Crazy Dems

Jim Moran, Radical Dem, Retires

Published by Papa Giorgio
Remember This?

(CBS News – 10/2012) The field director for Virginia Democratic Rep. Jim Moran – his son Patrick Moran – has resigned after being secretly recorded seemingly advising a conservative journalist masquerading as a supporter that utility bills could be used to aid in voter fraud.

“Patrick is well liked and was a well-respected member of the campaign team. This incident, however, was clearly an error in judgment,” said a statement from Moran for Congress. “The campaign has accepted Patrick’s resignation, effective immediately.”

GayPatriot links to this story after mentioning that:

But, he’s a Progressive Democrat, so he gets a pass. (It’s not like he closed a lane on a bridge or anything.)

Here is the linked JWF story in GP’s post:

Seems to be an awful lot of senior Democrats retiring these days. Rats jumping off the sinking ship, so to speak.

Virginia Democratic Rep. Jim Moran will retire after 23 years in the House, according to multiple Democratic sources.

The former mayor or Alexandria, Va., will make the announcement Wednesday morning, according to party sources.

One less anti-Semitic creep in the House. Iowahawk sums it up nicely:

Libertarian Republican joins the fray:

…Bush’s War in Iraq? it was Da Jooooooos… 

Continuing:

Over the years Moran has served on Capitol Hill, his professional accomplishments were sometimes overshadowed by personal scandals. Brash and occasionally outspoken to a fault, he has shoved members leaving the House floor, suggested that the Jewish community pushed for the U.S. invasion in Iraq in 2003 and possibly squandered a small fortune in the stock market. (Emphasis added.)

In 2012, his son resigned as field director for his father’s re-election campaign after he was caught on camera advocating voter fraud.

Editor’s comment – Yet, another open seat Dems will have to defend. Hey Nancy, what’s that again?? You have a “good shot” of winning back the House?

Media Bias Is Not What You `Do` Report, But What You `Do Not` Report

Published by Papa Giorgio

Video Description:

[See video cross-posted here.] Media Research Center President Brent Bozell appeared with Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto to slam the “obnoxious” double standard in how journalists have covered Chris Christie’s traffic scandal in two days versus the scant number of stories on the IRS controversy over six months. According to Bozell, “It really goes to show you how out of control this left wing so-called news press is.” Cavuto explained, “The big three networks alone devoted 17 times more coverage to this story in one day, one day, than they devoted to the IRS scandal in six months.” A second analysis my the MRC finds the disparity is now up to 44-to-one. 

[See original MRC study here.]

Democrat Rep. Brian Higgins a 9/11 Truther?

Published by Papa Giorgio

  • Either he is so disconnected from society that he has never heard of this theory;
  • or, he was playing politics and being “ecumenical,” the empty suit;
  • or, he truly believed that all views are equivocable and should be looked at, looked into equally.

ALL of the above means he is a weeny!

Libertarian Republican has this awful story of modern radicalism that blames the U.S. for 9/11. And as usual, the radical nature of this belief is not manifested in a radio host, a reporter, but an official [as usual] who represents the Democratic Party. Here is the story:

Muhammed Attah and his gang of merry Muslim warriors didn’t really fly those jets into the Twin Towers… That’s just fantasy don’t ya know… It was really those evil Republicans in the Bush Administration!!

[….]

Who the hell is this guy? Most certainly a backbencher of the Democrat backbench. 

Meet Democrat Rep. Brian Higgins.  If you’ve never heard of him, relax, nobody else has either. But he may have just made a name for himself by becoming a spokesman of sorts for the Truther movement, and aligning himself with the theory that maybe “Muslims didn’t do it” after all. 

Watch and be horrified as he agrees with a caller that evidence that Muhammed Attah and the other 18 Muslim hijackers may not have flown those jets into the Twin Towers.  Perhaps it was the… drum roll please… BUSH ADMINISTRATION!!!

Time Magazine vs. Time Magazine on the `Polar Vortex` (Al Roker Video Added)

Published by Papa Giorgio
Scientism & Knowledge

 “But a theory that can confront any contingency with unflagging success cannot be falsified. Its control of the facts is an illusion.”

~ David Berlinski, The Deniable Darwin & Other Essays (Seattle, WA: Discovery Institute Press, 2009), 47.

Dennis Prager references a USA Today article as follows:

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said the “polar vortex” the cold was blamed on is a new term invented by the media to link the cold wave to man-made climate change. The term has been around for decades.

Donald Trump took to Twitter to write: “Record snowfall & freezing temps throughout the country. Where is Global Warming when you need it?!”

So if it’s very cold, then global warming isn’t real? Scientists say no: “This week’s brutal cold wave was a 1-in-20-year type of event,” says meteorologist Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground, “and we will continue to see such cold waves in the future, even as the planet warms.”

