Said story: Activists Fight Green Projects, Seeing U.N. Plot

Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.

They are showing up at planning meetings to denounce bike lanes on public streets and smart meters on home appliances — efforts they equate to a big-government blueprint against individual rights. (snip)

The protests date to 1992 when the United Nations passed a sweeping, but nonbinding, 100-plus-page resolution called Agenda 21 that was designed to encourage nations to use fewer resources and conserve open land by steering development to already dense areas. They have gained momentum in the past two years because of the emergence of the Tea Party movement, harnessing its suspicion about government power and belief that man-made global warming is a hoax.

Some may in fact see it as a UN plot, but, then, the UN has been pushing junk science and all sorts of initiatives, most recently “biodiversity” and “sustainability”, as a means to put more control into the hands of government, as well as people’s hard earned money. As Tom Nelson points out

Is Revkin really sure that Tea Party activisits don’t just see their hard-earned cash being blown on idiotic left-wing bad-weather-preventing projects?

Let me tell you a little tale. Behind my home is a greenway that follows the Neuse River. The stretch in my area, which extends a few miles from the Highway 264 bridge north, is mostly dirt and gravel. Over the last few months they have been paving it. And cutting down trees. Wait, cutting down trees on a greenway? And by “months” they have literally been slapping down a mile or two of pavement perhaps 5 feet wide. I hear their machines every weekday for months. Not quite sure what they are doing, but, I’m pretty sure it’s expensive. Now, I have no problem with the greenway. In fact, I think it’ll be great to rollerblade on (there are no good places in my area to ‘blade). Of course, not many people used it before: most folks either walked the sidewalks or the golf car paths. I’d go for a walk down it beforehand (it’s been closed for about 5 months now) and see no one else. A $13 million bond was voted in back in 2007. Perhaps, in this economy, it isn’t the time to spend the money on a greenway that will barely be used. Total cost for all the greenways is $30 million. Rather expensive, eh? And wasteful. Should have put convicts out there building it.

Similarely, TEA Party activists are tired of the government wasting enormous amounts of money, usually overspending at high levels, on “green” projects that will rarely be used. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes nature projects for the sake of nature are good. But, be responsible with the money. And don’t cut trees down on greenways, for goodness sakes.

One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a Libertarianish right.
They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues.
That is not how traditional conservatives view the world. There is no such society that I’m aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.”
- Rick Santorum

Radical individualism? What would that be? Freedom? I don’t want someone to legislate morality and push their social beliefs from the federal level on me. The Constitution only gives the federal government power over what it lists and the rest is reserved for the states. It seems like all the other candidates understand this. Where in the world did people get this idea that we don’t want the Federal government in our bedrooms or want low taxes? Radical individualists!

I don’t want to smear this guy. Before I saw this I thought he was a good conservative option. Is this video out of context? Just wondering…

Meanwhile Santorum talks about how much more consistent his history is than his rivals.

Hat tip: The Green Room

(Politico) Think the Supreme Court is where the future of President Barack Obama’s health care law will be settled? Think again.

The real verdict on the future of Obama’s signature achievement will come in November — and the law’s supporters say a Republican sweep could pose a bigger threat to the law than the nine justices ever could.

The court is expected to hand down its decision at the end of its term in June. But most legal observers doubt that it will strike down the whole of the Affordable Care Act, even if it finds the mandate unconstitutional.

In contrast, the Republican candidates are all on record as promising to scrap the whole thing.

Yes, they are, though I think The Politico is underestimating what a SCOTUS decision against the ObamaCare mandate would mean, since there is no severability within the law.

While a Republican president wouldn’t be able to hand out waivers for states to get out of all of the health law’s requirements, as some of the presidential contenders suggest, he’d be able to direct the new Health and Human Services secretary to slow-walk pivotal programs, dramatically relax the regulations and possibly defund the law.

Why not? Perhaps the Republican could give a waiver to right handed people on January 20th, 2013, and left handed people on the 21st. Let’s not forget that the waivers Obama has handed out have a limited time-span of a few years. They aren’t permanent.

Front-runner Mitt Romney has pledged to repeal the law, and his policy aides are figuring out just how much dismantling could be done through the White House and HHS, without congressional action.

