Hyscience

Carol Browner, Obama's climate-czar, to auto execs: "Put nothing in writing, ever" regarding secret negotiations about increased CAFE standards (Updated)

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:34:01 -0500

Mark Tapscott writes at The Examiner:

Carol Browner, former Clinton administration EPA head and current Obama White House climate czar, instructed auto industry execs "to put nothing in writing, ever" regarding secret negotiations she orchestrated regarding a deal to increase federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-WI, is demanding a congressional investigation of Browner's conduct in the CAFE talks, saying in a letter to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA, that Browner "intended to leave little or no documentation of the deliberations that lead to stringent new CAFE standards."

Federal law requires officials to preserve documents concerning significant policy decisions, so instructing participants in a policy negotation concerning a major federal policy change could be viewed as a criminal act.

Waxman is chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Sensenbrenner is the ranking Republican member of the panel.

Sister Toldjah points out that the NYT first reported on this - "in a positive light, of course" - back in May.

Michelle Malkin writes, "Well, you were warned":

In December, I raised the alarm over Obama eco-czar's transparency-undermining, document-deleting habits.

I wrote back then: "If fiscal conservatives, sound science advocates, and businesses don't raise a stink about Browner's crooked background, they deserve everything that's coming to them."

This is scandalous and should be covered by all the MSM. Yet we've learned by now that since it involves the Obama administration, silence is the order of the day.

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Does Michelle know about this?

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:12:52 -0500

Obama, acting a bit unpresidential, is caught checking out skirts at the Rome summit.

Mike's America suggests that while Obama's checking out skirts, Michelle is probably shopping for a $6,000 purse (to replace the $875 VBH patent leather clutch she was carrying when an Italian luxury goods manufacturer mistook the one she was carrying for one of his - although $875 is still a lot of cha-ching to spend for a clutch).

Support Freedom: Boycott GM

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:18:38 -0500

A stand for freedom and against interference from Washington into the free market system, from Daniel Ikenson at Cato@Liberty:

It is stunning enough to watch the slow-motion nationalization of an iconic behemoth like GM, but Congressional meddling at the operational level to stop the company from following through on an obviously wise cost-cutting measures should be a wake up call to all Americans that we are doomed to politically-driven micromanagement of the economy-into the ground no less-unless we register our disgust and dissent now!

What makes these actions evil, and not just stupid, is that Congress really does not care about whether GM is profitable or not. The Henry Waxmans of the Hill only care that GM produces green vehicles, regardless of their exorbitant costs of production and scant consumer demand. And the John Dingells (among whom are included the 200 sponsors of the bill to restore the dealerships) only want GM to provide jobs, regardless of the fact that GM needs to scale back its labor force substantially to even approach the realm of commercial viability. In other words, Congress demands that Americans subsidize GM because GM's short-term viability is good for their political fortunes.

Enough. Show Congress that you won't comply and that you won't be pawns. Boycott GM. Boycott GM until the government relinquishes its grip on the company's decision making process.

Count me in, I have no intention of buying little itty bitty green cars or allowing myself to be dictated to by politicians.

Astonishing admission from Justice Ginzburg

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:01:22 -0500

It's hard to believe that she believed and supported such a thing, let alone now admits to it:

The 16-year veteran of the high court was asked if she were a lawyer
again, what would she "want to accomplish as a future feminist legal agenda."

Ginsburg responded:

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that had changed their abortion laws before Roe [to make abortion legal] are not going to change back. So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don't know why this hasn't been said more often.

Question: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics
that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid for abortions for poor women?

Ginsburg: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae - in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn't really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.

So, who are among those "populations that we don't want to have too many of"?

New RNC TV ads address healthcare and the economy: 'Bipartisan' and 'Nothing'

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:43:09 -0500

It's about time we hear something on healthcare from the RNC. This ad is a good beginning:

Today a national TV network turns its airwaves over to President Obamas pitch for government-run health care. Shouldnt this be a bipartisan discussion?

