The day’s top political news:
Pope Calls for New World Financial Order
Pope Benedict XVI called Tuesday for a new world financial order guided by ethics, dignity and the search for the common good in the third encyclical of his pontificate.
In ''Charity in Truth,'' Benedict denounced the profit-at-all-cost mentality of the globalized economy and lamented that greed had brought about the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
The document, in the works for two years and repeatedly delayed to incorporate the fallout from the crisis, was released one day before leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations meet to coordinate efforts to deal with the global meltdown.
http://moneynews.newsmax.com/streettalk/global_economy/2009/07/07/232693.html?s=al&promo_code=82E2-1
Democrats Split on Stimulus as Job Losses Mount, Deficit Soars
Democrats who control the levers of power in Washington are divided over whether to push for more deficit spending to end the recession and stem job losses, complicating the possibility of a second stimulus bill.
Obama underscored the dilemma by addressing both sides of the argument. In an interview with ABC News yesterday, he said unemployment approaching 10 percent is something “we wrestle with constantly.” He added that spending more borrowed money is “potentially counterproductive.”
The split reflects two major challenges facing the Democrats: Record budget deficits that make additional spending much tougher to pass and a 26-year-high unemployment rate of 9.5 percent that is expected to rise to double digits.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aIHpsBT0JHFc
Jury sees videos of Louisiana Democrat. congressman accepting cash
A federal jury has seen video of a former Louisiana congressman accepting a suitcase filled with $100,000 in cash outside a northern Virginia hotel.
The videos played Tuesday are a key piece of evidence in the bribery trial of William Jefferson, a Democrat who represented parts of New Orleans. He's accused of accepting more than $400,000 in bribes to broker business deals in Africa.
On the video, Jefferson seemed wary of accepting the money in public. When asked by an FBI informant if he wanted to peek inside the suitcase at the contents, he tersely replied, "No, I would not."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gAhJ_ijKsVNeqkiH39KhnCUNj-fQD999OKUO0
Opinion:
Tea Party Protests – so where do we go from here?
Tea Party protests have sent millions of Americans into the streets to protest liberal extremism in our government. Bailouts, outrageous spending, and plans and programs that will damage America.
In their frenzy to give government access to our healthcare system, liberals such as Obama are even supporting denying full coverage and treatment to senior citizens. Any American over the age of 49 should be seriously troubled by this fact and should immediately involve themselves in political efforts opposing the liberal grab of healthcare.
Face it – the debate over healthcare is a choice between quality healthcare, and Obama’s “healthcare on the cheap”. When government is involved, quality is impossible.
That’s just one issue.
The mainstream media has worked overtime to avoid honest coverage of the tea party movement, and to downplay the numbers of Americans involved. Lest anyone doubt the potential impact of the sentiment we have witnessed, there is real hope liberals can be defeated.
Case-in-point: the amnesty bill a year or two ago. That bill had the full support of the White House, the US Senate, and the mainstream media. Yet, through the Internet, that bill was literally shouted down and defeated.
It was a major victory for normal Americans everywhere.
As important as turning back amnesty, is the demonstration that aroused public opinion can veto outrageous actions in Washington. In short, we can “Tell Washington No”.
We must organize to enable us to arouse normal America as they were aroused by the prospect of granting amnesty to illegal aliens who sneaked across our border and who create massive costs and other problems daily.
But we MUST organize and develop an ability to sound the alarm and focus the tea party sentiment. Shortly, our new web site, TellWashingtonNO.com will open with a focus on providing support for the tea party movement.
Here is a draft outline of how the program may work:
Taking the Tea Parties to a new level of effectiveness:
Tea Party protests have galvanized normal American outrage and prodded millions to go into the streets and stand up against the liberal insanity we see from Washington, and stand up for America itself.
Far more Americans have taken such a stand than the media will admit. Far, far more are cheering the movement on from behind their computers and TV news programs.
So far, the tea parties have succeeded in attaining their goal. They have given normal America a platform from which to shout their personal outrage.
Where do we go from here?
1. Consolidate the email potential: Communications is key in our taking our country back. We must make certain as many of our people as possible, know the facts and understand the truth.
2. Tea party sentiment and activism must be focused on impacting government and liberal politicians. (In Panama City, 300 tea party demonstrators ambushed a Blue Dog Democrat and forced him to sneak out a back door. Almost immediately, a California-based, liberal environmental group began running TV spots in an attempt to give the Congressman cover.) That impact needs to be repeated again and again and again.
3. While most of us want to keep our address books private, we DO need a contact in every Congressional District. We need a means for alerting grass root Americans of issues and happenings that threaten their particular areas.
