Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

As I hinted at the other day there are some pretty big changes coming to Ladies Logic. The first one (that I will let you in on anyway) is the implementation of a new comment system. I am moving the comments away from the Blogger platform and over to the JS-Kits platform. Yes it will mean yet another log-on, but then again if you have a Haloscan account you will need to change it anyway since JS-Kit just bought Haloscan and is in the process of migrating all of those accounts over TO the new platform.

So for those of you engaged in the conversation in the comments to the "Cheaper Than What Exactly" post, it is possible that those comments will no longer be seen. If necessary, I can copy those into the new system as I will still have access to the old system.

Stop by later this evening - big changes are coming!

Cheaper Than What Exactly?

Curious that I find this story today of all days.....

For the past decade, Austin's ambition to become the world's clean-energy capital has been best exemplified by one effort: GreenChoice, a program that sells electricity generated entirely from renewable sources such as wind.

Now the nationally renowned program is struggling to find buyers — the latest allotment is 99 percent unsold after seven months on the market — and Austin Energy is looking for ways to bring down the rising costs...Austin Energy officials say that times have changed and that the nation's most successful (by volume of sales) green-energy program, which offers the renewable energy only to those who select it, might no longer be the best way to carry out the city's goals. It now costs almost three times more than the standard electricity rate.

Hmmm and yet I was just told today that wind and solar were the "cheapest"....what is causing these increases? In part the cost of building the wind farms....

Steel, concrete, copper and labor have all gotten more expensive, in turn making wind-farm construction more costly.

and in part the cost of getting the power from the wind farm to the city that needs the energy...

Texas doesn't have enough transmission lines to carry all the electricity generated in West Texas to the state's big cities. This in turn means Austin has to pay more to get its wind energy here.

One of the reason that there are not enough transmission lines is the fact that environmentalists are fighting the construction of the transmission lines that are necessary to getting the power out of the wind farms.

“We want smaller-scale projects closer to where load is and where there would be less harmful impacts,” Citizens Energy Task Force attorney Paula Maccabee told Greenwire on December 1.

The problem with that (as I was told by a Public Utilities specialist in Minnesota) is that the quality of the wind in the urban areas is not good enough to provide the needed power!

All of this helps belie the talking points of the "green" movement. Their concern is not providing energy - it is taking energy options OFF OF THE TABLE in order to drive the economy further down. It is a dirty little secret that the clean energy crew hopes we never figure out.

Ch-ch-Changes

There are some big changes coming to Ladies Logic in coming days. Not too many hints but the scenery is going to be much better.

More On The Coup That Never Was

Last week my friend Ed Morrissey asked why the Honduran government did not simply arrest Manuel Zelaya instead of deposing him and kicking him out of the country (thereby leading to the impression that this was a doup de tat). In today's Opinion Journal, Mary Anastasia O'Grady attempts (and I think succeeds) to answer that burning question.

If there is anything debatable about the crisis it is the question of whether the government can defend the expulsion of the president. In fact it had good reasons for that move and they are worth Mrs. Clinton's attention if she is interested in defending democracy.

Besides eagerly trampling the constitution, Mr. Zelaya had demonstrated that he was ready to employ the violent tactics of chavismo to hang onto power. The decision to pack him off immediately was taken in the interest of protecting both constitutional order and human life.

Two incidents earlier this year make the case. The first occurred in January when the country was preparing to name a new 15-seat Supreme Court, as it does every seven years. An independent board made up of members of civil society had nominated 45 candidates. From that list, Congress was to choose the new judges.

Mr. Zelaya had his own nominees in mind, including the wife of a minister, and their names were not on the list. So he set about to pressure the legislature. On the day of the vote he militarized the area around the Congress and press reports say a group of the president's men, including the minister of defense, went to the Congress uninvited to turn up the heat. The head of the legislature had to call security to have the defense minister removed.

In May there was an equally scary threat to peace issued by the Zelaya camp as the president illegally pushed for a plebiscite on rewriting the constitution. Since the executive branch is not permitted to call for such a vote, the attorney general had announced that he intended to enforce the law against Mr. Zelaya

.A week later some 100 agitators, wielding machetes, descended on the attorney general's office. "We have come to defend this country's second founding," the group's leader reportedly said. "If we are denied it, we will resort to national insurrection."...

It was this fondness for intimidation that prompted Mr. Zelaya's exile. Honduras was worried that if he stayed in the country after his arrest his supporters would foment violence to try to bring down the interim government and restore him to power.

South and Central American politics has a history of violent power struggles. The Honduran Supreme Court and Legislature did what they thought would help save lives and prevent yet another violent change of power.

President Obama took a lot of heat for not "meddling" in affairs in Iran and yet here he has no problems meddling in the affairs of Honduras. This is why the US has such poor reputation in Central America. We piously refuse to meddle in some countries while we continue to meddle away in our own backyard. It's not new, but for someone who said that he was going to change things in DC and who was going to "restore America's reputation in the world" he sure has done a bang up job of keeping the status quo in Central America.

Tolerance On Parade

One of the major problems that I have with the gay rights movement is their insistence that the rest of the world show "tolerance" for their beliefs and yet they (the gay rights movement) shows a complete and total disregard for tolerating anyone elses beliefs. Todays case in point comes from an altercation that a gay couple had with LDS security while the gay couple was ON LDS PROPERTY!

Wearing bright red lipstick, Isabelle Warnas smiled and planted a big kiss on her husband's cheek, something she said she has done often under the spires of the LDS Church's Salt Lake Temple.

"Nobody has said a thing to us," the 50-year-old Salt Lake City resident said.

