Good Riddance to Obama’s Energy Mistake

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In 2015, President Obama’s EPA released the final version of a rule they called the “Clean Power Plan.”

The “CPP” was a wrong-headed mistake, guaranteed to make American power more expensive while not meaningfully cleaning anything.

EPA is now working to rectify Obama’s CPP and has unveiled a replacement called the “Affordable Clean Energy” rule.

In promulgating the CPP, EPA indulged in severe bureaucratic overreach when it went beyond the authority granted it under the Clean Air Act and issued its infamous “endangerment finding,” through which it labeled CO2, the essential gas you just exhaled, a “pollutant.”

A Manhattan Institute study found that EPA overestimated the benefits of Obama’s CPP and underestimated its costs.  In reality there is no meaningful benefit at all. The CPP would lower world temperature only 0.01 degrees Celsius by 2100 if EPA’s choice of climate modeling is accurate. Of course, such models never are!

Obama’s CPP was so egregious that no less than 27 states filed suit to block it, along with a host of others.  Even the generally reluctant Supreme Court weighed in and granted a nationwide “stay” blocking the CPP from taking effect!

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce posted seven ways they find the Affordable Clean Energy Rule to be better than Obama’s plan:

  • EPA doesn’t stray beyond the bounds of the Clean Air Act
  • States are truly in the driver’s seat
  • “Flexibility” isn’t just a tag line
  • New source review is addressed
  • Useful life considerations for coal plants are permitted
  • Emissions will continue to decline
  • Vastly improved regulatory process

The Chamber is correct that the Trump Administration’s new rule is a major improvement over Obama’s CPP. However, we believe EPA should go further and admit that its economy-wrecking CO2 “endangerment finding” was also in error, and then scrap that too!

The CPP recklessly limited America’s energy mix in ways certain to hurt consumers and industry.  CFACT senior policy analyst Bonner Cohen explains at The Hill:

Having diversified sources of power — natural gas, coal, nuclear, oil, hydroelectric and other renewables — has enabled the U.S. economy to avoid the perils of being overly dependent on one source of electricity. The CPP, by pushing utilities to shutter coal-fired power plants, seriously undermined that diversification and threatened the reliability of the grid.

EPA’s new approach empowers energy companies to use technology to solve America’s energy challenges. That’s the kind of challenge the American economy is geared to meet.

China now emits more CO2 than the U.S. and E.U. combined, while America has led the world in reducing emissions as a result of its shale energy revolution.  Over the last two years China claimed to be reducing emissions for climate policy.  That was a lie.  Chinese emissions peaked when its economy temporarily declined.  Satellite images revealed: that as soon as its economy picked back up, China went right back to building new coal plants.  Chinese coal use is set to increase four percent right away.

Restricting American coal, while China and India and others expand their use of it as quickly as their economies allow, is foolish — unless you think shifting even more manufacturing from the U.S. to Asia is a good thing.

EPA is doing the right thing by replacing Obama’s ill-conceived “Clean Power Plan” with a smarter “Affordable Clean Energy” rule.  While not perfect and improvements can still be made, it is clearly a step in the right direction.

RELATED ARTICLE: Fracking helped make the US the world’s oil king

THC Found in Breast Milk Six Days After Marijuana Use

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Marijuana study raises concerns about THC in breast milk up to six days after use

A new study from researchers at the University of California, San Diego, finds THC is present in breast milk for up to six days after nursing mothers use marijuana. This is worrisome because THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, may harm the developing brain of newborns, potentially resulting in lifelong problems that otherwise would not occur.

The study involved 50 nursing mothers who were using pot and submitted breast milk samples to researchers. The researchers found that THC remained in breast milk for up to six days after marijuana use in 34 of 54 samples. Both THC and CBD were found in five samples.

The study also presents an overview of what is known about how marijuana affects unborn and newborn babies and why its findings are important.

“Given ethical concerns, there are no randomized controlled trials on the effect of marijuana use by pregnant and lactating women,” the researchers say. And the results of other kinds of studies must be viewed with caution given the presence of confounding factors. But enough about THC’s effect on the fetus and newborns is known from animal and epidemiological studies, they say, to counsel women against marijuana use during pregnancy and while breastfeeding.

A new American Academy of Pediatrics report encourages women not to use marijuana while pregnant or breastfeeding. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists gives similar advice.

Read USA Today story here. Read Pediatrics article here.

Inside the weird and wild crusade for clean pot

The marijuana industry is a vast, toxic, and largely unregulated market – can a corporate exec and a drug dealer make it any safer?

Reporters will do anything for a story. This one found herself barreling down a California freeway at 80 mph in a driving rain with a drug dealer named Ziggy at the wheel snorting cocaine.

Ziggy, pictured above, and his partner, described as a corporate executive, started a marijuana distribution business after California legalized the drug in 2016. Their goal? To ensure the pot they distributed to dispensaries was free of contaminants.

It didn’t end well. Today, the two business partners speak to each other through their lawyers. But their story of how contaminated California pot is turns out to be as hair-raising as the drive the reporter risked her life to get.

Figuring out what the rules should be to prevent impurities from contaminating pot is nearly impossible. There are no national standards like there are for food crops. “And unfortunately, pretty much all of the marijuana in the United States is drenched in harmful chemicals,” she writes. “But let’s just say that if you like pot, you have absolutely exposed yourself to chemicals that can damage your central nervous system, mess with your hormones and give you cancer. There are toxicants in our vape pens, in our fancy prepackaged edibles and in the soil and water near many marijuana farms.”

This story will interest anyone concerned about contaminated pot.

Read Rolling Stone article here.

Marijuana growers stare down costly, burgeoning regulations

Meanwhile, marijuana growers complain about tougher regulations states are enacting to protect individuals and the environment.

