In the wake of the recent irrefutable counterattack on climate change “science,” one would think that those who have forecasted the end of civilization would be running for the hills, or — at the very least — quietly dropping their phony claims and stepping aside in light of, well, the inconvenient truth. But leave it to Al Gore to make even more excuses for years of incompetence and dishonesty, and leave it to the New York Times to provide him a platform from which to pontificate.
And pontificate he did, in a weekend op-ed worthy of Michael Moore in terms of pure, unadulterated horse pucky. The former vice president once again wailed that we will face an “unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.” He should just come clean and tell us what he really means: redistributing the wealth, from our pockets to his.
Gore also valiantly defended those of his brethren exposed in the Climategate scandal, referring to the UK’s University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit e-mails as “stolen.” (As if that somehow justifies the corrupt content therein.) He further claimed the abused scientists involved had succumbed to the pressure of climate skeptics, blatantly ignoring that for years other scientists who questioned climate change found themselves either silenced or blacklisted.
He even went so far as to blame the U.S. Senate, by way of stalling the Obama administration’s cap-n-tax scheme, for other world leaders’ lack of commitment at the Copenhagen Summit. China, Gore confides conspiratorially, was really gung-ho about limiting its carbon emissions until the big, bad U.S. decided to take the low road.
The government Gore and others like him envision is a danger to our Essential Liberty. Preserving a government that encourages both a free market and free thinkers can mean not only the difference between prosperity and ruin, but literally between life and death. We need only to compare the recent earthquakes in Chile and Haiti to tell us this. The earthquake in Chile registered 8.8 on the Richter Scale, which was hundreds of times more powerful than the one that struck Haiti, but due in part to Chile’s superior infrastructure and wealth, only 708 people were killed, as opposed to more than 220,000 in the third-world Caribbean nation. Thankfully, more people are starting to realize that we cannot take our prosperity and our way of life for granted, and that includes vigorously confronting opportunistic charlatans like Al Gore.
In related news, the University of Tennessee is giving Gore an honorary doctoral degree because, gushed Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek, “his work has quite literally changed our planet for the better.” Both the publisher and managing editor of The Patriot Post hold advanced degrees from the University of Tennessee and, accordingly, have submitted protests. (Our editors did actual research for their degrees.)
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once observed, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” One facet of that problem has arrived in the form of unfunded liabilities for public “servant” benefits. According to the Pew Center, a $1 trillion gap exists between $3.35 trillion in pension, health care and other retirement benefits promised to current and retired state employees as of fiscal year 2008 and the $2.35 trillion available to pay them. That’s $1 trillion in unfunded liabilities that must be resolved through higher taxes in concert with drastic benefit reductions.
Not without irony, President Obama’s adopted home state of Illinois is in the worst shape of all, managing to fund only 54 percent of those benefits while carrying an astounding unfunded liability of more than $54 billion.
Similar data from the crucibles of democracy also show a strong correlation between states with concentrations of liberals and a state’s budgetary health. The five states in the worst financial shape are all bastions of leftist policies — California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey and New York. Each shares strong appetites for public sector unions and pricey social programs. Illinois, again, is in the worst financial condition, with per-capita debt of $1,877 and unfunded pensions of $17,230. Moody’s rates Illinois’ general obligation just ahead of dead-last California. On the other side of the equation, three of the top five fiscally healthiest states are conservative states (Utah, Nebraska and Texas), while the other two (New Hampshire and Virginia) are swing states.
Considering the unchecked acceleration of the federal government’s looming fiscal Armageddon, voters must ask themselves this November if they wish to call the tune and deal with the issue before debt becomes uncontrollable. Allowing this current crop of suicidal spenders two additional years is an unacceptable alternative.
Reconciliation is still the buzzword on Capitol Hill as Democrat “leaders” Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi try to figure out how to ram ObamaCare down our throats. Not that they see it that way; as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer put it, “That’s not ramming something through with a majority. It is doing what democracy calls for.” Well, this isn’t a democracy, it’s a republic: and the Founders set it up that way for a reason.