This time, though, they had an audience of more than a hundred. They were gathered for a "kiss-in" staged Sunday morning near Main Street Plaza to show support for a gay couple, Derek Jones, 25, and Matthew Aune, 28, who say they were detained by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints security guards after one man had kissed the other on the cheek Thursday. They had argued with the guards and were later cited for trespassing.

That is the key point here - this gay couple was trespassing ON PRIVATE PROPERTY! They were not on "government owned" property, they were on property owned and maintained by the LDS Church.....

"My husband and I cannot understand the discrimination," Warnas said. "This is not right."

You are correct that discrimination is wrong Mrs. Warnas - so when are you going to speak out against the RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION that the gay community shows to the religious community (it's not just the LDS Church that the gay activists have targeted in the past).

If their movement were really a "live and let live" type of movement, my more libertarian side would say go ahead - if you want to put yourself at risk from a multitude of sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS it is (very literally) your funeral. As a Christian I will pray that you come to a relationship with Christ, but I understand that I can not force you to do anything that you do not what to do. When are you - the supporters of the gay rights movement - going to afford me and the millions of others who share my beliefs the same courtesy?

Offering Solutions

One other thing that I saw yesterday while perusing the Sunday chat fests (besides the ongoing obsession with Sarah Palin) was the democrats talking point mantra that the Republicans are "just saying no" to President Obama. Besides being just a tiny bit disingenuous (remember the Democrats said "NO" to President Bush plenty of times - especially on judicial nominees) it is also horribly untrue. I have mentioned before some of the solutions that are coming out of the House GOP caucus in the past, and there is a new one that came out yesterday that needs to be highlighted. This time it is from my dear friend and former representative John Kline (MN2).

For those of us in Washington concerned about job creation, the first Friday of each month has always been a notable occasion. That’s when the U.S. Department of Labor issues its monthly employment report detailing how many jobs were gained or lost in the previous month, along with the current unemployment rate. When I first came to Congress, these reports generally brought good news. In fact, from 2003 through the end of 2007, we saw a record 52 consecutive months of job growth. Unfortunately, that all changed in early 2008, when we saw the first job losses in more than four years. Since that time, the U.S. economy has steadily shed more jobs as the recession has deepened. Just last week, we learned that an additional 467,000 jobs were lost in June of this year, and the unemployment rate has reached 9.5 percent, its highest level in more than a quarter-century.

From the moment we saw those first 17,000 jobs lost in January of 2008, it was clear to me that we needed to embrace pro-growth policies. Now, about a year and a half later, more than 6.5 million jobs have been lost and evidence is mounting that the tax-and-spend policies advanced by congressional Democrats are not only failing to stem the tide of unemployment, they are actually making our economic problems far worse.

The Democrats love to yammer about the "failed policies of the past" but remember, they controlled Congress for the last two years of the Bush Administration and policies that they enacted (and to be fair President Bush signed) in 2006 lead to those early job losses in 2008 so when they talk about "failed policies" we need to remember THEIR culpability in the failed policy generation.

I serve as the Senior Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee. It’s ground zero for legislation that impacts American workers and employers, and under the control of Democrats, I believe it has failed to project jobs and promote economic growth. From legislation that will increase litigation in the workplace to the notoriously anti-worker card check scheme, Democrats in Washington have put special interests ahead of the people’s interests. Add to that a failed “stimulus” that cost close to $1 trillion yet still hasn’t produced the jobs it promised; a national energy tax in the form of cap-and-trade; and the impending government takeover of our health care system, and a future of permanent economic stagnation seems almost inevitable.

OK you say - where are these solutions you talk about? Here they are....

It doesn’t have to be this way. Republicans are committed to pro-growth policies that will get our economy back on track without saddling future generations with unmanageable debt. We offered a stimulus plan that would have created twice the jobs for half the price. We have developed a health care proposal that will make health care more affordable, reduce the number of uninsured Americans, and increase quality – all at a price our country can afford. And we plan to continue acting as the party of better solutions, rejecting Democrats’ plans to expand government at the expense of individuals and pushing for commonsense, bipartisan solutions to the many challenges we face. With the right policies, I’m confident we can return the first Friday of each month into an occasion worth celebrating once again.

Whether the topic is job creation, restoring savings, cutting government spending, stimulating the economy, health care reform, solving the housing crisis, energy or any other issue that this country is facing, the House Republican Caucus HAS been putting forward solutions - not just saying "NO" to the President. Anyone who propogates this talking point is flat out lying to the American people. Haven't we had enough of that?

Smell Our Dairy Air!

The State of Wisconsin is known as "Americas Dairyland" - their license plates say so. Well the good folks at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) want to change that...

June 29, 2009

The Honorable Jim Doyle
Governor of Wisconsin

Dear Governor Doyle:

On behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and our thousands of members and supporters across Wisconsin, I am writing to ask you to endorse an alternative to the ubiquitous "America's Dairyland" license plate out of respect for the many Wisconsinites who do not wish to support animal abuse on factory farms. Instead of the "America's Dairyland" slogan with the quaint barn in the background, we'd like to see a new license plate that reads, "Wisconsin: America's Cow Hell" and has a more realistic image, perhaps depicting sick cows in a cramped, filthy factory-farm shed...

The letter goes on (and on and on). You have to give Ingrid Newkirk credit here for having huevos. Either that or a seriously warped sense of humor. Either way....

Seriously - does Ingrid really think that she stands a snowball's chance of getting this done?

This is why PeTA, as an animal rights or welfare organization, is worthless. They have (to use a TV term) jumped the shark. They long ago quit being about taking care of animals which is why they are irrelevant. Which in turn leads them to pull stunts like this that are designed to do one thing only - get attention.

