Michigan

-By Warner Todd Huston

In an odd turn of events, former GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz thinks that anyone that criticizes GM is not only "mis-informed" but insists that those "foaming ideologues" that criticize the car giant are "damaging the Republican Party."

It is interesting that an executive in the company derided as "Government Motors" is trying to direct attention away from his minders in the Obama administration and toward the opposing party, and just before a general election at that.

It is also interesting to see Lutz defending GM as the "future" of the car business. Lately GM has not been turning out the sort of products that puts the company at the head of much of anything.

For one thing, value seems to be an area where GM is in the back of the pack. James B. Stewart of the Wall Street Journal's SmartMoney.com found late in April that car shoppers don't find GM to have much value to its products.

"Indeed, value was a theme I heard over and over," Stewart wrote, "a reminder that high gas prices and malaise about the economy are having a profound effect on consumers, even the auto buffs who tend to populate car shows. This struck me as a marketing challenge for GM. Much as many shoppers seemed to like the GM offerings, nearly all of them cited models they deemed better values elsewhere at the show."

If GM is the future of the auto industry as Lutz claims, its products are going to have to give customers the value they are looking for. Thus far they aren’t.

Speaking of the high cost of fuel, GM did seem to lead the field in one area. As Reuters recently reported, it led in inaccurate fuel gages.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on its website it opened a preliminary investigation covering Chevrolet Trailblazers, GMC Envoys, Buick Rainiers and Saab 9-7s from model years 2005-2007 after receiving 668 complaints alleging inaccurate fuel gauge readings.

In fact, there is yet another area where GM leads: in some of the industry's worst cars. Last month GM found nine of its models in the bottom eleven cars.

Those models ranked as some of the worst in value, safety, and/or reliability, and gas mileage. As David Freddoso quipped, "Thank goodness we put up $80 billion to bail out GM and Chrysler. They are now building such wonderful cars that they have achieved total dominance of the Forbes "Worst Cars on the Road" list…"

Still, Vice Chairman Lutz wants to label anyone that sleights GM as a "foaming ideologue" for doubting the company. One wonders if his spin is merely bluff or something else?

-By Warner Todd Huston

At the Detroit Economic Club today, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tried to claim the auto bailout is a success.

It certainly doesn’t seem like a success for the taxpayers. GM stock is about $30 today, and unless it gets up to $54, the taxpayers lose money on the deal. Why would it go up? You want to fight high gas prices by buying a Volt? How does $41 grand a pop sound? And still GM loses money on every one it sells even at that price. Not only that but we are seeing that government subsides for electric cars is good tax money wasted in any case.

It doesn’t get any better. Worldwide, U.S. cars aren’t selling worth beans and domestically, GM is lagging because people who hate the bailouts won’t support it with their car-buying dollars any more than they did with their votes last year when they kicked out every incumbent they could find who’d been for it. And GM still has all its old problems, too, like those big fat union pension obligations. Sadly, nothing that caused GM’s financial trouble has been fixed.

But the spin continues. Last December, Geithner said the auto bailouts were “investments,” which “will show a positive return, not a negative return.”

As the 2010 midterms proved, the people know better. They know government can’t run an automobile company and they know the deal was mostly political payback to the UAW, the biggest culprit in why GM and Chrysler were in trouble in the first place -- not that company execs did themselves proud, either.

People didn’t believe Geithner when he said we’d make money on the deal, and they were right. Today’s speech was more of the same, and it still won’t fly.

Geithner, Obama and the rest of the gang that brought us this monstrosity may or may not actually still think they kept the economy from chaos by the bailout, but they’re just believing their own scare tactics if they do.

As George Mason University Professor Todd Zywicki pointed out in depth, a normal bankruptcy would have worked just as well. Sorry, Timmy. Your spinning wheel is getting us nowhere.

GM, Obama's favorite federally owned car company, was thrilled to report in March that sales figures for the Chevy Cruze helped put the company on the fast track to success but it wasn't the best news when the wheels began to literally fall off the Cruze causing a recall of GM's "success" story.

As we will remember, last November Obama proclaimed GM a great success story, one that justified his raging fever for bailouts. This March GM buttressed Obama's glowing account by reporting rosy sales figures in which the Chevy Cruze made a big appearance. Then GM reported that the Cruze and the Malibu accounted for "98,950 sales – roughly one of every four Chevrolets sold in the first quarter."

But let's not break out the champagne too soon because only weeks after GM celebrated sales of the Cruze, at least one steering wheel popped off in transit. It's a literal case of the wheels coming off GMs success story.