Now that’s a good idea. I’ve said time and time again that the GOP cannot simply focus on defeating Obama, but must retain the House and retake the Senate.

And it’s unknown whether the Senate or House will be controlled by Democrats, who could stop legislative efforts to repeal or defund the law. Even if they lose control of the Senate, Democrats may still have enough votes to be able to slow down or block efforts to repeal the law signed by Obama nearly two years ago.

Obviously, the media and Democrats will all of a sudden have no problem with the minority party being “obstructionist”.

For those who listen to talk radio, especially Hannity, we get a constant dose of “this being the most important election of our lifetime” every election cycle. In this case, that’s correct: doing away with a law that affects every single one of us along with 1/5th of the US economy is, as Joe Biden would say “a pretty big f**king deal.”

Any GOP president would not be able to do away with all the provisions, as the article points out. But, that person can certainly do away with the most burdensome parts, such as the mandate, and work with Congress to enact real world fixes that help actually lower health insurance costs while extending the possibility of obtaining health insurance to the 30-45 million who are without, which, if you remember, was the original point of health insurance overhaul, before it truly became a step down the road towards single payer.

That said, how does Obama run on his “signature achievement”? Democrats, including Obama, declined to discuss the law in the run up to the 2010 mid-terms. How can he run on the need to give so many waivers, excluding tens of millions of Americans? How does he run on ObamaCare when the majority of Americans are against the law? If the eventual GOP is smart, he’ll almost immediately attempt to engage Obama on these issues.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

(Washington Times) Eleven states and the District of Columbia are siding with the Obama administration in the legal battle over the constitutionality of the new health care law, as more than half the states prepare to challenge the law before the Supreme Court.

Attorneys general in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on Friday supporting Congress‘ authority to pass the sweeping legislation, arguing that health care is a national concern because the industry constitutes nearly one-fifth of the U.S. economy.

Iowa is rather a shocker, especially with a Republican governor and House. However, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller is a…..Democrat. The others are no big surprise, and include, for the most part, the most expensive states to do business in, some of the worst economies in terms of debt, and some of the highest costs of living.

The attorneys general rejected a central argument made by the 26 states challenging the law — that Congress overstepped its authority by passing an “individual mandate” requiring Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a fine.

Instead, they emphasized a key argument made by the administration: that because Americans are legally entitled to health care — and everyone needs health care at some point in their life — Congress can mandate coverage to ensure others don’t have to pay for it.

An interesting argument, but, one that really has little to nothing to do with forcing people to purchase an item because they may possibly use it at some point. This would be the same as requiring every American to purchase a handgun and bullets because they might possibly have to use it at some point. Think these same Liberals would like a federal law like that, based loosely on the commerce clause?

And whether they are “legally entitled to health care” doesn’t follow that the Constitution gives the Central Government the power to only regulate commerce between the states, not what happens in states. The Commerce Clause is more of a key argument by the Obama administration.

Furthermore, the law doesn’t legally entitle people to purchase health insurance across state lines, so, there is no interstate commerce. This can all be moot, though, if Republicans realize that this election cycle isn’t simply about getting rid of Obama. Even if he is defeated, the GOP must retain the House and retake the Senate, otherwise, controlling the White House is moot.

It would all be moot, too, if the Democrats had decided to pass wise legislation that actually deals with the costs of health insurance, rather than a highly partisan piece of legislation which the majority of Americans are against.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

While the Old Media has been ecstatic over recent job numbers, claiming that some 200,000 jobs have been added to the economy, we should note that while Obama giveth Obama also taketh away. The media may be trying to claim the President has “created or saved” jobs (the latest weasel word is he’s created job opportunity) but his policies have also cost jobs. In particular his policies are costing jobs in the medical field.

Last week, layoffs were announced in Mississippi at the University of Mississippi Medical Center due in part to the 80 million dollars that it will cost to implement a new computer system named EPIC Systems, Obama’s newly mandated electronic medical records system.

Naturally, the system Obama is forcing on an entire nation of medical professionals and hospitals is the same system owned and operated by Judith Faulkner, one of his own big donors. Faulkner is also a big donor to the Democrat Party. Not surprisingly, besides affording her the lucrative, crony capitalist business deal, Obama also put Faulkner in a key role on the Health Information Technology Policy Committee, the committee responsible for implementing the President’s e-records policy. She has become known as Obama’s medical records czar.