4. We cannot defeat all the liberals in just one election, but we can pick off vulnerable liberals. We are targeting specific campaigns and will focus efforts on those districts. We intend to pick off stragglers among liberals, and reinforce conservatives who may be in trouble.
5. Local leaders in this effort must spread the word to their friends, neighbors, and relatives to make sure we reach as many people as possible.
6. Think, plan, and innovate. We don’t have all the answers (no one does), but we do have a group of people available who have been involved with successful political efforts in every state.
7. We will create necessary information for reaching local free media in the targeted areas. At the same time, dollars permitting, we will air TV commercials on cable TV and through the Internet via email videos, Youtube, and other options. We must support our candidates, and we must attack our liberal opposition.
8. We will instigate a professional effort to raise the funds necessary for underwriting this effort.
9. Beginning in September, a dedicated effort will make lists of voters local leaders believe will vote our way. They may vote to support a dedicated conservative, they may vote to kick out a liberal politician, they may vote simply to express their frustration with liberal corruption in Washington.
10. On election day, we will mount an effort (focused on our targeted areas) to turn out our voters and get them to the polls to vote. Polls show 40% of Americans are conservative. An effective voter turn out program can make such strength a mighty weapon that can win a lot of elections. If we succeed in turning out more of our voters – especially those who would not vote without being prodded by us -- we win any election. 40%, if fully energized, can become over 50% and provide a winning edge.
Think of our Tell Washington No movement as an answer by normal America to the threat ACORN and similar liberal groups pose to honest elections and vote counting. We MUST have an effective voice and force through which to protect our democratic system and our freedom itself. ACORN must be effectively confronted, opposed, and defeated. That takes organization, leadership, and funding.
Winning elections is our ultimate goal. Turning back liberal damage requires us to undercut the liberal domination we see today, and replace it with conservatives.
Buddy
The day’s top blogs:
1.
The view of a Conservative Woman – a real grass root commentary on the Sarah Palin story. Tex comments:
I see Sarah took Monday off and spent it with her husband doing what they enjoy doing together. Fishing! Even if it is commercial, it is a relaxing work, away from the pressures of the Governor's office. A time to clear her head, think, regroup and set priorities. I admire her that her family first of all, is her first priority.
Sarah is a pioneer for women in politics. Women have been harassed in the work place since the beginning of time. Sexual innuendoes, gossip by men and women have taken time away from meaningful business in all work places.
She was obviously a huge threat to these small minded people who have hounded her, slandered her and her family for months, otherwise they would not have gone after her like a pack of wolves.
Sarah will be back on the center stage of the National politics. She is a fast study, fast learner. She will be grooming herself for bigger things.
Meanwhile, I do hope she files suit for slander regarding the vicious attacks on her and her family. I hope legislation takes place, placing boundaries on related attacks on family members of politicians.
In this day and time, what family has not been touched with an unwed pregnant family member. Most would have rushed to an unwanted wedding to hide, hoping people couldn't count the months, or they would have quietly had an abortion, murdering the unborn baby. What parent hasn't taught a child one way of life, and had that child do exactly what they had taught them to not do? Does that make them a bad parent? Does that make their child a bad child? Nope, it makes them human! It makes them parents who have high standards, but sometimes our children do disappoint us and have to learn things the hard way for themselves.
The same type of attacks took place on former President Bush's beautiful teenage daughters. They did not choose to be in the National spotlight, and any pictures and gossip of them on their college campus should have been off limits.
When a blogger demeans Sarah's precious down syndrome baby it is the lowest of all scum attacks! I can only imagine the hurt to the other children who love their baby brother and would certainly be protective.
I'd say Sarah may have a little battle fatique, or perhaps lost a squirmish or two, or a battle, but she has not lost the war.
“Tex” Ethylene Beard (Tex is a leader for “Tell Washington No” in the Houston area.)
2.
Q and A on the Climate Bill
David A. Fahrenthold and Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writers
The climate bill approved by the House last month started out as an idea -- fight global warming -- and wound up looking like an unabridged dictionary. It runs to more than 1,400 pages, swollen with loopholes and giveaways meant to win over un-green industries and wary legislators.
Here are answers to some key questions about the bill.
How would it work?
The legislation sponsored by Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) would set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions and gradually tighten it. Major emitters of greenhouse gases -- including any business that burns fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas or coal -- would have to reduce their emissions or buy allowances, which would be traded on markets like commodities. This would be the first economy-wide limit on greenhouse gases in the United States; Europe has had a similar system in place for years.
Would this bill stop climate change?
No. Even if it works exactly as planned -- delivering a 17 percent reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared with 2005 levels -- it might not slow down the rate of climate change by very much.
