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Quotes Page One: 2009

Economics..."It is painfully obvious that government intervention in the housing markets over the past several years has been at the heart of the boom and bust that has led to this huge economic downturn.
It was not the market, but the government, that pushed for abandoning traditional standards for making mortgage loans. That was what got both borrowers and lenders way out on a limb -- and set off economic shock waves when the limb broke."
Dr. Thomas Sowell: The Hoover Institute (Posted at Human Events Online)
Copyright © 2009 HUMAN EVENTS.
All Rights Reserved.

Politics..."The Republican party cannot rebuild it's power by being Democrat-lite."
Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida, in an Interview with NewsMax after the 2008 election. Copyright © 2009 NewsMax. All Rights Reserved.

National Security...“Once they get here and they’re faced with the same problems we deal with every day, then they will appreciate some of the things we've put in place.
We did not exceed our constitutional authority, as some have suggested.
The President believes, I believe very deeply, in a strong executive, and I think that's essential in this day and age. And I think the Obama administration is not likely to cede that authority back to the Congress.
I think they'll find that given a challenge they face, they'll need all the authority they can muster.” Former Vice President Dick Cheney on the Rush Limbaugh Show. Posted at Politico: Capitol News. Copyright © 2009 HUMAN EVENTS.
All Rights Reserved.
Note: Although the Economist magazine supported Obama...the magazine did point out the worrisome situation of Obama's inexperience and how that could make him an easy prey for the relentless, power-hungry liberal Democrats now controlling both houses of Congress. If the stimulus scenario is any indication, it would appear that the Economist is already right on that point. We hope (and pray) at least, perhaps national security will not be handled with such regressive and mischaracterized policies. LBP

Education..."Use money as a lever for better results"..."To understand the problem with the stimulus bill, it helps to focus on specific items...President Obama says education spending belongs in the stimulus because it will help the economy in the long-term. Fair enough.
But if the goal is to increase productivity, lawmakers need to use the money as a lever for better results. Simply doubling or tripling the amounts for states to spend on the same failing schools isn't going to produce different outcomes....The $142 billion is little more than a huge stimulus to the teachers unions and lousy school districts to keep doing exactly what they've been doing." Wall Street Journal REVIEW & COMMENT.
Copyright © 2009 Dow Jones. All Rights Reserved.
"...levers for better results." That is a concept liberals simply do not believe in regarding education. No matter who is President, as long as liberals misunderstand and rhetorically misrepresent the value of accountability and freedom of choice in education, the longer American students will remain far behind the new international standards, especially in math and science,that other countries currently set. LBP

The "Stimulus" Package... "Make no mistake - the Democrats in Congress are focused on pushing through this big government program. They used their majority in the Senate to end debate on the stimulus bill. And they seem deaf to the Republican Leader's suggestion that the goals of this bill can be achieved at half the cost - they just don't want to hear it. Independent researchers at the Congressional Budget Office have found that this bill does nothing more than burden our children with unprecedented levels of debt. The bill discourages private investment and would depress economic growth beyond 2011."
Senator John Cornyn: Chairman, Republican Senatorial Committee.
Note: While we were still working on our redesigned site, the so-called Reid-Obama-Pelosi budget was making its way through the Senate where conservative Senate Republicans were trying to get some of their ideas and amendments heard and considered for inclusion. From what we have read so far about the new budget in conjunction with the so-called stimulus package, even just a few conservative ideas or amendments could serve as a fiscally needed exercise, an economic version of 21st Century Damage Control. LBP

The Obama stimulus plan ruins welfare reform..."A major public policy success, welfare reform in the mid-1990s led to a dramatic reduction in welfare dependency and child poverty. This successful reform, however is now in jeopardy. Little noted provisions in the U.S. House stimulus bills actually abolish this historic reform. In addition, the stimulus bills will add nearly $800 billion in new means-tested welfare spending over the next decade...In the first year after enactment of the stimulus bill welfare spending will explode upward by more than 20 percent, rising from $491 billion in FY 2008 to $601 billion in FY 2009...In reality, the stimulus bill is a welfare spendathon, a massive down payment on Obama's promise to "spread the wealth." Robert Rector and Kathleen Bradley: The Heritage Foundation.
Copyright © 2009 Heritage Foundation.
All Rights Reserved.
Note:The rush to sign the incomprehensibly expensive stimulus package into law is nothing more than a tactic to keep the American people in the dark as to the real content. Click the link and read how the states are, like before welfare reform, being provided a generous incentive to report more means-tested people for welfare payments. LBP

The TV Generation..."At this point it is hard to know the cure, but the symptoms of the disease are everywhere. Our public education system has failed to teach our children the basics of how and why this nation was formed. In fact, it has spent so much time teaching them politically correct but inaccurate information that we now have a generation that knows what to think but not how to think. Consequently, we now have the most ignorant electorate in the history of American elections.
Now we stand at the precipice, ready to plunge headlong into the same socialist abyss that has swallowed so much of the world. No one can seriously believe that Obama’s plans for this economy are going to succeed. And meanwhile, his radical beliefs with regard to national security, the sanctity of life, and traditional marriage threaten what is left of our moral fiber. Doug Patton: Senior writer for GOPUSA. Posted at Human Events Online. Copyright © 2009 HUMAN EVENTS.
All Rights Reserved.

