Dear Colleague,

As you know, President Obama has REJECTED American jobs to appease radical environmentalists by refusing to approve permits to go forward with the Keystone XL Pipeline. The permit process has been going on for three years, and now the actions of the Obama Administration have postponed it again, delaying a project that would bring thousands of jobs to Americans and more energy independence.

The Obama Administration had until February 21 to look at the facts and make an educated decision on the Keystone XL project, but instead, he chose to jump-the-gun and have the State Department announce it will kill the permits necessary for work to get started on the pipeline.

This is a blatant political decision that postpones Obama having to make a real decision on the approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline until after his re-election campaign, putting his own job ahead of the creation of American jobs and economic improvement.

Americans NEED the jobs from Keystone.
Americans NEED the energy from Keystone.

The good news is that its still not too late to revive the Keystone XL Project.

Keystone is resubmitting their application and needs us to do our part to speak out in support of American jobs and American energy independence.

Resourceful Earth is going to take the fight to the President. We will make him hear loud and clear that the American people want jobs and reliable energy now.

You can sign the petition at the links below and use these sample posts to share with your networks:

• [FACEBOOK] http://on.fb.me/yomDu2
  Sign the petition! Urge the Obama Administration to approve the Keystone XL pipeline by the February 21 deadline.
• [TWITTER] Sign the petition: http://bit.ly/A8K2mV
  Urge #Obama to approve the #KeystoneXL pipeline by the February 21 deadline! #YesKXL

Please pass this information and petition links on to your readers, friends, family and colleagues.

Over 78 percent of Americans want this project to go forward. Please do what you can to make sure the President knows how strongly we feel about American jobs and energy independence!

Thank you!

Beth Shaw
Resourceful Earth News
beth@resourcefulearthnews.org

Also see:

• Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) Pushes Ahead on the XL Pipeline

Massive opposition research file on Romney hits Internet, likely from 2008 McCain campaign

If you think you’ve already heard everything there is to know about Mitt Romney, think again. A 200-page document that appears to be Sen. John McCain’s entire 2008 election-year opposition research file on the former Massachusetts governor hit the Internet with a vengeance Tuesday evening. And it’s an eye-opener.

The file explores everything from the assessed value of Romney’s house (“$3.162 million”) to his views on the Boy Scouts’ ban of homosexuals (“publicly opposed … in 1994 and 2002 campaigns”). It was made public Tuesday on the social media website Buzzfeed, although it appears to have been accessible online for two months.

The document, given the name “The Romney Book,” was viewed less than 100 times on the page where it was originally uploaded by its anonymous leaker on November 11.

Neither McCain nor his former presidential campaign staffers have authenticated the untitled document, and McCain’s recent endorsement of Romney makes that highly unlikely. Still, the file is comprehensive enough — even by Washington, D.C. opposition-research standards — to suggest that it was assembled as a tool to counter a Romney candidacy on a national scale. And the news articles it references stop late in 2007.
[...]
More here.

Link: McCain 2008 Oppo File on Mitt Romney (PDF)

We have hosted a copy of this file on 1389 Blog. Click the above link to view or download.

John Ransom: Romney’s Crony Capitalism Problem

[...]
While the GOP establishment has been busy denouncing Newt as promoting “class warfare” by his attacks on Mitt and Bain, they’ve missed the bigger picture issue that rank and file GOP voters have responded to: Mitt Romney’s experience doesn’t make him the anti-Obama. Rather, Mitt’s Wall Street past, combined with his record as governor of Massachusetts, represent the alliance between government and business that has led to runaway spending no matter which side has been in power.

Sure, Washington is to blame for most of the mess, but Wall Street has been complicit too. Behind every Solyndra loan was a commercial bank- in Solyndra’s case the Federal Financing Bank- that benefited from the risk free- for them- loans. Behind the financing of every budget deficit are more fees for Wall Street.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? They operated as a giant Ways and Means committee for Wall Street to off-load America’s housing risk on to the government. To be sure, Wall Street was just maximizing profits, as it’s supposed to. But is Romney the guy who’s going to shut down the Combine between business and government?

This from Scott Rasmussen:

While Romney would hope to position himself as a defender of free market competition, he is potentially vulnerable on the topic because only 35 percent of Americans believe that capitalism and a free market economy are the same thing. Candidate Romney, like many Republicans, tends to use the terms interchangeably. That’s dangerous when 39 percent of voters nationwide believe the country has a system of crony capitalism, while only 34 percent believe free market capitalism is practiced. The rest aren’t sure.

 Interestingly, this is one issue with very little partisan divide. Republican, Democrats and unaffiliated voters hold similarly skeptical views. Seven out of 10 Americans believe that big government and big business work together against the rest of us. Voters don’t mind businesses getting big; they just mind when the government gives them an unfair advantage over others.

Like what happened in Romneycare.

