Archive for November, 2010

Bjorn  Lomborg

What Conservatives (and Everybody Else) Could Learn From ‘Cool It’

by Bjorn Lomborg

For nearly two decades now, people have been arguing about climate change and getting nowhere. Right-wingers argue that global warming is a hoax based on unsubstantiated science, while left-wingers insist that not only is it real but unless we spend everything we have and more trying to stop it, the world will end tomorrow.

To which I say, “Stop—you’re both wrong!”

This, in a nutshell, is the message of the new documentary about me and my work that opens nationwide on Nov. 12. It’s called “Cool It” and, yes, the title is meant to be clever. The idea is that we do need to cool down the planet, but in order to do it sensibly we first need to cool it ourselves. That is, we need to dispense with both the anti-scientific denialism and the Al Gore-ish fear-mongering. Instead, what we should be doing is facing facts—and responding to them not with rhetoric but with smarter, more rational policies.


The first fact we need to acknowledge is the reality of global warming. Like it or not, the data is abundantly clear that man-made greenhouse gases have been building up in the atmosphere for decades if not centuries, with the result that global temperatures are rising. Yes, the “Climate-gate” emails and the disclosure of funny business at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change exposed some deeply disturbing academic chicanery and prejudice at some supposedly prestigious institutions. However, these revelations did nothing to undermine the fundamental scientific basis of global warming. What they did call into question were many of the more extreme predictions about global warming’s likely impact—such as the idea that all the Himalayan glaciers were about to disappear (they’re not) or that half the Amazon rain forest would soon be destroyed (not likely).

Of course, these extreme predictions are at the heart of the mainstream environmental movement’s position on climate policy. And this brings us to another set of facts we need to face: that while global warming is real, it is not quite the imminent catastrophe so many climate activists would have us believe.

There may be some truth to the notion that in order to get people to focus on a problem, you need to scare the pants off them. But while worst-case scenarios may be a great way to get the public’s attention, they are a terrible basis for making public policy. If you believe that the southwest U.S. is about to become another dustbowl (as Paul Krugman has insisted) or that Greenland and Antarctica are on the verge of becoming huge piles of slush (as Al Gore would have us believe), of course you’re going to argue that we should do everything we can to eliminate carbon emissions as quickly as possible—even if that means amazingly costly and ineffective government policies. (more…)

Liberty Chick

Dear Tides Founder: Why Does Soros Hate the Right?

by Liberty Chick

Last week, Drummond Pike took his FOX News fight to a whole new level, this time painting all of the right with a scarlet letter. Coincidentally, Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald had also published a similar piece in much the same vein, only a week prior.

In his opinion contribution piece to Politico titled “Why Does the Right Hate Soros?”, the founder and CEO of Tides Foundation pondered aloud the imaginary reasons he’s fabricated in his mind for the animosity toward the Hungarian born billionaire.

His conclusion? Because we hate immigrants.

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This is the typical left. When you don’t get the response you want, inject a new element of manufactured hate into the mix – when you can’t make it about race, make it about immigration. Drummond Pike even decided to step up the rhetoric, implying that George Soros is in danger because of right-wing media outlets and bloggers. But the sad truth behind this piece, behind all of these public letters, boycotts and petitions is that they are all coordinated, and they are all aimed at turning the public opinion against those who do not share the ideals of the leftist agenda.

Some highlights from Pike’s opinion piece:

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Paul A. Rahe

Beyond the Liberal Spin: The Realignment Underway

by Paul A. Rahe

The election is now over and the results are in – except in Alaska, Colorado, Washington, and a congressional district here and there. And one by one the usual suspects are weighing in with their comments. Most of these are utterly predictable, and some are downright mendacious, as one would expect.

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When President Obama denied that the biggest Republican victory since the 1920s was a referendum on the policies embraced by his party and his administration, he was either lying or deep in denial – and the same thing can be said about The New York Times, which opined yesterday in an utterly predictable manner that – while “Tuesday’s election was indeed a ’shellacking’ for the Democrats, as President Obama admitted after a long night of bad news” – it “was hardly an order from the American people to discard the progress of the last two years and start over again.”

Mr. Obama was on target when he said voters howled in frustration at the slow pace of economic recovery and job creation. To borrow his running automotive metaphor, voters threw the keys at Republicans and told them to drive for a while, but gave almost no indication of what direction to drive in.

To believe this, one would have to be convinced that the voters were unaware that the Republicans were committed to repealing and replacing Obamacare, to extending the Bush tax cuts, and to reducing federal expenditures to the level of 2008. To argue its truth, one would have to ignore the Pledge to America – which is, of course, what our President and our erstwhile newspaper of record did.

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Publius

Friday Free-for-All: Oversight Edition

by Publius

The GOP won something else Tuesday night; subpoena power. Today is the one year anniversary of the Ft. Hood shooting. Might be a good place to start an investigation.