  • “Massachusetts put in place strict energy regulations earlier this year pertaining to cultivation lighting that growers ‘are figuring out how to comply with.’
  • “In Colorado, cultivators now face mandatory pesticide testing.
  • “In Oregon, growers must prove they have a legal source of water. Stricter water requirements are increasing in markets across the country.
  • “In Boulder, Colorado, marijuana facilities must report energy use and offset their consumption by installing a renewable-energy facility, participating in a verified solar garden or paying into a city fund.”

It’s difficult to take such complaints seriously when pot czars are investing millions of dollars in a marijuana industry predicted to make billions.

Read MJBizDaily story here.

When Are the NFL Players Going to Stand Up for True Social Change? [+Video]

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As we approach a new season of pro football, the league and its players have yet again proven incapable of coming up with an effective response that addresses the issue of the players engaging in various levels of protests when the national anthem is played before the game.

In PR we often say that if you are explaining your actions, then you are losing the argument. The league and its players seem to be stuck on their “intent,” not on how their actions are being received by the viewing public.

They both “claim” their “intent” is to bring attention to the issue of social justice, though no one has defined what that means. So, President Donald Trump has adroitly defined the issue for them as anti-American and disrespectful to U.S. servicemen.

Whatever the league and player’s “intent” was, the public is saying that they don’t support their actions and this dichotomy is causing fans of the sport to turn away in large numbers.

Before I go any further, let me establish a simple fact that most people never bring into this conversation: NFL players are nothing more than employees. Yes, they are highly-paid, but nonetheless, they are employees.

The NFL players sign the back of the paycheck, not the front. Their employers have every right to tell them how they must behave at their place of employment: the football field.

When I worked in corporate America, I had to wear a suit and tie; this was non-negotiable. Yes, I had every right to go to my boss and tell him that requiring a Black man to wear a suit and tie was racist; and he had every right to fire me, if I didn’t follow his workplace rules.

Likewise, athletes have a right to kneel or stay in the locker room during the playing of our national anthem; but the owners have the right to take some type of disciplinary action, as well.

I often say, “Weak people take strong positions on weak issues.”

What does kneeling have to do with police brutality or other “social injustice,” the stated reasons these protests began? Their message has been drowned out by the by how most Americans have interpreted their actions as being anti-American and disrespectful to U.S. servicemen.

Again, it doesn’t matter what the players’ think or their what their intentions are, this is how their message is being received. The players and the league have let their emotions and egos get in the way of their objective.

I agree 100 percent with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott when he says, “I never protest.”

Here’s what Prescott said when he was asked about the protest over police brutality in the NFL:

“I never protest during the anthem, and I don’t think that’s the time or the venue to do so. The game of football has always brought me such peace and I think it does the same for a lot of people—a lot of people playing the game, a lot of people watching the game, a lot of people who have any impact of the the game. So, when you bring such controversy to the stadium, to the field, to the game it takes away. It takes away from that, it takes away from the joy and the love that football brings a lot of people.”

Prescott continued:

“For me, I’m all about making a change and making a difference, and I think this whole kneeling and all of that was just about raising awareness and the fact that we’re still talking about social injustice years later, I think we’ve gotten to that point. I think we’ve proved, we know the social injustice, I’m up for taking the next step whatever the next step may be for action and not just kneeling. I’ve always believed standing up for what I believe in, and that’s what I’m going to continue to do.”

Prescott’s statement is one of the most concise, intelligent, and well-thought out positions I have seen on this issue; notwithstanding the sentiments of the likes of Stephen A. Smith.

I totally disagree with everything Smith has to say on this issue in regard to Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, and Prescott. Jones and Prescott are in agreement on not using the football field as a vehicle for the players’ protests.

There are 1,696 players in the NFL, if each player were to give $10,000 annually to a non-partisan political action committee (PAC), they would have $16,900,000 per year available for political contribution for candidates running for school board, city council, mayor, state representative, state senator, U.S. representative, U.S. senate, and U.S. president.

The average NFL player makes over $ 2 million per year, so $10,000 is nothing, if players truly want to make a difference in society.

They could use this money to support candidates who share their world view and thereby make laws that support their view of the world.

This would be a lot more substantive then simply kneeling and angering half the country.

Energy Conferees Shut Down Fuel Economy Mandates as Costly to Consumers

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NEW ORLEANS—Sterling Burnett doesn’t always want to sit next to someone he doesn’t know on a train, plane, or bus.

But he’s willing to fight for the freedom of those same strangers when it comes time for them to purchase a motor vehicle.

“What I care about is … your freedom to choose the vehicle of your choice,” Burnett, an environmental policy expert for the Heartland Institute, said during a panel discussion at the free-market think tank’s America First Energy Conference that took a critical look at fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks.

“I don’t think government should be in the business of deciding the characteristics of the vehicle you drive,” Burnett said of the so-called Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. “That’s what CAFE standards do. Automobility is a form of freedom.”

Burnett, a senior fellow on environmental policy at the Heartland Institute, a nonprofit research and education organization based in Illinois, espoused the virtues of automotive freedom:

I take the train, I enjoy the train, and we all fly. And I take buses. But sometimes that’s not my alternative and quite frankly, I don’t always want to sit next to strangers. And maybe I want to listen to a particular kind of music or a news program, and I don’t want plugs in my ears.

When I used to commute to work, I enjoyed my time in the car because it was my time and it wasn’t dominated by work. Cars allow [you] to have the freedom to live outside of inner cities, and to visit distant relatives whenever you want. One hundred years ago, you couldn’t do this.

‘Victory for Consumer Choice’

Congress first enacted Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards in 1975 in response to the Arab oil embargo of 1973 that limited gasoline supplies and drove up prices. The idea was to reduce American dependence on foreign oil.