And then there's this on the economy (HT - The Patriot Room):

Ad: It's Not Iran - It's Obama's Administration Here in America (Video)

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:14:26 -0500

According to the email from Our Country Deserves Better Pac that is passing around a link to this ad, its the beginning of a new ad campaign calling attention to the ramifications of the policies of Obama/Reid/Pelosi. It claims that the ad has struck a nerve and that the liberals are furious, however, although the email promises to show examples of the liberal reaction to the ad, none are listed.

From the description at YouTube:

Television ad that highlights recent press accounts that sound more like they are out of Iran than the U.S. But truth be told they are actually accounts of Barack Obama's (and his administration's) failures and poor policy decisions.

Although for the most part agree with the point, I'm not so sure the ad quite "gets there" in terms of its intended message. It seems to be mostly a "preaching to the choir" ad that isn't going to grab anyone's attention that is sitting on the fence politically.

Congressional Report: Federal Government Was Culprit in Housing and Economic Crisis

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:28:34 -0500

The new report says that the responsibility for the erosion of mortgage lending standards, which began with government affordable housing policy, rests squarely on the policy makers who advocated these ill-conceived policies in the first place. This is exactly what conservatives have been saying all along:

[...] Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the chief culprits in the housing crisis because they encouraged people who could not afford payments to borrow money, according to a congressional report released Tuesday. The claims in the report have long been advanced by conservatives, who argue that the Community Reinvestment Act and other federal programs fed the housing bubble that burst in 2007 and led to the economic downfall in 2008.
But the report explains in detail how Fannie and Freddie -- government sponsored enterprises (GSE) that were not subject to the same oversight as other publicly traded firms -- "privatized their profits but socialized their risks."

"In the short run, this government intervention was successful in its stated goal - raising the national homeownership rate," says the report, the result of an investigation launched last fall by Republican members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"However, the ultimate effect was to create a mortgage tsunami that wrought devastation on the American people and economy," says the report. "While government intervention was not the sole cause of the financial crisis, its role was significant and has received too little attention."

The report talks about the Clinton administration's National Homeownership Strategy, citing President Clinton's directive to "lift America's homeownership rate to an all-time high by the end of the century."

The Clinton strategy further said that Freddie and Fannie should reduce down-payment requirements and, according to the report, "called for increased use of 'flexible underwriting criteria,' which it said could be achieved in concert with 'liberalized affordable housing underwriting criteria.'"

"That is the perfect smoking gun that tells how Barney Frank [D-Mass.], the Clinton administration and others would do it in those days," Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, said Tuesday in a speech at the Heritage Foundation.

[...] Fannie and Freddie were not subject to regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, while executives were paid well. Former Fannie CEO Franklin Raines earned more than $50 million in compensation during his six-years at the helm, the report says. Fannie and Freddie paid billions more to shareholders. "Thus, the government subsidizations of GSE operations amounted to little more than corporate welfare," the report says.

The report cites Frank's accusations that to blame Fannie and Freddie is to blame only the lender and not the borrower.

"This misses the mark entirely. In fact, responsibility for the erosion of mortgage lending standards, which began with government affordable housing policy, rests squarely on the policy makers who advocated these ill-conceived policies in the first place," the report says. "Borrowers quite naturally responded to the incentives they were given, irrespective of their socioeconomic status, and risky lending spread to the wider mortgage market."

Read it all.

Suicide bomber's children shown re-enactment of mother's death on Hamas TV

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:00:00 -0500

More evidence that the Palestinians don't really want a two-state solution, they want to perpetuate their culture of hate and violence - even to their children.

And how sick does a culture have to be to put this on a show for children!

More at Jihad Watch.