In one case, a Chevy Cruze owner was driving 65 MPH on a highway when her steering wheel broke right off. With her in the car were her young son and her own elderly mother. None were hurt fortunately.

Now GM is recalling 2,100 cars in hopes of preventing another such unfortunate accident.

GM reported that it had traced the defect to a relatively small number of cars that had initially had the wrong steering wheel installed. When the error was discovered, at least in the case of the one car noted above, the replacement wheel was not installed properly. Regardless a recall was initiated.

None of this is good news for GM as the company's market share has been experiencing a steady decline over the last few years.

It all seems to amount to being a bad deal for the American taxpayers who, through the Department of the Treasury, still own 26% of GM. Right after the recall announcement, GM's stock is down another 1.3%.

With "success stories" like this, Obama doesn't need failures.

-By Warner Todd Huston

A few days ago I wrote about how the Obama administration has stuffed the upper echelons of management at General Motors with government lackeys who have no experience in the auto industry and how Obama's government will lead GM to ultimate failure. Today we see yet one more step toward GMs ruin with government plans for subsidies that the taxpayers will end up paying for.

The Washington Times' Kerry Picket reports that some Democrats and the geniuses Obama put at the top of GM, much derided as "Government Motors," are proposing that taxpayers be tapped to foot the bill for tax credits and rebates for customers that buy the failed Chevy Volt.

Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow has proposed legislation known as the Charging America Forward Act (S.298) that will give federal cash rebates of $7,500 to anyone that buys the Chevy Volt.

The Department of Energy claims that this rebate program idea is somehow just like the Cash For Clunkers program. But this couldn't be more different.

First of all, this program is only for one car model, the Volt, not just any car model. It isn't likely that the program will stimulate the greater economy. Secondly, the Chevy Volt is a failing model. thus far in 2011 GM only sold 602 Chevy Volts. The Volt's month-to-month sales were down between January and February, too. Sales went from 321 in January to 281 in February.

The fact is that these thousands of dollars of rebates will not do much good and will cost far more in administrative costs than it is worth doing. Not to mention that it will keep GM manufacturing a car that no one seems to want. The latter is the worst part of this as GM will continue putting resources to a failed model to sustain Obama's green initiatives despite poor sales.

This is further evidence that GM is now a political body and not a car manufacturer. It is also further evidence of the seeds of failure being deeply planted in one of the nation's largest corporations.

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Obama Administration has proclaimed TARP and the subsequent bailout for General Motors a great success. US Treasury Deputy Timothy Massad recently said, "Where we are today shows that the program, by any reasonably objective measure, was a success." But is GM, now much derided as "Government Motors" the success that Obama says it is? Facts don't argue in Obama's favor.

First of all, we must dispense with the whole idea that a benevolent Obama played sugar daddy to "save" GM and did so without too much meddling with the company. Despite the claims that it is "back" and back in private hands, We The People still own 33% of GM. But government ownership is deeper than the a mere calculated percentage. You see, GM’s Board and its CEO were all placed in their positions by Obama, his czars and advisers. Worse, none of them have any experience at all in the auto industry.

Obama’s GM CEO, Dan Akerson, is not a "car guy" -- as he himself admitted. Akerson's experience is as a Wall Street hedge fund operator not an auto industry exec. He was also a player at the politically connected Carlyle Group and was the firm's Managing Director.

Being a hedge fund guy, Akerson is much more familiar with short term, high risk investing practices as opposed to the long term thinking needed to run a car company.

Worse, Akerson has a history of running failing companies. Akerson was CEO of at least two companies that went into bankruptcy.

[Akerson] was until May of 2008 Chairman of the Board of Hawaiian Telecom - the company declared bankruptcy just seven months after his departure. He was also the CEO of XO Communications when it went bankrupt in December 2002.

Akerson isn't the only non-car guy placed inside GM at Obama's behest. By 2010, the federal government had sowed the seeds for the next disaster.

The government's efforts inside and outside of TARP have sown the seeds for the next crisis and, unfortunately, last year's 2,319-page Dodd-Frank Act does nothing to fix these problems. Treasury must be more transparent regarding TARP. The real myth that the Treasury secretary should dispel is that TARP is a big win for the taxpayer.

These failures are the same sort of endemic problems that the administration has instilled in GM.

As Seton Motley noted in his Washington Examiner piece, none of the people running GM placed there by governments have experience in the sort of long term thinking that a car company needs.

Running a car company requires LONG-term thinking. Determining the right cars to design, make and bring to market is chess, not checkers. You don’t plan quarter-to-quarter or even year-to-year – you plan YEARS out in advance.

