"The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object."
- Thomas Jefferson
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Gay Marriage and the California Courts
Democracy loses if Prop. 8 is overruled.
By WILLIAM MCGURN
If it walks like a culture war, squawks like a culture war, and has all the ugliness of a culture war, surely it is a culture war -- right?
APMaybe not. It's true that we've seen some wild things in the days since California voters approved Proposition 8 -- a measure on the state ballot prohibiting same-sex marriage. We've had the burning of the Book of Mormon. The mailing of envelopes filled with white powder to Mormon temples. And activists marching on Mormon churches with signs and shouts of "hate" and "bigot" directed at anyone who might have a difference of opinion.
In modern America, of course, these acts all come under the banner of "tolerance." And it's interesting that all those so outraged by the alleged disrespect toward the Quran shown by Guantanamo prison guards (the most sensational report was later retracted by Newsweek) appear unperturbed by the ugliness directed against our Mormon brothers and sisters. The temptation can be to saddle up the horse and ride out to take one's assigned place in the Great American Culture War.
Except for one little thing. What we have in America is less a culture war than a constitutional war. And if we could just straighten out the latter, we'd go a long way toward diffusing the former.
That much has become clearer in the wake of last week's decision by the California Supreme Court to review the legality of Proposition 8. In California, gay Americans have marriage in all but name -- which many Americans might think a pretty reasonable compromise. But courts tend to think in absolutes -- and when they intervene, woe unto the losing side.
The great achievement of our system was to create a political order where these great moral disputes, as a matter of policy, are left to the people -- with allowance for differences according to region and locale. Moral agents have a role to play, generally by shaping the larger culture in which these decisions are framed and debated. But the outcome is left to the people acting through their elected representatives, a process that inevitably involves compromise, trade-offs and messy accommodations.
These political accommodations can be thought illogical or even corrupt by those focused solely on the moral. Partial-birth abortion is a good example. In the moral sense, surely the humanity of an unborn child is not affected by whether he or she happens to be aborted inside the womb or, a few minutes later, outside the womb. And gay-rights activists see no moral difference between two men who want to get married and the traditional male-female couple making their walk to the altar.
What people hold as a moral ideal, however, and what they will accept as a workable compromise are two different things. Left to their own devices, most Americans can work these differences out in politics much as they do in their everyday lives, as untidy as these solutions may be. Unfortunately, when the courts short-circuit this process, they do three things corrosive to our politics.
First, they act as dishonest referees, imposing one set of preferences over another.
Second, they cheat the American people of an honest political contest, where candidates need to persuade the people of their views to put them into effect. Ed Whelan, a former Justice Department official who now runs the D.C.-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, notes that when moderator Gwen Ifill asked Joe Biden in the vice-presidential debate whether he and Barack Obama support gay marriage, Mr. Biden answered, "No."
"The gay-rights activists know it's not true -- or they would be protesting," says Mr. Whelan. "As supporters of liberal judicial activism, Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden have the luxury of winking as the courts do their work for them. That leaves them free to pretend to public positions they do not actually hold -- and that they will subvert through their judicial appointments."
Finally, when courts usurp the role of the people, they inject cynicism and bitterness into America's body politic. In his dissent in Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992), Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia put it this way: "[B]y foreclosing all democratic outlet for the deep passions this issue [legalized abortion] arouses, by banishing the issue from the political forum that gives all participants, even the losers, the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight, by continuing the imposition of a rigid national rule instead of allowing for regional differences, the Court merely prolongs and intensifies the anguish."
Plainly this is what we have seen with abortion. With the latest intervention by the California Supreme Court, it is beginning to look the same for same-sex marriage. How much healthier our politics would be if those so convinced of the rightness of their views would have equal faith in the decency of their fellow Americans -- and their openness to being persuaded by clear, fair and honest argument.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Find A Happy Place (Yes, Again)
The news coming out of Washington day after day keeps getting worse and worse.
Don't be fearful. Be prepared.
I know it is hard and a bit scary, but there is no more time for complacent procrastination because trouble is no longer 'coming', its here.
From one American to another, if you haven't been paying attention and the recently exposed state of our economy has come as a complete surprise, then I can't stress enough how important it is that you educate yourself on the issues. Most of the panic and chaos is going to come from individuals who have no idea what is going on.
By understanding where we are and how we got here, you will be in a much better position to know where we are going so that you can prepare yourself mentally as well as spiritually and emotionally.
In the mean time, I'd like to offer another piece of comfort in the form of a "wascally wabbit".
Don't be fearful. Be prepared.
I know it is hard and a bit scary, but there is no more time for complacent procrastination because trouble is no longer 'coming', its here.
From one American to another, if you haven't been paying attention and the recently exposed state of our economy has come as a complete surprise, then I can't stress enough how important it is that you educate yourself on the issues. Most of the panic and chaos is going to come from individuals who have no idea what is going on.
By understanding where we are and how we got here, you will be in a much better position to know where we are going so that you can prepare yourself mentally as well as spiritually and emotionally.
In the mean time, I'd like to offer another piece of comfort in the form of a "wascally wabbit".
Quote of the Day
"Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
- Ronald Reagan
U.S. Pledges Top $7.7 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit
By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry
November 24, 2008
The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.
The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve lending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis.
When Congress approved the TARP on Oct. 3, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged the need for transparency and oversight. Now, as regulators commit far more money while refusing to disclose loan recipients or reveal the collateral they are taking in return, some Congress members are calling for the Fed to be reined in.
“Whether it’s lending or spending, it’s tax dollars that are going out the window and we end up holding collateral we don’t know anything about,” said Congressman Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican who serves on the House Financial Services Committee. “The time has come that we consider what sort of limitations we should be placing on the Fed so that authority returns to elected officials as opposed to appointed ones.”
Too Big to Fail
Bloomberg News tabulated data from the Fed, Treasury and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and interviewed regulatory officials, economists and academic researchers to gauge the full extent of the government’s rescue effort.
The bailout includes a Fed program to buy as much as $2.4 trillion in short-term notes, called commercial paper, that companies use to pay bills, begun Oct. 27, and $1.4 trillion from the FDIC to guarantee bank-to-bank loans, started Oct. 14.
William Poole, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said the two programs are unlikely to lose money. The bigger risk comes from rescuing companies perceived as “too big to fail,” he said.
‘Credit Risk’
The government committed $29 billion to help engineer the takeover in March of Bear Stearns Cos. by New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. and $122.8 billion in addition to TARP allocations to bail out New York-based American International Group Inc., once the world’s largest insurer.
Citigroup received $306 billion of government guarantees for troubled mortgages and toxic assets. The Treasury Department also will inject $20 billion into the bank after its stock fell 60 percent last week.
“No question there is some credit risk there,” Poole said.
Congressman Darrell Issa, a California Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said risk is lurking in the programs that Poole thinks are safe.
“The thing that people don’t understand is it’s not how likely that the exposure becomes a reality, but what if it does?” Issa said. “There’s no transparency to it so who’s to say they’re right?”
The worst financial crisis in two generations has erased $23 trillion, or 38 percent, of the value of the world’s companies and brought down three of the biggest Wall Street firms.
Markets Down
The Dow Jones Industrial Average through Friday is down 38 percent since the beginning of the year and 43 percent from its peak on Oct. 9, 2007. The S&P 500 fell 45 percent from the beginning of the year through Friday and 49 percent from its peak on Oct. 9, 2007. The Nikkei 225 Index has fallen 46 percent from the beginning of the year through Friday and 57 percent from its most recent peak of 18,261.98 on July 9, 2007. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is down 78 percent, to $53.31, on Friday from its peak of $247.92 on Oct. 31, 2007, and 75 percent this year.
Regulators hope the rescue will contain the damage and keep banks providing the credit that is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy.
Most of the spending programs are run out of the New York Fed, whose president, Timothy Geithner, is said to be President- elect Barack Obama’s choice to be Treasury Secretary.‘They Got Snookered’
The money that’s been pledged is equivalent to $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. It’s nine times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office figures. It could pay off more than half the country’s mortgages.
“It’s unprecedented,” said Bob Eisenbeis, chief monetary economist at Vineland, New Jersey-based Cumberland Advisors Inc. and an economist for the Atlanta Fed for 10 years until January. “The backlash has begun already. Congress is taking a lot of hits from their constituents because they got snookered on the TARP big time. There’s a lot of supposedly smart people who look to be totally incompetent and it’s all going to fall on the taxpayer.”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s, when almost 10,000 banks failed and there was no mechanism to bolster them with cash, is the only rival to the government’s current response. The savings and loan bailout of the 1990s cost $209.5 billion in inflation-adjusted numbers, of which $173 billion came from taxpayers, according to a July 1996 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office, now called the Government Accountability Office.