The latest version of CAFE and emissions standards for light-duty vehicles is called SAFE, an acronym for Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicles Rule for Model Years 2021-2026 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks.

The Trump administration has proposed a rule change that is a joint initiative of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The two agencies are seeking public comment on regulatory options, according to a press release, “including a preferred alternative that locks in [model year] 2020 standards through 2026, providing a much-needed time-out from further, costly increases.”

Nick Loris, an economist with The Heritage Foundation who focuses on energy, environmental, and regulatory issues, credits the Trump administration with moving forward with a proposal that he sees as beneficial to consumers.

“Without a doubt, the Trump administration’s recent proposal is a welcome victory for consumer choice, but also for people who are just concerned about the upfront costs of new cars and new trucks,” Loris said during the panel discussion at the Heartland Institute conference.

“It would be nice if Congress demonstrated similar fortitude and recognized that energy use mandates for vehicles, for dishwashers, and [for] clocks on microwaves are all unnecessary and repealed these standards, but I think that’s wishful thinking.”

Challenging California

The Trump administration’s preferred alternative “reflects a balance of safety, economics, technology, fuel conservation, and pollution reduction” and is expected to reduce road fatalities and injuries, the EPA and highway safety agency say in the press release.

The rule change begins a process to create a new, 50-state standard for fuel economy and tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions for cars and light trucks with the model years 2021 through 2026.

The Obama administration permitted California to set its own auto emissions standards under a federal waiver, but the Trump administration could seek to eliminate the waiver as part of the change.

Twelve states concentrated in the Northeast and Pacific Northwest follow California’s lead with stricter emissions standards, as does the District of Columbia.

The Obama administration worked with state officials in California to set fuel efficiency standards, a key component of Barack Obama’s efforts as president to address climate change.

If the Trump administration proposal is implemented, California and the 12 other states would need to observe the new federal rules on emissions.

 ‘Relics of the Past’

Loris, the Heritage economist, described energy use mandates and CAFE standards as “relics of the past” and byproducts of “politically concocted problems” that put energy consumers at a disadvantage.

Loris said he sees a “systemic problem” in how politicians, pundits, and lobbyists view energy markets.

“The inability of the federal government and regulators to predict what’s going to happen in energy markets” often leads to counterproductive regulatory policies, he said.

For instance, Loris noted, predictions about the price of oil tend to be off the mark.

For a 2008 article, The Wall Street Journal asked “a wide range of economists, energy analysts, and other experts to predict what the price of oil would be at the end of year,” Loris recalled.

Their predictions ranged from a low of $70 per barrel to a high of $167.50. The actual price: $44.60.

Sam Kazman, a panelist who is a lawyer with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, discussed a legal victory he secured on behalf of the Washington-based free-market public policy organization.

A federal appeals court ruled that federal transportation officials illegally concealed how fuel-efficiency standards jeopardized public safety on the highways.

The court found that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration illegally tried “to paper over” the safety issue through a combination of “fudged analysis,” “statistical legerdemain,” “lame claims,” and “specious arguments.”

Keeping Costs Down

Kazman expressed disappointment that avowed consumer-safety champions such as former presidential candidate Ralph Nader didn’t support the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s position against the fuel-efficiency standards.

But to improve public safety through CAFE standards requires officials to “get rid of a government program, rather than expanding it,” he said.

With the proposed rule change, Trump administration officials say they anticipate consumers will experience reduced costs and improved safety.

“The current standards have been a factor in the rising cost of new automobiles to an average of $35,000 or more—out of reach for many American families,” the EPA’s release says, adding:

Indeed, compared to the preferred alternative in the proposal, keeping in place the standards finalized in 2012 would add $2,340 to the cost of owning a new car, and impose more than $500 billion in societal costs on the U.S. economy over the next 50 years.

Officials also point to a study earlier this year by the highway safety agency that found newer vehicles are safer than older vehicles now on the road, and their wider use would result in fewer fatalities and injuries.

“What the Trump administration has done is stunning,” Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said during another panel examining the administration’s progress on energy policy.

“They have kicked California out of setting the CAFE standard,” Ebell said. “They have done everything right, and it is great for consumer choice.”

COLUMN BY

Portrait of Kevin Mooney

Kevin Mooney

Kevin Mooney is an investigative reporter for The Daily Signal. Send an email to Kevin. Twitter: @KevinMooneyDC.

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images is republished with permission. The featured image is of A woman pumping gas at a station in Falls Church, Virginia December 16, 2014. Photo by REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque.

VIDEO: Democrat Socialism, the global ‘overpopulation’ myth and Hollywood propaganda.

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If you like films by Marvel you may have seen “Avengers: Infinity War.” It is Hollywood’s latest effort to promote a myth that has existed for decades.

The myth: The world is becoming overpopulated and something must be radically done to reduce the numbers of people, in order to save the world.

The theme of the film “Avengers: Infinity War” is the universe is becoming overpopulated and therefore half of the population must be eliminated in order to save the universe.

Watch this video analysis of “Avengers: Infinity War” by Foundation for Economic Education:

Former Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson said,

“The hungry world cannot be fed until and unless the growth of its resources and the growth of its population come into balance. Each man and woman – and each nation – must make decisions of conscience and policy in the face of this great problem.”

E.O. Wilson, American biologist, theorist, naturalist and author, wrote:

“The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical construct.”

Kenneth Ewart Boulding, an English-born American economist, educator, peace activist, and interdisciplinary philosopher, wrote:

“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”

How have so many politicians, intellectuals and scientists get this issue so very wrong?

Answer: Socialist ideology. Socialist regimes have historically been the largest mass murderers in human history.