Just so. Yet none of the people Obama placed at GM have any of this expertise. Just as the bailout mentality has merely sowed the seeds for the next collapse, Obama's GM appointees are just setting up the company for a fall later and all at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer.

As statistically indicated, the Democratic Party WILL lose seats in the upcoming midterms.  No one questions this - not now and not in any midterm election.  Cases where the majority gained seats in a midterm are aberrant.  But the picture improved for the Democratic Party given the results of the primaries, primarily because the Right elected a handful of candidates that, like them or not, have thrown a number of races that were a slam dunk for Republicans back into the "leaning Democratic" category. 

There are several other variations on this theme, but the bottom line is that in yesterday's Senate Rankings at fivethrityeight.com, the meta-polling picture improved for the Democratic Party, who now is more likely than not to hold onto 55 seats.  The Republican Party's chances to take the Senate remains at about 6%.  And a lot depends on which party Charlie Crist caucuses with should he win the FL seat (which looks increasingly likely). 

Here's the goods from the dean of polling data:  http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/06/senate-forecast-after-primaries-picture.html

The right has lost its way and a lot of people are starting to recognize this.  Books are being written (The Death of Conservatism, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, etc.)  Here are my thougths on what is wrong and what needs to be done about it.

Discredit those who are not helpful

Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, etc. have said a lot of downright crazy and dumb things (people with AIDS should be quarantined, etc.)  and are far too tied to Christianity.  They should be called out for that and pushed to the side so that true leaders on the right can rise to the top and give the right a real chance at regaining credibility and the minds of those who are undecided or in the center.  Those who espose hate, and anger should also be discredited and pushed to the side (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc.).  It is long past time for Conservative talk radio to become more academic, constructive, and hopeful sounding, and cater to the best in us (love, hope, unity, civics, etc.), rather than the worst (fear, anger, race, etc.).

Stop catering to the Christian right

Christianity has nothing to do with conservative ideas and theory on money, foreign policy, etc.  There is also supposed to be a strong seperation of church and state.  Our country was formed partially for freedom of religion, and if our government is run by someone who wants to impose their religion through laws and perspective, then we lose that.  In addition, America is not a Christian nation; though nearly 80% are Christian, there is still another 20% that are not.

Stop simply opposing every idea President Obama has and propose alternative solutions

The right has really been a thorn in our Presidents side instead of working with him to solve the problems in America.  The way to gain credibility and get some conservative ideas into law is to honestly work with the left to create good policy, and also proactively propose laws to solve some of our problems before the left takes up the problem.

Stop supporting causes that have nothing to do with Conservative ideology

The right should disassociate itself with such issues as abortion, and other things that are outside of the ideas of conservatism.  Abortion is an issue thats argument against it is primarily based in religion.  The same applies to marriage equality for gays; the argument against it can only be made from a religious standpoint.  Because of this, and because no party should be tied to any religion, just as our government should not be tied to any religion, the right as a whole and Republicans as a party should disassociate theirselves with abortion and start supporting equal rights for gays.  These two issues alone keep some of those in the center and on the left from ever supporting a Republican candidate.  It might cause a lot of those on the Christian right to be upset, but then they can choose the party that best conforms to what their idea of government should do on all other issues, or form a new 3rd party that is tightly tied to Christianity.

Stop being inconsistent

Right now many on the right are opposing government run health care on the idea that even though it may save a lot of lives, it isn't proper for the government or taxpayers to help others.  Yet, many of those same people are in support of the war in Iraq to give people in another country freedom and save their lives.  Why should we spend taxpayer dollars to police the world yet not spend taxpayer dollars to save those within our own borders?  Either we shouldn't spend money to help others, or we should and if we should then we should definitely want to help those within our own borders before those who are not within our borders.

Stop being hawks

The right has become a group of hawks and this is contrary to conservative ideas on foreign policy.  Conservative ideas on foreign policy are as spelled out by the Cato Institute:

Cato's foreign policy vision is guided by the idea of our national defense and security strategy being appropriate for a constitutional republic, not an empire. Cato's foreign policy scholars question the presumption that an interventionist foreign policy enhances the security of Americans in the post-Cold War world, and maintain instead that interventionism has consequences, including the formation of countervailing alliances, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and even terrorism. The use of U.S. military force should be limited to those occasions when the territorial integrity, national sovereignty, or liberty of the United States is at risk.

Conservatives need to re-embrace those ideas.  They are the ideas that our nations founders had in mind, and they are the ideas that are the most ethical and that might also allow some on the left to consider the rest of our ideas.

