Carbon Use And Prosperity – A Striking Relationship

photo credit: cgp greyIn his inaugural address on January 21, President Obama invoked great ideals of human dignity, equality, and most especially “progress” to justify his second-term agenda, a cornerstone of which will be a crusade to limit humanity’s use of carbon.

In fact, nothing could be more antithetical to the goal of advancing the human condition than restricting carbon consumption. A look at the relationship between living standards and humanity’s carbon utilization over the past 200 years, as shown in Figure 1, below, makes this perfectly clear.

Fig. 1 Average global GDP per capita as a function of carbon use, 1800 to 2010. GDP in 2010 dollars.

The story that Figure 1 tells is remarkable; it is, perhaps, one of the grandest stories ever told. It shows how, over the past two centuries, by using carbon in ever-increasing amounts, the human race has lifted itself out of hopeless poverty and misery to achieve a modicum of dignity and happiness. Look at that line reaching up, in direct proportion to global carbon use, from an average global income of $180 per person in 1800 to $2,200 in 1960 to $9,000 today; that is progress.

Of course, we still have a ways to go. The current $9,000 average world income is just a fifth of the $45,000 U.S. average, yet we still have some poverty here. Still, the achievement is incredible. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt campaigned for president on the promise of “a chicken in every pot,” and millions found the offer compelling. Today, in the United States, minimum wage is $7 per hour, and chicken sells for less than $2 per pound; so, a person working at minimum wage can buy a pound of chicken with about 17 minutes’ labor. This is freedom from want, indeed, delivered not by the New Deal, but by the terrific expansion of our use of carbon.

Read more from this story HERE.

Letter to Obama: “We the People” Will Never Surrender our Guns

Mr. Obama,

What part of ”SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED” do you not get? Actually you and your ilk know very well what that means, you just don’t like it. You’re trying to dupe ”We the People” out of our God given right to protect ourselves against your regime. Look in the mirror Mr. Obama. Do you see God?

The inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness includes the right of the people to bear arms. The founders of our great Constitution knew that folks like you would come along. Our Constitution which you declared ‘fundamentally flawed’ legally secured these rights many years ago. The right to bear arms is not up for debate. The Constitution, the ‘Law of the Land’, shall prevail and the 2nd amendment will stand regardless of your foolish attempt to ‘change’ it.

To control the narrative though, you and yours are using ‘distraction’ as a tactic to mask your true agenda. But not all of your ‘subjects’ will fall for your deception. There are two main distractions we’ve identified. One distraction misdirects us to the argument of which kinds of arms and accessories etc. we should be legally allowed, while the other one misdirects us to the ‘legal’ relationship between such things as the Supremacy clause, the Commerce clause, Congressional and Executive powers, Nullification, the 10th, 14th and 2nd amendments. These distractions define your ‘sleight of hand’. Here’s some bad news for you and yours, Mr. President, it won’t work. Your distractions are being recognized as such by increasing numbers of Americans every day. You won’t get away with disarming ‘We the People’!

It ‘s true that some unsuspecting citizens have taken the bait and are engaging in conversation about what may become socially acceptable limits on the 2nd amendment. We hear arguments about what kinds of firearms and magazine limitations your ‘subjects’ should be allowed under your regime. Some lawmakers are unable to resist these tactics and are proposing ‘feel good’ legislation which would only whittle away at our right to bear arms and assist you in achieving your ultimate goal. Your administration is nothing if it isn’t transparent. ‘We the people’ are drawing attention back to the real issue before us. Your administration is employing incrementalism and distraction in order to deny law abiding, American patriots our right to bear arms, any arms if you get your way!

In case you missed it earlier, the 2nd amendment is not up for debate. The Constitution did not ‘grant’ Americans the right to bear arms. It just ‘legally’ secured that right and only through due process can citizens be denied their legal rights. Your anti-Constitutional declarations, executive orders or any other legislative action contradicting the 2nd amendment will never fly!

You and yours are burning the very Constitution you promised to preserve, protect and defend. History will not look fondly upon a President who at every opportunity tested the will of the people. We Americans recognize and will defend our rights. You’ve managed to make this the critical issue of our time.

