PPC Trainings Are Back!
by elpresidente | 5:09 pm, January 16, 2012
Note: New location for Independence Institute
Are you ready for 2012, digitally speaking? People’s Press Collective announces “Digital Fundamentals” classes and seminars. ***Detailed Registration Information below***
What: PPC Digital Fundamentals training course
Where: New offices of Independence Institute
When: January 21 and January 28, 2012 from 9am-12noon (and more to come)
Cost: FREE
MUST RSVP by email to: services-at-peoplespresscollective-dot-org (Facebook RSVP does not count) Read more
The Presidents Regretable SOTU
by Kelly Sloan | 11:47 am, January 27, 2012
In what many hope was his last State of The Union address, President Obama offered listeners a campaign stump speech, the relevant parts of which were by turns contradictory, reductionist, and, ultimately, meaningless.
The first characteristic to stand out in the President’s speech was its overtly political nature – it was a clear campaign trail appeal, as opposed to an update on the national condition, the sort that most re-election-year presidents feel compelled to give. It was not overtly partisan, or at least less so than earlier speeches, except when he wanted it to be. And it carefully avoided or sidestepped … well, the last three years.
Obama is facing re-election this year with a record that is at best dim; unsustainably high unemployment, atmospheric levels of national debt, anemic growth, the national credit downgrade, and the clear failure of major policy initiatives such as healthcare reform and the stimulus package, to cover the high points on the domestic side.
In terms of foreign policy, a general continuation of the previous administrations wiser policies resulted in a handful of victories — such as the death of Osama Bin Laden – but an overall weak and shiftless approach to world affairs has created far more problems for America, including, despite the Presidents incredulous claims to the contrary, a strengthening of Iran’s alliances with countries such as Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela.
So Obama sought to use the SOTU as an opportunity to try and re-brand himself. I don’t necessarily begrudge him that – it is simply a feature of election year politics.
Other aspects of the speech were, however, more disappointing. One was the contradictory strain that carried throughout the address.
At one point in the speech, for instance, the President attempted to claim credit for a revival of American auto manufacturing, heaping praise on the auto industry bailouts, (forgetting apparently that Ford, which he mentioned as an example, neither asked for nor received any government money), and then, minutes later, remarked, “It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts.”
He spoke about the need for America to rely less on overseas oil, and the importance of energy jobs, only days after arbitrarily halting the Keystone pipeline project. He spoke of not begrudging financial success, and then proposed tax policies that would punish and prevent it. He spoke of the need for Americans to unite as one, and then launched into his class-warfare rhetoric, in what was the most passionate part of the entire address.
That, in fact, was its most regrettable feature. The speech, like the tone of the past several months, was an exercise in reductionism, diluting the dialogue into a false and simplistic “us vs. them” formulation.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the question of taxation. The so-called Buffett “rule” is pure economic sophistry. The 30 or so percent rate that Mr. Buffett’s ostentatiously present secretary reportedly pays is a wage based income tax. The much maligned 15% rate is a capital gains tax levied on investment income, which – a crucial point conveniently not mentioned by the President, Buffett, or their allies – has already been taxed once as either corporate or personal income, at the relevant rate, placing the real effective rate on that income in the neighborhood of 45%. Which, for my dear liberal readers, is higher than 30.
Obama’s proffered “solution” to this fallacious problem is to raise the capital gains tax by double. Contrary to a sane tax policy that would encourage such things as growth and investment, this is a direct tax on them. Raising that tax would invigorate nothing but the onset of an even worse economic catastrophe.
President Obama knows this. He also knows that in this election year with a Republican led House, and many Democratic Senators at risk politically, none of his ridiculous and dangerous ideas will ever find their way to his desk. He can get away, therefore, with making such irresponsible statements as campaign gimmicks.
The President said at one point, evoking President Lincoln, that “Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.” The problem is that he does not think the American people are capable of doing much for themselves. It is this distrust of the American people that fuels his speeches, his presidency and his reelection campaign. He is banking on a plurality of American voters remaining economically illiterate long enough to keep him in the White House.
Otherwise, this might very well have been his final State of the Union.
Seeing Stars: Who Needs to Compete When You Have the Government
by Randall Smith | 7:00 am, January 27, 2012
There's so little going on nationally of interest to me that I have shared only a single link. There's even more Colorado news but you'll have to read my previous posts.
May your links be merry and bright!
Colorado
- Another version of the DREAM Act his the floor of the state Senate. No matter how it gets dressed up, it's still subsidized education for illegal immigrants.
- In a highly biased article, the Chieftain reports that Scott Tipton is leading Sal Pace in the race for the 3rd CD.
- "[Bureaucracy] grows because businesses, trades and professions are always asking government to help them limit competition and thus keep prices up."
Everywhere else
- Oh, lovely. Another "green" company has gone belly up.
"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." -- Ronald Reagan
Original Post: PerlStalker's Ramblings
Seeing Stars: Who Needs to Compete When You Have the Government
by Randall Smith | 7:00 am, January 27, 2012
There's so little going on nationally of interest to me that I have shared only a single link. There's even more Colorado news but you'll have to read my previous posts.
May your links be merry and bright!
Colorado
- Another version of the DREAM Act his the floor of the state Senate. No matter how it gets dressed up, it's still subsidized education for illegal immigrants.
- In a highly biased article, the Chieftain reports that Scott Tipton is leading Sal Pace in the race for the 3rd CD.
- "[Bureaucracy] grows because businesses, trades and professions are always asking government to help them limit competition and thus keep prices up."
Everywhere else
- Oh, lovely. Another "green" company has gone belly up.
"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." -- Ronald Reagan
Original Post: PerlStalker's Ramblings
Senate Bill Pushed to End Forced Union Membership in Education
by Randall Smith | 9:26 pm, January 26, 2012
Okay, I'm cheating a little bit pulling two blog posts from the same link.
Also introduced Wednesday was Senate Bill 12-100, which would ban employers from requiring, as a condition of employment, employees to become or remain union or to pay dues to a union, charity or other third party. The bill would apply to school districts and higher education institutions.
This is a fabulous idea. It will never make it through the Senate where the Democrats will kill it. After all, much of their financial support comes from the teacher's unions.
I hate forced unionization. There's nothing that justifies forcing a person to join an organization whose positions they don't agree with. It's even worse when that organization gets to pull a percentage from your paycheck without your say so. I know Colorado WINS would just love to forcibly take two percent of my income regardless of the fact that I need that money to feed my kids and in spite of the fact that I oppose their agenda.
Government unions are a prime example of government largess and cronyism. Government unions rob their members to pay to elect politicians who then pass bills to give the unions more money and power. The circle continues and it's the taxpayers left holding the bag.
