Waxman-Markey

Last month after the House passed Waxman-Markey with help from 8 GOP votes, Robert Stacy McCain called on conservatives to stop giving money to the NRCC: Not One Red Cent. I thought this was an over reaction at first. But then I stopped by the NRCC to see if they were actually supporting any of the 8 cap and tr8ors. I clicked on their Patriot Program and learned that "The NRCC unveiled ten incumbent Members who, because of their outstanding efforts as "Patriots," will be rewarded with participation in "Patriot Day" on June 25th." But was there a list of these "Patriots" anywhere on the NRCCs site? No. I had to resort to Google news to find out that:

Among those on the list are Reps. Dan Lungren, Ken Calvert and Brian Bilbray of California, Judy Biggert of Illinois, Anh “Joseph” Cao of Louisiana, Thad McCotter of Michigan, Erik Paulsen of Minnesota, Leonard Lance of New Jersey, Christopher Lee of New York and Dave Reichert of Washington.

Matching the two lists up we find that the NRCC's Patriot program is in fact providing comfort to two traitors: Reps. Leonard Lance (NJ-7) and Dave Reichert (WA-8).

So on second thought, yeah, by all means conservatives should definitely stop giving any money to the NRCC until Lance and Reichart are kicked out of the Patriot Program. But that is not enough. Duncan Black and I don't agree on much policy wise, but when it comes to politics,  we agree a lot. Responding to RSM, Atrios wrote: If you ever demonstrate an ability to actually raise money for these organizations, they might start caring what you think. Before? Unlikely.

But this isn't really what the netroots did. They didn't move their party to the left by throwing money at the DCCC. Quite the opposite. Instead they created their own institutions, a parallel party, that allowed them to support the candidates that they trusted. So instead of leading a boycott of the NRCC, conservatives should be raising money for candidates challenging those Dems who are vulnerable to cap and trade.

But how can we do that? The left has ActBlue which allows bloggers to get together and create fundraising pages that allow easy one-stop shopping for donating to Democratic campaigns. So where is our ActBlue? Why can't we go out and create a page allowing fired up conservatives to vent their anger at the NRCC by giving their money directly to challenger campaigns? Slatecard is retooling. So is Rightroots. Meanwhile ActBlue is enabling the nutroots to raise money for Michael Jackson Fans AGAINST Peter King.

Conservatives are fired up about Obama's spending and imminent taxing disaster. Independents aren't far behind. We need to make sure our infrastructure is in place to best harness the incipient wave of Obama anger.

We've been told that the cause of the Great Recession was plummetting home values which rendered financial institutions that lent on this collateral illiquid or insolvent. 

Guess now the value of homes isn't that big a problem anymore. Here's a little-known feature tucked into the Cap & Trade debacle which is guaranteed to cost  virtually every American time and money

The bill forces sellers to have an energy inspection prior to being able to sell their home. Windows, appliances and insulation will have to be inspected and approved by a government inspector and modifications would have to be made for compliance before you can close the sale.

Basically, you won't be able to sell until you go through the expense of bringing your house up to the new code. This will cost a prohibitive amount in many cases. For example, let's say that you own an older house which you bought in 2003 for $250,000 and you now need to sell. Not only has the value fallen to or below the level of the mortgage due the the drop in prices, but you are now faced with re-insulating the entire house, installing new windows, and changing the HVAC & other appliances. The total cost for this type of renovation might easily come to well over 10% of the house's value.

I'm sure this is going to reduce the toxic asset problem all the TARP banks have with underwater mortgages, not.  How many hundreds of thousands of homes will  prove too expensive to retrofit and be simply abandoned upon vacancy?  Bailout II for those banks---green style?

And will ACORN hire all these new "government inspectors"?...hey these will be "green jobs"!

I have a rhetorical question. Is there anything that the Obama Administration doesn't want to regulate?

Once upon a time, tens of thousands of years ago, there lived in Europe two classes of primates. Although we don’t know what they called themselves, today we refer to them as the Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthals.

Although the two groups didn’t live together, their members would occasionally encounter one another in the forest. One day a young Neanderthal named Fil (pronounced “feel”) ran into an older Cro-Magnon named Thnk (pronounced “think”). Fil and Thnk had seen each other for years, and over time they developed the habit of taking a break from hunting by sitting down and having a chat beside the creek. 

