The American Spectator

Robert Rosencrans| 6.25.09 @ 6:36AM

This is truly an act of political and financial insanity at a time when the world economy is reeling and the unemployment rate in America is predicted to rise above 10%. It's equivalent to the political concept of Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

It also proves the liberalism is simply a quest, not for fairness, but for power. The only thing obvious about this energy tax is that it is only a consumption tax, based on a false belief and a false religion.

Some churches ask for voluntary donations but the secular church of liberalism demands it.
At that point it is not a church or government of free people, it is a dictatorship.

This save the world plan will not save the world or protect one rain forest tree. What it will do is wreck the economy. You will see unemployment soar, you will see businesses close their doors and government revenues based on business and employment will plunge which will weaken many local and state governments.

Will the public ever wise up to the Global Warming scam? This tax will be the ultimate test. If it passes I would expect the public to vote many of these real world neophytes right out of office including their messiah, Obama.

Marc Jeric| 6.25.09 @ 6:49AM

a) There was first in the 1970's the global cooling scam (see e.g. Newsweek April 28 1975 on the internet); the government-paid scientists (90% of them are rejects of private enterprise) recommended to fight the new ice age by sending our war planes to cover the polar ice with soot in order to increase solar heat and prevent crushing of New York skyscrapers by the new glaciers;
b) When that did not work we had the global warming hoax in the 1990's, proclaimed by mainly the same government-paid scientists (Dr. Hansen of the NOAA, for example); to prevent the massive heating, fires, flooding of coastal cities, disappearance of Florida, California, and Caribbean islands, massive hurricanes, global famine, and other catastrophic events we should nationalize oil and gas and coal and electricity companies;
c) After 11 years of considerable cooling we are now faced with the climate change flimflam where whatever happens with our climate we should nationalize oil and gas and coal and electricity companies; and why not our banks, mortgage and insurance and car companies while we are at it. To prevent this catastrophe the best vehicle presumably is international agreements enforced by the United Nations world government.

As for the influence of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas: on a normal day the atmosphere contains 10,000 ppm (parts per million) of water vapor and about 300 ppm of carbon dioxide. The government-paid scientists say that an increase of 100 ppm of CO2 over the next 50 years will result in a catastrophic warming. The thermal absorptivity of water vapor is 4 times larger than that of carbon dioxide; it follows that the CO2 increase will increase the overall thermal absorptivity of the mixture by about 1/4 of one percent. The production of methane from livestock and the swamps (or as the environmentalists call those "wetlands") vastly surpasses the influence of CO2.

There is the Global Warming Petition Project (see Internet) where 31,478 US independent scientists declared that there is no anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming; of these 9,029 are scientists with PhD degrees. Our environmentalists tried to sabotage this effort by submitting phony names with phony degrees - and then claimed the whole effort by the Petition scientists was a fraud. It took us 3 years and a lot of private money to verify the credentials of all the signatories and clean up the Petition of those saboteurs. See also Manhattan Declaration with more such signatories, plus a large number of scientific groups from other countries who state the same. I am one of these signatories, MS and PhD degrees from UCLA, with majors in thermodynamics and heat & mass transfer. I think to fight this communist attempt to secure a world government should not be fought on the narrow grounds of more taxes - that is the losing proposition; where about 50% of the population is on some kind of welfare or dole we will always be outvoted. The battle should be fought and won on the firm scientific basis. Here the ecologists are attacking the first principle of life on earth: all living beings breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide; all vegetation breathes carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen. This gigantic hoax is attacking the #1 principle of life on earth.
Environmentalism is the cult of death.

Darin| 6.25.09 @ 7:02AM

There's the word "fairness" again. Could someone explain why it is "fair" that 10% of the population pays over 90% of income taxes while 50% of the population pays 0% of income taxes? This is based on tax data from the IRS.

Also, please explain how many people are employed by those who don't have much income. The tax code punishes those who earn, rewards those who don't, and penalizes those who provide jobs/income for others. And the word "fair" is applied. I don't think so.

Curly Smith| 6.25.09 @ 7:46AM

Where you see risk, Ms. Pelosi sees opportunity.

When people see their electric bills increase, when they see the price of consumer goods increase, and when they see more manufacturing jobs scamper off to Mexico and China then you'll hear Obama and Pelosi start talking about "greedy businesses". Your electric bill won't say "Global Warming Tax - $75", you'll never be able to decipher the amount. Ms. Pelosi and her friends destroyed the financial markets, and now they own them; Ms. Pelosi and her friends destroyed GM and Chrysler and now they own them; Ms. Pelosi and her friends will destroy the utility companies and then they'll own them.

Unfortunately, you're not going to have any money left to pay your mandatory "National Health Tax" so it'll be the vats of Soylent Green for you.

