EPA Suppresses Report Calling Into Question Global Warming Science

The Environmental Protection Agency, keen to advance President Barack Obama’s climate change initiatives, apparently suppressed a report from leading experts calling into question the science behind the theory of manmade climate change. The 98-page report, submitted to agency leaders just prior to it recommending regulation of carbon dioxide emissions, continues to call into question the ‘consensus’ many have said the scientific community has about the theory.

Alan Carlin, the report’s primary author, was told via email from superiors in the agency to not “have any direct communication” with anyone outside his group at the EPA. The well-published PhD has experience in environment and public policy dating back to 1964 but after submitting the report was told to discontinue working on climate change entirely.

In reviewing the report, it is obvious why the administration would find the report very untimely leading up to its decision on CO2 and its push for climate change legislation. The report authors saw the rush to judgment and urged caution saying their “concerns and reservations are sufficiently important to warrant a serious review of the science by EPA before any attempt to reach conclusions on the subject.”

Carlin and his co-authors believed that the EPA and other government agencies were ignoring science that is coming to light calling into question the entire manmade climate change theory. It is their belief that the EPA and other organizations “have tended to accept the findings reached by outside groups, particularly the IPCC and the CCSP, as being correct without a careful and critical examination of their conclusions and documentation.”

The report went on to cite a number of discrepancies and inconsistencies in the science behind arguments made by Al Gore, James Hansen, and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The authors make note of many issues and to read about them go to http://www.examiner.com/x-219-Denver-Weather-Examiner~y2009m6d30-EPA-suppresses-report-calling-into-question-global-warming-science

Revolution By Herbert E. Meyer

During the last 30 years we Americans have been so politically divided that some of us have called this left-right, liberal-conservative split a “culture war” or even a “second Civil War.”  These descriptions are no longer accurate.  The precise, technical word for what is happening in the United States today is revolution.

Because of our country’s history, we tend to think of revolutions as military conflicts, and of the revolutionaries as the good guys; the image of Minutemen fighting valiantly against the British forces at Lexington and Concord lies deep within our DNA.  But sometimes — quite often, actually — revolutions aren’t military conflicts, and the good guys are the ones trying to keep the revolution from happening.  In January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany by its elected president; he would spend the next two years consolidating his power with the legislative connivance of his political allies in the Reichstag.  In October 1917, Lenin and his Bolsheviks took control of Russia from Kerensky and his Social Democrats — who had overthrown the Czar earlier that year — entirely through parliamentary maneuvering in Russia’s fledgling Duma.

What defines a revolution — and this is the crucial point to grasp — is that when it’s over a country has changed not merely its leaders and its laws, but its operating system.

To read the rest of this article, please go to http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/revolution.html

Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council.  He holds the U.S. National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, which is the Intelligence Community’s highest honor.  He is author of The Cure for Poverty and How to Analyze Information.

Cap And Trade Bill Passes House Vote: Obama Says Electricity Rates To “Skyrocket”

It passed by one lousy vote.

The vote was 219-212, capping months of negotiations and days of intense bargaining among Democrats. Republicans were overwhelmingly against the measure, saying it would cost jobs in the midst of a recession.

If passed by the senate, this bill will drive jobs out of the country and raise prices of all goods and services for everyone in the country. And for once, the old canard of “poor, women, and minorities hardest hit” is true.

Here are the eight Republican turncoats:

• Bono (CA) 202-225-5330
• Castle (DE) 202-225-4165
• Kirk (IL) 202-225-4835
• Lance (NJ) 202-225-5361
• Lobiondo (NJ) 202-225-6572
• McHugh (NY) 202-225-4611
• Reichart (WA) 202-225-7761
• Chris Smith (NJ) 202-225-3765

Call them, be polite, and let them know that you will financially support more conservative challengers to them in 2010. This bill is not centrist or moderate — it is the most extremist and damaging act to pass the house in the history of the United States.

This is a Pyrrhic victory for the Obama administration. The bill will not be voted on by the senate for 6 to 8 weeks. That leaves us a lot of time to get the sordid details to the public. As we do, poll numbers for Obama and the Democrat majority will tumble.