‘Worst Crisis’
The 1979 U.S. government bailout of Chrysler consisted of bond guarantees, adjusted for inflation, of $4.2 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation report.
The commitment of public money is appropriate to the peril, said Ethan Harris, co-head of U.S. economic research at Barclays Capital Inc. and a former economist at the New York Fed. U.S. financial firms have taken writedowns and losses of $666.1 billion since the beginning of 2007, according to Bloomberg data.
“This is the worst capital markets crisis in modern history,” Harris said. “So you have the biggest intervention in modern history.”
Bloomberg has requested details of Fed lending under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit against the central bank Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure of borrower banks and their collateral.
Collateral is an asset pledged to a lender in the event a loan payment isn’t made.
‘That’s Counterproductive’
“Some have asked us to reveal the names of the banks that are borrowing, how much they are borrowing, what collateral they are posting,” Bernanke said Nov. 18 to the House Financial Services Committee. “We think that’s counterproductive.”
The Fed should account for the collateral it takes in exchange for loans to banks, said Paul Kasriel, chief economist at Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp. and a former research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
“There is a lack of transparency here and, given that the Fed is taking on a huge amount of credit risk now, it would seem to me as a taxpayer there should be more transparency,” Kasriel said.
Bernanke’s Fed is responsible for $4.74 trillion of pledges, or 61 percent of the total commitment of $7.76 trillion, based on data compiled by Bloomberg concerning U.S. bailout steps started a year ago.
“Too often the public is focused on the wrong piece of that number, the $700 billion that Congress approved,” said J.D. Foster, a former staff member of the Council of Economic Advisers who is now a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. “The other areas are quite a bit larger.”
Fed Rescue Efforts
The Fed’s rescue attempts began last December with the creation of the Term Auction Facility to allow lending to dealers for collateral. After Bear Stearns’s collapse in March, the central bank started making direct loans to securities firms at the same discount rate it charges commercial banks, which take customer deposits.
In the three years before the crisis, such average weekly borrowing by banks was $48 million, according to the central bank. Last week it was $91.5 billion.
The failure of a second securities firm, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., in September, led to the creation of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility and the Money Market Investor Funding Facility, or MMIFF. The two programs, which have pledged $2.3 trillion, are designed to restore calm in the money markets, which deal in certificates of deposit, commercial paper and Treasury bills.
Lehman Failure
“Money markets seized up after Lehman failed,” said Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit Suisse Group in New York and a former aide to Fed chief Paul Volcker. “Lehman failing made a lot of subsequent actions necessary.”
The FDIC, chaired by Sheila Bair, is contributing 20 percent of total rescue commitments. The FDIC’s $1.4 trillion in guarantees will amount to a bank subsidy of as much as $54 billion over three years, or $18 billion a year, because borrowers will pay a lower interest rate than they would on the open market, according to Raghu Sundurum and Viral Acharya of New York University and the London Business School.
Congress and the Treasury have ponied up $892 billion in TARP and other funding, or 11.5 percent.
The Federal Housing Administration, overseen by Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steven Preston, was given the authority to guarantee $300 billion of mortgages, or about 4 percent of the total commitment, with its Hope for Homeowners program, designed to keep distressed borrowers from foreclosure.
Federal Guarantees
Most of the federal guarantees reduce interest rates on loans to banks and securities firms, which would create a subsidy of at least $6.6 billion annually for the financial industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg comparing rates charged by the Fed against market interest currently paid by banks.
( article continued below)
Not included in the calculation of pledged funds is an FDIC proposal to prevent foreclosures by guaranteeing modifications on $444 billion in mortgages at an expected cost of $24.4 billion to be paid from the TARP, according to FDIC spokesman David Barr. The Treasury Department hasn’t approved the program.
Bernanke and Paulson, former chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, have also promised as much as $200 billion to shore up nationalized mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a pledge that hasn’t been allocated to any agency. The FDIC arranged for $139 billion in loan guarantees for General Electric Co.’s finance unit.
Automakers Struggle
The tally doesn’t include money to General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC. Obama has said he favors financial assistance to keep them from collapse.
Paulson told the House Financial Services Committee Nov. 18 that the $250 billion already allocated to banks through the TARP is an investment, not an expenditure.
“I think it would be extraordinarily unusual if the government did not get that money back and more,” Paulson said.
In his Nov. 18 testimony, Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee that the central bank wouldn’t lose money.
“We take collateral, we haircut it, it is a short-term loan, it is very safe, we have never lost a penny in these various lending programs,” he said.
A haircut refers to the practice of lending less money than the collateral’s current market value.
Requiring the Fed to disclose loan recipients might set off panic, said David Tobin, principal of New York-based loan-sale consultants and investment bank Mission Capital Advisors LLC.
‘Mark to Market’
“If you mark to market today, the banking system is bankrupt,” Tobin said. “So what do you do? You try to keep it going as best you can.”
“Mark to market” means adjusting the value of an asset, such as a mortgage-backed security, to reflect current prices.
Some of the bailout assistance could come from tax breaks in the future. The Treasury Department changed the tax code on Sept. 30 to allow banks to expand the deductions on the losses banks they were buying, according to Robert Willens, a former Lehman Brothers tax and accounting analyst who teaches at Columbia University Business School in New York.
Wells Fargo & Co., which is buying Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia Corp., will be able to deduct $22 billion, Willens said. Adding in other banks, the code change will cost $29 billion, he said.
“The rule is now popularly known among tax lawyers as the ‘Wells Fargo Notice,’” Willens said.
The regulation was changed to make it easier for healthy banks to buy troubled ones, said Treasury Department spokesman Andrew DeSouza.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said he was angry that banks used the money for acquisitions.
“The only purpose for this money is to lend,” said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. “It’s not for dividends, it’s not for purchases of new banks, it’s not for bonuses. There better be a showing of increased lending roughly in the amount of the capital infusions” or Congress may not approve the second half of the TARP money.
To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Pittman in New York at mpittman@bloomberg.net; Bob Ivry in New York at bivry@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: November 24, 2008 13:26 EST
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Saturday, November 22, 2008
Quote of the Day
"Every step we take towards making the State the Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master."
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
America: In Search of a King?
By Tim Connolly
November 22, 2008
Consider this:
1 Samuel 8:7,10-20
There are many things to learn from the Bible. And considering the bizarre behavior we saw from millions of Obama supporters this past election, this particular story holds tremendous relevance as history continues to repeat itself.
Please watch this video. Pay close attention the written narrative and words of the song being played.
And this one....
When did we start looking to ONE man to fix all of our problems? When did we stop looking to God, ourselves, and each other to find the solutions to our challenges, great or small?
Well, we've all heard the saying, "be careful what you wish for".
With the current state of things and the similarly clichéd "the grass is always greener" being a very convenient mind set to consider in times like these, I'd like to offer a few important reminders.
No matter what might come our way in next few years; no matter what challenges we may face, if we will remember who we are and what it is that made this country great to begin with, such as: our faith in God, love of family and country, our pursuit of justice, equality, and freedom for every American. If we can find a way to remember these simple things; if we will hold on to them as if our way of life depends on it, we will weather any storm. And America will be a stronger and more united Nation for having gone through it.
But if not. If we allow a group of men, driven by greed and the thirst for power, to convince us that we need THEM to tell us how to make things right; if we will not stand up and fight for ourselves, our freedom, and for what we know is true, then I know without any doubt that America will not survive the coming storm. And the freedoms we cherish will be the first to die.
I can only speak for myself and we all must do our part; but I would rather die a free man than live a long life as a slave.
Now is the time for us to stand up, get involved, and speak out.
Its OUR Country.....and WE can fix it.
"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."
-Samuel Adams
November 22, 2008
Consider this:
1 Samuel 8:7,10-20
7 And the Lord said to Samuel, "Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.......
10 So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who asked him for a king. 11 And he said, "This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen, and some will run before his chariots.
12 He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.
13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers.
14 And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants.
15 He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers and servants.
16 And he will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work.
17 He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants.
18 And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day."
19 Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, "No, but we will have a king over us,
20 that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles."