Accompanied by his teleprompter, Barack Obama began a renewed push for a vote on the health care bill by Easter when he met a group of people wearing lab coats in the Rose Garden on Wednesday (and he accused Rep. Eric Cantor of using a “prop” by bringing the 2,400-page bill itself to last week’s health care summit). Obama claimed that “new and improved” legislation “incorporates the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans.” As we said Tuesday, however, the problem isn’t whether the bill is “bipartisan.” A few Republican ideas sprinkled in won’t fix it. The problem, at its core, is that a plan for Congress to take over one-sixth of the U.S. economy is unconstitutional.
In the face of all evidence, the teleprompter continued, “I don’t believe we should give government bureaucrats or insurance company bureaucrats more control over health care in America.” Huh? Giving government bureaucrats control over health care in America is precisely what Obama is proposing to do.
For all the talk about reconciliation in the Senate, the House vote may be the more important one. The Associated Press reports, “The House passed health overhaul legislation by a narrow 220-215 vote in November, but since then several Democrats have defected or left the House. To avoid a filibuster in the Senate that Democrats can’t defeat, Obama is now pushing the House to approve the Senate’s version of the bill, along with a package of changes to fix elements of the Senate bill that House Democrats don’t like, including a special Medicaid deal for Nebraska and a tax on high-value insurance plans that is opposed by organized labor.”
If Pelosi is able to strong-arm the Senate bill through the House with a bare majority, Senate reconciliation becomes moot. With three vacancies, Democrats need just 217 votes for passage, and there are a handful of Democrats who voted “no” in November who now say they’re undecided. On the other hand, 12 pro-life Democrats, led by Bart Stupak of Michigan, say they’re prepared to switch sides and scuttle ObamaCare if sufficient protections against abortion funding aren’t put in place. The Senate bill doesn’t meet their benchmark.
Never underestimate this president’s lack of shame, though — or his penchant for Chicago-style politics. For example, Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT) voted against ObamaCare in November, but he is now “undecided.” So on Wednesday, Obama nominated Jim’s brother Scott to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Offering jobs for playing the White House way is nothing new, and Scott Matheson is, to be fair, a well-credentialed nominee. However, even the appearance of selling judgeships for health care votes would give pause to a more honorable president.
As for leftist sentiment, perhaps MSNBC host Ed Schultz best summed it up this week, saying, “[S]mall government has never gotten anybody any health care.”
“The Republicans have a choice,” Schultz declared. “Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way. … We have people in need and they need to be helped.”
Memo to Ed: If government would get out of the way, those people might be able to help themselves, as our Founders intended. Democrats aren’t about to let that happen because it really isn’t about helping those in need.
Here are the nuts and bolts of this devastating legislation:
“House Bill 1330 would create an “all-payer health claims database” in Colorado. Bill supporters claim government can reduce health care costs through “transparent public reporting of health care information.” In fact, the bill is a transparency Trojan Horse. It will make your most personal actions transparent to government officials, officials who have no business keeping track of what kind of health care you buy or what you pay for it.
The bill authorizes the state to collect information on every health care transaction in the state, including information from private medical records, insurer files, and hospitals.
People who refuse to comply can be fined. There is no limit to the fines that may be assessed.”
Point blank, our privacy and basic civil liberties are at stake here folks.
House Rep. Kefalas and Kagan, Apuan, Court, Fischer, Gagliardi, Levy, Miklosi, Pace, Primavera, Rice, Riesberg, Solano, Tyler, Vigil are sponsoring it on one side. Senator John Morse is sponsoring it on the Senate side.
If you’d prefer to listen to a 15 minute podcast on this monstrosity, you can listen here.
If the state government is mandated to collect all of our private medical information in the name of “transparency,” we’ve clearly deviated from what the word means. Transparency is a mechanism that allows the citizens to account for government’s actions, NOT for the government to keep track of its citizens’ most private information! This government is supposed to serve us, not spy on us!
As soon as I find out the next step this horrible piece of legislation is taking, I will let all of you know. I have a couple sources who are closely following it and will provide me up to the minute information.