In the private sector, companies that give in to union demands eventually collapse. See the recent examples of Hostess, American Airlines and General Motors for proof. When those companies disappear, smaller, more agile and more efficient companies take their place. That's not true of government.
Government unions must be stopped and killing off their food supply is best way to do it. Stopping the money from being automatically withdrawn would be best but it's essential that employees have the freedom to not be part of such organizations if they don't want to.
Original Post: PerlStalker's Ramblings
American Heart Association Wants to Live of Colorado Taxpayers
by Randall Smith | 8:55 pm, January 26, 2012
Colorado students would have to know CPR and how to operate automated external defibrillators in order to graduate from high school under a new bill introduced Wednesday.
Look, I support first aid training for everyone who wants it. I was even on the board of my local Red Cross chapter for a while but I can't support this. Schools are have been unable to successfully teach the basics and now someone wants to throw another requirement in? No, thanks.
There's something else going here though which is amusing.
The bill is being pushed by the American Heart Association, which is advocating such legislation in other states.
The "someone" who's pushing this bill is the American Heart Association. It's easy to see, on the surface, why they'd want CPR taught. After all, they're all about heart safety. In fact, they offer classes in CPR. If this bill passes, do you thing schools are going to hire a new teacher to teach CPR to the students? Not likely. Instead, they'll contract that out to someone else like, say, the American Heart Association.
That's right friends and neighbors. AHA is pushing this bill and ones like it in other states so that they can have a guaranteed revenue stream paid for with your tax dollars. Just because the corporation is non-profit, doesn't mean it's not corporate welfare.
This bill needs to die like so many others of its type.
(via State Bill Colorado)
Original Post: PerlStalker's Ramblings
PUC “quasi-legislative”?
by amy | 4:44 pm, January 26, 2012
In testimony before the House Transportation Committee for his bill HB12-1016 (detailed earlier) on January 25, Rep. David Balmer stated that he considered introducing a bill that would strip the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) of any legislative authority.
Since the PUC apparently has “quasi-legislative” powers and “quasi-judicial” power, shouldn’t PUC commissioners be elected so that the people of Colorado have a say in the direction of utility, transportation, and telecommunications policy?
Balmer’s bill, which would have required more transparency in the PUC, was postponed indefinitely. Two legislators Representatives Glenn Vaad and Marsha Looper supported additional transparency.
Original Post: Energy Policy Center
School Choice Week Good News Trifecta: Nationwide, Arizona ESAs, Ohio Vouchers
by Eddie | 3:38 pm, January 26, 2012
While School Choice Week has me in a happy frenzy, it doesn’t leave me as much time for blogging. But in my few spare moments, I wanted to share a few timely developments fitting for this week’s big festivities:
- The Alliance for School Choice has released the latest version of the School Choice Yearbook… The big news? More than 210,000 students nationwide are enrolled in publicly-funded private educational choice programs, a 25 percent increase in just four years!
- Remember Education Savings Accounts, the cutting-edge school choice program with a superior design? Well, today a Maricopa County judge ruled that Arizona’s first-of-its-kind ESA program for special needs student was constitutional!
- Finally, speaking of special needs students, the Columbus Dispatch reports that Ohio is about to launch its fourth voucher program, the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship!
Good news on all three fronts. Before my hyperactivity takes over and my short attention span fades away, here’s one last call to invite you to this evening’s Kids Aren’t Cars movie night at the Independence Institute in Denver. Hope to see you there!
Original Post: Ed is Watching
Tags: Courts > Denver > Independence Institute > Parents > Private Schools > School Choice
Judge Rules Americans Can Be Forced to Testify Against Themselves
by Bob Adelmann | 12:57 pm, January 26, 2012
Judge Robert Blackburn of the U.S. District Court of Colorado ruled on Monday that a defendant must decrypt her laptop computer so that prosecutors can open the files containing data they need to complete building their case against her.
On May 14, 2010, the federal government executed search warrants at the home of Ramona Fricosu in Peyton, Colorado, looking for evidence in a case involving bank fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering as part of a real estate scam in which she and a partner were allegedly involved. During the search they removed a laptop computer which was encrypted with PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) software. When attempts by the government to open the files failed, they asked her to open the files for them. Following advice from her attorney, Phil DuBois, she turned them down, claiming protection under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.
DuBois says that the final deposition of the case will have a major impact on individual privacy in the digital age: The defendant can’t be obligated to help the government interpret those files which could be used against her in court.
Prosecutors, on the other hand, say that inability to obtain data from encrypted files would “harm the public interest” by allowing potential criminals to hide evidence that would defeat their efforts to prosecute them.
In the Fricosu case, the prosecutors claim that Continue reading Judge Rules Americans Can Be Forced to Testify Against Themselves
Original Post: Light from the Right » ppc
Tags: Constitution > Constitutional > Federal Government > Fifth Amendment > fraud > internet > Privacy > Real Estate > Supreme Court
Introducing AFP Colorado’s “Monkey Wrenching America” Website
by Kelly Sloan | 10:38 am, January 26, 2012
By Kelly Sloan
AFP Western Slope Coordinator
One of the characteristics of an election year, apart from a steady draught of absurdity, is a natural proclivity towards focusing all of our attention on candidates, races, and the attendant drama. And quite properly so; we have all seen what happens when eyes are too long deflected off the candidates.
However, such a preoccupation with things electoral has a tendency to divert our attention from the less flashy, background activities which make up the practical side of politics. Radical environmentalists attempting to throw a spike belt in the path of any energy development project that doesn’t involve the sun, wind, or duck-urine infused hemp leaves blessed by a pagan dance-offering to Gaea herself, for instance.
While the rest of us political junkies are are poring over the latest analysis of the candidates offered up by the punditry, settling in to watch the umpteenth debate of the month, placing illegal bets on who will bow out next, and filling up online comment sections with animadversions against a particular candidate, groups like Wild Earth Guardians, Earth Justice, and others are busy imposing their Luddite view of the world on everyone else, mainly through litigation – for which they are generally awarded court costs. Nice.
Fortunately, Americans For Prosperity Colorado (for whom, for the sake of disclosure, I serve as Western Slope Coordinator) has recently initiated a project to help keep a spotlight on such goings-on. Last week, AFP Colorado announced the launch of a new website, Monkey Wrenching America. Its stated raison d’etre:
to document the danger professional green extremists pose to America’s economy, limited government ideals and freedom-oriented way of life. The economic, fiscal, judicial and human costs of green monkey-wrenching activities aren’t as well-documented as they should be, because the establishment media becomes an unabashed cheerleader where the environmental movement is concerned. This website, and the stories and reports it hosts, will help document these excesses and bring some balance and reason to the public debate about environmental issues.
(From the website.)
