Do lobbyists oppose lobbying?

At the Washington Examiner, Timothy P. Carney reports:

The campaign of Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Massachusetts, just sent out a fundraising email with her typical scourge-of-the-special-interest stuff:

As one of Elizabeth Warren's earliest supporters, you know she's a tireless fighter for working families. She's gone toe-to-toe with the big banks and armies of corporate lobbyists -- and won -- and she'll do it again as Massachusetts' next United States Senator.

The sender? Corporate lobbyist Doug Rubin, who's also a senior advisor to Warren's campaign. Rubin founded the Beacon Hill lobbying firm Northwind Strategies, which represents Deepwater Wind, GTECH Corporation, Equity Office Properties, and the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans.

Separately, Elizabeth Warren is famous for her "nobody in this country ... got rich on his own" rant.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of liberal hypocrisy:
•Minimum wage and hypocrisy
•UN humanitarian hypocrisy
•Eco-hypocrisy at the UN Climate Change conference
•Dems, taxes, and hypocrisy
•Eco-hypocrite of the day: movie director James Cameron
•Liberal gay bashing
•Poster child hypocrisy
•Eco-hypocrisy: Supermodel Gisele and Prince Charles
•Eco-hypocrisy: Barack Obama
•Eco-hypocrisy: Nancy Pelosi
•The ever-increasing energy use of Al Gore's mansion
•With five private jets, Travolta still lectures on global warming
•Edwards' hypocrisy on the poor
•HuffPost blogger projects enviro-hypocrisy

Obama Admin defunds a piece of Obamacare

The Obama administration has killed the CLASS program, one of the many financially-unsustainable pieces of Obamacare. The Wall Street Journal writes:

The Health and Human Services Department recently shut down a government insurance program for long-term care, known by the acronym Class. HHS also released a statement claiming that reports that HHS is shutting down Class are "not accurate." All HHS did was suspend Class policy planning, told Senate Democrats to zero out Class funding for 2012, reassigned Class's career staffers to other projects and pink-slipped the program's chief actuary.

With a bipartisan-consensus that Class is a fiscal disaster, will Congress repeal Class? The Wall Street Journal says probably not:

All of this would seem to make repealing Class an easy vote for Congress, but, this being Washington, it isn't. Since the CBO says Class's front-loaded collections cut the deficit to the tune of that $86 billion, HHS has to pretend that the program is still alive to preserve these phantom savings.

Some Republicans are also nervous about repealing Class because, under CBO's perverse scoring, they'll be adding $86 billion to the deficit.

Read the whole thing.

Crony capitalism: Obama ignored warnings

The Obama administration ignored multiple warnings in the days preceding Pres. Obama's trip to tout Solyndra, as today's Wall Street Journal reports:

Just days ahead of the president's 2010 visit, an email from one OMB staffer to another indicated growing worry about the political risks. "I am increasingly worried that this visit could prove embarrassing to the Administration in the not too distant future, given 1) what we just heard today from DOE that Solyndra is delaying their IPO at least until the end of the year, and 2) what the auditors said about Solyndra making it through the year absent new financing," the email said.

Another OMB staffer wrote, "Hope doesn't default before" Mr. Obama's May 26 visit.

Two days before the visit, Steve Westly, a California venture capitalist who raised funds for Mr. Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, emailed Ms. Jarrett to express concern about the visit, saying it could "haunt him in the next 18 months if Solyndra hits the wall, files for bankruptcy, etc."

Separately, another Obama-backed "green" energy company is in trouble, as the New York Times reports (hat tip: GatewayPundit):

In a remote desert spot in northern Nevada, there is a geothermal plant run by a politically connected clean energy start-up that has relied heavily on an Obama administration loan guarantee and is now facing financial turmoil.

The company is Nevada Geothermal Power, which like Solyndra, the now-famous California solar company, is struggling with debt after encountering problems at its only operating plant.

The amount of money the federal government has at stake with Nevada Geothermal — a loan guarantee of $79 million plus at least $66 million in grants. . . . [Emph. added]

Governments should not be venture capitalists.  They are just not good at it.

Sen. Durbin admits: Obama "Jobs" bill unpopular even with Democrats

During his speech earlier this month, Pres. Obama commanded Congress to "pass this bill" some 17 times. Apparently, he hadn't checked to see even whether the Democrats would support the bill. The Hill reports:

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said, at the moment, Democrats in Congress don’t have the votes to pass President Obama’s jobs bill, but Durbin added that that situation would change. 

If any more proof was needed that Obama was never serious about the Jobs bill, this is it.

Politicized Science, the delta smelt, and California farmers

U.S. District Court Judge Oliver W. Wanger declared that testimony from two Interior Dept. scientists, Frederick V. Feyrer and Jennifer M. Norris, was “false,” “contradictory” and “misleading”  and that the Interior Department acted in “bad faith”  in regards to the use of the delta smelt fish and the endangered species act to stop water flow to California farmers.  More at Instapundit, the New York Times, and the San Francisco Examiner.

PREVIOUSLY on California farmers protesting against the water cutoff:
•Farmers protest in San Jose (Nov. 21).
PREVIOUSLY on politicized science:
•EPA uses phony peer review
•National Academy of Sciences warns EPA on junk science
•The failed science of environmentalism
•Federal Judge rejects Federal enviromental "science" as "arbititrary and capricious"
•The politicization of medical research funding
•2 more examples of politicized science: Gulf oiil spill and California's air regulations
•AIDS advocates distorted science
•Politicized science of crime statistics
•Politicization of medical science
•Bee colony collapse disorder: the cause is whatever your politics say it is
•Ozone hole and politics

Colorado cantaloupes have killed more people this year than US commercial nuclear power in its entire history

The UK Guardian reports:

A listeria outbreak linked to cantaloupes from Colorado has killed 13 people and infected 59 others, US health officials have said. [Emph. added]

The FDA associates the outbreak with Jensen Farms’ Rocky Ford-brand cantaloupes.

