Well, We Can Try

It looks like the Governor is going to be having a Virtual Town Hall on Wednesday. Mainly because he almost certainly does not have the cojones to hold a live town hall...

Show starts at 8:00 PM, and will be online at www.martinomalley.com/townhall. You can submit your question to the Governor at the website, where more than likely readers of this site will have their questions discarded for asking something legitimate about O'Malley's failure to lead.

(H/T Adam Pagnucco)

(Crossposted)

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It’s the Iranian Acquisition of Nuclear Weapons, Stupid: the Centerpiece of President Obama’s Dithering Foreign Policy Failures

--Richard E. Vatz

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has used the felicitous phrase “dithering” to characterize President Barack Obama’s lengthy lead-up to his articulating United States foreign policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I disagree with Vice President Cheney: it is more than a policy-specific Obama weakness; it is his general foreign policy leadership flaw. The single most dangerous manifestation of this flaw is evident in Administration policy towards the evolution of Iran’s nuclear program.

The proclivity of United States presidents to procrastinate on nuclear threats did not begin with Barack Obama -- in the last 70 years, see on this anniversary of Pearl Harbor, for example, several presidents regarding the inception of the Soviet nuclear threat, John F. Kennedy’s dithering in the face of the gathering Cuban Missile Crisis (replete with warnings from Republican Senators), and the lackluster opposition generally to nuclear proliferation.

The President tends to put off foreign policy problems until they become crises or until it is too late to do anything but “manage” them. One could look at Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea, but there is really not a more striking (pun intended) example than Iran.

This is the latest of several blogs this writer has written in the last four months or so concerning the imminent threat of Iran’s attaining nuclear weapons and the effects such an accomplishment could have on worldwide geopolitics. This includes an explosion of new nuclear-acquisitive powers in the Middle East as well as the danger of actual regional or international nuclear war and/or the proliferation of nuclear weapons to non-state actors.

The latest warning – and just the latest warning -- that President Obama is preparing to cave in his previously stated promise that Iran would not obtain nukes during this Administration’s watch comes from Dore Gold, Israel's former ambassador to the United Nations: "The U.S. is moving away from preventing a nuclear Iran to containing a nuclear Iran -- with deterrence based on the Cold War experience,” while Israel understandably sees Iranian nuclear acquisition as an existential threat to the Jewish state.

Administration warnings of the spread of nuclear weapons should focus other governments on the fact that nuclear safety is only as strong as the weakest link. Put slightly differently, the more nuclear powers there are, the more combinations and permutations exist respecting the possibility of nuclear catastrophe. No state as rhetorically irresponsible as Iran has ever acquired nuclear weapons.

The Obama Administration has backed off repeatedly from confronting Iran – surely “dithering” is an accurate, if slightly understated term. It appears there will be no military threat, nor even any support of military action by Israel, from this administration, irrespective of Iran's march toward joining the Nuclear Club.

The Obama Administration, fixated on the idealistic strategies of negotiation and accommodation, has claimed that prior administrations have unnecessarily exacerbated the threat of Iran’s going nuclear with their arrogance of power. More conservative practitioners of foreign policy have claimed that this Administration is naive and fiddles while the spread of nuclear weapons becomes irreversible.

No one can say there were no warnings...


Professor Vatz teaches political rhetoric at Towson University

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Say No to Arundel Mills Slots

Supposedly, the Anne Arundel County Council will vote tomorrow whether or not to approve slots at the Arundel Mills location. Hopefully, a miracle will arise and the Councilmen will squash the idea. Recall, I am a slots supporter. And, unlike the partisans on both sides, I approved the idea when Republicans pushed them back in 2002-2006, and I continued to support them once the two parties shifted positions. No doubt, slots would be a welcomed revenue source, especially in this troubled economy.

Unfortunately, Arundel Mills is a horrible location. There's one road in and out of the area. For folks that can't see the problem with this, I encourage them to drive there on any Saturday afternoon. Even without slots parlors, there's often bumper to bumper traffic. If the state wants to push this location so bad, why won't they relax their ridiculous environmental restrictions to allow construction of new roads? Also, Arundel Mills continues to be plagued by serious crime. Tragically, judges and prosecutors have enabled this epidemic.


