Thank you for your email regarding Congressman Reichert’s vote on the Cap & Trade legislation.

The passion that everyone is expressing is the grass roots of our political system and it’s good to see so many people involved.

I will be delivering all of your emails this Wednesday to the Congressman!

Please stay in touch with the County Party and all of your legislators from your school boards, city councils, county councils, state legislature to the congressional folks.  It is our responsibility to keep all of these elected officials informed of our thoughts and concerns.    The ability to communicate so freely is unique to our country and a freedom we need to use responsibly.

Thank you for keeping in touch with us!

At least they responded.  I got NOTHING, Zilch, Zero, Nuttin’, Nada, from the State GOP (my email addressed Mr. Esser, the state chair).

Washington, DC – Congressman Dave Reichert (WA-08) released the following statement today after the U.S. House passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act:

“Energy independence and our national security are critical issues for America. These issues transcend politics. The future of this country is on the line and we can spare no effort when it comes to  leading on these issues at a global level.

“This bill is not perfect, but it is a vital step toward energy independence. America cannot maintain global leadership without innovation and new ideas, and we cannot lead if we increasingly depend
on foreign nations to heat our homes and move people and goods. The price of inaction is too great; America cannot stand on the sidelines while our competitors embrace new energy efficient technologies. It’s also important that we engage in a bipartisan discussion as we move forward – this bill has many other hoops to jump through before it becomes law and I will continue to work with my colleagues across the aisle and in the Senate to gain more tax relief for middle-income families.

“Teddy Roosevelt was the true example of a Republican engaged in conserving resources for our children and grandchildren, but he also had the foresight to seek a brighter future for them. Republicans must be at the table as we look for solutions in energy independence and preserving our environment, while also looking at the bigger picture and working with all of our colleagues for a stronger nation.”

OK, breaking this down:

Energy independence and our national security are critical issues for America. These issues transcend politics. The future of this country is on the line and we can spare no effort when it comes to
leading on these issues at a global level.

So far so good.  I agree completely.  It’s of course the Democrat party that is playing Politics with this issue, by ramming it through with minimal debate, or even opportunity for the Representatives to read and digest the bill, with all of its last minute amendments, deals, and PLACEHOLDERS.  That’s right, PLACEHOLDERS.  They voted on a bill with a section that HASN’T EVEN BEEN WRITTEN YET.

Courtesy of Michelle Malkin: 

On the House floor this afternoon, Barney Frank explained the “placeholder” in the cap and trade bill that apparently will deal with regulations of financial derivatives market associated with reducing
carbon emissions.

I feel so much better that we have a PLACEHOLDER in a piece of legislation of this magnitude, controlled by one of the main players in the Sub-Prime Mortgage crises.

This point alone should have been a deal killer.

This bill is not perfect, but it is a vital step toward energy independence. America cannot maintain global leadership without innovation and new ideas, and we cannot lead if we increasingly depend
on foreign nations to heat our homes and move people and goods.

He is right, that this bill is NOT perfect.  It is far from perfect.  Nor will it be a vital step towards energy independence.  What it does is handicap american industry, at the very time that we should be trying to rehabilitate it; and kills more jobs than it will create.  Oh, and as an added bonus, it will greatly increase the cost of energy in the United States, while forcing oil refineries off shore, to nations with far more lax environmental laws.

Courtesy of Bloomberg:

The same amount of gasoline that would have $1 in carbon costs imposed if it were domestic would have 10 cents less added if it were imported, according to energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie in Houston. Contrary to President Barack Obama’s goal of reducing dependence on overseas energy suppliers, the bill would incent U.S. refiners to import more fuel, said Clayton Mahaffey, an analyst at RedChip Cos. in Maitland, Florida.

So, there go America’s refinery jobs, and with the added bonus of being more dependent on foreign energy!

Back to Reichert:

The price of inaction is too great; America cannot stand on the sidelines while our competitors embrace new energy efficient technologies. It’s also important that we engage in a bipartisan discussion as we move forward – this bill has many other hoops to jump through before it becomes law and I will continue to work with my colleagues across the aisle and in the Senate to gain more tax relief for middle-income families.

