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

Attacking Paul Ryan, But Not the National Debt

By Alan Caruba

The White House and Democrats have been attacking Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Chairman of the House Budget Committee, for having the audacity to put forth budget plans, something the Democrats in the Senate have failed to pass for well over a thousand days at this point.

The first words out of Rep. Steve Israel’s mouth, a Democrat from New York, were the pathetic blather about “billionaires.” Most Americans aren’t billionaires or even millionaires and are more concerned about the rising costs of gasoline, food, and everything else than whether the rich pay more taxes. In point of fact, the rich pay the vast bulk of the income taxes and some forty percent of workers pay none at all. If you earn more than $250,000 a year, Democrats think you’re rich.



Harry Reid

 Never mind that most of us are trying to live within our own budget, the Democrats have resisted passing any kind of a budget to address a looming fiscal crisis of their making. That was why voters in 2010 returned control of the House, where all appropriations are authorized, to Republicans. If they had done the same for the Senate, we might actually have had some budgets, but Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, has ensured that every effort to address the fiscal mess fails.

The White House and the Senate, despite the Simpson-Bowles Commission, despite the so-called “super committee”, and despite the plans put forth by Ryan, have utterly failed to do anything but spend, spend, and spend. To do so, they must borrow, borrow, and borrow.

In February, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that annual spending over the Obama era had climbed to a projected $3.6 trillion this fiscal year from $2.98 trillion in fiscal 2008; more than 20%. It added up to an increase of about $5 trillion in just four years. This year will mark the highest deficit—the difference between government revenues and government spending—since 1946!

Robotically and moronically, the Democrats keep calling for higher taxes and even the CBO has concluded that the 2012 tax hike (ending the Bush tax cuts) on capital gains, dividends, estates and small businesses would impede economic growth, reducing it 1% the next year and raising the specter of unemployment rising from 8.5% to 9.1%--increasing the jobless to 750,000.

As The Wall Street Journal put it, “the CBO’s facts plainly show that Mr. Obama has the worst fiscal record of any President in modern times. No one else is even close.”

In addition to the tired rhetoric about billionaires and millionaires, the Democrats are also lying about Ryan’s plan as it relates to Medicare, claiming it wants to deprive older Americans of its benefits, but as Ryan points out, “Our budget’s Medicare reforms make no changes for those in or near retirement.” Without reform, Medicare will go broke as will Social Security.

Ryan’s plan “spurs economic growth with bold tax reform—eliminating complexity for individuals and families and boosting competitiveness for American job creators. Led by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, our budget consolidates the current six income tax brackets into just two brackets of 10% and 25%”, the latter for corporations in order to permit them to be more competitive with nations that tax their corporations at a far lower rate than ours”, currently near the highest in the world.

“We reject calls to raise taxes,” says Ryan, preferring to close tax loopholes.

In brief, the Ryan budget would produce savings in federal spending of $5.3 trillion over ten years and reduce the deficit by $3.3 trillion. It proposes a 10% reduction of the federal work force over three years through attrition and it offers reforms to Medicaid, among others to pull the nation back from the brink of catastrophic collapse and default.

You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to know what is wrong with the way Obama and his Democrat trolls are running the government, despite Republican efforts to apply the brakes. They have increased spending to $3.8 trillion despite the fact that the government only takes in about $2.1 in revenue.

In just one term, Obama is on pace to borrow $6.2 trillion. The debt rises by $4.2 billion every day, $175 million per hour, nearly $3 million per minute.

Without a Republican in the White House and Republican control of both the House and Senate, the United States of America—you and I—are headed off a cliff. All the lies Obama tells between now and November 6, 2012 will not change that.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Look On the Bright Side

By Alan Caruba

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

By Alan Caruba

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.

Harry & Nancy Go Off the Cliff Together

We're just along for the ride!

The Slaves of the Democrat Party

By Alan Caruba

It was a fitting symbol of the pack of lies that constitute “global warming.”

The President of the United States, along with the Speaker of the House, had to flee Copenhagen’s Climate Change Conference because of a snow storm of epic proportions for that Danish city and to return swiftly to Washington, D.C. because of a record-setting blizzard that hit the northeast.

In Copenhagen, the President continued to betray the will of the American people by blathering about “global warming” and the need to act swiftly to stop it by imposing limits on how much energy Americans could use. He also managed to anger the major environmental organizations by failing in this mission.

The Sierra Club sent a message to its members celebrating 2009 as a year in which they were instrumental in “stopping over 100 dirty coal plants” in a nation that depends on such plants for fifty percent of the electricity we use every day. They also took credit for “the protection of two million acres of natural spaces” that will never be used for timber, for mining, for any of the resources, minerals, oil, or natural gas the nation requires and which will likely be off limits for any form of recreation use as well.