Have a well thought out income tax policy

There either should not be an income tax as Libertarians would like, or there should be an income tax that works to support Conservative values.  A tax that is progressive helps strengthen families at the lower incomes and therefore helps literacy rates, etc. which helps to preserve conservative values of strong families, an educated populace, etc.  Right now the government has taken on far too much responsibility and therefore spends too much and our national debt is growing because of it.  It is time to start cutting back on spending, but at the same time increasing revenue and the only realistic way to increase revenue is through a progressive income tax because those in the middle and lower class cannot support any higher tax burden.

Start supporting alternative energy and embrace that global warming is real and might be caused by us

The science is in, global warming is real and it is probably caused by our actions (and can we afford to gamble that it is not?).  Most of the oil that is easily available is in countries with citizens that do not like us.  Because of these two things, it is long past time to start looking into energy sources that do not emit CO2, and that do not require us to work with countries that are not friendly to us.

Stop catering to Israel

We give far too much money and support to Israel and it hurts our credibilty around the world and doesn't help to reduce the hatred towards us in the Muslim world.  It is time to treat Israel as we would any other country that is a friend and ally of ours.  We should work with them, and be friends with them, but we should point out when they are doing something that works against peace in the middle east and use our monetary aid as a tool to help control their actions rather than blindly supporting them at all times.

Start rethinking drug policy

The war on drugs does not work, and will never work so long as it is punitive rather than based in medicine.  It only makes organized crime stronger, and leads to a larger role of government and often leads to violations of our constitutional rights.  The punitive war on drugs was originally based on racism, and is now based in morality that is derived from religion.  For these reasons, it is time for the federal government to take a non punitive role and start considering policy that would put organized crime out of business, make drug use safer and less damaging to society, and help those who are ready to reform their lives through cessation of drug abuse.

 Conservatism Is Dead!  Long Live Conservatism!

             I am 23 years old.  I have been told that my ilk and I are the future.  To say the least that assertion frightens me.  Statistics, while reassuring, can only attenuate my anxiety slightly.  For while the sweep of history that Obama disciples say their savior rode into the White House on this past November might not have been as strong as they once thought – voters 18-29 resoundingly turned out to vote for Obama, yet overall the difference between the ostensibly crucial youth vote’s turnout in 2004 and 2008 was just 3% higher – the consensus among my peer’s is that centrist-liberalism – the form of liberalism Obama does not practice but I think successfully conveys – has become the accepted norm.  Why?  Because it feels pragmatic, tolerant, and, above all, it is imbued with a sense of competent realism.  Gone are the days of stereotypical bleeding heart liberal – at least that is the perception a lot of people my age have. 

            Conservatism as a movement has been vanquished in the eyes of many young politically minded people I speak with.   It has proven not only morally bankrupt –after starting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, advocating torture, and impinging on civil liberties – but also intellectually bankrupt.  Where before a liberal friend of mine had begrudgingly admitted that conservatism’s redeeming quality for him was its emphasis on practical solutions, reliance on hard data, and fiscal frugality, today, in the wake of the financial and economic chaos that engulfs us it is no surprise that that reputation has been sullied. 

            I am not going to argue the merits of those qualms with modern conservatism.  My concern is the perception-reality gap; that is, how people, especially younger Americans, perceive conservatism, and, by extension its partisan vessel, the Republican Party.  There is a worthwhile debate to be had over whether the Bush era was, in fact, a traditionally conservative one.  William F. Buckley himself once remarked that Bush was conservative, but not a conservative.  He was not a part of the movement in the sense that Ronald Reagan was or Newt Gingrich continues to be a torchbearer for. 

            Much has been written on the subject of movement conservatism since the Republican Party was handed a disastrous defeat in the last general election.  While the former President Bush is certainly culpable to a certain extent for the humiliating electoral referendum of what has passed for conservatism these last nine years I think that all conservatives, myself included, need to look at the changing demographics and national economy and render a verdict on whether or not the conservatism embodied by our current representatives is the sort of conservatism that can subsist and win in 21st Century America. 