Meteorologist Cliff Mass of the University of Washington agrees, writing on his blog: “This individual event says nothing about the impacts of global warming. Global warming will occur over the coming century ….. One event proves nothing. Furthermore, the real warming is in the future.”…

 Here is some commentary on the article that tries to correct Rush Limbaugh (correctly), but doesn’t go far enough:

Ed Driscoll puts the 1974 Time article next to the 2014 Time articles speaking about the “Polar Vortex”

~ click to enlarge graphic ~

As spotted by Steve Goddard, and linked to by Climate Depot:

In 1974, Time Magazine blamed the cold polar vortex on global cooling.

‘Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds —the so-called circumpolar vortex—that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world.’

Another Ice Age? – TIME

Forty years later, Time Magazine blames the cold polar vortex on global warming

‘But not only does the cold spell not disprove climate change, it may well be that global warming could be making the occasional bout of extreme cold weather in the U.S. even more likely. Right now much of the U.S. is in the grip of a polar vortex, which is pretty much what it sounds like: a whirlwind of extremely cold, extremely dense air that forms near the poles.’

Polar Vortex: Climate Change Could Be the Cause of Record Cold Weather | TIME.com

To borrow from an item I wrote a few days before Christmas, as Zombie noted at PJM last year, the warnings for what industrialized man should do to fight global cooling are virtually identical to the warnings would-be “climate” “scientists” have given to fight global warming as well. You can also see the same cure for very different alleged symptoms in the clip below, of a “scientist” who was busted a few years ago for first predicting doom from global cooling, and decades later, predicting doom from global warming:

…read more at Ed’s Blog…

Then there is this short critique of Al “saint” Roker, who is going to give $1,000 to charity… if you prove him wrong. What a philanthropic! NewsBusters ends their article on media bias with this commentary on Al Roker:

Later on the show, Roker returned to the topic and ranted: “Some are saying that, A, we’ve created this phrase to hype it and to create hysteria and that we have made it a political issue by linking it to either climate change or global warming. I will give anybody who can prove that I have ever linked this with global warming or climate change, I will donate a thousand dollars to your charity. Alright?”

While it’s true that Roker did not blame global warming for the frigid temperatures, some of his media colleagues certainly did:

Roker’s pronouncements on the topic were reminiscent of his commentary from the April 3, 2013 Today, when he fumed over the percentage of Americans who don’t believe in climate change: “37 percent of these people don’t believe in global warming! Okay, two words: Superstorm Sandy!”

Dennis Prager Takes Us On a Tour De Force from Duck Dynasty to Silent Night, `Gay Cakes` all the Way To Woody Allen

Published by Papa Giorgio

Video Description:

Dennis Prager brings the listener on a look into the Left’s proclivity to censor, demand identical thought (politically correct thought… not even actions), to teach children to censor historically religious practices “once” Constitutional (like singing “Silent Night” in school), to forcing a baker to bake a cake in lieu of jail time. Prager ends with Woody Allen’s “despair” that is demanded of the non-God view (atheism). I include not only video of what Dennis’ producer was sampling audio from [Woody], but I include the entirety of the question and response to/from Woody Allen at the end of the Prager bit.

A bit long, but well-worth it… especially for some commentary on the Woody piece. Woody Allen references some of the classical thinkers on the issue, hear more of them talk about the reality of their non-faith here: http://vimeo.com/27609417

 

Anti-White/Anti-Rich, Rich White Guy, Says White Jesus Kills

Published by Papa Giorgio

Some info on Tim’s unsightly past from Top Conservative News:

Tim Wise is an extreme left-wing Cultural Marxist. Despite living in a ritzy all white neighborhood in Nashville, one of America’s whitest metro areas, he constantly spews venom at white people. On November 5th, 2012, he has even publicly called on his followers to murder members of the Florida TEA Party [tweet below]. Despite his public call for murder, CNN continues to put him on the air. Tim Wise writes books saying that white people make too much money and should share with black people. Wise, who has make a fortune with this schtick, is substantially wealthier than most Americans of any race. Apparently, sharing your money with black people is only for the little guys!

Recently Tim Wise spoke at Indiana University. Before his speech, several of his fanatical supporters turned violent and attacked a group of protesters with pepper spray and other weapons. Police apprehended one of the thugs and he is being charged with a felony.

The Examiner adds to the narrative unfolding:

…”Here’s the reality,” Wise said. “The image of a white Jesus has been used to justify enslavement, conquest, colonialism, the genocide of indigenous peoples. There are literally millions of human beings whose lives have been snuffed out by people who conquered under the banner of a white god.”

Moreover, he said, “black folks can think Jesus is black and view Christ as black, but at the end of the day, the image that has been used to dominate Christianity in this world and on this planet is the white image.”

“The white Jesus, white god imagery has resulted in death. That’s something folks ought to deal with,” he added.

Filmmaker Rochelle Oliver accused Kelly and others of racism against black people for believing Santa Claus is white, Hadro added.

“[P]eople who think like Megyn Kelly believe it’s more comfortable for them to believe that there is a white man flying around the earth with magical reindeer than to believe that a black man in the year 2013 can actually be kind, can be loving and can actually be caring toward children,” Oliver said.

Defense attorney Mel Robbins said Kelly had nothing to apologize for and called Oliver’s statement “absurd.”