For its inaugural feature, MonkeyWrenchingAmerica.com offers a bit piece by yours truly, reporting on the issue of the Piñon Ridge uranium mill (the first one to be built in the U.S.A. in over 30 years), and how the posh, Hollywood-liberal-playground town of Telluride – smugly nestled over 60 miles away from the proposed mill and the economically desperate towns near where it is to built – is using its Darryl Hannah et al supplied dollars to hire a lefty Washington DC litigation firm, Public Justice, to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the issuance of the mills permit. I shall make you go to the website for the details, but suffice to say that the inhabitants of the old-economy towns who are virtually begging (were they the type of people to beg, which they are not) for the jobs that the mill would provide, are less than thrilled with Telluride’s overbearing, dictatorial imposition of their political views from their little green, ski-lift equipped Kremlin.
This is the type of outrage that occurs on a nearly daily basis throughout America, particularly in the west, and on which AFP and MonkeyWrenchingAmerica.com will endeavor to illuminate. With any luck, before we are litigated back to horse, buggy, and torch-light.
Centennial City Council: Ethics Don’t Matter
by Julian Dunraven | 8:00 am, January 26, 2012
By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.
Honorable Friends,
Imagine that you are preparing to attend a dinner party. Before leaving the house, you furtively glance out the windows to ensure your stalker is not parked out front waiting for you. Despite your efforts, however, once you begin driving to your destination, the stalker pulls behind you and follows you to your destination. When you return home, the phone rings. You answer only to hear the stalker happily announce that you should come outside; she is parked in your driveway.
These are just a few of the disturbing incidents which led Eileen Mahony, a public policy consultant and board member of the People’s Press Collective, to file an ethics complaint against Centennial City Council member Sue Bosier. From the complaint, it seems Ms. Bosier solicited the political support of Ms. Mahony and met with refusal. Unwilling to take “No,” for an answer, the complaint alleges that Ms. Bosier attempted to pressure Ms. Mahony into compliance with what amounts to stalking behavior.
On Monday night, Centennial City Council met to determine whether to proceed with an ethics investigation. Ms. Bosier is no stranger to this process. In 2011, she received censure for ethics violations involving lying to police officers and stealing campaign yard signs. That incident apparently exhausted the City Council. While most of the members indicated they believed Ms. Bosier acted inappropriately, and even offered apologies to Ms. Mahony for having to suffer through such conduct from a public official, they declined to pursue any ethics investigation. Ethics, they explained, are just too much of a bother.
Seeming to recognize how absurd that sounds, Mayor Cathy Noon attempted to justify the Council’s position. She explained that, while the Council knows Ms. Bosier has a tendency to act inappropriately, the City’s ethics code is just too weak to have any substantive impact. Thus, ethics investigations are just too much of a bother to pursue. She went on to say that the Council has been meaning to change the ethics code for about two years, but just has not ever gotten around to doing it. She then again offered apologies and moved on with business.
Undoubtedly, Mayor Noon’s is correct that the Centennial City Council’s ethics code is weak and ineffectual. The Council has apparently known this for two years. Why, then, the Council has done nothing to change it despite knowing that at least one of their members consistently exhibits appallingly unprofessional behavior is a mystery.
In the digital era, a time when so much of human behavior is instant, unrecorded, and unseen, ethics have become more important than ever before. Since the Enron disaster and then the economic crisis, the public has continually called for stronger ethics rules for both the government and private sectors. Private businesses, law offices, and government agencies, appreciative of the public concern, are all trying desperately to maintain, or even strengthen, strict codes of ethics, accountability, and transparency. In Centennial, however, ethics are merely inconvenient and bothersome.
If you believe that ethics actually do matter; that our public officials should be held to high standards of conduct, and that our citizens should be able to count on our governing bodies to enforce those standards, then I encourage you to contact the Centennial City Council. Tell the members that ethics should not be dismissed as too inconvenient to consider.
Translating Obama’s energy policy
by amy | 7:55 am, January 26, 2012
President Barack Obama will be in Colorado today at Buckley Air Force Base promoting his new “all-of-the-above” energy policy. He’s delivering his remarks to a “closed audience” that includes “local energy stakeholders” (translation: rent seekers). We acquired a “fact sheet” about the President’s new direction for energy on which his speech will be based. Since most of us didn’t make the invite list, Michael Sandoval and I have taken the liberty of translating what this new approach to energy policy really means.
FACT SHEET: President Obama’s Blueprint to Make The Most of America’s Energy Resources
In his State of the Union Address, President Obama laid out a Blueprint for an America Built to Last, underscoring his commitment to an all-of-the-above approach that develops every available source of American energy. This commitment includes the safe and responsible production of our oil and natural gas resources.
Translation: We’ll pay lip service to the reasonable “all-of-the-above” energy advocates, but don’t worry anti-fossil fuel crowd. “Safe and responsible” are relative terms that are invoked to kill any oil and gas project that the green enthusiasts deem eco-unfriendly such as the Keystone pipeline.
Today, American oil production is at the highest level in eight years and last year we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past 16 years.
Translation: production is high because of advancements in technology such as hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling not because this administration is a fan of fossil fuels. The drop in demand for imported oil is the consequence of a dismal economy and gas prices up 83 percent since the president took office.
At the same time, the President believes we need to double-down on clean energy in the United States. Transitioning to cleaner sources of energy will enhance our national security, protect the environment and public health, and grow our economy and create new jobs. Over the past few years, renewable energy use has nearly doubled. In fact, in 2011, the United States reclaimed the position as the world’s leading investor in clean energy – but staying on top will depend on smart, aggressive action moving forward.
Translation: Doubling-down on “clean energy” means an increase in importation of the rare earth minerals that comprise components in every major green technology—wind turbines, solar panels, and hybrid vehicle batteries. China controls 95 percent of the rare earth production, threatening national security. Chinese environmental regulations are virtually non-existent, failing to protect the environment in China or the public health of Chinese citizens, and produce tons of toxic waste trailings, radioactive debris, and millions of gallons of acid water—according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s August 2011 study, “Investigating Rare Earth Element Mine Development in EPA Region 8 and Potential Environmental Impacts.”
As for growing the economy and creating new jobs, the administration’s record is replete with examples of government-subsidized crony capitalist failures like Solyndra, or smoke-and-mirrors reports from “clean energy” advocacy firms. Actual government reports produced by Colorado’s Governor’s Energy Office and the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment detail the difficulty of actually defining “clean energy” jobs or tracing their creation.
The green job creation that is reported tends to be a product of the numbers promised by politicians and touted by industry advocates, not subject to objective standards of scrutiny, or remembered once the business venture fails. The administration touts the doubling of renewable energy use—well, when the figures provided from the Energy Information Administration (yes, it exists) show wind and solar composing just 1.3 percent of U.S. energy consumption in 2010, then yes, that growth can be overinflated. As for “investment” in “clean energy,” when it comes to government subsidies of any kind, the money comes from taxpayers domestically and from borrowing overseas, including China.