As hospitals and doctors are forced to launch their own EPIC Systems portals, the costs are forcing hard choices for administrators. All to implement what many call a flawed system.

Representative Tom Price (R, GA), a medical doctor, scoffs at Obama’s EPIC Systems e-record program. Price is not amused by the government-speak bestowed on this e-records systems, those “meaningful use” standards that he calls “anything but useful or meaningful.”

Rep. Price revealed to an audience at a recent Heritage Foundation event that Obama’s new electronic medical records system is filled with “nonsense.”

One of the things about the system Price told the audience was that the system requires a pathologist to fill in a field of information on what a patient is allergic to in every case the docs deal with. If they do not fill in this field the system will “ding” the doctor on his reimbursement funds. That may not seem so absurd, but Price also noted that the pathologist has to fill out these same fields even if he is just consulting on a case by looking at a slide in a microscope and won’t actually see the patient in person.

It gets worse. Price went on to recount that this system is so dysfunctional that it requires the same fields to be filled out for a corpse at an autopsy.

“This is no lie,” Price says. “The federal government wants the pathologist to determine whether or not a corpse has any allergies. …This is nonsense.”

Price told the Heritage audience that a bureaucrat simply cannot tell a doctor what to do. He felt that there wasn’t anything wrong with government mandating a main “highway” for electronic medical records to “ride” on but felt that bureaucrats in Washington simply haven’t the knowledge to make a single system that is all things to all doctors for all patients.

“[Washington should] not dictate what the docs are doing on a day-to-day basis for a given patient because it doesn’t make any sense, it’s a waste of time.” Price insisted. “They can never, ever put in place the right standards …for a bureaucrat to determine whether or not the doctor is doing the right thing.”

(About 20 minutes into the following video)

The fact is, while this month’s jobs record might seem good, Obama is still destroying jobs in other areas due to his constant stream of regulations. And maybe these numbers aren’t so good at that. This rosy 8.5 percent unemployment figure that the White House is touting is “terribly misleading,” according to James Pethokoukis. The AEI columnist notes that if the White House was still using the size of the U.S. labor force from 2009, the unemployment rate would be at 10.9 percent today.

Lastly, we should note that the full implementation of Obamacare is still several years off. When that bell tolls, job loss with be monumental. But even though we have yet to get to full implementation of Obamacare, it is still costing jobs even today.

Romney did it again. On Fox News he linked Romneycare to conservative principles, an outrageous act in the eyes of any conservative. But hold the boat, people, because Romney didn’t exactly say that Romneycare itself is a conservative policy. And therein lies the weasel words that Romney has used to describe the Massachusetts healthcare plan he was so proud to pass when he was the Governor of the state.

To the video…

Transcript:

I’m happy to stand by the things I believe. I’m not going to change my positions by virtue of being in a presidential campaign. What we did was right for the people of Massachusetts. The plan is still favored there by 3:1 and it is fundamentally a conservative principle because the people take personal responsibility rather than turning to the government for free care.

Now, let’s look at what Romney said here. He didn’t exactly say that Romneycare itself is “fundamentally conservative.” He said the concept that people should take responsibility for their own healthcare is a fundamentally conservative idea.

Such as it is, he’s right. That IS a fundamentally conservative idea.

But as Romney has repeatedly done since he signed that disastrous, socialist, far from conservative piece of legislation, he has weasel worded his description of that law. As he’s done before, in this clip he illicitly linked conservative principles to Romneycare by focusing at a micro level on the single idea that we should take care of our own healthcare and linking that real conservative principle to his actions as if conservative principles are the guiding forces behind Romneycare. The problem with Romney’s characterization of the issue is that his legislation is fundamentally not conservative. It is big government, socialist, authoritarian nonsense. It’s not conservative at all. Romney tries to [sell] us that one tiny conservative idea buried under miles of socialist ideas as misdirection for the ills that Romneycare forces on the people of the Bay State.

