The EPA Wrecking Ball ... J. D. Longstreet

The EPA Wrecking Ball

By Alan Caruba

The Environmental Protection Agency is using its power to advance the objective of the environmental movement to deny Americans access to the energy that sustains the nation’s economy and is using the greatest hoax ever perpetrated, global warming—now called “climate change”—to achieve that goal.

“This standard isn’t the once-and-for-all solution to our environmental challenge,” said Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator, “but it is an important commonsense step toward tackling the ongoing and very real threat of climate change and protecting the future for generations to come. It will enhance the lives of our children and our children’s children.”

This is a boldfaced lie. Its newest rule is based on the debasement of science that is characterized and embodied in the global warming hoax. It will deprive America of the energy it requires to function.

Since the 1980s the Greens have been telling everyone that carbon dioxide was causing global warming—now called climate change—and warning that CO2 emissions were going to kill everyone in the world if they weren’t dramatically reduced. The ball was put in motion with the United Nations 1997 Kyoto Protocols when many nations agreed to this absurd idea and carried forward by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ever since.

The Environmental Protection Agency was created to clean the nation’s air and water where it was deemed that a hazard existed. Like most noble ideas and most Congressional mandates, the initial language was vague enough to be interpreted to mean anything those in charge wanted it to mean. Add in the global warming hoax and you have the means to destroy the nation.

Now it means that the source of fifty percent of all the electricity generated in the United States is being systematically put out of business and please do not act surprised; that’s exactly what Barack Obama said he intended to do if elected President.

This is evil writ large.

Shutting down utilities that use coal, an energy source the U.S. has in such abundance that it could provide electricity for the next hundreds of years, and ensuring that no new ones are built fits in perfectly with all the Green pipedreams about "renewable" energy. Solar and wind presently provide about two percent of the nation’s electricity and, without government subsidies and mandates requiring their use, they would not exist at all.

How stupid is it to not build more nuclear power plants when this form of power doesn’t emit anything but energy?

How stupid is it not to use coal when the U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of coal?

How stupid is it to begin to find reasons to regulate and thwart fracking, the technology to access trillions of cubic feet of natural gas that has been in use for decades?

How stupid is it to cover miles of land, far from any urban center, with hundreds of solar panels or huge, ugly wind turbines that kill thousands of birds every year?

The sun does not shine all the time, nor does the wind blow all the time. In the event of overcast skies or a day without wind, traditional plants—those using coal, gas, nuclear or generating hydroelectric power—have to be maintained as a backup. Take away the coal-fired plants and there were be huge gap in the national grid.

Darkness will descend and Americans will begin to live with blackouts and brownouts that will undermine every aspect of our lives. It’s bad enough when a town or even a city briefly loses power because of a storm, but imagine that occurring on a regular basis because there just aren’t enough utilities generating power!

What kind of people stand by idly while its own government conspires to take away the primary source of energy that everything else depends upon? The answer? You. The answer is the many elected politicians that have done little to rein in a rogue government agency intent on undermining the nation by denying it the ability to generate power with the least expensive source of electricity, coal.

The EPA, an unelected bureaucracy, has just ensured that all Americans, industries, small businesses, and individuals will begin pay far more for electrical power.

Richard J. Trzupek, the author of “Regulators Run Wild” and an environment policy advisor for The Heartland Institute, said of the new rule, “With around 50,000 megawatts of coal-fired power set to be forcibly retired in the next few years—thanks to the draconian policies of Obama’s EPA—this rule ensures that no new modern, efficient coal fired power plants will be built to fill the gap.”

In a triumph of crony capitalism, Trzupek notes that “The big winner will be Obama’s good friend, GE Chairman Jeff Immelt. Since solar and wind cannot fill a 50,000 megawatt baseload gap, the only way to ensure continued reliability of the grid is to build a lot of natural gas-fired plants quickly. And who is the biggest supplier of natural gas-fired combustion engines? GE of course.”

If you think that environmental organizations like the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, among many others, are seeking to “protect” the Earth, you are seriously mistaken. They have been among the leading opponents of coal and they have had allies in Congress such as the Majority Leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, (D-NV) who has said “Coal makes us sick. Oil makes us sick.”

NO! Coal provides the engine of our nation’s electrical power and oil provides the energy that fuels our transportation and is the basis for countless products that enhance and improve our lives every day.