There are many things to learn from the Bible. And considering the bizarre behavior we saw from millions of Obama supporters this past election, this particular story holds tremendous relevance as history continues to repeat itself.
Please watch this video. Pay close attention the written narrative and words of the song being played.
And this one....
When did we start looking to ONE man to fix all of our problems? When did we stop looking to God, ourselves, and each other to find the solutions to our challenges, great or small?
Well, we've all heard the saying, "be careful what you wish for".
With the current state of things and the similarly clichéd "the grass is always greener" being a very convenient mind set to consider in times like these, I'd like to offer a few important reminders.
No matter what might come our way in next few years; no matter what challenges we may face, if we will remember who we are and what it is that made this country great to begin with, such as: our faith in God, love of family and country, our pursuit of justice, equality, and freedom for every American. If we can find a way to remember these simple things; if we will hold on to them as if our way of life depends on it, we will weather any storm. And America will be a stronger and more united Nation for having gone through it.
But if not. If we allow a group of men, driven by greed and the thirst for power, to convince us that we need THEM to tell us how to make things right; if we will not stand up and fight for ourselves, our freedom, and for what we know is true, then I know without any doubt that America will not survive the coming storm. And the freedoms we cherish will be the first to die.
I can only speak for myself and we all must do our part; but I would rather die a free man than live a long life as a slave.
Now is the time for us to stand up, get involved, and speak out.
Its OUR Country.....and WE can fix it.
"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."
-Samuel Adams
Find A Happy Place (Part Deux)
A Message From The Editor
Well, I think its about that time again. With Thanksgiving next week and Christmas around the corner, both the political and economic systems have continued to spiral out of control right on cue and reality is starting to settle in for millions that we are in for a long and bumpy ride.
So, its time for a little pick me-up! Something small yet therapeutic; distractingly shiny and hypnotic; something that, if for but a moment, carries me away to a happy place with prancing Unicorns and chocolate rivers. (Hey, you have your happy place and I have mine, OK. So.....back off.)
I'm gonna be honest with you, this one might be more for me than for you.
But I'm quite sure it'll do you some good as well.
Well, I think its about that time again. With Thanksgiving next week and Christmas around the corner, both the political and economic systems have continued to spiral out of control right on cue and reality is starting to settle in for millions that we are in for a long and bumpy ride.
So, its time for a little pick me-up! Something small yet therapeutic; distractingly shiny and hypnotic; something that, if for but a moment, carries me away to a happy place with prancing Unicorns and chocolate rivers. (Hey, you have your happy place and I have mine, OK. So.....back off.)
I'm gonna be honest with you, this one might be more for me than for you.
But I'm quite sure it'll do you some good as well.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Quote of the Day
“If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their Own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit of the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare. … I venture to declare it as my opinion, that, were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America …”
- President James Madison
Don't Drink the Kool-Aid on Jonestown
Thirty years ago today more than 900 followers of Jim Jones committed "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced Flavor-Aid.
"I just want to say something to everyone that I see that is standing around and are crying. This is nothing to cry about. This is something we should all rejoice about. We can be happy about this. They always told us that we should cry when you're coming into this world, but when we're leaving and we're leaving it peaceful ... I tell you, you should be happy about this. I was just thinking about Jim Jones. He just has suffered and suffered and suffered. He is the only god and he don't even have a chance to enjoy his death here. (clapping and voices in background)... I wanted to say one more thing. This is one thing I want to say. That you that've gone and there's many more here. He's still--the way, that's not all of us, that's not all yet. There's just a few that have died. A chance to get ... to the one that they could tell ... their lies to. So and I say I'm looking at so many people crying, I wish you would not cry, and just thank Father, just thank him. I tell you about ... (clapping and shouting) ... I've been here, uh, one year and nine months and I never felt better in my life. Not in San Francisco, but until I came to Jonestown. I enjoy this life. I had a beautiful life. I don't see nothing that I should be crying about. We should be happy. At least I am. Let's all be the same."
This comes from an unidentified woman on the FBI death recording from Jonestown, Guyana. Within minutes, she would be dead. For anyone familiar with the National Socialists' "night of the long knives" or the Soviet Socialists' show trials, replete as they were with a socialist dictator's victims professing their love and allegiance for that dictator in the moment of death, the pathetic hosannas to Jim Jones by the people of Peoples Temple plays as a disturbing socialist deja vu.
On November 17, 1978, Jim Jones was a hero to American leftists. On November 18, 1978, Jones orchestrated the killings of 918 people and strangely morphed in the eyes of American leftists into an evangelical Christian fanatic. An unfortunately well-worn narrative, playing out contemporaneously in Pol Pot's Cambodia, of socialist dreams ending in ghoulish nightmares, then, conveniently shifted to one about the dangers of organized religion. But as The Nation magazine reported at the time, "The temple was as much a left-wing political crusade as a church. In the course of the 1970s, its social program grew steadily more disaffiliated from what Jim Jones came to regard as 'Fascist America' and drifted rapidly toward outspoken Communist sympathies." So much so that the last will and testament of the Peoples Temple, and its individual members who left notes, bequeathed millions of dollars in assets to the Soviet Union. As Jones expressed to a Soviet diplomat upon upon his visit to Jonestown the month before the smiling suicides took place, "For many years, we have let our sympathies be quite publicly known, that the United States government was not our mother, but that the Soviet Union was our spiritual motherland."
Jim Jones was an evangelical communist who became a minister to infiltrate the church with the gospel according to Marx and Lenin. He was an atheist missionary bringing his message of socialist redemption to the Christian heathen. "I decided, how can I demonstrate my Marxism?," remembered Jones of his days in 1950s Indiana. "The thought was, infiltrate the church." So in the forms of Pentecostal ritual, Jones smuggled socialism into the minds of true believers--who gradually became true believers of a different sort. Unless one counts his drug-induced bouts with self-messianism, Jones didn't believe in God. Get it--a Peoples Temple. He shocked his parishioners, many of whom certainly did believe in God, by dramatically tossing the Bible onto the ground during a sermon. "Nobody's going to come out of the sky!," an excited Jones had once informed his flock. "There's no heaven up there! We'll have to have heaven down here!" Like so many efforts to usher in the millenium before it, Jones's Guyanese road to heaven on earth detoured to a hotter afterlife destination.
The horrific scene in a Guyanese jungle clearing could have been avoided. Thousands of miles north, for years leading up to Jonestown, San Francisco officials and journalists had looked the other way while Jones acted as a law unto himself. So what if he abused children, sodomized a follower, tortured and held temple members at gun point, and defrauded the government and people of welfare and social security checks? He believes in socialism and so do we. That was the ends-justifies-the-means attitude that enabled Jim Jones to commit criminal acts in San Francisco with impunity. The people who should have stopped him instead encouraged him.
"I just want to say something to everyone that I see that is standing around and are crying. This is nothing to cry about. This is something we should all rejoice about. We can be happy about this. They always told us that we should cry when you're coming into this world, but when we're leaving and we're leaving it peaceful ... I tell you, you should be happy about this. I was just thinking about Jim Jones. He just has suffered and suffered and suffered. He is the only god and he don't even have a chance to enjoy his death here. (clapping and voices in background)... I wanted to say one more thing. This is one thing I want to say. That you that've gone and there's many more here. He's still--the way, that's not all of us, that's not all yet. There's just a few that have died. A chance to get ... to the one that they could tell ... their lies to. So and I say I'm looking at so many people crying, I wish you would not cry, and just thank Father, just thank him. I tell you about ... (clapping and shouting) ... I've been here, uh, one year and nine months and I never felt better in my life. Not in San Francisco, but until I came to Jonestown. I enjoy this life. I had a beautiful life. I don't see nothing that I should be crying about. We should be happy. At least I am. Let's all be the same."
This comes from an unidentified woman on the FBI death recording from Jonestown, Guyana. Within minutes, she would be dead. For anyone familiar with the National Socialists' "night of the long knives" or the Soviet Socialists' show trials, replete as they were with a socialist dictator's victims professing their love and allegiance for that dictator in the moment of death, the pathetic hosannas to Jim Jones by the people of Peoples Temple plays as a disturbing socialist deja vu.