If by some chance the bill does pass the senate, our economy will tank further and the 2010 election will make the 1994 rout by Republicans look like a minor voting blip. I would rather this bill not pass the senate in the first place because I do not want to damage the country for years to get a political victory.

Remember, Obama himself told us that “energy rates would necessarily skyrocket” under this bill. For once, believe him.

The Cap and Tax Fiction

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put cap-and-trade legislation on a forced march through the House, and the bill may get a full vote as early as Friday. It looks as if the Democrats will have to destroy the discipline of economics to get it done. [The House Democrats passed the bill Friday]

Despite House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman’s many payoffs to Members, rural and Blue Dog Democrats remain wary of voting for a bill that will impose crushing costs on their home-district businesses and consumers. The leadership’s solution to this problem is to simply claim the bill defies the laws of economics.

Their gambit got a boost this week, when the Congressional Budget Office did an analysis of what has come to be known as the Waxman-Markey bill. According to the CBO, the climate legislation would cost the average household only $175 a year by 2020. Edward Markey, Mr. Waxman’s co-author, instantly set to crowing that the cost of upending the entire energy economy would be no more than a postage stamp a day for the average household. Amazing. A closer look at the CBO analysis finds that it contains so many caveats as to render it useless.

For starters, the CBO estimate is a one-year snapshot of taxes that will extend to infinity. Under a cap-and-trade system, government sets a cap on the total amount of carbon that can be emitted nationally; companies then buy or sell permits to emit CO2. The cap gets cranked down over time to reduce total carbon emissions.

To get support for his bill, Mr. Waxman was forced to water down the cap in early years to please rural Democrats, and then severely ratchet it up in later years to please liberal Democrats. The CBO’s analysis looks solely at the year 2020, before most of the tough restrictions kick in. As the cap is tightened and companies are stripped of initial opportunities to “offset” their emissions, the price of permits will skyrocket beyond the CBO estimate of $28 per ton of carbon. The corporate costs of buying these expensive permits will be passed to consumers.

The biggest doozy in the CBO analysis was its extraordinary decision to look only at the day-to-day costs of operating a trading program, rather than the wider consequences energy restriction would have on the economy. The CBO acknowledges this in a footnote: “The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap.”

The hit to GDP is the real threat in this bill. The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment. Some companies will instead move their operations overseas, with the same result.

When the Heritage Foundation did its analysis of Waxman-Markey, it broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this more comprehensive scenario, it found Waxman-Markey would cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four. As the bill’s restrictions kick in, that number rises to $6,800 for a family of four by 2035.

Note also that the CBO analysis is an average for the country as a whole. It doesn’t take into account the fact that certain regions and populations will be more severely hit than others — manufacturing states more than service states; coal producing states more than states that rely on hydro or natural gas. Low-income Americans, who devote more of their disposable income to energy, have more to lose than high-income families.

Even as Democrats have promised that this cap-and-trade legislation won’t pinch wallets, behind the scenes they’ve acknowledged the energy price tsunami that is coming. During the brief few days in which the bill was debated in the House Energy Committee, Republicans offered three amendments: one to suspend the program if gas hit $5 a gallon; one to suspend the program if electricity prices rose 10% over 2009; and one to suspend the program if unemployment rates hit 15%. Democrats defeated all of them.

The reality is that cost estimates for climate legislation are as unreliable as the models predicting climate change. What comes out of the computer is a function of what politicians type in. A better indicator might be what other countries are already experiencing. Britain’s Taxpayer Alliance estimates the average family there is paying nearly $1,300 a year in green taxes for carbon-cutting programs in effect only a few years.

Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can’t repeal that reality.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124588837560750781.html

Four Stages of Revolution

Bill Buppert mentioned a controversial video that uses movie clips to illustrate a point:

Part 1 http://en.sevenload.com/videos/c3kZgM8-The-Four-Stages-of-Revolution-Part-1-of-2

And

Part 2 http://en.sevenload.com/videos/FLU9JAR-The-Four-Stages-of-Revolution-Part-2-of-2

Are You Comfortable with ACORN Taking the 2010 Census

Should we let ACORN take the 2010 census?