Please stay tuned!
Thanks for listening,
Justin Longo
Legislative Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
“Whoever wishes peace among peoples must fight statism.” -Mises
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It has been said that California leads the way when it comes to social change. Usually for the worse… I would however submit that as distorted and stupidly off course as my home state most often is? New York is just as much a leader in the destruction of freedom and Liberty. I mean think about it? This is a State that continually elects people like the straw purchase felon Michael Bloomberg, and the overtly treasonous to his oath to uphold the Constitution CharlesSchumer!
New York, the State, is actually pretty conservative, if not outright Libertarian. However, democracy, being what it is? New York City rules the entire state. That’s a fact Jack! I think that is pathetic. Further, I think that the rest of New York should just pull up stakes, and secede from the city. Tell them to go take a hike,and form their own state. Much as my home state of California should be split into three entities… Or become parts of Nevada or Arizona…
Take a look at just what the minions of epic fail obama are trying to pull off in New York… As pissed as I get at the NRA? This should have been FRONT page at Gun Owners of America!
Read on faithful readers…
Laundry List of Anti-Gun Bills Introduced in the Empire State
Friday, February 26, 2010
Please contact your lawmakers and urge them to oppose the laundry list of anti-gun bills pending consideration in Albany prior to the Assembly’s annual “gun day.” The package includes the following bills:
Assembly Bill 801A and its Senate companion, S 1598A, would require five-year renewals on pistol licenses.
Assembly Bill 1093 and its Senate companion, S 1715, would create liability for legal firearm retailers when criminals misuse firearms.
Assembly Bill 1275 and its Senate companion, S 1712, would outlaw the private sale and transfer of long guns.
Assembly Bill 1326 and its Senate companion, S 5228, would outlaw the sale of all handguns not equipped with so-called “child proofing” devices.
Assembly Bill 2881 and its Senate companion, S 2379, would ban the sale of common self-defense and hunting ammunition.
Assembly Bill 2885 and Assembly Bill 2910 would establish standards for guns sold in the state and would allow the state police to prevent ANY firearm they deem unsafe from being transferred into the state.
Assembly Bill 3200 and its Senate companion, S 2953, would require ammunition coding or bullet serialization.
Assembly Bill 3346 would outlaw affordable handguns commonly used for self-defense.
Assembly Bill 3477 and its Senate companion, S 1188, would expand the failed 10-year-old ballistic imaging program to include even more firearms.
Assembly Bill 4441 and its Senate companion, S 4338, would prohibit the manufacture, sale or transfer of handguns not equipped with so-called “smart gun” technology.
Assembly Bill 5844 and its Senate companion, S 3098, would prohibit keeping firearms available for self-defense in the home.
Assembly Bill 6157 and Assembly Bill 6294 and their Senate companion, S 4084, would drastically expand the state’s ban on so-called “assault weapons” to include virtually all semi-automatic rifles and pistols that can accept detachable magazines.
Assembly Bill 6468B and its Senate companion, S 6005, would outlaw the sale of all semi-automatic handguns not equipped with so-called “microstamping” technology.
Senate Bill 4752 would ban certain firearms based upon bore diameter.
As the anti-gun agenda awaits activity, a few other measures deserve our support. They include Assembly Bill 5118A and its Senate companion, S 2430A, which would grant a tax exemption to conservation clubs and rod and gun clubs owning land having an assessed value of $500,000 or less. These bills are in the Assembly Real Property Tax Committee and the Senate Local Government Committee respectively.
NRA-ILA also supports Assembly Bill 7463A and its Senate Companion, S 3299A, which would expand hunting opportunities by allowing the use of a rifle to hunt deer or bear in certain parts of Chautauqua County. These bills are pending in the Assembly and Senate Environment Committees, respectively.
Please contact your lawmakers and urge them to oppose the anti-gun bills pending in the Assembly and to support AB5118A/S 2430A, AB7463A/S 3299A in both the Senate and Assembly.
