The Energy Future Is In Fossil Fuels

Posted by Institute for Energy Research (IER) Oct 30th 2011 at 4:23 am in Economy, Energy

Remember “green” Enron and “beyond petroleum” BP? Ken Lay and John Browne touted their respective companies as the new future of an old industry. Shell, too, burnished a green image from its European headquarters.

In contrast was Lee Raymond of ExxonMobil, rejecting investments in wind and solar as a fad that would not serve his stockholders well. Renewable energy, generally speaking, Raymond told the Economist magazine back in 2003, “is a complete waste of money.”

Today Enron is a decade gone, and a humbled BP is back to petroleum with gusto. Shell has big plans for Arctic oil and gas development and tells plodding regulators: Let’s Go. And as Chevron CEO John Watson explained in a recent policy address: “Affordable energy is the priority that should underpin all of our actions.” Renewables, he added, need to become cost-competitive to have their era.

Even the New York Times is waking up to energy reality. In its special energy section this week, the Times had multiple articles educating readers about how the future belongs to the efficient, and political favor is the lifeline for the inefficient. Clifford Krauss in the feature article explained that fossil fuels are entering a new phase of productivity and growth. Matthew Wald’s “Solar Power Industry Falls Short of Hopes in Job Creation” was joined by Kate Galbraith’s “Future of Solar and Wind Power May Hinge on Federal Aid.”

Reading these articles, Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute said: “It will be interesting to see how the Times’s columnists Paul Krugman and Thomas L. Friedman will handle [all this energy] news.”

At Energy Biz, Ken Silverstein, a perennial cheerleader for politically correct renewables, wrote of a new mentality from the oil and gas industry. “The fossil fuel sectors are fighting back against a wave of popular sentiment that they say is ill-founded,” he noted. “The oil, gas and coal industries say that their products are abundant and reliable, allowing this nation to achieve its economic well-being.” Silverstein quoted the philosophical, public-good argument of Chevron’s Watson.

I believe the United States has an opportunity – in fact, a great responsibility– to create an energy policy with affordability at its core. We need a refreshed policy approach that recognizes the value of fossil fuels and allows a market-driven transition to affordable substitutes over time.

And I would suggest that only an energy policy with affordability as its central goal has the potential to deliver long-term economic, energy and environmental security.

Here! Here!


But what is new is really old. As W. S. Jevons explained so well in his 1865 classic The Coal Question, dilute, unreliable renewables cannot power machinery. Today, the message of energy density is being promulgated by the nation’s leading energy journalist, Robert Bryce.

Energy reality is demoting “politically correct” to Obama Bad. Does the President’s so-called “dream ‘green’ team” get it.

Big Peace

In a strong American Republic, Socialists Need Not Apply

- Judi McLeod  Friday, October 28, 2011

Someday when we the people look back into the chain of events that led to the Fundamental Transformation of America, the biggest question will surely be:“Why did no one in the 535 elected officials step forward to fight it?

In the zany world of politics, there’s a ‘committee’ for just about anything, including the hideous so-called “bi-partisan” Super Committee.

Yet no one has struck the committee called ‘How to Stop the Fundamental Transformation of America’.

Why is congress allowing Obama to proceed with a transformation of America that is forcing—against the will of its people—a noble, 235-year-old Republic into a Socialist State?

Why are none of the Republican contenders for president taking the proverbial bull by the horns?

Mere words will not curtail Marxism, only walls built against it will.

Decent, law-abiding people depend on decent, law-abiding courts whose commitment to justice seems to be fading more every day.

Civil society no longer gets to play on an even playing field.  There are no checks and balances to deal with an Obama, who uses executive order to trump his enemies.  It was likely within days of an inauguration when he had to retake his Oath, that the president with no provable identity, at least figuratively speaking,  threw the Rule of Law out of a White House window.

Barack Obama has now had 1,000 days to work his Marxist agenda against America with no relief imminent.

These are the words patriots await:

“I come before the people today to state unequivocally that the Obama administration works night and day to destroy America.  We must find the way to stop it and stop it now.”

Every day patriots live in hope of hearing those words. 
Surely Canada Free Press, American in heart but physically on Canadian soil cannot be the only one waiting for that statement.

The Fundamental Transformation of America is against every American value, every American dream;  against every intention espoused by its courageous founding fathers.

The Fundamental Transformation of America is coming at you breakneck speed from the provable failed principles of misery-spreading Marxism.

Obama’s intention to fundamentally transform America proves more than anything else about him, that Barry Barack Obama is a Marxist.

Blogs are abuzz with whether Perry kills teenage girls with inoculations, whether Karl Rove will get away with foisting Lib-Left, slick Mitt Romney on America; whether Herman Cain will ever get the GOP nod, and on and on.

The election is little more than one year away—if, that is, Obama doesn’t come up with the crisis he needs to suspend them.

The by-and-large ignored elephant in everybody’s front room has long since turned purple putrid and is crushing the life out of everything that’s inherently good, anything positive or hopeful;  everything God and freedom connected.

America is lying there bruised and bloodied. 

Is there not one doctor in the House?

Canada Free Press

Napolitano Denies Knowledge of Fast and Furious

October 28, 2011
M Catharine Evans

The list of top government officials unaware of a 2009 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) gun-walking program just keeps growing. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, appearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, became the latest high-level official to go on the record denying any knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious before the 2010 murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. She joins Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama who have also stated they knew nothing prior to a few weeks before May 3, 2011 (Holder) and March, 2011 (Obama.)

During the hearing, Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) confronted Ms. Napolitano on her decision not to call Holder up after she heard about agent Terry's demise. "For you to have two dead agents and to have never had a conversation with Eric Holder about Fast and Furious and about this is totally unacceptable."

The Secretary shot back that she had not communicated with Holder about the operation because it was led by the ATF, which is under the Justice Department (DOJ), and because it is being investigated by the DOJ's inspector general.

I know Mr. Chaffetz has his opinion on this matter, as the tone of his question reveals, but I simply would suggest that no one takes the death of agents more seriously than I...One of the reasons that we have not directly dealt with the attorney general on this is that he very quickly and appropriately put this matter in the hands of the inspector general.