"The welfare bureaucrats are coming back" ... "For half a century, the welfare establishment had the bright idea to pay women to have children out of wedlock. Following the iron laws of economics -- subsidize something, you get more of it; tax it, you get less of it -- the number of children being born out of wedlock skyrocketed.
The 1996 Welfare Reform bill marked the first time any government entitlement had ever been rolled back. Despite liberal howling and foot-stomping, not subsidizing illegitimacy led, like night into day, to less illegitimacy.
Welfare recipients got jobs, as the hard-core unemployables were coaxed away from their TV sets and into the workforce. For the first time in decades, the ever-increasing illegitimacy rate stopped spiraling upward.
As proof that that welfare reform was a smashing success, a few years later, Bill Clinton started claiming full credit for the bill.
Well, that's over. The stimulus bill goes a long way toward repealing the work requirement of the 1996 Republican Welfare Reform bill and rewards states that increase their welfare caseloads by paying unwed mothers to sit home doing nothing...With the stimulus bill, liberals plan to move unfirable government workers into every activity in America, where they will superintend all aspects of our lives." Ann Coulter: Human Events Online. From her essay "Goodbye America, It was fun while it lasted." Copyright © 2009 Ann Coulter. All Rights Reserved.

"Log Cabin made of straw"...
"According to a press release from the pro-gay "marriage" group, Log Cabin Republicans, one of the first stops for the newly elected Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), Congressman Pete Sessions (R-Texas), was the fundraising dinner for the homosexual organization.
The release states that Representative Sessions said that the GOP cannot win elections and reach out to voters if it continues to oppose the issues that Log Cabin stands for, presumably including same-sex "marriage."
My team sought clarification from Sessions' office and was told he did speak to the Log Cabin group, but that a copy of his remarks was not available.
If the Log Cabin portrayal is true, it is disturbing on a number of accounts.
One, Sessions' new position as the head of the NRCC is to train and recruit new candidates for the Republican Party. If this is his idea of "campaign advice" then the Republicans better prepare for a longer term in the minority than they faced prior to 1994." Tony Perkins: Family Research Council. Copyright © 2009 Family Research Council. All Rights Reserved.
Note: Note: For several years this website has stated that we do not believe that Republicans have to move left of center in order to be elected. That is a false hope Republicans have harbored for a long time. That was the main reason we voted for Pat Buchanan in a 1996 Republican Primary. And we still believe that today. The difference between hope and a false hope is: If you jump in a lake with a 100 pound weight attached to your leg and hope or believe you can swim without removing the weight, then you are maintaining a false hope. But if you jump in the lake as you are without the weight attached to your leg, hoping or believing you can swim to shore, then at least, your hope is real. LBP

Foreign Policy...Making America's Foreign Policy America's Foreign Apology isn't going to get the job done...Few of the potentates of the press have even bothered to report on the national security set-backs and missed opportunities that the “Ready On Day One” crowd has already delivered. Unfortunately for the new administration, few of these reversals can be blamed on their predecessors.

Since becoming president, Mr. Obama has repeatedly pledged a “new era of cooperation” with the rest of the world. Presumably this means that the U.S. isn’t going to play the part of “superpower” any more. It now appears that there are those who aim to test his sincerity – and do so in ways that are not at all in our national interests.

Last week, Pakistan -- which Mr. Obama offered to bomb during his campaign -- responded to the new “kinder and gentler” overtures from Washington by releasing from detention, the world’s most notorious nuclear proliferator, Dr. A.Q. Khan. After masterminding Islamabad’s nuclear weapons program, Dr. Khan used his “network” to help Libya, North Korea and Iran acquire nuclear weapons technology and components. He’s been under “house arrest” since 2004 when Bush administration WMD sleuths and quiet diplomacy convinced Muammar Ghadaffi to reveal his supplier. That was then and this is now. Just to make sure we -- and the U.N.’s toothless International Atomic Energy Agency -- got the message, the Pakistanis made it clear that Dr. Khan is now “free to travel” and resume his “research.” Colonel Oliver North: Human Events Online. From his essay "Failure to Launch."
Copyright © 2009 HUMAN EVENTS.
All Rights Reserved.

Activist judges: Keep them off the battlefield...A U.S. appeals court reversed a ruling Wednesday that would have transferred 17 Guantanamo Bay detainees, none of whom are labeled enemy combatants, to the United States.

The ruling casts further uncertainty on the fate of the Turkic-speaking Muslims from western China. Because there is no evidence they plotted or fought against the United States, the government has no authority to hold them at Guantanamo Bay, but deciding what to do with the men has been a diplomatic problem for years.

The military says the men have ties to a militant group that demands separation from China. The United States will not release the Uighurs to their home for fear they will be tortured. Earlier this month, Beijing warned other countries not to accept the men, creating a diplomatic roadblock to President Barack Obama's plan to close the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year. U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled in October that, since they are not enemy combatants, the Uighurs must be released to the United States. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned that ruling.

