'twas Evil Capitalist Pigs that killed the beast...

The Lieberman-Warner "Let's Kill Capitalism Once and for All Act of 2008" will be debated soon in the Senate. Some background can be found here. However, it looks like the bill may meet the fate of last year's immigration bill. But, thank goodness, this year the media can ignore the grassroots effort to kill the cap-in-trade bill. Why? This year we have a convenient scapegoat...the Fortune 500 company:

An influential coalition of Fortune 500 companies and environmental groups that was formed to support climate-change legislation has splintered over the Lieberman-Warner bill that is headed next week to the Senate floor.

[...]

Without widespread corporate support, passage of the bill - already a long shot at best - becomes even more unlikely this year. President Bush remains opposed. House Democrats have been slow to act.

Besides that, a backdrop of rising gasoline prices and the sluggish economy makes it difficult to win votes for a regulatory scheme that will raise the prices of electricity and gasoline. In fact, a key purpose of the bill is to put a price on the emissions of greenhouse gases, as a way to speed the transition to a clean-energy economy and slow down global warming.

See, the People want carbon taxes. It's those corporations that are impeding progress. Who is John Galt?

But don't worry, there is plenty of time to pass the legislation next year. In fact, the environmental lobby didn't even bring their A-game this time around (emphasis mine):

[E]ven supporters concede that the debate will set the scene for action in 2009.

"This will put us in a position to have action next year," says David Doniger, director of the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a supporter of the bill. "We expect in the Senate that the 60-vote rule will be applied. That's a hard one to get over."

As currently written, Lieberman-Warner might fall short of a 50-vote majority in the Senate, let alone the 60 votes required to close debate, insiders say. Presidential candidates (and Senators) Clinton, McCain and Obama all support climate-change legislation.

Thanks, New Hampshire!

UPDATE:Heh. Looks like one of the environmental groups pushing Lieberman-Warner is violating McCain-Feingold. I wonder if Sen. McCain will go after them the way he went after Wisconsin Right to Life.

Gov. Palin goes after Pres. Bush

She is suing the U.S. government to keep it from listing the polar bear as a threatened species, a move which was designed primarily to destroy capitalism rather than help polar bears:

“We appreciate the Secretary’s recognition that oil and gas activities are already regulated under the Marine Mammal Protection Act to prevent impacts to the polar bear and do not pose a threat to the polar bear,” Governor Palin said.

[...]

“While climate change is a significant issue, the Endangered Species Act is not the right tool to address impacts to a species from climate change,” Attorney General Talis Colberg said.

“Inappropriate implementation of this listing decision could result in widespread social and economic impacts, including increased power costs and further increases in fuel prices, without providing any more protection for the species,” Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Irwin said.

“While the state is challenging the listing, we remain committed to assuring Alaska’s polar bears are conserved,” Governor Palin said. “The state will continue to monitor Alaska’s polar bear populations and their behaviors in relation to changing sea ice conditions.”

This is what a real maverick looks like, Sen. McCain.

Common (Wo)Man Nancy Pelosi: Gas is $2.56 a gallon most places

If you remember, a year ago the Associated Press was breathlessly informing all of America that then-GOP frontrunner Rudy Giuliani was out of touch with Americans because she didn't know the correct price of milk or bread.

Cut to one year later, here's Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Larry King's show:



I expect to see an article from the AP any minute telling readers how uneducated Speaker Pelosi is on one of the most important issues of the day. Annnnnnnny minute.

The darkest of dark horses

I had held off even mentioning Carly Fiorina as a possible choice for Sen. McCain's running mate, but VP Watch has pointed out this news item that suggests we may have to start looking into her background:

Former HP chief Carly Fiorina is rumored to be near the top of a very short list of possible Vice Presidential candidates.

Fiorina has already joined the Republican National Committee as the party's "Victory Chairman." She has been promoting presumed GOP presidential candidate John McCain on the campaign trail. "John McCain has the right vision for our country and the character, experience and judgment to lead," she has said.

While the article goes on to point out that this could just be a red herring to trow off the Democrats, I think it's worth looking into.

Her obvious positives: as a former CEO and business leader she knows more about the economy than McCain, she brings gender diversity to the GOP ticket (which will be especially helpful if Sen. Obama gets the nomination), and she has the executive experience that Sen. McCain lacks. Now, on to the negatives.

Fiorina's most glaring negative is that she has never run for any public office before. While she has done some campaigning for Sen. McCain already, it is my understanding that this campaigning has been confined to the business/technology community. McCain needs a VP who is at home on the campaign trail and can connect with everyday workers with as much ease as they connect with executives. Having never run for office, most of Fiorina's views outside of business issues are unknown. If she is socially conservative (which is what McCain will need), she has to be able to prove it somehow. Her tenure as CEO at Hewlett-Packard ended when she was forced to resign by board members due to what they saw as poor performance.

