgage payment?

These people are on my mind every single day and, like President Obama, I am hard at work ensuring they have a real opportunity to succeed.The recession has caused a generational restructuring of America's labor market, and our future now depends on what we do to retrain and retool for the 21st-century work force.

The Department of Labor already has given $223 million to help meet the needs of workers in Indiana, including Recovery Act funds. Our investments are aimed at training for in-demand jobs in high-growth industries, like energy efficiency and renewable energy generation. Other grants have gone to YouthBuild and youth work- force activities, assistance for dislocated and trade-impacted workers, and career counseling.

Businesses are leaner and more selective about hiring these days. We recognize and are meeting this challenge in many Indiana communities -- and across America -- by helping workers upgrade their skills. People will have the skills they need to get good jobs, and businesses will have the trained employees they need to succeed. That's what I call win-win.

The president is all about protecting the environment and he has a cabinet full of like minded people. Don't get me wrong. We should all be stewards of the economy. Furthermore, if someone wants to make money providing green energy, green jobs, or anything else that's green more power to them.

If they're using their own money, I wish them luck. That's why I like T. Boone Pickens. He's not only championing the green economy but he's putting a significant portion of his seven billion dollars behind it.

The problem here is that the president has a vision of our society, and he's determined to see it transformed into that vision. That's one thing. The problem is that he's determined to use nearly unlimited government resources to accomplish the green economy. That's the government picking winners and losers.

Wind farms like this are popular in some parts of Indiana. That's because the level land makes the area perfect for wind energy. The reality is that most of the U.S. is not fertile for wind energy.

That's the problem with most alternative, or green, energy sources. They are simply not ready for any mass scale usage. Yet, the president and his team are determined to jam the green economy onto the economy no matter how ready it is for it.

Congressman Barton Calls BP Fund Extortion

There's been plenty of speechifying and grandstanding at the hearing with BP CEO Tony Hayward on both sides but this comment by Congressman Joe Barton of Texas is sure to be the headliner.



Already, Democrats and liberals are seizing on the comment.

Rep. Joe "Smokey" Barton (R-TX). Said it was a "shakedown". Like I said, I want to see someone conduct a polling question and ask this:

Do you agree with Rep. Joe Barton's (R-TX) characterization that the agreement between Obama and BP executives for a $20 billion escrow fund to pay for the damage they caused was a "shakedown"?

The White house was quick with a statement of its own.

What is shameful is that Joe Barton seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused this disaster than the fishermen, small business owners and communities whose lives have been devastated by the destruction. Congressman Barton may think that a fund to compensate these Americans is a ‘tragedy’, but most Americans know that the real tragedy is what the men and women of the Gulf Coast are going through right now. Members from both parties should repudiate his comments

Yesterday, I was worried about the legality of the administration's actions but politicians should always be careful when they use explosive language. There's been a lot of politics on both sides over this disaster. Democrats have been eager to tie Republicans to BP, and now Congressman Barton has handed them a gift.

That soundbite will be played in a loop for days and Democrats will show moral outrage over the Republicans' lack of compassion for the folks in the gulf. The word "extortion" has give Democrats an opening. They will take it.

Obama from the Oval Office on the Spill

President Obama just finished a speech that lasted just less than 20 minutes speaking about the spill, its effects, the recovery, and legislation on energy independence.

It's still not really all that clear exactly what the administration will do to stop the spill. He did say that in the next two weeks 90% of the oil will be clogged. That's a number to watch. He also said that his administration has been on top of it from the beginning. If that's the case, that's not much of a positive statement for the administration.

The president said that he will "force" BP to create a fund to pay out to the folks in the gulf. He can't force them legally. He can strong arm them, shame them, or encourage them, but legally, he can't force them. So, it's not clear what he's going to do.

He also singled out the Minerals and Mining Safety Commission as a specific regulatory body that failed. They did and most of us already knew that. President Obama correctly pointed out that the MMS got too cozy with the oil companies they were regulating. They infamously accepted gifts from oil companies prior to the spill. He incorrectly called this a lack of regulation. It wasn't. It was poor enforcement of regulation. So, if the president responds with even more regulation, he'll be solving the wrong problem.

Finally, and in a naked act of political opportunism, he called for energy independence legislation. He never said cap and trade by name. I think everyone would like to be energy independent, but no one knows how to make that happen. He compared energy independence to military building in WWII. That's not much of a comparison. During WWII, we had a command economy. Is that what he's suggesting?

I still believe that the fastest way toward energy independence is breaking up the oil companies. They are an oligopoly and they've decided that gasoline made from oil is their best path to money. They have no use for alternative energy sources. Without them, our cars will always be run mostly on gasoline from oil. There's no call to break them up. Instead, one may go out of business, making the others even more powerful.

More coverage here.