Then Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC) asked Napolitano point blank, "Did you ever approve or sanction investigations that allowed gunwalking?" After pausing the secretary answered, "No, not to my knowledge."

Gowdy then asked whether she would have sanctioned a gun-walking program if she had known. Napolitano called the Fast and Furious scandal "troublesome from a law enforcement perspective."

Every prosecutor makes different decisions, and I don't believe I was ever presented with that decision.

Obviously, I don't want to let guns with the kind of firepower that we now know we're involved [with] get out of your control.

"And I don't believe?" "Not to my knowledge?" "Troublesome?" Federal agents and hundreds of Mexican civilians died, over a thousand weapons are still unaccounted for, and the heads of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department and White House officials have either denied knowledge of what ABC's Jake Tapper named "the big scandal" or remained silent.

Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) whose own Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is leading the investigation into Fast and Furious sat in on the House Judiciary meeting. In a later interview with Fox Business' Lou Dobbs Issa said Napolitano "was testy but most importantly she didn't have answers to important questions."

Government officials who condoned supplying high-powered weapons to drug cartels under Fast and Furious better start coughing up some answers; they have to know it's only a matter of time before this bloody fiasco hits the mainstream.

Read more M. Catharine Evans at Potter Williams Report

American Thinker

Who is Barack Obama?

October 28, 2011
By Mondo Frazier 


There are so many things the public does not know about the man who sits in the White House.  Who is Barack Obama?  In my search to find out the answers I embarked on a journey that has lasted three years and counting -- and nearly made my head explode.

As usual, when Obama is the subject, Americans can't count on the progressives in the Corporate Mainstream Media (CMM) for much help.  So, what's one to do?  The foreign press proved helpful.  Therefore, gleaned from the foreign press: a few stories which didn't rate any coverage from the U.S. CMM.

In 2005, then-Senator Barack Obama went on a mission to Russia with Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN).  The  newly-minted U.S. senator was invited to be part of a Russian fact-finding tour that inspected a nuclear weapons site in Perm, Siberia.  The base Lugar and Obama visited was where mobile launch missiles were being destroyed under the Cooperative Threat Reduction program (CTR), which also went by the name of the Nunn-Lugar program.

What happened next -- after the inspections were over -- was at the time reported by several foreign news sources but was never reported in the USA by the CMM.  The Russians detained Obama and Lugar for three hours at the airport, demanding to examine both Obama's and Lugar's passports and search their plane.  Some sources reported that the Russians accused Barack Obama of being a spy.

But wait -- there's more!

According to an Italian source, the Russians did not accuse Obama of being an American spy; they accused him of being a spy for the British!  The report went on to say that the incident ended up involving the White House, the U.S. State Department, and military officials, along with their counterparts in Moscow.
Strangely enough, an official report from Lugar's office about the trip never mentioned the incident.  Neither did Barack Obama in 2008 when he was desperate to exhibit some foreign policy chops.

One other oddity: in the fall of 2008, Obama admitted on his Fightthesmears.com site that he had held dual citizenship with both the United States and Great Britain (the site explained that this was due to Barack Obama, Sr. being a foreign national) until 1982.  Did the Russians know something about Obama's citizenship in 2005 that ordinary Americans don't know in 2011?

Another story no one has seen fit to ask about: Obama's Most Excellent Pakistani Adventure.

In the summer of 1981, 20-year-old Barack Obama embarked on a two-week trip to Pakistan.  At least what little reporting that has been done claimed the length of the trip was two weeks.  The only proof that the trip didn't turn into a longer stay is that we (supposedly) have records which show that Barack Obama enrolled at Columbia University later that same summer.  Of course, the public hasn't seen those records, but that's what we've been told.  Anyone in doubt will be directed to Obama's autobiography, Dreams from My Father.

Obama clearly gave the impression in DFMF that he was this penniless, somewhat confused young man, in search of an identity.  Obama makes sure readers don't miss the point by writing that he was forced to wear "thrift store clothing" during this time.  Yet he somehow managed to find the cash to finance a two-week trip to Pakistan.

Which he never wrote about.  Which in itself is odd: here's a guy who wrote two autobiographies that explored events real, imagined, and totally fictional that supposedly forged the modern-day Barack Obama from humble beginnings.  That's according to the Obama Narrative^TM -- which gets most of its facts from Dreams from My Father.

Not only did a poor, nearly destitute Obama manage to afford the trip to Pakistan, but once there he somehow financed two weeks in the Lahore Hilton International.  In addition, Obama was introduced to the future prime minister and president of Pakistan -- and went bird-hunting with him.  Which the prime minister mentioned in the Pakistani press in 2008.  There's so much more, including one question the CMM never asked Obama: who arranged all of this?  For a 20-year-old nobody.

Another curious piece to the queer Obama puzzle is the connection -- which hasn't been made in the CMM (attention, Fox News!) -- between illegal foreign contributions to the Obama campaign and subsequent billions in Stimulus money to foreign companies and banks.  During and after the 2008 election, accusations of illegal foreign contributions -- which flowed into the Obama campaign when credit card safeguards were disabled on the campaign's website -- were documented in the conservative press and elsewhere.

Who were these mysterious donors, and in what countries did they live?  Unfortunately, due to the chicanery of Team Obama, we may never know.  Fast-forward to 2009.  Obama's multi-billion-dollar Stimulus is rushed through Congress, and billions of dollars in Stimulus money are doled out to foreign companies and banks.  Finland, China, Brazil, and India are just a few of the beneficiaries of Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. Might these have been payoffs for those shady, unknown donations?
Bill Clinton was the first president to benefit from a foreign spoils system, but Barack Obama has made Clinton look like an amateur. 

One more coincidence in shady fundraising.  The lady involved with Obama's fundraising in the Caribbean?  None other than Vera Baker, who packed up and hurried left the country after the National Enquirer started exploring a possible tryst between her and Obama in a Washington hotel.
Barack Obama can only hope that ObamaCare covers "extreme stress" -- because whoever on his staff is responsible for keeping track of all of the weird stuff in the president's life is definitely a candidate for burnout. 