“What motivated Romney to enact RomneyCare, as former Romney/Obama adviser Jonathan Gruber explains here,” writes Cato’s healthcare policy expert Michael Cannon, “was the widespread desire (within Massachusetts) to hang on to $385 million of federal Medicaid money that Massachusetts had secured using one of Medicaid’s notorious and fraudulent “provider tax” scams.  In other words, the whole purpose of RomneyCare was to enable Massachusetts to hold on to $385 million that it received by defrauding and taxing residents of other states.  And of course, Romney/RomneyCare caused the tax burden that Massachusetts effectively imposes on non-Massachusetts residents to grow.”

When Romneycare was crafted there were people sitting around a table talking about healthcare, but they weren’t talking about cancer, or broken bones. They were talking about money. You got it and they want more of it, risk free in the same way they off-loaded risk in the housing sector.

While other parts of the economy are struggling, the healthcare sector is approaching all-time highs as represented by the S&P healthcare Select Sector fund. Romneycare and Obamacare, as seen in the chart below, have created an artificial floor for healthcare investments, protecting investors in a way that investors in the S&P 500, for example, don’t enjoy.

(Chart courtesy Yahoo! Finance)

The sooner we separate Washington from Wall Street, the better. And Romney is the only GOP candidate who forfeits the moral high ground in that argument to Obama. Any other GOP candidate will be able to credibly chastise Obama for the crony capitalism practiced by the left. But not Romney.

GOP voters, thankfully, haven’t been gulled into believing that every investor automatically qualifies as a free market capitalist- see Buffett, Warren and Soros, George. Voters are rightly saying that they are not sure that being a venture capitalist qualifies one, per se, to be president anymore than being a community organizer does; especially when one factors in Mitt’s historic socialization of healthcare in Massachusetts.

For GOP voters you can’t find a bigger attack on free markets or a stronger case of crony capitalism and government than that which Romneycare represents.
[...]
Read it all here.

A minor quibble about the term “crony capitalism”:

As I just finished pointing out, the term “crony capitalism” is nothing more than a euphemism for government pork-barrel corruption. It is not about “capitalism” at all; it’s about buying votes, endorsements, campaign contributions, and other advantages through government spending and regulations that favor well-connected individuals and firms over everyone else. Whether it’s legal or not, it’s bad for America and it’s wrong, and Tea Party conservatives want no part of it.

Yahoo! News: Popular Websites to Go Dark Over SOPA Controversy

“Like” us on Facebook.com/TrendingNow and follow me on Twitter @Knowlesitall!

If you have anything you want to look up on Wikipedia, you’d better do it today, or you’re going to have to wait a full 24 hours to get your answer. Why? Well, Wikipedia will be leading a number of high-profile websites going dark on Wednesday to protest two controversial bills in Congress. SOPA, also known as the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House of Representatives, and PIPA, the Protect I-P Act in the Senate, are designed to crack down on the illegal sharing of movies and music on the Web. However, critics say the anti-piracy legislation is censorship and would force sites to police the online world.

On Twitter, Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, confirmed that all of Wikipedia’s 3.8 million English-language articles will be unavailable from midnight Eastern time tonight until midnight Wednesday. Anyone who visits the site will be redirected to a banner that reads “The Internet must remain free.” Also joining Wikipedia in going black are Reddit, Minecraft, Craigslist, and Boing Boing, among others. Craigslist has posted a message at the top of its city homepages with a link to “help put a stop to this madness” of SOPA and PIPA.

The Obama administration, as well as Congress, seem to be listening to the critics. In a blog post, the White House said it would not support “legislation that reduces freedom of expression … or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.” And House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said a vote would not come up for SOPA until a consensus is reached. By the way, if you’re a fan of any of the sites that are planning to participate in the blackout, don’t worry: You can still tweet about it as much as you want. Twitter will still be up and running. In fact, CEO Dick Costolo tweeted this about the sites choosing to go dark: “Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish.”

More here.

Learn more:

• PJM: SOPA and Protect-IP: A Line-by-Line Analysis of the Bills We Must Kill
• Mashable: Why SOPA Is Dangerous
• Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA): Stealth tool to shut down political speech and the Counterjihad

From: Sandra Wirtz
To: 1389 Blog
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2012 11:29 AM
Subject: Obama Administration’s Grand Canyon mining ban has far-reaching consequences

Dear 1389,

Since your blog occasionally covers environmental and energy issues, I thought your readership might appreciate some insight on Sec. of Interior Ken Salazar’s decision to impose a 20-year mining ban in a million-acre buffer area around Grand Canyon National park from this week.

American Resources Policy Network’s (the organization for which I serve as research director and blogger) principal Dan McGroarty just wrote a column for RealClearWorld.com on the ban, the implications of which stretch beyond what the media is reporting.

Ostensibly put in place over water quality concerns associated with proposed uranium mining, the ban not only needlessly caters to environmentalists, as there is little evidence to support these claims; the decision amounts to what Dan McGroarty calls “a case of unilateral nuclear disarmament, applied to the energy sector.” Given that it would also fence off a number of other minerals on which we’re highly import-dependent as a nation, the ban stands to threaten our strategic and economic future.

Please help us spread the world on the dire consequences of the ban by sharing this with your readers. Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.