State Assembly Members can be reached by phone at (518) 455-4100. To find your Assembly Member, please click here.
Your State Senator can be contacted through the Senate switchboard at (518) 455-2800.To find your State Senator, please click here.
Remember the old navy movies when the speaker would squak out that you were being attacked? Well, the obamanites are cruising at ramming speed,and they are aiming straight at you, your children, and your grandchildren.
The economic disaster that is obamacare is about to be force fed to you. Guess what Mister President? I refuse to eat the broccoli!
I don’t want you involved in my health care decisions, and if all the demonstrations that made the news last year didn’t get your attention? Then perhaps the absolute backlash that will occur as a result of your lairding it over the soiled masses will be all yours. You will not be able to blame it on Bush. You will own it, lock, stock, and barrel, period.
What type of bloodshed will it take to get you to listen to the people of America? Your apparent disgust for the American military, as exemplified by hiring Hillary Clinton to a cabinet level post. Your abhorrent attitude toward decent Law Enforcement still doesn’t pass muster, even after a beer… Your apparent distaste for those that put their lives on the line on a daily basis, unless they are union Paramedics and Firefighters… That based upon reports from Chi Town from EMS workers while you were a “community organizer.”
Tell ya what Mister impostor in chief? I’ll keep my guns,and you can keep your “change!”
Yes, regular readers know that I really don’t get this fired up unless something is amiss in a very big way. Well..?
A mere three days before President Obama’s supposedly bipartisan health-care summit, the White House yesterday released a new blueprint that Democrats say they will ram through Congress with or without Republican support. So after election defeats in Virginia, New Jersey and even Massachusetts, and amid overwhelming public opposition, Democrats have decided to give the voters want they don’t want anyway.
Ah, the glory of “progressive” governance and democratic consent.
“The President’s Proposal,” as the 11-page White House document is headlined, is in one sense a notable achievement: It manages to take the worst of both the House and Senate bills and combine them into something more destructive. It includes more taxes, more subsidies and even less cost control than the Senate bill. And it purports to fix the special-interest favors in the Senate bill not by eliminating them—but by expanding them to everyone.
What next? The FBI will be taken over by the BATFE?
Don’t forget folks, as posted earlier in a Gun Owners of America alert, the thing was chock full of anti liberty items, and now? Even more of the same? It’s just a bit after seven in the evening my time. Any bets on how long before the Commie America haters, say, at the SPLC, or the Brady Bunch will will chime in like good little brown nosing storm troopers..?
“Avoid the term ‘global warming,'” advises New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. “I prefer the term ‘global weirding,’ because that is what actually happens as global temperatures rise and the climate changes.”
Friedman, who proves that anyone can be a climatologist, goes on to explain that with global warming, “The weather gets weird. The hots are expected to get hotter, the wets wetter, the dries drier and the most violent storms more numerous. The fact that it has snowed like crazy in Washington — while it has rained at the Winter Olympics in Canada, while Australia is having a record 13-year drought — is right in line with what every major study on climate change predicts: The weather will get weird; some areas will get more precipitation than ever; others will become drier than ever.”
No matter what happens, blame global warming.
But as Friedman and other dogmatists peddle their propaganda, the case for man-made global warming is collapsing like a weak roof in a Beltway blizzard. In fact, we might call it “man made-up” climate change.
Phil Jones, the former director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and a central figure in the ClimateGate scandal, now admits that for the past 15 years, there has been no “statistically significant” warming. Furthermore, he says the warming trend that began in 1975 is not unlike two previous periods since 1850, and the Medieval Warm Period could have been a global phenomenon similar to the latter three. Yet Jones, who said he has had trouble “keeping track” of information supporting the infamous hockey stick graph, is still a believer in man-made global warming and he calls the last 15 years a blip in a long-term trend.
Meanwhile, John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a former lead author on the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is also questioning his faith. “The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,” he said. Christy’s doubts, like those of other researchers, stem from problems with thousands of weather stations used to collect temperature data. Urbanization and changes in land use, equipment relocation and other factors have compromised the data. “The popular data sets show a lot of warming,” he said, “but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development.”