One final item involves that most elusive of documents: Obama's long-lost long-form birth certificate.
A Chicago-area activist, Sherman Skolnick, writing for a radio show/website (now defunct) by the name of Cloak and Dagger uncorked this headline on his readers.  It referred to another story he'd written in 2005 -- three years before anyone in the media coined the term "birther" to tamp down curiosity about our 44^th president's past.  (All-caps headline in the original story.)

CLOAK'S EXCLUSIVE AUGUST 2005 STORY EXPOSING OBAMA'S KENYAN BIRTHPLACE FORCES OBAMA TO SANITIZE HIS PASSPORT FILE.

Just another day in the life of anyone attempting to pierce the shroud of mystery that surrounds our 44^th president.  The final result is the publication of The Secret Life of Barack Hussein Obama.

Mondo Frazier is the editor/founder of the website DBKP - Death By 1000 Papercuts and the author of The Secret Life of Barack Hussein Obama, published by Threshold Editions/Simon & Schuster.

American Thinker

The Facts of Life Are Conservative, Even in Zuccotti Park

October 28, 2011
By Joseph Ashby

Peeking through Occupy Wall Street's cloudy drum sessions, group speeches, and celebrity visits are a few rays of reality's sunlight.  These glimmers of the real world show that even the campers of Zuccotti Park aren't immune to Margaret Thatcher's famous declaration that "the facts of life are conservative."

Conservatism is the natural political outgrowth from the real life experience.  Humans are naturally flawed, greedy, and untrustworthy.  Conservatives recognize that fact and promote the market system and divided government in order to pit one greedy person against another.

Conversely, the left continually denies and fights against human nature (inevitably losing to it).  For leftists, it's always a matter of finding the right human to rule -- the disinterested regulator, the consumer-protecting bureaucrat, the messianic president, etc.  That is the nature of the OWS protests: to replace one group of self-interested people on Wall Street with another group of magically not self-interested people in government.  But because government isn't magic, utopias never quite work out in real life -- not even in Zuccotti Park.  In one news story after another, Thatcher's "facts of life" are on display.  Let's look at four examples.

Conservative Fact of Life: Give a man a fish, and he'll stick around for another.

Providing for folks in need is a good thing, but handouts are dangerous tools.  At any point in the giver-
receiver relationship, there's a risk of doing more harm than good.  If the recipient becomes dependent or feels entitled to his benefits, his initiative atrophies like an unused muscle.  Too often the receiver is left less prepared and less likely to succeed in the future.  Thus long-term well-being is sacrificed in the name of short-term "help."

The negative effects of welfare can appear quickly, as OWS recently learned.  Zuccotti Park has become a hotspot for vagrants in search of free food.  Protestor Lauren Digioia recently explained to reporters that OWS has "compassion toward everyone," but that "there are rules and guidelines."  Specifically, "[i]f you're going to come here and get our food, bedding and clothing, have books and medical supplies for no charge, they need to give back."  Digioia added, "There's a lot of takers here and they feel entitled."

Conservative Fact of Life: Everybody is wealthier than somebody, but that doesn't give anyone the right to take from others.

Protestor Nan Terrie allegedly came to Zuccotti Park with a $5,500 Mac laptop (near the top 1% of portable computers, perhaps).   One night after Terrie succumbed to fatigue after a long day as a kitchen volunteer, preparing meals for fellow protestors, a thief made off with the high-end computer.

"Stealing is our biggest problem at the moment," Terrie told reporters.  A problem indeed.  Suddenly it didn't matter that the computer was $2,000 more than even the most tricked out MacBook Pro available in the Apple online store.  Or that scores of laptops exist at a fraction of the price (the computer I'm using to write this article was 1/10 the price of the Terrie's stolen Mac).  No, the only thing that mattered was that taking something that someone else earned was wrong.  That fact holds for a college student's electronic devices as well as a hedge fund manager's compensation.

Conservative Fact of Life: Rugged individualism is the only sensible approach to life.

America was built by people who refused to wait around for someone else to make them a living.  From the frontiersman who left everything to chase his dreams in the American West to the entrepreneurs of the Forbes 400 list, Americans who make their own way are the most successful.

It didn't take long for protestor Peter Hogness to learn whom he could trust.  Angry about empty promises regarding the protestor status in Zuccotti Park, Hogness stumbled upon true wisdom.  "One thing we have learned from this is that we need to rely on ourselves and not on promises from elected officials," Hogness told reporters.

Conservative Fact of Life: Though she's a seductive mistress, Utopia never quite works out as a wife.

Conservative author and columnist Dr. Thomas Sowell once said that he would love to live in the kind of world envisioned by the left.  In such a world we would have few inequalities, few wants, and men would act as angels, working for the common good.  The problem for the left is that their vision is based on a premise that does not exist in the real world.

The longer the OWS protests last, the more they confront the real world.  As money has begun to roll in from supporters (reportedly $500,000), life has only become more complicated.  "F**k Finance," said Bryan Smith when he couldn't get access to the funds he wanted.  "I hope Mayor Bloomberg gets an injunction and demands to see the movement's books."

When Elija Moses requested $8,000 to replace his vandalized drum set, he was turned down.  "We don't have the power for [purchases that large]," explained Finance Committeeman Pete Dutro.  "They have to go to the General Assembly."

Moses put it best when he simply said, "I'm really frustrated."  Yes, Utopia can be quite frustrating for anyone who believes it can exist.  Alas, an earthly Eden does not exist, and its mortal imitations are no more than an unwieldy collection of committees, assemblies, and frustrated citizens. 

It's unlikely that these experiences will change minds among the Occupiers.  (But there's always hope -- even Sowell was once a committed Marxist.)  Unfortunately, once Occupy Wall Street has picketed its final bank, sung its last rendition of Cumbayá and gone home, it will take just one sentence to define the movement: "The truths of conservatism stared them in the face; sadly, they failed to notice."

American Thinker

Tea Parties ≠ Occupiers

October 27, 2011
By Jerry Shenk

Tea Parties and the Occupiers have a few commonalities, but, although many media outlets have attempted to do so, it's a mistake to equate the two phenomena.