How many people have been killed by commercial nuclear power plants in the US? None, as best I can tell. This Wikipedia article lists deaths from nuclear and radiation accidents and none are attributed to US commercial nuclear power in its entire history. (The Wikipedia article does not list Three Mile Island because no one died at Three Mile Island. For more details, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's summary of the health effects of Three Mile Island is here.)

Hat tip: Instapundit

Obama's rich fantasy life

In Commentary, Peter Wehner writes:

I have written before about Obama’s deep, almost desperate, need to portray himself as the opposite of what he is, to conceive of himself in a way that is at odds with reality. We have seen it in all sorts of areas, including claiming himself to be a voice of civility, portraying himself as a champion of bi-partisanship, lecturing others about profligate spending, and saying he is the only responsible “adult” in Washington. Now we see this habit in a new arena – this time, the president as Obama the Stoic, a man so committed to “pressing on” for the cause of social justice he just doesn’t have time to feel sorry for himself. Indeed, he has now decided to sermonize to others not to complain, not to grumble, and to “stop crying.”

This is akin to John Edwards hosting a weekend seminar on the importance of marital fidelity.

At times, I think that the main purpose of liberalism is the avoidance of unpleasant realities.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

PREVIOUSLY on liberals and their fantasy worlds:
•Liberal talk show hosts and their paranoid fantasies
•Rep. Pete Stark fantasizes about Pres. Bush's motives
•Hate crime fantasies
•Real or fantasy: Obama's core value is "unity"?
•Salon Magazine and its sexual fantasies involving Sarah Palin
•Michelle Obama fantasizes that she is the first White House resident to care about military families
•Feminist imagines that all men are pro-rape and pro-domestic violence
•Rep. Barney Frank's fantasies: the mortgage crisis was caused by "conservatives"
•How reporters avoid addressing reality
•If only hate could change false to true

It's a paradox, education edition

The Sacramento Bee reports on a "paradox": student test scores have increased after several years of public school budget cuts:

They write:

It's a trend that would seem to defy conventional wisdom: As public school spending has declined in California in recent years, student achievement test scores have gone up.

Statewide, school districts spent 6 percent less from 2008 to 2010, but the percentage of second- to seventh-grade students scoring proficient on the state's standardized English test rose from 48 percent to 55 percent.

In the Sacramento region, the same held true. School districts in the four-county region cut annual spending by about $120 million, or 4.4 percent, from 2008 to 2010, hampered by the lousy economy and state funding cuts. That translates to a 1 percent cut per student. But during that same period, their state achievement test scores improved – a lot.

It is a "paradox" only if you think that government schools spend their money wisely on things that actually affect student learning.

PREVIOUSLY on the paradoxes that vex liberal minds:
•It's a paradox: Congress unpopular "despite record"
•"Ironically," conservatives and their children are happier
•It's a paradox!: Crime down when criminals are in jail.
•Paradox: crime is down (again)
•Paradox: few fraudulent voters if voters are required to have IDs

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of education:
•Study: teacher's unions are bad for education
•Study: sexist women teachers stunt learning of girl students
•Black students, harassed for "acting white," get $150,000
•Teaching self-esteem backfires
•Education in Korea vs. the US: does "self-esteem" backfire?
•LA pays teachers not to teach
•What teachers learn in teacher's ed.
•Obama promises to throw money at schools
•How to get a job teaching in California even if you are illiterate

A very impressive political ad

Sophisticated thinking at the New York Times

James Taranto spots the New York Times having difficulty with math:

The New York Times reports from Frankfurt that "foreign leaders" are pressuring the Greek government to institute "a range of draconian layoffs and pay reductions among public sector workers" in order to avert default. Check out this bit of analysis in the course of the story:

The original aid package requires Greece to reduce its deficit to 7.5 percent of gross domestic product this year, and below 3 percent by 2014, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The reduced number of workers employed in the public sector would only add to the difficulty of meeting these targets as payroll tax collections shrink.

Unless employees of the Greek government pay more than 100% of their wages in taxes, this cannot possibly add up.

NPR: Obama is still like Jesus

Not all liberals have soured on Pres. Obama.  Frank James, writing at NPR.org, stills sees Obama as a biblical figure:

The realities of governing as opposed to the unrealities of presidential campaigns may have made President Obama a much more human figure compared with the almost messiah-like status he had in the eyes of many supporters in 2008.

But that doesn't mean there still isn't the occasional moment reminiscent of a Bible story.

At a rally on the campus of North Carolina State in Raleigh, N.C. Wednesday where President Obama went to drum up support for his jobs bill, this happened.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I love you, Barack!

THE PRESIDENT: I love you back. (Applause.) But first — but if you love me — if you love me, you got to help me pass this bill. (Applause.) If you love me, you got to help me pass this bill.

 Here's John 21:15, the New International Version, describing a scene between Jesus and his disciples:

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter,"Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?"

"Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you."

Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."

Hat tip: The Corner and Hot Air.

PREVIOUSLY on NPR:
•NPR's Frank James says minorities support child prostitution?
•NPR: If criminals make you uncomfortable, you are a "hardened racist"
•NPR allies itself with George Soros
•NPR declares Sonia Sotomayor to be "moderate" or even "conservative"

RomneyCare, fail

In a preview of what ObamaCare will do for the US, a study by Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute found that RomneyCare has been a disaster for Massachusetts, costing over 18,000 jobs.  The Boston Herald reports (hat tip: GatewayPundit):

The Bay State’s controversial 2006 universal health-care plan — also known as “Romneycare” — has cost Massachusetts more than 18,000 jobs, according to an exclusive blockbuster study that could provide ammo to GOP rivals of former Gov. Mitt Romney as he touts his job-creating chops on the campaign trail.