President Obama will begin the second day of his post-State of the Union swing with an event at a UPS facility in Las Vegas, focusing on the importance of American workers developing American-made energy for an economy that’s built to last. Following this event, the President will travel to Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colorado to deliver remarks on American energy and the steps his Administration is taking to promote energy security.
Translation: The administration has been gambling with poor taxpayer “investment” in businesses like Solyndra, so Las Vegas makes sense.
President Obama’s Plan to Advance Safe Production of Oil and Gas Resources To Create Jobs, Enhance Energy Security, and Cut Pollution.
Translation: President Obama will expand his carbon footprint exponentially trying to explain his vision of American energy policy.
Make a new lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico to move forward on our national commitment to safe and responsible oil and gas development: In his State of the Union Address, the President directed the Department of Interior to finalize a national offshore energy plan that makes 75% of our potential offshore resources available for development by opening new areas for drilling in the Gulf and Alaska. On Thursday, the President will take a concrete step forward to develop our oil and gas resources, announcing that the Department of Interior will hold a new lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico. This lease sale will make approximately 38 million acres available, and could result in the production of 1 billion barrels of oil and 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Translation: Plans during an election year are flaky at best—and the likelihood of the administration abandoning key constituencies by eschewing previous calls for bans and moratoriums would be a true reversal of energy policy, and one unlikely to take place any time soon. We’ll check and see if that lease sale takes place, and whether or not those resources are allowed to develop or held up “indefinitely” pending more “clarification” or other environmental regulation impediments.
Promote safe, responsible development of the near 100-year supply of natural gas, supporting more than 600,000 jobs while ensuring public health and safety: In 2009, we became the world’s leading producer of natural gas. In the State of the Union, the President directed the Administration to ensure safe shale gas development that, according to independent estimates, will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. These actions will include moving forward with common-sense new rules to require disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking operations on public lands.
Translation: We’ll give lip service to natural gas and hydraulic fracturing, but we really plan to appease our wealthy, elitist, eco-unreasonable donors and regulate fracking out of existence. The reality is that even small changes in environmental regulations surrounding fracking will lead to moratoriums and bans as companies fall afoul of disclosure requirements and other permitting processes freeze up.
Reducing our dependence on oil by encouraging greater use of natural gas in transportation: The President’s plan includes: proposing new incentives for medium- and heavy-duty trucks that run on natural gas or other alternative fuels; launching a competitive grant program to support communities to overcome the barriers to natural gas vehicle deployment; developing transportation corridors that allow trucks fueled by liquefied natural gas to transport goods; and supporting programs to convert municipal buses and trucks to run on natural gas and to find new ways to convert and store natural gas.
Translation: Son of “cash for clunkers.” We’ll force taxpayers to borrow even more to trash perfectly usable vehicles because we don’t like “dirty oil.”
Harnessing American ingenuity to catalyze breakthrough technologies for natural gas: The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) will announce a new research competition in the coming months that will engage our country’s brightest scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to find ways to harness our abundant supplies of domestic natural gas to lessen our dependence of foreign oil for vehicles. The breakthrough technologies they will develop, whether they are for new ways to fuel our cars with natural gas or a method to turn that gas into liquid fuel, promise to break our dependence on foreign oil for our cars and trucks, allow us to breathe cleaner air, and ultimately save consumers at the pump. To date ARPA-E has hosted four rounds of competitions and attracted over 5000 applications from research teams, which has resulted in approximately 180 cutting edge projects.
Translation: part of our overall strategy to kill all fossil fuels by meddling with the natural gas industry.
The President’s Commitment to Clean Energy
Doubling the share of electricity from clean energy sources by 2035: The centerpiece of the Administration’s strategy is a Clean Energy Standard, or “CES” – a flexible approach that harnesses American ingenuity and innovation, and channels it toward a clean energy future. By creating a market here at home for innovative clean energy technologies, we will unleash the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs and ensure that America leads the world in clean energy.
Translation: We will continue to pick market winners and losers by force-subsidizing “clean energy” through CES standards designed to inflate the “demand” for expensive energy. These phony energy markets collapse—as we’ve seen time and again in Europe—once the government subsidies are removed due to financial collapse in EU countries like Germany and the Netherlands. Also, by artificially increasing our dependence on Chinese-produced rare earth minerals for all of the components critical to wind and solar energy production, we will be less about “clean energy” here at home than “dirty energy” somewhere else.
Supporting clean energy with targeted tax incentives: The President supports renewing and extending a number of proven and successful provisions that are crucial to the continued growth of the domestic clean energy sector. This includes tax incentives for clean energy manufacturing, which could create up to 100,000 jobs, and the Production Tax Credit to support investment in the deployment of clean energy technologies like wind and solar.
Translation: We don’t care if Solyndra and Evergreen Solar burned through taxpayer cash and went bankrupt because we love toxic solar panels and raptor shredding wind turbines. Despite billions of dollars already “invested” in green jobs, we’ve failed to produce many jobs, but we’ll continue to perpetuate the myth that we can waste taxpayer money and create “green” jobs at the same time. The notion that an entire industry—wind turbine energy production—will disappear without tax credits speaks to the fragility and lack of actual demand for that type of energy in a free market. Also, rather than “create” jobs, the tax credit would likely, at best, “save” the already subsidized jobs “created” through artificial demand as a result of Renewable Energy Standards and other government-imposed regulations.
Opening public lands for private investments in clean energy: To enhance energy security and create new jobs, the Department of the Interior is committed to issuing permits for 10 gigawatts of renewable generation capacity – enough to power 3 million homes – from new projects on our public lands by the end of 2012.
Translation: Environmental degradation doesn’t matter when it comes to “green”energy that is neither green nor clean. Each MW of wind-produced energy requires tons of rare earth minerals to build each turbine’s generator, and each ton of rare earths is accompanied by the aforementioned toxic waste, acid water, and radioactive trailings. Do the math. Once again, the administration seems to think, as does the American Wind Energy Association and other advocates that wind turbines spring pre-formed with the tapping of the ground, sprouting from bulbs like so many Dutch windmills. Nevermind the transportation costs and the sprawl required to house the wind farms or solar arrays. Or sensitive species like the lesser prairie chicken, whose existence could stall wind energy development in Oklahoma if it fails to garner an exemption in being listed as an endangered species. In the hierarchy of green, which will take precedent according to the administration—the endangered chicken or the wind turbine?
Securing renewable energy for the U.S. Navy: Securing a safe, clean and reliable energy supply for our nation’s defense forces is essential to carrying out missions vital to the security of the United States. The Department of Navy has committed to adding 1 gigawatt of renewable energy produced from sources like solar, wind, and geothermal to its energy portfolio for shore-side installations – enough to power 250,000 homes. Using existing authorities such as power purchase agreements, the Navy will ensure these energy projects are cost neutral and require no up-front investments by the government.