The American left has been pining for a liberal balance to the popular Tea Party/grassroots groups since the latter reached numbers sufficient to assure that its collective voice would be heard.  But the "movement" the left produced will end badly for the progressive politicians whom, through their ignorance, the Occupiers excuse or ignore.

The mobilization of the Millennial Me-Generation Occupiers is simply a re-warmed leftover from 1968 very likely to produce the same public backlash the hippy generation's bizarre antics did then.  The 1968 occupier/rioters in Chicago sank Democratic presidential hopes.  There is no Richard Nixon among the current GOP presidential hopefuls, but if the Occupiers persist nationwide as they have pledged to do, the Republican nominated will be the next POTUS.

In politics, principle and ideology are not always, and sometimes are never, the same things, and the media which willfully confuse them in a political context do a disservice to the genuinely principled and mislead everyone else.  It's ironic that the same media which demonized and slandered Tea Parties for more than two years are now comparing them to the Occupiers in an attempt to legitimize the latter.

Political observer Jay Cost has defined political parties as extra-governmental conspiracies to unite governmental power under a single party banner.  Only common interests perceived by party "conspirators" bind political parties together.  Cost suggests that American party structures are weak, and partisans participate in the "conspiracy" only if they believe that it will benefit them personally.

It is on the point of self-interest where principle and ideology most often part ways.

The Tea Party is a grassroots movement which grew in spontaneous opposition to the spending policies and debt accumulation of the national government.  There is real principle involved in the grassroots.  According to a prominent Democrat, the Occupiers "have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies."  (More from this source later.)

Occasionally, events motivate individuals sharing certain principles -- or self-interests -- to combine in numbers sufficient to influence the parties and the politicians both control.

So it is with Tea Parties and the Occupiers.  Democrats and Republicans have reacted to both groups, but in very different ways and at different speeds.

Tea Parties were and are maligned by national Democrats and their left-wing media echo chamber.  Republican politicians approached the grassroots with caution, viewing them with the same suspicion with which the grassroots viewed Republican politicians.  The grassroots didn't miss that the national government has grown every year since the 1960s, even during the two terms served by President Ronald Reagan.

Tea Parties were and are bad for political business as usual.  It was only after the grassroots reached critical mass and later influenced the 2010 wave election that Republicans began to embrace the grassroots, and then often reluctantly.  It's funny how fifty, sixty, or seventy additional House caucus members and a few extra senators can focus the political mind.  Republicans are eager to ride the grassroots pony into 2012.  If they don't get arrogant and mess up the nominating processes in the various national, state, and local jurisdictions, the Rs very well may.

On the other side, Democrats quickly embraced the Occupiers as an antidote to the energized grassroots voters who helped to nominate many sympathetic candidates and supported other Republicans in 2010 as their "least-worst" options.  Democrats are also buoyed by the fact that the occupiers are demonstrating against the wrong malefactors for the wrong reasons and occupying the wrong places.  These mistakes all distract attention from the negative outcomes of the policies and spending national Democrats have pursued and implemented since they were awarded congressional majorities in 2006 and captured the White House in 2008.

The Occupiers have been embraced by national Democrats including Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the vice president.  Numerous other Democratic members of Congress have at least attempted to embrace the Occupiers -- not always with positive results, as this simultaneously amusing and insulting video amply demonstrates.  President Obama has given the Occupiers favorable nods in his public remarks.

In contrast, Republicans are delighted with the attention a group of misfits are receiving, confident that the eventual public backlash will bolster their chances next year.  Wisely, most Republicans aren't speaking out about the Occupiers.

More than one smart Democrat (yes, friends, there is such a thing) has expressed reservations about the Occupiers and the danger of prominent Democrats embracing them.  Doug Schoen, a former Clinton pollster, has polled the New York protesters.  He writes in the Wall Street Journal:

What binds a large majority of the protesters together-regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education-is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.

Schoen advises:

Democrats need to say they are with voters in the middle who want cooperation, conciliation and lower taxes. And they should work particularly hard to contrast their rhetoric with the extremes advocated by the Occupy Wall Street crowd.

Presumably, Schoen would have Democrats say those things even if they don't believe them.
Similarly, Will Marshall, the president of the Progressive Policy Institute, is concerned about the aftereffects of Democrats being identified with the Occupiers:

For liberals, who have watched the Tea Party's rise with a mixture of dread, incomprehension, and envy, the Occupy Wall Street protests seem Heaven-sent. ...

[T]hey're hoping that the OWS protests will congeal into a progressive counterweight to the Tea Party that can stop the nation's rightward lurch.

Not likely. The protests don't seem to be swelling into a mass movement...

Conservatives still outnumber liberals, and moderates still outnumber conservatives. Essentially, this means liberals need to win big among moderates to win elections. Getting in bed with radicals sporting slogans like "Eat the Rich" probably won't help them woo moderates.

Democrats would do well to take Schoen's and Marshall's advice.  But one suspects that the media distractions provided by the Occupiers suit the Democrats very well because those distractions mask -- for now, at least -- the Democrats' policy failures.

And they call Republicans "the Stupid Party."

Email: Jshenk2010@gmail.com

 American Thinker

Is the POTUS Stirring Up a Revolution?

October 27, 2011
By Mercer Tyson

Obama was hailed as a healing president, promising peace and harmony.  What we have seen, however, is a president distinctively divisive on racial issues, and instigating class warfare.  His actions are a prescription for a violent revolution.

During his campaign Obama gave the highly acclaimed speech on race (excerpt):

"Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans."

My, how things have changed; and it didn't take long.  Shortly after Obama took office there was Obama's reaction to the incident involving Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the Cambridge Police Department: "President Obama said that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 'acted stupidly' in arresting a prominent black Harvard professor last week after a confrontation at the man's home."  He never should have stuck his nose into this.  And if he were going to say something, he should have understood the situation prior to butting in.  Instead, he routinely took the professor's side, showing his real and sincere bias, and managing to anger folks on both sides of the debate.