On November 17, 1978, Jim Jones was a hero to American leftists. On November 18, 1978, Jones orchestrated the killings of 918 people and strangely morphed in the eyes of American leftists into an evangelical Christian fanatic. An unfortunately well-worn narrative, playing out contemporaneously in Pol Pot's Cambodia, of socialist dreams ending in ghoulish nightmares, then, conveniently shifted to one about the dangers of organized religion. But as The Nation magazine reported at the time, "The temple was as much a left-wing political crusade as a church. In the course of the 1970s, its social program grew steadily more disaffiliated from what Jim Jones came to regard as 'Fascist America' and drifted rapidly toward outspoken Communist sympathies." So much so that the last will and testament of the Peoples Temple, and its individual members who left notes, bequeathed millions of dollars in assets to the Soviet Union. As Jones expressed to a Soviet diplomat upon upon his visit to Jonestown the month before the smiling suicides took place, "For many years, we have let our sympathies be quite publicly known, that the United States government was not our mother, but that the Soviet Union was our spiritual motherland."
Jim Jones was an evangelical communist who became a minister to infiltrate the church with the gospel according to Marx and Lenin. He was an atheist missionary bringing his message of socialist redemption to the Christian heathen. "I decided, how can I demonstrate my Marxism?," remembered Jones of his days in 1950s Indiana. "The thought was, infiltrate the church." So in the forms of Pentecostal ritual, Jones smuggled socialism into the minds of true believers--who gradually became true believers of a different sort. Unless one counts his drug-induced bouts with self-messianism, Jones didn't believe in God. Get it--a Peoples Temple. He shocked his parishioners, many of whom certainly did believe in God, by dramatically tossing the Bible onto the ground during a sermon. "Nobody's going to come out of the sky!," an excited Jones had once informed his flock. "There's no heaven up there! We'll have to have heaven down here!" Like so many efforts to usher in the millenium before it, Jones's Guyanese road to heaven on earth detoured to a hotter afterlife destination.
The horrific scene in a Guyanese jungle clearing could have been avoided. Thousands of miles north, for years leading up to Jonestown, San Francisco officials and journalists had looked the other way while Jones acted as a law unto himself. So what if he abused children, sodomized a follower, tortured and held temple members at gun point, and defrauded the government and people of welfare and social security checks? He believes in socialism and so do we. That was the ends-justifies-the-means attitude that enabled Jim Jones to commit criminal acts in San Francisco with impunity. The people who should have stopped him instead encouraged him.
Mayor George Moscone, who would be assassinated days after the Jonestown tragedy, appointed Jones to the city's Housing Authority in 1975. Jones quickly became chairman, which proved beneficial to the enlargement of the pastor's flock--and his coffers, as Jones seized welfare checks from new members. One of the Peoples Temple's top officials becoming an assistant district attorney, a man so thoroughly indoctrinated in the cult that he falsely signed an affidavit (ultimately his child's death warrant) disavowing paternity to his own son and ascribed paternity to Jones, similarly enhanced the cult's power base within the city. How, one wonders, did victimized Peoples Temple members feel about going to the law in a city where Jones's henchman was the law?
Going to the Fourth Estate was also a fruitless endeavor, as San Francisco media institutions, such as columnist Herb Caen, were boosters of Jones and his Peoples Temple. When veteran journalist Les Kinsolving penned an eight-part investigative report on Peoples Temple for the San Francisco Examiner in 1972, his editors buckled under pressure from Jones and killed the report halfway through. Kinsolving quipped that the Peoples Temple was the "the best-armed house of God in the land," detailed the kidnapping and possible murder of disgruntled members, exposed Jones's phony faith healing, highlighted Jones's vile school-sanctioned sex talk with children, and directed attention toward the Peoples Temple's massive welfare fraud that funded its operations. "But in the Mendocino County Welfare Dept. there is the key to Prophet Jones' plans to expand the already massive influx of his followers--and have it supported by tax money," Kinsolving wrote more than six years before the tragedy in the Guyanese jungle. "The Examiner has learned that at least five of the disciples of The Ukiah Messiah are employees of this Welfare Department, and are therefore of invaluable assistance in implementing his primary manner of influx: the adoption of large numbers of children of minority races." Unfortunately, four of the series' eight articles were jettisoned after Jones unleashed hundreds of protestors to the San Francisco Examiner, a programmed letter-writing campaign, and a threatened lawsuit against the paper. The Examiner promptly issued a laudatory article on Jones. A few years later, after Jones had moved operations from Ukiah to San Francisco, California, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle penned an expose on the Peoples Temple. A Chronicle editor sympathetic to Jones spiked that piece, which ultimately made its way to New West magazine and so alarmed Jones that he hastily departed San Francisco for his agricultural experiment in Guyana.
By virtue of producing rent-free rent-a-rallies for liberal politicians and causes, Jim Jones engendered enormous amounts of good will from Democratic politicians and activists. They allowed their political ambitions to derail their governing responsibilities. Frisco pols like Harvey Milk never seemed to care how Jones could, at the snap of his fingers, direct hundreds of people to stack a public meeting or volunteer for a campaign. City Councilman Milk just knew that he benefitted from that control, and therefore never bothered to do anything to inhibit the dangerous cult operating in his city. Instead, he actively aided and abetted a homicidal maniac. It wasn't just local hacks Jones commanded respect from. He held court with future First Lady Rosalyn Carter, vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale, and California Governor Jerry Brown.
A man who killed more African Americans than the Ku Klux Klan was awarded a local Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award and won the plaudits of California lieutenant governor Mervyn Dymally, state assemblyman Willie Brown, radical academic Angela Davis, preacher/politician Jesse Jackson, Black Panther leader Huey Newton, and other African American activists. From Newton, whom Jones had visited in Cuban exhile in 1977, Jones got his lawyer and received support, such as a phone-to-megaphone address to Jonestown during a "white night" dry run of mass suicide. This was appropriate, as it was from Newton whom Jones appropriated the phrase "revolutionary suicide"--the title of a 1973 Newton book--that he used as a moniker for the murder-suicides of more than 900 people on November 18, 1978. "We didn't commit suicide," Jones announced during the administering of cyanide-laced Flavoraid to his flock, "we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world." Newton's comically idiotic slogan boomeranged on him, as several of his relatives perished in the Kool-Aid carnage.
It's worth remembering that before the people of Peoples Temple drank Jim Jones's Kool-Aid, the leftist political establishment of San Francisco gulped it down. And without the latter, the former would have never happened.
The Waxman Democrats
What the coup against Dingell means for business.
John Dingell's fall from power yesterday is an important inflection point in the history of the modern Democratic Party. The House purge marks the final triumph of the Congressional generation that came of political age during the 1970s over the last lion of New Deal liberalism, and it is symbolic of the party's change in culture and policy priorities in the Barack Obama era.
Sitting chairmen are nearly impossible to depose, never mind one with the seniority and record of Mr. Dingell, who has served longer than anyone else in the House. The Democratic caucus nonetheless stripped him of his 28-year position atop the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has great power over the climate change and health-care bills that Mr. Obama hopes to pass next year. Instead, California's Henry Waxman, who was elected by a reported 137 to 122, will do the honors. (We say "reported" because the vote was by secret ballot, which in a rich irony Democrats want to prevent for union organizing votes.)
Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed to be neutral, though it was clear all along that she was twisting arms on Mr. Waxman's behalf. "I assume that not playing a role is playing a role," as Charlie Rangel, another venerable committee chairman, put it yesterday. Ms. Pelosi loathes Mr. Dingell's independence -- especially on environmental matters.
That fissure neatly separates the Waxman Democrats from the old vanguard that Mr. Dingell represents. He was first elected in 1955 and has always tried to protect his hometown Detroit auto makers from the eco-mandates that ultimately helped to land them in their present predicament. Mr. Dingell's rough-hewn candor about the realities of "doing something" about climate change also helped to make him a green pariah. He knows that carbon regulation and taxes will fall most heavily on domestic manufacturing and Midwest states that rely on coal-fired power. His sympathies lie with the people who work near (or in) factories and drive Fords or Chevys.
Mr. Waxman, speaking for the upscale precincts of Beverly Hills, wants to phase out coal and cars that use gasoline. The coastal elites who now dominate Democratic politics will happily trade the blue collar for the green collar.
In today's Opinion Journal
Barney Frank and the other liberals produced by Vietnam and Watergate, Mr. Waxman belongs to a cohort whose power has been checked -- one way or the other -- by Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton's New Democrat tendencies, the Republican sweep of 1994 and George W. Bush. Now with a new Democratic President and a crisis to use as a lever for a sweeping expansion of government, they aren't about to let an old warhorse with scruples about the costs of regulation interfere with their moment to govern.