Moving forward, I still want to see slots in Anne Arundel County. Therefore, I'd like to see a proposal for a Laurel Park location. Unlike the Arundel Mills location, Laurel Park sits on a major highway (MD-198) and has easy access to other routes such as MD-1, MD-32, MD-295, and even I-95. Hence, that'll alleviate most of the traffic concerns. Also, the racetrack sits on the border of both Howard and Prince Georges Counties. In other words, let Anne Arundel reap the benefits of slots without having to shoulder the full cost of the surrounding infrastructure.

Right now, Cordish has a lot of entities lobbying the Council to approve slots at Arundel Mills. Hopefully, they'll resist this external pressure and wait around for a better idea.

Crossposted

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The Perils of Going Off Half (Han)Cocked

I really do respect Baltimore Sun business columnist Jay Hancock, but when it comes to the intersection of energy and global warming, he’s just dead wrong.

Another case in point is his recent column on Maryland and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. It’s full of misstatements of fact and sloppy analysis.

First, Hancock states that RGGI was “approved” by Governor Ehrlich. This is simply not true. Ehrlich signed the Healthy Air Act in 2006, which made Maryland only an “observer” to RGGI policy discussions and did not bind the state to any emission reductions. It was Governor O’Malley who signed the actual pact committing the state to the reduction scheme.

One reason that RGGI hasn’t affected BGE rates much is that its cap is set too high meaning plants won’t come close to emitting more than allowed. So called “polluters” have no incentive reduce their emissions, therefore rendering the whole point of the pact moot. This chart explains it. Even if RGGI only costs BGE customers $1.50 a month it still unnecessarily raises electricity rates for no measurable effect on the climate.

Furthermore, as one RGGI insider noted reducing emissions isn’t the primary goal of the pact:

I do not think RGGI cap was set to reduce emissions because that wasn’t the primary purpose of RGGI. At the start of the RGGI process there was a tacit understanding amongst the participants that the real goal of RGGI was to develop the framework for a CO2 cap and trade program that could be used as a model for a national program. After all, the unstated reality is that it could never hope to actually have any impact on global warming.

That unstated reality aside, RGGI is not an argument for state or federal cap and trade schemes. With stringently lower caps they will be fertile ground for financial shenanigans much like the mortgage backed securities that led to the 2008 economic crash. Rent-seeking financial service firms are lining up to feast on the government mandated emissions permits. Think carbon default swaps!

Hancock’s praises of RGGI for the revenue it produces for energy efficiency and conservation. However, efficiency and conservation schemes sound great but they are a siren’s song, which lead us to the rocky shoals of paying more to use less energy. California, Governor O’Malley’s environmental lodestar when it comes to conservation and efficiency policies, ranked in the top 10 for states that increased their Co2 emissions in 2007. The increased emissions stemmed from increased demand. Even with all its vaunted demand side management and efficiency programs demand spiked and emissions increased. Efficiency programs can only go so far, and there is a real limit on the amount of reduction of Co2 emissions from power plants that you can impose without creating real trouble.

RGGI is also a redistributive scam, as we saw in the 2008 legislative session, ratepayer funded RGGI proceeds turned into carbon pork for technocrats and environmental special interests.
Now, cap and trade may be the cat’s meow. That is if you’re down with a 90% increase in electricity prices, destroying over two million jobs, and reducing GDP by $9.4 trillion

The experience in Europe has been an abject failure. In Spain, for every job cap and trade created more than two were destroyed and each “green job created cost between $750,000 and $1.4 million in subsidies. In Germany cap and trade kick started the renewable energy industry but emissions haven’t declined.

That Hancock was able to get MDE secretary Shari Wilson to talk is heartening. Maybe during their next conversation he could get her to divulge which special interest groups MDE is working with to formulate the state’s greenhouse gas regulations. So far the department is stonewalling. Hancock being a financial reporter and all, I advise him to follow the money.

It’s the same money that paid for a rigged state climate action report, which according to the Beacon Hill Institute, offers policy makers

“…no worthwhile guidance. The report fails to quantify the monetary benefits of reduced GHG emissions rendering its cost savings estimates implausible if not downright unbelievable. The faulty analysis contained in the CAP report leaves policymakers with no basis on which to judge the merits of the CAP report’s recommendations for action on the mitigation of GHG emissions.”