Well, ACORN stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Does ACORN have any reason to adjust 2010 census numbers? Will ACORN do what is best for the country or for them? That is not a hard question to answer.

FoxNews.com has carried a dialogue between Judge Andrew Napolitano and freshman Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz.
The Census Bureau has been given $11 billion to conduct the 2010 census. Now, we find that they are partnering with ACORN.

What ACORN claims to be and what they are is two different things.

ACORN claims to be a grass-roots movement for lower and lower-middle class families but they are actually an entity unto themselves with their own political agenda and they are not above using strong-arm tactics.

One thing about the new census as Chaffetz points out is that it must have the trust of the American people. It will not have that if ACORN does the census work.

This is just one more thing Obama should be taken to task about. There was a lot of rumoring that he was in league with ACORN. Is he paying them back?

How can the administration possibly pull such a stunt?

Chaffetz suggests that instead of giving the money to ACORN with their 750,000 headhunters we use the United States Post Office. That is excellent problem solving.

The Post Office is in the financial hole this year by about two to three billion dollars every quarter; $11 billion would help the coffers.

Here is the choice: We can let ACORN do the census giving them the $11 billion dollars to strengthen their social activities and create a situation where every time the government assigned money to a project or reform people would examine if it seems to favor those people represented by ACORN.

The other choice we have is to give the same money to the Post Office. This would strengthen them financially. They are already going door-to-door. Plus they already have a force of 760,000 people in place while ACORN would try to hire 750,000.

However, the most important thing is that the American people would trust the census much more.

In the face of this if Obama insists on going through with using ACORN he simply validates why many of us can’t wait for the 2012 Presidential election.

California Collapsing

Washington and Wall Street seem to be treating California as if it were a sideshow in the financial circus of these turbulent times.

It’s not.

California is home to the largest manufacturing belt in the United States and to Silicon Valley, the nation’s largest high-tech center.

California is America’s most populous state with 38 million people. Its GDP of $1.8 trillion is the largest in the U.S. Its economy is bigger than those of Russia, Brazil, Canada, or India.

And it’s collapsing.

Major California counties are ground zero in the continuing mortgage meltdown:

Los Angeles County with 5.32 percent of mortgages 90 days past due … Monterrey County, 8.02 percent … Imperial, 8.13 … San Bernadino, 8.66 … Madeira, 9.21 … San Joaquin, 9.53 … Riverside, 10.2 … Merced, 10.57 … and more!

California’s inventory of foreclosed homes is skyrocketing. Home prices are plunging. And the impact of surging unemployment is just beginning to show up in the data …

Worst Unemployment in 64 Years

The state’s unemployment rate has surged to 11.5 percent, the worst since World War II.

Last month, California lost 68,900 jobs. And since July 2007, it has lost 859,000 jobs, including 739,500 just in the past 12 months.

Even if the economy recovers, an unlikely scenario in my view, economists agree that California will continue to be slammed by layoffs, at least through the end of this year and probably well into 2010.

And even assuming a national recovery, UCLA’s Anderson Forecast projects an average unemployment rate of 12.1 percent from this fall through next spring.

What about without a national recovery? California’s jobless could go beyond 15 percent.

Worse, if you include part-time workers seeking full-time work plus workers who have given up looking entirely, it could reach 25 percent, exceeding the worst national unemployment levels of the Great Depression.

“Our wallet is empty. Our bank is closed. And our credit is dried up.”

These are not the words of a Dr. Doom in New York or a forlorn banker in Georgia. They represent the confession of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger before a rare joint session of the California legislature … and with no exaggeration!

The state faces a stunning $24.3 billion budget deficit, even assuming no significant deterioration in the economy from this point onward. And the state has lost virtually all hope of President Obama declaring, “California is too big to fail.”

California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer tried to make that argument to Washington, and did so with great vigor. But he was rejected. After the long line-up of failed companies with hat in hand in recent months — on the steps of Congress or the White House lawn — some folks in government finally appear to have learned how to just say “no.”

“You’re on your own,” is the message from the president to the governor. “Beyond your share of the stimulus package, that’s it! No more!”