Translation: We’ll shift the up-front cost of acquiring energy through power purchase agreements to the taxpayers in some other fashion, most likely through the subsidies, tax credits, and other “investments” that create the energy sources in any producer’s energy portfolio. The Department of Defense has already begun to push for 25 percent renewable energy requirements by 2020, and to expand research into military applications of thin-film solar energy production. While we cut military spending in areas of troop size, we”ll actually spend more taxpayer money in the future because we want expensive, unreliable “renewable energy” that requires backup generation.
Note from the Energy Policy Center at the Independence Institute: We are agnostic on energy sources. We believe in affordable, abundant and reliable energy. Let consumers decide from which resource they would like to purchase their power.
While we welcome the president’s new approach of an “all-of-the-above” energy policy, actions speak louder than words. As we have detailed repeatedly, the policies of this administration have led to the massive waste of taxpayer dollars, increased environmental degradation, higher energy prices, and a dangerous dependence on China making American energy less secure than it was when he took office.
Original Post: Energy Policy Center
Tags: Archive > Colorado energy policy > green jobs > new energy economy > renewable energy > solar energy > wind energy
Seeing Stars: Collapsible Schools
by Randall Smith | 7:00 am, January 26, 2012
Yes, a number of Colorado schools are of the collapsible variety. Work is being done to shore up the poor design of an incompetent at Neenan Co. who designed the buildings. I wonder how many of these schools will be repaired before Neenan goes bankrupt.
It's linking time!
Colorado
- Every state funded school build by Neenan Co., including two in Alamosa, have serious structural problems.
- Colorado's high-risk health pool is running twice the cost of the US average. Count me among the unsurprised.
- Legislators are working up a bill that would give college credit for work and military experience. I have a better idea. Eliminate the general education requirements. That will eliminate at least a year of study unrelated to a student's future career.
Everywhere else
- The USDA has issued their new dietary rules for schools. Here's a great idea. Let's serve more food that kids won't eat.
- A memo from Obama's economic team shows that they knew exactly what they were doing.
Original Post: PerlStalker's Ramblings
Tags: Alamosa > Department of Agriculture > higher ed > Seeing Stars
World Economic Forum in Switzerland: Global Elites Celebrating Hypocrisy
by Bob Adelmann | 5:36 am, January 26, 2012
Global elites—many of the 2,500 of them billionaires—are spending a few days in Davos, Switzerland, attending the World Economic Forum (WEF), a group founded in 1971 “committed to improving the state of the world.”
The state of the world doesn’t appear too rosy. The recent downgrades of major economies, the clamor over perceived income inequality, the crisis in the Eurozone, and other concerns are weighing heavily on the participants. Vikas Oberoi, chairman of India’s second-largest real estate developer, observed, “Many who will be in Davos are the people being blamed for economic inequalities. I hope it’s not just about glamour and people having a big party.” Azim Premji, chairman of India’s third-largest software company, was equally somber: “We have seen in 2011 what ignoring this aspect can result in. If we don’t take cognizance of it and try to solve this problem, it can create a chaotic upheaval globally.”
Not just the movers and shakers were expressing concern, either. Mainstream economists were of one mind about the world economy, agreeing with the downbeat report from the International Monetary Fund on January 24 which reduced its economic growth outlook for 2012 significantly, predicting at least a “mild recession” in Europe and the rest of the world to slow further from its current tepid pace.
Carmen Reinhart of the Peterson Institute for International Economics agreed that there will be a “serious economic crunch [with] another sub-par year of stubbornly high unemployment, weak growth and delayed recovery in general in all the advanced economies.” Professor Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University, also on the roster of attendees, said that the IMF might be underestimating the projected difficulties and that the crisis will be “all the worse because of the weakness of appropriate government response.”
Manpower CEO Jeff Joerres admitted, “Twelve months ago we were all looking forward to a pretty good 2011. Twelve months later, here we are in a completely different world.” That was the tone set by the founder of the WEF, Klaus Schwab, in his opening remarks. The problem is that capitalism, according to Schwab, is failing and that Continue reading World Economic Forum in Switzerland: Global Elites Celebrating Hypocrisy
Original Post: Light from the Right » ppc
Tags: Austerity > Capitalism > Constitution > Council on Foreign Relations > economy > Euro > European Central Bank > Eurozone > foreign policy > Gary North > Greece > International Monetary Fund > New World Order > Real Estate > recession > spending > unemployment
Fracking bills: regulations in search of problems
by amy | 3:24 pm, January 25, 2012
Two bills concerning hydraulic fracturing can be summarized best as excessive regulations in search of problems. I consulted with Doug Flanders, director of policy and external affairs for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA), who provides a summary of each bill citing statistics from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), the state agency charged with the “responsible development of Colorado’s oil and gas natural resources.”
Bill Summaries
HB12-1173 Restrictions on the Use of Open Pits in Connection with Hydraulic Fracturing
House Sponsors: Roger Wilson (D-HD 61)
Senate Sponsors: None
Rep Wilson wants to ban all hydraulic fracturing open pits. It’s a little like other “zero tolerance” policies, which always have negative unintended consequences. Besides, the trend already is toward a closed loop system as Flanders explains:
According to the COGCC, the percentage of well pads utilizing closed loop or pitless drilling systems has increased from 31% in January 2010 to 79% in March 2011 and that number continues to rise. The COGCC considers many factors when reviewing permit applications for surface operations, all of which are designed to protect the health, welfare, and safety of the surrounding population. COGC Rule 907 provides general requirements to ensure that exploration and production waste is properly stored, handled, transported, treated, recycled, and disposed. Operators are encouraged to: reduce the quantity and toxicity of their waste; recycle, reuse and reclaim it; treat it to reduce toxicity; and dispose of it in a manner that protects the environment. Several of the 900 Series Rules require simple practices for reducing waste toxicity and volume, including: removing oil and condensate before produced water is placed in a production pit (Rule 907.c) and subsequent removal of any accumulation within 24 hours (Rule 902.c).
Prediction: Rep. Wilson apparently is not a fan of hydraulic fracturing, but the majority of House members are. This bill dies in committee.
HB12-1176 Oil and Gas Surface Owner Horizontal Drilling Setbacks
House Sponsors: Su Ryden (D-HD 36), Dickey Lee Hullinghorst (D-HD 10), Matt Jones (D-HD 12), Nancy Todd (D-HD 41), and Wilson
Senate Sponsors: None
Another bill going after hydraulic fracturing with a reasonable sounding title, but in reality the details reveal burdensome and unnecessary regulations with severe negative consequences including reducing the regulatory discretion of the COGGG. Most dangerous is the expanded definition of “surface owner” which would allow for the violation of private property rights as Flanders explains in his summary:
COGCC has already looked at wells in subdivisions and determined 300 feet as the appropriate distance for public safety in high density residential areas. However, at their discretion, the COGCC can determine that a greater distance is required. COGCC has been tracking setback metrics since the adoption of the amended rules on December 17, 2008. Of the 4836 well locations sited during this period, 91% or 4410 are 500 feet or greater from a building structure. (And buildings are often not residences.)