In 1966 Planned Parenthood gave one of its first Margaret Sanger Awards to President Lyndon Baines Johnson, for “his vigorous and farsighted leadership in bringing the United States government to enunciate and implement an affirmative, effective population policy at home and abroad”

In an August 3, 2016 Washington Post column titled “Remembering the biggest mass murder in the history of the world” Ilya Somin wrote:

Who was the biggest mass murderer in the history of the world? Most people probably assume that the answer is Adolf Hitler, architect of the Holocaust. Others might guess Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who may indeed have managed to kill even more innocent people than Hitler did, many of them as part of a terror famine that likely took more lives than the Holocaust. But both Hitler and Stalin were outdone by Mao Zedong. From 1958 to 1962, his Great Leap Forward policy led to the deaths of up to 45 million people – easily making it the biggest episode of mass murder ever recorded.

Historian Frank Dikötter, author of the important book Mao’s Great Famine recently published an article in History Today, summarizing what happened:

Mao thought that he could catapult his country past its competitors by herding villagers across the country into giant people’s communes. In pursuit of a utopian paradise, everything was collectivised. People had their work, homes, land, belongings and livelihoods taken from them. In collective canteens, food, distributed by the spoonful according to merit, became a weapon used to force people to follow the party’s every dictate. As incentives to work were removed, coercion and violence were used instead to compel famished farmers to perform labour on poorly planned irrigation projects while fields were neglected.

A catastrophe of gargantuan proportions ensued. Extrapolating from published population statistics, historians have speculated that tens of millions of people died of starvation. But the true dimensions of what happened are only now coming to light thanks to the meticulous reports the party itself compiled during the famine….

What comes out of this massive and detailed dossier is a tale of horror in which Mao emerges as one of the greatest mass murderers in history, responsible for the deaths of at least 45 million people between 1958 and 1962. It is not merely the extent of the catastrophe that dwarfs earlier estimates, but also the manner in which many people died: between two and three million victims were tortured to death or summarily killed, often for the slightest infraction. When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village, local boss Xiong Dechang forced his father to bury him alive. The father died of grief a few days later. The case of Wang Ziyou was reported to the central leadership: one of his ears was chopped off, his legs were tied with iron wire, a ten kilogram stone was dropped on his back and then he was branded with a sizzling tool – punishment for digging up a potato.

The rise of socialism in America will inevitably lead to mass murder in the name of population control.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Diego Piñeros Garcia/Flicker.

Environmental Activists Ignore The Strong Case For Offshore Oil Drilling

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By David Mica

While environmental activists continue to push the same weak claims for opposing offshore energy exploration and production despite successful operations elsewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, there are 56,000 reasons why Florida should open its waters to exploration.

That’s the number of high-paying Florida jobs Florida could see by 2035 if it embraces its offshore opportunities. And the benefits don’t stop there. In addition to jobs, additional offshore oil and gas production could positively impact:

National security: Why depend on foreign, often hostile, sources of energy when we have the potential to secure our own resources here at home?

Exports: With abundant domestic energy resources, the U.S. can be the world’s energy leader, creating jobs at home and enhancing security for our allies abroad. Win-win.

Increased Safety: Offshore operations today are safer than ever before. Since 2010, more than 100 standards have been created or strengthened, including for improved safety and environmental management, well design, blowout prevention, and spill response.

Price at the pump: Every barrel of oil we produce domestically adds stability to the global oil supply, putting downward pressure on prices. As the third largest consumer of motor fuels in the U.S., Florida benefits from greater domestic energy production and has the potential to significantly contribute to it as well.

Environmental Protection: Florida has received more than $908 million in federal funding over the past five decades to conserve our precious natural and historic treasures. That funding comes from oil and natural gas revenues. We can safely produce energy and use the revenues for important environmental conservation throughout the state. Another win-win.

Hurricane disruptions: Everyone in Florida knows the potential damage hurricanes can have on daily life and livelihoods. Further diversification of the nationwide energy infrastructure network would help prevent disruptions to gasoline supply after storms.

Energy conservation: Greater use of natural gas for electricity generation has helped drive U.S. carbon emissions to 25-year lows. Florida is on the front lines of this exciting trend, generating more than 60 percent of its electricity from clean, affordable natural gas and demonstrating that energy production and environmental progress are not mutually exclusive.

Florida’s Tourism Economy: Decades of experience in the Gulf of Mexico confirm that energy development can safely coexist with fishing and tourism, as state officials with firsthand experience enthusiastically attest.

The facts support taking advantage of Florida’s offshore energy resources. Florida families and businesses already benefit from offshore energy exploration — from the sidelines. By getting in the game, we can grow our economy and be part of making the nation more energy secure.

ABOUT DAVID MICA

David Mica is the Executive Director of the Florida American Petroleum Institute.

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Incredible Economic Opportunities of Offshore Energy Exploration

The Benefits of U.S. Offshore Oil and Natural Gas Development in the Eastern Gulf

How Do You Tell If The Earth’s Climate System “Is Warming”?

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Revolutionary Act. The Revolutionary Act has no financial or other affiliation with API. The featured image by kristinakasp on Pixabay.

Welfare Spending Did Not Decrease Poverty, Capitalism Did

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Last September, I shared some very encouraging data showing how extreme poverty dramatically has declined in the developing world.

And I noted that this progress happened during a time when the “Washington Consensus” was resulting in “neoliberal” policies (meaning “classical liberal“) in those nations (confirmed by data from Economic Freedom of the World).

In other words, pro-market policies were the recipe for poverty reduction, not foreign aid or big government.

Sadly, the Washington Consensus has been supplanted. Bureaucracies such as the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are now pushing a statist agenda based on the bizarre theory that higher taxes and more spending somehow produce prosperity.

To add insult to injury, some people now want to rewrite history and argue that free markets don’t deserve credit for the poverty reduction that already has occurred.

Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, writing for Our World in Data, wants readers to conclude that redistribution programs deserve credit.

…the share of people living in extreme poverty around the world has fallen continuously over the last two centuries. …many often say that globalization in the form of “free-market capitalism” is the main force to be thanked for such remarkable historical achievement. …this focus on “free-market capitalism” alone is misguided. …Governments around the world have dramatically increased their potential to collect revenues in order to redistribute resources through social transfers… The reach of governments has grown substantially over the last century: the share of total output that governments control is much larger today than a century ago.

And for evidence, Mr. Ortiz-Ospina included this chart.

I shared a version of this data back in June, asserting that the explosion of social welfare spending made this “the western world’s most depressing chart.”

So does Ortiz-Ospina have a compelling argument? Does poverty go down as welfare spending goes up?

Nope. Johan Norberg points out that there is a gaping flaw in this argument. An enormous, gigantic hole.

Wow. This isn’t just a flaw. It’s malpractice. It’s absurd to argue that welfare spending in developed nations somehow led to poverty reduction in developing countries.

I hope Mr. Ortiz-Ospina is just an inexperienced intern because if he really understands the data, one might be forced to conclude that he’s dishonest.

But let’s set that issue aside. Johan closes his video by explaining that poverty in rich nations declined before modern welfare states. I want to expand on that point.

Johan cited Martin Ravallion, so I tracked down his work. And here’s the chart he put together, which I’ve modified to show (outlined in red) that extreme poverty basically disappeared between 1820 and 1930.

And guess what?

That was the period when there was no welfare state. Not only is that apparent from Our World in Data, it’s also what we see in Vito Tanzi’s numbers.

Here’s Tanzi’s table, which I first shared five years ago. And I’ve circled in red the 1880-1930 data to underscore that there was virtually no redistribution during the years poverty was declining.

The bottom line is that poverty in the western world fell during the period of small government. Yet some people want to put the cart before the horse. They’re making the absurd argument that post-1950s welfare spending somehow reduced poverty before the 1930s.

That’s as absurd as Paul Krugman blaming a 2008 recession in Estonia on spending cuts that took place in 2009.

P.S. For those who want U.S.-specific data, it’s worth noting that dramatic reductions in American poverty all occurred before Washington launched the so-called “War on Poverty.”

Reprinted from International Liberty.

Daniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.

Shhhhh!!! Global temperatures were warmer last summer, and summer before that

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Summer is the season where temperatures have historically hovered around a comfortable 70 degrees most days while occasionally reaching a slightly warm 80 degrees. Perhaps the Deep South would rarely reach 85 degrees in during a historic heatwave before global warming. But now summers are hot – real hot. And global warming is to blame. At least that is the message conveyed by the establishment media, trying to reprogram impressionable readers and viewers into believing this summer marks the beginning of a global warming apocalypse.

Here are just a few of the recent headlines:

“Our climate plans are in pieces as killer summer shreds records,” screams an Aug. 5 CNN headline.

“Scorching Summer in Europe Signals Long-Term Climate Changes,” claims an Aug. 4 New York Times headline.

“Climate change is supercharging a hot and dangerous summer,” warns a July 26 Washington Post headline.

“Record-breaking heat and fires are worsened by climate change,” lectures a July 28 CBS News headline.

And then there is our personal favorite, “Global heat, fires and floods: How much did climate change fuel that hellish July?” asks the July 31 USA Today. (If you can’t guess what USA Today’s answer is, you need an extreme intervention.)

Science is the enemy of global warming alarmists. And objective scientific data is that enemy on steroids. Let’s take a look at what the scientific data reveal:

Source: drroyspencer.com.

The above chart represents global temperatures as measured by NASA satellite instruments. Global temperatures were warmer last year (including last summer) and the year before that in comparison to 2018 and this summer. Each year there are regional differences that make some areas of the globe warmer than others.

It turns out that temperatures this summer happen to be regionally warmer among the population centers of North America and Europe. As a result, even as global temperatures are lower this year and lower this summer than the past two years and summers, the media can take advantage of regional variances to mislead people in America and Europe into believing summertime temperatures this year illustrate record-breaking, global warming-infused heat. And, of course, the media conveniently fail to mention that 2017 and 2016 summer temperatures in American population centers were relatively cool.

There are a couple more points about the above graph that deserve mentioning. The satellite data start in 1979, which was the end of a 30-year cooling period. As such, global temperatures would be expected to rebound from that cool period and grow warmer from 1979 through 2018. Also, the total warming during the past 40 years has been merely 0.5 degrees Celsius (approximately 1 degree Fahrenheit). That amount of warming is barely noticeable, if noticeable at all, without sensitive and precise scientific instruments taking the measurements.

When it comes to global warming, the establishment media love to hype. Summertime is a perfect time for that hype. But don’t believe the hype; believe the scientific data.

RELATED ARTICLE: California Wildfires Caused By Radical Environmentalists, Not Climate Change

Trump to California fuel standards: “You’re fired!”

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Driven by Green ideology, the Obama Administration set unrealistic fuel standards (a.k.a. “CAFE” rules) for cars sold in America.

Yesterday, the Trump Administration announced it is putting a freeze on their implementation before any serious damage is done.

As recent as the Bush administration, the fuel efficiency standard was 27.5 miles per gallon. The Obama approach was set to jack up the CAFE mandate to a whopping 54.5 mpg by 2025. It was inspired by the eco-topian standards set in California and designed to force Americans to either buy electric cars or force them to drive unsafe, matchbox-sized gasoline powered ones.  Most Americans did not want to voluntarily buy either.