Thank you,

Sandra Wirtz
Director of Research & Staff Blogger
American Resources Policy Network
www.americanresources.org

Every House Republican voted against it, as did all but three Senate Republicans – and for good reason.

Human Events has the story.

From YouTube:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by ngingrich on Dec 9, 2011

WOLF: Obama supporters, Democrats, White House officials, Obama campaign officials say they look forward to running against you. They’re nervous about Mitt Romney.

NEWT: I remember in 1966, Governor Pat Brown, Jerry Brown’s father, was really concerned about a moderate Mayor of San Francisco named George Christopher. He really wanted to find some right-wing actor that he could beat easily. They were thrilled that Ronald Reagan was running. Reagan beat him by a million votes.

I am perfectly happy for the Obama people to decide that they want to beat up on Romney. It’s a little tough on Romney, but that’s fine with me. When we get to the general election, if I’m the nominee, after the president has those seven, three-hour debates, we’ll see how they feel about it.

Presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, discusses his time as Speaker, foreign policy, education, healthcare, Israel, and his personal life.

Learn more at http://www.newt.org

Originally aired by CNN on December 7, 2011

Pledge your support for Small Business Saturday®

The 2nd annual Small Business Saturday® is a day dedicated to supporting small businesses on one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year.

On November 26, we’re asking millions of people to Shop Small^sm at their favorite local stores and help fuel the economy. When we all shop small, it will be huge.

Facebook: Pledge to shop small on Nov 26

More information here.

Congressman West Reminds Shoppers to Support Small Businesses

(FORT LAUDERDALE)—- Congressman Allen West (R-FL) released this statement today honoring America’s small businesses and reminding Americans to shop ‘local’ during the holiday season:

“The Saturday after Thanksgiving has officially been deemed “Small Business Saturday” and is a day America has set aside to support local businesses around the country.  My wife, Angela, and I will certainly be shopping at our favorite local businesses this holiday season in South Florida and I encourage all Americans to do the same.

Small businesses, not government, are the economic engine that drives America. Congress must put the power back in hands of small business so they can use their resources to spur innovation and create jobs.  As a proud member of the House Committee on Small Business, I am working to eliminate unnecessary and burdensome regulations, cut taxes, and reduce wasteful spending.

Right now, there are more than a dozen House passed bills sitting on Senator Harry Reid’s desk- that if passed- would remove burdensome regulations on small businesses as well as provide incentives to encourage businesses to hire again.  I call on Senator Reid to not waste anymore time and make these pieces of legislation a priority when he returns from the Thanksgiving holiday.

In the meantime, I encourage all Americans to seek out those small businesses this holiday, and put their money to good use by shopping at and supporting our local ‘mom and pops’. The Small Business is the epitome of American innovation and ingenuity and America would not be the country it is today, and simply put, can not continue to be the great nation it is, without the success of our small businesses.”

Small Business Facts:

There are an estimated 27.2 million small businesses in the United States and  Small businesses create about seven of every ten new jobs and they employ just over half of the country’s private sector workforce. Small businesses have generated 64% of net new jobs over the past 15 years.

For a list of all of the bills the House has passed concerning small businesses, click here

WXIA-Atlanta has the story:

WACO, Ga. — A west Georgia business owner is stirring up controversy with signs he posted on his company’s trucks, for all to see as the trucks roll up and down roads, highways and interstates:

“New Company Policy: We are not hiring until Obama is gone.”

“Can’t afford it,” explained the employer, Bill Looman, Tuesday evening. “I’ve got people that I want to hire now, but I just can’t afford it. And I don’t foresee that I’ll be able to afford it unless some things change in D.C.”

Looman’s company is U.S. Cranes, LLC. He said he put up the signs, and first posted pictures of the signs on his personal Facebook page, six months ago, and he said he received mostly positive reaction from people, “about 20-to-one positive.”

But for some reason, one of the photos went viral on the Internet on Monday.

And the reaction has been so intense, pro and con, he’s had to have his phones disconnected because of the non-stop calls, and he’s had to temporarily shut down his company’s website because of all the traffic crashing the system.

Looman made it clear, talking with 11Alive’s Jon Shirek, that he is not refusing to hire to make some political point; it’s that he doesn’t believe he can hire anyone, because of the economy. And he blames the Obama administration.

“The way the economy’s running, and the way my business has been hampered by the economy, and the policies of the people in power, I felt that it was necessary to voice my opinion, and predict that I wouldn’t be able to do any hiring,” he said.

Looman did receive some unexpected attention not long after he put up his signs and Facebook photos. He said someone, and he thinks he knows who it was, reported him to the FBI as a threat to national security. He said the accusation filtered its way through the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and finally the Secret Service. Agents interviewed him.

“The Secret Service left here, they were in a good mood and laughing,” Looman said. “I got the feeling they thought it was kind of ridiculous, and a waste of their time.”

So Bill Looman is keeping the signs up, and the photos up — stirring up a lot of debate.