Minerals Found in Afghanistan

Afghanistan's greatest natural resource has always been poppy but that may soon change.

A team of U.S. geologists and Pentagon officials has discovered vast mineral wealth in Afghanistan, conceivably enough to turn the scarred and impoverished country into one of the world's most lucrative mining centers, a senior military official told Fox News on Monday.

"There is stunning potential here," Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, told the New York Times in a report published Monday. "There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant."

Anyone that has seen Blood Diamonds knows that a vast amount of natural resources doesn't necessarily lead to wealth and prosperity. That said, Afghanistan has had nothing but poppy and it's in desperate need of natural resources that can be turned into wealth.

On a similar note, Israel recently discovered a vast amount of natural gas.

A door has been closed. But amid the roar, the creak of an opening window was faintly audible. This window, a gigantic deposit of natural gas called Leviathan, 6.5 times the size of Tel Aviv, was found, roughly 100 nautical miles from where the flotilla fiasco took place and well within Israel's extended territorial waters. This discovery may provide Israel with security in terms of its supply of electricity, turn it into an important natural gas exporter and provide a shot in the arm of some $300 billion over the life of the field - one-and-a-half times the national GDP - to the Israeli economy, already one of the most resilient in the world.

At the beginning of 2009, Israel made a major natural gas discovery that immediately made it a player in the natural gas market. This may be twice the size of that discovery. With Israel a major exporter of natural gas, the geopolitical environment in the Middle East.

Now Chic To Dump on Obama

This rant has become infamous and it may be viewed historically as the moment it was all right for natural supporters to begin to openly question Obama. While Carville's rant is the most compelling example, it's not the only one. Here's Kirsten Powers.

Politics as usual": To most Americans, it's be come a dirty phrase. To the Beltway crowd, it's the reflexive defense for the White House's dispatching of a former president to try muscling Rep. Joe Sestak out of the Pennsylvania Democratic primary.

Obama & Co. wanted to clear the primary field for Sen. Arlen Specter, who embodies everything Americans hate about politicians. A party-switching career pol, "Spineless Specter" holds no discernible principles, save his unshakable belief that he is entitled to hold power.

Sorry, but this isn't "change you can believe in."

Both Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich have given Obama criticism but that's mild compared to this scathing critique by Peggy Noonan, an early supporter.

The original sin in my view is that as soon as the oil rig accident happened the president tried to maintain distance between the gusher and his presidency. He wanted people to associate the disaster with BP and not him. When your most creative thoughts in the middle of a disaster revolve around protecting your position, you are summoning trouble. When you try to dodge ownership of a problem, when you try to hide from responsibility, life will give you ownership and responsibility the hard way. In any case, the strategy was always a little mad. Americans would never think an international petroleum company based in London would worry as much about American shores and wildlife as, say, Americans would. They were never going to blame only BP, or trust it.

I wonder if the president knows what a disaster this is not only for him but for his political assumptions. His philosophy is that it is appropriate for the federal government to occupy a more burly, significant and powerful place in America—confronting its problems of need, injustice, inequality. But in a way, and inevitably, this is always boiled down to a promise: "Trust us here in Washington, we will prove worthy of your trust." Then the oil spill came and government could not do the job, could not meet the need, in fact seemed faraway and incapable: "We pay so much for the government and it can't cap an undersea oil well!"

Even Luis Gutierrez has had criticism for Obama, on immigration.

The top story in the Spanish-language press today is Saturday's march in Phoenix protesting Arizona law SB 1070. Criticism of the Obama administration from Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and a top Spanish-language newspaper and reports on how Arizona's Latinos are preparing for SB 1070 to go into effect also make the news.

Of course, Chris Mathews, who infamously had a tingle up his leg about Obama, is also now criticizing him.

He has not acted like (the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico) is more important than something else like a fundraiser in California or an interview about basketball with Marv Albert, He doesn't seem to be taking ownership.

Now, some of this is the confluence of events. After all, Obama looks helpless on the Gulf, just as he looks hapless and corrupt on Sestak, just as nothing gets done on immigration. The rest of it is the realization that Obama's rhetoric was really nothing but rhetoric. He's not special. He's just a politician and not an altogether good one at that.

A Question for President Obama

In the wake of the Gulf oil disaster, President Obama has placed a minimum of six months moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf.

Escalating his administration's response to the disastrous Gulf oil spill, President Barack Obama announced Thursday a moratorium on new deepwater oil drilling permits will be continued for six months while a presidential commission investigates, a White House aide said.

Controversial lease sales off the coast of Alaska will be delayed pending the results of the commission's investigation, and lease sales planned in the Western Gulf and off the coast of Virginia are canceled, the President announced at a news conference.

Shell Oil was poised to begin exploratory drilling this summer on Arctic leases as far as 140 miles offshore.