More recently the POTUS told a group of Hispanics, "And if Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, we're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends..."  Punish? Enemies?  Not exactly harmonious, peace-inspiring words.

Then in his speech before the Congressional Black Caucus he said, "I expect all of you to march with me and press on. Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes."

And let's not forget the work of Eric Holder when his Justice Department went easy in a Philadelphia voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther Party because they are African American.

This is our post-racial president.

And then there's the class warfare. 

In 2008, then-candidate Obama's remarks in his interview with Charles Gibson should have been a clue.  

When Gibson pointed out that recently when tax rates were increased government revenues decreased and when tax rates decreased revenues increased, Obama replied "Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness."  He has accusingly said ad nauseam that wealthy Americans should pay their "fair share," which means that no matter how much they are paying, they should pay more.

Mr. Obama's repetitive attacks on the wealthy have led to growing divisions between them and the less fortunate, such as the current Occupy Wall Street protestors who "want to see the rich pay a fair share of their profits in wages, wealth and income in taxes..."  When asked about the protestors, Obama replied: ""I think it expresses the frustrations that the American people feel." 

Usage of words such as greed, selfish, and mean, while always a part of the liberal description of Republicans, has escalated more in recent years.

While most pundits seem to think of this as just another chapter in American politics, albeit somewhat intense, I'm less blasé about it.  I see this as a potential beginning of serious violence in our streets and neighborhoods.  At worst, problems could escalate to a point requiring national action -- possibly a declaration of a state of emergency with military involvement.  Is it possible we could have martial law imposed on us around next November, and, coincidentally, have the elections postponed?  Not likely, but possible.

More certain, however, is the extended racial and class tension that will exist for decades.  While I never expected racism to go away completely, racial harmony in this country has been gaining momentum and is, essentially, more of a problem to the left-wing media and certain race-baiting politicos than to folks on the ground.  I'm afraid the actions of this administration may reverse the positive course that people of all races have worked so hard to establish.  Barack Obama has done his best to delay racial harmony.

And class warfare?  The vociferous screams from the left have prompted normally silent, tax-paying Americans to denigrate those who don't pay taxes: adding their voices to the argument and elevating hostilities.

I don't generally subscribe to conspiracy theories, and I'm not postulating such right now.  However, you have to wonder, given Rahm Emanuel's remarks at the beginning of Obama's administration: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."  Do what? Fully implement socialism?  Create a fascist-left country?  Simply elevate the problems with our economy and instigate tension between the people, and you have the perfect storm for such a scenario.  Even if this isn't being done by design, it could happen anyway.

This is one reason why so many on the right believe it is absolutely critical that we remove Mr. Obama from office in 2012.   A GOP president will certainly stir up anxiety on the left, and the cries of foul play that existed during George Bush's administration will resume.

Certainly a Republican will not be able to do much to mend recent wounds.  But the GOP is never as hostile in its criticism of the left, and the dissention will slow down and possibly stop.  Maybe after a few years and if the economy improves progress in this area will again move forward.

And yes, while there are not many high-profile, moderate Dems, a more moderate and sensible Democrat could lessen the problem as well.  However, it is highly unlikely that any Democrat (even Hillary) will challenge Obama for the Democratic nomination.  And if one did, of course, additional hostilities would generate from that.

Thanks to Barack Obama (with help from the media and left-wing pundits) hostility in America is a high as I can recall, and close to a breaking point.  With regard to this situation, the 2012 election represent a break even or lose situation.  If Obama wins, we lose.  If any Republican wins, we break even.

American Thinker

Learning from Hamas: How #Occupy Uses Human Shields–Veterans, Women, the Young, the Old, the Disabled

by Joel B. Pollak 

 Push youngest/oldest to the front lines….This is a battle over images, not just over the park.

- Charles Lenchner, Occupy Wall Street activist, Oct. 13, 2011

 If the police overreact (as they are likely to) and we take the blows, and it is recorded, it will go worldwide and further tremendously galvanize the movement.

- Tarak Kauff, Veterans for Peace organizer, Oct. 13, 2011

Woman in a wheelchair, Occupy Oakland riot, Oct. 25. Photo: Bradblog.com

When the activists of Occupy Oakland attacked police en masse on October 25th, throwing paint bombs and provoking volleys of tear gas, the images galvanized the Occupy movement as never before.
“Come see the violence inherent in the system!” they have all but shouted, using wild allegations of police brutality, and fallacious arguments about First Amendment violations, to build solidarity among scattered activists.

The outrage is sincere–but so is the jubilation.

Clashes with the police affirm the activistsʼ fantasy–that they are the leading a revolution, that the truths they speak are so potent that the “1 percent” must use force to suppress them.

The clashes also assuage the jealousy–what Harvard literature professor Philip Fisher once called “nightmare envy”– western radicals feel when watching the Arab Spring, where the struggles are deadly real.

But the Occupy activists have not just yearned for confrontations with police; they have planned them.
In at least two cities, they have sent military veterans–in uniform, thus violating military code–to the front of protest marches in order to provoke police and to be the first targets if and when police do use force.

For example, a video from New York, posted on Oct. 16, shows a former Marine taunting and provoking police officers.

Most recently, Occupy activists have circulated videos that appear to show a Marine veteran, Scott Olsen, being wounded by a tear gas canister fired by police during the Oakland riot.
Occupy Wall Street is calling for a nationwide vigil for Olsen tonight with the theme: “We Are All Scott Olsen.” MoveOn.org–no friend of the military–is also highlighting the incident, as are Think Progress and other left-wing organizations.


Footage of Scott Olsen being shot by Police at Occupy Oakland from Raleigh Latham on Vimeo.



Olsen’s injuries appear serious (we hope for his speedy and full recovery), and the Oakland police may indeed have overreacted. Nonetheless, evidence collected by Big Government reveals that Occupy has long sought precisely the sort of spectacle Olsen’s injury provides, in order to win broader public sympathy and to rally Occupy activists around common opposition to the police.

That is clear from an email sent on Oct. 13 by Tarak Kauff to other Occupy Wall Street activists. Kauff organizes “nonviolent direct action” for Veterans for Peace–the group Olsen marched with in Oakland.