Remember when you said ”They cling to guns err religion err” as part of your lecture on how the bitter small town folks in the Midwest deal with hardship? There are plenty of Americans in and beyond the Midwest who understand why the 2nd amendment is so important. History shows that there have been many millions of innocent, unsuspecting citizens murdered by tyrants who successfully disarmed them. Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Castro are a few of the tyrants on that list. A question on the minds of many Americans is whether your name, Mr. Obama, will be added to that list.

The enumerated powers of Congress in article 1 of the Constitution do not include infringement of the 2nd amendment, and neither do the powers of the President. The Supremacy and Commerce clauses do not negate the right to bear arms, nor does the 10th amendment. It would be just as unconstitutional for a state to deprive its people of the right to bear arms as it would be for Congress or you to do so.

Millions of gun owning, law abiding citizens across America won’t allow you or anyone else to deprive them of their 2nd amendment right. ‘We the people’ recognize the great sacrifices of those who’ve defended our Constitution and will not let their sacrifices be in vain. We stand with the founders of the Constitution and shall retain our God given right to bear arms!

Sincerely,

‘We the People’

Federal Money to the States Isn’t ‘Free’

photo credit: philiptaylorptRichmond Times-Dispatch columnist A. Barton Hinkle recently made what should be a simple point to understand, but it’s unfortunately one that few people seem to appreciate. Writing about the supposed win-win situation whereby states expand Medicaid coverage and the federal government foots most of the bill, Hinkle reminds readers that the “free” federal money isn’t really free:

In Virginia, officials estimate expanding Medicaid would cost the state $137.5 million over nine years, while the state would receive $23 billion from Washington.

Other states report similar figures. California expects to enroll up to 910,000 residents for a cost beginning at only $46 million a year, while collecting $44 billion in federal funds over a six-year period. An Illinois study estimates that state would spend about $2 billion on expanded Medicaid over the next decade, while reaping $22 billion in federal funds. According to Danielle Holohan, who is in charge of New York’s insurance exchange, Medicaid expansion “actually works out to be an enormous savings” for the Empire State. And so on.

This all sounds great—if you are a state official. But if you are a lowly taxpayer, it leaves out one rather significant point: Where is all that federal money coming from?

No great mystery: Most of that money would come from taxpayers who live in the very states that are looking forward to these supposed windfalls. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, if every state signed up for Medicaid expansion, then the federal government would spend nearly $1 trillion over the next nine years—paid for by you.

Read more from this article HERE.

The Obama Simulacrum

If I’m following this correctly, according to one spokesperson for the Marine Corps Band, at Monday’s inauguration Beyoncé lip-synced to the national anthem but the band accompanied her live. However, according to a second spokesperson, it was the band who were pretending to play to a pre-recorded tape while Beyoncé sang along live. So one or other of them were faking it. Or maybe both were. Or neither. I’d ask Chuck Schumer, the master of ceremonies, who was standing right behind her, but he spent the entire performance staring at her butt. If it was her butt, that is. It might just have been the bulge of the Radio Shack cassette player she was miming to. In an America with an ever more tenuous grip on reality, there’s so little to be sure of.

Whether Beyoncé was lip-syncing to the band or the band were lip-syncing to Beyoncé is like one of those red pill/ blue pill choices from The Matrix. Was President Obama lip-syncing to the Founders, rooting his inaugural address in the earliest expressions of American identity? (“The patriots of 1776 . . . gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.”) Or maybe the Founders were lip-syncing to him as he appropriated the vision of the first generation of Americans and yoked it (“preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action”) to a statist pitch they would have found utterly repugnant.

The whole event had the air of a simulacrum: It looked like a presidential inauguration, but the sound was tinny and not quite in sync. Obama mouthed along to a canned vocal track: “We reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.” That’s great! It’s always reassuring to know the head of state is going to take issue with all those people wedded to the “belief” that America needs either to shove every granny off the cliff or stake its newborns out on the tundra for the wolves to finish off. When it comes to facing the music, Obama is peerless at making a song and dance about tunes nobody’s whistling without ever once warbling the real big numbers (16 trillion). But, like Beyoncé, he’s totally cool and has a cute butt.