We are witnessing the destruction of the nation by the environmental movement and the EPA has just provided you with the most dramatic example of that plan.

© Alan Caruba, 2012
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

Look on the Bright Side ... by Alan Caruba

Look On the Bright Side
By Alan Caruba
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I was over at the Rasmussen Reports website and was struck by the way President Barack Obama’s approval ratings continue to decline. It’s not like I and most conservatives have not been aware of his rocketing unpopularity of late, but in trying to remember the last time I saw numbers like this it was during Jimmy Carter’s presidency. While both Bush’s, father and son, ran into a loss of popularity due to the decisions and directions they took the nation, few people felt a visceral sense of dislike for either #41 or #43. There is no small irony in the renewed popularity of #43 in the form of “Miss Me Yet?” billboards and a small industry of items devoted to the thought.

So, when I received a forwarded message, “Look on the bright side”, from one of my friends, it all came together for me. Unfortunately, the author of the text is unknown, but I hope he won’t mind if I share his thoughts about Barack Hussein Obama with you.

“He destroyed the Clinton political machine. Driving a stake through the heart of Hillary’s presidential aspirations; something no Republican was ever able to do. Remember when a Hillary presidency scared the daylights out of you?”

“He killed off the Kennedy dynasty. No more Kennedy’s trolling Washington looking for booze and women wanting rides home. American women and freedom are safer tonight!”

“He is destroying the Democrat Party before our eyes!”

Here’s the short tally:

Dennis Moore had never lost a race—quit!

Evan Bayh had never lost a race—quit!

Byron Dorgan had never lost a race—quit!

William Delahunt – quit!

Harry Reid’s bid for re-election is in trouble.

To which let’s add the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey—now Republican. And, of course, the new Republican Senator from Massachusetts. Obama personally campaigned for their opponents. Rep. Charles Rangel whose accumulated misdeeds now represent a political career that is all over but for the final curtain and another New York Representative, Rep. Eric Massa, is caught up in a nasty sexual harassment scandal.

All Democrats. All from the party that cried “culture of corruption” throughout the Bush years.“He has completely exposed liberals and progressives for what they are. Every generation seems to need to relearn the lesson on why they should never put liberals in charge. Obama is bringing home the lesson very well!

Liberals tax, borrow and spend.

Liberals won’t bring themselves to protect America.

Liberals want to take over the economy.

Liberals think they know what is best for everyone.

Liberals aren’t happy until they are running YOUR life.”

“He has brought more Americans back to conservatism than anyone since Reagan.”

“When the American People wake up, no smooth talking TelePrompter reader can fool them!" “Thank you, Barack Obama!”

We don’t need polls to tell us what our family, friends, and co-workers think. The most common thing I hear from among my Democrat friends is regret for having voted for Obama. There’s nothing like a raging Recession or incipient Depression to get people’s minds focused on reality.

There’s nothing like President Obama’s naked repudiation of the will of the people regarding healthcare “reform” to get Americans into the streets protesting.

If you’re the President, Speaker of the House, or Senate Majority Leader, there’s nothing like a daily recitation of lies, lies, and more lies to drive your poll numbers into the toilet.

Come November, if the American people replace as many Democrat incumbents as possible, there will indeed be reason to look on the bright side.

Alan Caruba

The Yucca Mountain Blues ... Alan Caruba

The Yucca Mountain Blues

By Alan Caruba

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Are you worried about your “carbon footprint”?

Still think “global warming” is real despite the fact that one of its leading advocates, a climatologist, recently said that there’s no significant data to demonstrate any warming since 1995?

Can’t figure out why the White House is still trying desperately to pass the “Cap-and-Trade” bill based on the totally discredited claim that carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere are “causing” the non-existent “global warming”?

Do you increasingly think that you are Alice in Wonderland and now living in a nation where the White House and Congress keep telling you things that are totally absurd?

Let’s put aside the claim that we have to borrow and borrow in order to keep on spending and spending to save the economy when common sense says that is the worst way to end the economic death spiral they have created.

The latest ploy by the White House was a move in the direction of nuclear power to generate the electricity the nation needs for its current and future needs. Since the 1970s, for reasons that defy understanding, several administrations, Democrat and Republican, have done little to encourage nuclear power despite the fact that a nation like France derives most of its electricity from it.