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler highlight exactly this point in an important editorial in the Wall Street Journal:

The 2012 standards were designed to encourage the development and sale of electric vehicles. Today electric vehicles are only about 1.5% of new vehicles sold. Some data conclude that nearly half of consumers who purchase an electric car do not buy another because of challenges with range and recharge times. Yet to meet the previous administration’s fuel-economy and greenhouse-gas standards, manufacturers would have to produce vehicle lineups that are 30% electric or more over the next seven years—far more vehicles than buyers are likely to want.

Further, the effect of the last administration’s standards was to subsidize these expensive electric vehicles at the expense of affordable traditional cars and trucks. Our goal is to ensure that consumers have a variety of safe, fuel-efficient choices so they can decide for themselves which options suit them best. This includes electric vehicles, for those who want them.

The President, by putting a freeze on the Obama CAFE rule, is also ending California’s practice of using its large market power to dictate Green ideology to the rest of the nation from the Left Coast.

The framers crafted the U.S. Constitution to safeguard the rights of individuals and of the states.  At the same time they realized that there were some powers they could not entrust to the states.  The Commerce Clause was crafted specifically to prevent the states from taxing and obstructing the flow of goods across state lines.  They reserved regulation of interstate commerce to the federal government.  The federal government has since wildly expanded its Commerce Clause powers far beyond the framers intent.  California’s practice of setting national environmental policy from Sacramento in cahoots with a compliant EPA is just the sort of thing the Constitution was written specifically to prevent.

Crafting smarter fuel efficiency standards is a needed reform.

Standing up to California’s heavy-handed eco-bullying is courageous.

CFACT applauds both wise moves.

University of Minnesota on Redefining Gender: Gopher It!

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What’s “misgendering?” Students at the University of Minnesota might want to look it up, seeing as they could be kicked out of school for doing it! In the race for the most outrageous campus policy, the Gophers took a big lead when the school’s Equal Opportunity Office introduced a new rule that would punish people for using the wrong pronoun to address someone — even if that person hasn’t changed their sex or their name!

University officials say the idea is supposed to protect students who identify as transgender. As part of the rule, students are “invited to choose their personal pronoun [which includes bizarre configurations like ‘Ze’] and gender identity on the school website, and fellow faculty and students will be expected to follow those personal choices.”

Anyone caught referring to someone by the wrong pronoun would be charged with “harassment” or “discrimination.” The punishment? “…Disciplinary action up to and including termination from employment and academic sanctions up to and including academic expulsion.”

Even more astounding, UM would use this policy to open the door to gender-free “housing, restrooms, locker rooms, recreation services and activities, and camp programs.” Imagine pulling up to college with your son or daughter and finding out their roommate is a “Zir.” Ian Smith can’t. The member of UM’s student senate wants everyone to know that if the university goes ahead with this rule, it’s not because students want it.

In a bold op-ed for the Star-Tribune, Ian speaks up and says the policy shouldn’t be enacted. “First, it’s unconstitutional to compel certain speech, but as a representative in the Student Senate, I also must worry about the inevitable unintended consequences.” Like forcing someone to say something they don’t believe. “I represent thousands of students at the University of Minnesota, and to vote for a policy that would force any of them to say anything would not only be supporting an unconstitutional policy, but also contrary to the principles that universities across the nation were founded on.”

As FRC’s Peter Sprigg pointed out, the school is basically compelling students to lie. Ian agrees, arguing that “There is something wrong with a policy that kicks a student out of its school and essentially ruins their lives over their not uttering a one-syllable word.” What if, one professor asks, you slip up and use the wrong word? “Is that harassment or discrimination? Does everybody get one free pass and after that, it’s harassment?” According to a fellow faculty member who identifies as a woman, no one would be punished right away. But, he insisted, it’s “really saddening” when people don’t call you the right pronoun.

You know what else is really saddening? That this is where we are as a nation. It’s mind-boggling that we’ve allowed a handful of extremists to take us to this point of moral and cultural confusion. Every day, there’s another University of Minnesota in the news, trying to force its dangerous ideology on students. And those are just the ones we hear about. We can either keep addressing the symptoms — or we can treat the cause. More Americans need to take their cues from students like Ian and find the courage to speak out!

** The Washington Update is taking its regular August break, but we’ll keep you informed of important developments in the Senate and elsewhere in our alerts. You can also keep up with what’s happening by tuning into “Washington Watch” Monday through Friday at 5:00 p.m. (ET). For station listing, visit TonyPerkins.com — or, better yet, download FRC’s Stand Firm App and listen live from anywhere. The daily Update will return after Labor Day. **

Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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Starbucks Isn’t Alone: Straw Panic is Spreading Through Corporate America

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Last week, we used Starbucks’ new anti-straw policy to highlight better coffee options for second vote advocates. Little did we know that anti-straw hysteria is spreading through corporate America and internationally.

According to several media reports, the below companies already graded by 2ndVote have taken stands against straws. Some of them did so in other countries; some are doing it domestically. All of them are overreacting, potentially making life more difficult for some disabled people and jumping on a bandwagon which was created by a nine-year old who made up a number after calling a few straw companies.

We’re serious. Major corporate policies are based upon a nine-year old’s phone calls. Cities such as San Francisco and Seattle have likewise implemented ban policies.

The hysteria abounds because of a third-grader using what we have to guess is Common Core math to say 500 million straws are used each day in America. As The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh mockingly noted this week, issues such as drugs on city streets must be made secondary to straw prevention — or, at least, that seems to be the message from San Francisco and Seattle. Per Walsh:

Many cities and corporations are following suit. Another city in California will now hand out possible jail sentences to straw dealers. 15 seconds ago nobody worried about straws. Now there is a straw crisis and an anti-straw movement to answer it. Ordinances are being passed. Laws are being written. Hashtags are being hashtagged. Celebrities are recording PSAs. Straws are a scourge on the Earth, it has been decided randomly. And who could dispute this assessment? After all, Americans use 500 MILLION STRAWS A DAY.