“Mandating health insurance coverage and expanding the demand for health services without increasing supply drove up costs. Economics 101 tells us that,” said Paul Bachman, research director at Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute, the conservative think tank that conducted the study. The Herald obtained an exclusive copy of the findings. . . .

Despite Romney’s vaunted business acumen as a successful venture capitalist, Bachman said the former governor “was a little naive about what would become of the law.”

The Beacon Hill Institute study found that, on average, Romneycare:

•    cost the Bay State 18,313 jobs;

•    drove up total health insurance costs in Massachusetts by $4.311 billion;

•    slowed the growth of disposable income per person by $376; and

•    reduced investment in Massachusetts by $25.06 million.

Class warfare

Steve Kemp captures another yet another fascinating video of Democrats in action. This is from Rep. Barbara Lee's Town Hall meeting in Oakland California, August 16, 2011 and features rhetoric from Representives Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Lee, Raul Grijalva and Mike Honda. Their agenda is class war:

Bob Turner (R) wins NY-9!

Republican Bob Turner won in a heavily Democratic district in New York City (Brooklyn/Queens). Separately, the Republican Mark Amodei won in Nevada-2, a safe Republican district.

Turner's victory is particularly surprising not just because of his party but also because he is a Catholic running against a Jew in a heavily Jewish district. Polls seem to indicate that the key issue was not Obama's economic policies but rather Obama's strained relationship with Israel. (Slate argues that it the Democrat's support for gay marriage.)

The Washington Post is trying to spin the results as showing a "fickle" electorate. They cite Democrat Hochul's win in an upstate NY special election earlier this year as evidence that "Republican momentum should be seen as momentary." Their article omits mentioning that the margin of victory in that election was provided a dirty trick: Millionaire Democrat Jack Davis ran as a pretend "Tea Party" candidate garnering 9% of the vote, giving Hochul the margin she needed for victory.

Both sides in the NY-9 campaign are accusing the other of dirty tricks, as the Daily Caller reports (hat tip: LegalInsurrection and Ace):

The campaign of Democrat David Weprin sent out a press release Tuesday accusing supporters of Republican Bob Turner of organizing an effort to jam the Weprin campaign’s phones. In response, Turner communications director William O’Reilly noted that Jewish residents of the district were receiving phone calls from a phony group calling itself “Jews for Jesus for Turner,” which he called an attempt to scare Jewish voters.

Are there no adults in the room?

Obama's idea of "bipartisianship"

The Hill reports:

Obama's top political adviser David Axelrod said Tuesday that the administration was unwilling to break up the president’s $447 billion jobs plan if Republicans were only receptive to passing certain elements.

"We're not in a negotiation to break up the package. It's not an à la carte menu. It's a strategy to get this country moving,” Axelrod said Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America." [Emph. added]

When, exactly, has the Congress ever passed a pork-barrel spending "jobs" bill without negotiating elements of it?

If there is an adult in the room, he is not the one living in the White House.

“Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.”

From ChicagoBoyz (Hat tip: Instapundit):

The only part of the American national security establishment that successfully defended America on 9/11 was the portion of the reserve militia on board Flight 93, acting without orders, without hierarchy, without uniforms or weapons, by spontaneous organization and action.

Because of Todd Beamer and his compatriots on Flight 93, the enemy knows that brave American citizens would stop any similar hijack attempts.  In a few harrowing minutes, the passengers on Flight 93 did more for the future secuity of airline passengers than anything that the TSA, with its crotch-checks and naked-body scanners, has done in the years since.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of terrorism:
•Dept. of Justice supports citizenship for terrorist-Americans
•The TSA's new slogan (comic)
•Arab Technology meets German Engineering
•Saddam provided terrorists with money, training camps, and weapons says ex-Minister Aziz
•9-11 in review

•Round-up of left-wing terrorism
•Yet another left-wing terrorist
•Obama's humane plan for terrorists: kill rather than interrogate
•The root cause of terrorism
•Gitmo torture: Metallica is proud of its music's message to terrorists
•Speaker Pelosi's deep thoughts on giving Miranda rights to terrorists.
•AG Eric Holder was for enhanced interrogation before he was against it.
•The NY Times finally admits we were fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq
•Gitmo torture tactic revealed: "she touched my thigh!"
•Terror color codes updated for Obama (illustrated)
•NY Times skeptical of Bush but trusts terrorists
•Global warming predicted to cause more terrorism
•Before Al Qaeda: the socialist-terrorist alliance of the 1980s

CEOs to Obama: Get out of the way!

CNBC reports (Hat tip: Instapundit):

We asked several CEOs leading up to the speech what bold steps Obama could take to reduce the 9.1 percent unemployment rate.

John Schiller, chairman and CEO of Energy XXI, said "if the government would get out of the way, from a regulation standpoint, and let us [XXI] do what we do good you'll see us continue to hire and grow this economy."

"I think that's a message from across the board," said Schiller.

Richard Parsons, chairman of Citigroup, told CNBC there are some specific things that can be done "in terms of moving government out of the way where its in the way of job creation."

In other words, it's the regulations, stupid.

PREVIOUSLY on the failure of liberal economic theories:
•Survey of CEOs: Obamanomics is still the problem

•A CEO explains how Obama's policies damage the economy
•CEO: businesses are "frightened to death" of Obamacare and Obama's regulatory overreach

•Obamanomics and the prolonged recession
•How to lie with statistics
•3M: “Politicians forget that business has choice"
•Obamacare: Corporatism in action
•Obama 0, Germany 1:
•Medical insurance prices rising due to ObamaCare
•Laws of Economics 1; Obama 0
•Why Liberal economics fails: redistribution does not create wealth (Illustrated)
•Obamacare endangers student health
•Why business isn't hiring
•Dodd-Frank finance "reform" bill stops bond market cold
•Why unemployment insurance must be extended (illustrated)
•Obamanomics still failing, Washington Post discovers
•Russia goes supply-side
•Study: Liberals are economically illiterate

Is it a "civil right" for drug addicts to get welfare checks?