Result: The inevitability of massive state cutbacks, including large numbers of state jobs getting axed — all while the California jobless rate is already 11.5 percent.

How many state jobs are in jeopardy? Right now, Schwarzenegger is proposing laying off 5,000 state employees, as well as slashing education and social welfare programs. But the Anderson Forecast projects that Schwarzenegger’s budget cuts will eventually result in 64,000 job cuts from state government plus countless private-sector and local government jobs.

Massive Downgrades Coming

California’s credit rating is already the lowest among all U.S. states.

But with Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch still greatly influenced by massive conflicts of interest, it’s not nearly low enough.

And sure enough, on Friday, Moody’s tacitly admitted as much, announcing that it may have to cut California’s rating by several notches in one fell swoop!

Standard & Poor’s put California on watch for a possible downgrade a few days earlier. Fitch did the same May 29.

The big problem: Once downgraded, California’s rating is likely to fall below the minimal level legally required for most money market funds, forcing these funds to dump California paper posthaste.

Moody’s wrote:

“If the Legislature does not take action quickly, the state’s cash situation will deteriorate to the point where the controller will have to delay most non-priority payments in July. … Lack of action could result in a multi-notch downgrade.”

But lack of action is precisely what Sacramento is now becoming most famous for. In fact, in their latest scuffle, Democrats proposed a budget that would raise $2 billion from cigarette taxes and oil companies. But the governor promptly vetoed the plan. So now Sacramento is in a new, escalating battle over the deficit just weeks before the state is expected to run out of cash to meet payroll and other bills.

State officials continue to insist that a state default is unthinkable … much like GM executives said their bankruptcy could never happen.

In my view, there is a very HIGH probability that California will default.

It’s obvious its debt merits a junk bond rating from every Wall Street rating agency.

And it’s equally obvious that the ratings agencies are artificially inflating the rating, stalling downgrades, and grossly understating the risk to investors.

My recommendations:

1. If you wait for Moody’s or S&P to act, it could be too late. Even if you can’t get what you might consider a good price, sell all California paper now!

2. Seriously consider dumping all tax-exempt bonds. I know the income is better than equivalent Treasuries. But if California defaults, it could set off a chain reaction of bond price plunges and defaults throughout the municipal bond market.

3. Don’t underestimate the impact California’s depression is having — and will continue to have — on the rest of the U.S. economy. At $1.8 trillion, the state’s GDP is so large, any further deterioration could wipe out every so-called “green shoot” in the national economy seen to date.

4. Stay safe, with a big portion of your nest egg in cash, tucked away in short-term Treasury bills … and with a very modest portion in gold, as an insurance policy against a dollar decline.

Good luck and God bless!

by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. at http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/california-collapsing-34271

Obama’s Unemployment Problem

Reports are starting to appear suggesting that laid-off or underemployed Americans, and the long-term unemployed, are losing patience with the Obama administration’s and Congress’ economic stimulus plan, which thus far has not done anything to arrest the growth of unemployment, now at close to 20 percent of the US workforce, at least as unemployment used to honestly be counted in the 1970s and early 1980s.

While millions of jobs have been lost since the beginning of this year alone, the number of jobs that have been created as a result of the Obama administration’s signature $780-billion stimulus spending package is under 150,000—a far cry from the 3.5 million that were promised when the bill was being put before Congress.

There has been a lot of hype from Washington sources, dutifully reported with little analysis or criticism in the corporate media, suggesting that the recession is bottoming out. One example was a report last week that the number of people receiving unemployment had, for the first time in six months, dropped slightly. Unmentioned was the hard reality that the reason for this drop was that many laid-off workers are now reaching the end of their 26 weeks of unemployment benefits in states that do not offer any extended benefits program. On inspection, that is hardly good news.

There is also a mantra, trotted out regularly by administration officials, that unemployment figures are a “lagging indicator,” and thus are no indication that the recession is continuing to worsen. The problem with this sleight-of-hand is that unemployment itself, when it is rising rapidly as it has been now for a year, is a cause of deepening recession. When one in five workers is unemployed or unwillingly underemployed, that represents not only a huge drop in consumer demand for everything from basic necessities to luxuries, but also a huge dark cloud of anxiety that hangs over most of the rest of the public, leading everyone to cut back on their spending, thus dragging down the economy further.