            Clichés can ruin empires.  They can also ruin political movements.  Unfortunately, conservatism has fallen prey to rampant clichés that are promulgated by a myriad of comedians and entertainers.  To my fellow youthful Americans, Stephen Colbert and comedians of his kidney hold great sway over perception of conservatives (comedy does have a liberal bias, after all).  I am hesitant to bring Mr. Colbert into a serious discussion about the state of modern conservatism as an intellectual and political movement, but I would be remiss not to highlight how entertainment media has successfully reduced conservatism to a set of ugly cultural symbols:  the gun-crazed, the gay basher, and the God fearer.   Conservatives have long wrestled with images of backwardness, bigotry, and zealous piety.  In the 1940s, when the postwar conservative movement was still in its adolescence and sowing the fundamental intellectual seeds of its platform, liberals decried nascent conservatism in America as an attempt to reinstate medieval feudalism.   Meanwhile, the average college student is, I can safely confirm, denied any knowledge of the conservative intellectual history that could challenge these nasty generalizations.   The domination of the nation’s universities by a liberal professoriate is complete.   Men like William F. Buckley Jr., Friedrich Hayek, Frank Meyer, Russel Kirk, and Wilmoore Kendall are scarcely mentioned outside of being the butt of many bad jokes.    Instead, conservatism is treated as a reactionary force in American politics – the default position of obstinate country bumpkins and avaricious plutocrats. 

            But really, who can blame these critics?  Conservatives of late have made themselves easy targets for two reasons.  First, conservatism has become ideologically rigid and rhetorically trite.  In the 1980s and 1990s, the small-government, free market message resounded because it contravened liberalism’s decades long insistence on the power of federal programs to correct society’s ills – the results of which were Leviathan bureaucracy and stagflation.  So while the totalizing nostrums of liberal policymakers had been compounding inefficiencies since the New Deal, Reagan represented the culmination of a conservative movement that offered sound reasoning for why liberalism had failed and what it could be replaced with.  

            Today, however, the twin pillars of the conservative economic policy – low taxation and deregulation – are held in disrepute.   Cut taxes and deregulate it repeated ad nauseum will not do.  As much as I agree with these mantras (in most instances) it must be acknowledged that as rhetorical tools they have become useless pabulum.   Conservatives must articulate a more nuanced economic policy that stresses long-term fiscal solvency, debt reduction, free trade, measured and responsible deregulation, and sensible arguments for why tax cuts – not spending programs – are the stuff of real economic growth.   A government-phobic stance only reinforces the perception of doctrinaire intransigence.  If conservatives can admit the necessity of limited economic regulation they will win not only more respect from non-ideological voters who are skeptical of dogmatism in any form, but they will be returning to a pragmatism that is the very essence of conservatism.

            I would also like to stress the supreme importance of shedding the image conservatives have garnered for being socially parochial.  I have been contemplating this article for some time now, and in the way of research I made it a point to start conversations with young people of different political stripes and with varying degrees of interest in politics.  To someone with only a fleeting interest in electoral politics social issues are what matter, and often function as a first foray into politics (more than likely because social issues elicit emotional responses and do not require one to be well-versed on an issue).  To win young voters, or at least not alienate them, conservatives should apply the “Don’t Tread on Me” ethos they champion in the economic sphere in the social one, as well.  This does not mean we shirk the greater task of reintroducing meaning, civic duty, religion, and something beyond shallow materialism and licentiousness into American society.  On the contrary, conservatives should fully embrace their rhetoric of individual responsibility by purging the movement of its puritanical authoritarianism so as to eliminate the inherent contradictions in their positions.  For how can we praise the right to individual choice and responsibility and still support the interminably futile “war on drugs,” which not only wastes millions of the taxpayer’s dollars but exacerbates racial tensions?  How can we continue to speak of justice and liberty when homosexuals are not allowed to marry their loved ones and when the majority of Republicans in congress opposed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act?  

            To accomplish all of the above and remain relevant conservatives must follow point two of my thesis, as well:  they must govern effectively and remain principled.   My generation’s formative experiences occurred during the Bush administration and under the auspices of a Republican-dominated congress.  Two wars, a rash of scandals (Mark Foley, the Delay-Abramoff connection, the Valerie Plame leak, the Terri Schiavo episode, Black Water, etc.), and the financial crisis have severely damaged the Republican Party and conservatism’s image.  The recovery will be slow going.  But if conservative politicians can begin to shed their reactionary mien, offer alternative policy ideas that bypass hackneyed platitudes, and live out their lofty rhetoric and lead by example we may yet see the movement regain its strength and political clout. 