“Well, I can’t imagine Christmas morning at your house, Tim,” Robbins said.

Ultimately, Wise said, it was the billions of advertising dollars spent that helped propagate the image of a white Jesus.

Ironically, the White House used a white Santa at Michelle Obama’s reading of “The Night before Christmas” at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. on Monday.

One would have to ask: Does Oliver think Michelle Obama is racist for using a white Santa?

…read the rest…

Here is an extended debate on cultural diversity that comes via Smash Cultural Marxism’s post on Tim Wise:

Obama Gives Highest Civilian Medal To Eugenicist

Published by Papa Giorgio

“We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

Maragret Sanger (letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, Dec. 19, 1939)

The below comes via The American Spectator

Feminist icon Gloria Steinem has received America’s highest honor. President Obama bestowed upon Steinem the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In so doing, he honored the work of not only Steinem but Margaret Sanger, liberalism’s iconic racial eugenicist. Celebrating her award at the National Press Club, Steinem said she hoped Obama’s action would be “honoring the work of Margaret Sanger.”

It indeed has done just that.

Margaret Sanger longed for a more enlightened time when birth control would be (as she put it) “part of the regular welfare service of the government.” In this, she was inspired by Stalin’s Soviet Union — literally. In 1934, she undertook a fact-finding pilgrimage to Moscow, where she, like many American progressives, believed the Bolshevik government might well have discovered the Brave New World. Many American progressives — public education father John Dewey among them — thought the Soviets were perhaps merely a few steps ahead of us. We needed to look there. We needed to go there.

Upon her return, Sanger reported her findings in the June 1935 edition of her organization’s flagship publication, Birth Control Review. In an article titled, “Birth Control in Russia,” Sanger noted, “Theoretically, there are no obstacles to birth control in Russia. It is accepted… on the grounds of health and human right.” She said of America: “[W]e could well take example from Russia, where there are no legal restrictions, no religious condemnation, and where birth control instruction is part of the regular welfare service of the government.”

Sanger could not have known it, but she was speaking of Barack Obama’s America, where birth control is being thrust upon us as a basic “human right” and form of “health care” with no obstacles in its way. In fact, it’s even easier than Sanger could have imagined: Not only do contemporary progressives want no obstacles, but Obama wants all Americans to forcibly pay for birth control. He is even forcing the religious to do so via his HHS mandate. He and his progressive cohorts are rolling right over any “legal restrictions” or “religious condemnation.” If you as a religious believer disagree, they will see you in court. You will be penalized and demonized.

Under Obama, we have arrived at Sanger’s new world, where birth control is a regular service of the federal government.

And thus, Gloria Steinem honoring Margaret Sanger with Obama’s Presidential Medal of Freedom is so perfectly fitting. It really is. In fact, if Obama thought about all this more deeply, perhaps he’d consider a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom for Margaret Sanger. She was way ahead of her time. A veritable progressive prophetess.

But there’s something even more significant and ironic at work here.

Margaret Sanger not only championed Bolshevik birth control services, she also championed racial eugenics. The Planned Parenthood matron wanted to advance what she called “racial health” and “race improvement” in America. She lamented America’s “race of degenerates.” This meant purging the landscape of its “human weeds” and “the dead weight of human waste.” This included the “feeble-minded,” the “imbeciles,” the “morons,” and the “idiots,” but it also included a “Negro Project” that Margaret had in mind for another group of Americans.

The Negro Project was close to Sanger’s heart, as shown by a remarkable December 10, 1939 letter she wrote to Dr. Clarence Gamble of Milton, Massachusetts. (The letter is today held in the Sanger archives at Smith College. I have a photocopy.) The Planned Parenthood foundress alerted the good doctor: “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”

That eye-opening assertion has been disputed and defended by liberals. And, to be fair, what Sanger meant isn’t entirely clear, though I personally lean to a decidedly negative interpretation. But one group with no ambivalence about Sanger’s intentions with black Americans was the KKK.

Add the Klan to the list of those deeply grateful for Sanger’s work. They were so grateful that the boys in the white hoods invited the progressive heroine to one of their celebrations. They asked her to speak at one of their rallies. Sanger accepted. She addressed her brethren at a KKK rally in Silver Lake, New Jersey, in 1926.

What do Barack Obama and Gloria Steinem think of that? Like most leftists, either they’re totally ignorant of the fact or they look the other way as they extol the magnificence of Sanger’s other “achievements” that outweigh the more sinister ones in their ever-evolving progressive calculus.

Among Sanger’s other achievements is another bitter pill: Her Planned Parenthood is America’s largest abortion provider, and one of the greatest killers of black Americans. No other organization comes close. Planned Parenthood’s bloodletting of unborn black babies has been in the countless millions.

…read more…

The following quotes from Steinem and other “lauded” feminists in the university (“higher” learning) come from two sources and can be better referenced by them:

1) Suzanne Venker & Phyllis Schlafly, The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know — and Men Can’t Say (Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2011);

2) and my chapter in my book on feminism, Gnostic Feminism: Empowered to Fail.