The president says that he's doing this because he doesn't believe that offshore drilling is safe until we know why this spill happened. A good question for President Obama is how did oil companies drill safely for decades without creating a spill.

The president makes it seem as though offshore oil drilling is some sort of a rogue exercise not to be trusted. In fact, it's a multi billion dollar yearly industry that employs tens of thousands. Many of these folks are currently working in the very areas that are hit by the spill.

The spill will cause an untold ecological and economic disaster. Now, President Obama will compound that disaster by causing more economic havoc on top of it.

This is the typical script. A crisis hits, and politicians, looking to be seen as enough caring and concerned, over react. That over reaction winds up causing even more pain.

Obama; Government Can Solve All Problems..Except All It Can't

It appears that the so called top kill method has failed.

Three attempts to pump mud and 16 tries to stuff solid material into a breached Gulf of Mexico oil well failed to stop the flow, top BP executives said Saturday, and engineers and executives with the oil giant have decided to "move on to the next option."

That option: Place a custom-built cap to fit over the "lower marine riser package," BP chief operation officer Doug Suttles said. BP crews were already at work Saturday to ready the materials for that option, he said.

From here, BP is now admitting that it may not be until August until this leak is finally plugged.

A BP executive says a relief well is the "end point" of efforts to stop the Gulf oil spill — which suggests there's little chance of plugging the leak until the new well is completed in August.

With BP declaring failure in its latest attempt to plug the uncontrolled gusher feeding the worst oil spill in U.S. history, the company is turning to yet another mix of risky undersea robot maneuvers and longshot odds to keep crude from flowing into the Gulf.

Meanwhile, everyone watches helplessly as the oil reaches the shore slowly, more and more video of wildlife covered in oil come, and an environmental disaster begins. The one that looks most helpless is the President himself. It's unclear what if anything the president can do to make the situation better. What is clear is that in the campaign the president presented himself as herculean. Who can forget this piece of soaring rhetoric.

generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment” — when, among other wonders, “the rise of the oceans began to slow.”

Of course, it wasn't merely campaign rhetoric upon which Obama said that there was nothing the government couldn't do. The entire health care debate was predicated on the idea that health insurance companies were gouging us and the government was going to "hold them accountable".

The entire financial reform debate was predicated on the idea that the financial world was nothing more than the Wild Wild West and now there would be a new sheriff to reign them all in.

In Barack Obama's world, there is nothing that the government can solve. Nothing that is besides this sticky little oil leak. There we have a serious problem for this president. In the same vein, he also said that Cap and Trade would usher in a new day of energy independence. Again, there's nothing the government can't solve. Nothing that is but this sticky oil leak. The president sits back helpless. The oil leaks. It reaches closer to shore. The damage to the environment and to the economy is simply unimaginable and the president can't do a thing to stop it. If he's helpless here, how can he credibly claim to solve any problems?

Glenn Beck the Propagandist

If you've watched Glenn Beck more than once, you've probably seen this clip.



and this one...



and that one...

Those are three clips of several that Glenn Beck hasn't merely become fond of but is simply obsessed with. In fact, those clips are a few tools in a set of themes. From ACORN to La Raza, all of these are hammered at over and over to create a narrative. Mao, Stalin, Alinsky, and ACORN are all part of this narrative. Even Beck's frequent allusions to history are part of the narrative. How often has Beck demonized Teddy Roosevelt as America's first progressive? That Jones clip is meant to provide evidence: progressives have overrun the White House and they're going to transform America by wealth redistribution. It's a theme he hammers over and over.

Beck was on O'Reilly several months ago talking about how we're all fixated on ACORN while Dale and Wade Rathke are making their getaway and everyone is ignoring them. Since, he's paid no attention to either all while being fixated on ACORN. Why? It's because what Wade Rathke is doing now has little do with Obama themes. Rathke is running an international organization doing much of its work outside the U.S. Meanwhile, what ACORN represents is very relevant to the narrative that Beck is building.

Health care, cap and trade, and financial reform are all hammered at through a prism. The prism is a theme that Beck has created and then he uses his show to hammer at this theme. He comes back to them over and over.

Now, before anyone tries and argue with me. I'm not saying he's wrong. That isn't my point. I'm saying he's boring. Once I noticed that Beck wasn't going to stop using that Jones clip, I was through. I don't like propaganda. It's boring. He's running the same show over and over. He's built an audience which means he's good at propaganda. He's still a propagandist and that's why I don't watch.

Obama Throws Conservatives a Bone on Drilling

President Obama announced he would expand offshore drilling yesterday.

President Barack Obama launched an ambitious plan on Wednesday to lift a decades-long moratorium on offshore oil drilling along the East Coast from Delaware to Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.


“This is not a decision that I’ve made lightly,” he said in remarks at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. “But the bottom line is this: given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs and keep our businesses competitive, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel, even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy.”