Hancock says the world’s retreating glaciers don’t lie. Really? If melting glaciers are truth tellers for anthropogenic global warming then what are advancing glaciers? He also elides the revelations of Climategate saying they do nothing to overturn the so called “consensus,” that it’s merely a case of petulant academics behaving badly. However it is demonstrably more than that. The implicated scientists performing “tricks” to “hide the decline” lie at the heart of the very “consensus” he touts.

Hancock excoriates conservatives for their opposition to cap and trade and inaction in the face of global warming’s “uncertain” but “huge risk” posing effects to future generations. Given that none of the faulty, computer-modeled apocalyptic predictions have matched observed reality, conservatives weighed the massive costs versus the negligible benefits (1/900th of a degree change in global temperature) and wisely said no this green boondoggle.

Besides, who you are going to believe, me or Hancock’s lying ice?

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Don't Hate The Playa Hate the Game

It’s easy to see why many people rooted for Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon to be convicted. After all it’s hard not to dislike an arrogant politician with such an outsized sense of entitlement. Dixon once responded to a question regarding her lavish Chicago shopping spree with her developer beaux Ronald Lipscomb, “I don’ buy that often, but when I do I buy quality.”



However, the Sheila Dixon's of the world come and go, and she is but a temporary cast member in a sordid production, which has run for decades. Dixon merely got caught dipping too deep into the well.

What state prosecutor Robert Rohrbaugh exposed for all to see was not merely inappropriate use of gift cards, but the development-political complex. A system whereby politicians demand tribute—campaign contributions—from developers in return for granting generous tax breaks or for bargain prices on city land taken through eminent domain. The tax burden falls heavier on the city’s ever shrinking middle class and small businesses, squeezing them out. Politically preferred businessmen are allowed to thrive while politicians arrogate more power unto themselves.

Progressive radio host Marc Steiner rightly decries this.

The real story here is the power that developers and financial institutions wield in local politics. They are to local and state government what the health insurance industry and defense contractors are to the federal government.

But what Steiner and progressives don’t understand is that the situation is a monster of their own making. Whether it is developers or insurance companies, the more government involves itself in business the more business sees a need to jump into bed (in Lipscomb’s case literally) with government.


We’re talking about corporatism and it’s a hallmark of progressive—and fascist—economics. A classic example is the meatpacking industry. They myth goes that progressive reformers in an example of good government tamed the rapacious meat packers. However, it was the packers themselves who welcomed government regulation. It allowed them to weed out their smaller competitors who could not afford the added regulatory costs.


In Baltimore’s case well heeled developers can afford the added costs (campaign cash) that small businesses cannot. We see corporatism on the state level as well. What is the last thing you hear in a BGE or PEPCO commercial these days? “This program supports EmPower Maryland.” What is EmPower Maryland but a corporatist scheme whereby utilities get government guaranteed profits in return for supporting Governor O’Malley’s political agenda.

Obamacare and cap and trade are forms of corporatism as well. The government mandates profits for favored rent-seekers, and in return Democrats get politically reliable corporations like Big Pharma and GE, and the mainstream media cheers it on.

As Omar Little taught us "It's all in the game though, right."


Don’t hate the playa hate the game.


Photo credit Scott Wykoff’s Blog, WBAL

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A town hall about Maryland's budget

Nick Loffer was there and he forwarded me this report:

Yesterday, Tuesday, December 1, 2009, may go down as one of the landmark days in AFP-Maryland’s still-young history. About 75 members traveled to Annapolis to participate in a public discussion about the upcoming legislative session of the Maryland General Assembly, featuring Speaker of the House Mike Busch and Senate President Mike Miller. When we arrived, some members were effectively barred from taking part in the discussion.

First, we were told we could not enter because the room was full, even though there were clearly empty seats in the Joint Hearing Room. Then we were told that all questions would have to be submitted in writing to a panel that would decide which ones would be asked. Many of our questions went unasked and unanswered. Only after the event ended were some of our members allowed to personally address Speaker Busch. Of the questions that were asked, Speaker Busch and President Miller were clueless when it came to jobs, taxes and the budget (my commentary is in parenthesis).