Also returning from Copenhagen was California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who, as the Orange Country Register noted on December 17, “made the astonishing claim that the Golden State is evidence we need not choose between a clean environment and economic growth.” The editorial credited Schwarzenegger in part for the state’s “economic mess, largely thanks to taxes and government regulations. The governor’s pet environmental projects are chief culprits.”

One of those pet projects was “a Kyoto-type regulatory scheme to force California off fossil fuels” that the Small Business roundtable estimated would cost consumers $149.2 billion when it is fully implemented, small businesses $182.6 billion, and to kill about 1.1 million jobs in total.”

Sen. Harry Reid has managed finally to bribe the last Democrat holdout on Obamacare, Sen. Ben Nelson, in order to bring the bill to a vote. The brutal sellout included a White House threat to close a Nebraska Air Force base.

Obamacare is a complete betrayal of the American people, slashing a half trillion dollars from Medicare, a program designed to aid senior citizens respond to the illnesses and other debilitating effects of old age. It enables the federal government to take control of one sixth of the nation’s economy in the same way it has steadily extended its central control over education, energy and all other aspects of life in America.

Despite having beaten back a previous attempt to extend amnesty to the estimated twelve to seventeen million illegal aliens in America, another bill has been introduced in Congress to further undermine the nation’s obligation to protect its borders from millions of illegals who are sapping billions of taxpayer funds due to their use of our education system, our hospital system, and the need to respond to criminality of every description. In addition, illegals send home billions in remittances.

Environmentalism is an attack on the West, the industrialized nations of the world that, according to the Copenhagen conference, were supposed to transfer billions to “developing nations” that have been developing for as long as memory serves. The conference declared that their emissions of carbon dioxide were causing climate change. This is now a totally discredited lie.

Little wonder China and India would have nothing to do with the Copenhagen proposals as they apply themselves to providing more energy in the form of coal and nuclear plants in order to raise the standard of living for their billion-plus populations and bring about real growth and prosperity.

Meanwhile, in Europe, France relies on nuclear energy for 76% of its energy needs. In England, after shutting down its coal mines and nuclear plants, the government is in a frenzy to reinstitute them in order to avoid future energy blackouts after having spent billions on wind farms. The greening of Spain through subsidized wind and solar power has caused a financial crisis and destroyed 2.2 jobs for every alleged “green” job created.

And while this is occurring, the United States of America is being dragged into a Soviet-style centralized government by the most Marxist administration in its entire history; an administration that has no intention of paying heed to the will and the voice of the people.

The Constitution begins with the words, “We the People” but the people are no longer a component of the current government. The people are now the slaves of the Democrat Party.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Try not to think about Harry Reid, Obamacare, or the nation's problems for a day. Instead, think of its great heritage of freedom and rededicate yourself to restoring it.

The Healthcare Reform Travesty

By Alan Caruba

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, here's 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!

Are They Stupid or Evil or Both?

By Alan Caruba

It is an ancient question about any group of people who constitute a government. Are they stupid or evil? Or both? Or just stupid and the evil flows from their stupidity?

I rather imagine the Roman senators lounging around in their bath houses and asking one another whether Quintas Fabius Maximus Eburnus is a moron or has something up the sleeve of his toga?

My thoughts on this have naturally turned to Madame Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, our President, and the motley group of cabinet secretaries and “czars” advising him.

I have concluded that they are, individually and collectively, the most stupid people Americans have ever elected or had appointed to public office.

I know that historians will be emailing me asking, “What about Andrew Johnson” who succeeded Lincoln following his assassination or, for that matter, Lyndon B. Johnson who became president when JFK was killed. There probably should be an amendment to the Constitution forbidding anyone named Johnson to run for high office.

And, yes, the same historians will be clamoring to have me add Millard Fillmore to the list who, in 1856, was nominated by the American (Know Nothing) Party.

Even this short list suggests that Americans have literally survived some extremely dim bulbs in high places. However, in the days before 24/7 cable news coverage and C-Span, we were unable to see and hear the morons with such clarity.

President Obama worries me because he is an ideologue, defined by what he believes as opposed to what he knows.

In Cairo, he gave a speech saying that Islam is a tolerant religion when it is objectively the least tolerant, whose adherents are actually urged to kill unbelievers (infidels) and any Muslim who decides to convert to any other faith. Not knowing something like that or expressing an opinion contrary to that is stupid.

What other stupid things has he done since assuming office in January? Where does one start?

He bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia when no President, nor the U.S. flag, is ever permitted to bow or dip to any other head of state.

He doubled the national debt.

He announced the termination of the space defense system the day after the North Korea launched an ICBM.

He told the Mexicans that the violence in their nation was our fault.

He has begun to nationalize the nation’s auto industry and healthcare system.

He has demonized insurance companies, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the coal and oil industries on whom we depend for electricity and for transportation.

It’s a very long list.

As for Madame Pelosi and Sen. Reid, it is doubtful that the Congress of the United States, in its long history, has ever been led by two more stupid people to take up space in a Capitol elevator.

When asked for the Constitutional authority that justifies the proposed healthcare reform bill, Madame Pelosi was unable to cite any…because there is none. She has unveiled a health reform bill that would cost $894 billion over 10 years and includes a public option. This is on top of the $787 billion “stimulus” bill that, if the rising unemployment figures and foreclosures mean anything, has not stimulated anything.

Both Pelosi and Reid are trying desperately to pass two of the worst ideas to come before Congress in decades, the “reform” of healthcare in America and the imposition of a bizarre “cap-and-trade” scheme designed to sell “carbon credits” in order to avoid a natural global warming that stopped ten years ago.

Both these loathsome politicians assume you are too stupid to know what makes sense and what does not. I have lost count of how many times they have changed the names of various pieces of legislation in an effort to make them more palatable despite the stink that rises from their texts.

Their favorite pieces of legislation will ensure that Democrats become an endangered political species in 2010.

This brings us back to the stupid versus evil question. Both proposals (and others) are stupid, but both will also result in a great deal of evil in the lives of people who will not receive medical treatment and who will see their energy bills rise for no good reason.

For a complete list of the most stupid people in Congress, just check out the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, House Democrat Caucus, Congressional Climate Caucus, as well as the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus. Yes, there are other caucuses of note, but too many to list here.

Now, before I am accused of indicting the entire Congress, let it be said there are, sprinkled among the dimwits, a number of fine, intelligent men and women who got elected.

As for the White House coven of witches and warlocks, it is pure speculation which among them is the most stupid. We already know who’s the most evil, but speaking or writing his name can occasion grief; his initials are Rahm Emmanuel, a close advisor to the most stupid President to hold that office since Jimmy Carter.

And then, of course, there’s Vice President Joe My-Foot-is-in-My-Mouth Biden, a constant embarrassment to the White House because he occasionally and inadvertently tells the truth. The rest of the time, however, he is clueless.

Being forever the optimist, I am following the daily countdown until the 2010 midterm elections and the end of Obozo’s first and last term.

President Stupid

By Alan Caruba

In July I wrote a commentary titled, “Electing a Moron” and cited a number of actions by President Obama that were already raising questions about his judgment.

You can read it here: http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2009/07/electing-moron.html

Since then nearly a million people showed up in Washington, D.C. on September 12 to let the President and Congress know they really, really hate Obamacare and the newly renamed “Cap-and-Trade” bill which now has an even more stupid title having something to do with “reducing pollution that contributes to global warming.”

Sen. Kerry said he didn’t understand what cap-and-trade was, but for his information it is about the sale of “carbon credits”, currently selling for about a dime each as the market for them has disappeared due to a decade of cooling temperatures on planet Earth. This moron once ran for president. The less said about his choice for the vice president slot, the better.

One might think that was a low point for the Democrat Party in its choice of candidates, but no, they selected a mystery man named Barack Hussein Obama who actually won the presidency in 2008. He promised “hope and change”, but was a tad vague about what we should be hoping for and what the change would be.

Americans were mostly hoping to get a quick end to a recession brought on by years of congressional meddling in the nation’s mortgage market; mostly by encouraging loans to people who could not afford them. Don’t blame Wall Street. They were just being the greedy bastards they have always been. What Americans got, however, was a huge bill filled with pork and passed off as a “stimulus” to the economy.

It is one thing for Americans to criticize their president, but you have to begin to really worry when the media and leaders of foreign countries begin to coalesce around the generally held view that he is an idiot.

We share a planet with these people and their opinions shape their decisions whether to throw their lot in with America or to play ball with others while protecting their own interests.

One of Great Britain’s most widely read columnists is Melanie Phillips who writes for The Spectator. In a recent column titled “Who does he think he’s kidding?” Ms. Phillips noted that “On Wednesday Barack Obama addressed the UN. If this was supposed to be a triumphal projection of the wonders of his foreign policy, his timing was singularly unfortunate. It was as if he had unveiled his shiny new bus after the wheels had come off and the engine had fallen out.”