            It goes without saying that the party out of power naturally seems adrift and leaderless.  And already the steady stream of articles proclaiming conservatism in America “dead” seems conspicuously outdated.  A recent Gallup Poll finds that more Americans in all fifty states identify themselves as conservatives rather than liberal or very liberal.  The Democrats health care reform salvo is on precarious footing thanks to a grassroots conservative revival across the country and a smile-worthy Rasmussen Poll concludes that fifty-seven percent of Americans would vote out the entire congress – including those ossified Republican relics.  This has to mean something, right?  America has tried “change” in the Obama vein and is disappointed, yes?  Well, in a word, no.  First it is too early to predict how Obama will recover from these setbacks and second I’m afraid the president, despite his sinking poll numbers of late, represents a new breed of liberalism that has successfully adopted superficial conservative hues; in particular, conservatisms mild-mannered pragmatism.  Essentially, Obama has won the vital center by shrewd deception and still enjoys the support of those who might not agree with him on certain controversial issues, such as health care, Afghanistan-Pakistan, or bank bailouts, but who trust his judgment, nonetheless.  Like Reagan, he’s Teflon (for now.)

            The backlash Obama and the Democrats have faced this summer is, most likely, ephemeral.  The town hall meetings will eventually cease and the endless news cycle will make it all seem like a dream, as the angry voices of protest that once commanded front-page attention are lost to the archives.  I hope I’m wrong, but this is more than often the case; sustained popular outrage has a relatively short life expectancy.  If conservatives want to win in the future it will require a new language, a more tolerant and less rigid ideological platform, and exciting and articulate figures like William F. Buckley, Milton Friedman, and Ronald Reagan to lend action to ideas.  If you’ll notice, those three aforementioned heroes of the conservative cannon are no more.  Conservatism, though, can live on.  One, because it is the movement of the individual and his quest for self-improvement, not only for himself but his country and mankind, and two, because that quest is the ongoing story of the United States.

But, then again, I'm only 23 -- what do I know?

Let me begin by pronouncing the agreements that I share with Democrats. Or rather: let me be clear. The Earth is a gift from God, and is, aside from perhaps the feminine form, the most stunning thing in existence. No man alive is so base as to devalue what we have. This vehicle, like the Hand that created it, yields beyond sustenance and gives inspiration.

Now with that caveat out of the way, I submit that the Liberals, the Greens, and the Radical Left’s feel-good ideas of castrating the industrial machine are reckless and downright dangerous for America. The Left (and by extension the Democratic Party), in what has become an international battle royale for energy, prefers to surrender our arms and engines.  They are gruelingly unable to comprehend nuclear and fossil energy as a game-changing tactical weapon like steel and gunpowder. Nor are they able to accept that environmental stewardship treaties ratified by international bodies actually hold deliberate, ulterior motives to tightly bind America in other ways. And a shrugging regard at such powers is one of the most imminent dangers of the new century.

And to temper this sentiment, I believe that America can and should reduce its negative impact on the environment; namely by shifting from coal to nuclear power as a staple like France did and John McCain suggested. It seems that Liberals only like the bad ideas from Europe, but none of the good ones. As a case in point, we would have already reached the Kyoto emissions goals through the nuclear option that Republicans have proposed for years.

If President Bush had not pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol that President Clinton signed in 1997, we would have shouldered the burden of what other nations turn and ignore. Sadly, many of the global shirkers were Kyoto's chief architects within the European Union! Aside from ignoring the pollution of China and India which clearly no longer deserve special exemption, it held America to an unreasonable standard.

Europe's Performance:       

The European Union has had mixed results since signing the Kyoto Accord. Spain failed abysmally at achieving its goals and Italy approached underdeveloped Russia to buy carbon credits. To contextualize Russia’s position, the fall of the Soviet Union led to "Perestroika" and an industrial collapse, and Kyoto’s lax standards on Russia were assessed on this collapse. Similarly, Germany claims to have decreased their overall emissions. Yet, the integration of East Germany and the other ex-Soviet states (whose outmoded production stood to be revamped anyway) has tilted this statistic grossly. The reunification of West Germany to East Germany made it much easier to restructure the rusting coal-fired production of the Cold War. This overhaul was slated to happen anyway, making such a benchmark much easier to reach. Now having lived in Spain, I saw the staggering unemployment that fluctuated between 12-18%, and that is one thing that haunts me with upcoming legislations in the pipeline. Spanish Economist Gabriel Calzada detailed the consequences of these legislations in his “Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources,” which demonstrates the damaging falsehoods of the “green job,” whatever that is. According to this perplexed academe, the subsidy of every 1 green job costs 2.2 regular jobs through inefficiencies, displacement, and re-allocation, and he expects the same results in the United States with President Obama’s Cap-and-Trade deal.