Only the executive branch, not the courts, can make decisions about immigration, the appeals court said. That fact doesn't change, the court said, simply because the United States has held the men for years without charge.

"Such sentiments, however high-minded, do not represent a legal basis for upsetting settled law and overriding the prerogatives of the political branches," Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote. Associated Press via Yahoo News.
Copyright © 2009 Associated Press and Yahoo News. All Rights Reserved.

As it turns out, freedom really is a powerful incentive...Iran appears to have suffered a setback in last weekend's Iraqi elections, with Tehran's closest allies losing key races in what suggests a public backlash to what many Iraqis see as undue Iranian influence in their country.

That would represent a surprising reversal for Shiite-led Iran, which had seemed the big winner in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime and empowered Iraq's majority Shiites.

Western and Arab analysts had long feared that a Shiite-governed Iraq would inevitably fall under the sway of its far larger Shiite neighbor, enabling the Iranians to expand their influence westward into the heart of the Middle East.

The two countries maintain close commercial and cultural ties — from Iranian consumer goods in the markets of Basra and Najaf in southern Iraq to the tens of thousands of Iranian pilgrims who visit Shiite religious sites here every year.

But Saturday's regional elections indicate that Iraqi nationalism trumped religious sentiments and that Iran's ability to influence policies in Iraq has its limits, even if Shiites dominate the government here for years to come.

The big issues in the campaign were local — garbage collection, housing shortages, political corruption, unclean water. Beneath the surface, however, was an undertone of anti-Iranianism. Some candidates even in the Shiite south told voters they were "100 percent Iraqi." Associated Press via Yahoo News
Copyright © 2009 Associated Press and Yahoo News. All Rights Reserved.

Note: While the Iraq war, as we have followed it since 2003, enters another progressive phase toward sovereign stability thanks to the orchestrated surge and the brilliant, level-headed leadership of General David Petreus, there is a lot this website is going to post regarding Iraq between now and the end of 2009.
Stay tuned.

Quotes Page Two: 2009

Toward Higher Ground...Dwight Eisenhower reportedly admitted that he made two big mistakes as president: his two appointments to the Supreme Court, Earl Warren and William Brennan. One day, it might be said that George W. Bush got two things right as president: his two appointments to the Supreme Court, John Roberts and Sam Alito.
By the end of June, Roberts and Alito could deliver knockout punches to liberal foolishness...last week, the Supreme Court reviewed a Ninth Circuit decision that had ruled in favor of "checkoffs" for public employees to contribute to political activities. Idaho law prohibited government employers such as cities and school districts from facilitating political contributions through employee "checkoffs," which automatically funnel a portion of taxpayer-funded salaries to leftist causes.

Much is at stake if public schools are allowed to enhance the political power of unions by facilitating, at taxpayer expense, contributions to political activities. The American people do not want a partisan government to be diverting even more money into liberal candidates' campaign coffers.

Chief Justice Roberts persuasively wrote in favor of Idaho's ban on government-facilitated politicking and, joined by four other justices, reversed the Ninth Circuit in Ysursa v. Pocatello Education Association. Only three justices dissented.

Roberts held that "Idaho's law does not restrict political speech, but rather declines to promote that speech by allowing public employee check-offs for political activities. Such a decision is reasonable in light of the state's interest in avoiding the appearance that carrying out the public's business is tainted by partisan political activity."

This marvelous opinion limits abusive campaign fundraising by public unions and reflects how Roberts has "grown" to begin to realize his potential. In his first few years, he seemed more intent on diluting his opinions to appease the liberal wing of the court, but now Roberts is writing forceful opinions based on legal principles, regardless of whether all agree. Phyllis Schlafly: Human Events Online.

Toward Lower Ground...Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently said that John Roberts misled the Senate during his confirmation hearings. Reid said that Roberts pretended to be a moderate. — and that the United States is now “stuck” with him as chief justice.
Reid said: “Roberts didn’t tell us the truth. At least Alito told us who he was,” Reid said, referring to Samuel Alito, the second Supreme Court justice nominated by President George W. Bush. “But we’re stuck with those two young men, and we’ll try to change by having some moderates in the federal courts system as time goes on — I think that will happen.”

Although Reid said that Democrats will try to put moderates on the bench, he said he will not try to deny Republicans the right to filibuster nominees. In 2005, then-Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened to eliminate the filibuster, sparking a furious reaction by Reid and other Democrats who said the so-called nuclear option would quash the rights of the minority.

“As I said at the time, the nuclear option was the most important issue I’ve ever worked on in my entire career, because if that had gone forward it would have destroyed the Senate as we know it,” Reid said.

