Tag Archive for: fraud

Those Clinton Women

Listening to the reports of obscene speaking fees earned by Bill and Hillary Clinton… Bill commanding fees of from $500,000-750,000 a speech and Hillary demanding $200,000-300,000, along with private jets and presidential suites… I turned to my wife and said, jokingly, “What do you suppose Chelsea gets for a thirty or forty minute speech?”

In her lifetime, Chelsea Clinton has had a front row seat to more corruption and more sexual excess than an aging mob-connected porn star, so it might be interesting to hear what she has to say… if she could be totally candid.  And while we enjoyed a brief chuckle over the silly notion that a young woman of her age and inexperience would have anything interesting to say, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to hear her drone on and on for thirty or forty minutes about her recent domestic battles with colic and diaper rash while suffering through a $500 plate of cold string beans, soggy au gratin potatoes, and “rubber chicken.”

But then it occurred to me that she is only slightly less experienced than her mother’s former boss, Barack Obama, and he’s sitting in the Oval Office making big decisions on my behalf.  So if people would be dumb enough to vote for her mother or for Barack Obama as president of the United States, and if there are those who would actually pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to hear one of the elder Clintons speak, well, who knows…?

Chelsea Clinton was born on February 27, 1980, early in her father’s first term as governor of Arkansas and almost five years after her mother was fired from the staff of the House committee that impeached Richard Nixon.  She was fired when the chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee described her as “an unethical, dishonest lawyer,” who “conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee, and the rules of confidentiality.”

During her undergraduate years at Wellesley College, near Boston, Hillary became an admirer and a protégé of the evil mastermind of the Democratic Party playbook, Saul Alinsky.  In fact, Alinsky’s book, Rules for Radicals, was not only the subject matter of Hillary’s senior thesis at Wellesley, it has been the “bible” that has informed Barack Obama’s ideological evolution since his college years at Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard, and perhaps before.  To understand Alinsky’s utter disdain for American culture and the U.S. Constitution we need look no further than his ideological offspring, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both of whom view the  U.S. Constitution as a document that means whatever they would like it to mean on any given day.

Chelsea was born just two years before her mother turned a modest $1,000 investment in cattle futures into a $100,000 profit in just one year… taking her trading advice from a lawyer for the largest corporation in Arkansas while her husband served as the state’s attorney general.  Then, in 1993, when Chelsea was twelve, her parents uprooted their criminal franchise in Arkansas and moved it from the governor’s mansion in Little Rock to the White House in Washington.

In November 1998, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) announced that he would not seek reelection to his senate seat in 2000.  It was Hillary’s signal that, after six years as first lady of the United States, and after washing her husband’s “dirty laundry” for nearly twenty-five years, it might be fun to represent the State of New York in the U.S. Senate.  However, as a lifelong resident of Chicago, Little Rock, and Washington, DC, her New York credentials were slightly “underwhelming.”  To solve that problem the Clintons purchased a 5,200 sq. ft. colonial mansion in Chappaqua, New York, for $1.33 million and Hillary embarked on an extensive “listening tour” to learn what was on the minds of people in upstate New York.

After winning the Democratic nomination, Hillary knew that white liberals and blacks would be with her, but she was less than popular in the Jewish community and totally unknown in New York’s large Puerto Rican community, so she concentrated on solidifying her support within those constituencies.

In the years between 1975 and 1985, a Puerto Rican terror group, the FALN, exploded some 120 bombs in public places, mostly in New York and Chicago.  In those bombings, six people were killed and dozens more, including police officers, were permanently maimed.  Sixteen FALN members were convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 35 to 105 years.

But with Hillary combating charges of being one of the most shameless carpetbaggers of all time, the Clintons knew they’d have to “pull out all the stops” to win the New York senate seat.  Accordingly, on August 11, 1999, Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of all sixteen members of the FALN.  However, the commutations were not universally popular.  They were strongly opposed by the U.S. Attorney, the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Fraternal Order of Police, the families of FALN victims, and members of Congress (a resolution opposing the commutations passed the Senate by a vote of 95-2 and the House of Representatives by a vote of 311-41).  Nevertheless, Clinton proceeded with the commutations and the Puerto Rican community fell in line behind Hillary.

With the Puerto Rican vote in the bag, there was still work to be done in the New York Jewish community.  Late in her campaign, on August 8, 2000, Hillary visited the small Rockland County village of New Square, New York, a community of orthodox Hasidic Jews, where members of the local community had their tzitzits in a knot over the 1999 conviction of four Hasidic men charged with swindling the federal government out of some $40 million in education grants, small-business loans, and housing subsidies.

Although Hillary is said to have been warmly received by local residents, it is not known what was discussed during her stopover.  However, what is known is that on Election Day, November 7, Hillary won New Square by a vote of 1,359 to10, and that, six weeks later, on December 22, 2000, Grand Rabbi David Twersky of the New Square congregation, participated in a closed door meeting with Bill Clinton in the White House Map Room.  And although it is quite possible that the two men discussed nothing more than Clinton’s preference in cigars, the meeting had a positive outcome for the Jews of New Square.  On his last day in office, Bill Clinton reduced the

prison sentences of the New Square Four from as much as 6½ years to no more than 2½ years.

From the outset, not everyone in the Rockland County Jewish community was optimistic that a pardon for the New Square Four could be arranged.  What they failed to understand is that, when Bill and Hillary Clinton “pull out all the stops” to win an election, they don’t worry much about legal or political repercussions.

And now comes 34-year-old Chelsea Clinton Mezvinsky (Mrs. Marc Mezvinsky), the daughter of former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the daughter-in-law of former congressman Ed Mezvinsky (D-IA) who pled guilty in 2001 to thirty-one counts of obtaining nearly $10 million through bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud.

When most of us sit down to dinner with our extended families we might be able to discuss the few traffic tickets we’ve received over the years.  But when Chelsea and her husband sit down to dinner with their parents they are sitting down with people who have first-hand experience with bank fraud, bribery, concealing evidence, conspiracy, contempt of court, evidence tampering, extortion, influence peddling, lying to federal investigators, mail fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, official secrets act violations, Pendleton Act violations, perjury, rape, sexual assault, subornation of perjury, theft of government property, vote fraud, wire fraud, witness tampering… and more.

After leaving her $600,000 per year job as a special correspondent for NBC News in August 2014, Chelsea was taken into the family business as vice-chairman of the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.  However, according to a July 10, 2014 Associated Press story by Ken Thomas, she is represented, along with her father and mother, by the Harry Walker Agency, in New York, which arranges speaking engagements for notable such as former vice president Dick Cheney, former senator Rick Santorum, and former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  And while the Washington Speakers Bureau reports that speakers such as former senators Bill Bradley (D-NJ) and Christopher Dodd (D-CT), earn $25,000 to $40,000 per speech, the AP reports that Chelsea Clinton commands speaking fees as high as $75,000.

But it appears that all is not roses at the Clinton Foundation.  It is reported that Foundation staff find Chelsea as difficult and unpleasant to work with as Arkansas State Patrolmen, the Secret Service, and White House staff did with her mother… resulting in an unusually high turnover of Foundation staff.

According to a May 19 report by James Dunn, of Mailonline, “A lot of people left because she was there.  A lot of people left because she didn’t want them there.”  Dunn reports that among those “displaced” since she arrived are former CEO Bruce Lindsey (former White House chief of staff who lied so frequently and so convincingly that he was able to keep Bill Clinton out of jail); Chelsea’s former spokesman, Matt McKenna; and Ginny Ehrlich, the founding CEO of the Clinton Health Matters Initiative.

First indications are that the apple does not fall far from the tree.  But with a charming, affable philanderer for a father and a cold, calculating shrew for a mother, what are we to expect?  If there is such a thing as “genetic disposition,” the long term prospects for Chelsea Clinton are not good.  Let’s hope that is not the case and that, for Marc Mezvinsky’s sake, the Clinton women turn out to be polar opposites.

Florida: Groupthink on the Sarasota County School Board

school board compositI am always fascinated by how politicians, once elected, don’t do what they promised in order to get elected. Rather they become part of “the system”. They become influenced by bureaucrats, forget they represent their constituents and pass laws, rules, and regulations which harm their very constituents. They in effect become group thinkers.

Groupthink is an oxymoron. You see it is not about thinking, rather it is about the group (collective). Wikipedia has this definition of Groupthink:

A psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome.

The Sarasota County School Board members, with one exception, suffers from groupthink. Because of this it has resulted in irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcomes. One example is the misuse of tax dollars.