JG| 6.25.09 @ 8:35AM

One global think tank issued a book in 1993 titled
"The First Global Revolution". In it there is this passage, "It would seem that humans need a common motivation, namely a common adversary, to organize and act together in the vacuum; such a motivation must be found to bring the divided nations together to face an outside enemy, either a real one or else one invented for the purpose....The common enemy of humanity is man....Democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead" and "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine etc., would fit the bill."

Keeping this type of retoric in mind, it becomes easy to understand the constant shifts from, cooling to warming to just climate change and back again. Those that do not take the time to research these stances are the ones that this type of argument is targeting. Easily swayed, empathetic, getting their information in 20-30 sec. sound bites, wanting and accepting that those passing out this information are wiser than they could possibably be.

There are those among us who feel that they "know better" how the rest of us should live. These individules would tell us what to eat, drink, target body weight, who gets what health care, how much we get to keep of our own money and ultimately who lives or dies.

These type of people are our real problem, they don't believe in freedom only in freedom within their parameters.

Louis Jenkins| 6.25.09 @ 9:16AM

“Cap and trade will hit the wallets of many Americans who are firmly middle-class and fancy themselves admirers of Hope and Change.”

Oh you ship of fools who voted for Hope and Change! You should have judged your wonderful presidential candidate by his previous actions, not by his strutting and speechifying on the public stage. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, et al., are bound by a common fecal value to destroy the middle class. How many of you who stood in line on that fateful Tuesday realized that as your hand stuck for Hope and Change it was really the instrument of our undoing? You, as a drowning victim is to do, drug down the very voter who was attempting to save your life. Both will now drown! The very foundation of our nation-Freedom- is spent and broken.

Melvin| 6.25.09 @ 9:52AM

Living in North Carolina the former (corrupt) Governor Mike Easley rammed through NC's own version of a "Green Energy" tax err excuse me mandate to the electric cooperatives to provide x-amount of renewable energy.
North Carolinians are now receiving electricity from a wind-farms in AZ and the best part is that our electric bills went up in January of this year and the Summer surprise is that customers have been notified that our electric bills will be again rising in July to pay for this, "Green Energy."
$500.00 plus a month electric bills if this Waxman Cap and Tax bill passes will become the norm.
Mark my words there will be Americans that will be literally sitting in the dark because they will be unable to cover the huge tax increases in energy.

Old Texican| 6.25.09 @ 9:56AM

Louis...you are wrong!

I ain't spent and broken!

Most productive Americans are just now beginning to hear the sounds of the looters at our doors.
Most Americans want to just be left alone.

Most Americans have not felt the direct pain headed their way...yet.

But let's not take our eyes off the REAL ball these days. It is not Cap and trade! (We can repeal that any time and stop the bleeding.)

IT IS THE GOVERNMENT HEALTH INSURANCE SCAM THAT CAN INDENTURE EVERY ONE OF US!!!!!

DFM| 6.25.09 @ 11:03AM

During ABC-TV's infomercial, Obama talked about "the science" determining the type and extent of health care for an individual under his new health care system. Is this "science" the same type of "science" he used to determine that the earth is dying because of global warming resulting in the Waxman-Markey carbon cap and trade bill? If so, American business and industry will cease and we will all live in mud huts just like the Greens want.

Louis Jenkins| 6.25.09 @ 11:05AM

Dear (Old) Texan:
I have met and count a good many Texans as friends. They are a "bully" bunch of lads. I am glad to hear that you are not broken, but hopefully, enjoying good health. As Obamacare is at the door you, me, and everyone will need good health. But I disagree to a limited extent, once cap and trade is the law of the land it will not be repealed although it may be reduced by some future conservative government. The only way for actual repeal to occur is to clean the slate and start over. Our leaders and elected representatives, state & national, have refused to lend an ear to our distress, they even refuse to read the very legislation on which they vote "aye". ("Since you complain about the increased production of bricks requirement, you shall now have to gather the straw to make them." ) As long as taxes are levied by an in-direct method the common American will think they are being left alone. ie, our preception would be different if payroll taxes were forked over in actual cash every payday. Some of us are wide awake, but so many are still on board that ship of fools.

Robert Rosencrans| 6.25.09 @ 11:07AM

You wonder what has happened to investigative journalists in this country. Look at link 1 which may help explain Speaker Pelosi's push for this insanity.
She'll become even richer.

Then look at link 2. The EPA is hiding a study which casts doubt on Global Warming. It's the EPA's own study by someone who has been employed there for 35 years.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Pelosi-will-profit-from-Obama-Waxman-Markety-cap-and-trade-energy-bill-49034421.html
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has vowed to bring the Obama-Waxman-Markey (OWM) anti-global warming cap-and-trade energy bill to the floor for a final vote Friday, which raises an interesting question: How much money will Pelosi make if the measure becomes law, as seems quite likely?

Pelosi, of course, is not the only member of Congress to own significant shares of energy companies. Senators and representatives from all over the country do, not just the "oilies" from energy states like Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.