We have two “alternative” energy sources available that we are ignoring:  Nuclear and Hydro-Electric.

In fact, according to the Washington Times;

Renewable energy accounts for about 8.5 percent of domestic electricity generation, but the House bill’s renewable mandate would not recognize all of that as renewable. Hydropower, for example, which makes up a large chunk of current electricity generation, is not all counted as renewable toward the new mandate.

So, it has the be the right kind (read: Politically Correct) form of energy…

And as far as “tax relief for middle income families” goes, the idea that more than a pittance of the Cap and Trade money will filter down to the consumer is laughable on it’s face.

Courtesy of Fox/Liz Peek:

A sober assessment of the government’s budget situation over the next decade would lead some to think that there is about as much chance of cap-and-trade revenues being recycled back to taxpayers as there is of Nancy Pelosi taking command of the CIA. The government is looking high and low for revenues to fund healthcare legislation and a slew of other programs; this torrent will be just too delicious to give up.

Remember the Social Security Lockbox?  Just how many times do our Representatives have to lie to us, before we wise up?

But I guess the part that really stings is when Reichert puts himself in the company of Teddy Roosevelt:

“Teddy Roosevelt was the true example of a Republican engaged in conserving resources for our children and grandchildren, but he also had the foresight to seek a brighter future for them. Republicans must be at the table as we look for solutions in energy independence and preserving our environment, while also looking at the bigger picture and working with all of our colleagues for a stronger nation.”

Now, I am a BIG fan of TR – I think he is the quintessential American President.  TR embodied the America of his time.

But TR was unable to curb his own political ambition, and his ill advised run for the Presidency against William Taft (on the Bull Moose party ticket, as he had failed to wrest the Republican nomination from Taft – who was his chosen successor), costing both the election, and allowing Woodrow Wilson to win, with only 42% of the vote.  We are still dealing with the fallout of the Wilson presidency, to this day.

So I guess there is some similarity to TR, after all.

The Republican’s had a far better alternative to the Cap and Tax Economy Killer bill, the American Energy Innovation Act, HR. 2828, which the Democrat Party killed in “Bipartisan” fashion…

The only question I have left for Reichert, not that I expect to ever find out the truth of the matter, is:  Did you vote for this bill out of personal conviction, or were you offered some kind of deal?

All I can say, for myself, is that I refuse to support anyone who puts American families and their well being second to passing what is a really bad piece of legislation, out of the misguided notion that something is better than nothing.

If Reichert (and just two or three other turncoats) had stood strong, they could have forced the Democrat dictators in the House to reconsider their definition of “Bipartisan”.

Thanks, Dave.  Hope you aren’t counting on my vote in 2010.

Maybe Obama is hiring for all the new bureaucracy he is creating…

As Michelle asks;

There are 7 GOP turncoats with recorded YEA votes.

What were their payoffs???

I hope Dave Reichert’s payoff was worth it, because he has now thrown his lot in with the job killers in the Democrat party.

I held my nose and voted for Reichert in 2008, because he is a squishy Republican at best.  There was never any thought that he was a conservative.  But the alternative was Darcy Burner.

At least Burner would not have stabbed her Liberal supporters in the back, like Reichert has with conservatives, Republicans, and working people.

Even if this Bill gets stopped in the Senate, Reichert has given the fanatics on the left some degree of cover, by supporting this monstrosity of a bill.

I will be happy to campaign for ANYONE who wants to run against Reichert for his House seat in 2010.

I will, to borrow a turn of phrase, vote for a yelllow dog, before I ever vote for Dave Reichert again.

I cannot encourage people strongly enough to contact Cong. Reichert’s office, and let them know where you stand on this issue!

Washington DC office phone:

(202) 225-7761

Mercer Island office phone: 

(206) 275-3438 or (877) 920-9208

If you are a constituent, you can email his office here.