Author and journalist Natalie Angier begins an article in the New York Times by writing, “Women may not find this surprising, but one of the most persistent and frustrating problems in evolutionary biology is the male. Specifically… why doesn’t he just go away?” (Natalie Angier, “The Male of the Species: Why Is He Needed?” New York Times, May 17, 1994)

In a CNN interview with Maureen Dowd about her 2005 book, Are Men Necessary? Dowd says, “Now that women don’t need men to reproduce and refinance, the ques­tion is, will we keep you around? And the answer is, ‘You know, we need you in the way we need ice cream—you’ll be more ornamental.” (“Are Men Necessary?” CNN.com, November 15, 2005, http:// www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/11/15/dowd.men.necessary/ index.html)

Lisa Belkin, a blogger for the New York Times whose work is provocative but not overly biased, wrote, “We are standing at a moment in time when the role of gender is shifting seismically. At this moment an argument can be made for two separate narrative threads—the first is the retreat of men as this becomes a woman’s world.” (Lisa Belkin, “Are Men Necessary?” Motherlode: Adventures in Parenting blog, New York Times Magazine, June 30, 2010, http:// parenting.blogs. nytimes.com/2010/06/30/are-men-necessary/)

In an article in the Atlantic titled ‘Are Fathers Necessary?” author Pamela Paul wrote, “The bad news for Dad is that despite common perception, there’s nothing objectively essential about his contribution.” Pamela Paul, “Are Fathers Necessary?” Atlantic, July/August 2010, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/arefathers-necessary/8136/)

For example, in the January 1988 National NOW Times, the newsletter for the organization, said:  “The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist.” (William D. Gairdner, The War Against the Family: A Parent Speaks Out on the Political, Economic, and Social Policies That Threaten Us All, 295.)

Well-known feminist author and co-founder/editor of Ms. magazine, Gloria Steinem, said the following about feminisms end game: “Overthrowing capitalism is too small for us. We must overthrow the whole #@*! patriarch!” Ibid., 300 [How can a civil rights movement be interested in capitalism?] (Ibid)

One sign of an over oppressive movement is illustrated in The Animal Farm, by George Orwell.  Napoleon, one of the main characters, concerns himself with the education of the young, and forcefully takes two litters of puppies away as soon as they’re weaned, saying he’ll educate them. In effect the “State” are the ones who are charged with educating and rearing them.  Now compare this to a statement made by feminist Mary Jo Bane, assistant professor of education at Wellesley College and associate director of the school’s Center for Research on Woman, and the lesson taught in Animal Farm:

  • “In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them.”

(Fr. Robert J. Carr, “No News For You!!” Catholic Online [9-23-2004]. Found at: http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=1364 ~ last accessed 7-29-09; Here is the full quote from Father Carr’s article: “Mary Jo Bane, formerly of the Clinton Administration Department of Health and Human Services one of the major voices in the Boston Globe against the average Catholic’s right to freedom of religion. Bane’s most famous quote is ‘We really don’t know how to raise children. If we want to talk about equality of opportunity for children, then the fact that children are raised in families means there’s no equality. … In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them.’”)

Alternatively, Gloria Steinem declared: “By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God.” (Angela Howard and Sasha Ranae Adams Tarrant, Reaction to the Modern Women’s Movement, 1963 to the Present: Antifeminism in America: A Collection of Readings from the Literature of the Opponents to U.S. Feminism, 1848 to the Present, 153.)

NEA president/feminist Catherine Barrett wrote likewise that, “Dramatic changes in the way we will raise our children in the year 2000 are indicated, particularly in terms of schooling. … We will need to recognize that the so-called ‘basic skills’, which currently represent nearly the total effort in elementary schools, will be taught in one-quarter of the present school day. … When this happens—and it’s near—the teacher can rise to his true calling. More than a dispenser of information, the teacher will be a conveyor of values, a philosopher. … We will be agents of change.” (Dennis Laurence Cuddy, The Grab for Power: A Chronology of the NEA, 6.)

A Feminist Dictionary, published by the University of Illinois, gives the following definitions:

  • Male:  “… represents a variant of or deviation from the category of female. The first males were mutants… the male sex represents a degeneration and deformity of the female.”
  • Man: “… an obsolete life form… an ordinary creature who needs to be watched … a contradictory baby-man.”
  • Testosterone Poisoning: “Until now it has been thought that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from ‘testosterone poisoning.’”

(Cheris Kramarae and Paula A. Treichler, eds.,  Feminist Dictionary (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1986), cf. male, 242; cf. male, 246; cf.  testosterone poisoning, 446.)

Feminist author Ti-Grace Atkinson shows her true autonomy when stating, “the institution of sexual intercourse is anti-feminist.” (Daniel Dervin, Enactments: American Modes and Psychohistorical Models, 244)

Another telling quote comes directly from Atkinson’s own biography, Amazon Odyssey: “The price of clinging to the enemy [a man] is your life. To enter into a relationship with a man who has divested himself as completely and publicly from the male role as much as possible would still be a risk. But to relate to a man who has done any less is suicide…. I, personally, have taken the position that I will not appear with any man publicly, where it could possibly be interpreted that we were friends.” (Ti-Grace Atkinson, Amazon Odyssey, 90, 91.)