That is because emissions are a global problem: Greenhouse gases contribute to the Earth's warming whether they are emitted in China or in Chevy Chase. Even if the United States meets the legislation's goals for 2020, the world's total emissions would be reduced by about 3 percent, according to Energy Department projections.
That would be a start, environmentalists say. Usually emissions grow as the economy grows, so a 17 percent cut would be a huge feat for the energy industry. But scientists say that far deeper cuts are needed to head off disaster from warming temperatures, rising sea levels and other climate changes. The legislation would require reductions of 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050.
What will all this change cost, and who will pay?
Less than 50 cents per household per day, according to estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Congressional Budget Office. And that does not take into account benefits from avoiding hard-to-calculate costs associated with accelerating climate change.
According to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, the cost would be much steeper:
$11.78 per day in the coming decades. According to House Republicans, the costs would cripple the U.S. economy and drive American jobs to countries that do not have climate regulations.
These costs are a mix of higher prices for carbon-based fuels -- the whole idea of a cap-and-trade system -- offset by a complex series of tax breaks and free allowances, new technologies and behavioral changes, and impacts on corporations and their profits.
Any estimate is tough to make because it is difficult to forecast exactly how the system would work and what new technologies will emerge. New technologies might make it cheaper to turn wind and sunlight into electricity, or make it possible for coal plants to capture carbon dioxide on a wide scale and store it underground.
Or they might not: It is difficult to forecast the effect of inventions still un-invented. Photovoltaic cells are similar to computer chips, whose prices keep falling, but carbon capture and storage is largely uncharted territory.
What did Waxman and Markey give away to get the bill passed?
Plenty. But the compromises -- with the possible exception of one involving agriculture interests -- would affect who pays the costs of cutting greenhouse gases, without undermining the emission targets.
What Waxman and Markey gave away were free emission allowances during a transition period of 10 to 20 years. The biggest chunks would reduce costs for certain companies and consumers, especially those reliant on coal. Other allowances would essentially be subsidies, going to states, a new clean-energy bank, forestry groups, automakers, and others that would sell them and use the proceeds.
Who loses in these compromises?
The federal government. Under President Obama's initial proposal, the federal government would have auctioned off 100 percent of the emission allowances under the cap. The Waxman-Markey bill would auction off about 15 percent to start with and would not phase out the free stuff until 2030. During the program's first 10 years, a full auction could have pumped an extra $713 billion in revenue into the Treasury. That could have been used to slash the deficit, pay for health care, cut payroll taxes or fund energy research. Obama had proposed a combination of energy aid for lower-income households and an extension of a temporary tax cut approved this year.
Who benefits?
-- Local electricity distribution companies that rely heavily on coal would get 35 percent or more of the allowances through 2025. Local utility regulators would decide whether costs can be passed through to consumers, but the Waxman-Markey bill has provisions designed to ensure that the benefits of free allowances flow to consumers.
That is great politics. But it means consumers would not have as much financial incentive for energy-efficient home improvements. The bill would still send powerful signals to anyone building a power plant, which is expected to last long after the phase-out of the proposed free allowances.
-- Energy-intensive manufacturers, such as those that make aluminum, glass or steel. These firms are worried about competition from countries such as China and India, which do not price greenhouse gases. These firms would get 10 to 15 percent of allowances for most of a decade. (A tariff would take effect in 2020 for goods from countries still lacking carbon prices.)
-- Various companies and agencies. According to Point Carbon, a market analysis firm, rural electricity firms would get an extra $6.4 billion worth of allowances thanks to an amendment to the bill. Three-quarters of 1 percent of all allowances would go to about a half-dozen small, independent oil refiners, said Kevin Book, managing director of research at ClearView Energy Partners; major oil refiners would get 2 percent of allowances. Automakers would need allowances to cover only their manufacturing emissions, not tailpipe emissions. But they would still get 3 percent of allowances for six years, then 1 percent of allowances for eight more.
Companies working on carbon capture and storage would get as much as 5 percent of allowances.
In the initial years, state governments would get 10 percent of allowances, which they would sell to finance a range of energy-efficiency activities, including mass transit.
An additional 5 percent of allowances would help groups fighting deforestation. They would sell the allowances to fund projects in places such as Brazil, Indonesia and China.
(NOTE: Face it. This is another liberal scam. Al Gore has manufactured the crisis and parlayed it into major dollars, and even a Nobel Prize – illustrating how totally and politically corrupted the Nobel process has become. The “Cap and Trade” bill, is simply, purely, and completely one more scam through which liberal Democrats craft a way to tax Americans again.)
What could go wrong?
The bill's success depends heavily on carbon offsets. These are official certificates given for greenhouse gases that might have been emitted but were not or for emissions that were somehow removed from the atmosphere.