Even so, nuclear provides about twenty percent of the electricity we use while coal provides just over fifty percent. In both cases, neither has anything to do with “greenhouse gases” because the gases play no role in climate change. Indeed, more carbon dioxide, being plant food, would greatly enhance the growth of crops and forests.

“Cap-and-Trade” is nothing more than a tax on energy use. Simply put, it has been cheap, abundant energy that has fueled the economy of the United States since it was founded. The discovery of oil in 1859 also played a major role and, despite the lies, the U.S. has an abundance of oil.

Like nuclear power, however, successive administrations since the 1970s have ensured that U.S. oil companies were kept from exploring for it, extracting it, refining it and selling it to us at affordable prices.

This is in sharp contrast to the endless babble about the need to be “energy independent.”

The talk about support for the nuclear energy industry is welcome, but what the White House is not saying is that his proposed budget has no funding for the nuclear waste facility in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain.

Congress passed a Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1982 and amended it in 1987. Yucca Mountain is the only permanent nuclear waste repository in the nation. I repeat, the only one. Why isn’t it in operation? Glad you asked. Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, has blocked its completion and use.

So we could build two or a dozen new nuclear plants—a very good idea—but there would still be no place to put the waste despite the fact that the U.S. has spent $9 billion on the first phase to build the Yucca Mountain site. A $13 million tunnel boring machine sits idle at the site.

That has not stopped the White House from wanting to put U.S. taxpayers on the hook for $8 billion in loan guarantees for two new reactors in Georgia.

The purpose of all this is to get a few senators to sign on to the passage of Cap-and-Trade, a bill based on a non-existent threat from “greenhouse gases” in order to avoid a non-existent “global warming.” There are two fears; one that the Senate might pass the bill and, two, that the White House might impose it by executive order.

What we are witnessing is yet another really big, really bad idea out of the White House that continues to lie to everyone and anyone who thinks the problem is “global warming” when the problem really is a mad desire to destroy of the nation’s economy.

This has always been the single goal of the environmental movement when the global warming fraud began in the late 1980s. It accelerated with the UN Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The U.S. has never accepted the Protocol and those nations that did have since discovered that it’s been a very costly fraud.

Cap-and-Trade is a fraud. Let your senators know you oppose their vote for it. Any senator that does vote for it should be replaced if they are running for reelection in the November midterm elections.

Alan Caruba

Harry reid Must Resign! ... by Frances Rice

(The following is published on “INSIGHT on Freedom” with the permission of the author. … Ed)

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HARRY REID MUST RESIGN!
By Frances Rice

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Wielding a sharp racial sword, Democrats ruthlessly destroy the careers of Republicans on racial matters, accepting no apologies. Yet, using a glaring double standard, those same Democrats quickly give a pass to any Democrat, such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who again displayed egregious racism.

Hardly a ripple of protest was made in 2004 when Reid shamelessly slurred Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as an incompetent Negro who could not write good English. "Slap at Thomas stinks of racism," was the headline of the New York Daily News' December 7, 2004 editorial.

Now, Reid has described then-Senator Barack Obama as "light skinned" and "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." With this racial slur, Reid denigrates not only Obama, but also the entire population of black Americans as being uneducated Negroes who cannot speak standard English, the same type of disgusting remark he made over five years ago about Justice Thomas, a graduate of Yale Law School. A tribute to Justice Thomas that includes details about his stellar career is posted on the NBRA website.

Any American with an ounce of decency would not tolerate the type of disgusting racial epithets hurled by Reid at black Americans. If Reid had a scrap of politesse or common decency, he would apologize immediately to all black Americans, not just President Obama, and resign. It says a lot about his character and his innate disdain for blacks that he has refused to do so.

Obama's readiness to give Reid a pass is in sharp contrast to how Obama reacted in 2002, wasting no time issuing a challenge to the Republican Party to repudiate Republican Senator Trent Lott's remarks about Senator Strom Thurmond and seek his resignation as the Republican senate majority leader. The article "Obama in '02: 'The Republican Party itself has to drive out Trent Lott'" by John McCormack uncovers the following quote from Obama that was printed in the December 12, 2002 issue of the "Chicago Defender".