“I just spent 10 years in the Marine Corps protecting the rights of people… the First Amendment, and the Second Amendment and the [rest of the] Bill of Rights,” he said. “Lord knows they’re calling me at 2 in the morning, all night long, and voicing their opinion. And I respect their right to do that. I’m getting a reaction, a lot of it’s negative, now. But a lot of people are waking up.”

“Until Obama is gone?”

Not everyone can afford to wait that long!

Telegraph (UK): America Ignores Long-Term Unemployment At Its Peril

It wasn’t great, good or, depending on whether your glass is always half full or empty, even that encouraging. But there was nothing in the latest US jobs report that has had anyone borrowing the doom-laden language that Europe has had a recent monopoly on.

80,000 jobs were created in October, and the tally for August and September was revised upwards by a total of 102,000. According to the Bureau of Labor, people have been hired at a rate of 125,000 a month for the last year. There was a decline, too, in the long-term unemployed – a group you belong to in the US if you’ve been without work for more than six months. That figure fell 366,000 to 5.9m.

But don’t expect Americans to be celebrating. That’s not only because October’s figures don’t immediately change an extremely difficult jobs market. 13.9m people are still unemployed and a further 8.9m are having to settle for part-time work. It runs deeper.
[…]
A report published this week by the Pew Trust, a bipartisan research group, underlines what a new problem it is. Before spiking to its current level of 42.2pc of the total number of unemployed, the highest it reached since the 1960s was just under 15pc following the recession of the early 1980s.

In its analysis of long-term unemployment in the third quarter of this year – July to September – The Pew Trust report found that older workers were hit particularly hard. 43pc of those without work over the age of 55 had been for more than six months. A university degree did not offer that much protection – 34pc of the unemployed with a degree were long-term casualties, while almost every industry had 20pc long-term unemployment. [emphasis added]
[…]
The consensus among economists is that the majority of unemployment is what they describe as cyclical. In other words, as the economy recovers companies will hire more aggressively and those without work will find it. But at an otherwise dull press conference on Wednesday, Bernanke remarked that: “cyclical unemployment left untreated can, so to speak, become structural.”

The implication is worrying: a period out of work can turn a previously employable worker into one that will find it much harder to get a job. Skills atrophy, confidence plummets and the needs of companies move on. [emphasis added]
[…]
Read it all.

Human Events: Rise of the Unemployables

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a grim quarterly report this week that found “the small business outlook on the U.S. economy continues to decline.” The percentage of small businesses planning to add a few employees declined from 18% to 16% in the second quarter, while those with plans to add “many” employees remained stuck at 1%.

This isn’t primarily due to flat sales. That was actually the #3 reason for holding off on making new hires… and it was virtually tied with dread of ObamaCare. The number of businesses citing ObamaCare as their top concern continued to grow.
[…]
Small businesses are the primary engine of job creation, as everyone right up to President Obama agrees. Their reluctance to hire anyone is a troubling sign of the long unemployment wasteland stretching ahead. Making things worse is the growing trend toward long-term unemployment. A rising number of people have become, in a word, unemployable.

The Economist has some terrible statistics:

Over 6 million Americans, more than 40% of all those unemployed, have now been out of work for more than six months. Most of these, 4.5 million, haven’t worked for a year or more. This crisis of long-term joblessness is unprecedented in the post-war period.

[…] Workers are escaping unemployment more slowly than at any time since 1948. The long-term unemployed are struggling most; in the year to June, the newly jobless were three times more likely to find new work in a given month than the long-term unemployed. Many of the latter have given up hope. For the first time in decades, jobless workers are more likely to drop out of the labor force (and cease to be counted as unemployed) than to get a job.

(Emphasis mine.) This latter point is important to keep in mind when considering unemployment news, because the widely reported U-3 measurement from the Bureau of Labor Statistics deliberately excludes those who have dropped out of the workforce entirely. For September, the “official” U-3 figure held steady at 9.1%, and made headlines. The real unemployment number, the U-6 measurement that includes discouraged workers, rose from 16.2% to 16.5%.

Peterson Institute​ visiting fellow Howard Rosen, quoted in a Politico article that notes the percentage of people unemployed for six months or longer hasn’t risen above 26% during the past fifty years, sees the U.S. work force contracting as the population increases:

“We have an immediate problem, which is that people are dropping out of the labor force,” said Howard Rosen, a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “It drains the potential of our economy to grow.”

The working-age population increased by 3.8 million over the past two years, but the net size of the labor force has declined by 768,000, he noted.

[…]
America doesn’t just need more “jobs,” it needs more careers. It needs more new careers.

Obama’s [recently-defeated] bill included an even stranger provision that would have allowed the long-term unemployed to sue businesses that refuse to hire them, if they could demonstrate the length of their unemployment was a factor in the decision. The resulting flood of frivolous lawsuits would have only made the publication of a want ad even more terrifying for business owners.