• When asked about how they plan to help small businesses create jobs, Speaker Busch said there was nothing the General Assembly could do – they had already done everything possible. (With record unemployment, I find that incredibly hard to believe)


• When asked about taxes, President Miller said that taxes are “the dues we pay to live in a society.” (I would love for President Miller to find that phrase in the Constitution)


• When asked about the impending $2 billion budget deficit, neither Busch nor Miller would take responsibility – and instead blamed the lack of revenue on slots! No coherent plans on how to solve the budget were revealed. (I would like to refer these guys back to 2007 when they jammed the largest tax increase in Maryland history down our throats. Afterward, they both proclaimed that the structural deficit was “solved”)

We learned two important lessons yesterday that will guide us as we make plans to bring common sense to Annapolis.

First, we witnessed the lengths Maryland’s liberal political elite will go to avoid face-to-face questioning and dissent. Rather than engage taxpayers in an open and honest discussion – as they and promised to do last night -- Miller and Busch hid behind a pre-selected panel. They decided at the last minute that the only open and honest discussions they were interested in could only take place with people who agree with them.

Think for a minute of what these leaders are going to do when the session starts and they see us every day, in every hearing, talking to every legislator, about every spending and tax priority.

The second thing we saw last night was the power of the people. Members of AFP-Maryland are hard-working people, tax paying mothers, fathers, and entrepreneurs. We took time away from our families to travel to Annapolis last night to let the elite liberals in charge of Maryland know that the days of out of control spending and ever higher taxes must end. They succeeded in shutting us down last night - but this is only the beginning! We must continue to our trips to Annapolis and let the politicians know we are not going away until they clean up their act. Remember, we have the power. In 2006, these folks were voted into office. In 2010, we can vote them out!

You can watch highlights of the town hall meeting on our YouTube page.

Thanks, Nick. Now it's my turn.

And you were expecting something else?

The Democrats have held the General Assembly not for a term, not for a decade or even a century, but since the Civil War! They didn't get where they were by listening to the people so much as from giving them goodies from the treasury, and that's not going to stop anytime soon if they're left in charge.

As I noted in today's earlier post, whoever is elected Governor will get control of the state's purse strings because that's part of the Governor's job description (unlike most other states and our Congress, where their legislature does the job.) So in a way, asking the General Assembly about taxation and the budget is barking up the wrong tree.

I say that not to discourage public input - as it was, the conduct of Speaker Busch and Senate President Miller appears to have been deplorable - but to note that there's not a lot they can do with the budget because, sure enough, Governor O'Malley will submit another bloated one and dare the General Assembly (in an election year) to make unpopular cuts. Even Governor Ehrlich's last budget was significantly higher than the previous three.

The only way they're going to listen in Annapolis will be if enough recalcitrant legislators find themselves out of a job, and that can't occur until about midway through the FY11 budget cycle. Those same people who stacked the deck in the town hall, though, will have their own special interests throwing their two cents into the discussion (more like thousands of dollars) and that can't be discounted either.

Lowering taxes sounds like a good idea, but the longer-term goal for AFP and those who agree with them should be to educate the public on the benefits of limited government, convincing them to shake their complacency and take the leap across the chasm of doubt instilled in them by government dependence. Once the majority of voters are convinced about that it's much easier to make the General Assembly work for us and not the moneyed special interests currently running the not-so-Free State into the ground.

Crossposted on monoblogue.

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A NY-23 Scenario Here in Maryland?

It appears that former Republican Delegate Rick Weldon may be resigning his seat in the General Assembly to take a job with the City of Frederick. If he does, a very interesting decision will have to be made by the Frederick County Republican Central Committee (H/T Mike Netherland). The choice of Weldon's replacement by these party elites has the potential to be a miniature version of the debacle in NY-23 (which seems appropriate as Maryland is "America in Miniature").

While the die is far from cast, sources close to the committee tell me that there are two primary candidates seeking the job if it becomes available.

The first is central committee member and long time conservative activist Mike Hough. Mike is the former leader of the Maryland Republican Assembly which seeks to elect conservative Republicans to office. Mike is also a declared candidate for the District 3B seat and has reported approximately $30,000 raised and sources close to his campaign say that he expects to have over $50,000 cash in hand in his January report, a handsome sum for a single member district nearly a year before the election.

Given his background and active campaigning in conservative Frederick County, District 3B comprises arguably the most conservative part of Senator Alex Mooney's conservative District 3, Mr. Hough would seem to be the natural selection for any opening.