“If the Republicans want to filibuster a judge, that is directly contrary to what their political philosophy was, but I guess it’s all subject to change,” he added.
Source: Politico and Yahoo News.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Note: This is the same rhetorical tactic that New York Senator Charles Schumer tried against Justice Alito. You can read just about exactly the same argument directed at Justice Alito by a liberal in the left hand column on the Damage Control page of this website. To read only the column that refers to Senator Schumer's attack on Justice Alito, click here: The Liberal Echo Machine.
Senator Reid is doing nothing more than reacting to Chief Justice John Robert's intelligent ruling against what Ms Schlafly correctly called "government-facilitated politicking" as highlighted in the left hand column "Toward Higher Ground" on this page. Senator Reid is too smart to appear defending such an obvious Democrat power grab via the courts, so to strike back, he uses an oblique and unrelated criticism of the Chief Justice. LBP

Brilliant..."What is so strange about being honest and saying, 'I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation?' Why would I want that to succeed?"
Rush Limbaugh in a recent speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee.
Note: This childish, liberal orchestrated communication sitcom surrounding Mr. Limbaugh's remark is regretfully the "entertaining" part. Republicans make a mistake of validating the purpose by trying to counter the tactic. Pointing out though, that it is intended to be a distraction from the dangerous spending spree (aka Stimulus Package) is correct and that's the point. LBP

Standard Liberal Procedure: Policy Shell Games..."On March 31, Chairman Henry Waxman (D–CA) of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Chairman Edward Markey (D–MA) of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee introduced draft legislation that includes clean energy investment, energy efficiency mandates, a cap-and-trade program, and protectionist policies that will supposedly help the consumer cope with higher energy prices.
Presented as a comprehensive energy bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES) offers nothing more than subsidies and mandates for unsuccessful, unproven energy sources coupled with taxes on reliable energy sources that falsely claim to stimulate the economy by investing in clean technology and creating green jobs. This government-centric approach will destroy jobs and drive up energy prices for years to come."
"The 2009 Energy Bill: Anti Market and Anti Consumer" by Nicholas Lorris and Ben Liberman. A Heritage Foundation WebMemo posted at Human Events Online.

Understanding strategic value... "Every state, like every community in the United States, comes to Congress with its list of infrastructure needs. Alaska is going to join every other state with a governor's list. In fact, I've looked at every other governor's list of infrastructure needs that's presented to Congress. It's up to Congress, because Congress holds the purse strings, to decide how some of those projects are going to be funded.
Alaska's projects are going to be in the nation's best interests. They will be infrastructure that will build gas lines and build that infrastructure up, and that will lead to energy productions that will allow us to become energy independent."
Sarah Palin Governor of Alaska: From an interview with Human Events following Palin's selection as the Human Events Conservative of the Year.

The Liberal mind at work...While members of the right and left try to dissuade him, the President is digging in his heels on a plan that could have a catastrophic effect on American philanthropy. As part of his budget, the White House has insisted that Congress reduce the tax deductions for upper-income givers. In his press conference last month, the President tried to frame the idea as a way to soak the upper class. "...This provision would affect about one percent of the American people."

Even if his estimate were true, that "one percent" makes almost half of all charitable contributions, Dick Morris points out in a recent op-ed. "This proposal is not about saving money," Morris writes. "It is about controlling it." The President is so busy spinning the plan as punishment for wealthy Americans that he has completely--and intentionally--ignored the devastation this would do to the charities themselves.

"There's very little evidence," the President said, "that this has a significant impact on charitable giving." The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University begs to differ. By their calculations, the highest-income households would decrease their giving by a whopping $3.87 billion! Make no mistake. The impact of this plan is to starve churches and other nonprofits that actually help the poor and replace them with ineffective (and liberal) government programs. It's an idea so fundamentally un-American that each of us should be raising our voices in opposition. Tony Perkins: Family Research Council.

The United States Armed Forces is not a Social Engineering Lab...House Democrats have reintroduced legislation to repeal the 1993 law banning gays from serving openly in the military. But this time it could be for keeps. President Obama and the Democrat Congress may have the votes and the political will to lift the ban which will seriously handicap our warriors.
Today’s culture won’t resist lifting the ban primarily because it is ignorant about what makes an effective fighting force and has become naively sympathetic to the larger gay-lesbian-transsexual political agenda.
I was part of the process that helped craft the law and DADT. In January 1993, I joined the Army Chief of Staff’s study group which considered the implications for the service of lifting the ban and then advised senior Army leaders and the secretary of defense’s military working group (MWG).
On March 2nd, Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), who represents part of the San Francisco bay area, introduced the Military Enhancement Readiness Act (MREA), which would repeal the ban.
Tauscher supports repealing the ban because it is “… a discriminatory policy that runs counter to the most fundamental American values of patriotism and equality.”
This statement demonstrates Tauscher’s ignorance. Certainly she, as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, understands the military must discriminate on many bases in order to maintain combat readiness and effectiveness.
That basic “discrimination” is reflected in the fact that only four in ten young Americans qualify for service under the military’s other requirements. The congresswoman should also understand that military readiness is a complex formulation of numerous factors: medical, recruiting, equipment serviceability and more.
The presence of homosexuals in forced intimate situations illustrates the polarization problem. Forcing heterosexuals to accept gays in intimate situations is an unacceptable invasion of their privacy. It fragments trust and confidence. Robert Maginnis is a retired Army lieutenant colonel, a national security and foreign affairs analyst for radio and television and a senior strategist with the U.S. Army. You can read his complete essay at Human Events Online.

"Has Obama no more imaginative ideas for government's role in reshaping the economy for the 21st century than this?"...Why would Barack wager his presidency on a gamble that, by handing over hundreds of billions in borrowed federal money, to spare governors and mayors the consequences of their own profligacy, he can remake the American economy and ignite a real recovery?