"It seems to be that we can forgive a 100-year-old senator for some of the indiscretion of his youth, but, what is more difficult to forgive is the current president of the U.S. Senate (Lott) suggesting we had been better off if we had followed a segregationist path in this country after all of the battles and fights for civil rights and all the work that we still have to do," said Obama.

He said: "The Republican Party itself has to drive out Trent Lott. If they have to stand for something, they have to stand up and say this is not the person we want representing our party."
In the arsenal of excuses for Reid not resigning, as did Lott, is the claim that Reid's racist comments were not of the same caliber as Lott's remarks made on the occasion of Thurmond's 100th birthday. Lott was criticized and later apologized for his favorable comments about Thurmond's life's work that encompassed his ill-fated 1948 presidential bid when Thurmond was a racist Democrat, and Lott was only seven years old. Thurmond died in 2003.

The fine line of racial calibration afforded Reid is never permitted any Republican under any circumstances. Resign! That's the universal cry from Democrats to Republicans, regardless of the nature of the charge of racism, and even when the charges are false. Further, Democrats are not shy about embracing or speaking well of their aging leaders who have engaged in horrendous acts of racism.

Democrats who called for Lott's resignation were silent when Democrat Senator Christopher Dodd praised former Klansman Democrat Senator Robert Byrd as someone who would have been "a great senator for any moment". Unlike Byrd, Thurmond was never in the Ku Klux Klan that was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party. After he reformed on racial issues and joined the Republican Party - the party of freedom and equality for blacks - Thurmond defended blacks against lynching and the discriminatory poll taxes imposed on blacks by Democrats.

Egregiously Byrd, in March of 1968, while referring to the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. left Memphis, Tennessee after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, called Dr. King a "trouble-maker" who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited. This motivated Dr. King to return to Memphis a few weeks later where he was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Byrd was also a fierce opponent of desegregating the military and complained in one letter: "I would rather die a thousand times and see old glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again than see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen of the wilds."

In the early 1970's, Byrd pushed to have the senate's main office building named after a former "Dixiecrat," Democrat Senator Richard Russell who was Senator Byrd's mentor and leading opponent of anti-lynching legislation and other civil rights laws of the 1950's and 1960's that were championed by Republicans. Recently, in 2001 Byrd was forced to apologize for using the N-word on television. During Byrd's last bid for re-election to the senate, Obama wrote a letter of support for the racist Byrd, and not one murmur of indignation was uttered about the fact that Obama was honoring a former Klansman. Democrats showed no shame when they heralded Byrd as "the conscience of the senate." Can we say hypocrisy?

Why is there omitted from most discussions about racism all the racists words and deeds of numerous other Democratic Party leaders, including President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton and former President Jimmy Carter? Instances or racism on the part of these and other Democrats are detailed in articles posted on the NBRA website.

The new book by Wayne Perryman "Whites, Blacks & Racist Democrats" provides details about the origin and depth of the contempt Democrats have always had for black Americans, starting in 1792. In his book on page 184, Perryman reports what Democrat President Lyndon Johnson said to his closest friend, Democrat Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia. Historical documents show that Johnson told Russell the following:

"These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they got something now that they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, but not enough to make a difference. For if we don't move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there'll be no way of stopping them.... It will be Reconstruction all over again..."

Until and unless we hold Democrats to the same standard of racial purity imposed on their political opponents, we will never end the Democrats' use of racial tactics designed to keep our nation divided along hyphenated lines.

The resignation of Senator Harry Reid would signal an end to the Democrats' era of race mongering for partisan political gain. However, all signs show that Reid will not resign, and the Democrats will never loosen their race-baiting grip around the throat of America.
So, it is up to the people of Nevada to vote Reid out of office during the November 2010 election, and the rest of us to kick the Democrats out of Congress, since they are determined to tax and spend our nation into a long socialist winter.
http://blackrepublican.blogspot.com/2010/01/harry-reid-must-resign.html

Frances Rice is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel, a lawyer and chairman of the National Black Republican Association. She may be contacted at: http://www.nbra.info/
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About the author:

Frances RiceLieutenant Colonel Frances Rice, United States Army, Retired is a native of Atlanta, Georgia and retired from the Army in 1984 after 20 years of active service. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from Drury College in 1973, a Masters of Business Administration from Golden Gate University in 1976, and a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law in 1977. In 2005, she became a co-founder and Chairman of the National Black Republican Association, an organization that is committed to returning African Americans to their Republican Party roots.