We should add that Mr. Dingell is hardly some business apologist. At Energy and Commerce in the 1980s and early 1990s, Mr. Dingell would burn the paint off the committee room walls with his interrogations of energy, insurance and drug company executives. The irony is that Democrats have found, in Mr. Waxman, an even more extreme antibusiness tribune, who will no doubt use his new powers to go after any concern that turns a profit but refuses to pay his party the obeisance of campaign cash and regulatory submission. In short, the Democrats have ousted the dean of the House for the spleen of the House.
Meanwhile, in another sign of the Waxman ascendancy, President-elect Obama has named Philip Schiliro, a Waxman loyalist and his former chief of staff, as the new White House director of Congressional relations. Robert Sussman, who leads the transition's Environmental Protection Agency "review team," has been an astringent critic of Mr. Dingell on carbon regulation. And Carol Browner, Al Gore's protégé turned Clinton EPA administrator turned director of Mr. Obama's "energy working group," is another old Dingell foe.
It's obvious who now pulls the Democratic levers of power, and anyone in the energy or health-care business had better erect the barricades. In the small favors department, Mr. Waxman will allow Mr. Dingell to hold the title "chairman emeritus."
The Auto Bailout is a Shakedown
Friday, November 21, 2008
The U.S. auto industry needs a shakeout, not a bailout. What we are witnessing is an attempted shakedown.
One day before the CEOs of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler told the Senate Banking Committee that their industry faced imminent collapse without an emergency infusion of $25 billion, a new automobile assembly plant opened for business in Greensburg, Indiana. Although the hearing on Capitol Hill received far more media coverage, the unveiling of Honda’s latest facility in the American heartland speaks volumes about the future of the U.S. car industry—and shows why the proposed bailout of Detroit’s Big Three is so misguided.
The intellectual arguments against an auto industry bailout are well established. Taxpayers should never be forced to subsidize any company, let alone a poorly run company. Subsidizing the Big Three would be tantamount to subsidizing failure. That’s bad policy.
Corporate bailouts are clearly unfair to taxpayers, but they are also unfair to the successful firms in a particular industry, who are implicitly taxed and burdened when their competition is subsidized. In a properly functioning market economy, the better firms—the ones that are more innovative, more efficient, and more popular among consumers—gain market share or increase profits, while the lesser firms contract. This process ensures that limited resources are used most productively.
Some iconic U.S. automakers are now in dire straits, but the car industry itself is not in crisis. Even if one or all of the Big Three failed, there would still be plenty of strong auto companies operating throughout the United States. The Big Three currently account for slightly more than half of all light vehicle production and slightly less than half of all light vehicle sales in the United States. The rest of the U.S. auto industry includes Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, BMW, and the other foreign nameplate producers who manufacture vehicles here. These companies employ American workers, pay U.S. taxes, support local businesses, contribute to local charities, have genuine stakes in their communities, and face the same cyclical contraction in demand as do the Big Three. The difference is that they have been making more products that Americans want to buy and will endure this recession without any taxpayer assistance because they have more efficient cost structures.
Even if one or all of the Big Three failed, there would still be plenty of strong auto companies operating throughout the United States.The decline of the Big Three is hardly a recent phenomenon. Detroit has been losing market share for decades. It has not produced a top-five selling passenger car in years. Detroit’s once-popular SUVs and large pickup trucks have fallen out of favor with consumers. The Big Three failed to sufficiently diversify into reliable, efficient, and aesthetic passenger cars when they were earning big profits and had the money to do so. Their bloated cost structures have given non-Detroit competitors a $30-per-hour advantage in labor costs.
Want proof that automobile production remains alive and well in the United States? Just look at the success of Honda’s operations in Ohio, Toyota’s in Kentucky, Nissan’s in Tennessee, BMW’s in South Carolina, and Hyundai’s in Alabama, as well as the proliferation of new plants across the country, such as the new Honda facility in Indiana and the new Kia plant in Georgia.
If one or two of the Big Three went under, people would lose their jobs. That’s what happens in an economic recession, when less competitive firms are forced to contract. But the number of job losses wouldn’t be anywhere near as large as Detroit is telling us. Realistically, the failure of one or two major auto producers would improve prospects for the firms and workers who remain in the industry. If GM fails, the market shares of Ford and Chrysler (not to mention those of the foreign nameplate producers) are likely to increase, as they compete for GM’s former customers and best workers.
The bailout sought by Detroit would interfere with the adjustment process, while doing nothing to make the Big Three more competitive. A $25 billion infusion for companies that are losing $6 billion each month is not a rescue plan; it’s an expensive way of kicking the can down the road.
Funneling $25 billion to the Big Three would amount to a waste of taxpayer dollars and also a tax on the successful auto companies, such as Honda and Toyota. Indeed, bailing out Detroit would discourage the successful companies from opening new facilities in the United States.
To dampen criticism, Congressional Democrats speak of a bailout “with strings attached.” But even a strings-attached bailout poses problems.
First, Congress doesn’t know enough about the auto business to dictate operational conditions. “Strings” that cap executive compensation will chase talent away. Strings that force Detroit to produce high-mileage vehicles when gas prices are plummeting will lead to a repetition of past mistakes.
Bailing out Detroit is unnecessary. After all, this is why we have the bankruptcy process.Second, strings will make it easier for the Big Three to come back for more federal aid after they blow through the first $25 billion. Their CEOs will be able to say that they complied with the conditions of the original bailout, which happened to make matters worse for them.
Bailing out Detroit is unnecessary. After all, this is why we have the bankruptcy process. If companies in Chapter 11 can be salvaged, a bankruptcy judge will help them find the way. In the case of the Big Three, a bankruptcy process would almost certainly require them to dissolve their current union contracts. Revamping their labor structures is the single most important change that GM, Ford, and Chrysler could make—and yet it is the one change that many pro-bailout Democrats wish to ignore.
The Big Three, the United Auto Workers (UAW), the Michigan Congressional delegation, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid all know that $25 billion is nowhere near enough money to fix the problems ailing Detroit. The politicians must know that bankruptcy is the better course for auto companies and their workers (indeed, it could save 100,000 jobs). But they also know who fills their political coffers, and the UAW leadership is opposed to Chapter 11 because its labor contracts would be deemed toxic and abrogated by a bankruptcy judge.
The U.S. auto industry needs a shakeout, not a bailout. What we are witnessing, unfortunately, is an attempted shakedown. Let’s hope it doesn’t succeed.
Daniel J. Ikenson is associate director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Bush's Legacy: European Socialism
By Dick Morris
November 19, 2008
The results of the G-20 economic summit amount to nothing less than the seamless integration of the United States into the European economy. In one month of legislation and one diplomatic meeting, the United States has unilaterally abdicated all the gains for the concept of free markets won by the Reagan administration and surrendered, in toto, to the Western European model of socialism, stagnation and excessive government regulation. Sovereignty is out the window. Without a vote, we are suddenly members of the European Union. Given the dismal record of those nations at creating jobs and sustaining growth, merger with the Europeans is like a partnership with death.
At the G-20 meeting, Bush agreed to subject the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and our other regulatory agencies to the supervision of a global entity that would critique its regulatory standards and demand changes if it felt they were necessary. Bush agreed to create a College of Supervisors.
According to The Washington Post, it would "examine the books of major financial institutions that operate across national borders so regulators could begin to have a more complete picture of banks' operations."
Their scrutiny would extend to hedge funds and to various "exotic" financial instruments. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), a European-dominated operation, would conduct "regular vigorous reviews" of American financial institutions and practices. The European-dominated College of Supervisors would also weigh in on issues like executive compensation and investment practices.
There is nothing wrong with the substance of this regulation. Experience is showing it is needed. But it is very wrong to delegate these powers to unelected, international institutions with no political accountability.
We have a Securities and Exchange Commission appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, both of whom are elected by the American people. It is with the SEC, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve that financial accountability must take place.
The European Union achieved this massive subrogation of American sovereignty the way it usually does, by negotiation, gradual bureaucratic encroachment, and without asking the voters if they approve. What's more, Bush appears to have gone down without a fight, saving his debating time for arguing against the protectionism that France's Nicolas Sarkozy was pushing. By giving Bush a seeming victory on a moratorium against protectionism for one year, Sarkozy was able to slip over his massive scheme for taking over the supervision of the U.S. economy.