What we’ve got is a collapsing workforce, cherry-picked for recently unemployed, highly skilled workers by large corporations. Small businesses that might be willing to take a chance on younger workers, or those with less sterling credentials, are afraid to hire anyone. [emphasis added]

Obama’s solutions were foolish attempts to distort the price of labor without altering its value. The value of discouraged workers doesn’t change when little tax-credit carrots are dangled before prospective employers. As the overall demand for employees falls, it’s not surprising to find resumes ever more carefully fished out of corporate in-boxes. A smaller group of people gets hired and re-hired for all the good jobs, while the ranks of the unemployable swell. [emphasis added]

The only real answer is to increase the demand for labor, and provide more opportunities for those discouraged workers to re-enter the workforce. The value of their labor only changes when demand increases, to the point where employers who formally considered only the thickest and juiciest resumes are offering on-the-job training to get people in the door. History has shown that sort of improvement comes only with increases in our national gross domestic product: more companies selling more goods and services to a growing base of hungry consumers. Why would anyone expect to find opportunities for marginal workers anywhere except the margins of energetic growth?

Expanding markets, and creating job opportunities, is always a matter of risk taken in the pursuit of reward.  What happens when arbitrary government power increases the risks and diminishes the rewards?  The answer is written on millions of unemployment checks.  The Chamber of Commerce small business survey had it exactly right.  The best thing the Obama Administration could do for the unemployables is the one thing it will never do: get out of the way.
Read it all.

Also see:

• Website: US Crane LLC
• The Blaze: Majority of unemployed have now been out of work so long they no longer get benefits
• UNDERemployment and the Greater Depression of 2010
• Why Employers Avoid Hiring the Long-Term Unemployed

Dean Kleckner endorses Herman Cain for President

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by thehermancain on Nov 5, 2011

“Herman Cain reminds me of Ronald Reagan and I knew Ronald Reagan.”

Dean Kleckner is a retired farmer who served as president of the Iowa Farm Bureau for 10 years, and was elected to seven two-year terms as president of the American Farm Bureau. He also served on the U.S. Trade Advisory Committee under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Environmentalists have been caught red-handed AstroTurfing over the Pebble Mine project. I guess its just not that easy to get the masses stirred up over their cause, so the environmentalists have stooped to paying people to support their cause – if only on paper.

The Save Bristol Bay Road Show is offering a chance to win some great prizes in exchange for signing a letter in support of stopping the Pebble Mine project in Alaska. The letters, to Washington Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, are literally the raffle tickets for the prizes! You can see their Facebook page here.

The growing sign-to-win controversy draws into question the legitimacy of any outrage over the opposition to the Pebble Mine project. If not illegal, it is certainly ethically questionable.

Interestingly, the sign-to-win dog and pony show is being funded by Robert Gillam, CEO of McKinley Capital Management. Why is the richest man in Alaska funding opposition to mining in Alaska? What dog does he have in this race? It makes me wonder if the #OWS types are just being used to advance the interests of the 1%.

Here is more info on the growing ‘sign-to-win’ controversy at the Save Bristol Bay Road Show.

Please let people know the unethical methods being used to fight against Pebble Mine and other efforts to harvest America’s natural resources. Write about it on your blog, tweet it, Google + it, Facebook it! Let us know if you put up a blog post and we’ll be sure to link back to you.

Thank you for your help in shinning a light on this scam!

Beth
Resourceful Earth

A bad day for democracy in Australia, following on the heels of the judgement against Andrew Bolt’s right to free speech.

The West is falling badly, and democracy is losing its grip.

All politicians lie – we know that, but have a look at the video clip of Gillard’s pre-election promise (below) and I can’t really see any way that it can be misinterpreted.

She did not win in her own right but forged a coalition with the Marxist Greens, and a few ‘independents”, to hold onto power here.

Her political opponent, Tony Abbott, in spite of the leftist media bias, did remarkably well. Gillard’s party managed to entice the “independents” to stick with her.

Most Australians did not want this tax but she rammed it down their throats, much like Obamacare was rammed down the throats of American citizens.

I cannot help but wonder sometimes why politicians bother to read polls when they have absolutely no intention of taking any notice of what the average citizen really wants.

I have said before on other blog posts:

Is there any leader in the West who has not literally declared war against his/her own people?

I cannot think of anyone but am open to suggestions.

At one point I thought Netanyahu was an exception but today we find he is releasing over 1000 prisoners (a/k/a jihadists) to obtain the release of Gilad Shalit.

Don’t misunderstand me – I am happy for Gilad Shalit – but now Netanyahu has placed his people, many more than one soldier, in harm’s way.

He has caved in to the demands of Hamas.

If he were going to do that anyway then why didn’t he do it years ago? Israel’s current situation is more precarious than what it was when Gilad Shalit was first captured.

Sadly, I see no Reagan or Churchill on the horizon.

Video of Julia Gillard’s pre-election promise:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by lodders86 on Feb 24, 2011

The Opposition says a $26 a tonne tax will add $300 a year to household electricity bills and 6.5 cents a litre to petrol or about $4 to fill up an average family car.

Gillard has to convince voters that a Government that has spectacularly stuffed up much smaller schemes such as home insulation, green loans and solar rebates can efficiently handle this massive change to the economy.

