EPA, White House and activists must no longer deceive America and rule by executive fiat
Guest opinion by Paul Driessen
Last year, Congress enacted 72 new laws and federal agencies promulgated 3,659 new rules, imposing $1.86 trillion in annual regulatory compliance costs on American businesses and families. It’s hardly surprising that America’s economy shrank by 1% the first quarter of 2014, our labor participation rate is a miserable 63% and real unemployment stands at 12-23% (and even worse for blacks and Hispanics).
It’s no wonder a recent Gallup poll found that 56% of respondents said the economy, unemployment and dissatisfaction with government are the most serious problems facing our nation – whereas only 3% said it is environmental issues, with climate change only a small segment of that.
So naturally, the Environmental Protection Agency issued another round of draconian restrictions on coal-fired power plants, once again targeting carbon dioxide emissions. EPA rules now effectively prevent the construction of new plants and require the closure of hundreds of older facilities. By 2030 the regulations will cost 224,000 jobs, force US consumers to pay $289 billion more for electricity, and lower disposable incomes for American households by $586 billion, the US Chamber of Commerce calculates.
The House of Representatives holds hearings and investigations, and drafts corrective legislation that the Harry Reid Senate immediately squelches. When questions or challenges arise, the courts defer to “agency discretion,” even when agencies ignore or rewrite statutory provisions. Our three co-equal branches of government have become an “Executive Branch trumps all” system – epitomized by EPA.
Some legal philosophers refer to this as “post-modernism.” President Obama’s constitutional law professor called it “the curvature of constitutional space.” A better term might be neo-colonialism – under which an uncompromising American ruler and his agents control citizens by executive fiat, to slash fossil fuel use, fundamentally transform our Constitution, economy and social structure, and redistribute wealth and political power to cronies, campaign contributors and voting blocs that keep them in power.
Even worse, in the case of climate change, this process is buttressed by secrecy, highly questionable research, contrived peer reviews, outright dishonesty, and an absence of accountability.
Fewer than half of Americans believe climate change is manmade or dangerous. Many know that China, Australia, Canada, India and even European countries are revising policies that have pummeled families, jobs, economies and industries with anti-hydrocarbon and renewable energy requirements. They understand that even eliminating coal and petroleum use in the United States will not lower atmospheric carbon dioxide levels or control a climate that has changed repeatedly throughout Earth’s history.
Mr. Obama and EPA chief Gina McCarthy are nevertheless determined to slash reliance on coal, even in 20 states that rely on this fuel for half to 95% of their electricity, potentially crippling their economies. The President has said electricity rates will “necessarily skyrocket,” coal companies will face bankruptcy, and if Congress does not act on climate change and cap-tax-and-trade, he will. Ms. McCarthy has similarly said she “didn’t go to Washington to sit around and wait for congressional action.”
However, they know “pollution” and “children’s health” resonate much better than “climate disruption” among voters. So now they mix their climate chaos rhetoric with assertions that shutting down coal-fired power plants will reduce asthma rates among children. It is a false, disingenuous argument.
Steadily improving air pollution controls have sent sulfur dioxide emissions from U.S. coal-fired power plants tumbling by more than 40% and particulate emissions (the alleged cause of asthma) by more than 90% since 1970, says air quality expert Joel Schwartz, even as coal use tripled. In fact, asthma rates have increased, while air pollution has declined – underscoring that asthma hospitalizations and outdoor air pollution are not related. The real causes of asthma are that young children live in tightly insulated homes, spend less time outdoors, don’t get exposed to enough allergens to reduce immune hyperactivity and allergic hypersensitivity, and get insufficient exercise to keep lungs robust, health experts explain.
But the American Lung Association backs up the White House and EPA claims – vigorously promoting the phony pollution/asthma link. However, EPA’s $24.7 million in grants to the ALA over the past 15 years should raise questions about the association’s credibility and integrity on climate and pollution.