YourObserver.com staff in an op-ed stated:

It has been a month and a half, but many of you still will remember the cyclone that whirled about the Sarasota County School Board over its selection of a construction manager for the Suncoast Technical College’s North Port campus.

At the recommendation of Superintendent Lori White, the board voted 4-1 to bypass its selection committee and go with Willis Smith Construction.

The lone “no” vote came from Bridget Ziegler, the rookie board member who was elected last November.

The day after the vote, Ziegler, age 32, posted her rationale and comments on her Facebook page (see box).

Whoa.

At the April 21 School Board meeting, Ziegler’s fellow board members delivered to Ziegler what easily can be called a smackdown, chastising her for seven minutes for speaking out and not following the other members’ board protocol.

Talk about taking Ziegler to the woodshed. “Hey, missy, you need to learn a thing or two before you go spouting off.” That’s the way it comes across.

Among the disturbing comments came from board member Jane Goodwin: “I just hope in the future you’ll … consider that you have a loyalty to this board and … we represent the Sarasota County School Board …”

So what we have on the Sarasota County School Board is one thinker, Bridgette Ziegler, and four followers. The issue is that the Sarasota County School Board selected a vendor whose bid was $4.5 million higher than the lowest qualified vendor. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s Shelby Web reported, “The board voted 4-1 to follow Superintendent Lori White’s advice to hire Willis A. Smith instead of A.D. Morgan Corp., which had said it could do the job for about $4.5 million less.”

Does this not appear to be a dysfunctional decision? Aren’t the board members supposed to be good stewards of the people’s property (tax dollars)?

Why do we see politicians at every level become group thinkers? 

Perhaps Frédéric Bastiat’s  who penned the seminal work The Law said it best. He pointed out that the relationship between the rulers and the ruled becomes distorted, and a sense of systemic injustice pervades the culture. Bastiat observed this in horror in his time, and it’s a good description of what happened at the Sarasota County School Board:

The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.

The collective must silence those who think – namely Bridgette Ziegler. However, I do not believe Ms. Ziegler will be silenced.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Artsy Magazine.

The EPA Myth of “Clean Power”

There are many things I do not like about the Environmental Protection Agency, but what angers me most are the lies that stream forth from it to justify programs that have no basis in fact or science and which threaten the economy.

Currently, its “Clean Power” plan is generating its latest and most duplicitous Administer, Gina McCarthy, to go around saying that it will not be costly, nor cost jobs. “Clean Power” is the name given to the EPA policy to reduce overall U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 30% from 2005 levels by 2030. It is requiring each state to cut its emissions by varying amounts using a baseline established by the EPA.

Simply said, there is no need whatever to reduce CO2 emissions. Carbon dioxide is not “a pollutant” as the EPA claims. It is, along with oxygen for all living creatures, vital to the growth of all vegetation. The more CO2 the better crops yields will occur, healthier forests, and greener lawns. From a purely scientific point of view, it is absurd to reduce emissions.

Cartoon - EPA Torture ReportWriting in The Wall Street Journal on April 22, Kenneth C. Hill, Director of the Tennessee Regulatory Authority, said “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) set off a firestorm when he advised states not to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. Yet that advice isn’t as radical as his detractors make it sound. As a state public utilities commissioner who deals with the effects of federal regulations on a regular basis, I also recommend that states not comply.”

Noting its final due date in June, that refusal would impose a Federal Implementation Plan on states “that risks even greater harm,” said Hill. “But the problem for the EPA is that the federal government lacks the legal authority under either the Constitution or the Clean Air Act to enforce most of the regulation’s ‘building blocks’ without states’ acquiescence.”

As this is being written there is are two joined cases before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, State of West Virginia v EPA and Murray Energy v EPA. They are a challenge to President Obama’s “War on Coal” and the EPA efforts to regulate its use. Fifteen states, along with select coal companies, have sued for an “extraordinary whit” to prevent the EPA from promulgating the new carbon regulations found it the Clean Power plan.

Writing in The Hill, Richard O. Faulk, an attorney and senior director for Energy Natural Resources and the Environment for the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University, noted that “The EPA’s argument confidently hinges on convincing the courts that the Clean Air Act doesn’t mean what it says. By its plain language, the bill prohibits the EPA from regulating the power plants from which these emissions derive. Moreover, coal plants are already addressed under an entirely different section of the bill than the one EPA insists justifies its powers.”

The latest news as reported by Myron Ebell, the director for energy and environment of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, is that “Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) this week introduced a bill to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants. S. 1324, the Affordable Reliable Energy Now Act, has 26 original co-sponsors, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee Chairman James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), and Democrat Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).”

“Both Majority Leader McConnell and Chairman Inhofe have said that they are determined to stop EPA’s greenhouse gas rules, so I expect quick action to move Capito’s bill. In the House, a bill to block the rules, H. R. 2042, the Ratepayer Protection Act, was voted out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on 29th April and is awaiting floor action.”

It’s worth noting that, when Obama took office, fifty percent of America’s electrical energy was supplied by coal-fired plants and, just six years later, that has been reduced by ten percent. What kind of President would deliberately reduce American’s access to affordable power?

It’s the same kind of President that believes—or says he does—the pronouncements of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC’s “Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report” claims that world will face “severe, pervasive and irreversible damage” if coal-fired and other carbon-based—coal, oil, and natural gas—energy sources aren’t replaced with “renewable energy sources”—wind and solar—by 2050. It wants fossil-fueled power generation “phased out almost entirely by 2100.” Now this is just insanity, unless your agenda is to destroy the world’s economic system and kill millions. That would be the only outcome of the IPCC recommendations.

The columnist Larry Bell, a professor at the University of Houston, points out that “As for expecting renewables to fill in the power curve, European Union experiences offer a painful reality check. Approximately 7.8 percent of Germany’s electricity comes from wind, 4.5 percent from solar. Large as a result, German households already fork out for the second highest power costs in Europe—often as much as 30 percent above the levels seen in other European countries. Power interruptions add to buyer’s remorse.”

Heartland - Climate News (2)As reported in The Heartland Institute’s Environment & Climate News, “European governments, once at the vanguard of renewable energy mandates, appear to be having second thoughts about their reliance on giant wind farms…” There has been a sharp drop in such projects with installations plunging 90% in Denmark, 75% in Italy, and 84% in Spain.

What the EPA is attempting to impose on America is a drain on our production of electricity coupled with an increase in its price. It is an obscene attack on our economy.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Shutterstock.

Circumstantial Evidence

Benefit of the Doubt ConcelledImagine that you are the former Governor of Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, both sitting in jail after having been found guilty last year of public corruption for accepting golf outings, lavish vacations and $120,000 in “sweetheart” loans. Compared to the Clintons they are just two failed bit players.

Writing in the May issue of Commentary, Jonathan S. Tobin, a senior editor, noted the lack of a “smoking gun” in the case of just the latest Clinton scandals. “But what Democrats and all Americans should be asking about this argument is why some people get prosecuted for corruption on such circumstantial evidence while others are considered likely to be elected president.”

“Just because a prosecutor isn’t likely to haul the Clintons into court over all these astonishing coincidences (or at least not so long as the Democrats control the Department of Justice), that doesn’t mean their behavior doesn’t smell to high heaven,” said Tobin. “The court in which the Clintons deserve to be condemned is that of public opinion.”

The Clintons have conspired and sometimes acted in direct contradiction of the law to rely on the concept of circumstantial evidence. Hillary’s use of her own private email server and her later destruction of that server is a classic example of this behavior. The high-paid speeches which Bill gave put him into a gray area of collusion, benefitting from the influence Hillary had as Secretary of State. Ultimately, the donations to their foundation by foreign governments rank far above a mere misdemeanor. It was too often just blatant bribery.

I fear that far too many Americans do not realize that our nation and its system of justice are on the cusp of encountering serious damage. Merely condemning the Clintons for what we know at this point is simply not enough.

What is needed is a widespread denunciation of their actions over recent years.

What is really needed is a decision by the Democratic Party to withhold the right to run in its primaries for the office of president, based on her actions deleting emails and accepting donation to the foundation.

The U.S. media needs to be more vocal that Hillary withdraw her candidacy.

Why would a media mute its criticism and a political party ignore the obvious revelations, even if deemed circumstantial evidence, of the corruption demonstrated by the Clintons? The Clintons have been given a free pass from the day they entered politics.