Great work Ingrid.

Did You Mean Funny HaHa or Funny Ironic

When the cap and trade bill passed out of the House a couple of weeks ago, many were appalled and outraged (myself included) that none of the legislators that voted on that bill (or the stimulus bill for that matter) were given the opportunity to read the bill before voting on it. Well get ready for more of the same from the Pelosi/Reid/Obama Transparency team.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it.

Did you get that? If our Legislators actually did their job and read the legislation that they passed, this bill would garner "very few votes". But WAIT - there's more.....

In fact, Hoyer found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. “I’m laughing because a) I don’t know how long this bill is going to be, but it’s going to be a very long bill,” he said.

So it is funny that we should expect transparency from the Legislative process and to expect our Legislators to read what they vote on???? But isn't transparency what Nancy Pelosi promised voters when she took over the Speakers gavel?

THIS is Nancy Pelosi's idea of transparency? I don't know about you but it sure is not MY idea of transparency......

Sunday Morning Thought

Watching the Sunday Morning chat fests, I have to wonder....if resigning from her position as governor was such a bad idea - why are we still A WEEK LATER talking about Sarah Palin and her prospects for 2012? She couldn't BUY the amount of time on the air that she is getting from the media as result of this.

Paging Margaret Sanger

The NY Times has an interview in it's upcoming Sunday edition with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg that is generating a lot of buzz (HT Powerline). Most of the interview focused on Justice Ginsberg's feelings that the Supreme Court "needs" another woman. However, the quote that has everyone buzzing is this comment on Roe v Wade...

Q: If you were a lawyer again, what would you want to accomplish as a future feminist legal agenda?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: 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.

Q: 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?
JUSTICE 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.

Emphasis mine. Populations that we don't want too many of? A good reporter would have followed up with "and what populations ARE those Justice Ginsberg????" and yet the NYTimes reporter lets that pregnant comment slide right on by.

Justice Ginsberg's comments do give a hint back into the origination of Planned Parenthood. You see, Margaret Sanger the founder of Planned Parenthood, like Adolph Hitler, was a firm believer in eugenics. Unlike Hitler, Sanger was more worried about the "b "black" and "yellow" peril." While Planned Parenthood has tried really hard to step away from that past but they can't step too far from it. A vast majority of their abortion clinics happen to be located in minority communities. The African American Community, which makes up roughly 15% of the US population, has over 30% of the abortions performed in America! It is not a pretty picture. In Planned Parenthood you have an agency who will gladly accept donations designated to go directly to "killing black babies". Are these the populations that you "don't want too many" of Justice Ginsberg?

Before we can have an HONEST debate on abortion in America, we have to wrestle with some very ugly, very real facts about the practice of abortion and the people behind it. Planned Parenthood needs to come clean about it's past, it's present and what it will do to change the illegal practices that it engages in (failure to report statutory rape for example) instead of suing those that expose the illegal and racist activities.

However, given that they have tried to hide these ugly facts for as long as they have, I am not holding my breath that this kind of change will ever happen.

Cap And Trade Postponed

In light of Brave Sir Harry postponing a vote on cap and trade until after the summer recess (in hopes of people forgetting about it no doubt) I thought I would bring you even more documentation as to why this is a bad bill that must be stopped at all costs.

First comes this from the Washington Post.

The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the resulting increases in consumer prices needed to achieve a 15 percent CO2 reduction -- slightly less than the Waxman-Markey target -- would raise the cost of living of a typical household by $1,600 a year. Some expert studies estimate that the cost to households could be substantially higher. The future cost to the typical household would rise significantly as the government reduces the total allowable amount of CO2.

Americans should ask themselves whether this annual tax of $1,600-plus per family is justified by the very small resulting decline in global CO2. Since the U.S. share of global CO2 production is now less than 25 percent (and is projected to decline as China and other developing nations grow), a 15 percent fall in U.S. CO2 output would lower global CO2 output by less than 4 percent. Its impact on global warming would be virtually unnoticeable. The U.S. should wait until there is a global agreement on CO2 that includes China and India before committing to costly reductions in the United States.

This is not $1600 per year for the family making over $250,000 a year - this is for the AVERAGE FAMILY OF 4 and the average family of 4 living in the United States of America makes a whopping $61,000 a year! So much for that campaign promise.

Meanwhile, The Heritage Foundation found this little gem.

At yesterday’s hearing before the Senate Environment Public Works Committee,

EPA Administrator Jackson confirmed an EPA analysis showing that unilateral U.S. action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would have no effect on climate. Moreover, when presented with an EPA chart depicting that outcome, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said he disagreed with EPA’s analysis.

“I believe the central parts of the [EPA] chart are that U.S. action alone will not impact world CO2 levels,” Administrator Jackson said.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) presented the chart to both Jackson and Secretary Chu, which shows that meaningful emissions reductions cannot occur without aggressive action by China, India, and other developing countries. “I am encouraged that Administrator Jackson agrees that unilateral action by the U.S. will be all cost for no climate gain,” Sen. Inhofe said. “With China and India recently issuing statements of defiant opposition to mandatory emissions controls, acting alone through the job-killing Waxman-Markey bill would impose severe economic burdens on American consumers, businesses, and families, all without any impact on climate.”

So let me get this straight - it will cost us $1600 per family AND it won't impact the climate one iota????? If that is the case then why are we even dealing with this? Jason - Richard, any defense of this???????

UPDATE: Another "cure" for global warming gets shot down (HT HA).

It’s a beautiful theory — highways full of electric cars emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants after being plugged into an outlet in our garages overnight. The problem, according to a new Government Accountability Office report, is that the effort may only shift the problem somewhere else.