Noting that Obama was elected primarily as the anti-Bush, she characterized his foreign policy as “Swords would be beaten into plowshares, genocidal lunatics would swap recipes and holiday snaps with their erstwhile victims and there would be peace on earth and the brotherhood of man. But we can see that everywhere Obama has applied this policy approach it has failed, humiliating America by revealing it to be weak, incompetent and naïve to the point of imbecility, and thus strengthening the enemies of America and the free world.”

A September 28 edition of The Pioneer, a New Delhi, India newspaper, lamented that “He may not relish the comparison, but it is now becoming increasingly obvious that Mr. Barack Obama is the most hostile American President for India since Richard Nixon.” It gets worse. “There has been a remarkable absence of clarity on Mr. Obama’s strategic goals. In the early months, it was easy to pretend he was making up his mind. Now, it would seem he has no mind.”

It is no secret that French president Nicolas Sarkozy regards President Obama as a lightweight when it comes to international affairs. No doubt the leaders of Russia have concluded that Obama can be rolled, given his withdrawal of a missile defense system from Poland and the Czech Republic. The Israelis, from the top down, regard him as the first U.S. president in history who is genuinely hostile to their defense and indifferent to the growing threat from Iran.

While western nations like Germany and, soon, Great Britain are abandoning the socialist model, President Stupid, aided by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, is desperately trying to convert America into a socialist nation, transferring all power to the federal government.

I could take you on a world tour of media who all express the same misgivings about Obama. It is abundantly evident that the only newspapers that think Obama is the greatest thing since sliced bread and canned beer are those in America. And some of them are beginning to have doubts.

The car wreck called Obamacare has managed to divide his own political party and the renamed Cap-and-Trade bill will contribute further to that, along with the growing tsunami of fear among Americans that he is a dithering idiot.

As this is being written, Obama still has just over 1,200 days ahead in office. Just over a year from now when the midterm elections are held, the only hope for the nation is an electoral transition of power in Congress to the Republican Party.

Meanwhile, President Stupid will continue to lay waste to the national economy, stymie our need for more energy resources, encourage the nation’s enemies, and stimulate worldwide derision as he stumbles from one speech to another in a vain effort to make up his mind.

The Perfect Storm

By Alan Caruba

The term, ‘”the perfect storm”, has come to mean how circumstances and bad judgments come together to create havoc and death.

I have begun to conclude that America is caught in a perfect storm. It didn’t occur overnight, but it has rapidly reached a point wherein the very life of the nation is at stake.

The tipping point, if I may be permitted another cliché, was the election of Barack Hussein Obama as President. Though efforts, including several books, attempted to flesh out what little was actually known about Obama, it was the skillful packaging that turned him into a rock star whose theme “hope and change” could and did mean anything the voter imagined.

Obama arrived in the Oval Office with virtually no paper trail. He had not ever managed a business, never made a payroll, and had not worked in the private sector. He had been “a community organizer” and had taught constitutional law as a lecturer at the University of Chicago. In this regard, he was spectacularly ill-prepared to make decisions regarding the greatest economy in the history of civilization.

He had been preceded by a Congress controlled by the Democrat Party as of the 2006 midterm elections as voters wearied of the long war in Iraq and, typically, the second term of then-President Bush. Leading the new Congress was, by any standard one could apply, two of the most stupid politicians to hold high office. Sen. Harry Reid (NV) was Senate Majority Leader and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (CA) was Speaker of the House.

Sen. Reid had famously said, “The war is lost” and Rep. Pelosi told the world that the CIA “lies to Congress all the time” and has called insurance companies “villains.” Not exactly a vote of confidence in the nation’s military or its intelligence agency. When did insurance companies, banks and investment firms become the enemy? The burst mortgage loan bubble was the creation of the federal government.

It is the perfect storm.

It was, however, the economy that took the first body blow with the sudden, though predicable, bursting of the mortgage loan “bubble.” There had been earlier warnings but as in any perfect storm, they were ignored. It goes back to the days of the Carter administration when legislation was passed to give everyone the “right” to own a home. Banks and mortgage firms were literally required by law to ignore normal lending caution. When there were more bad loans than good, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government “entities”, owned more than half of all the mortgage loans in the nation.

At that point, in what can only charitably be called total panic, Congress authorized the U.S. Treasury to spend $700 billion in TARP funds to “bail out” troubled financial institutions instead of letting them fail. The word was that they were “too large to fail” and had to be rescued and there may be some truth to this, though Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail. To this day, Congress does not know much, if anything, about the distribution of TARP. It can’t even audit the Federal Reserve.