Surprisingly, however, another member of the central committee, Katie Nash, has been quietly attempting to get the job for herself. Little is known about Ms. Nash as she lacks the experience or track record of even the 30ish Mr. Hough. What makes some cast Ms. Nash in the Dede Scozzafava role, however, is not her youth but her views on the issues. She is widely reported to be pro-choice and has on multiple occasions posted on her facebook wall comments which seem to show great sympathy for the gay marriage movement, even to the point of praising Equality Maryland for pushing Obama to do more. Without a record of achievement or public positions, these few public statements seem the only clues about what a Delegate Nash may do in the General Assembly.

Which begs the question, if the situation would arise, why would any central committee consider putting a political unknown into the House of Delegates? It would not be the first time that a central committee got it wrong on what is arguably their most important job (remember Senator Bobby Neall?).

For conservatives, Mike Hough is exactly the kind of candidate we say we want. He is talented and unwavering in his conservative beliefs. He has worked not just to get other Republicans but conservative Republicans elected. He has shown that he can withstand the crucible of Annapolis and remain true to his principles.

So why would any conservative Republican, let alone a member of a central committee, ever consider appointing someone else, especially someone with more red flags than a Chinese May Day parade?

It is important that Maryland conservatives, not just those in Frederick County, get informed on this issue and let these committee members know that we are watching. Any process to select Delegate Weldon's replacement should be as open and transparent as possible and every candidate needs to be publicly scrutinized.

Parochial committee politics and personal ambition cannot be allowed to create a NY-23 scenario here in Maryland.

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The Parkland Washington Murderous Executions: Mike Huckabee and Rehabilitation Experiments

--Richard E. Vatz

In a genuinely horrific execution-style murder, four Tacoma, Washington police officers -- Tina Griswold, Mark Renninger, Greg Richards and Ronald Owens --were cowardly murdered while completing paperwork on laptop computers in a coffee shop.

The suspected murderer was a man who had had his sentence “commuted,” which made him parole-eligible, 20 years ago by then-Arkansas-Gov. Mike Huckabee.

A conservative Democrat e-mailed me today wondering if conservatives and/or Republicans would shy away from condemning Huckabee for his commuting the sentence of the lead “person of interest” in the murders of four police officers. My correspondent claimed he had some evidence that Fox was avoiding the story, which, if true, would surely (in my view) not be the case for long. If it were, it would be unforgivable.

A revealing, but certainly not excusing, fact for Huckabee’s culpability in this matter, is the fact that as the Seattle Times reports, “...Clemmons had been in jail for the past several months on a child-rape charge that carries a possible life sentence. He was released from custody one week ago, even though he was staring at eight felony charges in all.” The sympathy and empathy for dastardly criminals never ceases, and it crosses party lines.

According to the Associated Press, Maurice Clemmons was convicted in 1989 of aggravated robbery and was paroled in 2000 by then-Gov. Huckabee from Clemmons’ 95-year prison sentence, largely because the perpetrator was so young. Subsequently, Clemmons has manifested consistent felonious, violent behavior (Huckabee would probably say Clemmons “had a problem with violence,” the type of phrase typically used to imply that violence controls people rather than people choose to be violent). Huckabee, the Associated Press account goes on, has a history of clemencies and commutations.

The Washington Post in a poll published today asked of those who are “leaned Republicans” (don’t ask; such polls are never precisely meaningful) found that Gov. Huckabee was 2nd to resigned Gov. Sarah Palin in answer to the question, “If the 2012 Republican presidential primary or caucus in your state were being held today, for whom would you vote?” In a USA Today/Gallup Poll several weeks ago Huckabee was among the public the favorite (at least by a thin margin) Republican for president for a 2012 run.

Did I say sympathy and empathy for violent felons crosses party lines? You bet.

Much of the public’s memory regarding ex-Gov. Michael Dukakis’s furlough program in Massachusetts was that unfair racial attacks were made regarding a released convicted murderer to benefit then Vice-President George Herbert Walker Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign against Dukakis. I don’t know the motives of political advertisers – maybe they were partially racial; maybe they weren’t. More relevant is that Gov. Dukakis supported furloughs for first-degree murderers to effect – what else? – rehabilitation. It’s always important to appeal to the better side of vicious murderers and rapists. Scores of convicted convicts over time escaped after being furloughed.