But as House Speaker, Pelosi's ownership of an unknown number of shares in the Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (CLNE) valued at between $15,000 and $50,000, may deserve particular attention.

Shares of CLNE have gone up and down in value in recent years, thanks to the fluctuations in the price of natural gas and changes in the oil industry worldwide. And a Pelosi spokesman told The Washington Examiner last year that her husband takes care of their stock portfolio, so she has no knowledge of how any of her family investments will be affected by any particular piece of legislation before Congress.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/EPA-Suppresses-Internal-Global-Warming-Study-CEI-Says.html
Scientific findings at odds with the Obama Administration’s views on carbon dioxide and climate change are being suppressed as a result of political pressure, officials at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) charge.
“This suppression of valid science for political reasons is beyond belief,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman. “EPA’s conduct is even more outlandish because it flies in the face of the president’s widely-touted claim that ‘the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over.’”
The agency has never made the study public or included it in official reference materials, according to CEI. As part of a recently concluded EPA public comment period on a proposed rule, CEI submitted a set four EPA emails, dated March 12-17, 2009, as evidence that the suppressed study included a critique of the agency’s global warming position.
CEI has asked EPA to make the study public and to allow public comments on it. CEI has also asked that EPA to prevent any reprisals against the study’s author who has been employed with the agency for 35 years.

Dale| 6.25.09 @ 11:23AM

It is the economy, stupid(s)! Everything we discuss should be on jobs and getting them back. Dems are anti business thus anti jobs. Jobs = revenue Taxes = no jobs

Job, Jobs, Jobs! especially today

Gill O’Teen ✝✡| 6.25.09 @ 11:49AM

It is time for all Americans to do nothing. Cap and Trade is simply a blatant theft of our treasures in order to fund the corrupt pirates in washington. But we need not play this game. All we do is as little as possible. They are counting on us to maintain our current living standards. They are not anticipating anything other than that we will continue to drive just as far, use the lights just as much, in short continue living our lives unchanged gladly handing over our money for their own use. If we all make a concerted effort to cut back on our use of any product which has its price inflated by their nefarious scheme, they will suffer an unplanned loss of revenue. Remember how much the economy suffered when the skies were cleared of aircraft for only a few days after 9/11? Look for ways to reduce your income. The less you make, the less they take. Do not participate in any activity that is heavily taxed. Don’t go to a Cubs, White Sox, Bears, Bulls or Blackhawks game, at least go to fewer. If you visit Arlington Park or Hawthorne, don’t bet the races. Don’t buy a Mega Millions, lottery or scratch-off ticket. Drink less. Cut down restaurant trips. Eat chopped steak instead of sirloin. If we each reduce our personal consumption by just 10%, we might get change instead of chains. It’s time for a Consumer Strike.

ds80| 6.25.09 @ 12:07PM

Gill O’Teen: "They are counting on us to ..."

Exactly. The looters assume, the looters take for granted our honest, productive work ethic. This is one of the central themes of "Atlas Shrugged": Loot from the producers to give to the moochers.

Well, I have "gone Galt" in a number of quiet ways: I make my own beer. I canceled cable and only get over-the-air TV. No newspaper or magazine subscriptions anymore. There's a great vegetable garden in my back yard.

Now if only zoning allowed chickens in my back yard.

Oldefarte| 6.25.09 @ 12:22PM

%%% HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!%%%%-------Obama and the liberal Democrats are sealing their fate, with their continuous stream of budget-busting and taxpayer-destroying proposals. I can't wait for 2010 and 2012 [and only pray that America will have finally WOKEN UP by that time!!!!!!!!!!!

Tony in Central PA| 6.25.09 @ 12:50PM

Perhaps a portion of the cap and trade tax can be used to fund federal welfare programs for people who lose incomes and jobs due to the cap and trade tax ?

Grzmlyk| 6.25.09 @ 12:56PM

Robert Rosencrans is right on the money.

One of my life's great ironies (I'm in the arts) is that I am surrounded by smug liberals, all of whom are brimming with puffed-up, NPR-fueled self-satisfisfaction.

They are in rapture that they've proven their "tolerance" and "diversity" bona fides by voting for a black man - never mind that he's a nullity at best. That, of course, is irrelevant to this proof of their supreme goodness.

They are convinced that their liberalism is the sword of "caring" with which they have a sacred duty to eviscerate "selfish" conservatives. The irony never dawns on these people that they and their entire world view are utterly solipsistic and self-serving - particularly when it comes to the conduct of their own lives. No, it is enough for them that they envision a world of "what if," populated with endless lollipops and unicorns and leprechauns. In their collective mind, this earnestness offsets any baser human tendencies they might (Gaia forbid) evince.

Liberalism comprises two sects: The fools and the knaves. The knaves are those who run the show and pay lip service - the politicians, the wealthy, the pop-culture elite - and they know what it's about: POWER. Me, me, me. They don't give a damn about feminism, environmentalism, social justice, or any other pet liberal cause except the extent to which these potemkin causes are levers to power.

