What is his solution to the “problem” of global warming?

We need to alter the playing field with tax and fiscal polices… Developed countries have made this step with air and water pollution by enacting outright regulations and installing a cap and trade system.

Uh huh. So the new Energy Secretary has no plans on how to create new energy in the United States? Just more regulation and taxes on energy that we already have?

More:

Mr. Chu has called for gradually ramping up gasoline taxes over 15 years to coax consumers into buying more-efficient cars and living in neighborhoods closer to work. “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” Mr. Chu, who directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in September.

The new Energy Secretary is not interested in energy independence. In the strictest sense of the word, he is looking to foster a new energy dependence– not a dependence on foreign suppliers, like in the past. No, Chu’s new energy plan is to socially-engineer the American people towards a further dependence on the government. The state will decide what kind of cars we drive and how close we live together.

The media is taking much enjoyment in pointing out that Obama disagrees with Chu on gas taxes. Its true. In the past, Obama has opposed a raise in the gas tax, but it is likely that his reasons were rooted in political pragmatism (remember gas prices in the summer?). But now that he’s got the top job, Obama can appoint ideologues like Chu to high-level positions in his cabinet and let them make all of the hard decisions for him.

In addition to wanting to dictate to oil companies what they should charge for their products, Mr. Chu has referred to coal powered energy as his “worst nightmare,” and has said that even clean-coal technologies will not be enough. “It’s not guaranteed we have a solution for coal,” he said.

Take a look at this graph of where our electricity came from in 2007. As you can see, coal power makes up about half of all of it. That’s a good thing; and Steven Chu wants a “solution” for it.

In summary:

Obama is “confident” and Rham Emmanuel is… Under investigation?

Hopefully more will become availible on this as the day progresses…

“I had no contact with the governor or his office and so we were not, I was not aware of what was happening.” (Italics mine)

No contact, eh?

Here’s Obama on December 2nd, meeting with Blagojevich (right):

There’s more. According to Blagojevich’s official newsletter dated from November 12th. On the left is a from that publication of the two meeting. Guess what the accompanying story was on? One vacant senate seat.

It reads as follows:

“Last night’s victory was bittersweet for Illinois ‐ as we gain a great President, we lose a great Senator.  And it goes without saying that our next Senator has big shoes to fill. Because it’s important that the best person for Illinois is selected, I want to be clear that the calendar won’t dictate our search. Instead, I want to ensure that Obama’s successor will understand and fight for the needs of average Illinoisans,” Governor Blagojevich said.

Am I saying that Obama and Blagojevich discussed the Senate appointment at either of these two meetings? No, I am not. Am I saying that Obama is involved in corruption, graft, and other wrongdoing? No, I am not.

But, is Obama a liar?

Yes, he is; and for that reason, and that reason alone, every record and file in Obama’s “Office of the President Elect” should be subpoenaed, and scrutinized. This is something that Obama, Mr. Transparency, should willingly offer up– he has nothing to hide, after all. For Christ sakes, we already know that someone in Obama’s team is involved in this– I want to know where it stops, and I want to know before January 20!

Why is Patrick Fitzgerald so quick to say that Obama isn’t involved, anyway? Those were the first words out of his mouth after arresting Blagojevich. Surely, the man should at least be investigated! Blagojevich is friends with him; they endorsed each other; they’ve been politically connected for years. That warrants no investigation of any kind? It just speaks to the political nature of the whole thing. If these were Republicans, there would be an intense media scrutiny the likes of which has never been seen, there’d be calls for Obama to be impeached even before taking office, there’d be special prosecutors, Ethics Committees would be formed. But no! These men are Democrats– they’re the good guys.

It’s going to be a long, long 4 years.

Later in the conversation, ROD BLAGOJEVICH said he knows that the President-elect wants Senate Candidate 1 for the Senate seat but “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. F— them.”