All kinds of political agendas are advancing under the cover of response to the global financial crisis. Where Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism by regulating it, Bush, to say nothing of Obama, has given the government control over our major financial and insurance institutions. And it isn't even our government! The power has now been transferred to the international community, led by the socialists in the European Union.
Will Obama govern from the left? He doesn't have to. George W. Bush has done all the heavy lifting for him. It was under Bush that the government basically took over as the chief stockholder of our financial institutions and under Bush that we ceded our financial controls to the European Union. In doing so, he has done nothing to preserve what differentiates the vibrant American economy from those dying economies in Europe. Why have 80 percent of the jobs that have been created since 1980 in the industrialized world been created in the United States? How has America managed to retain its leading 24 percent share of global manufacturing even in the face of the Chinese surge? How has the U.S. GDP risen so high that it essentially equals that of the European Union, which has 50 percent more population? It has done so by an absence of stifling regulation, a liberation of capital to flow to innovative businesses, low taxes, and by a low level of unionization that has given business the flexibility to grow and prosper. Europe, stagnated by taxation and regulation, has grown by a pittance while we have roared ahead. But now Bush -- not Obama -- Bush has given that all up and caved in to European socialists.
The Bush legacy? European socialism. Who needs enemies with friends like Bush?
Dick Morris is a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton
Quote of the Day
"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step over the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! -- All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a Thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."
- Abraham Lincoln
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Obama on Climate Change: "Denial is no longer an acceptable response" (Revised)
By Tim Connolly
November 18, 2008
President-elect Barack Obama delivered a videotaped message this morning to a climate change summit convened by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and declared that, "Few challenges facing America – and the world – are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear."
Really?
With our economy on the brink, our dollar weak and getting weaker, with the violence on our Southern Borders out of control and worsening, with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our free markets and civil liberties under fire. How does Climate Change make the top of the list?
Oh, right. The science is "settled" and we're all going to die if we don't act now.
At least that is what we are being told, over and over again by President Elect Obama and the leaders of the "green" movement.
But, is it true?
Considering the enormously unprecedented financial commitments being pushed by the Alarmist crowd and promised by our newly elected leaders in Washington, I think that that question demands an answer BEFORE we "act". Don't you?
I mean, obviously there are changes happening in our environment. But, do we really know why its happening or what is causing the changes?
Do we really fully know what, if anything, we can do about it?
Why is the soon-to-be 'leader of the free world' jumping the gun, declaring the science "beyond dispute" when science is NEVER "beyond dispute". Through-out history the scientific community has proven itself to be at best an imperfect practice that is constantly changing and altering its opinion based on new information?
I give you, Exhibit A:
During the 1970's, the scientific community, as well as the international media, frantically warned of the impending doom over the 'global Cooling' trend and the likelihood of another Ice Age. Many in the scientific community urged Congress to act quickly to avoid disaster with proposed solutions such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot, or diverting the arctic rivers. (Both of which would have proven to be catastrophic.)
In 1975, an article printed in Newsweek concerning the Cooling "crisis" stated:
Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.
Sound Familiar?
Before I go any further let me make myself clear. I am not, in any way, saying that we should ignore scientific discovery, nor that we should negate the information those discoveries bring us. On the contrary. I am merely pointing out the painfully obvious truth that "Scientific fact" is subject to human error and evolution.
This is why I believe that in order to find the most accurate Scientific conclusions, we must employ a patient observation of ALL points of fact.
Every legitimate, factually based opinion must be considered and taken into account, and fear must NOT be a factor when forming a solution. History demonstrates this as well.
Unfortunately, this has not been the formula applied to form the current "consensus" concerning Climate Change.
In our current politically charged and agenda driven public arena's, anyone who challenges the mainstream media and popular culture are subjected to some of the most venomous insults and character assassinations. This form of retribution is nowhere more severe than for those who take issue with popular views about global warming among the consensus crowd. Many reputable scientists and professionals have been bullied, harassed, and intimidated into submission or even black-listed into exile for "getting out of line".
Thankfully however, some are willing to weather the storm of vicious attacks to speak out concerning the many discrepancies, missing pieces, and flat out falsehoods in the "consensus" data.
One such brave soul is Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. In an interview for ABC National Radio, Marohasy was asked, "Is the earth still warming?"
She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years." Pointing out that those facts are not even in controversy, she went on to say, 
"The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ... This is not what you'd expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you'd expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up ... So (it's) very unexpected, not something that's being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it's very significant."
I know, I know. She is just one person against the entire Scientific community, right?
Wrong.
In March of this year more than 500 leading scientists, economists, and other experts on global warming gathered in New York for the International Conference on Climate Change. A conference devoted to finding "answers for the questions overlooked by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change".
The 2008 conference featured presentations by more than 100 prominent scientists and economists from the U.S. and around the world, including Dr. Robert Balling (Arizona State University), Dr. Stanley Goldenberg (NOAA), Dr. William Gray (Colorado State University), Dr. Yuri Izrael (IPCC), Dr. Patrick Michaels (University of Virginia), Dr. Paul Reiter (Institut Pasteur, Paris), Dr. S. Fred Singer (Science and Environmental Policy Project), Dr. Willie Soon (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), and Dr. Roy Spencer (NASA).
During the opening remarks of the conference, Joseph L. Bast, President of the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based industry-funded think tank, said,
"We’re asking questions such as: how reliable are the data used to document the recent warming trend?
How much of the modern warming is natural, and how much is likely the result of human activities?"
"How reliable" he continued, "are the computer models used to forecast future climate conditions? And is reducing emissions the best or only response to possible climate change?
Obviously, these are important questions. Yet the IPCC pays little attention to them or hides the large amount of doubt and uncertainty surrounding them."
Are the scientists and economists who ask these questions just a fringe group, outside the scientific mainstream?
Not quite.
A 2003 survey of 530 climate scientists in 27 countries, conducted by Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch at the GKSS Institute of Coastal Research in Germany, found that
82% said global warming is happening, but only 56% said it’s mostly the result of human causes, and only 35% said models can accurately predict future climate conditions. Of those surveyed, only 27 percent believed “the current state of scientific knowledge is able to provide reasonable predictions of climate variability on time scales of 100 years.”
That’s a long ways from “consensus.”
More damning still is that there isn’t even consensus among the IPCC.
While it is true that there are about 2,500 scientists in the IPCC as a whole, only about 600 of those scientists are part of Working Group I (WG I), the sub-committee that actually comments on the causes and severity of climate change. Of those 600, only 62 reviewed and commented on the critical chapter that attributes climate change to so-called “greenhouse gases” generated by human activity. Norrowing it down even further, 55 of those 62 had a vested interest (by organizational or research ties) in producing the “right” answer.
A few of the scientists originally listed on the IPCC report went as far as having their name removed after reading the final report and finding it to be misleading.
Global warming is often presented as a liberal-conservative issue. It’s not. It’s a science vs. propaganda issue and, despite what a bunch of radicals with an agenda preach, the real scientists have real doubts that mankind has much to do with the changes in climate at all.
Most skeptics do not dismiss greenhouse gases as a possible cause of global warming outright. Nor should they. But their objective approach is a far cry from the sheer panic one finds in the IPCC report's Summary for Policymakers that Al Gore and his disciples quote so frequently. There is a big difference between continued attention to a theory, and a mad rush to alter the world’s energy supply before we are swept away by a wall of water or devoured by homeless polar bears.
Listen, I am an advocate for clean air, clean water, and protecting this beautiful planet that we've been given. I strongly support conservation and developing clean and efficient forms of renewable energy. But the transitions must be thoughtfully planned, carefully implemented, and our motivations must in the right place.
If we carelessly rush to pass massive new legislation that would impose major financial burdens to this already weakened economy by throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at a problem we know very little about, it would be more than fool-hearty. It would reek of ulterior motives.
With that said, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the corporations and individuals who are pushing the hardest for the Kyoto protocol, Cap and Trade (which turns Carbon, a naturally occurring gas, into a commodity to be capped, bought and sold), and immediate reduction in fossil fuels among other proposed "solutions", those same folks stand to profit the most from the transitions.
A perfect example of this is Mr. Climate Change himself, Al Gore. Though he has never had to prove one word of the dooms day rhetoric he espouses (most of which has been debunked by ACTUAL scientists as false or misleading), Al Gore has made over $100 million dollars since the 2006 release of his "documentary", 'An Inconvenient Truth'. This a man who is a lawyer, a business man, and a Politician (I didn't see Scientist or Meteorologist in there, did you?) leading the charge for global warming alarmism, yet he stands to potentially make billions through an ownership stake in Generation Investment Management, a corporation he co-founded in 2004. GIM was specifically established to take financial advantage of new technologies and solutions related to combating Global Warming.