The value of the surface to homebuilders should be considered in determining any setbacks. If there is an existing well, then any new homes or schools would also have to be 1000 feet from the existing well.
The bill also changes the definition of a surface owner to be more than just the owner of the land where the oil and gas operations occur, but would also include any land which overlays the horizontal path of the operations if hydraulic fracturing occurs, despite that fact that horizontal drilling can extend over one mile in length and over a mile and half in below the surface. This would unnecessarily hinder drilling operations below surface that would not impact surface buildings.
Prediction: Reason will prevail in the House. This bill will die in committee.
Final Thoughts
Those who thought environmentalists would tolerate development of natural gas as a “clean” technology along side wind and solar were mistaken.
There could be one less sponsor of anti-fracking legislation next year, Rep Wilson was drawn out of his current House district and will not seek re-election.
Remember to check the energy blog for updates on all energy legislation. We read this stuff so you don’t have to.
Original Post: Energy Policy Center
Tags: Archive > COGA > Dickey Lee Hullinghorst > Hydraulic Fracturing > Matt Jones > new energy economy
SCOTUS decision on warrantless GPS surveillance produces an expected friend of privacy
by Eileen McGuire-Mahony | 3:00 pm, January 25, 2012
Read the news long enough and you will find yourself agreeing with people you never thought you could like.
Such as Sonia Sotomayor.
Earlier this week, in U.S. v. Jones, the nine wise souls of Washington ruled – and unanimously at that – that planting a wireless GPS on a man’s car constitutes a search. Given that the search was carried out sans warrant, the search and the man’s ensuing conviction was thrown out.
All in all, twas a nice surprise in a country that seems to be sliding toward less and less privacy all the time. The decision was a very narrow one; writing for the Court, Scalia noted that covertly tracking a man’s every movement for nearly a month would violate a reasonable man’s “expectation of privacy.” That, however, was tempered; as the actions that led to conviction constituted a search and as the search was bad, the entire thing fell apart on Fourth Amendment issues – there was no need to delve into reasonable, subjective expectations of privacy in the case at hand.
What’s interesting is Sotomayor’s concurring opinion, one in which she notes the massive role that electronically conveyed data have come to play and suggests the time has come for a broader re-imagining of what privacy means and how the Fourth Amendment ought to be applied. Read more
Sigh. Romney.
by Joshua Sharf | 2:25 pm, January 25, 2012
Michael Barone, that walking encyclopedia of American political history, has often made the comparison between the development of the Tea Party and the entry of the peaceniks into American political life:
Both movements represent a surge in political activity by hundreds of thousands, even millions, of previously uninvolved citizens.
Both movements focused on what are undeniably central, not peripheral, political issues: war and peace, the size and scope of government.
Both movements initially proclaimed themselves nonpartisan or bipartisan, but quickly channeled their efforts into one political party — the peace movement in the Democratic party, the tea-party movement in the Republican party.
…
But new movements prove troublesome for the political pros, and nowhere more than in the most problematic part of our political system, the presidential nominating process. (Is it just a coincidence that this is the one part of the system not mentioned at all in the Constitution?)
Peaceniks and tea partiers naturally want nominees who are true to their vision. They are ready to support newcomers and little-vetted challengers over veteran incumbents who have voted the wrong way on issues they care about.
But the things that make candidates attractive to movements can also make them unattractive to independent voters.
The Democrats struggled with this in the 1968, 1972, and 1976 cycles. The old-timers pushed through the accomplished Hubert Humphrey over the diffident Eugene McCarthy in 1968, but they lost to George McGovern in 1972. He was a more serious candidate than is generally remembered, but he did lose 49 states to Richard Nixon.
The anti-war movement didn’t get started in earnest until 1967, and Lyndon Johnson didn’t declare his intention not to run again until early 1968. The lateness of the primary calendar made it possible for Bobby Kennedy to declare late, and their paucity made it possible for the party elders to anoint Humphrey regardless of those votes. By 1972, the McGovernites had taken over the levers of power, opened up the primaries, and made most of them proportional. This insured a longer primary campaign, and did nothing to prevent a credentials fight over the Illinois delegation at the Convention. In the event, McGovern was nominated with fewer than 60% of the delegates, and defeated with less than 38% of the vote. The military defeatism and the electoral defeats helped usher the Scoop Jackson Democrats out of the party and, eventually, Ronald Reagan into the White House. The Democrats would elect the center-left but feckless Carter, and the decidedly un-peacenik DLC founder Bill Clinton, and it wouldn’t be until 2008 that they elected Obama in an encore of the first anti-war movement.
The Tea Party, while nascent in 2007, didn’t really gather steam until early 2009, almost four years ahead of the next Presidential election, and the Republicans in 2012 have likewise done away with early winner-take-all primaries. So it probably sits somewhere between anti-War 1968 and isolationist 1972. The Establishment is weakened, but not dead yet. If nominating Romney would be more like 1968, giving Gingrich the nod would look a lot more like 1972.
Of course, as Mark Twain said, history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme. Republicans not being Democrats, should Romney be the nominee, he likely won’t have to accept the nomination in the middle of police putting down riots from disgruntled Tea Party members. It’s unlikely that large cuts in spending will lead many Republicans into a socialist Exodus.
The similarities are alarming enough. Just as Humprhey’s defeat helped discredit the old liberalism, so a Romney defeat – or even a Romney presidency – could finish the job of discrediting vanilla conservatism that George W. Bush started, and open the door for a 1972-like candidacy by a Rand Paul-like figure. I don’t think I’m unduly cynical when I say that that very hope has led some in the libertarian wing of the party to campaign against Daniels, Perry, or Pawlenty as “not conservative,” or “not presidential,” while being willing to go along with a Romney nomination. (They’ll be disappointed. That so many in the Tea Party have cast their lot with Gingrich rather than the catastrophically irresponsible Ron Paul is actually a healthy sign that the word “conservative” will not be re-branded to mean “libertarian.”)
Republicans are looking for a conservative who is both ideologically grounded and a practical politician. While that may have been on offer earlier in the process, it’s not now, with the nomination fight now looking like that Star Trek episode where Kirk divides into two separate personalities, one nice but passive, the other more aggressive and less principled.