It is the perfect storm.

In a similar fashion, instead of allowing General Motors and Chrysler to go through the tried and true bankruptcy process, the government “invested” billions before, inevitably, they did undergo bankruptcy. The government now owns some 60% of GM; its unions own most of the rest. Its creditors are suing to get their legal and proper compensation. The government is not supposed and is not allowed to own private enterprises; (though it does own government “entities” like Amtrak which has never made a profit.)

It is the perfect storm.

The country is watching a “Cap-and-Trade” bill pass through Congress that everyone, including its authors, agrees is a massive tax on the use of electricity, one that will drive up the cost of electricity to every American and all business and industry in America. It is based on the assertion that “greenhouse gases” must be reduced to avoid “global warming”, but there is no global warming and greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide play no role in climate change.

When the cost of energy is increased, the cost of everything that depends on energy use increases and that is, well, everything.

At the same time, for decades the United States has placed every possible obstacle before the exploration and extraction of vast oil, natural gas, and coal resources that exist within the nation and offshore on its continental shelf. Plans for more than a hundred coal-fired plants have been abandoned despite a growing population that is using more electricity. There hasn’t been a single new refinery built since the 1970s. The construction of nuclear plants has been painfully slow due to regulatory hurdles. The nation’s electrical distribution grid was built largely in the 1950s and 60s. It is in desperate need of expansion.

While coal provides 50% of our electricity and nuclear 20%, the rest is taken up by natural gas and hydroelectricity (water). Just over 1% is provided by wind and solar energy and the government proposes to provide billions in subsidies to its producers.
In much the same fashion, the government mandates the inclusion of ethanol in all gasoline sold even though ethanol provides less energy and adds to the cost not only of the gasoline, but to food products that utilize corn, the primary source of ethanol. We are burning food to fuel cars, trucks, and buses.

It is the perfect storm.

Under the Obama administration, the nation is borrowing more and running up a deficit that is, in his own words, “unsustainable”, but the government is making no effort to seriously cut spending. Instead, it passed a “stimulus” bill that is largely devoted to helping states fund government mandates such as Medicare and Medicaid, thus failing to create any new jobs in the private sector, most of which would come from investment in infrastructure. The “stimulus” bill is pure pork, a political Christmas tree.

It is the perfect storm.

Meanwhile, it is no secret that the United States is the world’s policeman. Our navy ensures that the world’s vital sea lanes remain open. Our military has some 800 bases, large and small, around the world. It is engaged in fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan and it is withdrawing from active fighting in Iraq. Billions have been expended in both of these campaigns to defeat an enemy sworn to destroy America.

Then too the borders of the nation and its sovereignty are being ignored and reduced by the tide of illegal immigration and by ratification of United Nations treaties that supersede U.S. legislation and rights. An obscure group of bureaucrats in the Department of Commerce are still working on plans to merge the U.S., Canada, and Mexico into a single political and national entity called the North American Union.

It is the perfect storm.

The United States, an experiment in individual liberty and federal rule; a nation that survived a Civil War, that struggled another century to end racial discrimination, that fought in many wars including two world wars in the last century, is now disintegrating financially and will soon lack the means to provide adequate power to its cities and towns.

Most of the nation’s individual States are, for all intents and purposes, broke and laboring under public service sector union contracts that impose huge present and future costs on their citizens.

To the astonishment of every economist in the world, the White House and Congress are proposing to raise taxes in the midst of a recession. John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush all lowered taxes and made their recessions go away.

In mid-July, the Vice President said, “We have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt.” That is impossible.

It is the perfect storm.

The nation’s voters are almost completely divided between those on the Left and those on the Right. There is an all-or-nothing, winner-takes-all quality to our political system and has existed since the FDR era. The middle ground of independent voters literally determines most elections or at least those that are no longer stolen such as the recent one in Minnesota that sent a former comedian to the Senate.

That brings us to the observation that we have a very unsavory group of politicians in government these days. There are exceptions, but the revelations of sexual infidelity or misconduct as well as outright theft have become routine. The vile politics of Chicago and Cook County have now been imported into the White House.

The worst development, however, is the creation of “czars” empowered to make and shape policy without ever being subject to review or oversight by Congress. That is a kind of gangster government.

Lastly, it comes as no news to anyone that the nation has been sinking into a era of decadence since the 1960s in which the consumption of illegal drugs is widespread and sexual license is reflected in popular entertainment as well as high divorce rates, single parents, and, of course, abortion. There’s a lot to be said for morality.

I am by nature an optimist and I remain hopeful that elections and protest movements will alter future events, but for now it is the perfect storm.