As Peggy Noonan, a Wall Street Journal columnist, has said, “We are defining political deviancy down.” That degrades the process by which we select and elect the men and women who are given the role and responsibility of lawmakers.

As Noonan notes of Hillary, “The story is that this is what she does, and always has. The rules apply to others, not her.” As recently as 2012, the State Department forced the resignation of a U.S. ambassador for “in part setting up an unsanctioned private email system.”

“In 1992 the Clintons were new and golden. Now, so many years later, their reputation for rule breaking and corruption is so deep, so assumed that it really has become old news. And old news isn’t news.”

Except when it is. When old news is an unbroken succession of wrong-doing it is incumbent on everyone involved with the present “campaign” by Hillary Clinton to be the next President to not avoid the stink that arises from both the earlier and most recent revelations.

“A generation or two ago,” said Noonan, “a person so encrusted in a reputation for scandal would not be considered a possible presidential contender. She would be ineligible. Now she is inevitable.”

Those earlier generations have been replaced by those more intent on celebrity than substance. They have the attention span of fungus. They lack any vision for America, having never really learned about or absorbed the lessons that the Greatest Generation and others passed onto us.

Are there enough of them to plunge America into the Clinton cesspool by electing her President? One can only pray that the answer is no.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

Malik Obama: “My Brother is a Fraud and a Con”

You will not believe what President Obama’s brother, Malik, says about him in a video we play at the end of our show. Our buddy filmmaker Joel Gilbert author of “Dreams from my Real Father” was able to get a Skype interview with Malik, in Kenya and conduct a fascinating in-depth discussion that reveals how the Obama Family REALLY feels about their no-longer-favorite son, Barack.

In fact, Malik now believes that his brother is a fraud, liar and con-man. Folks, this is devastating factual information that ought to impact every America who has any trust in President Obama.

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Defending New Jersey’s Politicians

I’d be surprised to learn that anyone in the Obama and Holder Department of Justice even knows how to spell “justice.”

On the same day it announced an indictment of New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez (D) for allegedly taking bribes and engaging in various forms of corruption, it also announced that it would not pursue a criminal contempt of Congress resolution against Lois Lerner, the member of the Internal Revenue Service at the center of the effort to deny conservative groups the right to be certified for non-profit tax status.

Without such status, the group’s ability to raise funds and pursue their issues and agenda was significantly impacted. If you were a liberal group, however, you sailed right through. That’s that way the Obama administration has functioned in all aspects of governance since it began in 2009.

In what is now becoming a standard way of avoiding an investigation, last June the IRS announced that it had “lost” two years’ worth of Lerner’s emails in a 2011 computer crash. An IRS inspector general, however, unearthed the backup tapes believed to contain them. Lerner would not speak to lawmakers, but she has reportedly cooperated with the FBI.

In an April 1 Politico.com article, “Don’t Blame Menendez, Blame New Jersey” Jeff Smith and Brian Murphy would have you believe that New Jersey is a steaming heap of political corruption that has no equal. When was the last time a New Jersey senator was found guilty of bribery? 1981. Thirty-four years ago. An entire generation has been born and grown up in the Garden State since then.

I am born, bred, and live in New Jersey. Illinois has ex-Governors in jail and no New Jersey Governor ever shared that distinction.

Our current one, Chris Christie, came to statewide attention when, as the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, he put a number of our politicians in jail for corruption in addition to a slew of convictions for sexual slavery, arms trafficking, and racketeering by gangs, along with other federal crimes.

He was a very good lawyer and had also been politically ambitious, rising through the ranks, campaigning for Bush 41 and 43, the latter who appointed him to the State Attorney post. In a very Democratic state, he would handily defeat Joe Corzine in 2009 to become Governor because Corzine was as incompetent then as Obama is today.

The rap on New Jersey is that politicians and those who donate a chunk of money to support their election are somehow different or special in some way. I doubt there is a political reporter or blogger in any other state that could not regale you with a history of their crooked politicians and appointees that would not equal or exceed ours.

AA - Sen. Menendez

New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez (D)

Now, let’s get to the heart of the charges against Sen. Menendez. More to the point, when the charges were announced. In early March he gave a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Menendez made no secret of his displeasure that the Obama administration was negotiating with Iran. “When it comes to defending the U.S.-Israel relationship,” he told the group, “I am not intimidated by anyone—not Israel’s political enemies and not by my political friends when I feel they’re wrong.” He said that as long has he had an ounce of fight in him, “Iran will never have a pathway to a (nuclear) weapon.”

And Menendez had also made it clear that he opposed the normalizing of a diplomatic relationship with Cuba. “The deal achieved nothing for Americans.”

When the DOJ indictment was announced, the state’s largest daily newspaper virtually pronounced him guilty. “The litany of travel arranged by U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez’s good friend, Salomon Melgen, reads like the operation of a small airline.” It salivated over the 68-page indictment and the favors alleged between him and “his wealthy benefactor” that included “more than $1 million to various political campaigns connected to the senator.” No question about it, Melgen was Menendez’s friend and supporter. That is, however, not against the law.

I doubt there is a member of the U.S. Senate that does not have such wealthy supporters, nor any that have not accepted an invitation to vacation as their guest. Did Menendez reply by using the influence of his office to facilitate visas or the approval of deals by which Melgen would benefit? In one cited case that influence did not have any effect on the outcome, but simply stated this is part of the job. It is the quid pro quo of politics and always has been.

The Department of Justice indictment came at the same time the Obama administration had squandered 18 months in useless, senseless negotiations with Iran to arrive at an agreement that would ultimately permit Iran to produce nuclear bombs. No other nation wants that. Iran had never ceased to tell the world it intended to “wipe Israel off the map”, nor cease to call America the “Great Satan.”

The level of hubris from the President to the Secretary of State to those engaged in the negotiations is beyond measurement. It blinds them to the obvious.

The White House clearly could not permit a prominent Democratic senator to tell the Israelis and the world what a bunch of jackasses they were. They feared losing control of the rest of the Democratic senators and thus Menendez is being subjected to a long, costly indictment as a lesson to the others.

The indictment suggests a pattern of corruption based solely on the relationship between Menendez and Melgem, both longtime friends. If Menendez broke the law the DOJ should have been able to come up with comparable charges involving others for whom he intervened. If I was a gambling man, I would bet that Sen. Menendez beats the charges.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

RELATED ARTICLE: Meet Barack Obama’s Frenemy: Democratic Senator Bob Menendez

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of President Barack Obama shaking hands with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie while U.S. Senator Robert Menendez watches at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, December 15, 2014. LARRY DOWNING/REUTERS

Let the Budget Battles Begin

The announcement of a new fiscal budget for the U.S. government always sets the stage for struggles between the spenders and those trying to put some limits on the spending. The spenders usually win because politicians—particularly progressive ones—love to tap the national treasury in order to reward their supporters.

As the Speaker of the House John Boehner said on the occasion of the March 17 announcement, “For 53 of the last 60 years, the federal government has spent more than it has taken in. It is unacceptable.” Not so unacceptable that one Congress after another has not seen fit to ignore common sense and fiscal prudence.

Capitol with DollarsThe sheer enormity of the budget tends to overwhelm and I suspect that most voters pay little attention to it and the issues it represents except to want assurances that their benefit check arrives. Rarely mentioned or largely unknown is the size of the nation’s unfunded liabilities, long term obligations in Medicare and Social Security. In 2014 they reached nearly $49 trillion with a “T”.

Our annual Gross Domestic Product, (GDP) what the U.S. takes in for goods and services is about $14 trillion. Our current national debt is $18 trillion and growing. Regarding the unfunded liabilities, Romina Boccia of The Heritage Foundation noted last year that they were “nearly three times the size of the total national debt or more than $150,000 for every person in the U.S.” He predicted that “even the most vulnerable Medicare and Social Security beneficiaries would see their benefits drastically cut after 2030.”

Here’s another way of looking at our debt. When interest rates return to normal WE are going to be paying several hundred billion in interest on our current $18 trillion debt. In short, we have to desperately start cutting spending NOW to reduce that debt. Or else!

The 2016 budget announced by House Budget Chairman Tom Price represents Republican values. As the Wall Street Journal noted, it “would cut spending by $5.5 trillion relative to the status quo over the next decade, reducing federal spending to 18.2% of the economy by 2024. The share today is 20.3% and is headed toward 22.3% in a decade on present trend.” It’s useful to keep in mind that every dollar the government collects and spends is one less dollar that the private sector can spend on starting and expanding businesses large and small.