News4 (Jacksonville) reports:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida plans to challenge the state's law requiring new welfare recipients to pass a drug test.An ACLU spokesman told The Associated Press Wednesday the lawsuit is being filed on behalf of a 35-year-old Orlando man, Luis Lebron.The spokesman says Florida's drug testing law is unconstitutional, saying it violates the Fourth Amendment's search and seizure protections.

PREVIOUSLY on the ACLU:
•In support of Al Qaeda, ACLU sues Boeing
•The ACLU and America's legal paralysis
•ACLU opposes the Bill of Rights but supports easy vote fraud
•ACLU argues for right to privacy for those who have sex in public bathrooms
•ACLU funded ads vs. the facts

After gun control comes knife control

Boston already has strict gun control but still has a high and rising murder rate.  Consequently, the great minds on the Boston city council are proposing strengthening the knife control laws.  You can watch a video of Councilors Michael Ross and Tito Jackon explaining their proposal here.

Knife control and even pepper spray control in Massachusetts is not new.  TheBlaze writes:

Current Massachusetts law bans all sorts of weapons and imposes draconian prison terms for their possession. Many knives such as switchblades are illegal outright. You need a license to carry pepper spray.  One could guess this has made the city much safer from rogue female joggers.

Does knife control prevent crime?  Britain already has knife control.  In the Wall Street Journal, Joyce Lee Malcolm reviews the results of Britain's efforts at gun and knife control:

The ban on handguns did not stop actual crimes committed with handguns. Those crimes rose nearly 40%, according to a 2001 study by King's College London's Center for Defence Studies, and doubled by a decade later, according to government statistics reported in the London Telegraph in October 2009.

Knives? It's illegal for anyone under age 18 to buy one, and using a knife for self-defense is unlawful. In 1991, American tourist Dina Letarte of Tempe, Ariz., used a penknife to protect herself from a violent attack by three men in a London subway. She was convicted of carrying an offensive weapon, fined, and given a two-year suspended sentence.

The result of policies that punish the innocent but fail to deter crime has been stark, even before the latest urban violence. The last decade has seen a doubling of gun crime. According to the latest annual report of the Home Office (2009), there was a 25% increase in crimes involving contact, such as assault and battery, over the previous year.

PREVIOUSLY on crime:

•NPR: If criminals make you uncomfortable, you are a "hardened racist"
•Pro-crime immigration policy
•Fake hate crimes
•Hate crimes (and anti-Semitism) in the US
•Our outdated criminal justice system
•Court: Big brother may track you
•CSI Fail: bite mark analysis
•Why is Islam popular in prison?
•Obama DoJ: vote fraud helps "increase turnout"
•An insider's guide to vote fraud
•In liberal paradise, dissent will be a crime
•Should it be a crime to disagree?
•Art or hate crime: you decide
•Pro-crime: left defends sex slave ring because they were illegals (say what?)
•To rise to power, 20th century fascists depended on liberal do-gooders.

Democrats and their short memories

It was just a few months ago when liberals started lecturing about "civility."  Now, they have forgotten about that completely.  Recently, they have been outraged aver Boehner's "unprecedented" action delaying Obama's speech by a day.   In doing so, they forgotten how Democratic Congresses have treated Republican Presidents.  James Freeman at the Wall Street Journal looked into how the Democrats treated one of Reagan's requests to speak and Reagan's much more civilized response to it:

Much of the media has been running with the claim that a president's request to speak to Congress has never been rejected until this week. Various Capitol Hill "historians" have been quoted saying that House Speaker John Boehner took unprecedented action when he cited the difficulty of hosting President Obama on the president's requested date of Sept. 7. We're not so sure.

The truth is that you don't have to go back that far in the nation's history to find a similar circumstance. And unlike the current speaker, who quickly agreed to host the president on the following day, Sept. 8, a previous holder of the gavel refused to grant the White House request, regardless of the date and time.

The June 24, 1986, edition of The Wall Street Journal featured a story headlined, "President's Bid to Address the House On Nicaragua Is Rejected by Speaker." That's right, no quibbling over the date and time, just a flat-out rejection. In that case, President Ronald Reagan wanted to address the House before its critical vote on funding for the anti-communist "Contra" rebels in Nicaragua. . . .  Reagan already had the votes to prevail in the Senate, and Mr. O'Neil wanted to avoid having the spotlight turned on the House, which would make him and his colleagues accountable to the public if Contra aid were rejected. . . .

A White House aide at the time tells us that Reagan simply shrugged off the rejection and said, "They have televisions up there on Capitol Hill, don't they?" He made his case on TV instead and then won the House vote to continue assisting the Nicaraguan freedom fighters. [Emph. added]

Hat tip: Greg.

PREVIOUSLY on Democrats and short memories:
•Rep. Speier rewrites history
•Speaker Pelosi, the Democratic Party, and hysterical amnesia
•Rep. Barney Frank suffers amnesia regarding housing policy.
•Moveon forgets whether is supported or opposed Afghanistan war
•Memories work differently in adults and children

The environment: communists vs. capitalists

Liberals often blame pollution on "greedy corporations." So how do communist societies deal with pollution? The New York Times reports on how Chinese Communist Party officials lower pollution:

This capital city’s skies were clogged with pollution, as is often the case, and China’s government was concerned. So it summoned officials of the American Embassy here to a meeting.

But the session had nothing to do with hazy skies. Rather, Chinese officials were peeved that the Americans were monitoring pollution themselves, and posting on Twitter for anyone to read, their more precise findings, which usually judged the smog far worse than official Chinese readings.