In anticipation of a raid by police the next day to clear Zuccotti Park for cleaning (which was called off), Occupy Wall Street activists planned to hold brooms as police arrived, to show they were willing to clean the park themselves.

Kauff advised activists to hold brooms “peacefully,” with the brush side up, so as not to create the impression that the protestors were armed. He then suggested:

If the police overreact (as they are likely to) and we take the blows, and it is recorded, it will go worldwide and further tremendously galvanize the movement…If that can be done, this could be a major turning point. You will put the police and city in a lose/lose situation…

Occupy Cleanup


The Occupy activists havenʼt relied on veterans alone. They have also tried to use “weak” people as sympathetic human shields–the old, the young, and disabled. Prior to the anticipated “cleaning” in Zuccotti Park, another activist, Charles Lenchner, wrote via e-mail: “Push youngest/ oldest to the front lines….This is a battle over images, not just over the park.”

(Note the word “push,” suggesting that some might have to be moved to the front lines against their will.)

Marine 2-2



And at the Oakland riot, Occupy activists brought along a woman in a wheelchair. The mainstream media dutifully broadcast the image of them pushing her through clouds of tear gas.

These tactics are not new. They are the same methods used by terrorist organizations like Hamas to win global sympathy during conflict with Israel.

Thatʼs no surprise, given that leading organizers in recent Occupy protests in Chicago are under investigation for links to Hamas and other terrorist groups.

Source: RebelPundit.com

Increasingly, as winter sets in and internal divisions worsen, the Occupy movement depends on such provocative tactics to maintain cohesion.

The emerging truth is that Occupy has no other grievances. The “tell” is this weekʼs attempt by the mainstream media to elicit comment from Occupy activists about student loans–just as President Obama has unveiled a new (and futile) proposal to cap monthly payments. The amounts cited by some Occupy activists–$20,000, for example–are high but not jaw-dropping (for example, Iʼm paying back roughly $200,000 in student debt.)

Buoyed by extended unemployment benefits, aided by Obamacare provisions that let 26-year-olds stay on their parentsʼ health insurance, living off generous public pensions, and tolerated (barely) by private and public landowners, the activists of Occupy are, at least in part, an apparently comfortable lot who dream of revolution, not reform.

But Occupy can only survive and grow if it can provoke violence from police, and thereby evoke sympathy from the public. Expect more Scott Olsens, soon.

Big Government

Putting Freedom Back to Work

by Rep. Tom McClintock (R–CA) 

Congressman Tom McClintock (R-CA) made the following statement to the House Chamber on October 26, 2011:

Mr. Speaker:  The government’s continuing failure to address our nation’s gut-wrenching unemployment stems from a fundamental disagreement over how jobs are created in the first place.  We are now in the third year of policies predicated on the assumption that government spending creates jobs. We have squandered three years and trillions of dollars of the nation’s wealth on such policies, and they have not worked because they cannot work.

Government cannot inject a single dollar into the economy until it has first taken that same dollar OUT of the economy. True, we can SEE the job that is saved or created when the government puts that dollar back into the economy.  What we can’t see as clearly are the jobs that are destroyed or prevented from forming because government has first taken that dollar OUT of the economy.  We see those millions of lost jobs in a chronic unemployment rate and a stagnating economy.

Government can transfer jobs from the productive sector to the government sector by taking money from one and giving it to the other.  That’s at the heart of the President’s plan to spend billions of dollars to hire more teachers and firefighters and police officers.  But these temporary government jobs come at a steep price: every dollar spent sustaining one of these jobs is a dollar taken from the same capital pool that would otherwise have been available to productive businesses to invest in creating permanent jobs.
Government can also transfer jobs from one business to another by taking capital from one and giving it the other. That’s how we got Solyndra.  We put a half-billion dollars at risk to create 1,100 jobs (that’s $450,000 per job).  Now that half-billion dollars are gone and so are the jobs.  And who pays for these losses?  Other businesses and their employees – meaning fewer jobs created.


What government can do very effectively is to create the conditions in which jobs either flourish and expand, or whither and disappear. When we place additional taxes on productivity, jobs disappear.  The President says he only wants to tax millionaires and billionaires, but the tax increases in his so-called jobs plan actually hammer more than 75 percent of net small business income – at a time when we’re counting on those small businesses to create 2/3 of the new jobs that our people desperately need.  That is insane.

When we place additional regulations on productivity, jobs disappear.  That’s what we’re watching in real time: thousands of pages of new regulations from Obamacare, from Dodd-Frank, from the EPA stifling American job creation. It’s no secret why business isn’t expanding – just ask a businessman. They’re scared to death of the additional taxes and regulations they may be facing in the next few years and are pulling back to see what happens.  Ask bankers why they’re not lending and you’ll hear the same answer.

House Republicans have laid out a comprehensive plan to revive the economy through the same policies that worked under Ronald Reagan in the early 1980’s; under John F. Kennedy in the early ‘60’s; under Harry Truman in the mid-‘40’s and under Warren Harding in the early ‘20’s. Reduce the tax and regulatory burdens on the economy and jobs flourish and multiply.

For example, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that Obamacare by itself will cost the economy a net loss of 800,000 jobs.  A few weeks ago, the Natural Resources Committee received testimony that just by getting government out of the way and opening up American energy resources to development, the economy could generate 700,000 jobs and $660 billion of direct revenues to the national and state treasuries. Repeal Obamacare and open up American energy resources – there’s 1.5 million jobs right there – at NO cost to taxpayers.

Imagine doing that across all sectors of the economy.  That’s what Republicans are proposing to do.  The fact that the President doesn’t recognize this as a jobs plan leads me to conclude that he simply doesn’t understand how jobs are actually created in the first place. When Ronald Reagan inherited an even worse economy from Jimmy Carter, he reduced the tax and regulatory burdens that were crushing the economy – just as Republicans propose to do today.

Indeed, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, if the economy under Obama had tracked the same as it did under Reagan, 15.7 million more Americans would be working today and per capita income would be $4,000 higher than it is today.