All that money represents opportunities for waste that are mind-boggling. A recent article in CNS News reported that “Medicare and Medicaid made a combined $77.4 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2014, a 20.4 percent increase from fiscal 2013, according to data published by the Government Accountability Office and the federal paymentaccuracy.gov website.” Twelve government programs that wasted money made the Government Accountability Office list including the school lunch and public housing/rental assistance programs.

The good news about the new fiscal budget is that it openly calls for repealing ObamaCare. It also outlines deregulating Medicaid to give governors more flexibility. It is a terrific fiscal burden. The budget took note of the fact that there are too many duplicative government programs such as 92 antipoverty programs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that consolidating such programs would increase real GDP per capita by 1.5% in 2015. Eliminating a whole bunch of them would save even more.

Jane M. Orient, M.D., the Executive Director of American Physicians and Surgeons, and a policy advisor to The Heartland Institute, warned that “there seem to be some good first steps, such as block-granting Medicaid to the states. But even Republicans aren’t admitting that their budget also involves fighting over money that we don’t have, that the Federal Reserve will create out of faith and credit.”

“Also absent,” said Dr. Orient, “is recognition of the crushing burden of regulation, especially EPA rules to destroy a huge portion of our electrical generating capacity, with heavy subsidization of costly, unreliable, environmentally destructive wind and solar projects that can’t possibly replace coal, nuclear, or natural gas. Or recognition of the destructive impact of the Department of Education. How about devolving environmental protection and education back to the states, too, along with Medicaid?”

Heartland Tax & Budget News (1)“This new House budget,” said Peter Ferrara, a Heartland Senior Fellow for Entitlement and Budget Policy, “shows the passing of the Age of Obama and the broad gulf of difference between today’s conservative Republicans and the modern, ultra-Left, extremist, neo-socialist Democrats. Reagan-life, the plan would balance the budget without tax increases, while modernizing our increasingly dangerously lagging military.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial pointed out that, “As important, failing to pass a budget would also deprive Republicans of the procedural tool known as reconciliation. This allows the GOP to pass a final budget with a simple majority in the House and Senate, and thus it will be crucial to putting larger reforms of ObamaCare or taxes on Mr. Obama’s desk. A vote against the budget is in that sense a vote for the ObamaCare status quo.”

In sum, the proposed budget represents a serious effort to enact reforms that are long overdue. These and other measures are needed to encourage economic growth, the heart’s blood of the nation.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo.

Reviews are in! Skeptic Morano as villain in warmist film is ‘terrifyingly impressive, sadistic’…

‘The doc’s most engaging character’ – ‘A magnificent antihero, a cheery, chatty prevaricator’ – ‘Slick’ – ‘Scary’ – ‘A loathsome mercenary’ – ‘Sleazy spin doctor’

New Warmist film by Sony Pictures, ‘Merchants of Doubt’, portrays Marc Morano as evil nemesis/arch-enemy of climate change promoters – Morano is ‘a grinning-skull nihilist’

Global warming movies sets out to smear skeptics, but ‘features ‘a semi-affectionate portrait of professional attack dog Marc Morano’

[Note: The other upcoming documentary, Morano’s skeptical global warming documentary, ‘Climate Hustle’ ,is set to rock climate debate – Release set for later in 2015. Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry: ‘Morano’s film Climate Hustle; check out the trailer.  Seems to more entertaining anyways than ‘Merchants of Doubt.’…Stay tuned…]

‘Merchants of Doubt’ director pushing to ban Morano & other skeptics from TV!

New York Times: Morano exemplifies ‘slickness, grandiosity & charm’

New York Times: ‘Morano is a cheerful and unapologetic promoter of climate-change skepticism’

Morano in starring role as villain in warmist film ‘Merchants of Doubt’ – Morano: ‘I’m not a scientist, but I play one on TV’

Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry: ‘Morano is actually quite broadly knowledgeable about climate science and the associated politics’

Warmist review of Merchants Of Doubt criticizes film for being ‘swindled by the charm of charismatic talking heads’ like Morano

Warmist Naomi Oreskes: ‘People like Morano have made a career out of being contrarians, and they are very good at it. When a scientist comes up against a well-trained, savvy person, scientists will always lose in the debate.’

Warmist Randy Olson laments: ‘Wish the enviros had someone comparable to Morano, but they don’t’

TV villain slogan: “If only he’d used his powers for good, instead of for evil.”

Morano responds to tobacco smear: ‘The warmists have it exactly backwards. It is the global warming proponents who are guilty of the tobacco tactics.’ See: Flashback: Warmists’ mimic tobacco industry tactics: ‘Like tobacco industry, Warmists’ manufactured uncertainty & fear by stridently proclaiming certainty & consensus based on dubious & uncertain modeled results predicting disastrous consequences of a warmer climate’

Watch ‘Merchants of Doubt’ Trailer here:

Morano featured as villain in new warmist documentary: ‘Merchants of Doubt’ – Marc Morano in warmist film: ‘I am not a scientist, although I do occasionally play one on TV — Ok — Hell, more than occasionally.’ – ‘We (skeptics) the negative force, we are just trying to stop stuff.’

[Note: For those not interested in attempted smear job on global warming skeptics, Hollywood has the answer. See ‘Kingsman’ instead! See: The movie ‘Kingsman’: ‘The most subversive anti-AGW movie’ – ‘This movie presents in Technicolor the awful nature of alarmists; they are elitist, narcissistic and misanthropic. And riddled in hypocrisy’]

Producer of new Oreskes Warmist film: ‘My goal was to make people angry that they are being lied to’ – Morano featured as villain in new warmist film

NYT: Morano exemplifies ‘slickness, grandiosity & charm’ – New York Times: ‘Morano is a cheerful and unapologetic promoter of climate-change skepticism’ – NYT film review of warmist documentary ‘Merchants of Doubt’: ‘Public relations, in contrast, is built on slickness, grandiosity and charm. These traits are exemplified by Marc Morano, a cheerful and unapologetic promoter of climate-change skepticism and currently the executive director of the website Climate Depot. One of the film’s conceits is that the actions of Mr. Morano and his colleagues can be con games and magic tricks.’

Newspaper calls Marc Morano ‘terrifyingly impressive’ and ‘sadistic’ – Daily Californian’s film review of ‘Merchants of Doubt’: ‘Marc Morano is one of the terrifyingly, impressive and yet sadistic experts with this skill set. His statements add shock and give viewers a hard-hitting wakeup call’

Morano featured in Newsweek Mag: Warmist filmmaker: ‘I think Morano’s very funny, he’s very smart’ – Climate Depot featured as villain in new warmist Oreskes film

Mag. reviews ‘Merchants of Doubt’ – Calls Morano ‘a grinning-skull nihilist LulzSec member’ – Calls Climate Depot ‘leading site for climate change skeptics’ – Excerpt: Morano is ‘a grinning-skull nihilist LulzSec member, hacking reality for the LOLs—a mirror-world Yes Man who has decided there’s more to be gained in being an actual yes man.’ – ‘Morano, who ascended from accosting celebrities outside the men’s room for Rush Limbaugh’s TV show in the mid-1990s to debating Bill Nye on global warming on CNN in 2012, seems to relish revealing the secrets to his greatest illusions.

Warmist review of Merchants Of Doubt criticizes film for being ‘swindled by the charm of charismatic talking heads’ like Morano

Marc Morano was great in the film. It flopped anyway.

‘Merchants of Doubt’ producer seeks media ban on skeptics: ‘Tell news editors: Stop booking climate deniers!’

San Francisco Chronicle Calls Climate Depot’s Morano ‘shifty’, ‘slick’, & ‘scary’ – San Francisco Chronicle on ‘Merchants of Doubt’ film: ‘Much more powerful are the moments like the interview with climate change ‘expert’ Marc Morano, who luxuriates in his shifty tactics and misdirection plays. To him, it’s all fun and games — he’s both slick and scary.’

Salon Mag. calls Morano ‘a loathsome mercenary’ – ‘Driven by perverse conviction…to jam his thumb into the eye of liberal orthodoxy’

Film Review: Morano is ‘the documentary’s most engaging character’ – One of ‘sleazy spin doctors who will stop at nothing to obscure the truth’ – ‘Merchants of Doubt’ – The documentary’s most engaging character, after all, is self-described creator of chaos Marc Morano, who runs the climate denial site Climate Depot and who frequently appears as an “expert” on network news. (“I am not a scientist, although I do play one on TV,” he explains.)