Gov. Dukakis had superintended the Massachusetts furlough program (not begun under him) that provided a 1986 weekend pass for incarcerated (with no possibility of parole) violent murderer Willie Horton, providing him an opportunity to savagely rape and viciously assault respectively a woman and her fiancé.

Dukakis thought rehabilitation was a more important goal of incarceration than incapacitation and deterrence. What if catastrophe occurs? It’s the price of humanistic concerns – and it’s unlikely to affect his family.

This writer is not against rehabilitation; I just think that anyone who subordinates incapacitation and deterrence to rehabilitation – and this applies to those who oppose capital punishment to the point of ignoring such capital miscreants who would perpetrate violence in or from prison -- is, to put it too kindly, too empathetic with the most evil and threatening members of our society to hold high political office.

If conservative media don’t cover this connection sufficiently, it is inexcusable.


--Professor Vatz teaches political rhetoric at Towson University

**Addendum, Dec 1, 2009, 7:50 a.m.: As reported in USA Today, "Clemmons was shot and killed early Tuesday in a Seattle neighborhood."

This increases the difficulty of effecting rehabilitation.

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Larry Hogan Speaks....

...and he sounds like someone who can mount a serious run for Governor of Maryland.

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Three Related General Lessons for Long-term Presidential Governing; Please Take Note, President Obama

--Richard E. Vatz


As a rhetorician who has been around for quite a while, I offer a few related observations on governing, some of which my more youthful compatriots, including President Barack Obama, are seemingly unaware. If some of the following points seem obvious to you, it is either because you are young and perspicacious or older and experienced.

1. Immediate Popularity and Public Support is Easy to Achieve; Wise, Long-term Policies May Earn You Neither. When in 1974 President Gerald R. Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon in Proclamation 4311, he announced that he did so because a trial of “…a former President of the United States…[would cause] prolonged and divisive debate over the propriety of exposing to further punishment and degradation a man who has already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest elective office of the United States” and could cause a loss of the “tranquility” that had been restored by President Nixon’s resignation. Through that understatement President Ford saved the United States from self-destructive, retributive political justice, the same kind of reflexive bitterness that characterizes second-rate, non-democratic polities. President Ford’s action likely cost him re-election. Sometimes, it is better to be right than be president, especially if you are right as President. After President Clinton and President Bush’s presidencies, there seemed to be a recognition by President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama of the long-term foolhardiness of such legal action against temporarily unpopular presidents. Therefore…

2. Public Opinion is Focused on Short Term Satisfaction, Not Wise, Long-term, Policy Formulation. We live in a representative democracy, not a democracy-by-plebiscite. People are elected to office to make hard, but forward-seeking decisions, not to poll the public on every policy issue. The country’s obsession with public opinion militates against good, long-term policy choices. The Iraqi war was supported by public opinion during its early stages and opposed when President Bush approved the arguably successful surge. The Persian Gulf War was opposed early, but there was support for expanding that war, support which President George Herbert Walker Bush wisely ignored. All public opinion usually represents is respectively support of and opposition to policies that appear to be working or not working at the time of opinion measurement. This is why public opinion regarding military action and long-term political policy is particularly invalid, and over-attention to such opinion polls often leads to immediate illusory public satisfaction and then long-term policy failure and public dissatisfaction.

3. Immediately Popular Decisions May Win Political Office but Hurt the Country. President Nixon was derided incessantly for this rhetorical formulation, “X may not be politically popular, but it is the right thing to do” and its converse, “X may be popular, but it is the wrong thing to do.” Too bad, and maybe he made incorrect applications, but the points were valid. Huey Long won local public support for a long time with his “Share the Wealth” and isolationist stands, prototypes for short-term popularity and long-term destructive policy. President Obama gives an unwarranted financial boost to seniors when the economy doesn't warrant such -- popular, but injurious long-term. Presidents who articulate an “exit strategy” going into war may please conflicted constituents and be electorally successful, but they also communicate a lack of resolve which emboldens our enemies and compromises the war effort.

President Barack Obama won office by formulating a consistent-sounding, anti-Bush foreign policy and domestic policy. His unambiguous support of the war in Afghanistan as opposed to his castigating of President Bush’s war in Iraq and his (Obama's) anti-business and anti-wealth policies all had immediate appeal to an angry Democratic electorate -- hungry for foreign policy success and punishment for the well-to-do -- and an angry Independent electorate, some of whom were hungry for consistent conservative fiscal policies.