M. Speaker, Freedom works.  It is time that we put it back to work.

Big Government

A Declaration to Restore the Constitutional Republic

- Online By Charles Jones, B/Gen., USAF (Ret)   
Wednesday, October 26, 2011


“A CALL TO STAND!”—-  Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness should be the goal of every adult American citizen, not only for themselves, but for future generations.

That quest cannot become a reality unless each adult citizen possesses a patriotic mindset.  The facts show that amassing self-serving political power and gaining wealth has displaced American patriotism among our government representatives, resulting in a deplorable lack of integrity and honor from our elected and appointed officials.  Most Americans no longer trust their government.
Concerned American veterans and patriots, spurred to action by flawed and misguided interpretations of the Constitution, are determined to correct these ill-advised, if not traitorous, Constitutional perversions.

In accordance with The Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence, they seek a peaceful solution to the tyranny facing We the People and the generations that follow. 


It is apparent, based on many indisputable facts, that individual liberty, possession of property, national sovereignty, national security, and freedom will not survive if the present political power base prevails.
Therefore a course change is now required as determined by millions of Americans, and spelled out in “A Declaration to Restore the Constitutional Republic.” 

The electorate voted for a President, not a tyrant.  They do not want autocrats in any branch of government.  Despots by their nature ignore constitutions and run roughshod over the laws of the land.  Tyrants also over-regulate, and confiscate the citizen’s wealth; the people end up becoming economic slaves.

We The People are the back-bone of The Constitutional Republic of the United States of America.  When 20 to 30 million citizens band together to petition for redress of “a long train of abuses and usurpations,” those grievances must be acted upon.

It must not be forgotten that all Legislative, Executive and Judicial powers are derived from the people.  The restoration of the Constitutional Republic that we were entrusted with now begins by way of the “Declaration to Restore the Constitutional Republic,” and by We The People assembled, banded, and standing together as one unified citizenry.

Charles Jones, B/Gen., USAF (Ret)
Be in D.C. 11.11.11!

Canada Free Press

Obama 'Can't Wait' for the Rule of Law

October 26, 2011
By Mark J. Fitzgibbons

President Obama's proclamation on Monday that he "can't wait" for congressional action to help underwater homeowners raises two questions.

If he already had the legal authority to take action, then why did he wait?

Some may frame the second question this way: does Obama's plan exceed his constitutional authority?  

Perhaps the better way to ask the second question is whether the Obama plan is unlawful.

Either way, I can't wait for Congress to conduct some oversight hearings before the plan kicks in.  This isn't just a figurative slap in the face to both Congress and the rule of law; this is a kick in the groin.

Ignoring the Constitution is so liberating for Mr. Obama that he intends to do it on a "regular basis."  The subtitle to Emily Miller's piece at The Washington Times following the announcement of Obama's "can't wait" plan is "President unveils lawless scheme to bypass Congress with executive orders." 

The term "lawless" is sometimes used in common parlance the same way we use "unlawful," but its real meaning is "not subject to, or controlled by, the law."

If we were to deem the president's actions as not subject to, nor controlled by, the law, then we are partly to blame.  If we fail to even recognize government lawbreaking when and where it occurs, we get what we deserve.

If, however, we were to take the view that the president's actions are in fact supposed to be governed and restricted by the law, and that Mr. Obama's actions not consistent with the law are therefore unlawful, then we have a chance of preserving liberty.  The rule of law protects liberty; abuse of the rule of law erodes liberty.

President Obama and his administration have engaged in years of lawbreaking.  Mr. Obama unlawfully used TARP money so that the government obtained ownership interests in Chrysler and General Motors.  He ignored the War Powers Act in deploying the military machine to Libya.  When Congress refused to pass the DREAM Act, he implemented portions of it via executive order.

His contempt for the rule of law has had a trickle-down effect into federal administrative bureaucracies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Labor Relations Board.  Even his Department of Justice has shown contempt for the rule of law.

Democratic representatives Jim Moran and Jesse Jackson, Jr. recently urged -- on camera, in fact -- that President Obama implement portions of the Obama jobs bill that never made it through Congress.

These are members of Congress advocating for more lawbreaking because they know they have a president who is willing to break -- indeed, has broken -- the law governing his office and limiting its powers.  So much for our system of checks and balances.

They also know that the patsy liberal media don't care about these things unless the unconstitutional lawbreaking is done by Republicans.

The Constitution is broad in its sweep, but is specific about certain functions of government.  Congress makes the laws.  When Congress doesn't pass a law, the president can't pick up his bat and ball like an angry juvenile.

We are hearing more and more from the left that the president must do administratively what Congress refuses to do legislatively.  These are not mere words of frustration.  They are words of an ideology that is dangerously inconsistent with American ideals.

The calls from the left to violate the Constitution are protected by the First Amendment.  It is when they are implemented by the president that they become lawbreaking.  The Constitution, you see, governs government.

Mark Levin on his radio show Monday night played clips of the Obama "can't wait" speech and asked listeners to envision a foreign dictator speaking in English.  That was quite an effective way to make the point that in America we don't do the sort of things Obama said he "can't wait" to do.

America will not lapse into a dictatorship; we won't let that happen.  But the dictatorial aspects of the Obama administration must be called out for what they are: lawbreaking.

Harry Truman onced claimed that there were emergency circumstances during the Korean War to use his commander-in-chief powers to unilaterally stop a steel union strike.  His effort, though, was defeated in the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company v. Sawyer case.

Justice Robert Jackson, writing a concurring opinion in the case, said this about claims of unrestricted executive power: "Such power either has no beginning or it has no end.  If it exists, it need submit to no legal restraint.  I am not alarmed that it would plunge us straightway into dictatorship, but it is at least a step in that wrong direction." 

Obama's "can't wait" plan is another example of how the Constitution does not run on automatic pilot.  It must be enforced on government.

If Congress responds weakly or passively to this kick in the groin, then they are as much the problem as Mr. Obama.

Mark Fitzgibbons is co-author with Richard Viguerie of the e-pamphlet "The Law That Governs Government: Reclaiming The Constitution From Usurpers And Society's Biggest Lawbreaker."