Thnk began the conversation. “So, what’s up?” 

“Glad you asked,” said Fil, “we’re making big changes that will save Urth (pronounced “earth”). Urth was their name for the land in which everyone lived. 

“I didn’t know that Urth was in danger,” said Thnk. “What are you talking about?” 

“Our Witch Doctor studied the signs, and he told us that unless we stop using fire we will destroy Urth and us with it.” 

Thnk couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What??? Stop using fire? How will you cook your food? How will you light your caves at night? How will you keep from freezing to death in the winter?” 

Fil answered, “That hasn’t been completely worked out, but our Tribal Chief has convinced us we are in a crisis. Both he and our Witch Doctor say that they are working on some promising alternatives. For example, they say that if we leave a bunch of rocks out in the sun all day they’ll get hot. Then we can bring them into the cave at night to keep warm. I don’t know how that would work on cloudy days, but they say that we’ll figure it out. They are putting our best wood gatherers and fire builders to work on the problem.” 

“We took a look at this issue ourselves,” said Thnk. Our Witch Doctor has been using a new kind of sign called Evdnc (pronounced “evidence”) and he doesn’t see a problem. In fact, our fire builders have discovered ways to make better fires with less wood. Now we have extra wood. I’m sure that we’ll come up with some uses for it.“ Thnk paused for a moment and added, “We just want to be warm and have plenty of food. Aren’t you afraid that giving up fire is big gamble? What if your Witch Doctor is wrong?” 

“I wondered about that,” said Fil, “but if I say anything, all of the others will say that I don’t care about Urth, and our Tribal Chief will make fun of me and will call me a denyr (pronounced “denier”). And they say that soon anyone who burns wood will be punished. I’ve been getting pretty cold at night lately, but I have to admit that I feel great about saving Urth so I guess it’s worth it. Besides, even if it doesn’t work out as planned we’ll still end up with soot-free caves.” 

A few months later Thnk saw Fil across a meadow. Fil looked thin and not well. Thnk thought about calling out to him, but it had started to snow so he headed for home where he knew that a nice warm fire was waiting for him. 

Much time passed. The Cro-Magnons evolved into modern man. The Neanderthals became extinct. All we know of them comes from the discovery of bone fragments found in remarkably soot-free caves.

Richard Boren

http://www.lowdowncentral.com/feature-article/2009/6/29/the-story-of-the-cro-magnons-and-the-neanderthals.html

One of the saddest things about the Crap-and-Trade Bill being passed through the House is how little it would have taken to stop it. Final vote was 219-212.

In the final tally of party betrayals, 44 Democrats voted "nay" and 8 Republicans voted "aye." Surprisingly, if 4 or more of those 8 Republicans would have voted along party lines, HR 2454, or the American Clean Energy and Security Act, would have been defeated. At the least, sending it back to the drawing board if not down the toilet, forever.

Another interesting note coming from Truth and Reason, out of the 52 member Democratic conservative Blue Dog caucus in the House, 22 voted for HR 2454.

If this bill is not resoundingly stopped in the Senate the long term economic cost stands to be painful. As pointed out by the Heritage Foundation's, Senior Policy Analyst for Energy and Environment, Ben Lieberman in his testimony before the Senate Republican Conference .

What are those costs? According to the analysis we conducted at The Heritage Foundation, which is attached to my written statement, the higher energy costs kick in as soon as the bill's provisions take effect in 2012. For a household of four, energy costs go up $436 that year, and they eventually reach $1,241 in 2035 and average $829 annually over that span. Electricity costs go up 90 percent by 2035, gasoline by 58 percent, and natural gas by 55 percent by 2035. The cumulative higher energy costs for a family of four by then will be nearly $20,000.

Given that hardly any of the Representatives read the bill, or its amendment, in their entirety. Or that many Americans, mostly Democrats and Independents, even know what cap and trade is or the economic impact it could incur. The ignorance that is attached to this monstrosity should not be that surprising.

It is incumbent upon the American voter to demand a reasonable and well thought out piece of legislation that matches their future energy and environemental needs. No one, in their right minds,  should be against clean air, clean water, or the best energy innovations American ingenuity can offer. However, these needs should not be used, by public officials,  as propaganda to garner support for central planning styled legislation that will eventually curtail our freedoms or pocket books. It seems more and more that this is about power and control for a few rather than the needs of many.