LA Weekly review: Warmist film features ‘a magnificent antihero in Marc Morano, a cheery, chatty prevaricator’ – LA Weekly review of ‘Merchants of Doubt’: [Producer Robby] Kenner finds a magnificent antihero in Marc Morano, a cheery, chatty prevaricator who has made a mint by muddying water. His job is to promote skepticism of a truth that even Skeptic magazine believes in, and since Morano’s cocksure, and good at yelling on TV, he steamrolls over climate scientists on cable despite his lack of expertise. In interviews, he’s disarmingly guileless…The film and Morano agree on one thing: All that the deniers of climate change have to do to succeed is reduce the country’s certainty. They’ve been wildly successful.’

NY Post film review features Morano as a ‘shifty pundit’– ‘Merchants of Doubt’ doc pulls curtain back on shifty pundits’ – ‘One oft-quoted “climate change skeptic,” Marc Morano, admits in the film, ‘I’m not a scientist, but I do play one on TV occasionally…hell, more than occasionally.’

Warmist producer of Oreskes film: ‘Morano was very funny, very charming, and I think does great damage, but he was honest’ – San Fran Chronicle: Marc Morano, whose job it is to rebut climate change, is not only candid but also humorous. Kenner credits him with helping to set the tone of the film. “Morano was really frank,” he says. “That was a shocking interview. Any time I asked him a hard question, he was far from being insulted. Nothing could scare him. He was very funny, very charming, and I think does great damage, but he was honest.”

Watch: Morano featured as villain in new warmist documentary: ‘Merchants of Doubt’

Review: Warmist film features ‘a semi-affectionate portrait of professional attack dog Marc Morano’ – Review of ‘Merchants of Doubt’: ‘The totally amoral Morano, who more or less admits that he’s only in it for the thrill of the game. There’s a reason folks like Singer and Morano are able to affect public policy with specious data, and it’s because they’re good at playing characters and cracking self-deprecating jokes and generally being interesting on camera, and real climate scientists aren’t.’

Warmist thinks Morano is both ‘a talking bobble head for cable news’ and a ‘little man behind the curtain’?! – Morano is one of the ‘shills for the fossil fuel-industry’ – ‘The documentary’s interview with Morano reveals that he learned many of his tricks from door-to-door sales, including the need to keep it simple so that people can fill in the blanks with their pre-existing biases. Morano’s biggest piece of advice is that the best way to attack science is to attack individuals.’

Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry rips the ‘bankruptcy of the ‘Merchants of Doubt’ meme – ‘Morano is actually quite broadly knowledgeable about climate science and the associated politics’ – Curry on ‘Merchants of Doubt’: ‘Censorship and propaganda; lets call a spade a spade.’ – Curry: ‘I’ve met Marc Morano a number of times. He is actually quite broadly knowledgeable about climate science and the associated politics.  He is the one ‘doubter’ in this whole piece that actually has some influence in the current climate debate.’  – ‘And coming sometime next fall (I think; no release date set) is Marc Morano’s film Climate Hustle; check out the trailer.  Seems to more entertaining anyways than ‘Merchants of Doubt.’

Flashback: German Mag does wacko profile of Climate Depot! Morano the Godfather?! German Die Zeit declares: Doubt Being Fanned Worldwide By Climate Godfather Marc Morano

Godfather Morano plays villain in movie – ‘No movie is complete without a good villain, and Morano is good, because he is fearless and committed. I was impressed last week with the Mel Gibson villain role in The Expendables. Gibson has that spark of impetuosity, fearlessness and confidence that Morano displays–you just know when presented with a choice–Morano will ACT WITH VIGOR, as Yogi said–when you come to a fork in the road, take it. Morano will take BOTH CHOICES AND THEN DOUBLE BACK AND DO IT AGAIN.’

Film Review of Warmist film Merchants of Doubt says Climate Depot’s Morano is ‘proudly sleazy’ in ‘discrediting the science’ – Producer ‘Robert Kenner’s polished and deftly argued film finds compelling subjects on both sides of the fence, from the proudly sleazy Marc Morano, who boasts of his underhanded tactics to discredit the science.’

‘Merchants of Doubt’ producer Robert Kenner on Morano : ‘Marc was not thin-skinned. If I asked a tough question, he’d give a tougher answer’

‘Morano seems to be the most aggressive, bullying the scientists he debates’ – Morano stars as villain in new warmist doc ‘Merchants of Doubt’ –

Sony Classics Grabs Docu ‘Merchants Of Doubt’ About Professional Climate-Change Skeptics – Morano featured as part of ‘a secretive group of charismatic pundits-for-hire who present themselves in the media as scientific authorities – yet have the contrary aim of spreading maximum confusion’

‘The Marx Brothers’: Director Robby Kenner of ‘Merchants of Doubt’ is’ little brother of 1960s radical leftist Martin Kenner’ – Naomi Oreskes warned many skeptics ‘see environmentalists as creeping communists. They see them as reds under the bed. They call them watermelons — you know, green on the outside, red on the inside. And they worry that environmental regulation will be the slippery slope to socialism.’

‘Merchants of Doubt’ producer seeks media ban on skeptics: ‘Tell news editors: Stop booking climate deniers!’

Skeptic responds to ‘Merchants of Doubt’ producer’s Call to ban skeptics from TV – ‘Surely the best way to defeat a bad scientific argument is to engage with it and show how it is in error. Denying people free speech in the media only fuels the flames.’

Early returns: Warmist film ‘Merchants of Doubt’ struggling at box office – Heartland friend Marc Morano won the “Best Reading of Emails While Traveling in a Car in a Crummy Documentary” Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

WashPost Film Critic Applauds Film Charging Climate ‘Deniers’ Just Like Tobacco Lobbyists

Morano responds: ‘The warmists have it exactly backwards. It is the global warming proponents who are guilty of the tobacco tactics.’ See: Flashback: Warmists’ mimic tobacco industry tactics: ‘Like tobacco industry, Warmists’ manufactured uncertainty & fear by stridently proclaiming certainty & consensus based on dubious & uncertain modeled results predicting disastrous consequences of a warmer climate’

Prof. Roger Pielke Jr. Rips ‘Big Climate’ for having ‘similarities’ with ‘Big Tobacco’ & ‘Big NFL’ – Pielke Jr. specifically linked UN IPCC and Michael Mann’s tactics to ‘Big Tobacco’ and ‘Big NFL’

Naomi Oreskes, THE Merchant of Doubt herself, uses tactics of the tobacco lobby – ‘Oreskes wrote an entire book designed to denigrate scientists based on tenuous links on unrelated topics with 20 year old documents. She is The Merchant of Doubt — it’s what she sells — “doubts” about the motivation of skeptical scientists. Her fantasies about skeptics using tobacco tactics is pure psychological projection…In a science debate about the climate, the only things that matter are evidence and reasoning about the climate. Those who can’t point out flaws in the science debate launch personal attacks from the gutter instead.’

Open Letter: Warmist Oreskes ‘Merchants of Doubt’ may face ‘potential major legal entanglement?’

Merchants of ‘smear’ movie slanders eminent Physicist Dr. Fred Singer – Singer Fires Back! – Dr. Singer: ‘I would prefer to avoid having to go to court; but if we do, we are confident that we will prevail.’ – ‘Oreskes book “Merchants of Doubt” contains a number of serious scientific errors; also, it is not in accordance with the kind of scholarship expected from an academic historian.  Instead of primary sources, she relies on secondary and even tertiary sources who have obvious, demonstrated agenda.’

Marshall Institute Rebuts Oreskes Silly New Book: ‘A Critique of Merchants of Doubt’

Report: ‘Merchants of Smear’ – Debunks claims that skeptics are ‘paid by industry to manufacture doubt about’ climate change

Warmist Naomi Oreskes warns of the mass extinction of household pets

Prof. Roger Pielke Jr.: ‘Merchants of Doubt’ in a nutshell: ‘How a 90 yr-old man and a few dead friends fool the stupid American public, end of civilization results.’

Related Link: 

Flashback: Newspaper Credits ‘Celebrity skeptic’ Morano with Fueling Growing Climate Skepticism: ‘Morano is one of the main leaders of the new breed of climate skeptics’

The EPA Thinks You’re Stupid

The folks at the Environmental Protection Agency, starting with a long line of its administrators that now includes Gina McCarthy, think you and the Congress of the United States are stupid. They have been telling lies for so long they can’t imagine that their chokehold on the American economy will ever end.