Can an individual who stands to make millions from Global Warming really be trusted as an honest broker on that topic? Talk about giving the fox the keys to the hen, make that penthouse.
Roger Pielke Jr., an associate professor of environmental studies and the former director of the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, commented concerning Mr. Gore: "As I have said on many occasions, I am neither surprised nor too concerned that a politician would stretch the facts to advance his political agenda. What concerns me is that many scientists have been complicit in advancing such mischaracterizations and remain selectively mute when they are made. In this manner, a large portion of the mainstream climate science community has taken on the unfortunate characteristics of politicians like Mr. Gore, deciding to uphold scientific standards only when politically convenient. This is one way how science becomes pathologically politicized."
So when I hear my newly elected President, Barack Obama, declare that "the science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear." When he confidently warns that, "Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season." When he arrogantly proclaims that, "Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious." I can't help but wonder.
Who is on the fringe? The skeptics or the Alarmists?
Secretary Of State Clinton?
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
November 17, 2008
Transition: Odds are improving that President Obama will name Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. It's an unexpected move and not without risk. But she brings significant strengths and might just be a solid choice
During the primary campaign, Sen. Clinton was the first candidate to call attention to the naivete of Obama's foreign policy approach. When asked at a debate if they would negotiate with dictators without precondition in the first year of administration, Obama said he would, and Clinton said she wouldn't.
Then she pointed out the pitfalls: "I think it is not that you promise a meeting at a high level before you know what the intentions are," she said. "I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don't want to make a bad situation even worse." Dictators would get no teas at the White House "until we know better what the way forward would be," the former first lady said.
Such prudent thinking not only won over her audience that night, it may have won over Obama too. As the campaign wore on, he moved his position closer to hers. Now, he may be asking her to be in charge of foreign policy.
Clinton's pragmatic toughness could be a significant asset to the Obama administration. There are other good candidates for the top diplomatic spot, including Sen. Richard Lugar and Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. But Clinton's no lightweight.
She is an experienced politician, and as first lady had a close advisory role to her husband in the 1990s. Her experience on the Senate Committee on Armed Services is another plus. She's no area expert, to be sure, but she's traveled to 80 countries on assorted junkets over the years, and definitely knows the players, an asset of comparable value.
What's more, her trips to seldom-visited places in India, Africa, the Balkans and Latin America have created goodwill in large swaths of the world, including the U.S. Witness the support she got from Latino voters during the primaries.
For all of the gaffes and prevarications associated with her travels at various times, the broad reality is that Mrs. Clinton is well-known and popular abroad, and that's an obvious advantage in diplomacy.
Last but not least, a Secretary of State Clinton would represent continuity, which, in the midst of Obama's change agenda, would be especially valuable in foreign affairs. U.S. policy is inherently bipartisan and turns slowly, like an ocean liner. Friendly allies like the assurances of continuity. Enemies take notice that the window to pull a fast one is not open. That clarity serves U.S. interests abroad.
It's also fair to say, however, that the choice of Clinton for State carries some risk. Her husband now runs a $300 million foundation that supposedly focuses on philanthropy. But its most visible activity is schmoozing with world leaders, through the Clinton Global Initiative, amounting to basically a private diplomacy that promises access to the real kind.
The former president isn't disclosing his big-money donors, some of whom have been named in the press as oppressive Gulf sheikhs and businessmen who seem to have benefited from his connections to corrupt satrapies.
He is within his rights. But the connection to power is as obvious as it is questionable. To his donors, the prospect of Bill Clinton's wife in the foreign policy chair could be like the pop of a can opener at a cat farm. Perhaps a moratorium, voluntary or otherwise, on donations to the foundation would create a partial firewall against influence-peddling.
The Obama team will need something along these lines to inspire confidence. The Clintons are not known for self-restraint in their foreign connections, whether Saudi or Chinese. Another soap opera of Clintonian scandals in foreign affairs would ill serve Obama and the country.
Mrs. Clinton also remains ambitious and could be a bit of a self-dealer. There's speculation in political circles about how her appointment would affect her positioning for the next election, making her more or less likely to run.
But on the whole, if she focuses solely on the job, she has real potential to do good work for the next president. She's tough. She knows the players, she grasps national security and she's popular. If she is named, let's hope that her strengths will shine through, and the country will be served first.
Quote of the Day
"Those who would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin.
MISSILE DEFENSE: BULLYING BARACK
STAKES RISING ON PREZ-ELECT'S FIRST TEST
By Peter Brookes
November 18, 2008
Barack Obama campaigned on the promise of "change," but one change the president-elect may be planning on - not deploying a US missile defense in Eastern Europe - would be a big mistake.
Indeed, it's exactly the type of about-face that nations like Russia, Iran and North Korea hope for from the incoming administration.
Worse, it will likely be seen abroad as knuckling to Russian bullying.
Two weeks ago, just a day after the US elections, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made a virulently anti-American speech - his first major address since taking office this spring and arguably the first foreign "test" of the president-elect.
Amid other ranting, Medvedev demanded that the United States back off on its planned missile-defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.
If the deployment goes ahead, Medvedev warned, Moscow will place short-range missiles in Kaliningrad - a Russian enclave nestled between NATO members Poland and Lithuania.
A few days after the Medvedev speech, a senior Obama aide came out after a phone call between the president-elect and Polish President Lech Kaczynski saying that Obama had "made no commitment on" missile defense.
Ugh. That's not a certain retreat by Washington in the face of Moscow's threats, but it's a very troubling start for the Obama team on a key national-security issue.
Going wobbly caused heartburn in Warsaw and Prague, where both governments went to the mat to get approval for the missile-defense deal - and glee in Moscow, Tehran and Pyongyang. What rogue doesn't love a whiff of wobbliness?
And the stakes rose just days later, when The Wall Street Journal reported that Russia is now in talks to deploy missiles in Belarus, which could be bore-sighted on targets across Europe.
(Belarus' motive? It's probably looking for Russian help on energy supplies and financial credits - or, if Europe wants to bribe it to reject the missiles, for an easing of EU economic sanctions imposed over human-rights issues.)
The next step in this ongoing lesson for the president-elect came Friday - when French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a halt to European missile defense until more talks can be held.
Sarkozy's words, at a European Union-Russia summit, were a clear sop to fellow attendee Medvedev - at the expense of the United States and the president-elect. (Shamefully, the EU is re-engaging Russia despite Moscow's failure to meet the EU six-point peace plan for Georgia.)
But the issue isn't just bullying - there's the policy, too. This system is designed to defend against the Iranian missile and nuclear threat - which is growing fast.
Just last week, Tehran tested a two-stage, solid-fuel ballistic missile - whose 1,200-mile range would let it hit all of the Middle East and parts of southeastern Europe.
If reports of the Iranian test are true, this would be Tehran's first successful test of a multistage rocket - which would put it on track for launching missiles to ever-increasing ranges, including intercontinental distances. The test also showed advances in Iran's basic rocketry science, moving beyond liquid fuels to a more reliable solid-fuel rocket motor.
The last thing we need is to look "soft" on Iran's nuclear and missile programs.
North Korea's leadership, meanwhile, would also be tickled pink over the demise of a missile-defense initiative - which can only add to the value of their nuclear and missile programs.
Let's be clear: We're talking about missile defense here - systems meant to protect our homeland, our allies and friends and US troops against offensive threats.
The Bush administration decided that leaving us deliberately vulnerable was foolish - and has moved to deploy systems against an array of missile threats.
And rightly so: In a dog-eat-dog world, any power that seems weak invites provocation, blackmail, coercion or even aggression.
Missile defense gives policy makers choices beyond massive retaliation - and is one of our few reasonable options to protect ourselves and our interests against the growing threat of missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
For Obama to give in to Russian threats wouldn't just make him look weak in the eyes of our enemies and friends; it would weaken America's security, too.
Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Peter Brookes is a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense.
By Peter Brookes
November 18, 2008
Barack Obama campaigned on the promise of "change," but one change the president-elect may be planning on - not deploying a US missile defense in Eastern Europe - would be a big mistake.
Indeed, it's exactly the type of about-face that nations like Russia, Iran and North Korea hope for from the incoming administration.
Worse, it will likely be seen abroad as knuckling to Russian bullying.