What are the fundamental objections to the Obama-Pelosi plan?

It is three parts social spending to one part stimulus. It takes too long to work. It represents a permanent not temporary expansion of government.

It is too much LBJ, who bet the ranch on spending and failed, and not enough JFK, who bet on tax reductions that succeeded.
Even Bill Clinton would not have ceded so much to the tax-and-spend wing of his party, which he relied on for votes, not advice.

Has Obama no more imaginative ideas for government's role in reshaping the economy for the 21st century than this? Was it all talk all along, to prepare the way for a return to the days of spend and spend?

Sad, because this is likely to be Obama's last shot at getting this economy on its feet and running by 2010. For Americans are not as patient as they were in the 1930s, when FDR could try one idea, then another, then another for five years, and continue to roll up massive electoral victories.

If Obama gets this one wrong, and all this pork and welfare fail to generate real growth, his party could face a wipeout in 2010, and his opportunity could be lost forever. Does he really want to bet the farm on the nag Nancy Pelosi just trotted out of the House?" Pat Buchanan: Human Events Online.

"Between the idea and the reality, falls the shadow..." "A half century ago, the United States was an industrial colossus -- a great monument to the productive potential of a free people. Moreover, with the advent of safe, abundant, and astonishingly inexpensive nuclear energy coupled with initial rapid advances in micro science and engineering, America was poised for another, even more spectacular era of advance. If this advance had been allowed to take place, Americans could have led all of the world's people into a wonderful period of progress and prosperity, orders of magnitude beyond anything the world has ever known -- and, as things stand now, may ever know.
While we see around us bits and pieces of the possible technological advance that survived, most of the new world beyond the door that opened to mankind during that period is now hidden from us. The door closed before we could pass through it.
Not only did we fail to advance, but we slid backwards. Our astronauts retreated from the moon to hover in near earth orbit. Our industries shrank. Our energy system decayed until we could not even produce sufficient energy for our reduced industry. Our medicine stagnated and yet required more and more of our resources to maintain in even its primitive condition." Dr. Arthur Robinson is President and Research Professor of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Headline Quote from a poem by T.S. Eliot: The Hollow Men. Mr. Robinson's essay can be read at Human Events Online.

As absurd as Senator Patrick Leahy's "Truth Commission" idea...
“To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan”
The Department of Veterans Affairs claims this is their “mission.” The slogan -- extracted from the last paragraph of Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address -- is proudly inscribed on a metal plaque at the entrance of the VA headquarters in Washington.
"The Obama Administration made a mockery of this pledge by proposing to charge veterans’ private insurance companies for treatment of service-connected injuries, wounds or sickness. Had the White House not rescinded this immoral and unethical proposal, the VA could have been sued for false advertising.
The “O-Team” claimed that charging veterans’ private insurers for service-connected medical care would have “saved” $540 million. How they concocted this number is anyone’s guess -- but the affront offers a window into the kind of “thinking” going on in this administration.
It also started a wildfire among America’s vets.
Some described the proposal as part of “a conspiracy against our military.” Veteran’s blogs cited administration deliberations on allowing U.S. military personnel to be prosecuted by the UN International Criminal Court, talk of allowing practicing homosexuals into the Armed Forces and deep cuts in defense spending in the midst of a war as part of a pattern of anti-military bias.
Whether it is malevolence, ideology or incompetence that is driving these strategies -- none of this helps recruiting or retaining the brightest, best educated, trained, led and equipped military force the world has ever seen.
Had this ploy worked, the new recruiting pitch to some bright young person about to graduate from high school would have to include the warning: “If you are wounded in the service to your country, we’re going to make you pay for any medical care you receive after we get you off the battlefield.” Colonel Oliver North: Human Events Online. From his essay "The Burden of Battle."

Quotes Page Three:2009

Toward Higher Ground...
Energy Leadership
"In a volatile world with growing energy needs, the time is now to develop Alaska's valuable resource for the environment, economy and national security"..."Once construction begins, Alaska will experience economic growth not seen in over a generation, including potentially thousands of jobs created through construction of an open-access pipeline, as well as significant revenues generated from the production and sale of the gas."
For TransCanada and ExxonMobil, the alignment provides a mutual benefit by bringing together the key skills
of two world-class companies to effectively advance a project of maximum value and mutual benefit.
For other producer and explorer companies, this project ensures their discovered resources can be
transported to market, and at the lowest reasonable transportation cost.
For America, this announcement means an affordable and clean source of energy is on its way and that, as a nation, we are much closer to domestic energy independence. “ExxonMobil recognizes that the State of Alaska has set a course for commercializing the North Slope’s trillions of cubic feet of known natural gas reserves,” the governor said.
“By recognizing the value of Alaska’s relationship with TransCanada, ExxonMobil has made a strategic
decision that I believe makes good sense. Alaskans will also be pleased to know that TransCanada’s obligations to the state as the AGIA licensee are 100 percent intact and unaltered by this alignment with ExxonMobil.”
From a Press Release via Alaska Governor Sarah Palin earlier this month in Dallas announcing the agreement between Exxon Mobil and TransCanada to move the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) forward. To read the full story from the Governor's official website click here. You can also read Governor Palin's 2009 State of the State address as our lead item at the 2012 section of this website.