HR 1966 Sec 881 Criminalizes Free Speech

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:38:55 -0500

More evidence that the government is increasingly trying to control even the very small details of our lives - increasingly trying to control what we say and what we think:

Here it comes. Thought crime and hate crime legislation. No one can attest to the vile nature of internet harassment, threats and insults more than I can, but I would never silence my "critics". This law is unconstitutional, a blatant violation of the First Amendment. It destroys the basic tenets of the Constitution. The left is ripping it to shreds. You can view the bill here.

As Shattered Paradigm points out, at a time when freedom of speech is already under attack like never before, a shocking new bill in the U.S. House of Representatives would make it a felony to offend someone online:

Freedom of speech is one of the cornerstones of a free society. If we are not free to express ourselves without the fear that someone will be offended, then what freedom will we really have left?

The reality is that if we do not stand up to this, the United States of America will quickly become overrun with politically-correct "commissars" who are eager to throw anyone who disagrees with them in jail for "hate crimes" and "thought crimes".

Things are already out of control in the United Kingdom. Did you know that there are actually undercover officers in some areas of the U.K. that sit in bars and restaurants listening for anyone who might say something offensive or racist?

You may laugh, but the United States is quickly heading down that road.

Pamela Geller has a list of the sponsors of the bill - 14 Democrats plus (RINO) Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois who also voted for the cap-and-tax bill (without having read it).

Even MSM beginning to admit Obama's tax pledge was a lie

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:04:21 -0500

Take for example, this AP article that admits President Barack Obama's promise to fix health care and trim the federal budget deficit, all without raising taxes on anyone but the wealthiest Americans, is a promise he's already broken and will likely have to break again.

As Radley Balko notes in his piece titled, "Obama Keeping Promises That Grow Government; Abandoning Promises That Hold It Accountable," it's safe to say that Obama has been willing to spend plenty of political capital on his promises that vastly expand the size and scope of the federal government, and relatively little on promises related to eliminating waste, putting limits on his own power, or making the government more transparent and accountable.

And chief among Obama's accountability issues, besides his grab for power and lack of transparency - both of which are wildly out of countrol, is his breaking of promises to not raise taxes. And for this the American people must hold him and his fellow Democrats accountable.

(Video) Paul Krugman admits political strategy underlying ObamaCare is to nationalize healthcare

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:03:28 -0500

The truth about the Democrats' "public plan" is beginning to emerge, as Paul Krugman, economic adviser to the President, and eminent columnist for the New York Times, for filling us in on what's really going on:

"...the only reason not to do [single-payer] is that politically it's hard to do in one step...You'd have to convince people to completely give up the insurance they have, whereas something that let's people keep the insurance they have but then offers the option of a public plan, that may evolve into single-payer, but you can do it politically..."

As Will Wilkinson points out at The Week (HT - Morgan)
Yale University political scientist Jacob Hacker, one of the leading proponents of public option-style plans, admited that the public option is a Trojan horse for a single-payer plan - by explaining the general strategy this way:

"Someone once said to me that this is a Trojan horse for a single-payer. Well, it's not a Trojan horse, right? It's just right there! I'm telling you. We're gonna get there. Over time, slowly. ... We'll do it in a way that we're not going to frighten people into thinking they're going to lose their private insurance. We're going to give them a choice between public and private insurance, we're going to let them keep their private employer-based insurance if their employer continues to provide it."

And as Wilkinson notes, the idea is that, over time, slowly, employers won't continue to provide it. Americans need to look past the Democrats' deceit and wake up to the fact that President Obama's true goal is for a Canadian-style, single-payer health-care system that would severly attack our democratic freedom of choice, result in rationing of healthcare, reduce our current standards of care and treatment, increase taxes, and drastically increase our national debt.

Do the Palestinians really want a state, or do they already have what they want?

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:22:20 -0500

Media Backspin offers a spate of arguments that call into question whether the Palestinians really want a state of their own. Arguments exist that suggest it is more likely than not that they prefer to remain stateless and that the West's pursuit of a two-state solution amounts to nothing more than chasing rainbows.