The public will rightly be sceptical.

Tax triumphalism not a good look

by Chris Kenny in The Australian

THE disconnect between the political/media fishbowl and mainstream Australia is often stark.

We have seen a clear demonstration of that with the Prime Minister and her team applauding, kissing and congratulating each other [emphasis added] on the passage of their carbon tax bills through the House of Representatives.

Only yesterday Newspoll showed a massive primary vote split of 49 to 29 between the dominant, anti-carbon tax Coalition and the struggling, pro-carbon tax Labor government.

Climate change ranked as the lowest priority of the main issues for voters, and even then, more people thought the Coalition would handle the issue best. Polls have shown that well over half the population opposes the carbon tax and little more than a third support it.

Simply, the tax is unpopular.

Yet in the rarefied atmosphere of Canberra, Labor MPs publicly pat themselves on the back for passing it.

The political myopia of this self-congratulation is stunning. It only makes a bad situation worse.

Labor promised not to introduce a carbon tax and there is already a good deal of anger from voters about the broken promise. It is being expressed through talkback radio, letters to newspapers, and polling results.

So the optics of jubilant politicians is terrible politics: triumphalism at the trashing of a pledge.

Away from Canberra, in the real world, the television pictures will only antagonise voters.

It suggests to voters that the government does not care what they think.

It solidifies a perception of politicians being out of touch – isolated from the daily concerns of voters.

Julia Gillard says she broke her word on the carbon tax because of political necessity and for a higher ideal – healing the planet. If we take that as a given, then a smart politician would look to pass the measure more in sorrow than triumph.

If Ms Gillard really wants to take voters with her on this crusade, she needs to tell them that it was with a heavy heart that she broke her word.

If the Prime Minister gets voters to listen, she might be able to convince some of them that the carbon tax is worthwhile.

But voters won’t listen if they think Labor is celebrating how it turned its back on the wishes voters expressed through the ballot box last year.

Obviously enough, mainstream Australians like to be treated with appropriate respect.

Someone in the Prime Minister’s office should be aware of these optics. The government should have been seen to pocket the win, in a sober fashion, with no sense of triumphalism.

Menzies House: The Grand Deception, The Ultimate Betrayal

John Citizen examines the Gillard Governments contempt for free speech:

Only hours ago the Carbon Tax legislation passed through the House of Representatives and Julia Gillard completed her ultimate betrayal of the Australian Nation and its people. Gillard’s unholy alliance with the Greens has now been sealed; irrevocable and beyond redemption. The government of Australia, regardless of its ideology, is charged with protecting and promoting the interests of this, the greatest of nations on Earth. By doing this deal with the Greens Gillard has demonstrated her casual disregard for the people, with her sole objective being maintenance of power, regardless of the cost. And make no mistake, there will be costs…

The Labor Heartland will bear much of the economic burden, as manufacturing is forced off-shore, unable to compete with economies that are not held back by this illogical tax. Families will find their struggle to keep their heads above water even harder, with this unnecessary tax simply adding more pressure to already tight family budgets. Scraping some money together for luxuries or treats for the kids will become impossible, as Gillard and Brown pursue their doctrine of economic suicide. The pair of economic illiterates will wring every last available dollar out of hard working Australians, all for the single-minded goal of advancing their socialist agenda. To borrow – and alter sightly – a quote from the great Winston Churchill: “Never before will so many lose so much because of the incompetence of so few…”

Read the rest.

The Bolt Report – global warming special

Feel free to pass this on. People need to know that scientists dispute what the Government claims is settled.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by ten on Oct 8, 2011

Episode 23. Special climate panel discussion with Professor Garth Paltridge, Professor Peter Ridd and Professor Bob Carter.

I was always taught that medical records must be kept sacrosanct. Now that the federal grabbermint is taking over this sector of our economy, patient confidentiality is a thing of the past.

Washington Examiner: Obamacare HHS rule would give government everybody’s health records

By: Rep. Tim Huelskamp | 09/23/11 3:29 PM
OpEd Contributor

It’s been said a thousand times: Congress had to pass President Obama’s health care law in order to find out what’s in it. But, despite the repetitiveness, the level of shock from each new discovery never seems to recede.

This time, America is learning about the federal government’s plan to collect and aggregate confidential patient records for every one of us.

In a proposed rule from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal government is demanding insurance companies submit detailed health care information about their patients.

(See Proposed Rule: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Standards Related to Reinsurance, Risk Corridors and Risk Adjustment, Volume 76, page 41930. Proposed rule docket ID is HHS-OS-2011-0022 http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-07-15/pdf/2011-17609.pdf)

The HHS has proposed the federal government pursue one of three paths to obtain this sensitive information: A “centralized approach” wherein insurers’ data go directly to Washington; an “intermediate state-level approach” in which insurers give the information to the 50 states; or a “distributed approach” in which health insurance companies crunch the numbers according to federal bureaucrat edict.

It’s par for the course with the federal government, but abstract terms are used to distract from the real objectives of this idea: no matter which “option” is chosen, government bureaucrats would have access to the health records of every American – including you.