President Obama’s far-left terrorist trial policies, designed to undermine the intelligence community by trying mass murderers of 9/11 in New York, and the president’s foreign policy of “never fear to negotiate, even if your enemy uses negotiation only for political gain,” added to his own “share the wealth” populism (attenuated only by his temporary Wall Street concessions), are the perfect storm of short-term policy formulation at the risk of long-term political failure.





--Professor Vatz teaches political rhetoric at Towson University

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Memo for Democrats

As we celebrate what we are most thankful for, here's a reminder about the Pilgrims and why they didn't eventually wind up starving to death (H/T Instapundit):

In 1620 Plymouth Plantation was founded with a system of communal property rights. Food and supplies were held in common and then distributed based on equality and need as determined by Plantation officials. People received the same rations whether or not they contributed to producing the food, and residents were forbidden from producing their own food. Governor William Bradford, in his 1647 history, Of Plymouth Plantation, wrote that this system was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. The problem was that young men, that were most able and fit for labour, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. Because of the poor incentives, little food was produced.

Faced with potential starvation in the spring of 1623, the colony decided to implement a new economic system. Every family was assigned a private parcel of land. They could then keep all they grew for themselves, but now they alone were responsible for feeding themselves. While not a complete private property system, the move away from communal ownership had dramatic results.

This change, Bradford wrote, had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. Giving people economic incentives changed their behavior. Once the new system of property rights was in place, the women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability.

Once the Pilgrims in the Plymouth Plantation abandoned their communal economic system and adopted one with greater individual property rights, they never again faced the starvation and food shortages of the first three years. It was only after allowing greater property rights that they could feast without worrying that famine was just around the corner.

(Emphasis mine)

So, National Democrats, Maryland Democrats; are you guys boneheaded enough to realize that the stimulus package, the GM bailout, and the nationalization of health care are going to work out any differently for us than communal farming did for the pilgrims?

Happy Thanksgiving everybody...

(Crossposted)

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Global Warming Fraud and Conspiracy? It Just May Be So

If the hacked emails and data from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit in the UK turn out to be genuine—and the director, Phil Jones says they appear to be—then the global warming alarmist movement has some serious explaining to do.

The emails appear to reveal a pattern by prominent alarmist scientists of concealing evidence contradictory to the theory of anthropogenic global warming, manipulating scientific data, preventing conflicting reports from being published in the IPCC assessment report, and possibly deleting government data subject to public information laws.

Aside: Note that these folks are the giants upon whose shoulders Isaac Smith stands when making his case for global warming alarmism.

Here are some of the emails:

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@XXXX, mhughes@XXXX
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement Date:
Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc:k.briffa@XXX.osborn@XXXX

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow.I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers Phil

Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit
Telephone XXXX
School of Environmental Sciences Fax XXXX University of East Anglia Norwich

“Mike’s Nature trick” refers to the now discredited Hockey Stick fraud.

From: Tom Wigley [...]
To: Phil Jones [...]
Subject: 1940s
Date:Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:25:38 -0600
Cc: Ben Santer [...]

Phil,Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip. If you look at the attached plot you will see that theland also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know). So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by,say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean – but we’d still have to explain the land blip. I’ve chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are 1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips—higher sensitivity plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from. Removing ENSO does not affect this.

It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with “why the blip”. Let me go further. If you look at NH vs SH and the aerosol effect (qualitatively or with MAGICC) then with a reduced ocean blip we get continuous warming in the SH, and a cooling in the NH—just as one would expect with mainly NH aerosols. The other interesting thing is (as Foukal et al. note – from MAGICC) that the 1910-40 warming cannot be solar. The Sun can get at most 10% of this with Wang et al solar, less with Foukal solar. So this may well be NADW, as Sarah and I noted in 1987 (and also Schlesinger later). A reduced SST blip in the 1940s makes the 1910-40 warming larger than the SH (which it currently is not)—but not really enough.So ... why was the SH so cold around 1910? Another SST problem? (SH/NHdata also attached.)This stuff is in a report I am writing for EPRI, so I’d appreciate any comments you (and Ben) might have.

Tom.