The plans' backers include T. Boone Pickens, himself a proponent of natural gas.

Dallas billionaire T. Boone Pickens said this week he supports President Barack Obama’s efforts to promote offshore drilling on the East Coast.

Pickens is widely known as an advocate of growing America’s energy reserves through alternative energy sources and drilling.

Ironically, much of California's budget problems would be resolved if their coast was opened up as well however California is the hotbed of environmentalism and so that will never happen.

Are the Blue Dogs Moderate?

No says Americans for Limited Government. They've done an analysis of what they call "some of the most controversial votes of 2009". Of these, 856 were Yea and only 207 were Nay. Of course, it's important to note that the "controversial votes" were entirely determined by ALG themselves.

Here's the votes they accounted for: 789 billion "stimulus", bankruptcy mortgage "cramdowns," ACORN funding, a $108 billion International Monetary Fund expansion, the Waxman-Markey carbon emission caps, the $2.1 trillion "public option" health system, the $154 billion assistance program for bankrupt states, and the $290 billion debt limit expansion.

This is being selective and it's without context but still the results are remarkable. The Blue Dogs are supposed to be moderate and certainly fiscally conservative. Nancy Pelosi is a San Francisco liberal. Many of these votes are some of her biggest pet projects and about 80% of the time they voted with Pelosi.

Incidentally, speaking of cap and trade...that's on life support.

Bruised by the health care debate and worried about what 2010 will bring, moderate Senate Democrats are urging the White House to give up now on any effort to pass a cap-and-trade bill next year.

“I am communicating that in every way I know how,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of at least a half-dozen Democrats who've told the White House or their own leaders that it's time to jettison the centerpiece of their party's plan to curb global warming.

...

Chaos in Copenhagen

It appears the most excitement that will come out of the Copenhagen conference will be the protests.In fact,the conference can be summed up by this interview in which Not Evil Just Wrong Filmmaker Phelim McAleer was pelted with food.








In fact, the basic problem can be summed up this way. Everyone wants to reduce carbon emissions but no one wants to pay to do it. So, the developing nations want the developed nations to pay for it, and...well you get the idea.



If you think that it's tough to get several hundred legislators, all with their own agendas, to get together, try and get seventy seven nations, all with their own agendas, to get together. China is balking.

Meanwhile, China, the biggest developing country in the world, argues that it still lags behind more than 100 countries in terms of GDP per capita, and therefore, it flatly refuses to be held internationally accountable for its emission reduction plans. China has planned to reduce CO2 emission intensity per unit of GDP by 40 to 45 percent in 2020 from 2005.

We are of the opinion that the Copenhagen talks should produce an agreement that would strengthen what was achieved in Kyoto. After all, the Kyoto Protocol is the only legally binding instrument available so far to force developed countries to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Canada is balking.

Canada has "significant problems" with a draft climate agreement designed to usher the second, more intense phase in talks here next week, Ottawa's chief negotiator says.

As politicians began arriving in the Danish capital Friday for the second week of talks, Michael Martin said his first read of a proposed deal – one that is vague in some important places and completely silent in others – is that it is unlikely to wash with his Conservative political masters

So, now, Secretary Clinton is pledging money we don't have.

With time running out on the stalled Copenhagen climate negotiations, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave new hope that an agreement might still be reached when she announced Thursday that the United States would help raise $100 billion a year by 2020 to enable poor nations to combat climate change.

Since it will be borrowed from China, I wonder what the Chinese think of this pronouncement. President Obama is hours away from taking off for Copenhagen and he'll land into a sea of chaos. In fact, Copenhagen looks much like his health care proposal so he should be very comfortable in that environment.

The EPA Blackmail

In a move taken straight from the book of old school Chicago politics, the Obama administration is telling Congress that if they don't act the EPA will and it will be much more heavy handed.

The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn't move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a "command-and-control" role over the process in a way that could hurt business.

The warning, from a top White House economic official who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity, came on the eve of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's address to the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark.

...

If you don't pass this legislation, then ... the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area," the official said. "And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it's going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty

If this were done anywhere but in our government the perpetrators would be arrested for blackmail. Instead, it's happening in our government and it's simply politics as usual. In Chicago, if an alderman doesn't go along with Daley, suddenly the streets in their ward aren't swept. Here we have something on the same variety.

The audaciousness of this statement is stunning. The EPA is demanding that Congress pass cap and trade or it will move to destroy the economy and consolidate as much power in its own hands as possible. The EPA is saying that it will have no choice but to destroy the U.S. economy.

The EPA is presenting this as an either or. One way or another the economy will be transformed from a carbon based economy and if our economy is destroyed in the process that's merely collateral damage. The statement is stunning in both its chutzpah and in its dangerous nature.

It's a statement of an administration that is on an environmental mission and if that mission isn't achieved legislatively, they will just accomplish the same thing through regulatory fiat.