The fools are the lemming true believers, Lenin's Useful Idiots who adamantly refuse to believe that you can't repeal the laws of human nature even in the face of all empirical evidence to the contrary. Instead, they willingly reduce themselves to the role of insensate stepping stones by which the charlatans, crooks, cynics and opportunists of every stripe ascend.

One can despair of the likes of Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Soros, and the other knaves plundering this country with impunity. But it is the awestruck fools, blinded by resentment, envy and vanity, to whom the blame belongs.

That's why I find it very difficult to have affection for any of these people who blithely voted for the Big O any more. They might be willing slaves to a cult of personality and happy tools of corruption, but they had no right to relegate me to such a role.

Grzmlyk| 6.25.09 @ 1:22PM

I don't know, Gill: I think first of all, depriving yourself of anything but subsistence is not only difficult to orchestrate en masse but also voluntarily relegating ourselves to a world of soviet-style scarcity.

Second, even if we do that, they'll just start taxing our exhalations, our footsteps, our eyeblinks, our heartbeats. There is no stopping these people.

Think about Obama's first rule of economics, which, basically, he is not trying to hide: Bush was bad because he spent too much. We are now broke. Therefore, in order to stop being broke, we must go on a spending spree that dwarfs anything Bush could have conceived - indeed, dwarfs any spending ever undertaken in the history of this country.

We no longer live in a world where logic has any bearing on policy. The inmates are indeed running the asylum.

Sadly, the Republicans have the same power disease as the Dems, which is why they're utterly feckless; in the Titanic-like shop of state, they debate the angle of attack on the iceberg - not whether it might be prudent to avoid the iceberg altogether.

Perhaps a Galt-style strike on production (as opposed to Gill's strike of consumption) would be more effective. I really do like that idea (the staving off of which is why Obama's in such a hurry to unionize all of the essential means of production).

But what we really need is a return to the simple philosophy of individual liberty and a respect for enlightened self-interest, and unfortunately, that ain't gonna happen until we have been under tyranny's bootheel for a couple of generations.

Sadly, civilizations never learn.

JerseyJ| 6.25.09 @ 1:39PM

Very well put Grzmlyk

Further to your statement "The fools are the lemming true believers, Lenin's Useful Idiots"

I would submit that the ranks of fools have been expanded considerably by those that don't even believe in anything, at least not in any "cause" per se. America now has an entire class of citizens interested only in what happens in the lives of so-called "celebrities". Those who get all their information from People magazine and Entertainment Tonight. The watchers of Oprah and J&K+8 interested only in the next BrAngolina or other such stupid combination of names coined by some clever entertainment "reporter".

These are the ones who voted for "hope" and "change" with no idea what they were "hoping" for and what was going to "change".

Lenin would have had a field day with today's version of the "Useful Idiot".

Grzmlyk| 6.25.09 @ 1:58PM

Hi JerseyJ:

It makes me uncomfortable that you are describing the woman I was dating during the election. I had assiduously avoided the topic of politics with her. Her bible is People Magazine. She thinks Jon Stewert is Edward R. Murrow and Stephen Colbert is Eric Severeid. That's the extent of her news sources.

Once the results were in, she emailed me in ecstatic rapture - she and all of our phony artsy fartsy colleagues were having a prolonged orgasm.

I had to respond as gingerly as I could that I feared Obama because I believed he was a socialist (I should have said Marxist), and that socialism is the apotheosis of bureaucracy, and that will be the death knell for American posperity.

Needless to say, that was the end of that; we argued a bit, and her final comment on the topic was, "well I only care how I feel."

Too bad. She's very pretty and sweet in her way. But class envy is the oxygen she breathes, and she actually mentioned once, on an unrelated topic, that she thinks black people are superior to white people (no doubt because they're somehow "more authentic").

And so, as one of about 63 million fools who voted for the Big O, I hold her 1/63,000,000 responsible for the destruction of this country. Which is enough to make her guilty of treason.

David J| 6.25.09 @ 2:49PM

Education Education Education
This has nothing to do with energy
It is all about power over YOU, and nothing else. Anyone with half a brain knows man does not determine or control the weather. We can't even predict weather a week out! Only government funded (so-called) scientists claim it to be true. They are frauds, and are afraid to even show up at a legitimate debate on the subject (that includes you Hanson & Gore).
This is an obvious scam for you all to see, proving how Democrats deserve to all be shot. Democrats are the real danger to society.
If civics and critical thinking were taught in American schools (at least colleges), this could not be a problem. This is about Leftists taking advantage of stupid people.
If it were really about energy
we would be building carbon-free nuclear power plants. They exist now, and work fine under all conditions. But then again, this has nothing to do with energy, does it?
As for the heaqlth care tax, everyone contact your congressperson and senators now and ask if THEY will quit their current policy and join the same policy the want to force upon the rest of us. Only allow a yes or no answer. Make sure they know and understand this will be the last term they serve in office if they vote this sham of a bill in to legislation.