A couple of days later, it fell to the 45th president-in-waiting to encapsulate the ethos of the age in one deft sound bite: What difference does it make? Hillary Clinton’s instantly famous riposte at the Benghazi hearings is such a perfect distillation that it surely deserves to be the national motto of the United States. They should put it on Paul Krugman’s trillion-dollar coin, and in the presidential oath: “Do you solemnly swear to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States?”

“Sure. What difference, at this point, does it make?”

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Unconstitutional and Idiotic ‘Women-in-Combat’ Move

There is a reason why in the Olympics there is women’s competition and men’s competition, why there is a professional men’s basketball leagues and a professional women’s basketball leagues, and why basic military recruit training for men is different from basic military recruit training for women. In weight, stamina, and strength there are major differences between men and women; in the overwhelming number of cases women cannot keep up with men in those areas—-however there may be some unique exceptions.

The action taken by the Secretary of Defense yesterday, bypassing Congress in the decision making process, with the concurrence of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who sat there wide eyed without saying a word, imposed another of Obama’s radical “diversity” agendas upon the US Armed Forces. The radical decision flies in the face of the many studies completed by the US Marine Corps, US Army, and Congress over the last 10 years, those studies resulted in Congress setting rules that prevented women from being drafted and from being assigned to front line infantry ground combat units.

Recently two female enlisted US Marines were allowed to train with male Marines, in order to qualify for assignment to infantry ground combat units; they failed miserably and their video interviews are truly revealing. One of the trainees said they couldn’t keep up with their male counterparts during the sustained and long period of training required to qualify, that their legs gave out from under them, that their stamina was not up to their male counterparts, and that they could no longer carry their heavy back packs; they asked to be relieved (they weren’t under the added pressure of being under an enemy firing weapons in an attempt to kill them).

At a minimum, the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee should review the data gathered from that most recent physical endurance test, conduct immediate oversight hearings, and make public the results of the extensive research completed on the study of “Women in Land Combat” gathered by the US Marine Corp last year, in which those two female Marines were involved. The data does not support Panetta’s move to put women into front line ground combat units, and before the radical decision becomes de facto law, Congress and the American people need to know why women in front line ground combat units will not work and how it will degrade the Combat Effectiveness of combat units. Panetta’s announcement is not a “gift” to female military enlisted personnel who have expressed very little interest in being ordered into front line ground combat infantry units.

For four years, the Social Experiments on Diversity has been forced upon a captive US military force whose senior flag leaders have not objected to Obama’s civilian appointees at DOD orders that degrades Combat Effectiveness; each new initiative further damages the unit cohesiveness and moral of the US Armed Forces.

Article I, Section 8, of the US Constitution gives the power to the Congress “To make rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and Naval Forces.” There is a legal requirement to notify Congress of changes regarding women in the military in advance of the issuance of the order Panetta signed, including the requirement that the Congress be provided with a report on the impact it would have upon the Selective Service System, but the Republican leadership of Congress has not asked for the report—Congress must act in this case! Panetta was wrong in circumventing Congress, but it’s up to the members of Congress to assert their Constitutional right and duty to provide oversight.

Every study completed on “Women In Combat” has come to the conclusion that women in combat are less likely to survive front line ground combat operations than men. It is extremely dangerous to imbed women in tip of the spear military units like SEAL Teams, the Green Berets, Rangers, Special Forces, Airborne units, the Delta Force, etc. because they will experience difficulty in required stamina and strength that will slow down the units they are assigned to; they will not be able to shoulder the same sized back packs over extended periods of time in combat operation; they don’t have the same strength to meet and overcome an enemy combatant on the ground, face to face; and the unavoidable normal male/female sexual attraction within the units damages unit cohesion/unity (note: a unit’s Combat Effectiveness is degraded when female members become pregnant—this has become a very serious problem for US Navy ships scheduled to depart on 6 month deployments, because so many female crew members become pregnant that the ships can’t be fully manned).

There is absolutely no evidence that putting female military personnel in front line ground infantry units will strengthen the US Armed Forces—that is the trumped up story being promulgated by the Obama Administration which is another outright lie.

It is one thing for a woman to be able to qualify, using the same rigorous qualification criteria as men, in order to be assigned to a front line ground combat infantry unit. After they have successfully completed the same rigorous qualification requirements as men, have been imbedded in front line ground combat infantry units, it will be another thing to be engaged in “sustained” combat operations for many months on end without a break, many times operating in mud without sanitary hygiene facilities during the monthly menstrual cycles. The combat environment is very different from what the majority of Americans understand it to be.