EPA Director - Gina McCarthy

EPA Director Gina McCarthy

It is, however, coming to an end and the reason is a Republican-controlled Congress responding to the countless businesses and individuals being ravaged by a ruthless bureaucracy driven by an environmental agenda determined to deprive America of the energy sources vital to our lives and the nation’s existence.

This was on display in early March when Gina McCarthy testified to the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, asking for a nearly $500 million increase in its 2016 budget. The total discretionary budget request would have topped out at $8.6 billion and would reward states nearly $4 billion to go along with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.

The problem is that the Clean Power Plan is really about no power or far more costly power in those states where the EPA has been shutting down coal-fired plants that not long ago provided fifty percent of all the electricity in the nation.

In February 2014, the Institute for Energy Research reported:

“More than 72 gigawatts (GW) of electrical generating capacity have already, or are now set to retire because of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulations. The regulations causing these closures include the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (colloquially called MATS, or Utility MACT), proposed Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), and the proposed regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants.

To put 72 GW in perspective, that is enough electrical generation capacity to reliably power 44.7 million homes—or every home in every state west of the Mississippi River, excluding Texas. In other words, EPA is shutting down enough generating capacity to power every home in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

EPA - Shutdown of Electricity

Plants closed or soon to be closed. For a larger view click on the map.

Over 94 percent these retirements will come from generating units at coal-fired power plants, shuttering over one-fifth of the U.S.’s coal-fired generating capacity. While some of the effected units will be converted to use new fuels, American families and businesses will pay the price with higher utility bills and less reliability for their electricity.”

What nation would knowingly reduce its capacity to produce the electricity that everyone depends upon?

Answer: The United States of America.

Why? Because the EPA has been telling us that coal-fired plants produce carbon dioxide (CO2) and it is causing ours and the world’s temperature to increase to a point that threatens our lives. They have been claiming that everything from blizzards to droughts, hurricanes to forest fires, are the result of the CO2 that coal-fired plants produce.

That is a huge, stupendous lie.

In the Senate Committee meeting, McCarthy said, “Climate change is real. It is happening. It is a threat. Humans are causing the majority of that threat…the impacts are being felt. Climate change is not a religion. It is not a belief system. It’s a scientific fact. And our challenge is to move forward with the actions we need to protect future generations.”

Climate change is real. It’s been real for 4.5 billion years and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything that humans do, least of all heating, cooling and lighting their homes, running their businesses, and everything else that requires electricity.

McCarthy said that the EPA’s overall goal was to save the planet from rising sea levels, massive storms, and other climate events that impact our lives. No, that’s not why the EPA was created in 1970. Its job was to clean the water and the air. It has done a relatively good job, but its mandate had nothing to do with the climate, nor does the provision of energy have any impact on the climate.

The reverse is true. The climate has a lot of impact on us.

Regarding the “science” McCarthy referred to, according to a 2013 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there were record low tornadoes, record low hurricanes, record gain in Arctic and Antarctic ice, no change in the rate of sea levels, and there had been NO WARMING at that point for 17—now 19—years.

When Sen. Jeff Sessions asked McCarthy a number of questions about droughts and hurricanes, she either dodged providing a specific answer or claimed, as with hurricanes, that “I cannot answer that question. It’s a very complicated issue.”

Asked about the computer models on which the EPA makes its regulatory decisions, McCarthy replied, “I do not know what the models actually are predicting that you are referring to.” Sen. Sessions said that it was incredible that the Administrator of the EPA “doesn’t know whether their predictions have been right or wrong.”

As for any “science” the EPA may be using, much of it is SECRET.

Heartland - Climate News (1)H. Sterling Burnett, the managing editor of the Heartland Institute’s Environment & Climate News, reported on The Secret Science Reform Act (HR 4012) introduced by the House Science Committee late last year. The bill would “prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from proposing, finalizing, or disseminating regulations or assessments based on science that is not transparent or reproducible.”

The House passed the Act on November 20, 2014 and it has been received in the Senate, read twice, and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. If it passes the Senate, that will be a giant leap forward in gaining oversight and control of the EPA.

Until then, the EPA’s administrator and staff will continue to work their mischief in the belief that both Congress and the rest of us are stupid. We’re not.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

RELATED ARTICLE: “Once-in-a-Generation Event”: Icebergs Wash Ashore at Cape Cod as Thoughts of Global Warming Evaporate

Green Slander

It is a sure sign that the advocates of the “global warming” and “climate change” hoaxes know that the public no longer believes that the former is occurring or that the latter represents an immediate, global threat.

Even though the “climate skeptics”, scientists who have produced research proving false methodology and the conclusions based on it are quite few in number, an effort to silence them by smearing their reputations and denying funding for their work has been launched and it is based entirely on a lie.

Scientists are supposed to be skeptical, not only of other scientist’s findings, but their own. Good science must be able to reproduce the results of published research. In the case of the many computer models cited as proof that global warming was occurring or would, the passing years have demonstrated that none were accurate.

As Joseph L. Bast, president of The Heartland Institute and Joseph A. Morris, an attorney who has fought in several countries to defend free speech, wrote in a February 24 commentary, “The Crucifixion of Dr. Wei-Hock Soon”, of an article co-authored with Christopher Monckton, Matt Briggs, and David Legates, and published in the Science Bulletin, a publication of the Chinese Academy of Sciences “The article reveals what appears to be an error in the computer models used to predict global warming that leads models to over-estimate future warming by a factor of three.” (Emphasis added) Their commentary has been downloaded more than 10,000 times!

“If the work of Soon et al is confirmed by other scientists, the ‘global warming crisis’ may need to be cancelled and we can all enjoy lower taxes, fewer regulations, and more personal freedom.” However, “having failed to refute the article, environmentalists turned to smearing the authors.”

ColdThermometerLittle wonder the “Warmists” are worried; the Earth has been in a cooling cycle since 1996. People are noticing just how cold this record-breaking and record-setting winter is.

The attack on Dr. Soon began with a Greenpeace news release that was republished on the front page of The New York Times on February 22nd. Despite its august reputation, The Times’ coverage of climate issues has been an utter disgrace for decades. As public interest waned, it eliminated its staff of reporters exclusively devoted to writing about the “environment.”

Myron Ebell, a climate change skeptic and director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, noted on February 27th that the Greenpeace attack on Dr. Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics claimed they had secured $1.2 million in funding for his research over the past decade and that it came from energy corporations, electric utilities, and charitable foundations related to those companies. The truth, however, is “that the grants were made not to Dr. Soon but to the Smithsonian, which never complained while taking its sizable cut off the top.”

Columnist Larry Bell who is also an endowed professor at the University of Houston, disputed the Greenpeace claim, saying, “First, let’s recognize that the supporting FOIA documents referred to an agreement between the Smithsonian (not Dr. Soon) and Southern Company Services, Inc., whereby 40 percent of that more than $1.2 million went directly to the Smithsonian” leaving “an average funding of $71,000 a year for the past eleven years to support the actual research activities.”

Focusing on Greenpeace and its Climate Investigations Center which describes itself as “a group funded by foundations seeking to limit the risks of climate change”, Bell asked “Do these activist organizations make their estimated $360,000,000 annual funding publicly available?” Bell said “Ad hominem assaults disparaging the integrity of this leading authority on relationships between solar phenomena and global climate are unconscionable.”

In his article, “Vilifying realist science—and scientists”, Paul Driessen, a policy advisor to the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), noted that in 2012 Greenpeace USA was the recipient of $32,791,149 and that this is true of other environmental pressure groups that in 2012 secured $111,915.138 for the Environmental Defense Fund, $98,701,707 for the Natural Resources Defense Council, $97,757,678 for the Sierra Club, and, for Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, $19,150,215.

“All told,” noted Driessen, “more than 16,000 American environmental groups collect(ed) total annual revenues of over $13.4 billion (2009 figures). Only a small part of that comes from membership dues and individual contributions.” With that kind of money you can do a lot of damage to scientist’s reputation.

They fear that the public may actually learn the truth about “global warming” and the fear-mongering claims about “climate change” does not stop with just the environmental organizations. At the same time The New York Times was printing the Greenpeace lies, U.S. Senators Ed Market (D-Mass), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) joined together on February 25th to send letters to 107 companies, trade associations, and non-profit groups demanding comprehensive information about all funding of research on climate or related issues.

Among the groups receiving the letter were two for whom I am a policy advisor, The Heartland Institute and CFACT, but others include the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the American Energy Alliance.

Following The New York Times article, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, sent letters to the presidents of seven universities asking them to provide details about seven professors who are either prominent global warming skeptics.