From:
Gary Funkhouser
To: Keith Briffa
Subject: kyrgyzstan and siberian data
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 15:37:09 -0700

Keith,

Thanks for your
consideration. Once I get a draft of the central and southern siberian data and talk to Stepan and Eugene I'll send it to you. I really wish I could be more positive about the Kyrgyzstan material, but I swear I pulled every trick out of my sleeve trying to milk something out of that. It was pretty funny though - I told Malcolm what you said about my possibly being too Graybill-like in evaluating the response functions - he laughed and said that's what he thought at first also. The data's tempting but there's too much variation even within stands.

I don't think it'd be productive to try and juggle the chronology statistics any more than I already have - they just are what they are (that does sound Graybillian). I think I'll have to look for an option where I can let this little story go as it is. Not having seen the sites I can only speculate, but I'd be optimistic if someone could get back there and spend more time collecting samples, particularly at the upper elevations.Yeah, I doubt I'll be over your way anytime soon. Too bad, I'd like to get together with you and Ed for a beer or two. Probably someday though.

Cheers, Gary

Gary Funkhouser
Lab. of Tree-Ring Research
The University of ArizonaTucson,
Arizona 85721 USA

From: P
To: M
Subject: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
Date: Thu Jul 8 16:30:16 2004

M,

Only have it in the pdf form. FYI ONLY – don’t pass on. Relevant paras are the last 2 in section 4 on p13. be careful how you use it – if at all. Keep quiet also that you have the pdf. The attachment is a very good paper – I’ve been pushing A over the last weeks to get it submitted to JGR or J. Climate. The main results are great for CRU and also for ERA-40. The basic message is clear – you have to put enough surface and sonde obs into a model to produce Reanalyses. The jumps when the data input change stand out so clearly. NCEP does many odd things also around sea ice and over snow and ice.

The other paper by MM is just garbage – as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well – frequently as I see it. I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. K and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !

P

I pulled this email from The Air Vent, which redacted the names of the email’s authors and recipients. However, I can surmise that P is Hadley CRU director Phil Jones, M is Michael Mann, and K is Keith Briffa—all prominent alarmist scientist.

From: Phil Jones
To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date:
Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008

Mike,

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit

Interesting that on the heels of more evidence that global warming has stopped these same alarmist scientists are now left scrambling to find evidence of it. As Ed Morrissey noted, below is a case of scientists using theories to test data, not using data to test theories, i.e. they cannot abide this blasphemy to their green religious faith.

From: Kevin Trenberth
To: Michael MannSubject:
Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:57:37 -0600
Cc: Stephen H Schneider , Myles
Allen , peter stott , “Philip D. Jones” , Benjamin Santer , Tom Wigley , Thomas
R Karl , Gavin Schmidt , James Hansen , Michael Oppenheimer

Hi all

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming ? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low…

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.***

Given that in the past these folks have created convenient data from thin air, then we shouldn’t be surprised when they present us with more concocted evidence.

These emails date back over a decade to 1996, which suggest a clear pattern of manipulation and concealment. These revelations are just big for the mainstream media to ignore. But don’t worry “journalists” like the Baltimore Sun’s Tim Wheeler are sure to investigate this…right?

More below the fold.

OBAMACARE: Senate Cloture Vote Saturday Evening at 8 PM

by Robert Farrow at the Baltimore Reporter

Sen. Reid just filed cloture on the motion to proceed to HR 3590, the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act. Remember he is using HR 3590 as a ’shell’ to offer his 2,074 page health bill as a substitute amendment. The cloture vote on the motion to proceed will be Saturday evening at 8:00 pm. Remember Democrats need 60 votes to achieve cloture.

On Friday, the Senate will convene at 10:00 am and debate the merits of Sen. Reid’s 2,074 page bill until 11:00 pm on Friday evening.

On Saturday, the Senate will convene at 10:00 am continuing the debate leading up to the vote at 8:00 pm on cloture on the motion to proceed. Under the agreement, if cloture is invoked (they get 60 votes) all post-cloture time will be yielded back, the motion to proceed to the bill will be agreed to and the bill will be reported. Once the bill is reported Sen. Reid will be recognized to offer up his substitute amendment.”

Angry? Let Your Representation in MD know it!:

Senators

Cardin, Benjamin L. - (D - MD) Class I
509 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4524
Web Form: cardin.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm

Mikulski, Barbara A. - (D - MD) Class III
503 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4654
Web Form: mikulski.senate.gov/Contact/contact.cfm

More below the fold.