American Thinker

Newt and the Next-in-Line Problem

October 25, 2011

By Steve McCann

The Republican presidential nominating process must break out of its "next-in-line" syndrome.  The party establishment, unable to comprehend the depth of voter angst, the desire for genuine change, and the true extent of America's current dire predicament, is still stuck in that rut as it continues its unenthusiastic but overt support for Mitt Romney, the current "next-in-line" candidate.  

This is not the United States of the past sixty years, wherein it mattered relatively little which party occupied the White House or dominated the Congress.  While the most dramatic steps in setting the nation on the course that has brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy were launched during the years of total Democrat control, the Republican Party, with the exception of Ronald Reagan and the Republican leaders of the House of Representatives in 1995, has been content to simply slow down the statist policies of the Democratic Party without reversing the trajectory established by them.

It is this mindset that has created the "next-in-line" process.  Candidates for the Republican presidential nomination deemed to have paid their dues in a previous presidential run (or who are related to a former president) were arbitrarily moved to the front of the class.  This course of action has been justified by the Republican establishment on the basis that these were the most "electable" candidates, as they supposedly appealed to the independents.  The corollary to this axiom: a truly conservative candidate could not win a national election -- never mind that Ronald Reagan won in two massive landslides and bequeathed residual goodwill that resulted in the election of George H.W. Bush in 1988 as his successor.

This is the argument being used to justify the nomination of Mitt Romney.  The unease among the rank-and-file Republicans regarding Romney is well-justified.  His stubborn and illogical defense of RomneyCare in Massachusetts, his tepid economic proposals cloaked in conservative terminology, and his constant use of platitudes directed at the mushy middle of the American electorate are straight out of the now-discredited Republican playbook of failed nominees such as Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush in 1992, Bob Dole, and John McCain.   

Mitt Romney does not inspire confidence or credibility, as boldness and a firm hand will be a prerequisite for the next president of the United States.  He is the wrong man for such an excruciatingly difficult task as reversing the course America is presently on.

If not the "next-in-line" candidate, then who?

Rick Perry, while a success as governor of Texas, has not shown the capacity to motivate and inspire either through the strength of personality or by an ability to explain to the average voter his positions or plans for the country.  This can be done only by a candidate with an unshakable conviction in ideas and an ability to articulate them in an understandable manner in order to unite and inspire the American people.  This does not require the communication prowess of a Ronald Reagan, but rather the capacity to be sincere and engender confidence.  Thus far, Rick Perry has not demonstrated that skill and comes across as just another politician.
A man who has revealed an ability to convey sincerity and genuine character is Herman Cain.  There is not a more compelling life story or figure on the Republican stage today.  Cain's rise in the polls has been brought about not only by the unease with Romney and disappointment with Rick Perry, but because he is not the prototypical politician.   

Cain's 9-9-9 plan is simple in its concept and would, if enacted, spur the economy to great heights; however, it is fraught with problems and contradictions.  Not the least of which is the imposition of a new national sales tax which has enormous potential for future abuse and demagoguery.  Coupled with his lack of any political experience and having to deal with an intransigent, by design, Congress, enacting this plan will be impossible without the near-unanimous support of the people.  He would have been better-served to propose the "Fair Tax" concept inclusive of repealing the income tax or a flat tax while emphasizing his outstanding career in the private sector and proposals relative to deregulation and spending constraints.

Another area that makes a Herman Cain nomination problematic is international affairs.  The world is in a dangerous place -- perhaps the most tenuous since the 1930s.  Europe is on the precipice of a financial implosion which will engulf the United States.  Egypt, the largest nation in the Middle East, is increasingly under the domination and control of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Libya is about to become a seething cauldron of tribal infighting and Muslim extremism -- with a backdrop of enormous caches of sophisticated weaponry, including missiles, made available to terrorists throughout the world.  Iran will soon reveal its nuclear capability in order to intimidate its neighbors and thus will step up its sponsorship of global terrorist movements.  

Israel is completely isolated and surrounded by those who wish its destruction, and this situation will precipitate a confrontation within the next few years.  China, more emboldened than ever, has set as its goal the domination of the Pacific Rim militarily and the rest of the world economically.  Russia, under Vladimir Putin, is determined to exert de-facto control over those nations once part of the old Soviet Union and regain major world power status.

This is not the time or place to nominate someone with absolutely no experience in government or in international business and foreign relations, despite the attraction and temptation of choosing a candidate as the anti-politician or as a visceral reaction to the goings-on in Washington, D.C.  Herman Cain would, instead, be an ideal vice presidential nominee or a key member of the next administration focusing on domestic and economic matters. 

Of the remaining viable candidates, there is only one who is not a part of the establishment, has laid out a viable plan to rescue the country, is not intimidated by the mainstream media or the Democrat smear machine, is knowledgeable of how to get drastic changes through the congressional legislative meat grinder, is more than capable of overwhelming Barack Obama in a debate, is experienced in foreign affairs, has a record of conservative legislative accomplishments, and can articulate to the American people as to where he will take the country.  It is time for the Republican primary voters to rediscover Newt Gingrich.

Having been on the national stage for over 20 years and subject to nonstop vilification by the media, as well as seeing exaggerations about his personal marital matters splashed across the front pages, many know Newt only by the caricature of him painted by the media and his adversaries.  Further, in a career spanning such a long period, he has naturally angered some on the right by his previous stances on various issues or by appearances with various left-wing Democrats.  But no one questions his intelligence, willingness to buck the establishment, or accomplishments as Speaker of the House, when under his leadership America enjoyed not only a balanced budget, but surpluses used to pay down the debt.  Further, he has been accused of being abrasive in his dealing with politicians and the media -- but isn't that what the country now needs?

The next president of the United States must be audacious, experienced, and above all capable of achieving dramatic change.  Ronald Reagan once reminded the Republican Party that its core tenets must be painted in bold colors and not pale pastels.  Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain are the bold colors, while Mitt Romney and Rick Perry are cloaked in pale pastels.  It is clear that in the final analysis, the nomination will come down to Mitt Romney and the anti-establishment candidate; within the present field, the person best suited for the latter role is Newt Gingrich.

American Thinker