Romney’s problem is that even if you consider his public persona to be authentic, he seems rather timid for a man who built his career risking capital at the gaming tables of private equity. A early Marco Rubio endorser, he has Chris Christie’s support, but campaigns like Charlie Crist. His reaction to individual Social Security accounts as fiscally irresponsible confirms his image as narrowly technocratic. He campaigns as the safe, sane, sober, responsible alternative to both Gingrich and Obama, and it may well be that the American people want safe, sane, sober, and responsible after the drama of the last four years, even if it does represent a lost opportunity to do more.
Those who caricature Gingrich’s appeal as mere media-hatred, though, miss the point. Such an appeal, while superficial, isn’t just limited to Republicans; ask Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Showing backbone in clear, simple terms is not nothing, although it’s not enough. And it seems to give way to an opportunism of its own at inconvenient moments.
I’m not sure that Gingrich would lead to a 1964-type down-ticket meltdown. At the beginning of 1972, Nixon’s Gallup approval ratings were well over 50%, and stayed there until the onset of Watergate. Obama has nowhere near that level of public support, and an impending Presidential defeat would let Senate and House Republicans campaign all the more effectively as a check on Obama’s power. In 1972, the Democrats picked up a net 2 seats in the Senate, and lost only 13 seats of a 255-seat pre-election caucus in the House. Johnson’s approvals touched 80% when his party went from 258 to 295 seats in the House, and from 64 to 66 seats in the Senate. Even a Gingrich candidacy wouldn’t result in that kind of wipeout, although it would probably cost us a shot at the Senate.
Sadly, that might be enough. Unlike the Democrats, we can’t afford to wander in the political wilderness for another couple of decades. If Obama were re-elected, and we failed to retake the Senate, Obamacare would be permanently enshrined into law, and the American citizen transformed into a subject. Obama is willing to use executive power up to and beyond the fullest extent permissible by law. Congress’s best means of asserting its part of the check-and-balance system is the power of the purse. But Senate Democrats have deprived Congress of that power, putting government spending on auto-pilot by not even bringing a budget up for a vote. So failing to take the Senate would put all the burden back on the House Republicans to find a credible way to threaten – and if need be, go through with – a government shutdown, without committing political suicide in the process.
If nominating Romney is enough to help us carry the Senate, even if it isn’t enough to get us back to the White House, it will put the party in a position of strength to challenge him, especially given the Senate partisan profile up for re-election in 2014.
This isn’t a matter of giving in to the Establishment. If there were no other credible choices, if this were 2008, post-Colorado, and I were left with a meaningless vote, that would be one thing. But there’s nothing the matter with concluding that while the party Establishment was too quick to line up behind Romney in the first place, I can make my own choice to support him now, for my own reasons, at a time when my vote – fortunately – still matters. It’s called deciding, and that’s a very different thing from having something decided for you.
To this extent, Barone’s final paragraph is instructive: “Tea partiers will grouse if Romney is nominated. But maybe they need patience and perseverance. One lesson of history is that a movement can reshape a party. Another is that it takes time.”
Original Post: View From a Height » PPC
Tags: 2012 Presidential Race > Mitt Romney > National Politics > Newt Gingrich > President 2012
Questions about Baker’s ability to serve on the PUC
by amy | 1:22 pm, January 25, 2012
Conventional wisdom in energy policy circles says that Governor John Hickenlooper will re-appoint current Public Utilities Commissioner Matt Baker to another four-year term on the PUC. His State Senate confirmation will be a mere formality, but it shouldn’t be.
Serious questions linger about his lack of honesty regarding energy costs and his ability to be an independent regulator.
Rather than regulate Colorado’s investor-owned utilities, the environmental activist-turned-regulator Baker is more interested in advancing his green energy agenda to the detriment of Colorado ratepayers. He and former PUC Chairman Ron Binz (whose own re-appointment was derailed with an ethics violation after which he withdrew his name for consideration) were instrumental in negotiating the language of HB 1365, a senseless fuel-switching bill and the “crown jewel” of Bill Ritter’s New Energy Economy that will cost ratepayers more than $1 billion.
After a stint at Colorado Public Interest Research Group (CoPIRG), Baker subsequently helmed the advocacy group Environment Colorado from 2003 until his elevation by Ritter to the PUC in 2008. During his tenure he led the campaign for 2004’s Amendment 37 requiring utilities to implement renewable energy standards. Ritter lauded the “architect” of the – now – 30 percent renewable energy standard as a “champion of Colorado’s environment and consumer rights.”
But Baker’s love affair with renewable energy prevents him from being objective about Colorado energy policy and thus not honest with the people he is charged with serving – eroding consumer rights and driving up energy costs with regulatory sleight of hand.
In a recent op-ed in RenewablesBiz.com, Baker gushes over the advancement of his green agenda. He repeats one the biggest renewable falsehoods green activists have perpetuated on Colorado ratepayers: Colorado’s largest utility Xcel Energy can acquire 30 percent of its power from expensive renewable sources while keeping a cap on electric rates.
Most ratepayers believe that means that the renewable energy mandate – energy from sources such as wind and solar – will only cost them an additional two percent on their electric bill. “While Colorado’s largest utility, Xcel Energy, has exceeded its goals, it has stayed within the 2 percent cap set by the legislature,” says Baker.
It is true Xcel stayed within the two percent rate cap line item labeled the Renewable Electric Standard Adjustment (RESA) on customers’ electric bills. But it is not true that the RESA represents the real, total cost of renewable energy to Xcel ratepayers, and Bakers knows it.
Two years ago in the “Great Green Deception,” the Independence Institute exposed how the PUC allows Xcel to hide the real cost of renewable energy by utilizing two line items on a ratepayer’s bill. Customers pay two percent of their bill through RESA, but the balance of the total cost of renewable energy is captured through another fund – the Electric Commodity Adjustment (ECA) – that is likely the second largest line item cost.
The practice continues today as Xcel’s Robin Kittel explained in direct testimony to the PUC regarding its 2012 Renewable Energy Standard Compliance Plan. According to Kittel, Xcel recovers the cost of renewable energy “through a combination of the RESA and ECA.”
The ECA is NOT subject to the legislatively mandated two percent rate cap. The Public Utility Commission staff’s William Dalton acknowledged the PUC’s role in confusing the public about the rate cap in his September 2009 testimony before the commission:
“This could be a point of confusion to ratepayers and other interested parties…The costs above the retail rate impact limit are recovered through other Commission approved cost recovery mechanisms, primarily the ECA. [Emphasis ours] Once the renewable energy resource cost recovery is allocated to the ECA, cost recovery of these resources is no longer subject to retail rate impact criteria or cost cap.”
According to Xcel’s 2012 Renewable Energy Compliance Plan, ECA costs were $35,280,340 in 2011, but will explode by more than 1000 percent to $354,819,209 in 2021 (thanks also to Colorado’s $20 per ton “phantom carbon tax”). Yet Xcel and Baker can claim to be within the two percent rate cap for the RESA.