As Rich Lowrey, editor of the National Review, pointed out on February 27th, that “Science as an enterprise usually doesn’t need political enforcers. But proponents of a climate alarmism that demands immediate action to avert worldwide catastrophe won’t and can’t simply let the science speak for itself.”

slanderThis is not fact-finding. It is an act of intimidation.

And it looks like a carefully organized effort to quash any research that might dispute “global warming” or “climate change” as defined by the Greens and by both the President and the Secretary of State as the greatest threat we and the rest of the world faces.

The greatest threat is the scores of environmental organizations that have been exaggerating and distorting their alleged “science” in order to thwart development here and around the world that would enhance everyone’s life. Now they are attacking real scientists, those who are skeptical of their claims, to silence them.

This is what fascists do.

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You Lie!: The Evasions, Omissions, Fabrications, Frauds, and Outright Falsehoods of Barack Obama

Former Assistant Sec of Defense Frank Gaffney interviews renowned author and academy award winning filmmaker Jack Cashill on his new book You Lie!: The Evasions, Omissions, Fabrications, Frauds, and Outright Falsehoods of Barack Obama.

Plus a live interview from Israel with me, Tom Trento.

Climate Reality Conveniently Lost in New York City

When former Vice President Al Gore helped lead a parade of the faithful down New York’s Sixth Avenue this past Sunday in the “People’s Climate March,” it was lamentable to see how deluded so many have become about the real causes and effects of climate change. The fearful souls who confidently joined Al in the march either are unaware or unconcerned with how utterly lost they are between what is real and what Al and the President are telling them about climate change. Climate reality it seems got conveniently lost in the Big Apple this week.

Their President Barack Obama, in his address to the UN Climate Summit, continued to stress the need to eliminate an atmospheric trace gas for the sake of saving the planet. So committed are the flock that follow preacher Al and preacher Barack, that they simply have divorced themselves from the climate reality that surrounds them, a reality that is about to make life on planet Earth for much more difficult.

What is this ‘new climate reality?”

Climate-Change-March

People’s Climate March, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014, in New York. AP Photo/Mel Evans.

Here are some of the life changing facts not discussed by the President, Al or others leading the climate festivities this week:

  1. THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING! The battle to end global warming has already been won – there has been no growth in the Earth’s average temperatures in the troposphere (where we live) for over eighteen years! Congratulations Mr. President you actually did fulfill one of your campaign promises. The cruel irony is of course, you had nothing to do with it. The faithful continued the march even though for most of the last two decades we have heard about global warming, there wasn’t any!
  2. The planet’s oceans and atmospheres are not in the so-called “pause” ready to restart warming at some future date – they are in fact COOLING! For eleven years now the oceans have been cooling and the atmosphere for most of that time. This is fundamental and not subject to negotiation. The cooling of the planet is a total violation of the UN’s failed CO2 driven climate models. On the other hand these climate trends are in complete accord with the significantly more reliable solar activity models that use natural cycles to predict climate. As a result of following this ‘best available science,’ my Space and Science Research Corporation (SSRC) has racked up what at least one PhD investigative journalist has said, is the best track record of climate prediction in the United States.
  3. The most vital piece of information which the leaders of the global warming (a.k.a. climate change) religion failed to disclose to their followers was that A NEW POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS COLD CLIMATE HAS BEGUN. The public is intentionally being kept in the dark by the current administration in Washington on the matter of this new, hazardous, cold epoch. Unfortunately, if it repeats as similar past cold periods, it will be devastating for the planet’s agriculture. The one billion who already struggle daily to find enough food to eat are about to face their worst trial for survival in recorded history! If prominent Russian climate scientists are correct and the cold is at the level of the “little Ice Age” then the global suffering will be ‘biblical’ in scale.

For the ‘church of climate blindness,’ their high priests, and their happily self-deluded flock, this news of an impending dangerous cold climate will likely go un-communicated by the US government and their complicit media co-conspirators. History has also shown that those who make decisions based on what they want to believe instead of what the facts tell them, are the ones who pay the worst price. They are the ones who are least prepared for the adversity that the facts tell them is about to strike.

So, in what may be the most public display of cognitive dissonance in US history, a large portion of the American people celebrated along with those marching in New York City this week, reinforcing their belief that mankind controls the climate. They remain oblivious to the all-powerful Sun that it is about to inconveniently lower the boom on that notion, with a vengeance!

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is a Union of Concerned Scientists banner at the People’s Climate March in New York City, 20 September 2014. SOURCE: Kate Cell, UCS.

A Different Opinion on Smart Meter “Phobia”

Recently someone sent me James Tracy’s blog on an editorial written by the Palm Beach PostSmart Media Phobia Sad, But Don’t Cut Power” regarding FP&L’s smart meters. The Palm Beach Post circulation covers the area for which FP&L maintains its headquarters. Essentially the editors feel that the Internet is a blessing and a curse because people, other than them, don’t know how to interpret data and they are reading things other than the mainstream media and are being “misinformed”. We apparently repeat these misunderstandings until they sound like “fact”.

The editorial goes on to repeat industry propaganda about how one can be continually exposed to smart meters for 375 years and that would equate to a 15-minute cell phone call. Dr. Tracy, in his blog post, details all the science he has previously provided FP&L that refutes such nonsense. I decided to call out the Palm Beach Post on other false information in their Op-Ed. Most likely they won’t print it, but luckily we have alternative media to by-pass their censorship power.

My response sent to the Palm Beach Post editorial was as follows.

Editors of the Palm Beach Post:

I am the lead petitioner in the action against the Florida Power & Light (FP&L) smart meter opt out fees currently before the Florida Public Service Commission (FPSC). I read your editorial published September 4, 2014 and shook my head, as it is nothing but another corporate propaganda piece that spreads misinformation.

First, I take exception to the insinuation that I suffer from “lack of training to parse data”. I am a CPA and trained auditor. I know how to research, source and interpret data. I also have a background in the regulatory process having worked 11 years for a telephone company. I have handled complicated transactions such as the AT&T divestiture to the planning and implementation of Sarbanes – Oxley regulations for a multi-billion dollar company. I have spent about 10 hours per day, 5 days a week for two years reading every governmental and industry report on the smart grid and smart meters. My computer is now overloaded with downloads.

Second, it is not a fact that “the vast majority of FP&L’s approximately 4.6 million customers have “adopted the new technology without a second thought”. The truth is the vast majorities don’t even know they have a smart meter or what it does differently. But what is true is that the claims of the smart meter giving people information to help manage their energy are a lie, as the current information provided to customers is useless. This can be supported by FP&L’s disclosure that the vast majority of customers have yet to even access their silly Energy Dashboard. But I am sure the editors of this paper do so every day, correct?

Third, the biggest lie in your is this statement “The facts are clear: Smart meters lower everyone’s utility bills by reducing the need for trucks, fuel, and meter readers. They reduce the length and extent of power outages. They pose no credible threat to health.”

Smart meters do not reduce the length and extent of power outages – smart technologies (sensors on equipment like transformers and substations and smart switches on feeders) do provide this benefit.

Regarding your statements of “credible threat to health”, where have we heard that phrase before? Ah, yes, the tobacco industry used that phrase for decades quite successfully, didn’t they? Now let’s look at the credibility of FP&L’s lead consultant on smart meter health, Dr. Peter Valberg. He claims that there is no “credible” science that shows RF harm. Your readers should know that he also testified on behalf of Phillip Morris in their light cigarettes deceptive marketing case. His testimony essentially stated that light cigarettes were just not being smoked properly, and also that the tobacco studies performed by Philip Morris were consistent” with what was known to the outside scientific community. No deception, right? How “credible” is this guy? Your readers can decide but they should also do an internet search on the BioInitiative Report before they make their decision.

But most importantly, smart meters have not lowered your bills – not one penny – they have actually increased them. Let me count the ways:

First, the old meters had a net book value (NBV) of $75 million and an estimated useful life of approximately 36 years. FP&L wrote off $101 million (includes cost of removal) when they threw the perfectly operational old meters in the garbage. The annual depreciation charges for these meters were around $7 million per year ($249 Million Gross value/36 yrs). The approximate annual return on investment FP&L received on the NBV of $75 million, using 9.48% pre-tax cost of capital was $7 million.

Contrast that to now. The smart meter project capital is $645 million with an estimated useful life of 20 years (and if you believe the 20 yr life, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you). This equates to depreciation charges of about $32 million per year ($645M/20yrs). The return on investment FP&L will earn on this new smart meter capital will be about $61 million per year ($645M at 9.48%), decreasing by about $3 million each year to reflect the lower NBV from depreciation.