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Adam B.   Schaeffer

All of Your Money Belongs to the State

by Adam B. Schaeffer

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments in an appeal of a 9th Circuit decision, Winn v Garriott, a challenge to one of Arizona’s education tax credit programs. It’s been getting more press than I’d expected, in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today. That’s great news, because the case is far more important than just saving a program that improves education and expands educational freedom.

supreme-court

The 9th Circuit’s reasoning arrogates to the state all property , dissolving the distinction between public and private funds as well as public and private choices. It is a disturbing, dangerous decision.

They assert that tax cuts are the equivalent of government funds, a conclusion possible only if one assumes that all personal income belongs by default to the state rather than to the individual who earned the money. It asserts as well that when taxpayers and parents privately choose to support religious educational organizations, they are in violation of the First Amendment. This reasoning blatantly ignores the logic and plain meaning of the 2002 Zelman decision upholding school vouchers, among others.

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Andrew Breitbart

Why Arianna Huffington Played The Race Card (Por qué Arianna Huffington Jugó La Tarjeta de Raza)

by Andrew Breitbart

UPDATED***
forbes arianna

The left is afraid of the election of Marco Rubio as Senator of Florida in the exact same way as they were afraid of Sarah Palin when she was chosen as the Vice Presidential nominee by John McCain. It has been clear from the beginning that both are ascendant as potential game-changing political stars and need to be destroyed. So it’s no surprise that Arianna Huffington tweeted the following:
huffThe reason why so few Senators are chosen as Presidential nominees is that the job is not an executive position; Governors tend to be preferable because they have executive experience. Rubio was just elected to to vote “yes” or “no” on things, which is why Arianna’s analogy of “dictator” is incomprehensible and utterly unrelated to his leadership position. There is nothing dictator-like about a Senator. So what exactly was the Queen of social news media’s tweet really about? (more…)

Dan  Riehl

The Path To Victory For Joe Miller In Alaska

by Dan Riehl

Based upon current laws and regulations, there is a reasonable path to victory for Republican Joe Miller in the contentious U.S. Senate race in Alaska; however, with a very pro-Murkowski Lt. Governor, Craig Campbell, operating much like a state Secretary of State, a liberal court system and Murkowski tapping members of Bush’s Florida 2000 legal team, it’s unlikely to be as straightforward as it should be.

joe-miller-alaska

According to recent numbers via the Washington Post, there are 83,201 write-in votes which, if all were legitimately cast for Murkowski, she would lead Miller, who stands at 69,762, by 13439 votes. Citing a late nineties race for Governor in which the Republican backed nominee ran as a write-in candidate, as much as 5% of all write-in ballots could be invalid. Were that percentage to apply here, as many as 4,000 potential Murkowski votes could be invalidated, bringing Murkowski’s presumed advantage down to under 10,000 votes.

Additionally, the Division of Elections has received 26,306 absentee ballots still needing to be counted and 10,645 questioned ballots. It’s also possible that some double voting occurred given that some votes believe to favor Murkowski may have been sent into the wrong precinct, while some number of those voters may have also had their votes counted in their home district. A careful final counting should address any issues there.

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SusanAnne Hiller

The People’s Firewall: Republican-Controlled Governorships and State Legislatures

by SusanAnne Hiller

The progressive Obama agenda has become so toxic, even at the state level, Reuters reports that the people not only flipped the DC House, but also their governorships, state houses, and entire legislatures.

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This is important for two reasons:  redistricting and the ability to flex state’s rights against the Obama administration, which, as we know, has no problem suing states.  From Reuters:

In most states, legislatures will be redrawing electoral districts for the U.S. House — an adjustment of boundaries every 10 years that tends to favor the party in charge in each state.

The big Republican Party wins at the state level give it the edge in reinforcing its strength in the U.S. House.

Republicans took control of at least 18 state chambers from Democrats, according to Tim Storey, an elections analyst at the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures.

A firewall indeed.  There were significant gains by the Republicans as summarized over at RedState that bear repeating:

The whole of the Maine legislator has flipped to the GOP. Several people I have talked to said such a deep and thorough shift to any one party has not happened in one election in the past 100 years.

[snip]

GOP has moved to the right. More so, the Republicans picking up, in the worst case, seven seats is historically strong.

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Reason TV

Happy Meals Banned in San Francisco! Reason.tv’s Nanny of the Month for October 2010

by Reason TV

Last month the food police sued a North Carolina man for growing fresh vegetables, and this month San Francisco’s food cops have committed a different kind of atrocity by making the City by the Bay the first major metropolis to ban toys in happy meals.

This month’s top busybody is the pol who sponsored the ordinance to make happy meals sad, the one who hopes his “food justice” agenda goes nationwide.