Given the history of the Palestinian conflict and the Palestinian culture of hatred and violence toward Israel, it indeed seems clear that, as Backspin suggests, the Palestinians will not agree to either divide or share the country. They continue to cling to the revolutionary dream of "national liberation," and until this unrealistic liberation materializes, they prefer to exist as a national rather than a political entity.

Meanwhile, as Obama pressures Israel for a two-state solution and Israel agrees to a limited version of the idea, and the Palestinians talk the talk but don't walk the walk, preferring weapons to statehood.

After all, what's a Palestinian state without the right and means to continue to attack Israel?

Our "Looney Tunes" President held a fire sale of America's nuclear defences in Moscow

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:31:10 -0500

That's the message from Gerald Warner in his piece at the Telegraph yesterday, where he writes of Barack Obama's sell-out of US and Western interests that proceeded at "a speed that (was) difficult to keep pace":

[...] Well said, Nile Gardiner, for asking if Barack Obama is the most naïve president in American history. The answer is undoubtedly yes - unless he has a secret agenda to cut America down to size.

It was always in Russia that Obama threatened to do most damage and, as Nile Gardiner has rightly pointed out, these forebodings have been fulfilled. His supposed missile deal with Vladimir Putin (let's cut straight to the organ-grinder and by-pass Medvedev, the monkey) is very satisfactory to Russian ambitions and realpolitik.

The nuclear power balance, as at 2007, was a Russian superiority of 2,146 land-launched nuclear warheads to 1,600 US; this was counterbalanced by a US superiority of 3,168 sea-launched US warheads to 1,392 Russian and 1,098 air-launched US warheads to 624 Russian. What should also be factored in is the leaking, deteriorating, rust-bucket condition of some of Russia's deterrent ordnance, although it has already decommissioned the most basket-case Soviet weaponry. The bottom line, however, is that it is Russia which is now in the lead in ICBM development, not America.

For America voluntarily to reduce its nuclear superiority is madness. Bien-pensant talk of a nuclear-free world displays total stupidity in a global situation where nuclear weaponry is proliferating, not receding. There is even a nuclear bomb in Pakistan, which is teetering on the brink of failed statehood at the hands of Islamist insurgents. Is this a time for America to disarm, to "sell the store" as one trenchant right-wing commentator has already described Obama's posturing in Moscow?

Read it all ...

As Nile Gardiner notes in the piece Warner refers to in the above link, at this rate, even Jimmy Carter looks like General Patton compared to the dove-like Barack Obama, who is opening the door for "America's enemies such as Iran to aggressively pursue their nuclear ambitions and exploit the weakness of a president who is gravely undercutting American global power in an increasingly dangerous world."

Why cut nuclear weapons at a time when rogue regimes such as North Korea and Iran are busy building their own programmes? Does the President seriously believe this move will encourage the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong Il to renounce their nuclear designs? What evidence is there in history that a unilateral policy of disarmament will prompt tyrannical regimes to change their behaviour?
It is also unclear what kind of odious quid pro quo deal Washington will have to sign up to in order move the agreement forward. President Medvedev, who serves as little more than Vladimir Putin's right hand, has made it abundantly clear that the United States will have to sacrifice any plans for a 'third site' missile defence system in eastern and central Europe for Moscow to sign up to a news arms treaty. This would be a huge betrayal of key U.S. allies Poland and the Czech Republic. No doubt Moscow will also demand the Obama administration give the Russians a bigger say over NATO expansion eastwards, including blocking the entry of Georgia and Ukraine.

By agreeing to a grand bargain with the Medvedev/Putin regime, President Obama has unwisely opened a Pandora's box of concessions that will only enhance Russia's hand in its "Near Abroad". At the same time, the Obama administration's naïve approach will strengthen the resolve of America's enemies such as Iran to aggressively pursue their nuclear ambitions and exploit the weakness of a president who is gravely undercutting American global power in an increasingly dangerous world.