Marilyn French, feminist author calls all men rapists: “All men are rapists and that’s all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes.” (Elizabeth Knowles, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 5th ed. [New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999], cf. Freeman, E.A., 324.)

Let us allow Gloria Steinen, feminist extraordinaire, to set the stage with the following praises about her contemporary, Andrea Dworkin, “In every century, there are a handful of writers who help the human race to evolve. Andrea is one of them.” (David M. Friedman, A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis, 225.) Why preface Andrea Dworkin?  Because she has this to say about men in general: “Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women’s bodies.” (Neil Boyd, Big Sister: How Extreme Feminism has Betrayed the Fight for Sexual Equality, 23.) 

Dr. Boyd continues with Dworkin’s quote: “In fucking, as in reproduction, sex and economics are inextricably joined. In male-supremacist cultures, women are believed to embody carnality; women are sex. A man wants what a woman has – sex. He can steal it outright (prostitution), lease it over the long term (marriage in the United States), or own it outright (marriage in most societies). A man can do some or all of the above, over and over again.” (Ibid.)

“What Gloria Steinem, Molly Yard, Patricia Ireland and all the rest have presented to you over the last [30-years] years has not been feminist theory.” …. Tammy Bruce goes on to show that Betty Friedan and Patricia Ireland, ex-presidents of NOW, (and others) are involved with socialist or communist political parties or organizations,

  • …Betty Friedan, a former Communist Party member, was only the precursor of the hijacking of feminism to serve other political interests. Some consider Gloria Steinem, the founder of Ms. magazine and probably the second most influential feminist leader, after Friedan, of the last 30 years, to be the one who began blurring the lines between gender and race issues. This might be sur­prising to those who are unaware of Steinem’s involve­ment in socialist politics. In fact, she serves as an honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, which boasts of being the largest socialist organization in the United States and is the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. Good for her, but we should know this as we explore what factors influence those who are considered feminist leaders.  Steinem’s influence, combined with the socialist sym­pathies of NOW’s immediate past-president, Patricia Ire­land, explain the co-opting of NOW by leftist ideologues. A 1996 article in Ms. quoted Ireland as saying that NOW “must offer a clear understanding of what it means to be a feminist organization concerned with ending discrimina­tion based on race, class, and other issues of oppression [emphasis mine] that come from a patriarchal structure.” Steinem then commented, “To be feminist, we have to take on the entire caste system.” Ireland details her support of the Communist Party in her autobiography, What Women Want. She admits that her socialist sympathies and participation in pro-Commu­nist rallies in Miami (of all places!) were due in part to the fact that her friend and future lover, Pat Silverthorn, was an activist in the Socialist Worker’s Party. There were problems, Ireland explains, with Silverthorn and her friends being Communists in Miami. “Later, after we’d become close,” Ireland writes, “[Pat Silverthorn] would confide that she, too, had wondered how much more dan­gerous she’d made her life by openly professing commu­nist convictions in that volatile, violent, commie-hating city… Working closely with Pat opened my eyes about the reality of living as a political leftist in this country.”

(Tammy Bruce, The New Thought Police: Inside the Left’s Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds.)

Alternative Energy Boondoggle, [California] Tax-Payers Being Ripped Off!

Published by Papa Giorgio
Medieval Scam Alert

According to the EIA, new on-shore wind power is about 37 percent more expensive than new advanced-coal technologies. And solar power makes wind power look like a bargain — new solar photovoltaic power is close to 300 percent more expensive than new advanced-coal technologies. Americans already massively subsidize these costly forms of energy. Wind receives federal subsidies equal to $23.37 per megawatt hour, and solar receives $24.34 per megawatt hour. (Coal receives 44 cents per megawatt hour.) ~ National Review

I have people close to me that will never vote for a bond measure because they do not want their property taxes to increase, but they will increase everyone’s taxes to fund failing business plans and technology. The disconnect is astounding. Here is a positive look at this ponzi scheme that has transferred millions of tax-payer monies to fund the company, to fund people buying the product, and to fund the buying back of the energy — all at the cost of the tax-payer because profit in this industry is impossible:

…Additionally, renewable energy qualifies for accelerated depreciation, which has the effect of reducing OFM’s taxable income and will lower the company’s tax obligation by about $170,000 over two years, Zalcberg said.

Then there’s the business of selling power to the power company. OFM is selling electricity from its solar farm to Progress for 18 cents a kilowatt hour, a premium price approved by state regulators to promote solar energy. At the same time, OFM is paying only one-third of that price for the power it buys from Progress.

The effect is that instead of paying a utility bill, OFM will receive $60,000 yearly from Progress over its 20-year contract with the utility….

Now, here is the John Locke Foundation looking at the same topic:

Getting taxpayers and electricity ratepayers to pay your electric bill

This September 2010 N&O report about the Holly Springs furniture company OFM shows why solar is so popular with private businesses and why it is such a bad deal for taxpayers and ratepayers.