EPA also channels vast sums to its “independent” Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, which likewise rubberstamps the agency’s pollution claims and regulations: $180.8 million to 15 CASAC members since 2000. Imagine the outrage and credibility gap if Big Oil gave that kind of money to scientists who question the “dangerous manmade climate change” mantra.
Moreover, even EPA’s illegal studies on humans have failed to show harmful effects from pollution levels the agency intends to impose. Other EPA rules are based on epidemiological data that the agency now says it cannot find. (Perhaps they fell into same black hole as Lois Lerner’s missing IRS emails.) EPA’s CO2 rulings are based on GIGO computer models that are fed simplistic assumptions about human impacts on Earth’s climate, and on cherry-picked analyses that are faulty and misleading.
In numerous instances, EPA’s actions completely ignore the harmful impacts that its regulations will have on the health and well-being of millions of Americans. EPA trumpets wildly exaggerated benefits its anti-fossil-fuel rules will supposedly bring but refuses to assess even obvious harm from unemployment, soaring energy costs and reduced family incomes. And now Mr. Obama wants another $2.5 billion for FY-2015 climate change models and “assessments” via EPA and the Global Change Research Program.
EPA’s actions routinely violate the Information Quality Act. The IQA is intended to ensure the quality, integrity, credibility and reliability of any science used by federal agencies to justify regulatory actions. Office of Management and Budget guidelines require that agencies provide for full independent peer review of all “influential scientific information” used as the basis for regulations. The law and OMB guidelines also direct federal agencies to provide adequate administrative mechanisms for affected parties to review agency failures to respond to requests for correction or reconsideration of scientific information.
Those who control carbon control our lives, livelihoods, liberties, living standards and life spans. It is essential that EPA’s climate and pollution data and analyses reflect the utmost in integrity, reliability, transparency and accountability. A closed circle of EPA and IPCC reviewers – accompanied by a massive taxpayer-funded public relations and propaganda campaign – must no longer be allowed to rubberstamp junk science that is used to justify federal diktats. Governors, state and federal legislators, attorneys general, and citizen and scientific groups must take action:
· File FOIA and IQA legal actions, to gain access to all EPA and other government data, computer codes, climate models and studies use to justify pollution, climate and energy regulations;
· Subject all such information to proper peer review by independent scientists, including the significant numbers of experts who are skeptical of alarmist pollution and climate change claims;
· Demand that new members be appointed to CASAC and other peer review groups, and that they represent a broad spectrum of viewpoints, organizations and interests;
· Scrutinize the $2.5 billion currently earmarked for the USGCRP and its programs, reduce the allocation to compel a slow-down in EPA’s excessive regulatory programs, and direct that a significant portion of that money support research into natural causes of climate change; and
· Delay or suspend any implementation of EPA’s carbon dioxide and other regulations, until all questions are fully answered, and genuine evidence-based science is restored to the regulatory process – and used to evaluate the honesty and validity of studies used to justify the regulations.
Only in this manner can the United States expect to see a return to the essential separation of powers, checks and balances, economic and employment growth – and the quality, integrity, transparency and accountability that every American should expect in our government.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
Paul, the EPA must be abolished in its entirety, with power over pollution control devolving to the states. Nothing other than complete destruction of this agency will save our way of life, because it’ll come back like a hydra.
Ed Powell says:
June 19, 2014 at 10:08 am
Second that. Emphatically!
If we could get anyone with common sense to take action. I live in a liberal state and our once-shining hispanic governor has turned purely political in just one term. The EPA is a disaster, I worry that it won’t be stopped.
The proper response is to vote carefully. The other group ignored in this post: Teens. It doesn’t pay to be a teenager in the US today and the responsibility falls on the very party that has had exclusive access to their formative years via the US education system. There needs to be a strong effort to expose to them the source of problems teens face and to ween them from the leftist machine that has shaped them to expect life-long mediocrity as the norm.
I hear that the EPA is to be renamed Al Ec’aida.
Declaring that government “must” do this or that is about like throwing snowballs into a volcano.