Daniel Miller From The Texas Nationalist Movement Was Interviewed By Glenn Beck

For more information, go to their website http://www.texasnationalist.com/

1st Graders Take a Field Trip to Lesbian “Marriage” Ceremony

A group of San Francisco first-graders took an unusual field trip to City Hall on Friday to toss rose petals on their just-married lesbian teacher – putting the public school children at the center of a fierce election battle over the fate of same-sex marriage.

The 18 Creative Arts Charter School students took a Muni bus and walked a block at noon to toss rose petals and blow bubbles on their just-married teacher Erin Carder and her wife Kerri McCoy, giggling and squealing as they mobbed their teacher with hugs.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, a friend of a friend, officiated.

A parent came up with the idea for the field trip – a surprise for the teacher on her wedding day.

“She’s such a dedicated teacher,” said the school’s interim director Liz Jaroslow.

But there was a question of justifying the field trip academically. Jaroflow decided she could.

“It really is what we call a teachable moment,” Jaroflow said, noting the historic significance of same-sex marriage and related civil rights issues. “I think I’m well within the parameters.”

Nonetheless, the excursion offers Proposition 8 proponents fresh ammunition for their efforts to outlaw gay marriage in California, offering a real-life incident that echoes their recent television and radio ads.

“It’s just utterly unreasonable that a public school field trip would be to a same-sex wedding,” said Chip White, press secretary for the Yes on 8 campaign. “This is overt indoctrination of children who are too young to have an understanding of its purpose.”

The trip illustrates the message promoted by the campaign in recent days, namely that unless Prop. 8 passes on Nov. 4, children will learn about same-sex marriage in school.

“It shows that not only can it happen, but it has already happened,” White said.

California Education Code permits school districts to offer comprehensive sex education, but if they do, they have to “teach respect for marriage and committed relationships.”

Parents can excuse their child from all or part of the instruction.

On Friday, McCoy and Carder, both in white, held hands on Newsom’s office balcony overlooking the rotunda and recited their vows.

“With this ring, I thee wed!” Carder said, shouting the last word for emphasis.

After traditional photos, the two walked out City Hall’s main doors where the students were lined up down the steps with bags of pink rose petals and bottles of bubbles hanging from their necks. McCoy, a conferences services coordinator, was in on the surprise and beamed as the children swarmed around Carder.

The two said they have participated in the campaign against Proposition 8 and planned to travel around San Francisco on Friday afternoon in a motorized trolley car with “Just Married” and “Vote No on 8″ banners.

The two met on a dance floor two years ago.

“This is one girl I can honestly say deserves happiness, and it came in the form of Kerri,” said Carder’s friend Dani Starelli.

Creative Arts administrators and parents acknowledged that the field trip might be controversial, but they didn’t see the big deal. Same-sex marriage is legal, they noted.

“How many days in school are they going to remember?” asked parent Marc Lipsett. “This is a day they’ll definitely remember.”

Carder’s students said they were happy to see their new teacher married.

“She’s a really nice teacher. She’s the best,” said 6-year-old Chava Novogrodsky-Godt, wearing a “No on 8″ button on her shirt. “I want her to have a good wedding.”

Chava’s mothers said they are getting married in two weeks.

The students’ parents are planning to make a video with the children describing what marriage is to them.

Marriage, 6-year-old Nolan Alexander said Friday, is “people falling in love.”

It means, he added, “You stay with someone the rest of your life.”

As is the case with all field trips, parents had to give their permission and could choose to opt out of the trip. Two families did. Those children spent the duration of the 90-minute field trip back at school with another first-grade class, the interim director said.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s not controversial for me,” Jaroflow said. “It’s certainly an issue I would be willing to put my job on the line for.”

By Jill Tucker with the San Fransisco Chronicle

Folk, if you are not already home schooling your children, you had better start in September. Your children’s minds are at stake!