According to the numbers in the story, we can make a rough calculation of who pays and who benefits. First, OFM gets the taxpayers to pay for half of the cost of the solar equipment (i.e., half of $1.4 million, or $700,000). Then OFM receives taxpayer-paid tax breaks worth $170,000. Then Progress Energy ratepayers pay OFM 18 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity produced by the solar panels, while OFM buys power from Progress Energy for 6 cents per kilowatt-hour to run its facility — a net profit of 12 cents per kilowatt-hour. Over 20 years, that would amount to a $1.2 million “profit” from Progress Energy inflicted on ratepayers by the legislature when it passed SB 3.

We must remember that OFM must pay for one-half of the cost of the solar panels, but subtracting the $700,000 cost from the total subsidies above ($2.070 million), OFM gets a cool “profit” after that expense of $1,370,000 to its bottom line courtesy of North Carolina taxpayers and Progress Energy ratepayers.

And that is not all. OFM and other businesses that participate in this fleecing of taxpayers and ratepayers get glowing media reports like this one.

OFM Celebrates One-Year Anniversary of Solar Farm With Plans to Expand

Holly Springs, N.C. — This month office and school furniture manufacturer, distributor and wholesaler OFM is celebrating the one-year anniversary of the 250-kilowatt solar farm it installed on the rooftop of its headquarters in Holly Springs, N.C. last August. The company has since been producing more energy than it uses…

Why not expand when you can force taxpayers and ratepayers to pay your electricity bills? Businesses that feed at the public trough are nothing new. This example illustrates that the environmental movement is the new home of crony capitalism, with taxpayer and ratepayer subsidies for solar, wind, electric car batteries, new LED lighting, the list goes on and on. Businesses get billions, politicians get good press, and taxpayers and ratepayers get fleeced. For more details, see John Stossel’s report on crony capitalism….

…read more…

Hurting the poor the most

The Institute for Energy Research found

that electricity prices are almost 40%

higher in states with mandates for their use.

(source)

How bout’ California? We can see the same boondoggle going on here as well… and its getting worse under government MoonBeam! (Waaay worse.) Here is some info from Hockey Stick, via the WSJ:

…California, for example, has allocated $3.3 billion in rebates for solar installations through 2016 and compensates residents between $0.20 and $0.35 cents per watt of expected performance (about 5% to 10% of the total cost of installation). San Francisco, which has a 100% renewable goal, provides additional rebates ranging from $2,000 to $10,000 per residential installation.

Meantime, school districts in California have received a total of $400 million this year for energy-efficiency projects, including window-glazing and solar-panel installations. SolarCity has contracted with school districts in Barstow, Simi Valley, Los Angeles and other cities.

SolarCity also benefits from “net metering” policies that 43 states, including California, have adopted. Utilities pay solar-panel customers the retail power rate for the solar power they generate but don’t use and then export to the grid. Retail rates can be two to three times as high as the wholesale price of electricity because transmission and delivery costs, along with taxes and other surcharges that fund state renewable programs, are baked in.

So in California, solar ratepayers on average are credited about 16 cents per kilowatt hour on their electric bills for the excess energy they generate—even though utilities could buy that power at less than half the cost from other types of power generators…

Not to mention green jobs and money going to waste or keeping money laundering back into the political parties (mainly Democratic):

Cal Watchdog asks a simple question, gives three short responses, and then you can read the rest:

Now that the $2.167 billion California Solar Initiative is winding down, electricity ratepayers might ask: What was it and what did it accomplish? Was it:

1.) A cutting edge solar energy project to bring about a “self-sustaining” solar power industry, as touted by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and state legislators?

The answer is mostly no based on post-project evaluations done by academic experts.

2.) A program to replace very expensive conventional peak time power plants with equally expensive but clean rooftop solar electricity that is generated at the time of day when it is hottest?

The answer is no. Contending that rooftop solar power replaces conventional peak time power is bogus. This is because electricity rates are tiered depending on usage and climate zone and the fact that ultra peak power rates during heat waves and cold snaps only last maybe as much as four weeks out of 52 weeks in a year.

3.) An expensive, artificial green energy and jobs program that is now being wound down, as there is a recovery in the jobs market?

The answer is yes. Since California’s Solar Initiative did not produce a self-sustaining rooftop solar power market (Question No. 1) and cannot be justified as a replacement for expensive peak time electricity, this leaves us with one conclusion: It was mainly a jobs stimulus program that ended up adding about a $200 tax to 10.8 million utility customers’ electric bills.

[….]

Millions of utility customers subsidize solar installations

Of course, the CPUC omitted disclosing that the $6.16 per kilowatt cost of installing rooftop solar power came by adding $2.167 billion to the electricity bills of other California electricity ratepayers. To provide subsidies to the 118,303 recipients of residential, commercial and governmental rooftop solar power installations the electricity bills had to be raised for 10.8 million customers of Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) through its subsidiary the California Center for Sustainable Energy (CCSE).