Question to the Americans.
When the CO2 fantasy becomes an embarrassment to even the true believers, will there be any consequences?
Vote. Volunteer. Contribute. Write. Organize. March.
And if it comes to it- disobey.
I spent 20 years of an otherwise happy career as a geologist doing some work in the CERCLA (Superfund) program. Now that I have been out of that arena for a number of years, I still consider writing an expose of the most wasteful government program ever invented – and I am not being hyperbolic for effect here. Nothing in government compares with the invasive and pervasive impact the EPA has on every-day life, and nothing in EPA comes close to the self-aggrandizing, self-righteous, sanctimonious, wrong-headed, incompetent, strong-arm control of American enterprise as has been exacted against business and citizens in general than the Superfund program.
I could tell you war stories that make their chicanery pertaining to climate look like the fools’ game that it is. It is an organization of cretins of no common rank. Don’t count on it being dismantled. What elected official who has any aspirations of being re-elected would EVER moot such a proposal. And it so proposed, what OTHER elected official who has aspirations of being re-elected would support it?
From Ten Thousand Commandments:
“Recent regulatory interventions—including the various stimulus and bailout programs and regulatory costs associated with the recent health care and financial reform legislation—will have dramatic economic impacts”
While many regulations are probably not needed, the most destructive historical ones have been from deregulation, i.e. the S&L meltdown during the Reagan administration, ENRON and the telecom collapse under Bush (the dereg occurred under Clinton), and the 2008 banking meltdown (bailout estimates up to 12+ trillion worldwide to prevent another possible depression):
Many of the present economic problems are a result of the 2008 fiasco. The staggering economic and human cost of these events could easily equal a major fraction the other past normal regulatory events many of which are required because most corporations and many smaller businesses “cheat for profit” whenever possible. Based on historical evidence, even from the early 1900’s, Regulatory OVERSIGHT, with adequate prosecuting manpower and ability appears to be necessary with a corporate & business atmosphere of “profits in lieu of ethics”. And if you are some of the lucky ones feeling economically secure, congress specifically barred the CFTC from even investigating potential derivatives impacts in 1999, derivatives being one of the primary players in 2008. As a result these financial instruments are effectively unregulated with a similar potential for a 1930’s catastrophe. Until the public realizes that many regulations are necessary, especially those with oversight that have a threat of criminal punishment, there will continue to be no distinction made and all reasoning will be “black or white”.
http://moneymorning.com/2011/10/12/derivatives-the-600-trillion-time-bomb-thats-set-to-explode/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/interviews/born.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooksley_Born
It’s too late to mend it.
The low information voters are taken in by the “for the children rhetoric”. Until the rolling brown/black outs hit, they will assume that nothing is wrong.
When the rolling black outs do hit, they will blame the evil power companies who are just looking for an excuse to gouge us, and give the govt even more power.
You cite Alex jones, For facts really??
BFL says:
June 19, 2014 at 11:11 am
—–
I love the way advocates of ever more govt, blame every problem under the sun on there not being enough govt.
The S&L meltdown was caused by govt, the biggest single source of it was when they changed the depreciation rules on commercial property without grandfathering in existing projects. This pushed millions of once profitable projects into bankruptcy at the same time. The system couldn’t absorb the hit and it collapsed.
The recent financial meltdown was caused by govt ordering banks to give loans to people who couldn’t afford it.
Climate assessments recently issued by Mr Obama shows how desperate Democratic command economy believers are to persuade the country to let them establish a regime of absolute power wielded by government agencies entirely beyond the reach of any electorate.
This latter is really the goal of the Obama administration. Obama himself is really little more than a ventriloquist’s dummy for the policies of his science Czar John Holdren
Here is a piece from the Examiner blog in 2009
July 16, 2009
John P. Holdren has been named President Barack Obama’s ‘Science Czar.”
Holdren’s official titles are: Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Assistant to the President for Science and Technology; and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
The longtime Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Holdren is no stranger to controversy.
