In an editorial board interview with Breitbart.com, Rick Tyler, a former spokesman for Newt Gingrich and current senior adviser to Mr. Gingrich’s Winning Our Future Super PAC, told Editor-in-Chief Joel Pollak he was unsure whether the Gingrich Super PAC would return and refuse any contributions it has or will receive from employees of Bain Capital, the company Mitt Romney previously ran.

“I’m not prepared to comment on that right now,” said Mr. Tyler. “I hadn’t even contemplated that idea… I don’t know. I don’t know that there are any Bain employees giving money. I don’t really have an answer for you. I don’t have an adequate answer for you.”

Pollak raised the question as Gingrich and his Super PAC have targeted Romney’s tenure as CEO of Bain Capital, casting Bain as a firm of corporate raiders whose business model was allegedly to “loot” American companies and ship jobs overseas. Logically, Pollak implied, if Bain is evil, then Winning the Future should return and refuse contributions connected to Bain.

It is unknown whether Gingrich’s Super PAC, “Winning the Future,” has in fact received donations from Bain employees or investors, since it is not due to report its contributions to the Federal Election Commission until January 31.

On Wednesday, Winning Our Future is set to release a movie titled When Mitt Romney Came to Town in advance of the Republican South Carolina primary. The Washington Post says the film, which was made by a former Romney advertising adviser, “savages” Mr. Romney’s record as head of Bain Capital. The film’s website describes Mr. Romney as a “predatory corporate raider” who “looked for businesses he could pick apart.”

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While many conservatives rightly admire Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul’s principled economic and constitutional views, they are often bamboozled, even appalled, by the Texan’s defense and foreign policy ideas.

Ron Paul

It seems, that when it comes to defense, Ron Paul is stuck in 1776. He seems not to realize that America’s enemies, real or potential, Russia and China, and Iran chief among them, have a very long reach. The continental US is only partially protected by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans . The enemy can now attack the American homeland with ICBMs, biological weapons, cyber warfare, dirty bombs smuggled across the Mexican border – any number of deadly methods of mass destruction.

Just as frontier forts would have outposts to warn of Indian attack, the US needs people all over the world to protect not just her friends and allies, but the American homeland itself.

Why then does Ron Paul, a man so supremely rational in many areas, have such a blind spot when it comes to US national security?

The answer, in my opinion, is that Ron Paul’s justified distrust at the growth of government power in many unconstitutional areas, has irrationally created an antipathy to Federal Government activity in one of its few legitimate areas – national defense.

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Big Government has learned that Corporal Jesse Thorsen, 28, who promoted presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) while in uniform during yesterday’s Iowa caucuses, is being probed by his Army Reserve unit for violation of Department of Defense Regulations.

Members of the U.S. armed forces are prohibited by Department of Defense Directive 1344.10 from campaigning or participating in public political activities while in uniform. The purpose of the directive is to preserve the political independence of the military.

Big Government has confirmed through defense sources that Cpl. Thorsen is a combat engineer in the 402nd Engineer Company of the 372nd Engineer Brigade, which is a U.S. Army Reserve brigade.

CNN has reported that Cpl. Thorsen is “active duty,” but defense sources indicated that he apparently is not.

Pentagon spokesperson George Wright spoke to Big Government:

I can share with you the Army uniform is not in keeping with the letter or spirit of the DOD instruction on political activities. It’s a policy violation. Investigation is an extreme word, I believe the unit is looking into it, they’re aware and they’re considering the next step, but it would be speculative to discuss the potential action of where we are right now. We’re aware that he appeared at that rally and spoke on stage–I mean we’ve seen the tape. He’s a member of the 402^nd engineer company of the 372^nd engineer brigade of the U.S. Army Reserve in Des Moines, Iowa. I don’t know what his MOS–military occupational specialty–is. I don’t know if he had a break in service or been an active reservist or what.

U.S. Army Reserve Major Angel Wallace confirmed that Cpl. Thorsen is not on active duty:

He is not active, he has been confirmed in reserve status as of this afternoon. We got that information, he was not in an active status as of yesterday when he did those interviews. He was in a reserve status all along and the last time he’s been on orders was back in October so he was in his traditional reserve status. There is a potential violation. It depends on your MOS because some MOS’s have a larger ability for upward promotion so on that you’d have to draw your own conclusion. He was with the National Guard prior to joining the national reserve. He works with an engineer unit. We have him in a currently combat engineer position, it would be groundwork level. We’re trying to give the command their time necessary to figure out how they want to manage the issue, giving them the time to have dialogue.