There are major problems with any one of these three “options.” First is the obvious breach of patient confidentiality. The federal government does not exactly have a stellar track record when it comes to managing private information about its citizens.

Why should we trust that the federal government would somehow keep all patient records confidential? In one case, a government employee’s laptop containing information about 26.5 million veterans and their spouses was stolen from the employee’s home.

There’s also the HHS contractor who lost a laptop containing medical information about nearly 50,000 Medicare beneficiaries. And, we cannot forget when the USDA’s computer system was compromised and information and photos of 26,000 employees, contractors, and retirees potentially accessed.

The second concern is the government compulsion to seize details about private business practices. Certainly many health insurance companies defended and advocated for the president’s health care law, but they likely did not know this was part of the bargain.

They are being asked to provide proprietary information to governments for purposes that will undermine their competitiveness. Obama and Sebelius made such a big deal about Americans being able to keep the coverage they have under ObamaCare; with these provisions, such private insurance may cease to exist if insurers are required to divulge their business models.

Certainly businesses have lost confidential data like the federal government has, but the power of the market can punish the private sector. A victim can fire a health insurance company; he cannot fire a bureaucrat.

What happens to the federal government if it loses a laptop full of patient data or business information? What recourse do individual citizens have against an inept bureaucrat who leaves the computer unlocked? Imagine a Wikileaks-sized disclosure of every Americans’ health histories. The results could be devastating – embarrassing – even Orwellian.

With its extensive rule-making decrees, ObamaCare has been an exercise in creating authority out of thin air at the expense of individuals’ rights, freedoms, and liberties.

The ability of the federal government to spy on, review, and approve individuals’ private patient-doctor interactions is an excessive power-grab.

Like other discoveries that have occurred since the law’s passage, this one leaves us scratching our heads as to the necessity not just of this provision, but the entire law.

The HHS attempts to justify its proposal on the grounds that it has to be able to compare performance. No matter what the explanation is, however, this type of data collection is an egregious violation of patient-doctor confidentiality and business privacy. It is like J. Edgar Hoover in a lab coat.

And, no matter what assurances Obama, Sebelius and their unelected and unaccountable HHS bureaucrats make about protections and safeguards of data, too many people already know what can result when their confidential information gets into the wrong hands, either intentionally or unintentionally.

Republican Tim Huelskamp represents the first congressional district of Kansas.

TheBlaze: Report: ‘Arabic Words’ Appearing on the Bellies of Southwest Planes

KNX-RADIO in Los Angeles reports the markings “appeared to have been done with a chemical process that reveals the text once an auxiliary power unit is turned on and heats up the outside skin of the aircraft.”

ABC15 confirmed that federal investigators are now involved.

Now this is ominous. Is somebody doing a “dry run” for access to the aircraft?

Obviously, only somebody who knows Arabic would be writing Arabic words on planes. Let’s just say that I don’t think it’s Christian Arab employees (assuming Southwest Airlines has any) who have been vandalizing the aircraft.

Notably, the news coverage fails to tell us which Arabic-language words were written on the planes.

PJM: Driven Mad: Trucking Industry Collapsing Under Regulation

Foolish laws are hampering America’s lifeblood industry, and making drivers more tired to boot.

Ill-conceived trucking regulations are one more way that the Obama Administration is killing jobs, creating shortages, and causing prices to rise for everything delivered by truck.

Honest Reporting Canada needs your help.

They work hard to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias in the media. You can donate here.

Cyprus and Turkey: erratic PM Erdogan threatens to bring in the navy again

The Greek Cypriot government is being put under enormous pressure by the leader of Turkey over oil and gas exploration. Therefore, it is abundantly clear that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is turning into a regional bully who threatens to bring the navy into international waters when nations don’t placate him.

Not only this, Turkey is issuing threats and tantrums over the EU presidency in July 2012 when Cyprus (Greek controlled) will take over the presidency for six months in accordance with the rotation system. In the world of Erdogan he can’t grasp basic reality because Greek controlled Cyprus is internationally recognized and not one nation supports Turkey’s control over northern Cyprus.

More alarming, we have a political leader who bombs northern Iraq when he deems it to be in the interest of national security and then seeks to dictate over the illegal occupation of northern Cyprus and threatens Israel. NATO should be raising questions about the membership of Turkey because democratic nations are being warned about Turkey’s navy being on standby in order to implement Turkey’s policies of regional bullying.
[…]
The latest threat by Erdogan is over the Greek Cypriot government issuing the right to drill for oil and gas of the coast of Cyprus. Therefore, exploratory drilling led to a sharp rebuke by Turkey because Erdogan stated “frigates, gunboats and its air force will constantly monitor developments in the area.”

Erdogan also implied that Turkey would start exploration in an area which is claimed mainly by Israel. This will further lead to tensions with Greece, Cyprus (Greek controlled) and Israel. Also, the EU should rebuke Turkey over its stance over the presidency next year when Cyprus will hold this position.