Holdren’s radicalism dates back to the late 1960s. In 1969 Holdren wrote that it was imperative “to convince society and its leaders that there is no alternative but the cessation of our irresponsible, all-demanding, and all-consuming population growth.”
That same year, he and (the now largely discredited) professor of population studies Paul Ehrlich jointly predicted: “If … population control measures are not initiated immediately and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come.” In 1971 Holdren and Ehrlich warned that “some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the century.”
Viewing capitalism as an economic system that is inherently harmful to the natural environment, Holdren and Ehrlich in 1973 called for “a massive campaign … to de-develop the United States” and other Western nations in order to conserve energy and facilitate growth in underdeveloped countries.
“De-development,” they said, “means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.” “By de-development,” they elaborated, “we mean lower per-capita energy consumption, fewer gadgets, and the abolition of planned obsolescence.” ”
In the same year I posted the following on my site
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
“OBAMA’S ROADMAP TO THE CORPORATE SOCIALIST STATE
The Boxer – Kerry and Waxman – Markey bills represent the greatest threat that America’s constitutional democracy has ever faced.
The almost non -existent Anthropogenic (CO2 caused) Global Warming has been used as a pretext to try to grab control of all economic activity in the country because congress will decide the price of all energy via the distribution of carbon credits to whomever contributes most to their campaign funds. Energy production will be diverted to so called “green ” sources which are hopelessly uneconomic unless heavily subsidized.
If these bills pass, all private real estate will essentially cease to exist because Obama’s climate police will decide the appraisal value of all real estate and thus control the sales price of everyone’s home. Any alterations or improvements will have to be approved by government inspectors.
A vast bureaucracy will be created to run this virtual totalitarian police state run for the benefit of the congress and whichever corporations or special interests pay them the most.
Since my first post in January 2009 , solar activity has continued to be virtually non-existent making it more and more likely that the earth is entering a 20 – 30 year cool spell during which crop production would be seriously reduced at a time of increasing population. Obama’s policies of CO2 reduction would exacerbate this problem and worsen the worldwide food shortages which might well occur if the cooling actually develops.
The main stream media are aiding and abetting this coup-in some cases , e.g. NBC, because they are controlled by a company – General Electric which has spent millions on lobbying in order to benefit from the bill or because of the political (Socialist – world government ) agenda of its leaders e.g . BBC.
It is essential that the grass roots of working middle America become informed about this looming threat and come together to speak out and stop this takeover by a kleptocratic and self appointed elite who plan to be the rulers of this Corporate Socialist state .”
Fortunately because of the separation of powers in the US constitution these pernicious bills didn’t pass. However in an unconstitutional power grab the Holdren – Obama agenda is now being forced through by the executive branch via the EPA regulation of GHGs.
Obama realizes that the government doesn’t need to own all the means of production to create a Stalinesque economy. If you can regulate the price and type of energy and control the “energy efficiency ” of all economic activity as envisaged in Waxman Markey you have established a Marxist – Socialist- or with the eager cooperation of the campaign contributing industries a Corporate – Socialist state.”
I would add here that the root source of this attempted enormous transfer of power from the Congress to the executive branch was the abject failure of the US Supreme Court to consider the broader constitutional implications of their decision in 2007 to not only allow but to require the EPA to regulate GHGs under the clean air act – provided that the EPA produced an endangerment finding. The EPA then used the junk science of the IPCC to do just that and on Monday plan to set the USA on course for a post capitalist economy- in accord with Holdrens and presumably Obama’s predilections.
Meanwhile 1st quarter GDP dropped sharply because of the cold winter brought on by weather patterns typical of Little Ice Age conditions which are predicted to occur with increasing frequency in a series of earlier posts on http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
The first deserters of the concept of the Constitutional powers wore long black robes. The Supreme Court, whose true real purpose was to keep the federal government from going beyond the limits of the Constitution started writing its own laws via opinions. Their job was to read a bill and decide if it was Constitutional or not, and not decide if part of it was or wasn’t. If they had stuck to their job, we wouldn’t have 2000 page laws, because obviously in that volue of verbage there is going to be some parts that will not meet the Constitutional test. And you would have expected that, really, since for all intents and purposes, they are political appointees.