In other words, the Solar Initiative mandated on average about 91 other electricity customers to subsidize the rooftop solar installations of each rooftop solar power installation. Spread over 10.8 million customers, that equates to about a $200 tax per California electricity customer. The California Solar Initiative is another socialized system like Social Security that is based on a larger base of utility ratepayers paying for a smaller number of recipients. It is a program based on privatizing profits and socializing losses.

Thus, the $6.16 per kilowatt cost installed and 43,000 solar-energy-related jobs created by the California Solar Initiative are artificial and not market-based. The program could never have become self-sustaining in the first place.

…read more…

When government picks winners and losers, we all lose:

The California Air Resources Board is reportedly considering a new plan to help transportation for low earners: buying them cars. The agency would like to give those of low income a voucher to buy energy-efficient vehicles like the Nissan Leaf, which has a sticker price of $21,000. The board currently gives drivers $1,000 to $1,500 to get rid of their older vehicles in an attempt to curb carbon emissions; there is a second program that gives up to $4,000 depending on the vehicles involved.

….The CARB has even implied that it could sponsor the full purchase of an $18,000 for families of three looking to pick up a hybrid. Stanley Young, spokesman for the Air Resources Board, said that California should “make sure low-income people can also get into these clean vehicles.”

The federal cash for clunkers program was an immense failure, frontloading car purchases but doing nothing to truly spur demand for new vehicles. This program would have the ostensible goal of moving America’s auto industry toward more fuel efficiency; instead, it would redistribute income by subsidizing big business.

~ Breitbart

“A fundamental principle of information theory is that you can’t guarantee outcomes… in order for an experiment to yield knowledge, it has to be able to fail. If you have guaranteed experiments, you have zero knowledge” ~ George Gilder

Central planning ALWAYS fails. Competition is a “discovery procedure,” Nobel-prize-winning economist F. A. Hayek taught. Through the competitive market process, we producers and consumers constantly learn things that force us to adjust our behavior if we are to succeed. Central planners fail for two reasons:

First, knowledge about supply, demand, individual preferences and resource availability is scattered — much of it never articulated — throughout society. It is not concentrated in a database where a group of planners can access it.

Second, this “data” is dynamic: It changes without notice. No matter how honorable the central planners’ intentions, they will fail because they cannot know the needs and wishes of 300 million different people. And if they somehow did know their needs, they wouldn’t know them tomorrow.

~ John Stossel

`Peace in Our Time` ~ Iran and the American Left

Published by Papa Giorgio

Below is an interview of Michael Rubin by Hugh Hewitt. Some frank discussion about the Iran deal occurs by a historian on such negotiations. I believe we have our own Chamberlain moment… brought to you by the kind people on the American Left.

Michael Rubin's Input

…It appears Iran has not made any deal that would curtail its nuclear ambition. As described, the framework upon which U.S. and Iranian negotiators appear to agree fails to resolve those issues of most concern to regional states. Obama has unilaterally waived Security Council resolutions demanding a complete enrichment cessation. There may be some enrichment suspension at key sites but, as Rouhani bragged in 2009, he used an early suspension to install new and better centrifuges. And while Iran might convert some more highly enriched uranium to less usable fuel rods, it has backtracked its own earlier proposals to ship fissile material abroad.

Of even more strategic concern, the deal does not address Arak. On Thursday, a German court sentenced four businessmen who sold components to Iran for that plutonium-producing plant. When Arak becomes operational within a year, it can produce enough plutonium for two bombs per year. Nor has Iran made any concession on Parchin, where Iran conducted weapons research. In short, Kerry can arrive back from Geneva and declare triumphantly, “I have in my hand a paper signed by Mohammad Javad Zarif,” but the agreement does not stop Iran from assembling the material or know-how needed to make a bomb. There is no truth and reconciliation component to the deal: Iran needs not come clean on its previous activities. If the regime had truly has a change of heart, such transparency should not be an issue.

Diplomats may celebrate a deal, but a bad deal can be worse than no deal. Sometimes, the hangover is not worth the celebration.

~Rubin

Besides Debka calling these secret meetings to the public’s attention back in 2012, they also note some glaring loop-holes in the deal:

Debkafile’s intelligence and military sources list seven of the most glaring loopholes in the first-step accord:

1. Parchin: This long-suspected facility remains out of UN oversight. President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry boasted after the signing that daily IAEA inspections will take place at Fordo and Natanz. However, cameras are already fixed at both those facilities without an agreement, whereas Tehran’s consistent denial of IAEA access to Parchin is not addressed.

2. Secret nuclear locations: Under the heading “Possible Military Dimensions,” the last IAEA report noted: “Since 2002, the Agency has become increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related organizations, including activities related to the development of a payload for a missile.”

The watchdog has received information indicating activities “relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.” This was further corroborated by new information obtained since November 2011.

Tehran’s non-cooperation for investigating these findings is not mentioned in the Geneva interim accord, nor was it addressed in the negotiations.