A Wake Up Call...
"No One Knows What You're Talking About"
A Rasmussen poll released in May showed that only 24% of Americans know what Cap & Trade is.
How can Republicans convince voters that cap and trade drives up energy bills when (according to Rasmussen) about 29% believe cap and trade is a Wall Street regulation issue...when 17% think the term applies to health care reform...and 30% have no idea?
From commentary by Michelle Oddis: Human Events

Note: The best the President of the United States can do so far is to promote a piece of non-energy producing legislation known as Cap & Trade. Cap & Trade is really nothing more than your liberal's dream of more government control via a deceptively crafted taxing scheme.
As Ms Oddis noted: Cap and Trade is "An environmental policy that puts a mandatory cap or limit on the amount of pollutants that can be emitted by a company or group through a credit allowance system. That company or group can later sell/trade those credits if they emit less of their allotted amount of pollutants to companies who pollute more."
Note: To learn more about energy and issues like Cap & Trade, you can read an interview with Exxon Mobil VP Michael Dolan at the 2012 section of this website.

The "Cap & Trade" scam...
"This week Congress is set to release the details of the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act, a bill that purports to combat global warming by setting strict limits on carbon emissions. I'm not a candidate for any office -- now or ever again -- and I've approached the "climate change" debate with an open-mind.
But it's clear to me that the nation, and in particular Indiana, my home state, will be terribly disserved by this cap-and-trade policy on the verge of passage in the House. The largest scientific and economic questions are being addressed by others, so I will confine myself to reporting about how all this looks from the receiving end of the taxes, restrictions and mandates Congress is now proposing.

Quite simply, it looks like imperialism. This bill would impose enormous taxes and restrictions on free commerce by wealthy but faltering powers -- California, Massachusetts and New York -- seeking to exploit politically weaker colonies in order to prop up their own decaying economies.
Because proceeds from their new taxes, levied mostly on us, will be spent on their social programs while negatively impacting our economy, we Hoosiers decline to submit meekly.
The Waxman-Markey legislation would more than double electricity bills in Indiana. Years of reform in taxation, regulation and infrastructure-building would be largely erased at a stroke. In recent years, Indiana has led the nation in capturing international investment, repatriating dollars spent on foreign goods or oil and employing Americans with them. Waxman-Markey seems designed to reverse that flow.
Our state's share of national income has been slipping for decades, but it is offset in part by living costs some 8% lower than the national average. Doubled utility bills for low-income Hoosiers would be an especially cruel consequence of the Waxman bill.
Forgive us for not being impressed at danglings of welfare-like repayments to some of those still employed, with some fraction of the dollars extracted from our state.

And for what? No honest estimate pretends to suggest that a U.S. cap-and-trade regime will move the world's thermometer by so much as a tenth of a degree a half century from now. My fellow citizens are being ordered to accept impoverishment for a policy that won't save a single polar bear.
We are told that although China, India and others show no signs of joining in this dismal process, we will eventually induce their participation by "setting an example." Watching the impending indigence of the Midwest, and the flow of jobs from our shores to theirs, our friends in Asia and the Third World are far more likely to choose any other path but ours.

Politicians in Washington speak of a reawakened appreciation for manufacturing and American competitiveness. But under their policy, those who make real products will suffer. Already we observe the piranha swarm of green lobbyists wangling special exemptions, subsidies and side deals. The ordinary Hoosier was not invited to this party, and can expect at most only table scraps at the service entrance.

No one in Indiana is arguing for the status quo: Hoosiers have been eager to pursue a new energy future. We rocketed from nowhere to national leadership in biofuels production in the last four years. We were the No. 1 state in the growth of wind power in 2008. And we have embarked on an aggressive energy-conservation program, indubitably the most cost-effective means of limiting CO2.

Most importantly, we are out to be the world leader in making clean coal -- including the potential for carbon capture and sequestration. The world's first commercial-scale clean coal power plant is under construction in our state, and the first modern coal-to-natural gas plant is coming right behind it. We eagerly accept the responsibility to develop alternatives to the punitive, inequitable taxation of cap and trade.

Our president has commendably committed himself to "government that works." But his imperial climate-change policy is government that cannot work, and we humble colonials out here in the provinces have no choice but to petition for relief from the Crown's impositions."

Mitch Daniels is a Republican and the governor of Indiana .
This commentary was Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A11.
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Note: Regarding Mr. Daniels sarcastic references to "the Crown" and imperialistic socialism... We have said on this website many times that we correctly believe that liberal policy making in just about every area is designed to fail...While keeping those under the policy in a subservient position needing salvation from the power of the modern-day liberal Democrats. "Cap & Trade" and "Hate Crimes" legislation are both good examples.
Hate Crimes legislation is absolutely pointless and unnecessary in the everyday world. It is a front, a social engineering power grab, nothing more, as it is based on the dramatization of victimizing perception that will be allowed to criminalize so much as a facial expression or a wisecrack, rather than reality. As I said somewhere else on this website, the Hate Crimes legislation is informed by the Designer Label mentality.