U.S. polluters could buy them and pay someone else to reduce emissions, instead of doing it themselves. But, if some offsets turn out to be bogus, the climate loses and the system bleeds credibility.
The idea behind overseas offsets is that foreign companies might be able to reduce their emissions more cheaply than U.S. firms could here. That would provide an equal benefit to the climate at a lower cost. It also might prompt foreign companies to buy emissions-reducing technology made in America.
If the government does not allow offsets from overseas, the EPA estimates, this might drive up the price of carbon credits, the allowances that polluters need for each ton of greenhouse gases emitted, up by 89 percent.
But some critics say that it will be difficult to verify whether an overseas company really reduces its emissions -- and show that these reductions would not have happened on their own. Offsets make political targets, too. "I'm sure our constituents want our money shipped overseas to plant trees," House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said sarcastically during debate on the measure.
"I think people will buy the offsets," said Kenneth P. Green, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "The question is whether or not the offsets, especially the foreign ones, can be validated and meaningful."
What about U.S. farmers?
U.S. agriculture interests won two key concessions. Unlike interest groups that won free allowances, the agriculture concessions could undermine the cap. That is because the bill would put the Agriculture Department, instead of the EPA, in charge of agricultural offsets. Those could include credits for tillage techniques that would minimize carbon dioxide emissions. If the Agriculture Department is too lax with standards or credits for long-standing practices, it could mean little change in emissions.
What else is in the legislation? A lot. It is called a cap-and-trade bill, but key portions are about regulation. The provisions would act as backstops, cutting emissions even if the cap-and-trade system does not work as advertised.
One section would require new coal-fired power plants to emit 50 percent less carbon dioxide than existing plants do. Plants licensed after 2020 would have to cut emissions by 65 percent. Other parts would establish more energy-efficient building standards and order the phasing out of hydrofluorocarbon, a refrigerant that is a strong greenhouse gas.
Finally, the legislation would establish a nationwide renewable electricity standard, requiring utilities to meet 20 percent of their 2020 power needs from renewable energy sources or energy efficiency. The generous set-asides for efficiency and the definitions of renewables make this standard weaker than those most states have already adopted.
How will the world view this?
This might be the most surprising answer of all: A bill swimming in bureaucratic minutiae might make its biggest impact as a broad-stroke idea, a symbol that the United States is serious about climate change.
"It really sends a signal to the international community that one of the largest emitters means business," said Elizabeth Perera of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group. If that persuades other large-scale polluters such as China to set their own emissions standards, Perera said, the world might get the major reductions that scientists say are needed.
Dont ever forget -- "Cap and Trade" is justs another Democrat tax raising scam.
3.
Poll: 60 Percent Oppose Another Stimulus Plan
Jim Meyers
Amid calls for a new stimulus plan, a Rasmussen Reports poll reveals that only 27 percent of voters support another economic stimulus package this year, while 60 percent oppose it.
Public opposition to a second stimulus plan is explained in part by the mixed feelings voters have about the first plan: 31 percent say it has helped the economy, and 30 percent say it has hurt," Rasmussen said.
In another survey, pollster Doug Schoen found that 56 percent of respondents are opposed to the notion that government should spend money to stimulate the national economy even if it means increasing the budget deficit. Only 37 percent support that position.
These polls show that voters are deeply concerned about higher budget deficits created by government stimulus, Politico observes.
(NOTE: That misses the point. Normal Americans oppose another stimulus plan because they know a scam when they see one. The first “stimulus” bill should never have been passed, and only because liberals have a dominating majority on Capitol Hill, is another being proposed. This is a clear indication of the arrogance among liberals today – having sneaked the Cap and Trade conspiracy across the finish line in the House, they believe they can pass almost any other absurd bill they wish. The problem is, they likely have the votes to make good their threat.)
But several unions, including the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union, plan to begin pressuring legislators for a jobs bill, saying the $787 billion stimulus package approved earlier this year wasn't large enough.
Calls for a new stimulus plan are being fueled by rising unemployment, which hit 9.5 percent in June, The Hill newspaper reported. Obama administration officials predicted in January that the unemployment rate would peak at 8 percent if a stimulus plan was passed.
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., who voted against the stimulus package, said Republicans could work with Democrats on a new stimulus plan if it includes significant tax cuts, in particular cuts targeted at small businesses and their employees.
But Vice President Joe Biden said on Sunday that the current stimulus plan needs more time to work. He told ABC News: "We misread just how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery package."
Nevertheless, 68 percent of likely voters surveyed by Rasmussen believe that Congress and the president will try to pass another stimulus package this year, while only 20 percent believe they will not, and 12 percent are not sure.
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