Cpl. Thorsen first attempted to speak in favor of Ron Paul on CNN during live coverage of the Iowa caucus. He was introduced by reporter Dana Bash as “active duty U.S. military” as he tried to explain–while in uniform–why he supported Ron Paul and his foreign policy.

(The interview was cut off halfway through, fueling conspiracy theories among Paul supporters and their allies in the press.)

Later, Ron Paul brought Cpl. Thorsen to the podium at his campaign headquarters to deliver a rousing speech–again in uniform, and again in violation of regulations.

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Progressives are hoping to rock the vote in the 2012 Iowa caucuses… by voting for Ron Paul.

Photo source: waznmentobe.com

The reliably left-wing Mother Jones recently ran a story asking if Iowa progressives were Ron Paul’s wildcard in the race.  The story pointed to supporters like Francis Thicke, an organic farmer from Fairfield, Iowa, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for secretary of agriculture in 2010.

On Tuesday, Thicke announced his support for Paul ”to keep his voice for peace and his voice to reduce the military in the debate, because he will challenge the other Republican candidates.” Thicke promised his Democratic Party county chairman that he would vote for Obama over Paul without a doubt, because he doesn’t support dismantling the government. “This is a tactical thing” to expand voters’ awareness, Thicke told Mother Jones.

These tactical shenanigans might seem to echo “Operation Chaos,” the Rush Limbaugh operation that saw Republicans crossing over to vote for Hilary in the 2008 Democratic primary–except that Operation Chaos was largely applied to primaries, not to caucuses.

I’ve already written about Occupy the Caucuses’s Ed Fallon, a former Democratic candidate for governor-turned-progressive gadfly and arrested protestor. Fallon has listed his endorsements for the 2012 caucuses–and they include Ron Paul, among other “less extreme” Republicans (by which he means those more palatable to the left).

The Nation writes today that Fallon has been plotting to upend the caucuses by having progressives send an “anti-war, pro-civil liberties” message in the 2012 caucuses: (more…)

Senate Republicans have been holding up the confirmation of Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until changes to the agency’s structure are made to provide oversight and accountability at the agency. But sources from inside the Capitol tell Capitol Confidential that a recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the unconstitutional CFPB could come as early as tomorrow.

“We have been hearing consistently from the Senate offices that the President is considering a recess appointment of Richard Cordray along with a slew of other controversial nominees in the brief period between the two sessions of Congress,” a key Senate source said. “Now we are hearing from Senior Democrat staffers that something big is coming tomorrow [Jan 4].”

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution provides the president with the power to “fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate.” The problem for the president and his liberal allies is that the Senate has not recessed and technically remains in session. However, liberal groups are pressing the White House to invoke the “Roosevelt Option” to stack key government positions with radicals ready to carry out an anti-business, pro-big labor regulatory agenda. The Roosevelt Option is coined from the actions of Teddy Roosevelt who in 1903, in a split-second between two congressional sessions of Congress, made more than 100 recess appointments. In 2012, Congress will need to move from the First Session of this current Congress to the Second Session. Liberals claim the fraction of a second between the sessions is enough to trigger presidential power.

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Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2011 list of Washington’s “Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The members of the Obama Administration on the list, in alphabetical order, include:

• Attorney General Eric Holder
• President Barack Obama

Dishonorable Mentions for 2011 include:

• Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano
• Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius

Attorney General Eric Holder: Attorney General Eric Holder now operates the most politicized and ideological Department of Justice (DOJ) in recent history. And revelations from the Operation Fast and Furious scandal suggest that programs approved by the Holder DOJ may have resulted in the needless deaths of many, including a federal law enforcement officer.

Fast and Furious was a DOJ/Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “gun-running” operation in which guns were sold to Mexican drug cartels and others, apparently in hopes that the guns would end up at crime scenes. This reckless insanity seems to have resulted in, among other crimes, the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed in a shootout with Mexican criminals in December 2010. Fast and Furious guns were found at the scene of his death.