Chinese officials feared the conflicting information “might lead to ‘social consequences,’ ” an American Embassy cable quoted the officials as saying. So could the Americans please block Chinese citizens from visiting the Web site?

In sum, the communist solution for pollution: lie about it.

The details my differ but Al Gore uses the same strategy.

Yet another Democrat fundraiser arrested

The Orange County Register reports that Ms. Kinde Durkee was arrested "in connection with" her work as a Democratic campaign treasurer:

A prominent Democratic campaign treasurer who works for federal, state and O.C. lawmakers including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Loretta Sanchez and state legislators Lou Correa and Jose Solorio has been arrested by the FBI on suspicion of mail fraud, The Orange County Register has learned.

U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Thom Mrozek confirmed Saturday afternoon that Kinde Durkee of Burbank-based Durkee and Associates, was arrested by the FBI on a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento. Special Agent Steve Dupre of the bureau’s Sacramento office said she was arrested in connection with her position as a campaign treasurer.

The LA Times reports that Durkee is accused of embezzlement of campaign funds.

PREVIOUSLY on Democrat fundraising:
•Democrat fundraiser indicted
•Top Dem fundraiser pleads guilty
•Clinton Donor indicted
•Top Dem fundraiser pleads guilty
•Corruption loses a key advocate
•How to buy a congressman
•How politics is done
•Bernie Madoff was a major donor to left/liberal causes.

Yet another "green" disaster

In July, the National Park Service proudly announced the completion of a solar energy system at Yosemite. From the National Park Service press release:

Yosemite National Park Superintendent Don Neubacher led a ribbon cutting ceremony today, July 27, to dedicate the El Portal Photovoltaic Project. Neubacher was joined by representatives from the offices of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Congressman Jeff Denham (R-19th), Mariposa County Supervisor Lee Stetson, contractors, and National Park Service staff. The event dedicated the largest grid-connected photovoltaic system within the National Park Service (NPS).

. . . . The park estimates saving approximately $50,000 per year on electricity purchased off the grid . . . .

. . . . The project was funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment act and cost $5.8 million. . . .

It costs $5.8 million and only saves $50 thousand per year! Not counting interest costs, that means is pays for itself in 5,800,000/50,000 = 116 years, on the unlikely assumption that it lasts that long. No business would touch such a bad deal. It was paid for with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (A/K/A Porkulus) funds and various "rebates".

Hat tip: Don Surber and Coach.

Liberal policies collide with liberal regulations

The Obama administration came into office with the dream that "green" jobs would lift the economy out of its slowdown. One problem with "green" jobs is that they don't make economic sense. Another one is that they conflict with not just left-wing union and protectionist rules (Davis-Bacon Act, Buy America Act) but also with environmental rules (National Environmental Policy Act). Investor's Business Daily reports (hat tip: Instapundit and National Review):

President Obama's green jobs agenda has become a victim of its own red tape. Several internal reports show that state-level projects have stalled for years due to federal regulations favored by labor and green groups — big boosters of the green jobs push.

The reports offer a peek into the dysfunction within the White House's green jobs initiative. In 2009, Obama dedicated $7.2 billion of stimulus funds to build "clean tech" jobs. He vowed to create 5 million jobs over the next decade.

So far, that effort has "created or retained" just 7,140 jobs, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That's about $1 million per job. The number is actually down from last year, when the EPA claimed 16,605 green jobs.

Audit reports by the Energy Department's Inspector General Of fice offer some clues as to why: Trying to comply with federal regulations such as the Davis-Bacon Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Buy American Act has stalled many projects. [Emph. added]

US rewards tax avoidance more than innovation

In a free enterprise system, companies are rewarded for making products that people want to buy. In a liberal/progressive system, companies are rewarded instead for their skills at manipulating complex government rules and regulations. A new study from the Institute for Policy Studies finds that the US has the latter system. The New York Times reports:

The authors of the study, which examined the regulatory filings of the 100 companies with the best-paid chief executives, said that their findings suggested that current United States policy was rewarding tax avoidance rather than innovation.

“We have no evidence that C.E.O.’s are fashioning, with their executive leadership, more effective and efficient enterprises,” the study concluded. “On the other hand, ample evidence suggests that C.E.O.’s and their corporations are expending considerably more energy on avoiding taxes than perhaps ever before — at a time when the federal government desperately needs more revenue to maintain basic services for the American people.” [Emph. added]

The self-contradictions of the last paragraph above shows the left/liberal bias of the Institute for Policy Studies.  (Reducing unnecessary costs, such as taxes, does in fact make an enterprise "more effective and efficient.")  It is interesting that, despite this bias, they still understand that our left/liberal tax system is sapping American productivity.

Jane Jamison, RIP

One of the San Francisco Bay Area's finest bloggers has passed away. She wrote under the pen name Jane Jamison and was the founder of the very successful Uncoverage.net blog and, more recently, a contributor at Right Wing News.

In a recent post, she described some of the perils of being a conservative in the San Francisco Bay Area:

I have written for years and worked radio for years under a pen name. I do so because in the past when I used my real name for my broadcast and written work, I have had my car vandalized, my home vandalized, phone threats, death threats and my children were approached by strangers at their sports activities.

Liberals can be very dangerous people, especially here in the bay area, where I have had my tires flattened and my car windows broken when I attended counterprotests against liberal groups. They have pushed, shoved and threatened me with violence at their protests over the years when I would show up with counter protest signs or question their activities. I unfortunately, have to do work with liberals in the San Francisco bay area who undoubtedly would fire me or not hire me due to my political beliefs, so I keep my professional writing persona and my personal life “separate” for my safety. [Emph. added]

(It is wise to remember that liberals are not "tolerant.")