"One Bad Apple v. The Rest of the Barrel"..."God save us from liberal "empathy."
After President Barack Obama announced his empathetic Supreme Court nominee this week, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, we found out that some people are more deserving of empathy than others.

For example, Judge Sotomayor apparently "empathized" more with New Haven, Connecticut government officials than with white and Hispanic firefighters who were denied promotions by the city on the basis of their race.
In the now-famous firefighters' case, Ricci v. DeStefano, the New Haven Fire Department administered a civil service exam to choose a new batch of lieutenants and captains. The city went so far as to hire an outside consultant to design the test in order to ensure that it was job-related and not racially biased. (You know, just like all written tests were pre-screened for racial bias back when we were in school.)

But when the results came in, only whites and Hispanics scored high enough to earn promotions.

Such results never entice Democrats to reconsider their undying devotion to the teachers' unions that routinely produce students who can't read, write or do basic math. Obviously, disadvantaged children from single-parent homes suffer the most from inadequate public schools -- and their tragic outcome bedevils the entire society for the rest of the students' lives.
So naturally, New Haven city officials decided to scrap the exam results and promote no one.

Seventeen of the high-scoring whites and one high-scoring Hispanic sued the mayor, John DeStefano, and other city officials for denying them promotions solely because of their race.

The district court ruled that there was no race discrimination because the low-scoring blacks were not given promotions either -- citing the landmark case, One Bad Apple v. The Rest of the Barrel. (That's the sort of sophistry we're taught in law school.)

Concerned that Sotomayor's famed "empathy" might not shine through in cases such as Ricci v. DeStefano, the Democrats are claiming -- as Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said on MSNBC -- that she was merely applying "precedent" to decide the case. You know, just like conservatives say judges should.

This was an interesting claim, in the sense that it was the exact polar opposite of the truth.

To be sure, there is "precedent" for racial discrimination by the government, but Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned in 1954 by Brown v. Board of Education. If Sotomayor had another case in mind, she wasn't telling: The lower court's dismissal of the firefighters' case was upheld by Sotomayor and two other judges in an unsigned, unpublished opinion, titled, "Talk to the Hand."
Not only that, but Sotomayor's fellow Clinton appointee, Jose Cabranes (who sounds like an "empathetic" fellow), issued a blistering dissent from the appellate court's denial of a rehearing specifically on the grounds that the case "raises important questions of first impression in our Circuit -- and indeed, in the nation."

A "case of first impression" means there's no precedent. If there were a precedent, it would be a case of, at least, "second impression."
But all liberals only have empathy for the exact same victims -- always the ones that are represented by powerful liberal interest groups. As Joe Sobran says, it takes a lot of clout to be a victim.

Thus, the media and Democrats seem to find successful Hispanic attorney Sotomayor much more "empathetic" than successful Hispanic attorney Miguel Estrada.

After aggressively blocking Estrada's nomination to a federal appeals court during Bush's first term solely on the grounds that he is Hispanic and was likely headed for the Supreme Court -- according to Senate Democrat staff memos -- now Democrats have the audacity to rave that Sotomayor will be the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice!
If Sotomayor is not more empathetic than Estrada, liberals at least consider her more Hispanic -- an interesting conclusion inasmuch as Sotomayor was born in New York and Estrada was born in Honduras.

Forty-four of 48 Senate Democrats voted to filibuster Estrada's nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, with congressman and professional Hispanic Raul Grijalva assuring them that just because "he happens to be named 'Estrada' does not give him a free ride."

Ann Coulter is Legal Affairs Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS. These excerpts are from her essay titled: "I Feel Your Pain. Not Theirs. Yours" Posted on May 27, 2009.
Copyright © 2009 Ann Coulter. All Rights Reserved.
Note: Ann is right. Ethnic pride incorporated into an accomplishment is natural, yet vastly different from incorporating ethnic pride into a judicial decision.
Judge Sotomayer does give the impression that she knows the difference, but is obviously willing to disguise judicial activism with what the mainstream media and the White House might try to present as new foundations for Constitutional meanings that still do not exist regardless of ethnic pride.
The President's guidelines for selecting an associate justice for nomination also gives the impression Sotomayer could be emboldened to exercise the type of judicial activism the President has in mind merely to advance a political agenda at the Supreme Court level.
The reasons why Sotomayer was nominated are some of the reasons why Republicans need to regain the people's confidence ASAP so that in January 2011 there is a stronger, proactive conservative presence in the legislative branch of government.

Forcing "Cap & Trade" on the American people is like when the Egyptians were told to make bricks without stray...
"As U.S. government authorities debate “cap-and-trade,” a gigantic new tax and rationing burden with which
they plan to further hobble American coal, oil, and natural gas technology, consider for a moment the qualifications and accomplishments of the lawyers, bureaucrats, and now community organizers who have gradually displaced, as energy “decision makers,” the engineers and industrialists who built America’s
energy industries.
Under the guidance of these worthies over the past several decades, a vast system of taxation, regulation,
and government-sponsored litigation has been imposed upon our energy industries. These policies have
created a business climate in the United States that is unfavorable for the production of energy, so most
new energy production has been located abroad. Americans, therefore, now import 30% of their energy
from foreign countries -- a luxury that they can no longer afford.