As I said before, most of her views are unknown. However, she has done some interviews which have touched on important political issues. She, like McCain, sees great promise in guest worker programs for foreign workers:

I think first of all the H-1B Visa program is very important to the technology industry. The American people get concerned and understandably emotional about it when they perhaps don’t understand the differences between the H-1B Visa program and illegal immigration. So we have to make these differences clear because as McCain said, illegal immigration is a hugely emotional issue and it’s a very difficult issue in a state like California. So we have to be very open and specific about why the H-1B Visa program bears no resemblance to illegal immigration. We also then have to recognize that American workers all over this country are increasingly concerned about their ability to compete against foreign workers, whether those foreign workers are outside our country or whether they’re coming into our country.

However, in the interview quote above, she segues into the need to retrain American workers, so that businesses are less reliant on guest worker programs in the future.

On Iraq, Fiorina doesn't seem to be anti-war, but she may have doubts over whether it was the right thing to do in the first place:

Whatever people think about how we got here, what we do now is a matter of grave importance. And Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama think that what we should do is depart even though we're finally starting to see success. John McCain believes that we need to build on the success that we've seen in the last year or so and win in Iraq - not because he wants to stay there for 100 years but in fact because he believes a stable country is in our interests.

In my heart, I think it takes a soldier to bring us home with victory and honor. I think it takes a soldier, someone who really understands war - how terrible it is, the cost of war, the price of war - I think it takes someone who really understands it, to finish it.

On a better note, she doesn't seem like the type of person to play the gender card. For example, she has questioned Fortune magazine's list of top female executives:

It’s a terrific thing to highlight women leaders ... [but] the list sends the wrong message. The list says women have to compete against each other one to 50, because they can’t play with the big boys. It’s not the fact that they’re highlighted that’s the problem. ... I think part of the reason we haven’t made as much progress as we should is that women leaders are thought of as different somehow. There is no men’s list.

I'm sure that if Sen. McCain is seriously considering her for VP, we'll subtly start learning about more of her personal views on political topics outside the realm of business. But, as I wrote this post, I have become increasinly convinced that this won't be the case. McCain will have to bring his A game this year, and choosing an RNC insider unknown to most voters might not be the best idea.

We'll see.

The economy is so bad...

...that people were willing to pay $20,000 for a Sen. Obama's half-eaten waffle.

It's ideas like this that will help him win in November...

Sen. McCain is proposing a "gas tax holiday" for this summer, meaning no federal gas taxes from Memorial Day to Labor Day:

To help people weather the downturn immediately, McCain urged Congress to institute a "gas-tax holiday" by suspending the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day. He also renewed his call for the United States to stop adding to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and thus lessen to some extent the worldwide demand for oil.

Combined, he said, the two proposals would reduce gas prices, which would have a trickle-down effect, and "help to spread relief across the American economy."

If this long-shot proposal gets accepted, I think the greatest benefit is that people would finally, tangibly see how much the federal government costs them every time they fill up their tank. Also, I would predict that, come Labor Day, there would be a lot of people angry that the taxes are being re-installed. Hopefully that anger would lead them to choose the most tax-friendly candidate in November, rather than someone who would surely vote against any tax relief. A press release on McCain's full economic plan can be found here.

It would get more people to vote, that's for sure.

Yes, it's old. But it's tax day, so why not try to cheer ourselves up with a 17-month-old pipe dream:

The passage of time between when we dutifully vote and when we curse the IRS actually serves as a comfortable buffer zone for politicians against an onslaught of public discontent. It’s the ultimate “buy now, pay later” scheme.

As a result, taxpayers often end up with elected officials who give lip service to the idea of lower (or at least simpler) taxes, but who rarely have to deal with the immediate consequences of failing to back up words with deeds.

As a response to the disconnect, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R., Md.) has sponsored a bill that would move the deadline for federal income-tax returns from April 15 to the first Monday in November — conveniently, the day before Election Day. The cause is simple: strengthen the link between the politicians we elect and the taxes we pay for their services (or disservices).

More information on Rep. Bartlett's bill can be found here.

UPDATE:via HotAir, here is the Young America's Foundation's Jason Mattera asking Sen. Ted Kennedy about his funneling the Kennedy money into trusts and foundations, given his continued support for the death tax:



FYI, a good source of information about the death tax is the American Family Business Institute.