UPDATE (1:50PM, PDT):  Finally got ahold of Cong. Reichert’s office in DC.  To paraphrase the intern that answered, Reichert is NOT fixed in position, and is weighing response from constituents.

So again, if you are in Wa. Dist 8, and Dave Reichert is your US Representative, please call and or email his office NOW on this issue.

The running vote total is only slightly in favor of the bill right now, so every vote counts on this one!

Michael Kundu, Board President of Marysville (Washington State, USA) District #25 has written to colleagues to urge them to trash a free science resource that discusses logic, reason and evidence, and the core of science. The Skeptics Handbook has arrived at school board presidents’ desks around the US.

“I would encourage all of you to stuff that junk mail directly into the recycle basket.”

In a spot of unwitting self-parody he states:

“…we need to have the ability to tell fact from fiction.  This last mailing is an excellent example of ‘fiction’.”

Thus Michael Kundu, whale photographer, pronounces the data from NASA, Hadley, UAH, CSSP, IPPC, as fiction.

There is a great deal more background at the link, including an interesting exchange between a Marysville resident, and Mr. Kunda, in the Comments.

This is the same Micheal Kunda, who, as Marysville SB President, wrote a commentary peice in the Everett Herald about Science Education:

While NASA and the ESA enjoy excellent working relationships, the ESA is increasingly seeking more qualified science and technology graduates from Europe and Asia. There’s no prejudice involved (American researchers are part of the LHC project); it’s simply because the number of qualified American science and technology graduates is declining. Even today, NASA reports that about 80 percent of its new hires were educated in foreign institutions.

This spring, U.S. Chamber of Commerce studies reported that American universities generate only 225,000 graduates annually in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields. Microsoft says it is finding it increasingly difficult to attract qualified U.S. engineers, and this July, the National Research Council (a congressionally chartered policy advice group) released a dire report, calling for more legislative support to promote degrees in fields like biology and chemistry.

I agree completely with Mr. Kunda’s commentary, and I certainly suggest that everyone read it.  If that was the ONLY information I had read concerning Mr. Kunda’s attitudes about Science, I would have voted for him too.

But for someone who, on the one hand, calls for more Science (and related fields) education in the United State, then, on the other hand, simply dismisses out of hand, with no rational reasoning, data that conflicts with his preconceived notions, he contradicts himself.  What concerns me even more, beyond his summary dismissal of arguments and data against Man-Made Global Warming, is his utter unwillingness to give any data or arguments to support his position.  And on the gripping hand, the most disturbing thing of all is his use of Wikipedia as an authoritative source for an attack on the organization that printed the book in question; and this statement:

As board members, one of our main priorities should be to promote the use of accurate, legitimately scientifically-based information in our schools. We’ve seen the efforts by radical creationists, anti-evolution activists, anti-union, white separatist and other fringe groups to subversively infiltrate public education – this mailing from the Heartland Institute is on a similar level.

So, being Anti-Union is now equivalent to being a White Separatist?  Being skeptical of Man Made Global Warming is equivalent to being Creationist and Anti-Evolution?

As to his statement that:

Each of us has an obligation to try and improve the academic environment for our students – we need to have the ability to tell fact from fiction.  This last mailing is an excellent example of ‘fiction’.

I wonder how many time Al Gore’s money making scheme, and widely discredited, “An Inconvenient Truth”, has been shown in the Marysville SD, with Mr. Kunda’s blessing.

I submit that Mr. Kunda’s attitutde about global warming is no less a matter of faith than the people he seeks to demean in his screed.

I suggest reading the email chain between Mr. Kunda, and people involved with the book, here.

Also, you can read the Skeptic’s Handbook here.  It is, from my reading, simply questioning foundaiton of Man Made Global Warming (i.e., CO2), NOT that Climate Change is a real and present process.  Only the most closed minded and parochial would suggest that Climate Change does not occur.  Climate Change has been around since the earth cooled enough to actually HAVE a climate, billions of years ago.  Cliamte Change will be around, long after man has passed on…

But it is not to be so.  Witness the pending release of the remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still”.