Now getting back to reality, the EPA is here to stay. There will never be a bill deconstructing the agency because it is a powerful tool of the executive branch. And since it is a powerful tool, the executive branch will not give it up willingly. And since the executive branch won’t give it up willingly, it will veto any bill that attempts to end the EPA, and you won’t find 2/3rds of these gutless wonders that are elected to the Senate and the House ever willingly standing up for the people in the face of the President and the secret services that work for him.
Same needs to be done about the FWS and the Endangered Species Act badly needs revised. Environmental/conservation groups are hijacking our government through frivolous lawsuits that are made possible through the ESA. The ESA encourages the lawsuits and even allows these groups to sue industry and citizens on behalf of animals.
A follow up as an example. Consider Ron Paul’s audit the fed bill. It passed the House resoundingly and is stuck in the Senate because the President doesn’t want the Fed audited and the Senate obediently goes along with him by never bringing the bill to fresh air. And remember, even if they did and passed it, he can veto it – 2nd term – and that ends it. The government takes care of itself and its own (and owners) but you and I, brothers and sisters, do not have a say in it, not even by voting since we only get pre-vetted candidates that will go along with the establishment.
Appearing at the bottom of this great post was a wordpress random advertisement titled: “Scam #08”. So very appropriate. I don’t know how many scams are reported on by that website that reports scams and warns us, especially the elderly about how to avoid them, but I think they are obliged to include the EPA scam wtr CO2.
Don’t forget “Sue and settle” crony lawsuits…circumventing public input, open discussion and what’s left of the democratic process. Is this still going on in the US? Any chance of stopping it?
Robert Bissett says:
June 19, 2014 at 11:50 am
—–
Between the ideologues, and those who are getting rich from the system, the chances of stopping it are slim to none, and Slim just left town.
MarkW says:
June 19, 2014 at 11:16 am
You are correct in what you say I only add the requirement of mark to market. This caused many long term holdings to get placed on the balance sheet at lower than cost/sale prices.
Why would the EPA care about loss of jobs or cost of energy? They are the Environmental Protection Agency. They are not the Economic Protection Agency or the Employment Protection Agency.
/sarc
BFL spoken like a good liberal….. Rule number 1: Blame everything on the Republican administration… And of course all the good ” conservatives” blame everything on the Democrats. Wake up, they are all crooked they are all after their own welfare…. The party DOES NOT support any candidate that does not fit their needs, and in the USA, being supported by one of these two parties in the only way to get to or stay in Washington. Words like yours ARE the problem!
Like all government agencies created for a specific purpose, the EPA has outlived its mission and now must create unicorns in order to justify their existence.
The EPA is not interested in following the laws on disclosure. They will have to be forced to obey the laws, just as Congress will have to be forced to rein in the EPA. Not working to stop the EPA is the same as accepting their actions.
BFL: in my experience, most ‘deregulations’ cited were never true deregulations. The government keeps its hand in the mix, and that’s what poisons the action.
I’ve begun to suspect it’s intentional, specifically to get people to argue against deregulation. That way, the government preserves its power.
It turns out that the crash of a single computer caused the loss of all e-mails going back 6 years for all of the individuals who’s records had been subpeana’d by the House committee investigating IRS malfeasance. (Funny how none of the data being requested was ever backed up.)
How long till another convenient computer crash erases all records of what has been going on in the EPA?
There sure are a lot of dogs out there eating liberal data, documents, and emails. Heavens.
WRT de-regulation. If a regulated entity immediately crashes after becoming deregulated, is that not prima facia evidence it should not have existed in the first place? The market determines the success or not of any business large or small. If you sell something that works well, consistently well, and is well worth the expense there will be no need for regulation. Hell, build more of that company, not less. I don’t care if they dominate the market or decide to diversify. If the company is good at selling me what I need when I need it and at a price I am will to pay, BLESS THEM!