The Fast and Furious operation by itself should have resulted in Holder’s resignation, but it is the cover-up that has prompted serious calls for Holder’s ouster. (more…)

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2011 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The members of the Senate on the list include:

Former Senator John Ensign (R-NV)

Dishonorable Mentions for 2011 include:

• Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC)

Former Senator John Ensign (R-NV): John Ensign, former U.S. Senator from Nevada and former Chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, was forced to resign from office in May 2011 as the result of an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee. In a scandal that first broke in 2009, Senator Ensign publicly admitted to an affair with the wife of long-time staffer Douglas Hampton. Ensign then allegedly tried to cover up the affair by bribing the couple with lucrative gifts and political favors.

According to The New York Times, after Hampton discovered the affair involving his wife Cynthia, the senator bought his silence by giving him “a strong boost into a lobbying career.” Ensign asked political backers to find Hampton a job. “Payments of $96,000 to the Hamptons also were made by Senator Ensign’s parents, who insist this was a gift, not hush money. Once a lobbying job was secured, Senator Ensign and his chief of staff continued to help Mr. Hampton, advocating his clients’ cases directly with federal agencies.”

These lobbying activities seemingly violated the law related to the Senate’s “cooling off” period for lobbyists. According to Senate rules, former Senate aides “may not lobby the Member for whom he worked or that Member’s staff for a period of one year after leaving [their] position.” Hampton began to lobby Ensign’s office immediately upon leaving his job on Capitol Hill. (more…)

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2011 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The members of the House of Representatives on the list, in alphabetical order, include:

• Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
• Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
• Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
• Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA)
• Rep. David Rivera (R-FL)
• Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
• Rep. Don Young (R-AK)

Dishonorable Mentions for 2011 include:

• Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
• Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA)
• Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
• Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
• Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY)

Spencer Bachus (R-AL): He has become the face of a congressional “insider trading” scandal that has rocked the Washington establishment as 2011 draws to a close. Rep. Spencer Bachus, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was one of the principal targets of a 60 Minutes investigative report on the scandal, which aired on CBS in September 2011.

The report was based, at least in part, on the book Throw Them All Out by author Peter Schweizer, which outed a slew of members of Congress who allegedly profited in the financial markets by trading on insider information. Bachus was not the only congressman cited by 60 Minutes, others included Speaker of the House John Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, but the Alabama Republican stood out for his remarkable “good fortune” in shorting the stock market. (more…)

Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of House Minority Leader and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, told Big Government this week that her mother wants to leave Congress–and that she remains in Washington only at the behest of her campaign donors.

During a telephone interview, Ms. Pelosi–speaking from a friend’s home in New York City–described her mother’s predicament:

She would retire right now, if the donors she has didn’t want her to stay so badly. They know she wants to leave, though. They think she’s destined for the wilderness. She has very few days left. She’s 71, she wants to have a life, she’s done. It’s obligation, that’s all I’m saying.

Pelosi’s revelation is significant, given that her mother pushed to serve as Minority Leader after the Democrats’ historic losses in the 2010 midterm elections, and that many Democrats–including President Barack Obama–are campaigning on the expectation that she will be restored as Speaker if they can retake the House in 2012.

(more…)

I am pleased to announce the winner of the First Annual Breitbart “Ambiguous Entity of the Year” award.

Our choice was inspired by the most under-reported story of the year: the dark side of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which the media attempted to hide.

From its origins, the Occupy movement has been riddled by rapes, sexual assaults, and countless other serious crimes–many of which were not reported to police because Occupy organizers understood that public police reports and media dispatches about crimes would hurt the movement’s image.

And, as one Occupier noted, “This is a battle over images, not just over the park.”

Had the Tea Party been ravaged by rapes, rampant drug use, vandalism, or assaults, those crimes would not only have been over-reported, they would have stopped the Tea Party in its tracks.

The mainstream media did its best to invent Tea Party misdeeds–imaginary “N-words” and all–where none existed. Prominent celebrities, athletes—even conservative ones, who support the Tea Party’s aims—have kept a low profile in the Tea Party for fear of being judged by the mainstream media’s double standard.