My favorite line from the Trailer (and therefore, probably the best line in the movie), is (as I recall) “If the Earth dies, you die.  If you die, the Earth lives”.

So, Klatu, the alien sent to warn mankind about playing with Nuclear Weapons in the original movie, is now some kind of green Terminator (or exterminator), sent to save mother Earth from the nasty, despoiling humans, blah blah blah.

Imagine an Al Gore speech, with $millions of Special Effects CGI.

Of course, this kind of thinking isn’t limited to the big screen, in this new age of Hope & Change in America…

Foxnews has a piece on a group called Rising Tide, that Klatu would certainly support.

Rising Tide isn’t protesting the causes of global warming as much as the solutions.

It is against clean coal, nuclear power and capping carbon pollution while letting polluters buy and sell rights to pollute under the cap — the very fixes under discussion in Washington.

It disdains the compromise and collaboration between the Big 10 environmental groups and elite corporations, as well as the view that technology can save the environment.

Rising Tide originated in the Netherlands in 2000. It came to the U.S. in 2006.

That’s when a group of activists involved in Earth First!, one of the earliest groups to use in-your-face tactics such as tree-sitting and blocking roads with human chains, decided that more attention needed to be paid to global warming.

“There was a huge need for a climate-focused group that wasn’t going to compromise … not do what is conducive to business,
but what we actually need for ecosystems on this planet to survive,” said Abigail Singer, who was in those early discussions and is one of roughly 20 people who lead Rising Tide nationally.

Rising Tide’s targets include other environmentalists.

A quick trip to the groups website gives us more insight on their ideals:

Rising Tide North America’s strategy is based on a no-compromise approach of stopping the extraction of more fossil fuels and preventing the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure. Equally important, we must phase out our current fossil fuel use and make a just transition to sustainable ways of living. What this means in terms of local organizing depends on the specific conditions unique to each town and bioregion. Rising Tide’s tactics are diverse and creative, taking a
bottom-up approach to connecting the dots between oil, war, capitalism, coal, and the destabilization of the global climate.

Practical solutions exist; it’s time we start using them and making them more widely accessible. We must dismantle the systems of oppression that permeate our culture and ourselves, and work toward real solidarity across lines of race, class, gender and sexual
orientation. When we begin to build a culture of mutual aid and community autonomy, we demonstrate that we don’t need the government, and certainly not giant corporations, to survive. We just need a
livable planet.

I have a new favorite phrase from their statement:  Environmental Racism.

We also reject nuclear energy and dams; these unsustainable mega-projects often result in the devastation of local bioregions and the displacement of both their natural and human communities. Rather, we advocate a drastic increase in energy conservation and support a transition to clean energy sources such as wind, solar, and micro-hydro power.

Ecosystem preservation, recovery and restoration is essential to sequestering carbon and curbing the exponential rate of species extinction. Our agricultural systems also must be made to work more in
harmony with the Earth’s systems; it’s time to abandon industrial agriculture in favor of small-scale, local food sources.

Of course, if these folks spent any time researching the things they talk about, they would know that solar and wind power, on a scale that can provide the energy needed to support the worlds population, would affect the environment at least as much as fossil fuels do today.  And the idea that 6 billion people can be fed by “small scale local food sources” is completely unworkable. 

What I am afraid of is that they DO understand the limitations on population of the goals the espouse.  That the human population would be necessarily reduced to the point that micro-hydro, windmills, and solar cells could provide enough energy to support a greatly reduced population that could be supported by the agricultural model the champion.

Who suffers the most from this?  Why, the “brown” peoples of the world.  The very people they claim are oppressed by our current society, will, to fit their world view, need to be culled in huge numbers, to achieve a sustainable population that can live in “harmony” with mother Earth.

Who is the environmental racist now?

I will give Rising Tide this cudo:  Their politcal structure is what they preach.  From all evidence, they are a collective group of “cells” with no clear overall governance.  This, itself, seperates them from other far Left organizations, that tend to be personal aggrandizement vehicles for a few personalities at the top of the pyramid.