I believe the first duty of the Supreme Court was to settle disputes between the states and between private entities (people and business, meaning yes, corporations too) and the federal government. Judicial review is not granted to the Supreme Court by the Constitution but they gave themselves that power in the Marbury v. Madison ruling.
I also believe the intention of the Constitution was every president, every member of Congress, Congress collectively and every citizen should act in good faith in observing the Constitution. The system of checks and balances created by Constitution and the ballet box were suppose to give the people all the power they needed to keep the government in check.
But oh yes, the courts have been writing laws for sometime. Congress really started giving up it’s authority under the New Deal and hasn’t attempted to take that power back.
The Environmental Protection Agency is NOT to protect the “environment” from people but rather for people.
Obama has turned into the Extreme Policy Agency.
(Sorry, off hand I can’t think of what the IRS has been turned into.)
====================================================================
Isn’t there some facility that is recording (or was) recording US citizens emails and phone calls plus a bunch of other stuff? Maybe the emails are there. Or did the building burn down?
This post makes me so frustrated and depressed (because of the EPA) that I couldn’t read much past the third or fourth paragraph. An ill-conceived eco-religion running badly amok.
fed epa, if it even exists, should be advisory board made up of 2 members from each of the states epa, or as called here in mane Dept of Environmental Protection
it should be a communication facilitator and advisory board for congress at most.
As a protective measure all attempts to rule by regulation or Presidential personal direction, must have a “sunset clause” inserted giving an end date for enforcement effect. The regulation or direction must lapse, unless specifically extended for a further set period after suitable and open debate on the issue in both Congress and the Senate, if both Congress and the Senate cannot agree on the limited extension, the regulatory provisions must lose force and effect as specified in the “sunset provision”.
In deadlocked situations that cannot be easily resolved, the power must then devolve to the people to vote and give direction to the politicians. How you design those fail safe provisions and Presidential limitations, will determine the outcomes at the will of the people.
Simple and effective!
Cf. Mark Levin, The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic, pp. 214-5:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Liberty-Amendments-Restoring-American/dp/1451606273
Discussion in his Chapter 6.
I think Mr. Levin is right, that it will take a Convention of the States, assembled under Article 5 of the US Constitution, to pass Amendments that will reverse the course of the ever-expanding, increasingly-controlling Federal Leviathan. Read the book.
Absent such a convention, it is possible that a Tea-Party-dominated Republican House and Senate, under a conservative Republican President, could pass legislation that would greatly curtail the powers of the rogue EPA, if not eliminate it altogether. It would be a tall order, but it could be done.
In the meantime, I would like to see a new challenge to the EPA’s authority to ‘regulate’ CO2 emissions raised in the courts. I haven’t read the Supreme Court decision that conceded that power to the EPA, but I’ll bet it could be challenged on scientific grounds. It might take a very prominent defection from the ranks of the Climatist elite, though.
/Mr Lynn
Katana
When regulations in Germany drove up the price of energy hundreds of thousands of individuals reverted to wood to heat their homes. The same thing will happen here on a larger scale; using both wood and coal for home heating. Small gas generators will provide what electricity is needed. The result will be vastly increased pollution and CO2 release. I pity the people who will try to inforce regulations on private individuals trying to keep their families alive in a cold winter by burning fossil fuels. I believe the lessons of prohibition will have to be relearned by a new generation of bureaucrats. Public disobedience on a massive scale will render regulations moot!
The President is now sending “advisers” back into Iraq to get the US to take sides in the centuries old Sunni – Shia religious war. The Congress, as usual, will not assert its constitutional power to be the branch of government to declare war so that they can avoid responsibility for the war and yet retain the right to criticize when the body count becomes high enough for an apathetic public to stop watching Dancing with the Stars long enough to take notice. Obama seems determined to outdo Bush in the stupidity stakes for reasons best known to himself. He has Holdren, a proven nutter socialist ideologue dictating his Climate and Energy policy. Which genius is telling him what to do in the middle east? Dick Cheney most likely. How do we keep electing these incompetents as President? I guess the problem is you have to be practically raving to get through the primaries of either party.