It's still unclear just how serious this threat is. Stephen Hayes, of the Weekly Standard, pointed out that such regulations could take years to implement. By then, Obama would face reelection and be made to account for what would be a terribly unpopular policy. It would swiftly be reversed by the next admin. With cap and trade on life support, the only chance for any meaningful action to limit carbon emissions lies with the EPA. So, this story continues to be one to watch.

Liberals + Halliburton = Conservatives + ACORN

Let me only speak to my conservative readers for a second. How many of you got real tired real fast when liberals turned every Bush policy into a Halliburton conspiracy? Everything from Iraq, energy policy, Iran, to just about everything else that Bush ever made policy toward was viewed by many liberals as a conspiracy to benefit Halliburton. Now, to the same conservative readers, how many of you believe that ACORN is secretly controlling government policy?

After watching with equal parts fascination, amusement and disgust as the left went into full Bush Derangement Syndrome over the previous eight years, I am no less fascinated, amused and disgusted by how quickly much of the right has gone into full Obama Derangement Syndrome. Part of such a syndrome is the presence of all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Remember how we really went into Iraq so that Halliburton could get a bunch of no bid contracts. Remember how Bush allowed to dollar to weaken so that Halliburton could benefit from high oil prices. Now, ACORN is writing the health care bill. The SEIU is writing our labor policies.

The latest conservative obsession is Bob Creamer. Creamer is a felon who's recently been let out of jail. He's also married to Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowski. Schakowski, incidentally, is one district over from me. Her district is just a shade below Pelosi's for liberal tendencies. Now, conservatives are painting Creamer as the "architect" of health care reform. It turns out, surprise surprise, you have a lot of free time in prison. So, Creamer wrote a manifesto called Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win. On top of all of this, he was once an organizer for, dare I say, ACORN. Well, Conservatives absolutely blew a lid when they found out that Creamer was invited to the White House State Dinner. I don't even know if he himself was invited or if he accompanied his wife, Schakowski.

Now, I have no use for Schakowski. She isn't merely challenging Cindy Sheehan for leftist credentials, but she's a bomb thrower who has little use for the truth. Her husband being a felon is simply icing. Of course, she'll never be voted out. That said, what exactly do the conservatives think they have here. She's in the House leadership. Her husband being a felon isn't new. Are they shocked she was invited to the State Dinner or are they shocked she brought her spouse? The so called manifesto is even more absurd. So what? He had a lot of free time and he wrote a book. Would conservatives have felt better if he got into a series of fights and joined a gang?

Let me let you all in on a secret. Democrats have wanted sweeping health care reform for a century. They've all been trying to figure it out. On this front, Creamer is not new or special. That he wrote a book about it doesn't actually mean he's secretly calling the shots on health care reform.

This is in fact the brave new world lead by Glenn Beck. Everything is a connect the dot to George Soros, ACORN, SEIU, and La Raza. ACORN is a very powerful group. That's what happens when you're an effective organizing force for nearly four decades. That doesn't actually mean that Bertha Lewis is secretly running the closed door sessions on health care. There's no doubt that ACORN is a player in lobbying for health care reform. HCAN was the biggest pro health care reform lobbying group over the summer. ACORN is one of several groups that funds and organizes HCAN. That's no conspiracy. No one is hiding that. Is there something deeper that I'm missing though?

How many times have conservatives pointed out that Andy Stern of the SEIU is the single most common visitor to the White House? Guess what, liberals made similarly sneering remarks about Halliburton's influence in the Bush White House. Do you all believe that Halliburton was secretly making policy? If not, why are you all willing to believe that ACORN secretly is?

There's no doubt that left wing outfits are influencing President Obama. I live six miles from Hyde Park. I know it well. It's the bastion of far left radicals. None of this should surprise anyone. Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton before he was the Vice President also. Am I missing something?

In fact, all this isn't even really about conspiracies at all. Halliburton became a symbol and a mantra for liberals. It represented everything that was wrong with the Republican party. They're too close to business, corrupted by its influence, and making decisions that benefit them at the expense of the rest of us. Isn't that about what the left said about Halliburton? Guess what the right is saying about ACORN. It's a symbol of everything that's wrong with the left. It's too close to the Democrats, corrupted by its influences, and making decisions to benefit them at the expense of the rest of us. Again, am I missing something?

Most of us have stopped analyzing, stopped thinking, and ended understanding. Most of us simply want to demonize, ridicule, and turn our opponents into caricatures using symbols that embody everything we think is wrong. On that, conservatives are no better than liberals.

EPA Declares CO2 "A Public Health Threat"

The EPA has just declared carbon dioxide a "public health threat".

In the face of GOP opposition, the EPA on Monday declared greenhouse gases a danger to public health in a move that could pave the way for future regulation.