Presenting the Nanny of the Month for October 2010: San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar!

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Dan  Riehl

Texas A and M Student Battle Over Illegal Alien Tuition Comes To A Head

by Dan Riehl

If a resident of Oklahoma wants to attend Texas A and M, they can expect a tuition bill of approximately $20,000. Yet, an individual without proof of American citizenship can attend for about $4,000 provided they graduated from a Texas high school and meet certain additional requirements.

Print

A non-binding bill to end the program has now been passed by the student senate - here. The Texas A and M measure wouldn’t change Texas law. The measure may end up provoking debate in the state capital.

A bill to clarify what demographics receive in-state tuition and oppose measures to give in-state tuition to persons residing in the United States illegally.

Additional news coverage is available here and here.

COLLEGE STATION – A vote at Texas A and M University has pitted students against each other.

Thursday night, student senators approved a bill officially opposing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.

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Gregg Opelka

Jon Stewart, The Coffee Party, and the Insanity of Sanity

by Gregg Opelka

Jon Stewart’s October 30th bout of rally envy—despite the comedian’s rickety attempts to disavow the patently invidious nature of the convocation—was hubristically (not to mention wishfully) titled “Restoring Sanity.” (Because of its obvious facetiousness, the Colbertian “Restoring Fear” portion of the event deserves no mention here.)

stewart and colbert

The danger of Stewart’s shedding his Daily Show mask of irony and becoming a full-fledged, Obama-style community-organizing activist is that in officially adopting the views of one political party over another, he devalues the only currency of the satirist—impartiality. Because human folly is an equal opportunity character flaw, the successful satirist must not take sides. He must be able to sling arrows in all directions, else the only thing he has to peddle—the precious honesty of his criticism—is called into question. A satirist who exposes the foibles of one political party and excuses those of the other is as useful as a bus that only goes in one direction. The bus company itself would soon also only go in one direction—out of business.


Those (I suspect Mr. Stewart is among them) who claim that the “Restoring Rally” was apolitical—just  a modern-day Woodstock with shorter hair and fewer hallucinogens, a Peace Train plea for reason and temperance—are either dupes or practitioners of a cunning form of political artifice.

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Publius

Fed Gamble Risks America’s Greatest Asset

by Publius

From The Daily Telegraph:

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The fresh $600bn (£372bn) infusion of quantitative easing announced on Wednesday may or may not provide a lift for beleaguered domestic demand – both Goldman Sachs and HSBC have said much more is needed to escape a real or imagined liquidity trap – but one thing it certainly does do is further debauch the currency. Never before has dollar hegemony been so much under threat.

By flooding the world economy with yet more freshly minted dollars, America further undermines faith in the greenback as an internationally reliable store of value and is thereby squandering an economic and geo-political asset of huge importance to the nation’s history.

The dollar’s reserve currency status means that America can borrow at will in its own currency from the rest of the world, and at favourable rates to boot. This privilege is being recklessly thrown away.

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Ben  Domenech

Rick Perry is Fed Up With Washington

by Ben Domenech

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In today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson, Ben Domenech and Francis Cianfrocca are joined by Texas Governor Rick Perry to talk about his new book Fed Up! – Our Fight to Save America from Washington, why Francis should move his business to Texas and whether or not Governor Perry will run for President in 2012.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment.com and Stephen Clouse and Associates. We’d also like to let you know that we’ve set up a standalone site at CoffeeandMarkets.com for easier browsing of our past broadcasts.

You can subscribe to the podcast by following the links above, and if you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington
Perry Re-elected in Texas Governor Race
Also by Rick Perry – On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting for
Governor Rick Perry on Twitter
Governor Rick Perry on Facebook
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Ernest Istook

How to Make the New Congress Work for Us

by Ernest Istook

Changing the majority party in Congress won’t change how Congress works. The American people consider both parties out-of-touch, and they demand a change in the very culture of Congress.

congress

Unless citizens demand that newly-elected Congressmen act immediately during November, they cannot expect to fix the broken system in Washington come January.  Key decisions will already be made before new members take office.

How can the system be fixed?  The first step is stop yielding excessive power to party leaders, who then control legislation by dominating chokepoints like the House Rules Committee.  Party leaders have been given too much control over the committee process.

The four years under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) demonstrates how consolidating too much power has led to ignoring the voice of the American people.   The Constitution intends that individual members of Congress would retain their autonomy from party leaders; they designed the House to be the body closest and most responsive to the people.

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Joe 'The Plumber' Wurzelbacher

The Rise of the Citizen

by Joe 'The Plumber' Wurzelbacher

Since when did it become OK to run right over the majority views of the American people?

Since never.

pelosi-reid-obama2

When Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid decided it was more important to cut deals with interest groups and each other to pass the Health Care Act than actually follow the will of the people, they betrayed their oaths of office— and they betrayed us.