"Green is green"

Hit & Run has a good post up about free market-based environmentalism. This is an issue that has been dominated by the left, but has potential to be used by the right (and libertarians). The video at the post features TJ Rodgers, who is in charge of a company that manufactures solar energy:

[H]e tells a story about the time he caught the president of SunPower "blathering about ice caps or something like that" and went to great lengths to publicly mock him for being, essentially, a Birkenstocks-wearing dirty hippie.

Rodgers' position these days seems to be something like this: Give the people a product they want, make a profit doing it, and don't feel too high and mighty if you happen to do something "socially responsible." Green is good? Who cares? The important thing, as he puts it, is that "green is green." Like money, get it?

There is a market out there for people who don't really mind being green, as long as it doesn't hinder capitalism. For example, driving a Toyota Prius doesn't hurt the free market or the environment. Just ask Rep. Tom Tancredo.

I believe Republicans and Libertarians have a chance to take this issue and run with it. There are plenty of conservative people out there who wouldn't mind being more environmentally friendly if the stigma of being a "dirty hippie" weren't attached to the issue.

Sen. John McCain has embraced the issue, but unfortunately (and not surprisingly) he tends to align with the left instead of with the free market. An interview with Sen. McCain on environmental policy can be found here.

"I doubt Sarah's met a government intervention she didn't like..."

Mike Flynn, the Director of Government Affairs at the Reason Foundation, discusses the housing bailout on CNBC.



Details of Sen. John McCain's plan for homeowners can be found in this San Francisco Gate article, which I admit I haven't had time to read very thoroughly.

Sen. Jim Bunning, acting non-crazy for once

He's actually talking sense about the massive government bailout of house buyers and housing loan lenders. About time someone did:

"This is an unusually bad bill, and I have opposed it from the start. The course it has followed almost guarantees that it will be filled with the worst kind of gimmickry. And it is. The Senate may be the world’s greatest deliberative body, but this bill is anything but the product of deliberation. It is a jumble of disjointed ideas, unlikely to solve the crisis at hand, and it’s unpopular.

"It turns out that the American people don’t like the idea of bailing out banks and their neighbors who gambled on home prices.

Video of his statement on the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2009 is at the link.

Who knew Herbert Hoover was president in 1996?

David Freddoso passes along a helpful chart from a Hill staffer on the disingenuous spin Democrats are putting on the economy.

New York City: Not like London.

For now, at least. The New York legislature has killed NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's attempt at creating a London-style congestion pricing fee for cars entering Manhattan during the day. What is interesting is that Democrat-controlled State Assembly stopped the bill. The Republican State Senate leader had a, shall we say, nuanced position on the measure:

"Bloomberg personally donated $500,000 to Republican state senators, who narrowly run that body... shortly thereafter, the State Senate's leader endorsed the plan."

St. Obama, Sr.: Hey, how about a 100% tax rate?

I'll not steal Greg Ransom's whole post, there's plenty of good stuff to look at.

So we know that his father's ideals were a driving force in his life, but the one thing that Obama does not give us are the contents of those ideals. The closest he comes is when he tells us that his father lost his position in the government when he came into conflict with Jomo Kenyatte, the President of Kenya sometime in the mid 1960s; when he tells us that his father was imprisoned for his political views by the government just prior to the end of colonial rule; and when he tells us that the attributes of W. E. B. DuBois, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela were the ones he associated with his father and also the ones that he sought to instill in himself. (p. 220) This last group is a hodge podge, perhaps concealing as much as it reveals, in that it contains a socialist black nationalist, a Muslim black nationalist, a civil rights leader, and (at the time indicated in the memoir) an imprisoned armed revolutionary.

A bit of research at the library reveals the answers about Barack Obama's father and his father's convictions which Obama withholds from his readers."

What are some of the positions St. Obama, Sr. advocated? Here are my favorites, and there are more at the link:

2. Obama advocated the nationalization of "European" and "Asian" owned enterprises, including hotels, with the control of these operations handed over to the "indigenous" black population. (pp. 32 -33)

3. Obama advocated dramatically increasing taxation on "the rich" even up to the 100% level, arguing that, "there is no limit to taxation if the benefits derived from public services by society measure up to the cost in taxation which they have to pay" (p. 30) and that, "Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed." (p. 31)

7. Obama advocates government owned and operated "model farms" as a means of teaching modern farming techniques to farmers. (p. 33)

So basically, everything Robert Mugabe has done, but on steroids.

What say you, Barack?

Electricity from nuclear waste?

It could be true. The secret to the process would be nanotechnology:

US researchers say they have developed highly efficient materials that can convert the radiation, not heat, from nuclear materials and reactions into electricity.