Likewise, it seems as though corporations have solved all other corporate practices which affect the environment. American Airlines and Alaska Airlines must have found the perfect renewable fuel! Likewise, Disney must have discovered how to run all of those rides without using oil to keep them running. Marriott and Hilton have clearly found a way to recycle every bit of trash from their guests and — like the airlines — found the perfect renewable oil for thousands of airport shuttles. The new McDonald’s kiosks have to use no electricity, right?

And we can’t forget to praise Carnival Cruises for ensuring none of its boats ever run over a single aquatic animal or leak any waste into the water. One hundred percent sustainability, indeed!

Like Walsh, we are mocking. What’s not so humorous is that these policies are just another example of knee-jerk leftism being adopted by major corporations. Please tell them to stop at the links below:

Starbucks
McDonald’s
Hyatt
American Airlines
Alaska Airlines
Diageo
Hilton
Disney
Carnival Cruises
Marriott International

RELATED ARTICLES:

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Help us continue providing resources like this and educating conservative shoppers by becoming a 2ndVote Member today!

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Shutterstock.

Planned Parenthood targets ‘younger folks’ with F*** Everyone campaign

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We have reported on the push to promote underage sex and pedophilia by socialist Democrats. Well now we see ads promoting “sex with everyone” ads appearing in New York City.

Photo by Planned Parenthood New York.

In an ADWEEK article titled “Planned Parenthood Wants to Protect Your ‘Freedom to F*ck’ With New Fundraising Effort: The campaign targets younger folks in NYC” Katie Richards reports:

Dear New Yorkers: Planned Parenthood of New York City has an important message for you all. If you want to continue to love and sleep with the person (or people) of your choosing, you might want to think about making a donation to the organization’s NYC chapter (which served over 60,000 New Yorkers in 2017).

Read more.

The Official Democratic Store sent out an email on May 23, 2018 introducing it’s “Democratic collection” of Gay pride shirts, lapel pins and campaign buttons.

On the same day the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) reported:

The producer of the children’s film, “Show Dogs,” has pulled the film from theaters around the world and will recut it, removing two scenes that seemed to groom children for sexual abuse. This film is about a dog that goes undercover at a dog show competition – harmless enough except for the story arc where the only way for him to win and save the day was to allow unwanted touching of his genitals, while his coach practiced it with him and encouraged him to just go to his “zen” place. Yes…I know…it is hard to believe this was in a children’s film, to begin with. [Emphasis added]

You may read more about the film “Show Dogs” on the NCOSE website by clicking here.

What does homosexuality have to do with child abuse?

PubMed.gov is a resource on research done on homosexuals and child abuse. PubMed.gov lists a 2001 study by the California School of Professional Psychology titled “Comparative data of childhood and adolescence molestation in heterosexual and homosexual persons.” The abstract reads:

In research with 942 nonclinical adult participants, gay men and lesbian women reported a significantly higher rate of childhood molestation than did heterosexual men and women. Forty-six percent of the homosexual men in contrast to 7% of the heterosexual men reported homosexual molestation. Twenty-two percent of lesbian women in contrast to 1% of heterosexual women reported homosexual molestation. This research is apparently the first survey that has reported substantial homosexual molestation of girls. Suggestions for future research were offered. [Emphasis added]

The following is a graphic from a CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) online slide presentation, “HIV Surveillance in Adolescents and Young Adults”  breaks down the incidence of HIV among young men ages 13-24. In 2011, an astonishing 94.9 percent of HIV diagnoses among teenage boys (13-19-years-old) were linked to homosexual (“male-to-male”) sex. And 94.1 percent of the cases among young men ages 20-24 were from “gay” sex:

HIV-Young-Adult-Males-2011-CDC

Democrat Socialists (formally known as the Democrat Party) are pushing underage sex. Their bed mate is Planned Parenthood who is now publicly promoting “the freedom to f***.

Does it get any worse than this?

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Freedom from endangerment

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In this column, we’re going to discuss the freedom from endangerment.

It is vital for human well-being that individuals are protected from dangers to their air, water, sanitation, and safety. Energy production and use, including fossil fuel production and use, can endanger people in all kinds of ways if done badly—from bad burning processes, to waste that’s handled improperly, to oil rigs going out of control, to gas lines exploding.

It’s really important that we have policies to protect us from such dangers. How to do this is not obvious, but the key is to always think about what’s best for human flourishing.

Personally, I think there are three keys to a good policy that protects the freedom from endangerment. A good policy is one that establishes standards of health and safety that are:

  1. reasonable and equitable
  2. scientifically verifiable
  3. economically desirable

Reasonable

What do I mean by reasonable? When talking about protecting health and safety from certain kinds of risks, we have to acknowledge that every human action and technology carries risks and dangers. Nature itself carries risks and dangers.

We can’t have a policy that demands actions and technologies be totally free of risks and dangers, because then we would not be able to do anything, or we would just keep doing the same old things, ignoring that they also have risks because we’re used to those risks.

Instead, we need standards that protect us without overprotecting us to the point where they do harm.

image

For example, think of the first people to use fire. They were exposing themselves and their family to a certain amount of smoke—much more than modern power plants do, for sure. Now, should they have not used fire because of the smoke? No. Fire was so vital to their lives that it would have been harmful to their health and safety not to have the fire. If there had been a policy banning the use of fire because of the smoke, that would have been an example of overprotecting themselves to the point of harm.

By the same token, we can’t have standards for energy risks or energy safety that would prevent people from using energy. That’s what I mean by a policy having to be reasonable: protecting without overprotecting.

Equitable

This goes right along with equitable, or fair and impartial.