If Obama had absolutely no contact with Blagojevich, as he claims, how did Blagojevich know who Obama wanted in the Senate seat, and how did he know that Obama wasn’t willing to give him anything but appreciation in exchange? He couldn’t know those things without speaking to Obama, or at least an aide. The only question is:

Why is Obama lying about it?

It seems to me that Obama could use this whole situation to his advantage. If Blagojevich contacted him and asked for a payment in return for appointing Obama’s preferred candidate, and Obama offered nothing but “appreciation” in return, it sounds like Obama did the right thing. Why hide that?

Could it be that Obama neglected to report the attempted bribe and is now trying to cover up that he did nothing? We really know too little to speculate at this point, which is why Obama should make a statement today clarifying his position.

Why the cover-up, Obama?

Not only is Obama clearly lying about his contact with Blagojevich, but Hot Air is now reporting that all questions about the situation are being removed from Obama’s new, “Open for Questions” page on his website, a utility that is supposed to contribute to a more open, transparent government. I implore everyone to go on the site and ask at least one of the following questions (via Hot Air):

• Given the current corruption charges involving Blagojevich, will ’serious’ campaign finance reform that takes money completely out of politics through publicly funded elections be a priority in the first term?
• In light of the recent corruption scandals (Blagojevich, Rangel, Jefferson, Stevens, etc) that have dominated the political scene, is there any ethics legislation being crafted to actually curb corruption and prevent another wave of Nixonian cynicism?
• Is Barack Obama aware of any communications in the last six weeks between Rod Blagojevich or anyone representing Rod Blagojevich and any of Obama’s top aides?

See how long it takes before you get your comment taken down.

Obviously like the rest of the people of Illinois I am saddened and sobered by the news that came out of the US attorney’s office today, but as this is a ongoing investigation involving the governor I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to comment on the issue at this time.

He also paused to make one thing clear about his contact with Blagojevich on the Senate-replacement:

I had no contact with the governor or his office and so we were not, I was not aware of what was happening.

Unfortunately for Mr. Obama, this video of David Axelrod was discovered immediately afterward:

Awkward.

And even though the Obama team has since released a statement saying that Axelrod “misspoke,” we still have to ask the question: What did Obama know, and when did he know it? Oh, I know, I’m terrible for asking questions about a senator’s relationship with the governor of his state, but don’t forget that Obama served as a top advisor to Blagojevich in his first 2002 run for the state house and endorsed him again in 2006.

Ask yourself this question: If the shoe were on the other foot and John McCain had won the election, and something of this magnitute came out about one of “President-Elect” McCain’s close associates and political ally’s, would the media be so generous to him? Ha!

Today, I am announcing a few key parts of my plan. First, we will launch a massive effort to make public buildings more energy-efficient. Our government now pays the highest energy bill in the world. We need to change that. We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs. That wont just save you, the American taxpayer, billions of dollars each year. It will put people back to work.

Finally! Obama gets specific about where he’ll be cutting the government budget: cheaper light bulbs! And new light bulbs means Obama will need to hire an army of light blub changers, which will be made up of the hordes of newly-unemployed investment bankers, stock brokers and their former secretaries. They should start a Union.

What else does Obama have planned?

Second, we will create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s. We’ll invest your precious tax dollars in new and smarter ways.

The most upsetting part about this plan is that Obama truly believes that it will work. It can’t. It won’t.

Its really very simple: government make-work programs such as these do not create jobs, they move them around. Think about it. Where will the money that will pay the government-laborers come from? The top 5% of income-earners, of course; the people who do most employing in the private-sector. By taking money away from them to pay the “millions” of new government employees, they will have less money to pay those who they currently employ. As a direct result of this plan, more people will lose jobs, and then go work for new, bigger government programs. This vicious cycle will continue until we’re all working shoulder to shoulder in the rice fields.

Perfect equality, right?

President Obama can define his legacy in the first 100 days by laying the groundwork for a global tax on carbon dioxide emissions that is effective, efficient, equitable and enforceable. An effective, harmonized tax on C02 emissions must stabilize the growth of atmospheric concentrations of GHGs by no later than 2020. The tax must also be adjusted annually, by a global body, according to this objective.