“If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country’s electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?” asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report itself notes: “Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy.”

The GAO report says a plug-in compact car, if recharged at an outlet drawing its power from coal, provides a carbon dioxide savings of only 4% to 5%. If the feeling of saving the environment from driving an electric car causes people to drive more, that small amount of savings vanishes entirely.

It's a point that I have tried to make in the past. I'm glad to see that the GAO has the data to back it up!

Four Little Words

A couple of weeks ago - my friend Gary Gross wrote about the jobs that were created or saved in Minnesota as a result of the ARRA.

It’s a good thing I was sitting down when I read this Strib article. If I hadn’t been sitting down, I might’ve been knocked over by a feather.

Though much of the stimulus plan was sold on the strength of road and highway investments, records released by Congress last week show that only 37 transportation and infrastructure projects were underway in Minnesota as of May 31, creating or sustaining 124 jobs.

Well Gary is not the only one noticing how many jobs were created by ARRA. Utah's very own Jason Chaffetz has noticed it as well.

U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah, is no fan of the federal stimulus package. He thought it was a waste when it was passed in February. And he thinks now that it has produced too few jobs - 150,000, by the latest White House estimate - for the $57 billion that has been spent nationally so far.

When Gov. Rendell appeared before him yesterday at a hearing on Capitol Hill, Chaffetz asked, "How many jobs have been created in Pennsylvania by the stimulus?"

Governor Rendell's answer was almost as overwhelming as the Minnesota figures.

Though he had no precise jobs figure to offer, Rendell guessed that "a couple of thousand" jobs had been created by the $1 billion spent to date in Pennsylvania, and that 5,000 to 10,000 jobs had been saved.

It is this lack of jobs created that has caused the President's approval to plummet in recent days. He can no longer claim that this economy is someone else's fault. He went into DC promising that the faster ARRA was passed the faster people will get back to work and that is just not happening! While jobs is not the only reason when you couple it with the out of control deficit spending and the realization that there is no WAY that the President could keep his promises of not raising taxes on people who make under $250,000 a year...

President Barack Obama promised to fix health care and trim the federal budget deficit, all without raising taxes on anyone but the wealthiest Americans. It's a promise he's already broken and will likely have to break again. Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress have already increased tobacco taxes — which disproportionately hit the poor — to pay for extending health coverage to 4 million children in working low-income families.

Now, lawmakers are looking for more revenues to help pay for providing medical insurance to millions more who lack it at a projected cost of $1 trillion over the next decade.

The floated proposals include increasing taxes on alcohol, which could raise $62 billion over the next decade, and a new tax on sugary drinks such as soda, which could raise $52 billion.

Emphasis mine. As an aside I have to give the AP mad props for pointing out two of the REGRESSIVE taxes that the Democrats are proposing...

The bloom is most assuredly off of the Obama rose. The question is, will the RNC take advantage of the situation and quote the ragin' Cajun James Carvelle and start chanting "IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPID!!!!!"

Casualty Of Peace

The Los Angeles Times/Chicago Tribune ran a rather disturbing story today (HT the Logical Husband" about a mentally ill young man and a years long deception that he ran.

Retired Marine Capt. Rick Duncan carried a list of phone numbers of those in the business of helping veterans. One was for the VA clinic in Colorado Springs, and in 2008 he pressed it upon Mike Flaherty, a young Army veteran struggling with depression.

He understood, Duncan told Flaherty. He'd been to Iraq three times. Attacked in Fallouja, he'd returned home with a metal plate in his head and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Except that "Captain" Duncan was no captain - nor did he serve in Iraq or even the Marines. "Capt" Duncan was actually Rick Strandloff - an anti-war protester and convicted felon who is also bipolar. I want to go on the record now and say that his having bipolar disorder should not be used as an excuse for his bad behavior or thought of as "normal" behavior. I have a very, VERY dear friend back in MN who is bipolar and while she does have some things that she struggles with, this kind of deception is not even close to being this egregious. I have also learned from this dear friend that when you are dealing with bipolar disorder, nothing is "normal" - they are all individuals with individual brain chemistry misfires.

All that said, I live in a military family. My husband served in the Army as does my brother in law. My late father in law was in the Air Force and was buried with full military honors. My father tried to enlist, but could not due to health issues. The list goes on and on. Besides being married to the military, I was employed by the Army as support staff. Needless to say, the military and military issues are near and dear to our household.

The reporter does a fantastic, indepth job of reporting this story and creates, in Mr. Strandloff, a compelling and sympathetic figure. However, buried deep in the story is a brief comment by Mr. Strandloff that belies his claims of "I didn't know what I was doing or why I did it"....

"Any good production has to have a compelling character," he said.

And that in a nutshell shows that he knew a little more about what he was doing then he led on. It should also be noted that this is not the first time that the anti war movement was taken in by a fake. Michelle Malkin has run a number of stories by people claiming to be anti-war veterans. While I have no doubt that there are real "anti-war" veterans out there (heaven knows that no soldier really WANTS to go to war) the sheer number of these stories leads one on the outside to suspect that the anti-war movement wouldn't know the real thing if jumped out in front of them. Either that or...

Yet Strandlof also said that he had a greater effect in his antiwar efforts as Duncan the veteran than he ever did as Strandlof the liberal protester.

Does the end justify the means? And if it does, why have the anti-war protesters been so silent since January 20? If you are against wars after all.....

Founders Morning Quote

"It behooves you, therefore, to think and act for yourself and your people. The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counselors. The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail."

--Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 1775

Wishful Thinking or Fractured Fairy Tale

Once upon a time in a magical land, there lived a charming young knight who gained prominence for slaying the old dragon named Cannon. This young knight had his legions of fans and many detractors. These detractors, tried their hardest to take the gleam off of the young knights armour by spreading many falsehoods about the young knight - or his twisting words in such a manner that the words had no resemblance pf what the young knight had really said.

Freshman Rep. Jason Chaffetz says several GOP state convention delegates are urging him to challenge fellow Republican Sen. Bob Bennett for his seat next year, and Chaffetz is keeping the door open to that possibility.

"I don't have any intention of doing that (running against Bennett)" now, he told the Deseret News. "But I guess I like to keep my options open. Never say never."

Emphasis mine.

All story telling aside, this has to be one of the lamest attempts at stirring up controversy that I have seen out of the media in these parts. I do know that there are conservative activists who are trying to talk Jason into running against Senator Bennett AND/OR Senator Hatch. Here are just a couple of reasons why the timing is not right in 2010....

1) As a freshman in Congress, Jason has had more media recognition than most freshman Congresspeople could dream of. He has also had a couple of pieces of legislation see the light of committee which for a freshman in the MINORITY PARTY is huge. However, he still does not have the track record that he would need to make the step to the Senate. A couple more years in the House would be a plus.

2) With redistricting on the horizon, Jason stepping aside to run for the Senate would probably open up his seat for Democrat to pick up. Let's not forget that part of his district includes a portion of Salt Lake County. Dividing Salt Lake County between Matheson's district and the new 4th District will open the door for one almost guaranteed pick-up. Depending on how badly the 3rd and the 1st get gerrymandered to create the 4th, the Republican strong-hold of Provo could essentially be wiped out by one of the few liberal enclaves in the state.

3) A protracted primary fight could (if the Democrats actually put up a serious candidate which is always a wild card) leave the Republican Party divided enough to hand that seat over to the Dems as well. While I realize that this was a reason why Jason should not run against Chris Cannon, there is a reason why it is still "conventional wisdom".

4) Firebrands like Jason tend to do better in the House than the do in the Senate. That, my friends, is a fact of legislative life.

However, I suspect that this is yet another made-up media fairy tale. The field (to challenge Sen. Bennett) is already a crowded one with a couple of candidates that stand a chance of "pulling off a Chaffetz" in this race. The need (by the media) to throw out the possibility of a Chaffetz campaign will (the thinking goes) chase a couple of these more talented challengers off out of respect for a Congressman that they know, like and respect. In doing this, the media secures another term for Senator Bennett.

Constitution? What Constitution?????

That seems to be the thinking of the UN and President Obama when it comes to dealing with the situation in Honduras (HT The Logical Husband)

...when a socialist demagogue was ejected unceremoniously from Honduras on Sunday by his own government for trying to establish a presidency for life, Mr. Obama instantly sprang to his defense.

What happened in Honduras was not a military coup. Honduras has a civilian president, Roberto Micheletti, a member of former President Manuel Zelaya's own Liberal Party, who was elevated to the post after Mr. Zelaya was removed. The army did not seize power, but acted as the elected government's instrument in ousting Mr. Zelaya, who was well on his way to subverting the Honduran constitution and erecting a dictatorship.

Emphasis mine. Let me emphasize again that this was a Constitutional action and not a military coup. The Honduran Supreme Court, in response to unConstitutional actions by Mr. Zelaya, issued an appropriate arrest warrant which the military carried out.

The UN apparently thinks as little of the Honduran Constitution as it does of ours - choosing to side with a potential dictator over the rule of law.

Scrambling to hold on to his presidency, deposed Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya pleaded his case in the United States yesterday, winning a rare unanimous vote of support from the U.N. General Assembly but failing to get an audience with top Obama administration officials.

The President's response to this working of the Honduran Constitution? A move to rescind economic and military development agreements with the country.

However, this is not the only Constitution that our President is willing to ignore in order to advance his agenda (HT Hot Air).

With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a “provisional basis” until the Senate ratifies the treaty.

Emphasis mine. I wonder how President Obama former colleagues in the Senate will take to being bypassed in such a blatent manner.

As my friend Ed Morrissey noted, this is not surprising in the least. There is a reason why Republicans spent so much time "obsessing" on then candidate Obama's relationships. Whether it is Bill Ayers or Jeremiah Wright or any of his other past radical associations, it is a clear window into the political philosophy of man. The political philosophy tells you how a person is going to govern.

The only ones "surprised" by all of this seems to be the journalists that glossed over all of this during the primaries. This is what happens when you buy into a meme without checking out the man behind the meme.

Update: - WELCOME Hot Air readers. Please take a moment to snoop around - open the cabinets and see what else is here.

Dissecting Waxman Markey

One of the good (or bad depending on your point of view) of the Legislature pushing through Waxman-Markey without the transparency that the Speaker and President Obama promised during the last campaign. It gives us a look at just how corrupt the people writing our legislation today are.

The stimulus bill was the legislative equivalent of the famous cantina scene from Star Wars, an eye-popping collection of the freakish and exotic, gathered for dubious purposes. The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, known as ACES (the American Clean Energy and Security Act), is more like the third panel in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights — a hellscape that disturbs the sleep of anybody who contemplates it carefully.

Two main things to understand about Waxman-Markey: First, it will not reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, at least not at any point in the near future. The inclusion of carbon offsets, which can be manufactured out of thin air and political imagination, will eliminate most of the demands that the legislation puts on industry, though in doing so it will manage to drive up the prices consumers pay for every product that requires energy for its manufacture — which is to say, for everything. Second, it represents a worse abuse of the public trust and purse than the stimulus and the bailouts put together. Waxman-Markey creates a permanent new regime in which environmental romanticism and corporate welfare are mixed together to form political poison. From comic bureaucratic power grabs (check out the section of the bill on candelabras) to the creation of new welfare programs for Democratic constituencies to, above all, massive giveaways for every financial, industrial, and political lobby imaginable, this bill would permanently deform American politics and economic life.