The liberal admonitionary chatchprase that “the debate is over” has battered many eardrums, not just yours. In the video below is an interview with Ex Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain. It’s not in English, but I can tell you that he treats the question of climate change as we do in America. His affiliates call climate change a religion, fettered with dogma, and state we have a “blue planet, not a green one.” Like many in the US, he claims not to be a “denier,” as that label presupposes something to deny. He concludes by stating that the debate is not over, because it has yet to even commence, and that there has been a marked decay in parliamentary spirit and democratic debate in Spain in years past, and that people should return to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MD_bDfFaeI

China’s Performance:    

    The People’s Republic of China had recently surpassed the United States in CO2 emission in mid-2008, debunking the notion that America is the #1 offender.  But according to the environmental lunatics on the Left, we, The United States of America, must lead by example through blind faith and hope without assurance, that a military despotism like China will get warm fuzzies and turn green long after we have sacrificed trillions in GDP, millions of jobs, and the strategic high grounds that come with robust productive capacity. Yep. After watching America sadomasochistically self-immolate for a decade, China will want to join the rip-roarin’ fun!

India’s Performance:

Recently, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited India, and India’s Environmental Minister laid out a stalwart launch pad from which to negotiate future accords with the West. In short, he was not willing to sell his nation down the postmodern drain. I wish I could say the same for our leaders. Take a look for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyfJKgIQPXQ

Hillary’s refuted olive branch in New Delhi will be a microcosm of times to come, as we become the poor little match girl, passing from door to door and selling our eco-wares at no avail to a world hurtling in the opposite direction towards Ayn Rand.

The Ghosts of Energy Present and Future:

In America, we are a nation of people, not “masses” as the planeteers tend to esteem us. Hence, Carl Sagan’s hint at microbes having rights superseding those of humans will not fly far amidst a people unable to subtract anthropocentrism from stargazing, and who care little to imagine the giant unknowable workings of space and time after humans. Politically, it would be madness for a politico to expand his constituencies to mother earth, time, and space (gerrymandering would have to be done in either 3D or parsecs). The only manner in which to mobilize the public, or massage them into becoming pliant, would be to create a false sense of crisis, fear, and to literally demonize opposition as paid off or "flat-earthers." So it comes as no surprise that both Cap-and-Trade and ObamaCare are to be rushed. Despite that, the pending Waxman-Markey Bill puts forth many of the directives of “Old Europe” that will scare away manufacturing to the hills of Asia and Latin America. And Washington DC is counting on your docility to pass it.

Now according to the CIA World Factbook, America produces 14 trillion dollars in GDP as a total of our economy while China produces over 4 trillion. We dump 5.9 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere while China chugs out a full 6 billion. Now comparing the GDP in ratio to national emissions, a revelation emerges: We produce .00042 tons of CO2 per dollar of production. China produces .0015 tons of CO2 per dollar of production. So if cleanliness is the utmost goal, then the United States should already serve as an example to China, given that with a smaller population we produce more goods for the world at cleaner levels. 

Two points highlight China’s energy strategy for the 21st century: a petroleum highway and an emissions-free nuclear grid to make up for it. They already foresaw that T. Boone Pickens would abandon windfarms (which he did) and all the takeout joints in Hong Kong cannot accumulate the biodiesel grease to power fleets of buses. To put it another way: they’re not screwing around.  

According to Westinghouse Electric International, China has made it a national priority to build 100 nuclear power plants by 2020 (more resemblant of the Space Race than ObamaCare). And this national mobilization utilizes United States technology! Lord knows that the EU is already jacked into the atomic grid as well. We are not.

What’s the matter?  Did I frazzle your hippiemojo-windpower vibe and shatter your image of the avuncular T. Boone, who you learned was so hip during the hopeandchange era? Too bad, undergrad. It gets worse.

Aside from holding our debt, China is leveraging its surpluses to purchase assets around the globe, opening up trade channels to fan out their empire. Africa has become the next battlefield for resources, and China is pulling no punches in applying the same colonial takeover methodology as the powers of Europe did a century past. Nearly one third of all of China’s petroleum imports come from the African continent, and they have begun courting nations like Angola, The Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and yes…Sudan. With an economy growing at 9% for the past two decades, they are jealously vying for control of new sources of timber, coal, copper, and oil, and doing so in side by side competition with the United States. Traditionally, China has taken a hands-off approach towards meddling in the affairs of another nations (since they themselves have no desire for scrutiny), but has recently scrapped this diplomatic dogma by cozying up to local oil-friendly African nations and their government officials. A crux of their tactic has been to lay “investments” into roads, fiber optics, technology training, bridges, and other infrastructures that would otherwise bollix African nations to quickly build for themselves. This colonial paradox for a once insular power demonstrates that the searing growth of their nation has alarmingly trumped old wisdoms, and is goading them to do what it takes to win…Confucius be damned and anyone else who stands in their way.