Ask yourself if you would want your daughter or granddaughter to be drafted and then be required to serve in front line ground combat infantry units, during sustained combat operations where men in an enemy force are trying to kill them.

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Captain Joseph R. John, a combat veteran, is a 1962 graduate of the United States Naval Academy who retired from the US Navy after a long and distinguished career. He currently is the President of the Combat Veterans Training Group and is the founder of the Combat Vets for Congress PAC.

Two Cases of Media Malpractice: Newtown and Benghazi

In the Newtown Connecticut School shooting, when 911 was called, help came.

When Americans called 911 while under attack in Benghazi, no one came to help.

One stays in the headlines of the media, the other one is quickly forgotten.

After watching the Benghazi dog and pony show hearings yesterday in Washington, it is apparent the citizens of the United States will never get the truth out of this administration. The absence of details as to exactly what happened before, during and after the Benghazi murders, is astonishing. Such as: Orders were given to not help Americans under attack in Benghazi. Who gave that order? Why?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had 4 months to skirt answering any questions on Benghazi. The reasons given: A wine tasting tour in Australia, a bout with the flu, exhaustion, a concussion, a blood clot, and many think she would have come down with the “vapors,” had not her 25 million campaign debt been retired earlier this week.

She appeared at the hearings yesterday ready to not really answer any of the glaring questions, but only to obfuscate and run out the clock. Her quip of: “What difference does it really make” as to why Americans died in Benghazi showed a callous disregard for the disaster that happened under her watch.

Conveniently each politician had only a few minutes to ask a question of Hillary and get an answer. Most of the questioners couldn’t resist their time in the spotlight to get long winded and as a result, didn’t have time to follow up when Hillary gave a non answer.

Was this by design or just incompetence?

The main stream media has been a willing accomplice to this administrations attempt to bury Benghazi and doesn’t have the appetite to upset the apple cart of lies and deceptions.

Only when there was a hint of sex scandal involving CIA chief Petraeus and his paramour, did Benghazi temporarily get elevated to front page news by the “bread and circuses” media.

But the media has been front and center in the war on “assault” rifles.

The Newtown shooting has captured the media’s attention and fits hand in glove with the pre planned assault on the 2nd amendment.

Every detail that fits into the narrative the media is trying to foist on the public, is made known and kept on the front page……Every truth and detail of the Newtown shooting that does not fit the agenda is buried.

Such as where is the drug screen test of the shooters blood? It seems many of these mass shooters had a cocktail of anti depressant/psych meds in their bloodstreams at the time of their crimes. Coincidence?

What other warning signs about the crazed lone gunmen are being overlooked in the rush to assault law abiding citizens gun rights? What violent video games did he obsess on? Did mental health professionals know about his potential violent blow up?

As a result of the Benghazi hearings yesterday, we know we are not being told the truth. We also know we are not being told the whole truth about the Newtown Shooting. Is there any journalistic curiosity left in the main stream media?

That’s what the difference is Hillary, there is a double standard in the media when it comes to what truth they want America to hear.
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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Background Checks for Gun Owners? Better Yet, How About Politicians?

Looking at the state of affairs in Washington, perhaps it is time to apply the same proposed standards for gun owners and apply them to prospective and sitting politicians. Perhaps go even further, by requiring our leaders to pass an FBI background check.

Governor Huckabee mentioned he was subjected to a security background check while Governor of Arkansas, in order to be allowed access to National Homeland Security information.

At the time, he was a sitting Governor, a politician… he had no problem complying with it. In fact he suggested all politicians be subjected to security background checks.

What’s wrong with verifying who our leaders are? Should they at least be able to pass the same background tests that applicants for an FBI job have to pass?

After all, their decisions have the power to affect our national security; shouldn’t we make sure they at least meet the same standards as the rest of us if we want a government job in the security sector? Or even a regular government job for that matter.

It would be good to know ahead of time, if the person running for senator has criminal ties? Graft or corruption allegations? A drug problem. Is there anything in the background that could subject him/her to blackmail?