JerseyJ| 6.25.09 @ 2:50PM

"well I only care how I feel."

Ah yes ... feelings. The currency of a new generation. Whatever feels good must be right. Popular culture has spawned a nation of people who do not possess the capacity or even the will to control emotion but rather are led around by it. I guess all we can do is "hope" their feelings "change" soon.

I wonder if someone 1/63,000,000 guilty of treason can be prosecuted?

Kurt| 6.25.09 @ 3:05PM

There is a cure for the ailment of the country in plain language:

Amendment XXVIII
Section 1. The sixteenth and seventeenth article of amendment to the
Constitution of the United States and the fourteenth article of
amendment, Section 1 to the Constitution of the United States are
hereby repealed.
Section 2. All persons born of persons who are citizens of the United
States and of the state wherein they reside or naturalized in the
United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of
the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall
make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive
any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor
deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been
ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the
several states, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years
from the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress.
Section 4. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article.

It will solve campaign reform, the economic crisis, reduce federal corruption and reduce unlawful
immigration.

Grzmlyk| 6.25.09 @ 3:09PM

Hi Jerseyj:

Yes, that comment was a jawdropper to me - I knew she "felt" that way, but I never thought she'd have the idiotic temerity to say it outright.

It is the ultimate indictment of her - and most liberals' - thinking process, and gave the lie to her thinking of herself as someone who always puts others first - it's REALLY all about how they view themselves.

So all of those Chrysler dealers and bondholders that were raped by the Obama govt? A small price to pay for her to pat herself on the back. It actually makes me nauseated.

I'd like to prosecute her and several of my ex-friends - some going way back - who bought into "hope and change" shamanism and worse, those who were seduced by Obama's Marxist vision.

Unfortunately, our secondary schools are simply tools of the teachers' unions (the knaves) and our colleges are in the clutches of ivory-tower leftists (the fools). So education is out, indoctrination is in. For the foreseeable future.

As for David J, I agree, but you know what H. L. Mencken said: No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

It amazes me that so many of us are whistling a happy tune even as we walk willingly to the gallows. Lambs to slaughter.

Gill O’Teen ✝✡| 6.25.09 @ 3:29PM

Grzmlyk, in your comment posted at 1:22 PM, you gave several suggestions concerning my proposed strike. Your second point that “they'll just start taxing our exhalations, our footsteps, our eyeblinks, our heartbeats”, becomes reality the moment Cap and Trade and Health Care Reform are signed into law by the fly-swatter-in-chief. A strike on production, such as you propose, will ultimately lead to the same point as my suggested strike on consumption. However, I do not nor do I desire to control any whose production has any bearing on their financial well being. I do not want to impose anything on anyone. I do want others to stop imposing on me against my will. All I can control is what I produce or use. Even if I reduce my consumption by only 10% there will be a small tear in the fabric being used by the jackasses in washington to cover our eyes. I can keep my income from rising into a new tax bracket, or I can manipulate it onto a lower rung. I do regret that by reducing consumption I might harm those who rely on my spending habits for their upkeep. Talking to my senators and congressman is a fruitless endeavor. One of my senators was one of the first to jump into obumassiah’s shark tank and my legacy congressman actually appeared at a gas station last year to promote obumassiah’s tire inflation brain freeze. Note, he did not actually check anyone’s tires, inflate any, nor did he teach anyone how to properly inflate one, but he did pass out some tax-payer funded literature. It is imperative that we do something yesterday to let the pirates of the potomac know we mean no more business as usual. 2010 will be too late. Remember the 1,000 missing merry-land millionaires (if there’s been an official explanation of their whereabouts I haven’t seen it)? That’s what I’m talking about.

Citizen222| 6.25.09 @ 3:49PM

Mystery Shopper Pelosi wouldn't bring this bill to the floor unless she had the votes. The only folks who will get BURN by this national Energy TAX will be members of congress in 2010 who vote for this bill. Never let a woman run things on Captial Hill. Women love to shop till they drop and spend money they don't have out the ying yang for worthless things they don't want. And I should know because I'm a woman and I'm just waiting for the yard sale to being on Capital Hill. The Chinese have first dibs on anything worth over Trillion in change.

Grzmlyk| 6.25.09 @ 4:02PM

Gill:

I definitely see you point - both "strikes" really do lead the same direction. As a "supply sider," I guess I focus more on production, but it's all the same.

It just galls me to think that we have to live spartan lives in order to keep money out of the maw of government.

Either way, it would be a pyrrhic victory. I'm making about half this year what I made last year and I'm actually relieved, because I got slammed last year at tax time.