Romney also tries an additional rhetorical trick by focusing on Tenth Amendment ideals, saying that his effort in Mass. was a “state only” effort, one that he would not recommend for every state. Romney correctly notes that one of our founding principles is that the states should be free to experiment with policy and implement what voters want free of interference by the federal government — a Tenth Amendment ideal. But what Romney is doing here is slyly trying to cloak his monumentally non-conservative healthcare law in the conservative idea of the Tenth Amendment as if Romneycare is conservative when it isn’t conservative in any way at all.

It would be like using a cop’s position as an officer of the law as cover for his breaking, entering, and stealing from a citizen’s home, like saying it is OK simply because he’s a police man. Just because this mythical cop is an officer of the law does not mean his actions are legitimate. In a like way, just because we have a conservative idea of the Tenth Amendment this does not mean that a Romneycare law implemented under the principle of that Amendment is a conservative idea or even an advisable policy, for that matter.

We should also point out that even as this particular issue is the only item he’s not fully flip flopped on — much to the consternation of conservatives everywhere, Romney has flip flopped on whether or not he thinks Romneycare is as good for the nation as it was for Massachusetts. Not long ago Romney was saying that he felt Romneycare was a model for the nation. Now, all of a sudden, he says he never said that, he says that Romneycare was only good for Massachusetts (even though it clearly isn’t) and that he would not recommend it for the nation.

In any case, the point here is that Romney makes it impossible to logically sustain the idea that Obamacare is bad and should be repealed when there isn’t anything substantively different between Romneycare — which he constantly defends and says is great — and Obamacare. The core issue that Republicans and many independents would rally to vote for Romney over is nullified by his constant defense of Romneycare.

This is the main reason why Romney cannot beat Obama in 2012.

One of the Old Media’s favorite ways of attempting to hide the ideological track of a story is to somehow forget to mention to which party someone in the news hails or owes fealty to. In this case it is what they don’t report that misleads. This week we find a classic what-they-don’t-say story concerning the judge that blocked sections of South Carolina’s new immigration law.

For those unaware, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel temporarily blocked segments of South Carolina’s new immigration laws because he claimed that some of its provisions impinged on federal prerogatives, things over which the state has no jurisdiction.

The South Carolina law was opposed in court by Obama’s left-wing, activist Department of Justice headed by Eric “Fast And Furious” Holder and a gaggle of civil rights groups and Judge Gergel agreed with these attackers issuing an injunction to stop implementation of the provisions in question.

The Old Media reported a lot of details in the story, of course. We learned all about who opposed the provisions, who scoffed at the injunction, in what District Judge Gergel hailed, and in some of the reports we even get to hear what Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley had to say about it all. But one thing few of these news outlets seemed to report might help readers understand the decision better.

Judge Richard Mark Gergel is an Obama appointee.

So we have an Obama appointee — Eric “Fast And Furious” Holder — attacking a state trying desperately to deal with the illegal immigration problem that other Obama appointees won’t deal with and an Obama appointee — Judge Gergel — agreeing with Obama appointee Holder that the struggling state needs a rebuke.

Yet, the Old Media doesn’t see any need to tell us that Obama appointees are agreeing with Obama appointees against a Republican Governor, here? The fact that Judge Gergel is an Obama appointee isn’t relevant?

Imagine that.

Yes, it somehow slipped Politico’s notice that Gergel is an Obama appointee. The Associated Press made the little oopsie, too. Oh, and Reuters must have given their editors the week off for Christmas or something because they missed this fact. AFP missed it, too. Oh, and Bloomberg forgot to mention Gergel’s Obama connection. Naturally The New York Times didn’t bother with this little fact. Shockingly, the L.A. Times somehow neglected the fact that Gergel was an Obama man. It slipped right past the steely eye of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Even Fox News missed it.

Did anyone note that Judge Gergel was an Obama man? At the time I wrote this only some SC political blogs and a site called the International Business Times bothered to let its reader know that Gergel is an Obama appointee.

Now, we all know that every time we have a Republican president and one of his appointees turns in a judgment that opposes the liberal mindset, the fact that the judge is a GOP appointee is always prominent in the story.

But, gosh darn it, the fact that Judge Gergel is an appointee of the most liberal president in American history just didn’t seem relevant to the Old Media today.

It’s just a little Merry Christmas present to the Old Media’s President Obama.