Although I never met Ms. Jamison in person, she was a long-time friend of this blog. Examples of our shared interest in SF Bay Area protests are here and here. At Uncoverage, she did impressive original investigative work exposing the scandals that the local media preferred to ignore. Her contribution to the cause of freedom will not be forgotten.

Voting with their feet: Student edition

The Associated Press reports:

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Weeks after Indiana began the nation’s broadest school voucher program, thousands of students have transferred from public to private schools, causing a spike in enrollment at some Catholic institutions that were recently on the brink of closing.

It is a scenario public school advocates have long feared: Students fleeing local districts in large numbers, taking with them vital tax dollars that often end up at parochial schools. Opponents say the practice violates the separation of church and state.

In at least one district, public school principals have been pleading with parents not to move their children.

Hat tip: Instapundit and American Glob.

PREVIOUSLY on foot-voting:
•Americans flee Blue states

Life in a government monopoly

The Washington Post reports that the US Postal Service pays workers to do nothing:

Long-standing labor agreements with two major postal unions prohibit the Postal Service from laying off or reassigning workers because of broken equipment or periods of low mail volume. Instead, idled employees show up for work, sit in a break room or cafeteria and do nothing.

Standby time totaled 170,666 hours in the first six months of 2011, costing the Postal Service $4.3 million, according to an audit by the Postal Service inspector general’s office. In 2009, 1.2 million hours were billed at a cost of $30.9 million.

Voting with their feet

People always want better lives for themselves and their families. Whether they are fleeing by boat from communist Cuba or Vietnam or climbing the Berlin wall, the better life has always been on the side that offers individual economic freedom. Traveling within the United States does not require such heriocs but people still migrate. In the Beast, Michael Medved writes (hat tip: Instapundit) on Americans migrating:

New Census numbers show citizens fleeing by the millions from liberal states and flocking in comparable numbers to bastions of right-wing sentiment. Call it the Great Political Migration.

Between 2009 and 2010 the five biggest losers in terms of “residents lost to other states” were all prominent redoubts of progressivism: California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, and New Jersey. Meanwhile, the five biggest winners in the relocation sweepstakes are all commonly identified as red states in which Republicans generally dominate local politics: Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona, and Georgia. Expanding the review to a 10-year span, the biggest population gainers (in percentage terms) have been even more conservative than last year’s winners: Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and Texas, in that order.

For the migrants who are Democrats, there must be some cognitive dissonance as they flee the results of their policies.

PREVOUSLY on the failure of liberal economic theories:
•Survey of CEOs: Obamanomics is still the problem
•A CEO explains how Obama's policies damage the economy

•CEO: businesses are "frightened to death" of Obamacare and Obama's regulatory overreach
•Obamanomics and the prolonged recession
•How to lie with statistics
•3M: “Politicians forget that business has choice"
•Obamacare: Corporatism in action
•Obama 0, Germany 1:
•Medical insurance prices rising due to ObamaCare
•Laws of Economics 1; Obama 0
•Why Liberal economics fails: redistribution does not create wealth (Illustrated)
•Obamacare endangers student health
•Why business isn't hiring
•Dodd-Frank finance "reform" bill stops bond market cold
•Why unemployment insurance must be extended (illustrated)
•Obamanomics still failing, Washington Post discovers
•Russia goes supply-side
•Study: Liberals are economically illiterate

Are Obama's deficits helping the economy?

Pres. Obama and the Democrats claim that deficit spending "stimulates" the economy. This is the Keynesian school of economics. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Robert J. Barro, Professor of Economics at Harvard, explains the problems with this theory:

[I]n true Keynesian spirit, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said recently that food stamps were an "economic stimulus" and that "every dollar of benefits generates $1.84 in the economy in terms of economic activity." Many observers may see how this idea—that one can magically get back more than one puts in—conflicts with what I will call "regular economics." What few know is that there is no meaningful theoretical or empirical support for the Keynesian position.

The overall prediction from regular economics is that an expansion of transfers, such as food stamps, decreases employment and, hence, gross domestic product (GDP). In regular economics, the central ideas involve incentives as the drivers of economic activity. Additional transfers to people with earnings below designated levels motivate less work effort by reducing the reward from working.

In addition, the financing of a transfer program requires more taxes—today or in the future in the case of deficit financing. These added levies likely further reduce work effort—in this instance by taxpayers expected to finance the transfer—and also lower investment because the return after taxes is diminished.

In short, deficit spending, such as on welfare, distorts incentives, reducing both work and investment. So much for theory. What does the empirical evidence say? Prof. Barro continues:

Theorizing aside, Keynesian policy conclusions, such as the wisdom of additional stimulus geared to money transfers, should come down to empirical evidence. And there is zero evidence that deficit-financed transfers raise GDP and employment—not to mention evidence for a multiplier of two. [Emph. added]

Hat tip: JustOneMinute.

PREVIOUSLY on Obamanomics:
•Survey of CEOs: Obamanomics is still the problem

•A CEO explains how Obama's policies damage the economy
•CEO: businesses are "frightened to death" of Obamacare and Obama's regulatory overreach
•Obamanomics and the prolonged recession
•How to lie with statistics
•3M: “Politicians forget that business has choice"
•Obamacare: Corporatism in action
•Obama 0, Germany 1:
•Medical insurance prices rising due to ObamaCare
•Laws of Economics 1; Obama 0
•Why Liberal economics fails: redistribution does not create wealth (Illustrated)
•Obamacare endangers student health
•Why business isn't hiring
•Dodd-Frank finance "reform" bill stops bond market cold
•Why unemployment insurance must be extended (illustrated)
•Obamanomics still failing, Washington Post discovers
•Russia goes supply-side
•Study: Liberals are economically illiterate

College graduates are more religious than high school grads who are more religious than high school dropouts

President Obama ("bitter clingers") and Democrats would like to associate religion with lack of education and sophistication. The facts are otherwise says W. Bradford Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. He and his colleagues have looked at the relationship between education and church attendance and found, as US News reports:

In the past decade, 23 percent of the least-educated whites attended religious services monthly or more often, compared with 37 percent of moderately educated whites and 46 percent of college-educated whites, the researchers said.