It's a warped world I define success as being responsible for LESS economic activity. And it shows the ultimately suicidal nature of liberalism: As Thatcher said, eventually you run out of other people's money. The parasite eventually kills the host. Particularly when the parasite is insatiable, as is our government.

And I don't argue that the cap-and-trade bill is just an excuse for taxing our bodily functions. They will have their pound of flesh.

I love how in this health bill our intrepid congress has exempted themselves from the bureaucratic purgatory to which they've relegated us. The classic liberal mantra: One set of laws for me, another set of laws for you.

I have no doubt that it's over for the American Experiment. Frankly, any advanced country that raises an absolute cipher like Obama to the presidency deserves its fate.

My only hope is that, at some point, some of the fools wake up and realize it is they who are the authors of our demise.

But I'm not holding my breath (even though it might lower my tax burden). :-)

JerseyJ| 6.25.09 @ 4:21PM

As long as we're quoting Mencken ...

"In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell."

Seems apropos when discussing the green agenda.

All this thought of those obsessed with the monarchy we call hollywood has me wondering ... If one were to start their own "star"-watching, celebrity obsessed network which constantly peppered the public with conservative ideals between reports of whatever it was Brittany was doing at the moment and interviews with the last one voted off survivor, could this possibly bring sense to the celebritists?

What if there was a conservative media mogul type willing to put up a network or even a single show in the ET genre that promotes actual values and morals or at lest expounds the virtues of liberty and freedom alongside the horoscopes and box office figures?

Alas, I guess it's impossible. In the words of Seinfeld: "adjacent to garbage IS garbage".

Mattled| 6.25.09 @ 4:27PM

My in-laws agonize over global warming with an Al Gore Inconvenient Truth book on their coffee table.

While living in a huge house by themselves.
While driving a gas-guzzling SUV.
While taking trips to S. Africa.
While using space heaters on a porch to watch a big screen TV because they feel like it.
While driving cross country for vacations.

On and on and on.

It makes my father-in-law feel good----to feel bad.

Makes no sense. I told my spouse that I have nothing in common with them and prefer to see them less.
The response was "you just aren't politically like them".

Er, no.

They are, as all liberals are, wired differently.

They "hit the roof" when their state tax bill came this year, but put a yard sign up and voted for every lib they could.

They are hypocrites of the highest order and my spouse, when I really pressed admitted it and then went on to say my father-in-law would admit it. He had previously when I stated that Dems were one-trick-ponies---tax, tax and more tax. He admitted he liked all the programs the government creates, but he himself doesn't want to pay more tax. As a matter of fact, he limits his income (self-employed) so he doesn't get above a certain rate.

Nice to hang out with, eh?

Hypocrites. All of them.

Old Texican| 6.25.09 @ 4:27PM

Gill, Jersey, Grzmlk...
I have been sitting here reading you guys saying "woe is us".

Gentlemen that is the "night-soil of male oxen"!

All through our history as a nation, a very small minority of impassioned patriotic free men changed history...for the better. We are still here.

The Japanese and Germans thought we were "isolationists"...oops!
The Russians and Chinese thought we were "decadent and soft"....oops!

The islamists thought they could terrify us.

All they accomplished was pithing us off...and us sending them to a cave in the mountains, or killin' their arses.

Yeah, we are going to take some lumps from these traitors from both parties in Washington. Bet on it!
I must again remind us that I am on ALL their lists.

OK...to nuts and bolts:
1. Go swap some green dollars for some of those gold alloy "presidential series gold dollars".
No investment premium to pay...dollar for dollar.
(in flation has already made each one of those worth about $2)
(Don't start a run on your bank...just tell them you are giving shiney birthday gifts to the kids/grandkids)
2. Go buy a couple thousand rounds of .22 ammo for shooting small game, and /or for barter. (a BB rifle is also cheap...and BBs can kill enough birds for your family for 1 cent per week)
3. Buy a couple of hundred pounds of whole wheat flour...ansd some starter.
4. Buy a hundred pounds of dried pinto beans or red beans...or my favorite...purple hull peas. (yum)
5. Yeah, buy a couple of kerosene lamps/lanterns and a couple of gallons of lamp oil fuel.
6. Buy a gallon of clorox chlorine bleach. (3 drops purifies a gallon of water in 2 hours.)
7. get some batteries for your transistor radio and put them in the fridge until you need them.

OKOK...you get the picture. Go to amazon.com and get a survival manual for surviving nuclear war. Leave off the private arsenals, (smile), and the camo pants and hats.

Everyone is now just beginning to bellyache. Men! just wait till next spring!

We capitalists are pulling our "capital" out of the market. We are hunkering down because we don't trust the traitors.

If we productive Americans actually sit down on the job, for even a month...the "nightsoil" will indeed hit the fan and spray all over the traitors in DC.
It's like the old saying..."You can't fire ME...'cause I quit!"

DaveS| 6.25.09 @ 4:52PM

Re-do '08 election!