The administration also waved off concerns about the controversy surrounding leaked e-mails at a British climate research center, with the U.S. envoy to the international climate change conference in Copenhagen dismissing the flap as a "small blip."

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a written statement that the finding, which declares carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases a threat to public health, marks the start of a U.S. campaign to tackle greenhouse gas emissions

This is no empty and meaningless declaration. The Obama administration, from the beginning of the cap and trade debate, has used the threat of the EPA as a sort of legislative blackmail hanging over legislators.

In fact, the regulatory power that the EPA could wield could be significantly more significant, draconian, and damaging to our economy than any cap and trade bill, let alone the current watered down one.

In fact, by declaring it a "public health threat", the EPA has just fired a shot across the bow. They will act in curbing greenhouse gases if Congress doesn't. The EPA has significant leverage and leeway to regulate greenhouse gases in a way that could give it more scope than any bill.

So, the EPA is prepared to act if our legislature does not. Rather than cap and trade, we'll simply have a series of draconian regulations that will halt the production of most energy sources that rely on carbon dioxide. The EPA has made it clear. They are ready and willing to throw their weight around if the Congress fails to act.

Copenhagen and Sovereignty

Several months ago, Dick Morris was furious over an obscure agreement that President Obama made with the IMF.

The result of this conclave, which France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed as “revolutionary,” was that all the nations agreed to coordinate their economic policies and programs and to submit them to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for comment and approval. While the G-20 nations and the IMF are, for now, only going to use “moral suasion” on those nations found not to be in compliance, talk of sanctions looms on the horizon.

While the specific policies to which the U.S. committed itself (reducing the deficit and strengthening regulatory oversight of financial institutions) are laudable in themselves, the process and the precedent are frightening. We are to subject our most basic national economic policies to the review of a group of nations that includes autocratic Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. Even though our GDP is three times bigger than the second largest economy (Japan) and equal to that of 13 of the G-20 nations combined, we are to sit politely by with our one vote and submit to the global consensus. Europe has five votes (U.K., France, Germany, Italy and the EU) while we have but one.

Morris was furious that Obama had made an agreement that allowed the IMF and the G20 to make binding financial regulations that would govern all companies in any of the G20 nations. As such, by Morris' estimation, that means that European diplomats and bureaucrats would be in charge of setting banking laws for our domestic banks. Never, in Morris' estimation, had our own sovereignty been challenged.

The global climate change conference could have had a similar ramifications. Currently, all expectations are that the conference will lead to limited agreements.

President Barack Obama's decision to drop in on the international climate conference in Copenhagen next month lends some star power to an event that's lost much of its luster — but at considerable risk for Obama himself.

“This could be one hell of a global game changer with big reverberations here at home,” said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the lead sponsor of climate change legislation in the Senate. “The fact that the president will attend the Copenhagen talks underscores that the administration is putting its money where its mouth is, putting the president's prestige on the line.”

And therein lies the problem for Obama. The upside potential for his visit is limited; expectations for the conference have dropped dramatically over the past few weeks, with nearly universal acknowledgment that the talks are very likely to result in a only limited political agreement, rather than in a legally binding treaty on global warming.

That's largely because the countries involved can't agree on how to tackle the problem and also because during worldwide economic crisis, there's no appetite for this sort of regulation. Still, if there were sweeping agreements, they would alsobe yet another move toward limiting our own sovereignty and giving Europeans the power to regulate domestic industry. For this reason, there was always a great deal of objection to the summit.

With less than 40 days remaining before the governments of the world convene to
hammer out a save-our-species style of agreement on Climate Change, there is a lot of bustling going on in Ottawa. For one thing this is an especially busy time for the staffers behind our politicians. I’m talking about those brave unheralded souls running around Ottawa buying plane tickets, planning dinners, and ensuring the business-attire economy remains recession-proof. Oh yes, the assistant armies of Ottawa are working all hours to ensure that our Government’s representatives are going to look good, eat-well, and rest comfortably while discussing the future of the planet in Copenhagen (COP15).

During the campaign, while speaking to a massive crowd in Germany, candidate Barack Obama announced himself a "citizen of the world". This was met with skepticism in many quarters. The President of the United States should represent the interests of the U.S. first, second, third, and always. They are part of the U.S. and our interests are all that matter. What has happened so far is NOT Earth shattering. Don't believe that some European bureaucrat is about to tell some Chase banker in Chicago what kind of checking account they can offer. They aren't and they can't. What should be concerning is just how apt President Obama is to sign onto an agreement that allows just that.

President Bush dismissed the Kyoto Treaty out of hand for exactly this reason. The Europeans screamed and moaned and his perception there was cemented with this move very early in his presidency. Yet, he represented the interests of the U.S. no matter how unpopular that made him abroad. President Obama had better understand his own job description soon.