Yet the media-savvy, media-embraced Occupy movement used shout-outs from President Obama, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, rap impresario Russell Simmons, Alec Baldwin, Kanye West, Susan Sarandon, Roseanne Barr, Sean Lennon, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Tim Robbins, and Anne Hathaway to hide what was really going on at the makeshift encampments. (more…)

On the evening of Sept. 16, 2009, I was invited to a function for Rand Paul’s U.S. Senate campaign at the headquarters of Americans for Tax Reform.

I had been invited by a friend of mine via Facebook who was a passionate supporter of Ron Paul. Within minutes of arriving, I saw Rep. Paul enter the room, followed by an entourage of several college students.

I immediately walked up to Paul and introduced myself, and Paul smiled at me and shook my hand. I told him that I had always wanted to ask him a question, and that it was a hypothetical question, but I would appreciate his answer nonetheless. Paul smiled, and welcomed the question. At this point there were about 15 people surrounding us, listening.

And so I asked Congressman Paul: if he were President of the United States during World War II, and as president he knew what we now know about the Holocaust, but the Third Reich presented no threat to the U.S., would he have sent American troops to Nazi Germany purely as a moral imperative to save the Jews?

And the Congressman answered:

“No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t risk American lives to do that. If someone wants to do that on their own because they want to do that, well, that’s fine, but I wouldn’t do that.”

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The Occupy movement may have been kicked out of nearly every one of their makeshift encampments this fall, but don’t worry. They are counting on unions to keep them nice and warm this winter, and that includes the United Federation of Teachers union, which forces New York City to hemorrhage tax dollars at the expense of children’s education.

The Occupy movement had little concern about the effect they had on other people or the costs that they racked up. If you’re going to have a revolution, after all, you need to break a few eggs — other people’s eggs, apparently. But for gosh sakes, don’t ask the Occupiers to get chilly!  In a recent spate of email correspondence, John McGloin (who we featured on Big Government weeks ago) gives the weather report and makes lemonade from lemons.

This is from the email exchange between a few Occupy insiders…

We should not be fighting nature when it is unnecessary.  It is cold outside and everything slows down in the cold.  We don’t need to hibernate, but we don’t need to pretend its [sic] September.  It is important to remember that occupation is a tactic, not the goal. Although there were definite advantages to having a centralized place on the ground, our movement doesn’t depend on centralization, and in many ways Bloomberg did us a favor.

If you’re going to overthrow the entire capitalist system, you can’t fight nature and you obviously need a decent meeting space. One great idea – hold meetings in storage locker! Luckily, the United Federation of Teachers has provided just such spot for Occupy. (more…)

Tom Cotton, born and raised in rural Arkansas, is also a Harvard graduate (college and law school), an experienced lawyer and management consultant, and a U.S. Army veteran with combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s a conservative with a grounding in political philosophy and a sense of humor. He’s running for the newly-open seat in Arkansas’s newly-redrawn fourth congressional district, which has a Cook rating of R+8.

In short: Tom Cotton is one of the best candidates running for Congress this election cycle–and possibly ever.

If he wins the Republican primary on May 22, 2012, he will likely go on to win the seat–and he will likely serve for a very long time. Given the fact that Cotton is only in his mid-30s, and with his impressive record, he is likely to be a force in Republican politics for many decades, shaping the future of the party and the country. (more…)

With just a few shopping days until Christmas, “You’ve Been Gored” offers….

…Holiday Ideas for Green Grinches & Climate Change Believers!

CCB – that’s Climate Change Belief – is a religion. It has a God (Gore) and prophets/saints (DiCaprio, Sting), but where are the holidays? Christmas and Chanukah offer great reasons to eat, drink and get crazy. But ALpostles, convinced that all human activity damages Gaia, are such a gloomy  bunch.

So enviro-doomsayers, pull up an old cable spool next to the artificial, non-denominational log, grab a bowl of recycled waste-punch and get in the spirit with these fun holiday ideas. (more…)

We are currently having a rather asinine federal tax rate debate – how to offset on the federal ledger the one year extension of the payroll tax diminishment.

Lost, sadly, is the discussion of whether or not we should be so doing.

This is in fact not a “tax cut” at all – not in the income tax sense of the word.  It is a reduction in the payments made to the Social Security program (SSI).

A reduction which – definitively – does nothing to create jobs or “stimulate” the economy.