Suerides| 6.25.09 @ 5:49PM

Re: Lights Out article and the opinions that followed: I've never posted on this site before although I read articles from it from time to time. I wanted everyone to know who has posted today that I have never read such a high degree of intelligently written comments to this Lights Out article. Unlike so many other sites that I peruse that contain multitudes of spelling and grammatical errors and downright illiterately written opinions, I didn't find such errors here. Reading the comments was just as informative and enjoyable as the that article that preceded them.

JerseyJ| 6.25.09 @ 6:43PM

Suerides ... welcome aboard. We hope you ride along for a while. I promise not to confuse your and you're.

OT ... I didn't realize I sounded like some poor tormented soul longing to breathe free. I am anything but frankly. I try to make at least semi-intelligible posts which contribute to the general theme and, if read by those "on the fence" about our teleprompter-in-chief, will help open their eyes to the very real slide this country is taking towards Marxism. I do all I can to demonstrate the signs to those around me. I can guarantee you the average German didn't know what was in store for them, they were just promised a better life. When under the crushing oppression following WWI, hope and change must have sounded pretty good. That our current generation doesn't realize how good they have it and just how bad "bad" can be doesn't change the fact that it could happen here. My opinion, we're still a long way from needing a basement full of bottled water, but I certainly don't like what's being scribbled on the walls.

That you choose to squirrel away supplies in preparation for an extended resistance is certainly your choice. I don't share your sentiment, but that doesn't mean I'll just sit back and wait for the next assault on my liberties. If this country indeed goes the way you think it will, I can assure you someone in charge will see to it that I'm gone long before I need any beans. Either way, we're both part of the plan.

Old Texican| 6.25.09 @ 7:06PM

Hey Jersey
Enjoyed your thought.
We here in Texas are pretty sneaky too...

Yeah..the murderers know where I live.
My grandkids might survive and need to eat though.
Jersey, my wife gives children a whole new future with her magnificent work, world wide. I fly her a lot and I miss her a lot...(damn I wish I knew how to contact you pricvately!)
Ah... I got it...please call our partner in NJ and ask him for my cell number Tom at orthoremedy.
Best regards

Big J| 6.25.09 @ 7:53PM

Suerides:

I post here frequently, but could not agree with you more. Patriotism is alive and well in this country, and we will not stand for the Obamanation that is being crammed down our collective throats.

Texican: MDPS is on lay-away, found rounds as well. North of Houston. Leave a message if you are compelled to do so: www.readmycents.blogspot.com
I'll see you on the 3rd in front of the GRB.

Everyone else, this nonsense has to be stopped. JUST SAY NO!!!!!

I am over being appalled at this administration and the speed with which they are stealing our liberties. I am through being shocked that our limp-wristed panty-waist in chief has no intention of fighting the terrorists or Kim Jong Il.

Shock's over. Time to act. Call you're Congressmen / Senators and tell them what to do. Whether they are listening or not is almost irrelevant. If not, fire them next year.

If that doesn't work, then God help them.

And Us.

Rearden| 6.25.09 @ 9:41PM

Stay cool all level headed warriors. This madness cannot last and is self destructive. Sooner or later the democratic machine will destroy itself. Remember, their system DOES NOT WORK!!!

Gill O’Teen ✝✡| 6.25.09 @ 10:21PM

Big J, If I call my legacy con-gressman or worthless senators it will be to tell them where to go or where to put it - not tell them what to do. I can’t threaten them with withholding my vote since they never had it to begin with. Just a gang of looters.

suerides| 6.25.09 @ 10:49PM

I have a brother-in-law who, with his wife, have so radicalized their son (they're all raging hard left emotional liberals) that he has been talking about moving to Europe once he graduates from college (in one year). He called my husband (his uncle) up recently and had to ask him what is good about the US (for a paper he was writing in his political science class). Needless to say, my husband was appauled and said he felt sorry for him. It's not just the universities and Hollywood that are damaging our children but their parents as well....It's ironic that their vitrolic hatred of everything conservative including Bush and their cultish blind love of O. has resulted in possibly losing their son to EU. I wonder if they'll realize the cause-and-effect connection once he's gone.....

MattSwartz| 6.26.09 @ 2:16AM

Napoleon is said to have once said "when your enemy is in the midst of making a mistake, don't interrupt him".

Cap and Trade is a mistake, and I hope Pelosi's fool enough to bring it to the floor today.

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Ed| 6.26.09 @ 11:35AM

My congressional district in Northeast Ohio narrowly voted in a Democrat (Boccieri) after a Republican (Regula) retired. Boccieri will probably vote for the cap and trade bill. When the tax bills come due, and they will, I suspect that he will be toast.

Our best hope in defeating this bill is in the Senate. Senator Sherrod Brown (D - Ohio) voted against the previous version, because he had concerns about Ohio's coal, electrical power, and manufaturing indestries. I hope he does the same with this one. Ohio has a lot of coal-fired power plants, but over half of the power is sent to the East Coast. My question to the Beltway Bandits is: how much firewood do you have for this winter?