In other words, college grads are twice as likely (46% vs. 23%) to attend church regularly as compared to high school dropouts.

This work was presented last Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA) in Las Vegas.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

PREVIOUSLY on liberals and religion:
•Liberals are religious. Who knew?
•The socialist war on Christmas, circa 1941
•Pew study: Democrats believe in ghosts
•Obama declares he is on a mission from God
•Keith Olberman professes belief in God!
•Democrats declare that God directs the weather
•Obama campaign becomes a "transcendent" "religious" movement
•Atheism is a belief shared by Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, and Democrats
•Obama supporters tell of spiritual conversion

The New York Times prints left-wing propaganda

This may be a dog-bites-man story but John Hinderaker provides an excellent summary of what is wrong with the hit-piece on Rep. Issa that the Times published.

Politicized science at the EPA

A new study shows that the "peer review" that the EPA uses when deciding on endangered species status is phony.  Granting of "endangered species" status can come with a huge economic cost.

CEO survey says Obamanomics is still the problem

Chief Executive magazine updated its CEO Confidence survey and executives continue to report that they'll be more willing to hire when Obamanomics (Obamacare, regulations, protectionism, high taxes, and trillion-dollar deficits) is repealed or scaled back:

The ranking of hiring-inducing priorities that were ranked “important to extremely important” were as follows:

1. Backlog of work or increased revenue — 88.2 percent
2. Evidence of economic expansion — 77.2 percent
3. Repeal of Health Care Reform or eliminate uncertainty over its provisions — 71.6 percent
4. Reduction in government regulation of business — 62 percent
5. Government holds line on debt ceiling — 56.3
6. Reduced corporate tax rate to OECD average — 54.3
7. Balanced federal budget — 53.9
8. Gov’t passes all free trade agreements without delay — 48.8
9. Repeal Dodd-Frank or eliminate uncertainty over its provisions — 48.2

Hat tip: LegalInsurrection.

PREVIOUSLY on Obamanomics:
•A CEO explains how Obama's policies damage the economy
•CEO: businesses are "frightened to death" of Obamacare and Obama's regulatory overreach
•Obamanomics and the prolonged recession
•How to lie with statistics
•3M: “Politicians forget that business has choice"
•Obamacare: Corporatism in action
•Obama 0, Germany 1:
•Medical insurance prices rising due to ObamaCare
•Laws of Economics 1; Obama 0
•Why Liberal economics fails: redistribution does not create wealth (Illustrated)
•Obamacare endangers student health
•Why business isn't hiring
•Dodd-Frank finance "reform" bill stops bond market cold
•Why unemployment insurance must be extended (illustrated)
•Obamanomics still failing, Washington Post discovers
•Russia goes supply-side
•Study: Liberals are economically illiterate

Noam Chomsky and his imaginary world

In his early career, Noam Chomsky was a brilliant linguist. Currently he is best known as a leading leftist intellectual. Here is what passes for leftist intellectual thought:

Let me highlight what this brilliant scholar says, starting at about 1:07 in the video:

Christian Right has something else in mind. They are looking forward to Armageddon. There is a whole belief system. Probably Geo. Bush number 2 probably believed in this. If you have Armageddon, then the souls that are saved rise to heaven. Jesus Christ comes for a thousand years of peace and the whole story. Fine. The pro-Israel christian right are the most anti-semitic people in the world. They want all the Jews in the world to be exterminated except for the 144,000 who are somehow converted.

The man is completely delusional.

Hat tip: TheBlaze.

PREVIOUSLY on the liberals and anti-semitism:
•Louis Farrakhan
•CNN's anti-semite
•Hate crimes statistics, Jews, and Muslims, and more

•The left and its hatreds
•Democrats and anti-semitism
•Obama and anti-semitism
•Anti-semitism and the Connecticut Senate race

Unintended consequences

How innocent well-meaning Medicare regulations are causing shortages of critical cancer drugs.

Is morality innate?

According to an LA Times Op-Ed, even infants have a sense of morality:

Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom notes that "it is often beneficial for humans to work together … which means it would have been adaptive to evaluate the niceness and nastiness of other individuals." In groundbreaking research, he and his team found that infants in their first year of life demonstrate aspects of an innate sense of right and wrong, good and bad, even fair and unfair. When shown a puppet climbing a mountain, either helped or hindered by a second puppet, the babies oriented toward the helpful puppet. They were able to make an evaluative social judgment, in a sense a moral response.

Or, maybe the infants were just hoping that the 'helpful puppet" would give them a free lunch?

More ethics problems among Global Warming "scientists"

Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth featured the claim that polar bears were drowning due to global warming.  That claim was based on the work of two government scientists, both of whom are now in ethical trouble.  Human Events reports:

Special agents from the Interior Department’s inspector general's office are questioning the two government scientists about the paper they wrote on drowned polar bears, suggesting mistakes were made in the math and as to how the bears actually died, and the department is eyeing another study currently underway on bear populations.

Biologist Charles Monnett, the lead scientist on the paper, was placed on administrative leave July 18.  Fellow biologist Jeffrey Gleason, who also contributed to the study, is being questioned, but has not been suspended.

Special agents don't normally investigate math errors.  There is likely some larger malfeasance here, possibly involving awarding of large contracts.