I’m glad that I did not misunderstand Mr. Nader; for a moment I was concerned that he wanted the United States government to tax carbon emissions– I can take a small solace in knowing that under his plan, CO2 usage will be taxed by a foreign body that does not represent me. But don’t worry! You’ve heard of it; its called the United Nations! Who ever heard of “No Taxation Without Representation,” anyway?

Let’s get specific. What are your plans?

The most efficient way to apply a carbon tax is at a relatively small number of major carbon bottlenecks, which cover the lion’s share of GHGs. The key points where flows of carbon are the most concentrated include: trunk pipelines for gas, refineries for oil, railroad heads for coal, liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals, cement, steel, aluminum and GHG-intensive chemical plants.

I’m not entirely sure, but what Nader is asking for here might be entirely without precedent. Nader is seriously suggesting that the United Nations send an army of bureaucrats into the United States. These men will busy themselves measuring the emissions of all of the above industries. They will then convene, most likely in secret, to decide exactly how high a tax they will impose on each industry, a figure which will be based on how much said industry has produced. This is something that Nader wants done every year.

In case you’re wondering what the goal of such a plan could possibly be, here’s this:

Nader’s final sentence:

If President Obama hits the ground running fast in the direction of a global carbon tax, he can usher in a new dawn that might finally make peace between man and climate.

Nader betrays himself. He views man and the environment in the same way that Karl Marx viewed the bourgeois and the proletariat. Oppressor, oppressed. There is nothing new about the environmentalist movement. Yesterday it was a Class Revolution, today it is the Green Revolution.

This is the new Marxism. These are the new Marxists.

]]> http://autonomy.blogivists.com/2008/12/05/the-inhumanity-ralph-nader-wants-a-global-carbon-tax/feed/ 0 http://autonomy.blogivists.com/2008/12/04/hilarious-gop-congresswoman-hangs-up-on-obama/ http://autonomy.blogivists.com/2008/12/04/hilarious-gop-congresswoman-hangs-up-on-obama/#comments Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:36:45 +0000 bpoi http://autonomy.blogivists.com/?p=127 Unfortunately, it was just an accident.

In a series of hang-up and follow-up calls that appears to have taken up much of the afternoon, Ros-Lehtinen first received a call on her cell phone, from a Chicago phone number, and was informed by the caller that Obama wished to speak with her. When a man sounding like Obama got on the line, Ros-Lehtinen cut him off, saying, “I’m sorry, but I think this is a joke from one of the South Florida radio stations known for these pranks.” She then hung up, according to a statement issued by her office.

A little while later, Chief of Staff-designate Rahm Emanuel called the congresswoman back.

“Ileana, I cannot believe that you hung up on the president-elect,” Emanuel said, according to the congresswoman’s office.

Her response?

“Ros-Lehtinen told Rahm that she didn’t believe the call was legitimate and hung up on Emanuel,” her statement said.

The quote to keep from this definitely comes from Rahm:

“I cannot believe that you hung up on the president-elect.”

What is the deal with these people? Seems that whenever I read something from the Obama trasition team, the words “president-elect” fly out of their mouths at least two or three times every minute. I want to grab these people by the shoulders and shake them. “President-elect” is not even an official title, its just something the media made up; its nowhere in the constitution. There is no such thing as an “Office of the President-Elect.” Be patient, you’ll get there soon enough.

…Anyway, just wait until Keith Olbermann gets his grubby little fingers on this story. I can hear it now: “This idiot Republican didn’t even know that Obama won the election!”

All in all, Ros-Lehtinen shouldn’t feel too bad; if it had been me, I would’ve hung up on them intentionally.

This is a woman who, in the last week, has been the target of multiple, scurrilous attacks. The left wing press has made her into a pariah, a target upon which it can unload all of its hatred for conservatism. Much has been said, and it has been roundly speculated that McCain’s vetting process was anything but thorough. But between Palin and Barack Obama, can there be any question as to whose record has been more carefully examined by the media– by the American public?