The question I am left with, when considering script writers (and thereby actors and movie studios) that consider Man to be a blight on the face of the Earth; and groups like Rising Tide, who posit that Man must be forced to live in harmony with nature (though they don’t seems to admit anywhere that I can see that this will require population reduction on a truly massive scale), is just why the Left hates Mankind to such a deep abiding level.

Are people perfect?  No, of course not.  If people were perfect, Anarchism would be the rule, as we would not need a government to protect citizens rights from those that do not honor them.  We would spend every evening joining hands around a fire, singing cumbaya…

For anyone living in the real world, we need realistic solutions to the worlds needs;  Energy, Food, and Water.  Solutions that do not require mass reductions in population, or actually create more problems than they solve.

Industrial Agriculture is more than capable of feeding the world’s population, on far less land, using far less resources, than small scale agriculture.  Nuclear energy is, relatively, cheap and plentiful.  Hyrdo Electric power can be done in an environmentally safe manner.   Solar and Wind can be effectively utilized on a local scale, without causing more problems than they solve.

We can feed and provide energy to Earth population, without throwing ourselves back to the stone age, or embarking on a massive reduction in population.  And we can do it while preserving, and even expanding, the “natural” and set aside regions of our planet.

I guess there is a difference between what I believe, and what the human loathers on the left believe.

I see Man as the ultimate expression of the Earth, and a vehicle by which our planet can spread life beyond the confines of this one planet.  Man can be the ultimate triumph of life, moving beyond the home of our birth, and spreading life to all the places will travel to.

The radical/environmental left see us as a virus, and a threat to the “body” as a whole, which must be controlled, or extinguished, to save the Earth.

Of course, I have not yet heard a coherent thought from any of them as what the purpose of life on Earth is, beyond sheer existance.

The “socialist” label that Sen. John McCain and his GOP presidential running mate Sarah Palin are trying to attach to Sen. Barack Obama actually has long and very ugly historical roots.

J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, used the term liberally to describe African Americans who spent their lives fighting for equality.

There is a very good reason that Hoover used this term to describe radical members of the African American community:  They were socialists.

Duiguid then lists M.L. King Jr. [1] [2], W.E.B. DuBois [1] [2], and Paul Robeson [1] [2] [3], supposedly as examples of African American leaders who were not socialists.  Discussions of their socialist leanings are in the numbered links.

McCain and Palin have simply reached back in history to use an old code word for black. It set whites apart from those deemed unAmerican and those who could not be trusted during the communism scare.

So, because a number of African American leaders were Socialists, somehow, in the minds of Caucasians, the word Socialists conjours up racist images of African Americans.

Now, speaking as a Caucasian (I dislike the word “white”, becuase I am more of a pale pink color, generally – except when I forget to wear sunscreen on the beach, when I become more of a steamed-lobster red), when I head the word Socialist, the images that come to my mind Lenin, Marx, Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and most Europeans.  Images of King, DuBois, and Robeson are way down the list, and I usually don’t get to them.

To my mind, and I think I am fairly typical on the Right Wing, the word Socialist is only Code for “Redistribution of Wealth” and “From each According to his abilities, to each according to his needs”.  It is Code for am economic theory that destroys productivity and inexorably leads to the loss of individual rights, in favor of collective rights.  With the Socialist pied-pipers being More-Equal than the rest of us.

I agree that the McCain campaign is using the Socialist label to draw a distinction in the minds of the American people between those that support our free market system, and those that wish to take America fully down the road to being just another failed Socialist state.  The Socialists and Communists could not be trusted during the red scare, and they cannot be trusted with the reins of power now.

Mr. Duiguid should probably read Animal Farm, to understand where the Socialist movement wants to take us.

A government report that found old-fashioned reusable nappies damage the environment more than disposables has been hushed up because ministers are embarrassed by its findings.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has instructed civil servants not to publicise the conclusions of the £50,000 nappy research project and to adopt a “defensive” stance towards its conclusions.