Because no one in the private sector makes any permanent decision based upon temporary government policy.

If they can’t afford to permanently hire you, a temporary tax cut doesn’t make it any more feasible.  A part of why our egregious unemployment problem has persisted under the current, temporarily lower payroll tax rates.

This lack of policy permanence – which has been rampant throughout the Olympic-ly overactive Obama Administration – is a large contributor to the uncertainty that has plagued us and our economy lo these last nearly three years.

Meanwhile, the per person Social Security payment reduction is tiny – about $20 a week.

Keynesian dreams aside, government spending doesn’t “stimulate” the economy.  2009’s $787 billion – plus inordinate interest – didn’t.  Twenty bucks a week per employee certainly won’t.

(more…)

Photo credit: Bill Clark/Roll Call

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), chair of the House Budget Committee, also leads the Prosperity PAC, a political action committee devoted to supporting his ideas for reform and to helping candidates who share them.

As the 2012 election approaches, Rep. Ryan is focuing his Prosperity PAC on grassroots education initiatives designed to change the terrain of national debate about the country’s fiscal future, and to elect reform-minded candidates to Congress.

Recently, the Prosperity PAC released a new memorandum on health care policy. It shows that health care costs are the primary cause of rising national debt, and proposes patient-centered, market driven solutions to reduce those costs.

Specifically, the Prosperity PAC advocates premium support for Medicare, block grants to states for Medicaid, and tax reform that will enable patients to buy portable insurance plans.

I spoke with Rep. Ryan this morning about the Prosperity PAC’s latest effort.

Tell us about what the Prosperity PAC is doing about health care policy.

We’re trying to get activists informed and educated about what it takes to repeal and replace the President’s health care law, how health care costs are a driver of debt, and how health care policy is an indicator of economic and personal freedom in the future.

Our purpose is to get activists motivated, to bring people to Congress who will fight for these reforms–not those who will go wobbly when things get tough. We want to get committed reformers to Congress to help stave off a debt crisis, and to get grassroots activists informed about what changes are necessary.

The Supreme Court is going to rule on ObamaCare this term. If all or part of the law is repealed, would that change your agenda?

Even if we assume that in June 2012, the whole thing goes down, we are not going to get an agreement on new legislation with this President and this Senate in the fall of a presidential election. What we have to do is get Republican candidates to commit to an agreement on reform so that when we win next November, it will be a win for limited government and economic freedom. We believe that health care is the lynchpin of it all, and so during the campaign season is when you want make sure we have men and women running for Congress who know the stakes, who are ready and willing to do the right thing, and who are committed so that when they get to Washington they follow through.

Let’s consider several scenarios. Suppose President Obama wins re-election with a Republican Congress– (more…)

Two weeks ago, Andrew Breitbart called me and laughingly told me that he had just boarded a plane and wanted me to guess who he had passed in first class as he made his way to his coach seat.

I immediately guessed that it was someone who publicly stands in “solidarity” with “the 99%” as he or she sips chardonnay in seats only the 1% can typically afford. It turned out to be Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink, enjoying the good life.

Andrew and I shared a laugh as we agreed that the ironic pattern of wealthy liberals critiquing “the rich” while simultaneously living high on the hog was just too rich in itself.

And Andrew wondered aloud how someone who flies coach, as he travels multiple times a week, gets attacked as a rich and uncaring capitalist, while someone like Jodie Evans can fly first class and still relish her undying support from lefties.

Sadly, I both comprehend the answer and have experienced such moments of clear contradiction–with Jodie Evans herself.

Years ago, I was asked by anarchist Lisa Fithian to help her shut down the 2004 Halliburton shareholders’ meeting. She dispatched me and another young activist to go to the intended site of the meeting, specifically the Four Seasons Hotel in Houston. We followed our directions and scoped out the entrances and exits. We mapped out every possible way to shut the program down and to prevent access to the building or meeting room.

(more…)

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) announced today that he will retire from Congress at the end of his term. Frank cited a series of scandals as his reasons for leaving–from the prostitution ring that ran from his apartment in the late 1980s; to his role in placing his then-boyfriend in a job at government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae in the 1990s, while Frank was on the House Financial Services Committee; to new questions raised today about Frank’s potential involvement in the unfolding insider trading scandal in Congress.