WR Jonas | 6.26.09 @ 5:31PM

Lots and lots of interesting and angry people here. I can sympathize with every one of them. However there is a reality which does not seem to dawn on people.
Some think this can be corrected politically.
Some believe this nation will self correct.
Some believe the pendulum will swing the other way.
I think none of that will happen because Liberals will not let it happen. After Al Gores defeat the Liberal establishment swore they would never relinquish power again. They have the means to see to it. They will count the votes. They will sway all opinion through the control of the press. They control the courts and the legal establishment , so don't expect to defeat them at that game . In the end they have all possibilities covered so when an election comes you will never hear about, know about or find out about the corrupt , criminal , blatant dictatorial reality they have planned for you.
They have demonstrated in just a few months how great is their power and they are ruthless in using it.
There is no hope save one which can salvage us. The reality hasn't truly sunk in yet.
God Bless America

Richard Baker| 6.26.09 @ 8:40PM

Smoot-Hawley of 2009. The revolution IS coming and America will return. Keep your powder dry.

Brickhouse| 6.27.09 @ 3:57AM

I was enjoying the posts until it became a bargain basement advertising hoopla. Skipped all the commericals....

angrytom| 6.27.09 @ 1:38PM

Any of you who think that the communists that are in power now cant be brought down by the angry mobs of millions of Americans are DEAD wrong!There is a big storm brewing and the entireWorld will stand and take note when it hits!!Our precious America has been taken over by the enemies of freedom!

central coast| 6.27.09 @ 5:41PM

I know nobody will ever read this and its Sat and the Dems have passed their bill but invite all to google carbon monozide and read for themselves and weigh their conscience if we need this bill. Is Obama an expert on "greenhouse gases?" Is Obama an expert on the "environment?" Is Obama an expert on "global warming?"
Then what motivates him, after on ly 5 months as President, and before that a "present" senator and community organizer, what is the primary motive behind his pushing his agenda.
Obama scares the crap out of me!

central coast| 6.27.09 @ 5:54PM

thats "carbon monoxide." sorry libs.

But honestly, can anyone here be honost and tell me why the taxpayers should pay more for "global warming" when we are the cleanest nation on the planet????????? Google carbon monoxide/dioxide and read for yourselves. And also Google earth same that are the true polluters. And WE SHOULD PAY FOR THEIR IGNORANCE. Our moronic environmentalists should venture outside their own political worlds and see who the real criminals are.
Doesn't matter anymore.
Obama is starting his own Batan March and anyone who missteps, god help the innocents.

central coast| 6.27.09 @ 6:05PM

My temper got the best of my grammar and spelling and I apologize.
CA is now head of the line for Obamas quest for absolute power.
Watch for him to submit a bill ot extend the "Two Term" limits so hollywood needn't wipe their mouth yet.

101st
Hill 937
"Was it worth it?"

Osamas Pajamas| 6.27.09 @ 11:14PM

So here we are with these armed scumbags intent on loading the "man-made global warming" piano on the back of the American citizen ---- this fraud, this swindle concocted by Democrats and worse ---- and we are told to just shut the fk up and grin and bear it and swallow the lies, the bad science and the propaganda.

I am an atheist. But every night I pray for a meteor to destroy Washington DC.

I recall Tiananmen Square 1989 and the 1953 East German riots, the 1956 Hungarian rebeliion, the 1968 Czechoslovakian rebellion, the more recent Rumanian removal of Ceaucescu and his wife and their hangers-on, the current riots in China and Iran, and I have these questions.

Why aren't the privately-employed taxpayers of the USA in the streets by the tens of millions, smashing-up their oppressors and overturning cars and chasing these predatory humanitarians ---- these armed devils who rule us by force and by fraud down into alleys from which there is no escape?

Where are the "heads on a stick?" Don't we even kick over the bloody coffee tables?!

Richard Baker| 6.28.09 @ 10:05AM

Carbon dioxide=product of respiration.
Carbon monoxide=product of combustion.
Unless you really do breath fire, these idiots want to ban/limit the result of breathing. Remember, these morons believe that man's presence on earth IS the problem. Eugenics is part of their Holy Writ. "Political science" to be sure.

Had Enough| 6.28.09 @ 12:48PM

Wait til they hang a CO2 monitor under your nose to tax your every breath. How's your Hope and Change working out. Mine sucks.Run these scumbags out of office. Don't just make phone calls and send e-mails get out and get ACTIVE.

ds80| 6.28.09 @ 4:11PM

MEMO to patriots

November 2010: Time to refresh the tree of liberty.

T. Jefferson

Lelani J| 6.5.11 @ 9:32AM

Racism is and always will be a problem! We should address it now.UTI Treatment