The House of Representatives, famously, did not read this bill before passing it, which is testament to either Nancy Pelosi’s managerial incompetency or her political wile, or possibly both. If you take the time to read the legislation, you’ll discover four major themes: special-interest giveaways, regulatory mandates unrelated to climate change, fanciful technological programs worthy of The Jetsons, and assorted left-wing wish fulfillment. We cannot cover every swirl and brushstroke of this masterpiece of misgovernance, but here’s a breakdown of its 50 most outrageous features.

I'm not going to list all 50, but I did want to highlight a couple of the more egregious ones. First I am going to combine #1 & #3 so that we can highlight just WHO really is the party of big business (hint - not the party in the minority this year)...

Eighty-five percent of the carbon permits will not be sold at auction — they will be given away to utility companies, petroleum interests, refineries, and a coterie of politically connected businesses. If you’re wondering why Big Business supports cap-and-trade, that’s why. Free money for business, but higher energy prices for you....
With its rich menu of corporate subsidies and special set-asides for politically connected industries, Waxman-Markey has inspired a new corporate interest group, USCAP, the United States Climate Action Partnership — the group largely responsible for the fact that carbon permits are being given away like candy at Christmas rather than auctioned. And who is lined up to receive a piece of the massive wealth transfer that Waxman-Markey will mandate? Canada Free Press lists:

Alcoa, American International Group (AIG) which withdrew after accepting government bailout money, Boston Scientific Corporation, BP America Inc., Caterpillar Inc., Chrysler LLC (which continues to lobby with taxpayer dollars), ConocoPhillips, Deere & Company, The Dow Chemical Company, Duke Energy, DuPont, Environmental Defense, Exelon Corporation, Ford Motor Company, FPL Group, Inc., General Electric, General Motors Corp. (now owned by the Obama administration), Johnson & Johnson, Marsh, Inc., National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, NRG Energy, Inc., Pepsico, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, PG&E Corporation, PNM Resources, Rio Tinto, Shell, Siemens Corporation, World Resources Institute, Xerox Corporation.

One major group of recipients of the free money being given to industry in the form of carbon permits are the electric utilities, represented in Washington by the Edison Electric Institute. Along with the coal and steel businesses, the utilities are positioned to receive a huge portion of the carbon permits — some of which will be disguised as measures for consumers — and have become one of the nation’s highest-spending lobbies, working to ensure that their interests are served by cap-and-trade.

Emphasis mine. For my MN readers Rio Tinto is the global corporate parent company of Kennicott Copper Mining here in Utah. Those who claim to be looking out for the interests of the poor are now writing legislation designed to help out corporate interests! Nice....

Briefly to continue on a theme, 10 & 11 point out that...

Rural electrical cooperatives are demanding that the offsets be awarded in proportion to historic emissions, and they probably will prevail.

The farm lobby will be rewarded for practices that do little or nothing to reduce greenhouse gases.

Number 13 lists out more corporate beneficiaries of Waxman-Markey...

David H. McCormick of the Treasury Department recently gave a speech on the establishment of an $8 billion fund for that purpose; those who showed up to gets the specs on this new gravy train included Sequoia Capital, the United Steelworkers Union, the Clinton Climate Initiative, Ernst & Young, Duke Energy, SunPower, Honeywell, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Credit Suisse, Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, and Goldman Sachs.

15, 16, & 17 have some interesting tidbits...

The renewable electricity standard is the big one here. This would require utilities to supply 20 percent of their power from renewable energy sources (or “increased efficiency”) by 2020...
The bill would create a system of renewable electricity credits similar to the carbon offsets mentioned above — utilities that cannot meet the standard could purchase credits from other utilities.
The renewable standard excludes sources of power like nuclear and coal gasification, and perhaps that’s to be understood. Even though these sources are cleaner than traditional coal-burning plants, they violate a number of green taboos.

21 through 23 have very interesting implications to everyone out there who lives indoors....

The bill regulates every light fixture under the sun... There are rules governing fluorescent lamps, incandescent lamps, intermediate base lamps, candelabra base lamps, outdoor luminaires, portable light fixtures...The bill extends its reach to cover appliances as well. Clothes washers and dishwashers, portable electric spas, showerheads, faucets, televisions — all these and more are covered specifically in the bill...Appliances will be required to come with “carbon output” labels, and retailers will get bonus payments for marketing those that are certified “best-in-class.” The bill sets up a payment schedule to reward the manufacturers of these “best-in-class” products: $75 for each dishwasher, $250 for each clothes washer, and so on...

Hey - how about a "bonus payment" for the consumers who choose to do the environmentally friendly thing? Why are we giving more and more to big business?

Then there is #24....

The bill requires the EPA to establish environmental standards for residences, meaning a federally dictated one-size-fits-all policy for greening every home in America.

For more on the governments plan to totally kill the housing market and get rid of the notion of "affordable housing" see this Reuters article. The Feds are set to usurp yet another local power...local building codes....

The bill would affect commercial properties, too. In fact, all buildings would be governed by a “national energy efficiency building code”...Businesses and homeowners will pay twice — once to retrofit their roosts and again when the energy bill arrives.

Another hit to federalism comes from #29...

The bill undermines federalism by prohibiting states from creating their own cap-and-trade programs.

So all you pesky state legislators - give up YOUR RIGHT to regulate your state...