The Inexplicable President

Does everyone remember when everyone said that Barack Obama was eloquent on a scale rarely seen? He certainly can be eloquent. When he's talking about "hope", "change", and other platitudes, he's very eloquent. Yet, when he has to explain his policies, the president has shown to be totally inexplicable.

I first actually noticed it following his decision to reverse the Bush administration's policy on embryonic stem cell research. Here's what he said then.

In recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values, In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent. As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering. I believe we have been given the capacity and will to pursue this research – and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly.

and he also said this.

Many thoughtful and decent people are conflicted about, or strongly oppose, this research,” the president said. “I understand their concerns, and we must respect their point of view.

Now, try and put all this together. On the one hand, the president was saying that opponents to embryonic stem cell research were presenting a "false choice." At the same time, they were "thoughtful" in their opposition. Huh. He pandered to opponents of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and then said they presented a "false choice". At the same time, he never explained why those that view and embryonic stem cell as life, and thus such research as murder, should be all right with this decision. At the time, he was still in his honeymoon period, however this explanation was not only inexplicable, but absurd and frankly laughable.

What's followed is a series of such inexplicable explanations. Within two weeks of each other, the president said that we "shouldn't meddle in the Iranian elections" and then took sides with the wannabe dictator Jose Zelaya in Honduras. Huh? Are we meddling or aren't we?

In March, he announced a new strategy in Afghanistan and now he says he needs to take time to formulate a new strategy in Afghanistan. He wants to fight Al Qaeda, reach out to "moderate Taliban", but not nation build. He wants an exit strategy but not necessarily victory. Can anyone explain what exactly any of this means?

The president was equally inexplicable on cap and trade. Can anyone explain how that law will work? Nothing has been more inxeplicable than health care refom. Can anyone explain what exactly the president wants with health care?

So, we're at the latest in the president's inexplicable policies, trying KSM et al in New York. Here's how Eric Holder put it today.

This was a tough call, and reasonable people can disagree with my conclusion that these individuals should be tried in federal court rather than a military commission.

The 9/11 attacks were both an act of war and a violation of our federal criminal law, and they could have been prosecuted in either federal courts or military commissions. Courts and commissions are both essential tools in our fight against terrorism.

Therefore, at the outset of my review of these cases, I had no preconceived views as to the merits of either venue, and in fact on the same day that I sent these five defendants to federal court, I referred five others to be tried in military commissions. I am a prosecutor, and as a prosecutor my top priority was simply to select the venue where the government will have the greatest opportunity to present the strongest case in the best forum.

I studied this issue extensively. I consulted the Secretary of Defense. I heard from prosecutors from my Department and from the Defense Department's Office of Military Commissions. I spoke to victims on both sides of the question. I asked a lot of questions and weighed every alternative. And at the end of the day, it was clear to me that the venue in which we are most likely to obtain justice for the American people is in federal court.

Holder goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on some more. He goes on for a long time. He talks about how difficult the decision was. He talks about how much he struggled with it. He talks about how this was a controversial decision and a lot of people will disagree. What he never explains is why if we are at war, these enemies in war are being tried in civilian court. That's a simple contradiction and in that very, very, very, very long statement that's the only thing Eric Holder never actually explains. It's again totally inexplicable.

We should all be very troubled that someone that's supposed to be as eloquent as President Obama simply can't explain any of his policies.

The Democrats Are Failing Basic Politics

Yesterday, the so called Doctor Fix failed in the Senate. This was the measure that would stop Medicare cuts set to go into effect next year. The measure would have cost $247 billion over the next ten years. Harry Reid wanted to pass it on its own mostly in order to not have the cost be included in the final health care bill. The AMA was strongly behind the measure and the Democrats were hoping to get them aboard health care reform. Thirteen Democrats joined all the Republicans to defeat the measure.

When President Bush first proposed his tax cuts, he got near unanimous approval from his own caucus. He also got moderates like John Breaux on board. As such President Bush split his opponents and got his own party unified. By reaching out to Ted Kennedy on NCLB, he also got a similar effect. With immigration reform, he had the exact opposite effect. In that case, his own caucus was split.

There's a simple rule in politics. Unite your own party and split your opponents and you win. It's one of those things that's easy to say but difficult to pull off. Yet, success and/or failure entirely depends on successfully executing this model. So far, President Obama and the Democrats have failed miserably. On no initiative has the president been able to split the opposition. In fact, on each of his initiatives, it's his own party that has been divided. On cap and trade, he lost 44 members of his own party. (though 8 Reps switched as well) On health care, we know that at most Olympia Snowe will get on board. That's it.