“Paul, the EPA must be abolished in its entirety, with power over pollution control devolving to the states. Nothing other than complete destruction of this agency will save our way of life, because it’ll come back like a hydra.”
Well said Ed, well said.
Likely? Hardly. Here’s Dick Cheney on Obama: “Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.” (from WSJ op-ed)
Mr. Cheney is right. The Puppet President dances to the tunes of John Holdren at home, and—abroad? Valerie Jarrett?
/Mr Lynn
I do believe the good citizens of USA have the right in your constitution to march on Washington and remove the government. They then have the right to form a new government of any type they choose. Ambivluence and exceptance of the unexceptable is slowly destroying your country.
Texas is the only state that I am aware of that has an out of the union clause, they are your biggest weapon to stop the madness, they control the oil refineries and the aero space industries and much of the high tech. EPA madness could be tipping point, even the threat of seceding may awaken the half aware in your nation to the dismal future your president is preparing. God bless America, you shall need it.
BFL says:
June 19, 2014 at 11:11 am
The government caused the sub-prime crisis by forcing banks to make bad loans to people with lousy credit, then bailed the banks out (mostly paid back now). Republicans were blamed for it, but Clinton was the one who expanded the program and caused it. Dodd-Frank was written to more tightly control the banks and supposedly prevent another crisis, but it does not address the real problem, Eric Holder, who is forcing banks into the sub-prime loan business again. Dodd-Frank even included another government agency, the Consumer Protection Bureau, to pile more regulations on business and duplicate what a dozen other agencies do. Dodd-Frank has created thousands of new jobs at the banks just to comply with Dodd-Frank, and given government more control over more of the economy. The new regulations won’t fix anything, and when another crisis happens, which it will, the response will be more regulations, another agency, and more unelected unaccountable bureaucrats.
Australia’s Carbon Tax Has Gone For Good
“TONY Abbott promised to stop the boats. They’ve been stopped.
Tony Abbott promised to abolish Julia Gillard and Christine Milne’s
dishonest, punishing and utterly pointless carbon tax. When the Senate
changes in two weeks, that now looks certain after Clive Palmer on
Friday finally committed his four senators to abolition.”
“The other two went to the fundamentals of our national sovereignty. Border protection, or in the famous words of John Howard — deciding who comes to our country — is the most basic issue of sovereignty. That’s true, whether we are talking of Japanese heading towards us in 1942, or ‘subcontracting’ our immigration policy to people smugglers in 2008-2013 as Rudd and Gillard did.
But the carbon tax was equally destructive of sovereignty. We had a government imposing a massive cost on both consumers and business, deliberately if mindlessly undermining the national economy.
At its most basic it was a government prepared to hand control of the future price of our carbon (dioxide) emissions — and so, of the price of our electricity and our key exports — over to European bureaucrats in Brussels.
Abolition of the carbon tax will deliver real cash savings to all Australians. The savings per year will go close to cancelling out ALL the cost increases imposed in the budget — if indeed they are actually imposed.
Arguably more importantly, abolition will take a great dead weight off business. It will also have huge political implications.”
“Specifically, it would not be able to bring back the carbon tax. And by
2019 — the time of the next election — the whole global warming
craziness will likely have imploded on its own unsustainability.”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/australias-carbon-tax-has-gone-for-good/story-fni0d8gi-1226954438359
Frist off, the Constitution only gives the right to legislate to one body and that is the Congress and it does not say that the right can be delegated. Second, when the Congress passes a piece of legislation it take a majority vote in both houses for a bill to pass. I would seem to me then, that if one house acts to countermand an action by an agency of the Executive Branch, that that would kill that action. You don’t have both houses agreeing to such actions and so it cannot have the force of law.