At every turn Americans were misled in the politician’s zeal to deliver a brand new social program to make citizens dependent on government—and entirely political—decisions about health care. Well, here’s a little news flash for Washington power brokers, pundits and political schemers–in politics we have the last word and we will on ObamaCare.

They said that health care costs would be controlled—they weren’t. They said that taxes and private insurance premiums won’t go up—they are. They said that healthcare won’t be rationed—it will. They said that this will help, not hurt, the national economy and the national debt—it won’t.

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Publius

State Government: GOP Take Record Legislative Chambers from Dems

by Publius

From Stateline.org:

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Republicans won smashing victories in state legislatures yesterday, capturing an outright majority of the nation’s legislative seats and the largest majority for the party since 1928.

As of noon Eastern Time, Republicans had taken about 18 legislative chambers from Democrats, with more statehouses hanging in the balance. Democrats hadn’t picked up a single chamber from Republicans. So Republicans will have the upper hand when it comes to shaping state policy in the coming years. They’ll also be in charge in most states as policymakers redraw legislative and congressional district lines next year.

In historical terms, the most dramatic wins for the Republicans were in the South. As recently as 20 years ago, long after the region had begun voting Republican in presidential elections, Democrats held every Southern legislative chamber. After last night, Republicans will control a majority of the region’s legislative chambers for the first time since Reconstruction.

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Bob Ewing

How to Keep Politics a Game of Special Interests and Insiders

by Bob Ewing

Hey mom and dads, it’s election week!  Does your child like to argue?  Does he like to boss his younger siblings around?  Does he love the sound of his own voice?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, your child is a natural born politician.  Now to ensure his success in the political world, send him to Camp Politics for a three-week intensive training program:


Once he gets elected to office, the most important thing for him to learn is how to stay there.  If he does a bad job, people will want to get him out of office.  So your child will need to learn how to silence those that want to speak out against him.

Of course, this violates basic free speech rights.  But Camp Politics has figured out a sure-fire way around the First Amendment that means politics will remain a game for special interests and political insiders.

It’s called campaign finance laws.

We all know that speaking takes money.  And the only way ordinary Americans can speak out effectively about politics is to pool their resources with their friends and neighbors.  But campaign finance laws limit the amount of money people can spend on political ads and organizing and they wrap people in red tape to the point that they can’t even speak!

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Publius

Thursday Open Thread: Obama Edition

by Publius

Today, in 2008, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States.

obama-election-win

Robert Allen Bonelli

When Compromise Is Not Called For

by Robert Allen Bonelli

On September 23, 1779 in the midst of one of the bloodiest engagements in naval history, John Paul Jones was struggling against the forty-four gun Royal Navy frigate Serapis and although his own vessel was burning and sinking, Jones would not accept the British demand for surrender.  Instead Jones declared, “I have not yet begun to fight.” Little more than three hours later, the Serapis surrendered and Jones took command.

john-paul-jones

The voice of the American people was heard this November 2nd for the first time in the past two years.  The Republican Party regained control of the House of Representatives, picking up a historic sixty seats and possibly sixty-five or more seats as final votes are tallied.  Six Senate seats were gained by Republicans with another two seats possible as close contests are resolved, further diminishing Democratic political power.  The Grand Old Party (GOP) also gained a net eight governorships and nineteen State legislatures changed over from Democratic to Republican control.

In the final days leading up to the election and in the hours immediately following, the President began to call for compromise.  Really?  After taking the oath of office in January of 2009, Mr. Obama declared, “Elections have consequences and we won!” He then led his fellow Democrats on an eighteen month assault against Republicans in Congress and against the will of the American people, pushing his left-of-center agenda.  Just before this week’s election he said the Republicans can come along but, “They need to sit in the back.” He also publically referred to his opponents as “Enemies.”

Now he wants compromise, but the only compromise that the American people clearly want is for the President and the Democrats to move off their agenda and come to them.

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Ben  Domenech

Election 2010 Recap With Melissa Clouthier

by Ben Domenech

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In today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Liberty Pundits’ Melissa Clouthier to talk about yesterday’s elections, what Republicans will do going forward, and how 2012 will be impacted by who won last night.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment.com and Stephen Clouse and Associates. We’d also like to let you know that we’ve set up a standalone site at CoffeeandMarkets.com for easier browsing of our past broadcasts.

You can subscribe to the podcast by following the links above, and if you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Melissa’s podcasts at libertypundits.com
Melissa’s blog at libertypundits.net
Today’s vote was repudiation of a Washington that refuses to listen to Americans: John Boehner
CNN’s Election Center 2010 Results
TNL – Last night’s live blog of Election Day
Rick Perry wins a record third four-year term
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