3. Dirty bombs: Iran doesn’t need a full-scale nuclear bomb or missile warhead for attacking Israel. For decades, Tehran has been working on perfecting hundreds of dirty bombs as part of its nuclear program, by adding plutonium or enriched uranium to conventional bombs. These weapons are easy to make and easy to use. In the hands of Hizballah or other Shiite terrorist organizations in Syria or Iraq, for instance, they could be used to strike Israel without leaving a trail to Tehran.

This peril too was ignored by the six powers in Geneva.

4. Rollback. While President Obama has presented the deal as a first step toward freezing or even rolling back “key aspects” of Iran’s nuclear program. The fact remains that, so long as Iran is permitted to enrich uranium, even though this is restricted to a low 5 percent grade, it is free to produce as much fissile material as it wants, whenever it wants. This seems more like roll forward than roll back.

5. Enrichment. Obama and Kerry said the new deal does not recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium. They were contradicted by the Iranian president and senior negotiator as well as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. So what is the truth? If Iran won recognition for this right, it blows the bottom out of the Non-Proliferating Treaty because, in no time, all the signatories may start enriching uranium with permission from the big powers. Neither is there any point in making Iran join the NPT’s Additional Protocol for snap inspections.

6. Centrifuges. Iran has undertaken not to add new centrifuges to its enrichment facilities, according to President Obama, but there is nothing to stop it from keeping up their production. In the six-month interregnum for negotiating a comprehensive nuclear deal, Tehran wins time to turn out enough centrifuges to substantially expand its production of enriched uranium.

7. A leap to breakout: Far from being static or in freeze, as the Americans claim, Iran is free to step up centrifuge production and boost its stock of 3.5 percent enriched uranium, thereby accumulating enough material to enhance its capacity for producing enough weapons-grade uranium to break through to a nuclear bomb rapidly enough to defy detection by the IAEA or Western intelligence until it is too late.

The first loophole appeared hours after the new accord was signed:

Iran’s lead negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi, announced that his country’s enrichment rights had been recognized in the negotiations, after which Iranian President Hassan Rouhani praised the supreme leader’s guidelines for achieving world power recognition of Tehran’s “nuclear rights.”

However, Secretary of State John Kerry in his first appearance after the signing denied this concession had been made. He said: “The first step, let me be clear, does not say that Iran has a right to enrich uranium.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lined up solidly behind the Iranian version of the accord, confirming world recognition had been extended for Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy, including the right for enrichment.

…read more…

`How Cold Was It?` ~ Politics and Lies

Published by Papa Giorgio

(H/T to Dave Neal ~ see referenced list HERE)

My favorite from the referenced list linked above is this one, which I have spent some time on and one can see it weaved into conversation HERE as well (I also made a video pre-2008 election):

My Church Is Like Any Other Christian Church ~ ABC News

Here is the list via FaceBook:

1. I will have the most transparent administration.

2. I have Shovel ready jobs.

3. The IRS is not targeting anyone.

4. If four Americans get killed, it is not optimal.

5. There are going to be bumps in the road. (referring to Libya and Egypt protests/attacks).

6. ObamaCare will be good for America.

7. You can keep your family doctor.

8. Premiums will be lowered by $2500

9. You can keep your current healthcare plan

10. Just shop around, for that healthcare I claimed you wouldn’t lose.

11. I am sorry you lost your healthcare, (you know the health care you have to shop around for, ya the same health care I said you could keep, yup, that’s the one).

12. I did not say you could keep your health care. (Regardless that 29 recorded videos show I did)

13. ObamaCare will not be offered to illegal immigrants.

14. ObamaCare will not be used to fund abortions.

15. ObamaCare will cost less than 1 Trillion Dollars.

16. No one making under $250,000 will see their taxes raised one dime.

17. It is Bushes fault. (this can be inserted in between every statement).

18. It was about a movie.

19. I will fundamentally transform America.

20. If I had a son.

21. I am not a dictator.

22. I will put an end to the type of politics that “breeds division, conflict and cynicism”.

23. You didn’t build that.

24. I will restore trust in Government.

25. The Cambridge police acted stupidly.

26. I am not after your guns.

27. The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. The BHO of (2006).

28. I have been practicing…I bowled a 129. It’s like — it was like Special Olympics.

29. “If I don’t have this done in three years, then this is going to be a one-term proposition.

30. I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.

31. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.

32. The Public Will Have 5 Days To Look At Every Bill That Lands On My Desk

33. It’s not my red line it is the worlds red line.

34. Whistle blowers will be protected.

35. We got back Every Dime we Used to Rescue the Banks, with interest.

36. I am good at killing people.

37. I will close Gitmo. (but instead built them a $750,000 soccer field).

38. The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn’t, but she is a typical white person

39. I am not spying on American citizens.

40. By, on, on, by, Friday uh afternoon things get a little uh, uh challenged uh, uh ( when left to think for himself without a Teleprompter).

41. I am a Christian.

42. John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith.

43. It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy.

44. UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems. (Attempting to make the case for government-run healthcare).

45. What’s good for illegal immigrants is also good for people who are losing their health insurance because of Obamacare.

 And the biggest lie of all…

✂ I Barrack Hussain Obama pledge to preserve protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.