We all saw what happened last summer when the price of gasoline went through the roof and the demand for ethanol went up....so did the cost of food. Well Waxman-Markey wants to INCREASE the mandates for ethanol - increasing starvation in 3rd world countries as well.

Then there are the dozens of different new goernment agencies that will be created by this bill.

Waxman-Markey will create yet another raft of government dependents, but of a different sort — bureaucrats. The bill creates: a new United States Global Change Research Program, a National Climate Change Adaptation Program, a National Climate Service, Natural Resources Climate Change Adaptation Strategy office at the White House, and an International Climate Change Adaptation Program at the State Department.

And since everyone else who doesn't pay taxes gets a check...

Bambi gets one, too, in the form of money for “domestic wildlife and natural resource adaptation.”

Waxman-Markey, a bill that was sold on the premise of "jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs" and Speaker Pelosi is right - it will create more jobs...

Waxman-Markey will create a lot of jobs for Wall Street sharps, Big Business rent-seekers, ACORN hucksters, utility-company lobbyists, grant-writers at left-wing organizations, college administrators, light-bulb-policing bureaucrats, and an army of parasitic hangers-on...

But no jobs for the ones that need it the most - the 467,000 hard working taxpayers who (last month alone) lost their jobs even after being promised that if the stimulus package passed would be saved. If the stimulus bill (which was passed without being read) didn't do what it was supposed to do (save jobs) and did nothing more than line the pockets of bureaucrats, why should we believe that Waxman-Markey would do anything different?

Shouldn't we be holding these elected officials accountable FINALLY for their actions?

Across The Universe In A (Health Care) Handbasket

Mark Steyn and Jonah Goldberg over at National Review's "The Corner" have been playing dueling health care horror story posts (HT Powerline). Mr. Steyn started off with this story from the Daily Mail....

After 12 years cleaning care homes and private houses, Tereza Tosbell has a keen eye for a dirty room.

But the last place she expected to need her skills was in hospital - where she was a patient.

The sick 48-year-old was so disgusted at the conditions after three days on a 'filthy' ward that she grabbed the antibacterial fluid dispenser at the end of her bed and some hand towels from the bathroom.

She set about cleaning her four-bed ward, even going down on hands and knees to sanitise the floor as she dragged her drip trolley behind her.

Jonah followed with this lovely story from the BBC...

A search for the source of a maggot infestation at the Royal Children's Hospital in Aberdeen will continue over the weekend.

The discovery has caused the closure of three operating theatres, and postponements of procedures.

Which lead Mark to quip...

Jonah, you're missing the point. Those maggots are part of the treatment:

The treatment for the cancer appeared to be working, but the bedsore continued to get worse despite attempts to treat it with "maggot therapy" in which maggots are used to clean out the wound.

and then he doubled down....

This is the story of a decades-long cancer survivor who survived the cancer but died of an NHS bedsore:

During four weeks of what her family describe as "torture" in a bed in East Surrey Hospital, the sore resulted in a fatal blood infection and she died on October 27.

Her son Adrian Goddard, who lives in the US, said: "She survived cancer for 40 years, then died from a bedsore.

"It is just beyond belief that they could let a bedsore develop to the point where it actually kills someone from septicaemia."

He said the nurses seemed largely unconcerned by the growing size of the sore and his mother's increasing pain...

"The level of crisis that attracts their attention has to be very high for them to put down their biscuits."

...and relayed a very personal story...

My father is currently ill, and the health "system" is doing its best to ensure it's fatal. When an ambulance has to be called, they take him to a different hospital according to the determinations of the bed-availability bureaucrats and which facility hasn't had to be quarantined for an infection outbreak. At the first hospital, he picked up C Difficile. At the second, MRSA. At the third, like the lady above, he got septicaemia. He's lying there now, enjoying the socialized healthcare jackpot - C Diff, MRSA, septicaemia. None of these ailments are what he went in to be treated for. They were given to him by the medical system.

On a side note, I know what it takes to treat MRSA after dealing with my mother's bout with that particular "super-bug"...it ain't a pretty sight!

Jonah followed with a link to a story that I had heard of before but never gotten around to writing on...

A former soldier pulled his own teeth out with a pair of pliers because he could not find a dentist to take on NHS patients.

Iraq War veteran Ian Boynton could not afford to go private for treatment so instead took the drastic action to remove 13 of his teeth that were giving him severe pain.

He said: 'I've tried to get in at 30 dentists over the last eight years but have never been able to find one to take on NHS patients.'

Emphasis mine.

Meanwhile, individual doctors who are actually trying to HELP the uninsured are being shut down by the government because they dared to do it on their own.

The state is trying to shut down a New York City doctor's ambitious plan to treat uninsured patients for around $1,000 a year.

Dr. John Muney offers his patients everything from mammograms to mole removal at his AMG Medical Group clinics, which operate in all five boroughs.

"I'm trying to help uninsured people here," he said.

His patients agree to pay $79 a month for a year in return for unlimited office visits with a $10 co-pay.

But his plan landed him in the crosshairs of the state Insurance Department, which ordered him to drop his fixed-rate plan - which it claims is equivalent to an insurance policy.

Muney insists it is not insurance because it doesn't cover anything that he can't do in his offices, like complicated surgery. He points out his offices do not operate 24/7 so they can't function like emergency rooms.

Which just goes to prove that those driving health care "reform" are not interested in real reform and real choice. It goes to prove that the ONLY solution that they have for this problem is a government take over of health care.

It is a lesson that Americans need to learn before it is too late.