Briefly consider the following facts, and ask yourself how many times you’ve heard about them in the mainstream press:

Obama, a black man, is a former member of a church that endorses Black Liberation Theology, a faith that believes that Christianity teaches us to free the “oppressed” through redistributing the wealth– the oppressed, in this case, being everyone who is black; this is a church that he attended for twenty years.

While visiting his father’s homeland, Kenya, in 2004, Obama met with and campaigned on behalf of fellow Lou tribesman and openly socialist Ralia Odinga, who is now the Prime Minister of Kenya.

Obama is a known associate of William Ayers, unrepentant domestic terrorist directly responsible for bombings on both the Capitol Building and the Pentagon; it is in that man’s home where Obama held his political coming-out party in 1995, when he first announced his candidacy for State Senator of Illinois.

Many are familiar with Barack Obama as a “community organizer,” but few seem to know what work he did specifically; Obama worked for the Developing Communities Project of the Calumet Community Religious Conference in Chicago, organizations based around the principles of the Communist writer, Saul Alinsky. Alinsky wrote a book called Rules for Radicals, which Obama says he read in college in his autobiography, The Audacity of Hope. Considered by many to be the Bible of bloodless socialist revolution, Rules for Radicals surely had an effect on the just-out-of-college Obama, considering that he went to work for organizations dedicated to the principles that were laid out in it. Alinsky’s son, L. David Alinsky, recently said to the Boston Globe:

“Barack Obama’s training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing its effectiveness. It is an amazingly powerful format, and the method of my late father always works to get the message out and get the supporters on board. When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well.

“I am proud to see that my father’s model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday.”

According to Alinsky, Obama has learned his lesson well. What lesson, and from whom? The answer: how to affect “Change” as taught by an avowed Communist. This is how Obama earned his stripes– organizing.

When Barack Obama, the man who may quite possibly be the next Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America, is free from the intense scrutiny that has been given to Sarah Palin’s seventeen year-old daughter’s romantic life, something is not right.

I have to point out the stark difference between Barack Obama’s bumbling, backtracking and general verbosity and John McCain’s conciseness of response– this difference is due in large part to the fact that while John McCain has principles (even though I disagree with many of them), Barack Obama has none– at least no consistent ones. But this is to be expected. John McCain has led a life of public service, and Obama hasn’t even finished his first term in the Senate.

If you watched the clip, you’d know that the Junior Senator said that answering the question of when a baby gets human rights is “above his pay grade.” In other words, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know? A one-year old is a baby– does he have human rights? Of all the things that he could’ve said, this was the dumbest.

Strange words coming from the most liberal, pro-human rights candidate in history. Do you think the folks who presented him with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award feel a bit… awkward?

But Obama has had plenty to say on the issue of Human Rights; here are some highlights.

At the Council on Foreign Relations in 2004:

In every region of the globe, our foreign policy should promote traditional American ideals: democracy and human rights

Yes, but how, under your leadership, can the US promote Human Rights when you don’t even know at what point people get them? Lets move on. At the ‘Citizen of the World’ speech in Berlin:

Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe?

I don’t know Barry, how can we, under your leadership, if the question of whether they deserve them at all is ‘above your pay grade’?

But Obama did not think that it was above his pay grade in 2001 as a state senator, when he voted against the infanticidal Born Alive Infants Bill, which would require that a child that has been born and has survived an abortion to receive the same care as a child that was born prematurely; Obama would rather the baby be left to die. Ironically, Obama made substantially less money then than he does now: maybe his standards went up?

Perhaps Senator Obama does not realize that as president of the United States, he’ll be making decisions that effect the lives of millions of people, including the unborn. If that question is above his pay grade, then –in all seriousness– maybe he should apply for another job. If I had been Rick Warren, I would have stopped him before he continued into his bloated elaboration, and I would have asked him, “Senator, if its above your pay grade to answer that question, do you believe your daughters have human rights?”