Former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar Speaks On Radical Islam

Last week, Washington News Observer in collaboration with Big Government attended a speech by former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. Prime Minister Aznar illustrated the fact that while “not all Muslims are Jihadists, all Jihadists are Muslims.” Prime Minister Aznar’s party lost the 2004 election, only 3 days after the tragic events of the Madrid train bombing. His successor has since withdrawn all Spanish troops from Iraq.

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Tags: Aznar, Spain, terrorism, Washington News Observer
Posted Nov 10th 2009 at 3:56 pm in Defense, News | 2825819 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/wno/2009/11/10/former-spanish-prime-minister-aznar-speaks-on-radical-islam/Former+Spanish+Prime+Minister+Aznar+Speaks+On+Radical+Islam2009-11-10+22%3A56%3A19Washington+News+Observer

Renewable Energy: The Myth of Germany’s “Grün Energie”

On May 27, President Obama remarked to an audience gathered at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada that Americans, “pioneered solar technology, but we’ve fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in generating it, even though they get less sun than we do.  They certainly get less sun than Nevada.”  Today, Vice President Biden and a handful of Cabinet secretaries releases the Recovery through Retrofit report that will extol the virtues of green jobs and energy savings to be had if only the government had its way.

Observers of national policy may want to look at other countries’ experiences to see how they have fared with efforts to improve environmental policies.  Previous research on green jobs policies in Spain showed that costs were high and benefits short-lived.  But what of the President’s example of Germany?

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Tags: energy production, environmental regulation, Germany, green energy, green jobs
Posted Oct 19th 2009 at 7:00 am in Economics, Environment, News, Obama, Politics | 1764669 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/ptuohe/2009/10/19/renewable-energy-the-myth-of-germanys-grun-energie/Renewable+Energy%3A+The+Myth+of+Germany%27s+%22Gr%C3%BCn+Energie%222009-10-19+14%3A00%3A14Patrick++Tuohey

The Party of “No Ideas” Vs The Party of Failed Ideas – The Fight Between Conservatives and the Media on Health Reform

A friend of mine on Facebook recently wrote the following about an article on the life of the late Irving Kristol:

“Once upon a time, not too many years ago, the Republican Party was the party of ideas. Would even its staunchest supporters say so today? I think not. The sole substance of the Republican Party today is opposition to whatever the Democrats are for, period.”

Were it true, it would be damning.  Thankfully it’s not.

My friend, a former White House high-ranking employee in both the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations, grew angry, very angry, about the direction of the Republican Party under President Bush 43, something upon which I agree with him.  But, unlike him, I prefer to stay and fight for what’s right within the party I agree with most, not abandon it. He grew so angry that he voted for Obama in 2008.  Now, I don’t claim to know how any human being works internally, but I don’t understand how someone who claims to be a conservative could make that sort of switch. Simply because your side didn’t live up to their ideals doesn’t mean, to my mind, that  you switch to the side that advocates explicitly the opposite point of view.

But that’s neither here nor there. My friend, and everyone else, is free to vote for whomever they want, for whatever reason they want.  What I take issue with his the common mantra of the Left, echoed by my friend, that Republicans are out of ideas and Democrats are a fountain new ones.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Bruce Bartlett, Canada, Ed Schutz, Facebook
Posted Oct 6th 2009 at 6:00 am in Congress, Featured Story, Healthcare, Politics | 1264660 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dhunter/2009/10/06/the-party-of-no-ideas-vs-the-party-of-failed-ideas-the-fight-between-conservatives-and-the-media-on-health-reform/The+Party+of+%E2%80%9CNo+Ideas%E2%80%9D+Vs+The+Party+of+Failed+Ideas+-+The+Fight+Between+Conservatives+and+the+Media+on+Health+Reform2009-10-06+13%3A00%3A38Derek+Hunter

Grande Gobierno: Obama Uses Feds to Protect His ‘Green Jobs’ Fantasy

On numerous occasions, to tout his own agenda President Obama told America to “take a look at what’s happening in countries like Spain” to witness his model for a “green jobs” economy. Well, a team of Spaniards produced an academic study, officially of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid, which revealed that Spain’s scheme has proven a disaster.

In response, Obama’s administration provided a lesson in how Big Government can be abused when its officials are angered and embarrassed, turning its institutions on a private individual, even a foreign academic whose offense was to produce scholarly research about his own nation’s policy failures.

Here is what happened. The Spanish “green jobs” study received substantial play in the U.S. media and gained favorable attention in the Wall Street Journal’s U.S., Europe and Asia editions, among other outlets. It came up in a White House press conference, embarrassing spokesman Robert Gibbs who boasted how he disagreed with the study and its conclusions while admitting he had not read it.

The rest of administration’s three-fold response was in sum highly troubling. The benign second step was to substitute, without missing a beat, Denmark for Spain in Obama’s ritual “look at what’s happening in…” litany of our environmental superiors (though that experiment, too, has been defrocked). Then things got ugly.

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Tags: Department of Energy, Dr. Gabriel Calzada, El Condidencial, green jobs, International Energy Association
Posted Sep 28th 2009 at 9:25 am in Environment, News, Obama, Politics | 9722128 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/chorner/2009/09/28/grande-gobierno-obama-uses-feds-to-protect-his-green-jobs-story/Grande+Gobierno%3A+Obama+Uses+Feds+to+Protect+His+%27Green+Jobs%27+Fantasy2009-09-28+16%3A25%3A52Christopher+C.+Horner