Liviu Popa-Simil, former Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear engineer and founder of private research and development company LAVM and Claudiu Muntele, of Alabama A&M University, US, say transforming the energy of radioactive particles into electricity is more effective.

The materials they are testing would extract up to 20 times more power from radioactive decay than thermoelectric materials, they calculate.

Since it would help solve environmental problems without destroying the free market, don't expect environmentalists to cheer this information. It's a nice start, though.

(h/t Instapundit)

Because if you don't get behind it, he'll put you in front of it.

Zimbabwe's socialist dictator, Robert Mugabe, has found his new campaign slogan:

The president’s posters show him making a menacing gesture above the unenticing slogan: “Get behind the fist”. His rhetoric at rallies is still in the language of anticolonialism and he dismisses Makoni and Tsvangirai as “British stooges”.

Zimbabweans will probably be too busy saving up Zim$25,000,000 to buy a loaf of bread to notice.

John Dingell: Hey, I've got an idea! Let's raise the gas tax by $0.50/gallon!

You've really got to work to keep those approval ratings at 20% or less, don't ya Johnny boy? Showing, once again, how much they truly care about working class Americans, Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) has suggested a half-dollar increase in the gasoline excise tax to help the environment:

A Michigan congressman wants to put a 50-cent tax on every gallon of gasoline to try to cut back on Americans' consumption.

Polls show that a majority of Americans support policies that would reduce greenhouse gases. But when it comes to paying for it, it's a different story.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., wants to help cut consumption with a gas tax but some don't agree with the idea, according to a new poll by the National Center for Public Policy Research.

The poll, scheduled to be released on Thursday, shows 48 percent don't support paying even a penny more, 28 percent would pay up to 50 cents more, 10 percent would pay more than 50 cents and 8 percent would pay more than a dollar.

I don't know about you, but I can barely afford gas as it is, and my car gets 35-40 mpg. Which is interesting, because aren't Democrats always the ones saying they are for helping the poor? I make less than $20K a year after taxes...I don't see how five more dollars sent to the government each time I fill the tank is helping my situation.

My favorite line in the article:

Some environmentalists and economists say pain at the pump may be bad for Americans, but good medicine for a sick planet.

See, I call those economists "bad economists" or "tenured Marxist college professors".

And while I would like to think this would hurt him in November, Rep. Dingell has, of course, been entrenched in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1955. He's not going anywhere.

Sunday links: "I'm lazy" edition

***The New York Times has an article up on where Sens. Clinton, McCain, and Obama stand on the issue of free trade. It's worth a look.

(h/t Club for Growth)

***Gateway Pundit has video of St. Obama praising Hate-monger Jeremiah Wright at Hampton University last summer. The rest of the post is excellent, too.

***doubleplusundead highlights the interesting new goodwill procedures at the LAPD.

***JammieWearingFool looks at the new evidence that suggest more Manson Family murders have been found.

***Little Green Footballs finds that St. Obama's website is now Wright-free.

***Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy wants to know who you think Sen. John McCain's vice president should be.

who ya gonna call?

sen. jim demint has offered up an amendment in the senate to oppose all pork-barrel earmarks for one year.

so far, seven senators have signed up as co-sponsors to support the measure including one democrat:

Jim DeMint (R-SC)
John McCain (R-AZ)
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Tom Coburn (R-OK)
Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
Bob Corker (R-TN)
Richard Burr (R-NC)
Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

sadly, neither of kentucky's senators are on the list. perhaps you should give their offices a call?

sen. mitch mcconnell
phone: 202.224.2541
fax: 202.224.2499

sen. jim bunning
phone: 202.224.4343
fax: 202.228.1373

UPDATE: sen. majority leader harry reid (d-nv) has ruled out democrat support of the measure.

oil hits $107 a barrel

i can't help but realize that oil prices were seeming (at least in my area) to go down until the democrats regained control of congress.

thanks nancy!

and now for something completely different

george mcgovern, yes that george mcgovern, authored a column today that is in favor of free markets and chiding the nanny state. read the whole column, but here is a section where he speaks on health care reform:

Health-care paternalism creates another problem that's rarely mentioned: Many people can't afford the gold-plated health plans that are the only options available in their states.

Buying health insurance on the Internet and across state lines, where less expensive plans may be available, is prohibited by many state insurance commissions. Despite being able to buy car or home insurance with a mouse click, some state governments require their approved plans for purchase or none at all. It's as if states dictated that you had to buy a Mercedes or no car at all.

i never thought i would say this, but i wish that mcgovern were advising the democrat candidates right now.