Blazing Cat Fur: Academia Today: University of Lethbridge Congratulates 911 Troofer Student On Staff Appointment At Holocaust Denial Rag

The University of Lethbridge has deemed fit to congratulate well known 911 Troofer Josh Blakeney on his appointment as a staff writer for a rabid little holocaust denial and all purpose conspiracy rag called Veterans Today. VT purports to be a “Military & Foreign Affairs” journal. I had no idea the SS remained a viable magazine demographic.

GoV: How Does a Totalitarian Democracy Avoid Responsibility?

They scapegoat.

In a totalitarian democracy, this is how you set someone up so you can take him down. It is sick and disturbing on its own, but the implications are terrifying for the victim of their demonization.

The image above is supposed to be a “satire” on Fjordman, but it’s far more than that. It’s the planned takedown of an innocent man.

What you’re seeing [click to see image at Gates of Vienna] is a still image from a ‘comedy’ that will air on Norwegian TV. Fjordman, called here “Fjordland”, is a paraplegic who can’t speak. Somehow this character is supposed to be a figure of fun. This is especially funny you see, because Fjordman is famous for his words. Thus having a “dumb” ‘Fjordland’ character is a scream.

This is not only sick, it’s a set-up. I have no proof of my theory, but from all appearances it would seem they plan to have Fjordman take the fall for Breivik’s behavior. Here are the steps by which I believe Fjordman will be criminalized and imprisoned…

Big Government has the story:

(h/t: Bumr50)

You need to act before Wednesday. At a time when the Obama Administration is clamoring to save or create jobs, his Department of Labor is about to sucker punch America’s job creators with an unprecedented regulatory overreach—all to curry more favor with union bosses.

On Wednesday, the public comment period will be closing on a Department of Labor proposal that the majority of America knows nothing about and even fewer understand.

If enacted as drafted, the union cronies within the Department of Labor will require every private-sector employer and service provider (whether or not they ever talk directly to employees) to file financial statements with the Obama Labor Department if the service provider’s services indirectly affect employees’ choice to unionize or not.

Unless you act by commenting here, this rule change will likely take affect. [See link to a downloadable sample comment below.]

Once the financial information—which includes the service provider’s entire company (or firm’s) receipts (even from other clients)—are submitted, it will become public information. It will then be published on the Department of Labor’s website and available to union bosses. What’s more, willful failure to file the financial information is a criminal violation, punishable by either imprisonment, a fine, or both.

In June, when the Department of Labor, at the behest of union bosses, issued a 160-page proposal to expand the interpretation of “advice” under a little-known law called the Labor-Management Reporting & Disclosure Act, few understood just how deeply the DOL’s proposed rule change could affect employers and consultants of all stripes–not just those involved in labor relations. Most still don’t understand it.

In addition to companies who hire attorneys to assist them with union issues, the Department of Labor’s broad expansion into areas that most would not consider remotely connected to unions, but because it could indirectly affect [read deter] employees’ choice to unionize, the Department of Labor will likely call this “persuader activity.”

Here are the types of vendors (and the employers that hire them or purchase goods from them) who will likely be caught up in the DOL’s new proposed rules:

• Writers (or authors) who may write a website, publication, sell a book, or other material that may promote a positive employee relations culture, thereby dissuading employees from unionizing
• Website designers who may be contracted to design and build a website to be used for internal communications with employees
• Consultants who coach management on how to structure and effectively manage employee teams
• Employee engagement consultants who help companies and employees with positive employee relations
• Productivity consultants who design and implement quality, or any other type of teams that may give employees a voice in the success of their companies’ products
• Safety consultants who help establish safety committees that give employees the ability to voice safety concerns to their employer to resolve safety issues
• Human resources consultants that design, write, or implement employee handbooks or policies
• Compensation and benefit consultants who design and administer any type of benefit, pay or incentive plans for companies
• Consultants who conduct surveys to determine employee satisfaction at their jobs

Since the Department of Labor’s phraseology is: “…activities that have as a direct or indirect object to, explicitly or implicitly, influence the decisions of employees with respect to forming, joining or assisting a union, collective bargaining, or any protected concerted activity (such as a strike) in the workplace,” the type of activity that an employer and consultant may be required to report to the Department of Labor is almost endless.

Again, the public comment period closes on Wednesday, September 21, 2011. All comments must be received on or before Wednesday.

If you do not act by submitting a comment, it is likely this rule change will go into effect causing many job creators, instead of focusing on job creation, to spend more time and resources on more paperwork, or risk going to jail. Moreover, it will cause many unsuspecting service providers who currently do not know they will fall into the Department of Labor’s trap to either violate the law, or open their personal, company or firm earnings to the Department of Labor, the public and union bosses.

Here is a sample comment provided courtesy of the Labor Relations Institute. It is suggested that you download, individualize or personalize it before sending to the Department of Labor, then submit your comments to the Department of Labor here.

The choice is yours: You can act by submitting a comment, or you can give union bosses what they want–the ability to target more employers.

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

Cross-posted on LaborUnionReport.com, RedState.com, and BigGovernment.com.