How about running all of his/her credentials and getting those degrees verified? This is nothing less than what many prospective employees are put through for even a county job.

There is a growing chorus for medical/psychiatric standards for gun owners. From listening to some of the bizarre rants coming from leaders in Washington DC, I think some sitting members would not be able to pass the psychological standards.

Many say these screens are already set up by political opposition research to try to dig up dirt on opponents. But opposition research cannot be as thorough as an FBI background check.

Ask Bill and Hillary Clinton what one of the first things they did when they entered the White house in their first term? They got the confidential FBI files on all of their political opponents. What did they do with that information for the next 8 years?…And to this day for that matter?

Perhaps it is time for President Obama to appoint Joe Biden to head up another “blue ribbon” committee to see how this can best be facilitated…As soon as Joe passes his background check.
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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Buchanan: Obama Has Hijacked the American Revolution

photo credit: victorynh

“Second Term Begins With a Sweeping Agenda for Equality,” ran the eight-column banner in which the Washington Post captured the essence of Obama’s second inaugural. There he declared:

“What binds this nation together … what makes us exceptional – what makes us American – is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago.”

Obama then quoted our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Our “union,” Obama went on, was “founded on the principles of liberty and equality.”

Nice prose – and transparent nonsense.

Read more from this story HERE.

The RomneyCare Bill Comes Due

The health reform that Mitt Romney passed in 2006 in Massachusetts presaged President Obama’s, and its results are showing what we can expect nationwide. The latest warning comes in a huge new tax increase proposed by Governor Deval Patrick.

Last week the second-term Democrat followed his party’s recent habit and proposed an increase in the state’s single-rate income tax to 6.25% from 5.25%, the first in more than 20 years. The Bay State constitution requires a flat rate, so the Governor is sticking it to all taxpayers.

Mr. Patrick will try to add progressivity by raising the personal exemption, which taxpayer groups will challenge as unconstitutional. His plan would also eliminate 45 income-tax deductions, for such things as the capital-gains exemption on the sale of a home, adoption fees and college scholarships. This is the left’s idea for tax reform: raise rates and limit deductions—a revenue twofer.

To help this bad medicine go down, Mr. Patrick would lower the state sales tax to 4.5% from 6.25%. He says the sales levy “is widely regarded to be the most regressive tax that states impose,” which is funny given that Mr. Patrick is the same guy who raised the rate to 6.25% from 5% in 2009. Then he said raising the rate was essential to pay state bills and wouldn’t hurt the economy. Now he says it’s regressive and must be cut.

Business taxes would also rise under the Patrick revenue raid, and Bay State residents would pay higher gas taxes, turnpike tolls and car taxes. All told it’s a $1.9 billion a year net tax hike.

Read more from this story HERE.

GOP Impurity Is No Myth

photo credit: donkeyhotey

“To listen to many grassroots conservatives, the GOP establishment is a cabal of weak-kneed sellouts who regularly light votive candles to a poster of liberal Republican icon Nelson Rockefeller.”

So writes the popular conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg in a thoughtful column titled “The Myth of an Impure GOP.” Goldberg argues that the very idea of a weak-kneed GOP establishment is itself “a destructive myth,” refuted by the the disappearance of the Rockefeller Republicans.

It’s true. Nelson Rockefeller’s political disciples are as dead as he is. The last of the genuinely liberal Republicans have mostly left the party, like Jim Jeffords and Lincoln Chafee, or remain only nominally affiliated with the GOP, like Colin Powell.

Jon Huntsman was widely regarded as the most liberal Republican to seek the party’s presidential nomination in 2012. Huntsman endorsed Paul Ryan’s proposed Medicare reforms, was so strongly opposed to abortion that as governor of Utah he signed a bill that would ban the practice if Roe v. Wade was ever overturned, and said he wouldn’t approve a deficit-reduction deal that contained $10 in spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases.

Since the 1990s, even some of the biggest Northeastern moderates — Rudy Giuliani, William Weld, Christine Todd Whitman, and Chris Christie — have run as conservatives on the big issues: crime, taxes, welfare, the cost of public sector unions. Their more liberal positions, no matter how sincerely held, were issues that were peripheral to their agenda.

Read more from this story HERE.