Remember back in the summer of 2008 when Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) falsely and repeatedly claimed natural gas was a “cheap alternative to fossil fuels”? Well Interior Secretary Ken Salazar did her one better this Monday when he told a public hearing in Atlantic City: The idea that wind energy has the potential to replace most of our coal-burning power today is a very real possibility. It is not technology that is pie-in-the sky; it is here and now. The AP goes on to report:
Government Controlled Life Stimulus: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 significantly grew the size and scope of government, doubling the size of federal agencies—including Education and Energy—and moving America toward a government-mandated health care system, all while placing future generations further in debt. SCHIP: The State Children’s Health Insurance Program was recently expanded to include wealthy adults in a government health care program designed for low income children. The expansion is funded by a tobacco tax paid for predominantly by the poor and dependent on future smokers. …
Yesterday the Obama administration announced that it would directly participate “from now on” in international talks with Iran over its nuclear program. These talks, supported by the Bush administration, were led by Britain, France, Germany Russia and China, but the U.S. did not participate. “There’s nothing more important than trying to convince Iran to cease its efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. The Washington Post reports this morning: “Iran offered no immediate public response to the announcement.” Oh really?
Great question by Wall Street Journal editorial page assistant editor James Freeman today: The Obama administration wants to regulate venture capital firms to prevent systemic risks. Silicon Valley residents are scratching their heads and asking: What risks? The rest of us should ask why Washington is targeting a jewel of the American economy that had nothing to do with the housing bubble.
Media Matters attacked Sean Hannity yesterday for “falsely” claiming the Obama administration is cutting the military budget and “misleadingly” clipping Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Contra, Media Matters, Hannity is correct on both counts. Cutting the Defense Budget: Media Matters notes that the current FY 2009 Pentagon budget is slightly over $513 billion and that Obama’s proposed FY 2010 budget is almost $534 billion. This makes it seem like a defense budget increase, but this isn’t an accurate comparison to make. President Bush’s FY 2009 budget projected allocating $549.8 billion in …
In just over a dozen months, the global economic recession has succeeded where decades of carbon cap and trade policies have failed: reducing global carbon emissions. The USA Today reports: From the United States to Europe to China, the global economic crisis has forced offices to close and factories to cut back. That means less use of fossil fuels such as coal to make energy. Fossil-fuel burning, which creates carbon dioxide, is the primary human contributor to global warming. A recession-driven drop in emissions “is good for the environment,” says …
Though intended to help consumers and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the ethanol mandate has done just the opposite, contributing to high food and gas prices with little environmental benefit. A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report released yesterday confirmed this: Increased use of ethanol accounted for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the rise in food prices between April 2007 and April 2008. In turn, increases in food prices will boost federal spending for mandatory nutrition programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as Food Stamps) …
On April 6, Ambassador Jeffrey S. Davidow, White House Advisor for the Summit of the Americas, said very plainly: “It would be unfortunate if the principal theme of [the Summit of the Americas] turned out to be Cuba. As I’ve told you, I think there are a lot of very important issues that warrant discussion, whether it’s the economic issue, social inclusion, the environment, public safety. We would prefer, obviously, to focus on what we have been preparing for, but there is no effort on our part to try to …
In economics, one of the first lessons is that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But what the federal government has been doing to the nuclear energy industry and the nuclear energy ratepayers is just about the closest one can get to a free lunch. Charged with managing nuclear waste in the United States, the federal government has not collected one atom of spent nuclear fuel. Instead, the government has collected a whole lot of money. About $30 billion from U.S. nuclear-power ratepayers. Fed up, states governments are …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yREOUxo6Qdc[/youtube] Stop Spending Our Future.