America ”might” reduce or remove the EPA with a Republican President but there is certainly no hope with Obama, America’s worst ever.
Gunga Din says:
June 19, 2014 at 4:29 pm
MarkW says:
June 19, 2014 at 2:05 pm
It turns out that the crash of a single computer caused the loss of all e-mails going back 6 years for all of the individuals who’s records had been subpeana’d by the House committee investigating IRS malfeasance. (Funny how none of the data being requested was ever backed up.)
How long till another convenient computer crash erases all records of what has been going on in the EPA?
====================================================================
Isn’t there some facility that is recording (or was) recording US citizens emails and phone calls plus a bunch of other stuff? Maybe the emails are there. Or did the building burn down?
Can’t say much about whether a building burned down but I can say this much about the quoted section above – not possible. There is no agency that isn’t required to back up and save copies of all emails daily, thus there is no way that a single “crash” can take down the emails – assuming these emails are actually sent through government accounts on government computers. If they are using an external email account, and they are all on a personal cloud based server, that would be different in that they could crash their own server. There is no way that the records of all the emails, from government accounts on government computers, could be lost since they are saved to tape or some other removable media.
“Dennis Hand says:
June 19, 2014 at 11:01 pm
Frist off, the Constitution only gives the right to legislate to one body and that is the Congress and it does not say that the right can be delegated. Second, when the Congress passes a piece of legislation it take a majority vote in both houses for a bill to pass. I would seem to me then, that if one house acts to countermand an action by an agency of the Executive Branch, that that would kill that action. You don’t have both houses agreeing to such actions and so it cannot have the force of law.”
Nice thought but not true. Unless a law has a sunset date where the law ends after time, no matter how much any branch of government feels the law is wrong, it will take a majority vote in both houses and a signature by the president (though a law doesn’t actually require his signature) to end that law. One house of Congress deciding that the law needs changes has no effect – just look at Obamacare and the House. If your thought had any possibility, then 20 million Americans wouldn’t have lost their health policies because they didn’t meet ACA requirements, something this President knew from the beginning all the while he was saying if you like your insurance, you can keep it. In part, one of the biggest reasons that Nixon was going to face impeachment was because “he lied to the American people.” Funny how much higher the bar for impeachment has been raised through the years. It has gotten really easy to “limbo” under that bar. You can do it with your drink raised well above your head now.
Here’s something the EPA is involved in promoting.
http://www.cscaweb.org/EMS/sector_team/support_files/page_1/History_of_EMS.pdf
Not all the strings lead to the White House.
Mr. Driessen – Thanks for the article. Did you attempt to submit this to various periodicals (media websites)? I made a comment on an earlier thread where I basically ranted about the dearth of pro- and con- articles appearing in MSM national newspapers/multimedia (and then being available to be carried by the local) – at least if opposing articles like this one were out there for local editors to grab and potentially place in their papers (websites) we (populace as a whole) would have a greater chance of seeing them where they are needed most to provide a balance and show that indeed there is not in fact a ‘consensus’ (always have detested that political term being applied to what should be empirical science) regarding the issues surrounding our worlds’ climate variability. Is this because you have been ‘blacklisted’ (see for definition of ‘blacklisted’: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Blacklisted)? Is the article already available but not being picked up? I think I may already know the answer to these questions, just thought if you are still checking this posting I would inquire. I think it really would open a few eyes for those whose eyes refuse to see, or at least provide an opinion that opposes the constant propaganda flow with the potential to cause at least a few on-the-fence to further question the ‘consensus’. One heart, one mind at a time. Some I speak with are unaware that there are viewpoints that are contrary to the Gospel of IPCC. Thanks again!
Tom O says:
June 20, 2014 at 6:09 am
—–
I’m just repeating what the IRS commissioner recently told a House sub-committee.
Apparently the IRS hasn’t been following the law when it comes to e-mail backups.
Either that, or someone is lying.
Is the USA becoming the new European Soviet Union? With its diktats etc