Frank finally apologized for his role in the housing bubble that led to the financial crisis of 2007-8 and set the stage for the worst recession since the Great Depression. Frank had shielded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from regulation, which in turn encouraged banks and buyers to embrace unstable mortgages. These were repackaged and sold as securities whose instability was masked due to their implicit government guarantees.

That’s not actually what happened today, though it is what should have happened long ago. Instead, Frank is retiring because he barely survived a tough challenge by Sean Bielat in the 2010 elections, because redistricting will make it harder for him to hold onto his seat, and because he cannot foresee Democrats re-taking the House. The road ahead is rough, and Frank believes he has better–perhaps more lucrative–things to do.

I am not celebrating Frank’s departure–partly because it is long overdue, partly because it would have been more satisfying to see him defeated, and partly because he is somewhat responsible for launching my political career in an exchange that went viral on YouTube:

As I recalled in Jonah Goldberg’s anthology, Proud to Be Right (HarperCollins 2010): (more…)

SAFE. End of story.

Please read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 [Editor: Please link to each]

Contrary to recent media reports, the Brazilian Blowout hair treatment is safe for use.  Here is a review of all the studies done on Brazilian Blowout.

Oregon OSHA:  Pass

Federal OSHA:  Pass

Health Sciences Associates:  Pass

Dr. James Haw – USC: Pass

FDA:  Conducted no studies

ChemRisk: Too much product used = faulty study

Brazilian Blowout passed every single properly performed study for both state and federal short-term and long-term exposure limits, known as the Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL – an 8-hour time-weighted average) and Short-Term Exposure Limit (STEL – a 15 minute exposure measurement).

So why the witch hunt on Brazilian Blowout?  The answers are simple:

1) Government Bias

As described in Part 1 [Editor: Please link], Oregon OSHA is guilty of :

• Equating methylene glycol with formaldehyde in contradiction of all accepted scientific nomenclature methods.  Doing so allowed them to…
• Claim extremely high levels of formaldehyde in the product.
• Ideological bias, as at least one scientist who authored the study aligns himself with a hardcore Liberal Senator known as an environmental activist.
• Editorializing what should be a neutral scientific report, thus demonstrating its own bias.
• Deliberately taking samples longer than 15 minutes and applying those results to 15 minute periods.
• Issuing a false and misleading press release that did not report the product actually passed the PEL and STEL tests.

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My six year-old, parroting her teacher, proclaimed, “If we don’t fix Climate Change, we’re all gonna die!” At that moment, I decided to write YOU’VE BEEN GORED, the book that lampoons Al Gore and his hypocritical “ALpostles.”

The environment has become the hottest political issue of our time. And when anything is politicized, falsehood flourishes. The volume of lies, disinformation, propaganda, hypocrisy and exaggeration far exceeds the quantity of material pollutants – and is more hazardous.

Green has become the convenient, safe, lucrative cause for politicians, corporate weasels, celebrity eco-frauds, power-hungry government agencies and fast-buck swindlers hustling everything from gas-to-water engine conversion plans to carbon offset credits.

There’s a combination gold-rush/Armageddon’s a-comin’ zeitgeist that’s very troubling. It’s like watching the panicked crowd flee from Godzilla. Their mindless fear is more dangerous than the monster.

Statistics of doom are conjured and accepted without vetting. Idiotic “solutions” are clutched in desperation. Most terrifying of all, leaders are anointed and followed — without scrutiny.

There’s more mass hysteria in the air than particulate matter. And that hysteria is stoked by people with ulterior motives – money and power.

Green rhetoric has morphed into dogma. Totalitarian semantics force an agenda on those less educated or wary. One who disagrees is labeled a denier – a pejorative term that invalidates an opinion since only “truth” can be denied.

With Bolshevik fervor they scream for the heads of non-believers. Jobs are lost, professional credentials are revoked, jail time will be served. Non-compliance is not tolerated. Mere tolerance is not tolerated. One must embrace the new creed.

It’s time to step back, set up the bullshit filter (make sure it’s on full screen), and carefully evaluate the message. And even more carefully, examine the messengers.

Over the next several weeks, BigGovernment.com will serialize portions of YOU’VE BEEN GORED.

(more…)