Cap-and-trade is just more of the same. Much more.
How much do we import? While most eyes glaze over in discussions of “gigawatts” and “zillions” of dollars,
many have seen or read about Hoover Dam -- the great engineering miracle that harvests energy from the
Colorado River. Hoover Dam is still considered so important that it is now hidden behind “homeland
security” precautions so rigorous that public photographs of the dam are forbidden, lest terrorists plot its
destruction.

Today, the three-reactor Palo Verde nuclear power station near Phoenix, Arizona produces six times the
electrical energy of Hoover Dam -- electricity that powers Los Angeles. Palo Verde was supposed to have
ten reactors, but the other seven were stopped by anti-nuclear propaganda in the 1970s and 1980s.
Actual replacement cost of the three-reactor Palo Verde power station in 2009 -- leaving out the extra costs
imposed by government -- is about $6 billion. So, the capital cost of nuclear equipment to replace the
electrical output of Hoover Dam is about $1 billion. American energy imports currently cost about $1 billion
per day.

Every day -- every 24 hours -- the energy policies imposed by Washington destroy an amount of capital that could build the electrical generating capacity of one complete Hoover Dam.
The problem is that the best new technology uses hydrocarbon and nuclear fuels. The United States is awash in essentially unlimited quantities of these fuels -- uranium, coal, oil, natural gas, and methane clathrates -- but the U.S. government is inhibiting their use. That government instead insists that the energy industries use boutique energy sources such as windmills and solar panels to produce energy, even though these technologies are far too expensive for large scale power generation.
Last week, energy expert Obama spoke at Nellis Air Force Base, where government has caused the construction of a 140-acre solar array at a cost of $100 million (2005-2007) to produce 14 megawatts of electricity -- when the sun is brightly shining. Nellis AFB reports power output of 30.1 gigawatt hours per year for this array. Obama lauded the Nellis plant as an example of taxpayer-subsidized energy production. He opposes free market hydrocarbon and nuclear power.
Each reactor at Palo Verde cost 41 times as much as the Nellis plant and produces 297 times as much electricity -- while occupying much less land than the Nellis solar array.

So, the capital cost of electricity from the solar array at Nellis is 7.2 times higher than that of Palo Verde. Over a 30-year period, this is 1.62 cents per kilowatt hour for Palo Verde and 11.7 cents per Kwh for Nellis. Moreover, built with modern designs (the Palo Verde plant is 1970s technology) and fuel reprocessing, the 2009 cost of a Palo Verde equivalent is estimated to be about half that of the original plant. This makes solar power as exemplified at Nellis 15 times more expensive than nuclear power.
The people of the United States have a clear choice -- either continue to destroy the capital equivalent of Hoover dam every day, or get rid of the politicians in Washington who have caused and continue to cause this destruction. Nor should they be misled by the excuses that hydrocarbons cause “global warming” and nuclear energy is too dangerous.
These are merely new lies to justify the amplification of old policies (see www.petitionproject.org) -- tax and regulate policies that transfer money and power to Washington at the expense of American freedom and prosperity.
Free enterprise built our energy industries. Only free enterprise can build the new energy capacity that we need. Free enterprise cannot do this unless the burden of taxation, regulation, and litigation (and subsidies of favored industries) that Washington has placed on the backs of American workers is removed -- not increased by the additional oppression of “cap-and-trade.”
Dr. Arthur Robinson is President and Research Professor of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.
Copyright © 2009 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.

From the House of Representative Hearings on Cap & Trade...Connie Hair, a former media and coalition advisor for the Republican National Committee reported from the actual Cap & Trade Hearings via Human Events Online..."At his weekly pen and pad session with reporters, I spoke with Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, chairman of the House Republican Conference, about the summary and this massive carbon tax legislation...Pence told me...Since we arrived on Capitol Hill we’ve heard a lot of good things about working together and what we have seen is the opposite. What we have seen is closed rules, limited amendments, last minute introduction; we’ve seen massive, hundreds of billions of dollars of legislation that’s been brought to the floor -- twelve hours to review it, twenty-four hours to review it. Our concern would be that the American people are entitled to count the costs of this cap and trade legislation and not wait until the day before the bill comes out of committee and goes to the floor and passes to be told what it will cost...
When you’re talking legislation that essentially amounts to a declaration of economic war on the Midwest by liberals on Capitol Hill. The American people are entitled to know how much that is going to cost them and future generations...
There are a lot of issues that break along partisan lines, and some break along ideology lines, and other ones are like the chicken and the pig going to a ham and egg breakfast. The chicken makes a contribution, but the pig’s a little more involved. Pence added, “It was startling to me when I became aware of the impact. I don’t use terms like declaration of economic war on the Midwest loosely. This would represent an enormous transfer of wealth.
The Midwest is struggling and the idea that in the name of dealing with global climate change that we would drop the burden not only inordinately on Americans as a whole leaving places like India and China completely out of the discussion, but that we would focus the main economic impact on the Midwest is something that the American people are entitled to know.”