Google It

Everyone has been buzzing about Helen Thomas and Chip Reid's grilling of Robert Gibbs over the purported staging of President Obama's last health care town hall. If you have not seen the video, I'm sure it is still on the front page of Hot Air or the Huffington Post - whichever you have bookmarked - you can view it there. However, the funniest reaction to the whole thing (I think) came from Dana Perino (former Bush press secretary) writing over at National Review.

A friend emailed this morning to say he couldn’t believe what he heard Mika Brzezinski say on Morning Joe today regarding yesterday’s press briefing where Helen Thomas and Chip Reid asked Robert Gibbs several questions about President Obama’s so-called “Town Hall” on health care yesterday:

The question I would have for her [Helen] is if she felt she could ask that question during the Bush administration and get that aggressive.

Seriously? I almost injured myself when I fell over laughing when I read that comment.

I am no longer a spokesperson, but I feel I can speak for all of Bush’s press secretaries when I say that the question I would like to ask Mika is: Did she miss every press briefing of the Bush administration?

Yesterday was tame by comparison to the grilling we all got — including questions premised on our troops purposely killing innocent people. Those were really fun to field. Not.

The things all press secretaries have in common are going toe-to-toe with Helen Thomas, living through it, and being better communicators for having had the experience.

I wonder if Helen takes offense at the notion she wasn’t aggressive with us.

I don’t think I’ll ask her!

If Mika is looking to broaden her horizons, I'm sure there are plenty of reports of Helen Thomas lobbing "softballs" at Dana or Tony Snow or Scott McClellan or Ari Fleisher. All you have to do is have your research staff "Google It".

Recycle OR ELSE!!!!!

The Logical Husband gets the credit for this find....

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted today to require all businesses and residences to recycle and compost their garbage or face fines, which could lead to a lien on their property.
The ordinance, approved in a 9-2 vote, will force building owners to sign up for the city’s existing composting and recycling programs. The Board will deliver a final vote on the ordinance next week.
"Many tenants want to recycle and compost but the building does not offer the service,” Mayor Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “We're going to change that."

If these tenants are so willing to recycle, why not help them by setting up a way for them to drop it off somewhere? Why do you feel the need to force building owners to do this? Or are you in the business of putting renters out on the street - because that is what will happen if you are serious about putting liens on properties.

Or is this just another one of those unenforceable green mandates put in place to make yourself feel good? If you really were serious about your waste reduction goals, how about working WITH property owners instead of telling them what to do? You might just get a better than expected response if you did.....

Illinois Is #1!

I said this last fall and I still stand uncorrected. The Land of Lincoln has become the Land of "What's in it for me?" politics (HT Ed Morrissey).

As U.S. stock markets plummeted last September, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, sold more than $115,000 worth of stocks and mutual-fund shares and used much of the money to invest in Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

The Illinois senator's 2008 financial disclosure statement shows he sold mutual-fund shares worth $42,696 on Sept. 19, the day after then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urged congressional leaders in a closed meeting to craft legislation to help financially troubled banks. The same day, he bought $43,562 worth of Berkshire Hathaway's Class B stock, the disclosure shows.

Emphasis mine. If you or I had done something like this, we would be in jail for engaging in insider trading. However, since the Democrats have drained the swamp on the culture of corruption, I'm sure we will see the investigation into this any day now.....right?????

Seriously, Ed asks a very valid question when he asks....

Durbin’s spokesman says that the September meeting revealed nothing of an insider nature, and that Durbin traded along with the market as the storm clouds gathered. I wonder if the SEC would consider that a compelling alibi if it had been a Wall Street regulator who met with Paulson and traded like this the next day. The Democrats in Congress would be screaming for his head in the latter example, but will surely remain silent as the graveyard about Durbin’s suspicious trading.

It's nice to know, as long as I have been away from Illinois, that some things are constant - like corrupt politicians.

Have We Learned NOTHING?

I have to shake my head in sheer disbelief. After 16 months of listening to whisper campaigns against Hillary (during the "Democratic" Primary) and Sarah during the general election, we are now starting to see the whispers against another ambitious woman politician - Minnesota's Laura Brod. The comments first started showing up on conservative leaning blogs within the past week. While the blog owners rightly pulled the comments down, it was not done before lefty blogs picked up on the allegations and ran with them. Shawn Towle at Check's and Balances ran with it as did AAA at Residual Forces (after digging into Towle's allegations to try to disprove them. AAA's post was filled with a lot of "various sources told me" type comments that led a lot of people to complain and in the end AAA pulled the post. However, one lefty blogger saved a copy of the post and posted it at his site. In all of the comments that were made about the situation (at RF anyway) not ONE COMMENTER had the dignity to condemn the rumor mongers. Not here - right here right now I join with the blogger at Change We Must Fight For in saying what needs to be said....

Before I go any further, I am in no way condoning these comments. In fact, I find them to be cowardly, childish, and completely against the values of either political party. Whether the comments are true or not, hiding behind false identities and performing drive by smears should never be tolerated.

Thus, I am calling these individuals out, I am daring them to comment on my blog. They either need to fess up or shut up.

I may not agree with Rep. Laura Brod, but I do respect her enough to put my name behind everything I write about her. She does not deserve the smears she’s receiving by the likes of these people.

They need to stand up and be accountable for their actions.

They need to show us they are people with courage and not cowardice.

Left or right, I don't care....who EVER is spreading these rumors about Representative Brod are the lowest of low - the slimiest of slime and they deserve to be brought forward and suffer the consequences of their actions....and if the slime mongers are indeed supporters or agents of another Republican candidate for Governor, I hope that the candidate will kick those people OUT of the campaign and that he will denounce those scurrilous allegations loudly and publically. It is the correct thing to do!