Much worse than Barack Obama having gained nothing from his visit to Russia, he has indeed held a fire sale of America's nuclear defences. The real winner is Russia and our enemies that plot against us - all either with nuclear weapons of their own or about to acquire them.

Century-long quest of liberals to impose a vision out of step with our Founders is almost achieved

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:31:50 -0500

AWR Hawkins has an excellent piece at Pajamas Media, and the title makes a statement of what is fast-becoming uncomfortably obvious to more and more Americans each day: The Far Left On the Cusp of Total Success:

Academia in the United States has long been dominated by the left, creating "free speech codes" on campuses that only protect the kind of speech with which they agree.

They control the clear majority of news outlets in this country -- a situation that began during the Vietnam War. They own the environmental movement, set the curriculum in public education, and have successfully fought to alienate "certain inalienable rights" enumerated by our Founding Fathers.

And if all this isn't enough, they currently control the House, the Senate, and the White House, which means they're positioned to use the government's leverage to raise new taxes, nationalize our health care system, and dismantle our military. Yes, much to the chagrin of conservatives, President Obama is leading a Democrat Party that is reaping the benefits from a series of successful, measured assaults against this country and the rights of its citizens.

While much of what passes as "hope" or "change" today is rooted in the nearly half-century old counterculture movement of the 1960s, some of it actually goes back as far as the Progressive Era of 1900 to 1920 -- the era that intimated that man was intrinsically good and would, if properly educated (and subsidized), find practices like war and crime abominable. Although a small number of American Europhiles had already bought into the "enlightened" choice of humanism over Christianity during the latter part of the 1800s, the progressives broadened its appeal and widened its acceptance. In short, reason was king.

Then came Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, who believed the U.S. Constitution was "deeply flawed" and required ongoing modifications to keep up with the times. During his two terms in office alone, 1912 to 1920, the United States adopted a federal income tax and changed the Constitution to allow the direct election of senators. This meant the citizenry could directly elect those with the newly found power to use taxation to transfer money from the rich to the not so rich. Thereafter, the groundwork was in place for a move from our Founders' Republic to our masters' democracy.

As government expanded further under Wilson, the reach of Washington, D.C., extended into places where it had not gone before. In a precursor to the current smoking and trans-fat bans sweeping through our nation, Prohibition was passed, outlawing the manufacture and sale of all alcohol. The government that could limit income through taxation was proving it could also limit beverage choices -- for the good of the public, of course.

As Hawkins so aptly notes in his summary paragraph, the left may just now be poised to accomplish their greatest feats. For they have one of their own in the White House. He's a real flesh and blood radical who has far more in common with Margaret Sanger and Bill Ayers than with George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.

In other words, America stands on the brink of loosing America as we've known it. And given what we're seeing in Congress and the White House, it is clear that the chances for this to occur are increasing as each day goes by.

Defining Democrats and 'Change'

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:10:06 -0500

Via Dan McCarty, Doug Ross shares what McCarty aptly refers to as a "great one-two punch." Complementing the change-defining photo at right is the paragraph below that Ross pulled from David Kahane's article, I Still Hate You, Sarah Palin, published yesterday at National Review Online:

"In other words, stop thinking of the Democratic Party as merely a political party, because it's much more than that. We're not just the party of slavery, segregation, secularism, and sedition. Not just the party of Aaron Burr, Boss Tweed, Richard J. Croker, Bull Connor, Chris Dodd, Richard Daley, Bill Ayers, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and Emperor Barack Hussein Obama II. Not just the party of Kendall "Agent 202" Myers, the State Department official recruited as a Cuban spy along with his wife during the Carter administration. Rather, think of the Democratic Party as what it really is: a criminal organization masquerading as a political party."

A "great one-two punch," indeed, and a darn good catch on the part of both McCarty and Ross.