Second, FP&L current rates are based on a 2013 test year and the 2012 rate case settlement agreement keeps the rates the same until at least 2017. The 2013 test year reflects an overall net Operations & Maintenance (O&M) cost of $3.4 million for the smart meter project. (Funny, in 2009 they estimated that the year 2013 would produce a net O&M savings of $20 million. I guess the project is overrunning its budget.) FP&L recently testified that once the project was completed in 2013 there would be about $40 million annual net savings in O&M.

When rate case settlements are made they are made for a period of time. Each party looks at that period of time to determine if anything needs to be considered and factored in before the final settlement is agreed to and finalized. FP&L raised its hand high, saying, look over here, I have new plants coming on line in these outer years and we need to raise rates to recover our investment and such was granted. But did FP&L raise their hand or did the FPSC insist that the smart meter savings of $40 million, which would start to be realized during that period, also be accounted for? No. FP&L was not required to reduce the rates in the outer years to reflect the savings.

Third, lets not forget to count all the new costs that are being incurred that did not exist with those old analog meters. Now you have communication costs to send the data wirelessly back to FP&L, cyber-security costs, software license and maintenance fees, data storage costs, big data consultants, settlements on fires and property damage, more equipment to be damaged in storms and the list goes on.

So Palm Beach Editorial Board, please disclose to your readers your facts to support your claim that smart meters have lowered our utility bills. The miscellaneous tariffs for all these activities – service connects/disconnects, reconnects for non-payment – are EXACTLY the same as they were when FP&L didn’t have smart meters. FP&L’s 2013 test year also included significant manual meter-reading costs as they still had over 800 thousand meters left to install in their assumptions and those costs are still baked into our current rates.

Your readers can decide for themselves, if FP&L, who made NO disclosure in their rate case settlement agreement that they planned to file these smart meter opt out tariffs (despite smart meters being an issue in the rate case), is deserving of an additional $2 million a year in revenue from these customers when they are keeping the $40 million in savings for three years and overcharging smart meter customers for truck rolls they are no longer performing. Is FP&L violating the rate case settlement agreement by trying to change rates for services already provided at the date of that agreement?

From my vantage point – if they are deserving of the $2 million in additional revenue because the project is over and we need to recognize a new ‘cost of service” – then it is only fair to re-price all activities affected by this fact and reduce the rates for all customers by $40-45 million.

There is no financial payback for me as I have sunk tens of thousand of dollars into this effort and countless unpaid hours of time. I do so for two reasons – 1) the many “Friedman’s out there who have no voice and are being harmed by this product and 2) to expose the illegal coordination and fraud/deception that took place between FP&L and FPSC as it pertains to this project.

The documented audit trail of deception is as long as the distance from my house in Venice to Tallahassee. Quite frankly, the conduct of our FPSC that I discovered on this journey is more disturbing than FP&L’s. I will take that item up with our state legislators when they return to Tallahassee for the next session.

Not Just the VA: Another example of government failure in healthcare by Terree P. Summer

Jay Littlewolf, a 54-year-old man, said inadequate healthcare at the government clinic compounded his problems with a diabetic ulcer on his right foot. He said that at one point he was told the remedy was to cut off his toes. Instead, he sought private medical treatment in Billings, Montana. “I don’t like those comments when the podiatrist says he just wants to cut your toes off,” Littlewolf said. “I know there are alternatives. Common sense says that.” To date, Jay has spent $3,000 out of pocket and expects his total bill to exceed $20,000. He wants to be reimbursed—and pay the balance of the bill—but the government agency has refused.

“We are trained and born not to challenge the system,” he said. “I’m not trying to challenge the system. I just want my bills paid. I wanted to save my toes, my foot, my leg, my life. All I want to do is mow my darn lawn.”

Littlewolf’s story is reminiscent of the stories of neglect and incompetency at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the agency charged with caring for American veterans. Last April, news broke that the VA had serious problems. They came to light in its Phoenix  facility, where more than 40 veterans died while waiting for care. An internal audit released June 9, 2014, revealed that more than 120,000 veterans nationwide were left waiting or never got care and that pressures were placed on schedulers to use unofficial lists or engage in inappropriate practices to make waiting times appear more favorable. On June 11, 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation opened a criminal investigation of the VA.

Littlewolf, however, isn’t a veteran, and he was not dealing with the VA. Jay is a Native American and a member of the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Montana. He’s talking about the Indian Health Service (IHS), another federal government-operated healthcare system. When the scandal broke about the VA, the media, pundits, and politicians quickly concluded that the remedy for the VA’s ills was reform: more funding, regulation, and accountability. But the occurrence of the same problems at the IHS suggests that these sorts of problems may be endemic to government-run systems. Unfortunately, few are stepping up to recommend a more permanent fix than to enact reforms to the existing systems. What is needed is the privatization of healthcare services for those who suffer under government-controlled programs.

The IHS is familiar to me, as my grandfather was an IHS physician in Arizona. There are 22 tribes in my home state, and growing up there, I saw the issues facing Native Americans up close. The IHS has problems with long waits, inferior care, rationing, and lack of access—just as with the VA and with nationalized healthcare systems abroad. And, like the VA, when healthcare is under government control, it becomes inefficient and ineffective. Just ask Littlewolf.

In 2004, a report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights unsurprisingly blamed the substandard care in the IHS on the usual culprits: lack of funding, hiring the wrong people, retention and recruiting of qualified healthcare providers, and maintenance of aging facilities. As usual, the report didn’t point to the real problem: the program itself.

As with all government programs, inevitably most of the funding goes to pay bureaucrats and administrators, leaving little money for medical staff salaries and treatment. Low salaries contribute to unfilled vacancies, poor retention, and low morale among staff, causing waiting lists and inferior treatment for patients. The IHS has job vacancy rates for healthcare professionals ranging from 12 percent to 32 percent.

Bureaucrats cover up their mistakes with phony documents, like those found in the VA scandal, showing that patients are being promptly treated. Ultimately, supporters of government control lament that if only the right people could be found to run the program, everything would be fine.

In order to justify their salaries, government administrators promulgate endless regulations, bogging down the treatment process with red tape. Additionally, the IHS has a bloated bureaucracy, with over 14,000 employees, including eight assistant surgeon generals, 439 “Director Grade” bureaucrats, and 601 “Senior Grade” bureaucrats. Yet, in 2005, per capita federal spending on patients by the IHS was only $2,130—half the amount spent on federal prisoners’ care.

In a move in the right direction, in 2008, U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), introduced an amendment to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act that would allow tribal members to choose from various healthcare coverage options, including the ability to purchase private health insurance. According to Senator Coburn, the IHS currently rations services on the basis of whether a particular service will save a “life or limb.” Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Coburn’s amendment was voted down, 28 to 67.

While Coburn’s attempt at reform was laudable—and would have, at a minimum, provided an option for Native Americans seeking better health care—it didn’t really address the root of the problem. The only lasting solution that would ensure improvements in care and health outcomes would be the privatization of services to Native American tribes. I’m not confident that such a change is likely in the near future—for the IHS or for the VA. And, unfortunately, the problems that have plagued the VA and the IHS are harbingers of a future under our increasingly socialized healthcare system.

ABOUT TERREE P. SUMMER

Terree P. Summer is an economist and author specializing in healthcare and the federal budget. She is the author of What Has Government Done to Our Health Care? published by the Cato Institute (1992).

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of FEE and Shutterstock.

INFOGRAPHIC: How Unions Are Chewing Through Taxpayer Dollars

Nicole Rusenko and Kelsey Harris write and graphically display on The Daily Signal:

Did you know your tax dollars are financing unions?

Thanks to what the federal government calls “official time,” government workers spent 2.4 million hours on union work in 2010. In fact, the Internal Revenue Service alone has 286 full-time employees who work exclusively for the National Treasury Employees Union.

Check out the infographic below for more details on whose special interests (and pockets) your money is going.

WARNING: This infographic may upset your stomach and shrink your wallet.

OfficialTime_Infographic_Rusenko-011

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Nicole Rusenko Nicole Rusenko@ncrusen20

Nicole Rusenko is a senior designer at The Heritage Foundation.

 

Portrait of Kelsey Harris

Kelsey Harris
Kelsey Harris is the visual editor at The Daily Signal and digital media associate at The Heritage Foundation.