PREVIOUSLY on global warming:
•Global warmists propose mass killing of animals
•Democrat: Global Warming will destroy Washington DC by the year 2000
•Earth Day: environmentalism and the test of science
•The collapse of the UN IPCC's credibility
•Yet another UN IPCC Glacier-gate scandal
•UN IPCC claims of melting Himalayan glaciers exposed as fraud
•Environmentalists at war with environmentalists over green energy
•EPA's new global warming rules, illustrated
•California global warming rules backfire
• France's carbon tax ruled unconstitutional
•UN IPCC responds to Climategate with wild accusations
•Surprise: EU's carbon trading riddled with fraud
•Global warming and the test of science, III
•Global warming and the test of science, II
•Global warming and the test of science, I
•141 scientists wrote letter to UN challenging global warming hysteria.
•Ma'am Sen. Boxer for and against climate whistleblowers.
•BBC propaganda on global warming
•Climate alarmist Phil Jones to step down pending review
•Why Penn State's investigation of its global warmist will go nowhere
•Former boss calls James Hansen call an embarrassment to NASA
•NASA's global warming scientists caught hyping false data
•The resemblance of global warming true-believers to Islamists
•James Hansen "muzzled" by Bush White House?

CEO: Obama's policies damage the economy

David Farr, the CEO of Emerson Electric, explains how Obama's policies limit employment and hamstring growth:

GDP in the U.S. grew in the first half less than 1%. . . . It's not new news. We have to deal with it. We have a tradition in the company to deal with those things.

Then we have a government situation, their inability to deal with the real gut issues of excess spending and debt. All we hear out of government is, we're going to raise taxes. We don't like corporate planes. We're going to sue Boeing, one of the most strategic companies we have in this country, for building a new plant in South Carolina. We have no desire to really go after corporate tax reform, which would (finally) change this country and encourage people to invest and reinvest and create jobs in this country, but rather demagogue and go after people that actually create those jobs, be it corporations [or] people that are successful. . . .

So, as I look at what [is] coming at us in the second half of this year, I do not see the catalysts that would say that [the] economy will be fundamentally different in the second half than we saw in the first half. . . . Fundamentally, there's nothing going on in the U.S. right now that would encourage corporations to ignore the excessive regulations coming at us. . . . You look at the new health-care bill. You look at the last week. We decided in Washington to raise the CAFE standards for the second time within three years on the day that we announced less than 1% first-half GDP growth in the U.S. economy. I would say Washington is arranging the chairs on the Titanic.

PREVIOUSLY on Obamanomics:
•CEO: businesses are "frightened to death" of Obamacare and Obama's regulatory overreach
•Obamanomics and the prolonged recession
•How to lie with statistics
•3M: “Politicians forget that business has choice"
•Obamacare: Corporatism in action
•Obama 0, Germany 1:
•Medical insurance prices rising due to ObamaCare
•Laws of Economics 1; Obama 0
•Why Liberal economics fails: redistribution does not create wealth (Illustrated)
•Obamacare endangers student health
•Why business isn't hiring
•Dodd-Frank finance "reform" bill stops bond market cold
•Why unemployment insurance must be extended (illustrated)
•Obamanomics still failing, Washington Post discovers
•Russia goes supply-side
•Study: Liberals are economically illiterate

Our narcissist-in-chief

How smart does President Obama think he is? At the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens reviews the record:

"I think I'm a better speech writer than my speech writers," [Barack Obama] reportedly told an aide in 2008. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm . . . a better political director than my political director."

On another occasion—at the 2004 Democratic convention—Mr. Obama explained to a Chicago Tribune reporter that "I'm LeBron, baby. I can play at this level. I got game."

There is wisdom in knowing one's limitations.  Obama doesn't.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of narcissism:
•Obama and his failure "to communicate"
•Hybrid cars and narcissism
•Narcissist-in-Chief (with cartoon and photo)
•Study: Environmentalists more likely to "cheat" and "steal"
•Obama: "I want you to understand: this is not about me!"
•Obama: it's all about me!
•Confusing Compassion with Narcissism
•Obama's narcissism and the Chicago Olympics bid
•Environmentalism and Narcissism, II
•John Stewart analyzes the Narcissist-in-Chief
•From OpenLeft: Is liberalism narcissism?
•Environmentalism and Narcissism,
•The side-effects of good intentions

The Federal budget problem, clearly explained

(Warning: contains vulgar language)

Hat tip: Greg.

Study: teacher's unions are bad for education

From Nashville's NewsChannel5 (Hat tip: Instapundit):

The AP discovered school systems without teachers' collective bargaining rights performed slightly better than those with negotiated contracts. Thirty-eight school districts don't have collective bargaining rights, and the AP found those systems averaged a higher percentage of students who earned proficient or advanced scores.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of education:
•Study: sexist women teachers stunt learning of girl students
•Black students, harassed for "acting white," get $150,000
•Teaching self-esteem backfires
•Education in Korea vs. the US: does "self-esteem" backfire?
•LA pays teachers not to teach
•What teachers learn in teacher's ed.
•Obama promises to throw money at schools
•How to get a job teaching in California even if you are illiterate

President Obama: the Movie

From Rush, Obamageddon and Barackalypse Now:
From Instapundit, Downgrade (which apparently features a sinking ship):

Not enough rich to cover the deficit

Dan Surber provides the numbers.

Sharia Law practiced in Australia

According to this TV report, women's rights are disappearing as Sharia Law is being practiced in cities across Austrialia:

Some clerics have defied government bans to establish their own courts to decide divorce cases, child custody issues, and financial disputes. Brian Seymore reports that's just the start as Muslim leaders call for traditional Islamic Law to be fully adopted in Australia.

Hat tip: Leonard

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of Islam
•The Islamic Bomb
•Why is Islam popular in prison?
•Obama and the stifling of dissent
•Hate crimes statistics, Jews, and Muslims, and more
•The philosophy that shall not be named
•Turkey wants to try Pope for insulting Islam