In this quest to outbid America in global energy sources, arms have become a desired currency for petty dictators and warlords, and China is in no short supply. While Western powers have done the same for some time in supporting unsavory regimes for regional interest, the rabbit hole goes much deeper in China’s case. Dangerous regions like Sudan receive their arms shipments from China (and military trainers), while 60% of Sudanese oil output heads in the other direction. This transcontinental circulation of arms-for-oil has been used to curry favor with African members of the United Nations, allowing for more votes to disregard China’s human rights violations and it even compells African nations to rebuff the ineffectual African Union in overseeing Sino-African commerce in its own continent.

Brazil, the fastest-growing economy in Latin America and by far its largest nation, has announced that China has surpassed the United States as a trade partner in an historic demand sweep for iron ore. In February of this year, Brasil’s state-run oil company accepted a $10 billion-dollar loan deal from the People’s Republic of China, and agreed to supply China’s national oil company, SINOPEC, with petroleum output. Through decades of cultural drift from North America, and socialist Brazilian President Lula da Silva at the helm, who blames American capitalism for the global meltdown, totalitarian wheels have been set in motion in our own, western hemisphere.

An Old Bear, still tired of American power, has bellowed out a roar to be heard across Eurasia. It is common knowledge that Russia has been buying up utility companies in Eastern Europe, and providing shelter in the United Nations for Iran, a country with its own untapped resources. The recent invasion of Georgia and South Ossetia impinged into their Caucasus pipeline—one of the few pipelines that flows into Europe independently of Russia. It is no small wonder that Vladimir Putin threatened to sever the pipeline into Europe to keep the west at bay. 

The Final Word:

With exploding demand, China, Russia, and other hostile powers will continue to buy, to seek, and to prod for more economic hegemony, and weave it into their mutual fatigue with America’s superpower status. And what do they all have in common? They purchase assets with government-run oil companies, treating utilities like defense commodities and branching out with the backing of infinite subsidy under the guise of corporate buyout. And to add insult to injury, they are all exempt from Waxman-Markey and Kyoto mandates. Here in the States, we own literally oceans of natural gas beneath our bedrock, and deluvian reserves offshore. We even have three times the reserves of Saudi Arabia in the Rocky Mountains. All of this is capable of being transported with modern technology that has come a long way since the Exxon-Valdez spill ages ago; yet drilling remains illegal in spite of marvelous precautionary advances and a clean record since. This vainglorious distaste for black crude serves as an object of haughty disdain for the Liberal elite, and from others it is merely a reckless childishness regarding the stern realities of this world. Tanks are not powered on corn oil, F-22 fighter jets do not run on solar power, and aircraft carriers do not use windmills. We fuel these battle weapons with fossil fuels and nuclear reactors—the twin strategic pillars of the Republican energy platform and still the beverage of choice for the grown-up world.  

Nothin’ like the real thing. 

As I exit stage right with reminiscence, I recall President Bill Clinton rejecting a Republican push in 1995 to drill in ANWR, a frozen desert, claiming that the project would not yield oil until 2005. This stance would then contort into blatant denial when in 2008, the Democratic Party would then accuse Republicans of short-sightedness for wanting to drill in Palin Country. Fittingly enough, either party has yet to accuse China, a 4,000 year-old kingdom, of being short-sighted.

America is under siege. I suggest we start guarding our aqueducts. >>

Some times, you really have to wonder why politicians don't learn from the past. This week, Pete Hoekstra did the inexplicable: he declared that he would take public funding in the race for Michigan Governor.

Now Michigan has a 2-1 match. That is, for every dollar he raises, he gets 2 from the taxpayer. In exchange, he gets a cap on total spending. I have several thoughts on this:

First, John McCain tried this. He lost. And he lost for a reason. If you can't build the grassroots army to fund your campaign, you probably can't win.

Second, this funding only applies to the primary. He will need to raise huge resources for the general too. This hampers your ability to win the general because you haven't built your finance organization. And if he uses this in the general, then he could be at a real disadvantage.

Third, Hoekstra was really outspoken about campaign finance. He repeatedly criticized campaign finance bills throughout his career in the House. This displays a certain lack of principle...

Fourth, will struggling Michigan voters -- recall that this is the state with the highest unemployment rate in the country -- really want their taxes going to welfare for politicians?