In fact, the reason that the health care bill was first supposed to pass by August, then October, then Thanksgiving and now at some undetermined date is because the President and the Democratic leadership can't unite his own party. The Democrats wanted to give seniors a one time $250 check. Now, Steny Hoyer is leading the Democratic charge against that initiative and that's losing steam. For all of these initiatives: health care, the doctor fix, the $250 stimulus, the Republicans have been united against them entirely. That's why with only about 40% of the legislature the Republicans have still been able to stop all the President's initiatives. That's because the President and the leadership, UNBELIEVABLY, have proposed nothing but initiatives that have united the opposition and split his own party.

Now, let's think about this. If the Democrats can't unite the party behind a simple $250 check, how are they going to unite their party around something as complicated as health care reform? In fact, it should be more and more clear that the President simply can't manage the crafting of legislature. This is no easy task. Like I said, uniting your own and splitting the opposition is easy to say but much more difficult to do. It's also clear that the President and the Democrats have no idea how to do it.

Since mid summer, it's been clear that the Republicans have been united against health care reform. It's also been obvious that all flanks of the President's own party have been united against parts of the bill. We all remember when Nancy Pelosi said that without the public option 100 votes would be lost in the House. We also remember Max Baucus saying that the public option doesn't have the votes in the Senate. We had a similar phenomenon on cap and trade. Most of the Blue Dogs had problems with it and Representatives from certain energy producing states also had problems. As such, the Democrats were similarly split, though 8 Republicans cross the aisle. The Democrats are so split in the Senate that the bill doesn't appear to come up at all anytime soon.

That's the presidents two main initiatives, cap and trade and health care reform. On both, he and his leadership have managed to accomplish the opposite of what he wanted to do. He's split his own party and united the opposition. That's a recipe for long, sustained, and continued failure.

The CBO on Cap and Trade

The CBO just scored the house version of cap and trade.

A House-passed bill that targets climate change through a cap-and-trade system of pollution credits would slow the nation's economic growth slightly over the next few decades and would create "significant" job losses from fossil fuel industries as the country shifts to renewable energy, the head of the Congressional Budget Office told a Senate energy panel Wednesday.

CBO Director Douglas W. Elmendorf emphasized that his estimates contained significant uncertainties and "do not include any benefits from averting climate change," but his message nevertheless contrasted sharply with those of President Obama and congressional Democratic leaders, who have suggested that a cap on carbon emissions would help revive the U.S. economy.

Elmendorf provided no numbers, or at least there weren't any in the story. In fact, what Elmendorf did in his analyis was echo the concerns that opponents have of this legislation. The energy sources being targeted would get cut back. That would raise energy prices. It would also disrupt our energy flow while energy sources are forced to change rather than change naturally.

Elmendorf pointed out that there are some potential benefits not only to the environment but to the economy as a result. For instance, with climate change that will affect crops and so farmers would need to take out extra insurance to protect against that.

Of course, it's not entirely clear that cap and trade would have any measurable affect on climate change, and of course, there are plenty that don't believe in global warming to begin with.

Because the CBO has become the gold standard used by both parties, this will be turned into a win for Republicans. The same Democrats that clung to the CBO's scoring of the Baucus bill must now swallow this scoring. Personally, I believe that the CBO has been given far too much deference. They do an excellent job but all of it is ultmately projection. Even Elmendorf himself will admit that figuring out what will happen in ten years is dicey at best. Still, it's no small political victory to have what is currently the most respected branch in government, the CBO, to reaffirm the Republican position on this issue.

The Dollar Under Pressure

This may have been the big business news of the day.

The move would see oil priced not in dollars but in a unit based on a basket of currencies including the Chinese yuan, the Japanese yen, and a new currency intended for use by the Gulf emirates, according to a report in Tuesday's Independent newspaper. The paper added that the transistion from the dollar to a new currency will take almost a decade.

Finance ministers and central bankers have held meetings in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to discuss the idea, which the Americans are aware of, the Independent said.

This news was first reported by the British newspaper the Independent. The Independent says that secret meetings have been occurring by several Gulf states to move to stop using the dollar to buy and sell oil on the open market.

Currently, oil, like most commodities, is bought and sold using U.S. Dollars. Under the plan reported, the Dollar would be replaced by a basket of currencies including the Chinese Yuan. The Dollar, as expected, plunged on the news. Domestic equities went through the roof. Each was up at least one and a half percent. Equities were up because of the belief that a weak Dollar would help multi nationals.

This isn't the first time that such an idea has been floated. Russian President Vladimir Putin floated a similar idea in January.

"The one reserve currency has become a danger to the world economy: that is now obvious to everybody," he said in a speech at the World Economic Forum.

It is the first time that a Russian leader has set foot in the sanctum sanctorum of global capitalism at Davos.

The consequences of this are pretty clear, directly at least. If oil is no longer bought and sold in Dollars, then demand for the Dollar weakens. That means the Dollar weakens, all else being equal of course. A weaker Dollar has all sorts of consequences of its own.