Ho, ho, ho.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

(Washington Post) The Obama administration on Tuesday will wade into the increasingly divisive national debate over new voting laws in several states that could depress turnout among minorities and others who helped elect the president in 2008.

A dozen states this year tightened rules requiring voters to present state-issued photo identification at the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Although Democratic governors vetoed four of the measures, liberal and civil rights groups have been raising alarms about the remaining laws, calling them an “assault on democracy” and an attempt to depress minority voter turnout.

We’ve talked about this numerous times, and, I just have to wonder, is it racist to think that minorities aren’t capable of getting state issued IDs? I think it just might be. It is pretty damned simple to get a state issued ID, and not particularly expensive. Most people have them. They are needed for tons of stuff in our daily lives. Yet, Democrats think minorities, and they are mostly talking about Blacks, do not have one for one reason or another. I bet Eric Holder has an ID. In my previous job, I saw IDs all day long, from people who made lots of money to people in Section 8 housing who lived on welfare. Some of them were minorities, and they all had ID. Who doesn’t have ID? Heck, in some states even illegal aliens have state issued IDs.

With the presidential campaign heating up, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will deliver a speech Tuesday expressing concerns about the voter-identification laws, along with a Texas redistricting plan before the Supreme Court that fails to take into account the state’s burgeoning Hispanic population, he said in an interview Monday.

“We are a better nation now than we were because more people are involved in the electoral process,’’ Holder said in the interview. “The beauty of this nation, the strength of this nation, is its diversity, and when we try to exclude people from being involved in the process .?.?. we weaken the fabric of this country.’’

First, some people are too uniformed to vote, as witnessed by thinking “hope and change” is a political platform. But, we can’t exclude people, even if they are idiots. Second, can the AG point to anyone being excluded because they do not have ID who could legally vote otherwise? No? Damn.

When it comes to voting fraud, some conservatives have long argued that it is a serious problem, although others say the number of such cases is relatively low. Studies of the issue have reached different conclusions on the extent of the problem.

“You constantly hear about voter fraud .?.?. but you don’t see huge amounts of vote fraud out there,’’ Holder said.

So, the AG of the USA has no problem with some violations of federal law? Is anyone surprised?

Democrats freaked after the 2000 and 2004 elections, claiming massive voter fraud which put Bush in the White House and saw his re-election. They latched on to many things, but one thing that stops some fraud is the requirement for ID. They do not want their people who vote multiple times to have to prove they are who they are. Furthermore, they are having a conniption fit over reduced early voting. Last time I checked, the Constitution gave Congress the duty to choose a voting day, and by law they made it the 1st Tuesday in November following the 1st Monday in November. That’s why it is called “Election Day” not election weeks.

Anyhow, Democrats talk a good game about doing all that can be done to reduce election fraud, but, when push comes to shove, they know it is a necessity in order to get Democrats elected, as Powerline points out in wondering if the Obama admin. is coordinating with left wing groups on this issue.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

“The ACLU has managed to block North Carolina from issuing license plates with a “Choose Life” message because the state legislature declined to also issue “Choose Death” plates.

U.S. District Judge James Fox didn’t put it that way in his Nov. 28 injunction, but he did agree with the ACLU that the absence of an opposing plate violates the First Amendment. The problem arose because lawmakers refused to authorize the “Respect Choice” plate that Planned Parenthood wanted as part of its ongoing “Culture of Death” initiative.

The ruling prompts the question of whether every expression allowed on a license plate must be accompanied by a contrary view, sort of a Fairness Doctrine for motorists.

Tennessee also found itself in court over “Choose Life” plates in 2004 in ACLU of Tennessee v. Bredesen. In 2006, the 6th U.S Circuit Court overturned a district court ruling against the state, saying, “Government can express public policy views by enlisting private volunteers to disseminate its message, and there is no principle under which the First Amendment can be read to prohibit government from doing so because the views are particularly controversial or politically divisive.”

The court pointed out that nobody is forced to buy the “Choose Life” plates, unlike, say, New Hampshire’s “Live Free or Die” plates that all Granite State vehicles must bear.

The current controversy is likely to continue for years, as courts have been all over the map, with some ruling that message plates constitute a “public forum,” and others disagreeing. Twenty-nine states have “Choose Life” plates or have authorized them, according to the Winston-Salem Journal

Source

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here