We want to be equitable and we don’t want to discriminate against some industries or some forms of energy, holding them to impossibly high risk and endangerment standards. Often, however, safety standards aren’t equitable because people tend to see new and unfamiliar things as riskier than old things.

Take hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for example. This is a technology that has been around a long time, but the term fracking wasn’t introduced into common usage until around 2010. People think of it as very risky even though it’s been done very safely for a long time. They worry about the risk of fracking but not about the risk of driving, which is an incomparably greater risk than fracking.

Unfortunately, it is very common to treat unpopular industries such as the oil and gas industry this way. They get held to completely different standards than more popular industries. Take the issue of noise. What you’ll find is that the amount of noise accepted from janitors, construction workers, and movie theaters is often far greater than that of a fracking job. But people complain that their rights are being violated by the noise from the fracking job and not by the noise from these other activities. That’s clearly non-equitable.

It’s important when we hear talk of risk and danger that we’re clear on whether there is actually an unreasonable amount of risk in a given area, or whether we’re holding some industry or activity to a higher standard than other comparable industries or activities.

Big Abortion’s Corporate Backers Include Your Favorite Social Media and Technology Companies

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America’s social media and technology companies are increasingly showing themselves to be populated by left-wing activists. Just last week, social conservatives called out a number of platforms for supporting the Southern Poverty Law Center’s dangerous ideology.

Promoting anti-Christian bigotry, gun control, abortion, and open borders would be problematic enough. But as we’ve highlighted in recent weeks, platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Apple have gone out of their way to block the truth of the pro-life movement, and — in at least one case — attack those who defend mothers and unborn children from abortion.

For example, Facebook protected Planned Parenthood from Live Action’s campaign to expose the abortion giant’s cover-ups of sexual abuse. And just like many of Hollywood’s leading actresses, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer is completely tone-deaf to the hypocrisy of supporting #MeToo while hiding Planned Parenthood’s crimes.

Facebook, Twitter, and Google took their pro-abortion activism international during the recent abortion referendum in Ireland. Pro-life ads were blocked by all three tech giants.

Apple joined the pro-abortion left by pulling the Human Coalition’s pro-life prayer app. Their reasons were…less than satisfactory, to say the least.

And it was several tech giants which sponsored a popular gathering of left-wing activist groups — a gathering which included a pro-abortion protest of a pro-life pregnancy resource center.

Your second vote dollars are important to showing these companies that they cannot get away with taking the wrong side on life. There are two ways you can use the market to promote life:

First — make sure you’re not buying from companies that support Planned Parenthood’s abortion industry. 2ndVote’s resource page has the full list. If we can cause Planned Parenthood’s official corporate backers to think twice about supporting the ending of unborn life, tech companies will get the message.

Second — contact Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and Google directly to let them know that you want them to run their businesses for all consumers. Taking sides in the abortion fight is scientifically and morally wrong, and puts them on the wrong side of history.

RELATED ARTICLE: Tell Bank of America & General Electric: Stop Funding Big Abortion’s Attacks On Pro-Life Centers

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Refusal to Use Preferred Gender Pronouns Costs British Doctor His Job

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The belief that gender is assigned at birth has cost one British doctor his job as a disability assessor for the Department of Work and Pensions in the United Kingdom.

Dr. David Mackereth, 55, the father of four, was dismissed from the department after only recently being hired because he told the instructor for a training course that he would not recognize a pronoun that didn’t correspond to a patient’s biological sex, the Telegraph reported Sunday.

Mackereth, who worked 26 years for the National Health Service, says sex is established at birth and is both genetic and biological. That’s something that “has been believed by mankind for centuries,” he said.

“I’m not attacking the transgender movement,” Mackereth said, “but I’m defending my right to freedom of speech, and freedom of belief.”

Mackereth, from Dudley, West Midlands, was hired by the Department of Work and Pensions for “interviewing and then writing independent reports about the health of those claiming disability benefits,” the Telegraph reported.

“I don’t believe I should be compelled to use a specific pronoun. I am not setting out to upset anyone. But if upsetting someone can lead to doctors being sacked, then, as a society we have to examine where we are going,” he told the London newspaper.

After informing the instructor of his objections, “Mackereth then received an email from Advanced Personnel Management, the agency that employed him and would have hired him out to the DWP,” the paper reported.

The email explained that he could “undergo training” regarding the Department of Work and Pensions’ policy, but if he did not address his clients by their preferred pronoun, such action could be “considered to be harassment as defined by the 2010 Equality Act.”

Mackereth now accuses the Department of Work and Pensions and Advanced Personnel Management of violating his right to freedom of speech. The Telegraph also reported that he has concerns that “many other” people of faith like him could be dismissed from jobs if they believe in birth-assigned gender. He is a Reformed Baptist.

A Department of Work and Pensions spokeswoman told the Telegraph: “Dr. Mackereth made it clear during his training that he would refuse to use pronouns which did not match his own view of a person’s biological gender,” and that he would be violating the Equality Act by discriminating against individuals with a “protected characteristic.”

But Mackereth maintains that he is being discriminated against for his beliefs and even went so far as to say that the UK government was policing thought.

“Firstly, we are not allowed to say what we believe. Secondly, as my case shows, we are not allowed to think what we believe,” he said. “Finally, we are not allowed to defend what we believe.”

“The best biology, psychology, and philosophy all support an understanding of sex as a bodily reality and of gender as a social manifestation of bodily sex. Biology isn’t bigotry,” said Ryan T. Anderson, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation and author of “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment.”

“Government shouldn’t coerce people to think, speak, or act in ways that violate these basic truths. Indeed, there are human costs to getting human nature wrong,” he said.

COLUMN BY

Jeremiah Poff

Jeremiah Poff is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.

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