Two weeks ago, just a day after the US elections, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made a virulently anti-American speech - his first major address since taking office this spring and arguably the first foreign "test" of the president-elect.
Amid other ranting, Medvedev demanded that the United States back off on its planned missile-defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.
If the deployment goes ahead, Medvedev warned, Moscow will place short-range missiles in Kaliningrad - a Russian enclave nestled between NATO members Poland and Lithuania.
A few days after the Medvedev speech, a senior Obama aide came out after a phone call between the president-elect and Polish President Lech Kaczynski saying that Obama had "made no commitment on" missile defense.
Ugh. That's not a certain retreat by Washington in the face of Moscow's threats, but it's a very troubling start for the Obama team on a key national-security issue.
Going wobbly caused heartburn in Warsaw and Prague, where both governments went to the mat to get approval for the missile-defense deal - and glee in Moscow, Tehran and Pyongyang. What rogue doesn't love a whiff of wobbliness?
And the stakes rose just days later, when The Wall Street Journal reported that Russia is now in talks to deploy missiles in Belarus, which could be bore-sighted on targets across Europe.
(Belarus' motive? It's probably looking for Russian help on energy supplies and financial credits - or, if Europe wants to bribe it to reject the missiles, for an easing of EU economic sanctions imposed over human-rights issues.)
The next step in this ongoing lesson for the president-elect came Friday - when French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a halt to European missile defense until more talks can be held.
Sarkozy's words, at a European Union-Russia summit, were a clear sop to fellow attendee Medvedev - at the expense of the United States and the president-elect. (Shamefully, the EU is re-engaging Russia despite Moscow's failure to meet the EU six-point peace plan for Georgia.)
But the issue isn't just bullying - there's the policy, too. This system is designed to defend against the Iranian missile and nuclear threat - which is growing fast.
Just last week, Tehran tested a two-stage, solid-fuel ballistic missile - whose 1,200-mile range would let it hit all of the Middle East and parts of southeastern Europe.
If reports of the Iranian test are true, this would be Tehran's first successful test of a multistage rocket - which would put it on track for launching missiles to ever-increasing ranges, including intercontinental distances. The test also showed advances in Iran's basic rocketry science, moving beyond liquid fuels to a more reliable solid-fuel rocket motor.
The last thing we need is to look "soft" on Iran's nuclear and missile programs.
North Korea's leadership, meanwhile, would also be tickled pink over the demise of a missile-defense initiative - which can only add to the value of their nuclear and missile programs.
Let's be clear: We're talking about missile defense here - systems meant to protect our homeland, our allies and friends and US troops against offensive threats.
The Bush administration decided that leaving us deliberately vulnerable was foolish - and has moved to deploy systems against an array of missile threats.
And rightly so: In a dog-eat-dog world, any power that seems weak invites provocation, blackmail, coercion or even aggression.
Missile defense gives policy makers choices beyond massive retaliation - and is one of our few reasonable options to protect ourselves and our interests against the growing threat of missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
For Obama to give in to Russian threats wouldn't just make him look weak in the eyes of our enemies and friends; it would weaken America's security, too.
Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Peter Brookes is a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Obama: 'Whatever It Takes'
November 17, 2008 - 1:51 ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The United States government should not worry about deficits over the next two years while spending money to jumpstart the ailing economy, President-elect Barack Obama said in a television interview that aired on Sunday.
Obama, a Democrat who takes over from President George W. Bush, a Republican, on January 20, said consensus had emerged between economists in both major U.S. political parties that expensive measures were necessary to avoid a deep recession.
"The consensus is this, that we have to do whatever it takes to get this economy moving again, that we have to -- we're going to have to spend money now to stimulate the economy," he told the CBS television network's 60 Minutes news program.
"And (consensus is) that we shouldn't worry about the deficit next year or even the year after; that short term, the most important thing is that we avoid a deepening recession."
During his presidential campaign Obama pledged to fund all of his policy proposals, but the severity of the economic downturn has made balancing the budget a low priority as the government takes measures to stimulate economic growth.
Obama said the $700 billion bailout bill passed by the U.S. Congress had helped stem the financial crisis, even though the $300 billion already spent may not have had visibly positive effects.
"I think ... part of the way to think about it is things could be worse. I mean, we could have seen a lot more bank failures over the last several months," he said.
"We could have seen an even more rapid deterioration of the economy-- even a bigger drop in the stock market. So part of what we have to measure against is what didn't happen and not just what has happened."
Obama, who has made revamping U.S. energy policy a key goal once he's in the White House, said falling gasoline prices did not make the issue any less critical.
"Gas prices at the pump go up, everybody -- goes into a flurry of activity. And then the prices go back down and suddenly -- we act like it's not important," he said.
"As a consequence, we never make any progress. It's part of the addiction, all right. That has to be broken. Now is the time to break it."
Quote of the Day
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
- William Pitt.
The $639 Million Loophole
We're fresh off the most expensive election cycle in history, in which the winning candidate raised record amounts of money while opting out of the campaign finance limits. With victory in hand, Barack Obama's allies now want to return to the alleged virtues of public money. If there was ever a demonstration of the folly and hypocrisy of campaign finance reform, this would be it.
The GOP is using this demonstration to make another constitutional challenge to McCain-Feingold, and we're glad to see it. That's the upshot of two lawsuits filed Thursday by the Republican National Committee in Washington, D.C. and Louisiana, challenging campaign finance restrictions including the 2002 McCain-Feingold law.
The rules were intended to limit the influence of money in politics, but we now have the proof of three election cycles showing they haven't. Instead they have made election money less transparent, restricted political speech, and helped create a cottage industry of election lawyers and shadowy political groups.
In Washington, the RNC is challenging McCain-Feingold's ban on national parties raising and spending money for state races -- the so-called soft money that is not subject to federal contribution limits. The Louisiana suit will also challenge rules that limit groups from coordinating their message with candidates. Lifting the restrictions would mean national parties could lend a hand raising state money in important statewide races, like next year's elections for Governor in Virginia and New Jersey.
According to the RNC complaint, banning the use of soft money in state-level races is unconstitutional because it doesn't meet the standard of being "unambiguously related" to the election of a federal candidate, the standard that the Supreme Court first set out in Buckley v. Valeo. All voters have a First Amendment right to contribute to candidates, whether they do so as individuals or through organized groups -- and they will always find ways to do that.
President-elect Obama should now be counted among those who understand the principle. To his credit, he managed to raise $639 million, roughly as much as President Bush and John Kerry spent combined in 2004 -- from big bundlers as well as small donations. Mr. McCain also broke records for fundraising with over $350 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
But in a moment of poetic justice, the Republican felt yoked to the public financing system he championed, capping his general-election spending at $84 million, a piddling amount next to Mr. Obama's pile of cash. Mr. McCain's campaign manager recently said the Republican was outspent by some $100 million in the final week; this is a main reason Mr. Obama was able to make more states competitive than either
Mr. Kerry or Al Gore could.
As they usually do when Democrats run through the loopholes, campaign reformers were uncharacteristically quiet while Mr. Obama raked in the dough. But with the election over, they've suddenly got their mojo back. Within days of November 4, seven "reform" outfits were demanding more disclosure requirements for bundlers and raising the amount of taxpayer funding that would have been available to Mr. Obama if, ahem, he hadn't chosen not to accept taxpayer funds.
Like writers at the Nation magazine who claim that socialism hasn't failed because it hasn't really been tried, the thinkers who gave us the post-Watergate campaign reforms and then McCain-Feingold continue to insist that "The way Washington works is not going to change until we fundamentally change the nation's campaign finance laws."
How Mr. Obama and his Justice Department weigh in will be worth watching. Is he going to delegitimize his own election by lending his Administration's voice to the idea that money is evil and public financing the only true path to salvation? The President-elect has ceremonially banned lobbyists from his transition team, but there's apparently no such hex on the fat cats who helped stuff his campaign war chest. His campaign bundlers have already reached the inner sanctum. Bloomberg reports that of the 12 members of Mr. Obama's transition advisory board, five raised at least $50,000 for the campaign coffers.
If the election showed anything, it's that the answer isn't layering more regulations and limits on top of the ones that have already failed. The better road is starting to strip some of them away -- a task that will ultimately fall to the Supreme Court. The Roberts Court blinked last year when offered a chance to overturn McConnell v. FEC and restore the First Amendment right to free political speech.
Let's hope it gets another opportunity.
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