These are truly stunning admissions, coming as they do from “the consensus,” and cast grave doubt on what we have long been told is “settled science.” For their part, U.S. media outlets have reported exhaustively on these developments… scratch that. No, they haven’t. As Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters notes, “Despite the seriousness of these revelations, much as what happened when the ClimateGate scandal first broke, with the exception of Fox News — and a lone report by CNN — America’s media have almost totally boycotted this amazing story.”
Similar revelations regarding data manipulation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) have surfaced with little or no fanfare.
Many of these same media outlets, however, found plenty of time to cover the “news” that Tiger Woods has broken his silence, or the fact that Hollywood director Kevin Smith was kicked off a plane for being too fat. As of Tuesday, CNN had reported it 14 times. Light on substance and, er, heavy on fragrance.
The epic failure that is known as the impostor in chief does a great job of pulling the wool over peoples eyes. However, some people are not so sheepish as others. You be the Judge.
“How could such smart people do so many stupid things? That question, or variations on it, is being asked in Washington and around the country about the Obama administration. The same people who directed the campaign that defeated Hillary Clinton and routed John McCain, a campaign that raised far more money and attracted far more volunteers than any before it, have within a year come up with a legislative program that is crashing in ruins and that, to judge from recent polls, has left the Democratic Party weaker than I have seen it in almost 50 years of closely following politics. … Team Obama failed to realize they were no longer running in Chicago or in the Democratic primaries or facing an electorate fed up with Republicans. And, more important, they failed to realize that vastly expanding government goes deeply against the American grain — and against the basic appeal of their successful campaign.” –political analyst Michael Barone
“If you’ve been paying attention to the left-wing punditry these days, you may be under the impression that the nation’s institutions are on the verge of collapse. Or that the rule of law is unraveling. Or maybe that this once-great nation is crippled and nearly beyond repair. You know why? Because the 40 percent (or so) political minority has far too much influence in Washington. Don’t you know? This minority, egged on by a howling mob of nitwits, is holding progress hostage using its revolting politics and parliamentary trickery. … President Barack Obama, after his agenda had come to a halt, claimed democracy is a ‘messy’ process — as if that were a bad thing. Actually, ‘democracy’ is not only messy but also immoral and unworkable. The Founding Fathers saw that coming, as well. So we don’t live under a system of simple majority rule for a reason, as most readers already know. The minority political party, luckily, has the ability to obstruct, nag, and filibuster the majority’s agenda. Otherwise, those in absolute power would run wild — or, in other words, you all would be living that Super Bowl Audi commercial by now. … [T]oday’s argument that the ruling party doesn’t have enough power is a reflection of a nearly spiritual belief in the wonders of government, not democracy.” –columnist David Harsanyi
“Government is taking us a long way down the Road to Serfdom. That doesn’t just mean that more of us must work for the government. It means that we are changing from independent, self-responsible people into a submissive flock. The welfare state kills the creative spirit. F.A. Hayek, an Austrian economist living in Britain, wrote ‘The Road to Serfdom’ in 1944 as a warning that central economic planning would extinguish freedom. … Hayek meant that governments can’t plan economies without planning people’s lives. After all, an economy is just individuals engaging in exchanges. The scientific-sounding language of President Obama’s economic planning hides the fact that people must shelve their own plans in favor of government’s single plan. At the beginning of ‘The Road to Serfdom,’ Hayek acknowledges that mere material wealth is not all that’s at stake when the government controls our lives: ‘The most important change … is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people.’ This shouldn’t be controversial. If government relieves us of the responsibility of living by bailing us out, character will atrophy. The welfare state, however good its intentions of creating material equality, can’t help but make us dependent. That changes the psychology of society. According to the Tax Foundation, 60 percent of the population now gets more in government benefits than it pays in taxes. What does it say about a society in which more than half the people live at the expense of the rest?” –columnist John Stossel
The Tel-O-Prompter of the United States
Glacier? What glacier?
Conservative Libertarian Outpost 