The conclusions will upset proponents of real nappies who have claimed they can help save the planet.

The report found that while disposable nappies used over 2½ years would have a global warming , impact of 550kg of CO2 reusable nappies produced 570kg of CO2 on average. But if parents used tumble dryers and washed the reusable nappies at 90C, the impact could spiral to . 993kg of CO2 A Defra spokesman said the government was shelving plans for future research on nappies.

So, once again, we see that Global Warming Climate Change is more about the illusion of “making a difference” than it is about real science.

He has always been, at best, a RINO, with positions, overall, very close to John McCain’s.

I’m really not sure why his endorsement of Obama should come as any surprise, given Powell’s estrangement from the Bush administration.

UPDATE:

The other shoe has dropped.  Just good old fashioned Political Patronage…

Colin Powell will have a role as a top presidential adviser in an Obama administration, the Democratic White House hopeful said Monday.

“He will have a role as one of my advisers,” Barack Obama said on NBC’s “Today” in an interview aired Monday, a day after Powell, a four-star general and President Bush‘s former secretary of state, endorsed him.

“The Courage to Do Nothing”

And here’s a nice round-up of forbidden knowledge from the Republicans in the Senate, led by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK, 100%), ranking member (and former chairman) of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works (EPW). Inhofe is a national treasure, one of the few Republicans not only willing to stand up against the greedy socialists at the UN (many Republicans do that), but also willing to put in the time to educate himself on the actual science involved.

This makes Inhofe a much more potent danger to the regime of so-called “anthropogenic (man-made) global climate change” than his colleagues. Hardly any other senator or representative, on either side the aisle, is willing to go so far as actually learning something about what he’s talking about.

In the meanwhile, my brother sends me a link to another page of the Senate EPW Republican minority website, in which Inhofe finally nails the climatistas: He catches them confessing the real reason for all the hoopla about globaloney. This is a true “cognition” moment when all the pieces abruptly fall into place:

1. A global tax on carbon dioxide emissions was urged to help save the Earth from catastrophic man-made global warming at the United Nations climate conference. A panel of UN participants on Thursday urged the adoption of a tax that would represent “a global burden sharing system, fair, with solidarity, and legally binding to all nations….”
2. “A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources,” said Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth.

Yes. Now you understand why I have consistently referred to the climatistas as “socialists”: Because they are.

Watermelons.  Green on the outside, Red on the inside.  You will find a wealth of information in this piece on the fraud of man made Global Warming, and political (instead of Scientific) process behind it.

The other piece echos somewhat the Robert Kaplan piece from my previous post:

The Men on the Wall

Since the US military is the only entity capable of policing the world, why shouldn’t Japan totally rely upon them? That is how my online correspondent sees the situation: Japan pays enough to buy its protection, so what are Americans complaining about?

I told Asean that paying others to protect your own country is a sure way to lose face. He shrugged; most Japanese think merely losing respect is a cheap price to pay for never having to fight. Japan suffered so much from the last war — in which Japan was the imperialist aggressor — that many Japanese simply refuse to fight again, ever… no matter what the provocation. They won’t to fight even to protect their own interests, land, or culture; they are content to outsource national defense in a way that Americans cannot even imagine.

Is this a position worthy of a once-proud nation of Samurai warriors? How can they face their ancestors, who would have fought bravely and died rather than surrender?

Aside from the craven and disgusting nature of this attitude, their strategy of self defense by proxy is doomed to fail. It has several problems:

• Refusing to fight does not let you avoid war; rather, it invites war.
• Mercenaries are not loyal to you; they always have their own agenda.
• Americans cannot be everywhere; we’re not omnipotent: It’s impossible for the United States to fully protect Japan even if we wanted.
• Finally, the most likely reason outsourcing national defense will fail is the “men on the wall” syndrome: Just like the hobbits of the Shire, the Japanese have not fought a war for a long, long time. They have forgotten how to fight, and even that there is any need to fight.

Lot’s of good food for thought in both.  And, sadly, a great deal of truth…