The Healthcare Reform Travesty ... by Alan Caruba

The Healthcare Reform Travesty

By Alan Caruba

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Other than the complete destruction of the U.S. economy, one sixth of which is generated by the healthcare profession, I cannot see any reason for the bill that Harry Reid is pushing for a Saturday evening vote in the Senate.

It has taken less than a year for the Democrats, led by Barack Obama, to saddle Americans with such enormous debt that your grandchildren will be paying it off. The so-called “bail-outs” have proven to be a bonanza for Wall Street firms on good terms with the Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, whose mantra is “It’s all Bush’s fault.” The “stimulus” bill has not stimulated anything except lies about “jobs created and saved.”

Rush Limbaugh calls Congress a “Kamakazi Congress” and the “Suicide Bomber Congress” because it is obvious that any Democrat Congressman or woman and any Senator who votes for this atrocious bill, probably without having read it, will be thrown out of office. And should be!

Ignoring all the town hall protests, the tea parties across the nation, and the massive September 12 rally in Washington, D.C. has to come with a penalty, but by then it will be too late for most Americans.

The November 23 edition of Business Week had a cover story by Catherine Arnst titled “Why Wait for Health Reform: Ten Ways to Cut Costs Right Now.” It makes clear that all the so-called reforms contained in the 2,000-plus page bill could be achieved in ways that do not require a monster piece of legislation intended to impose socialized medicine on America.

In brief, heres how to achieve an improved, and more affordable healthcare system:

1. Crack down on fraud and abuse. The amount of fraud in the Medicare system is estimated to cost $125-175 billion every year. Since the system operates as a kind of honor code, the government has been unsuccessful in detecting fraud and abuse. Meanwhile, private insurers such as the Blue Cross & Blue Shield Association report its anti-fraud efforts resulted in a savings of $350 million last year, a 43% increase from 2007.

2. Develop a healthy workforce. Wellness programs pay real dividends for the companies that sponsor them.

3. Coordinate care through family doctors. A patient suffering from one or more chronic diseases may depend on several doctors and “rarely do they communicate with one another.” This results in waste, often due to duplication of treatments. By designating a primary care doctor to organize care with specialists, pharmacists, and physical therapists, sharing medical records electronically, it is estimated that $250 to $325 billion could be saved.

4. Make health a community effort. Campaigns to encourage people to eat better, get more exercise, and other options could greatly reduce health-related costs.

5. Stop infections in hospitals. Every year, 1.7 million patients develop infections while in hospital and 99,000 die as a result. They can be reduced if hospitals put more emphasis on solving the problem.

6. Get patients to take their medicine. Three out of four Americans do not take their medicine as directed. Noncompliance leads to more doctor visits, hospitalizations, and treatments that add an estimated $177 billion a year to the nation’s health-care bill.

7. Discuss options near the end of life. End of life care can be especially costly. When patients and the families are informed they can choose pain management, nursing care, and psychological support, all of which reduce costs.

8. Use insurance to manage chronic disease. In 2009, UnitedHealthcare introduced a Diabetes Health Plan that offers rewards to patients who manage their disease properly. The idea is to contain costs by giving patients financial incentives based on their particular health issues rather than a one-size-fits-all approach…something the proposed healthcare reform will impose on all Americans regardless of their particular health problems.

9. Let well-informed patients decide. Too many Americans think that drastic surgery and other procedures are the only way they can survive a healthcare crisis, but such procedures extend lives or prevent heart attacks in only a tiny minority of especially sick patients. Few really know this. Educating patients can reduce wasted health spending by up to 37%.

10. Apologize to the patient. When hospitals reveal mistakes to patients and their families, investigate the cause, and offer a settlement, it takes the lawyers out of the process. Honesty really is the best policy.

Instead, Congress is getting ready to impose a massive bureaucracy that will be put in charge of healthcare, increasing the nation’s deficit and debt as millions are added to the Medicare ranks and private insurance companies are driven out of business. The loss of freedom will be beyond calculation as Americans must deal with bureaucrats instead of their physicians and other healthcare professionals.

It is the worst possible “reform” imaginable. We’re running out of time to call our Senators, mostly Democrats, and demand they vote NO!

Alan Caruba