It is easy to be angry with Xcel for all the cost shifting shenanigans, but the blame should be placed on lawmakers and PUC commissioners. At best Baker is being disingenuous with Colorado ratepayers. At worst, he is flat out lying about the real costs of renewable energy in order to advance his own personal agenda.
Matt Baker’s re-appointment and confirmation should not be a rubber stamp. Colorado ratepayers deserve better.
Amy Oliver Cooke and Michael Sandoval co-authored this post.
Original Post: Energy Policy Center
Tags: Archive > HB 1365 > Matt Baker > new energy economy > PUC > renewable energy > Ron Binz > Xcel Energy
Ideas of the Tea Party Survey
by Ari Armstrong | 12:14 pm, January 25, 2012
Self-identified Tea Partiers are welcome to reply to this survey. Readers are also encouraged to alert their Tea Party friends about it.Ideas of the Tea Party Survey
The goal of this survey is to better understand where Tea Partiers get their ideas. If you are a self-identified Tea Partier, you are welcome to respond to this survey by February 10, 2012. By responding to this survey, you grant Ari Armstrong the right to publish your responses, in full or in part, without restrictions. However, you may request that your replies remain anonymous for publication purposes. Please email replies to ari (atsign) freecolorado (dot) com.
1. What is your name? Do you grant permission to publish your name with your survey responses, or do you prefer to remain anonymous for publication purposes?
2. What city and state do you live in?
3. What is your primary occupation?
4. If you have a Bachelor's degree or higher, please list your major(s) and degree(s).
5. Did you become politically active through the Tea Party movement? How long have you been active in politics?
6. Besides the Tea Party label, how do you usually describe yourself in terms of your political commitments? If any of the following apply, please list them: conservative, Republican, independent, Christian conservative, fiscal conservative, free-market activist, libertarian, classical liberal, Objectivist.
7. Through what channels do you share your ideas with others? If you use any of the following means, please briefly explain how: social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), electronic email list, radio show, podcast, blog, regular newspaper column, occasional letters to newspapers, organize or participate in politically-oriented meetings or discussion groups.
8. What (if any) ideological or political organizations do you contribute to financially or volunteer to support?
9. Were you exposed to free-market ideas in college? If so, please briefly explain how.
10. What are your main, regular sources of politically-related ideas and information? Please list the most significant radio shows, TV shows, publications, blogs, organizations, or writers that you turn to on a regular basis.
11. Have you read any books since the rise of the modern Tea Party movement that have strongly influenced your political ideas? If so, which ones?
12. For each of the following figures, please briefly explain whether you have heard of the figure, whether he or she has influenced you, and, if so, how:
a) Milton Friedman
b) Friedrich Hayek
c) Ayn Rand
d) Henry Hazlitt
e) Ludwig von Mises
f) Thomas Sowell
13. Besides the figures already listed, have any scholars, intellectuals, or religious leaders strongly influenced your political ideas? If so, please name them and briefly explain how they influenced you.
Thank you for your replies! Please feel free to forward this survey to others in the Tea Party movement.
Ari Armstrong
http://FreeColorado.com/
Original Post: Free Colorado
Ideas of the Tea Party Survey
by Ari Armstrong | 12:14 pm, January 25, 2012
Self-identified Tea Partiers are welcome to reply to this survey. Readers are also encouraged to alert their Tea Party friends about it.Ideas of the Tea Party Survey
The goal of this survey is to better understand where Tea Partiers get their ideas. If you are a self-identified Tea Partier, you are welcome to respond to this survey by February 10, 2012. By responding to this survey, you grant Ari Armstrong the right to publish your responses, in full or in part, without restrictions. However, you may request that your replies remain anonymous for publication purposes. Please email replies to ari (atsign) freecolorado (dot) com.
1. What is your name? Do you grant permission to publish your name with your survey responses, or do you prefer to remain anonymous for publication purposes?
2. What city and state do you live in?
3. What is your primary occupation?
4. If you have a Bachelor's degree or higher, please list your major(s) and degree(s).
5. Did you become politically active through the Tea Party movement? How long have you been active in politics?
6. Besides the Tea Party label, how do you usually describe yourself in terms of your political commitments? If any of the following apply, please list them: conservative, Republican, independent, Christian conservative, fiscal conservative, free-market activist, libertarian, classical liberal, Objectivist.
7. Through what channels do you share your ideas with others? If you use any of the following means, please briefly explain how: social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), electronic email list, radio show, podcast, blog, regular newspaper column, occasional letters to newspapers, organize or participate in politically-oriented meetings or discussion groups.
8. What (if any) ideological or political organizations do you contribute to financially or volunteer to support?
9. Were you exposed to free-market ideas in college? If so, please briefly explain how.
10. What are your main, regular sources of politically-related ideas and information? Please list the most significant radio shows, TV shows, publications, blogs, organizations, or writers that you turn to on a regular basis.
11. Have you read any books since the rise of the modern Tea Party movement that have strongly influenced your political ideas? If so, which ones?
12. For each of the following figures, please briefly explain whether you have heard of the figure, whether he or she has influenced you, and, if so, how:
a) Milton Friedman
b) Friedrich Hayek
c) Ayn Rand
d) Henry Hazlitt
e) Ludwig von Mises
f) Thomas Sowell
13. Besides the figures already listed, have any scholars, intellectuals, or religious leaders strongly influenced your political ideas? If so, please name them and briefly explain how they influenced you.
Thank you for your replies! Please feel free to forward this survey to others in the Tea Party movement.
Ari Armstrong
http://FreeColorado.com/
Original Post: Free Colorado
Ideas of the Tea Party Survey
by Ari Armstrong | 12:14 pm, January 25, 2012
Self-identified Tea Partiers are welcome to reply to this survey. Readers are also encouraged to alert their Tea Party friends about it.Ideas of the Tea Party Survey
The goal of this survey is to better understand where Tea Partiers get their ideas. If you are a self-identified Tea Partier, you are welcome to respond to this survey by February 10, 2012. By responding to this survey, you grant Ari Armstrong the right to publish your responses, in full or in part, without restrictions. However, you may request that your replies remain anonymous for publication purposes. Please email replies to ari (atsign) freecolorado (dot) com.
1. What is your name? Do you grant permission to publish your name with your survey responses, or do you prefer to remain anonymous for publication purposes?
2. What city and state do you live in?
3. What is your primary occupation?
4. If you have a Bachelor's degree or higher, please list your major(s) and degree(s).
5. Did you become politically active through the Tea Party movement? How long have you been active in politics?
6. Besides the Tea Party label, how do you usually describe yourself in terms of your political commitments? If any of the following apply, please list them: conservative, Republican, independent, Christian conservative, fiscal conservative, free-market activist, libertarian, classical liberal, Objectivist.
7. Through what channels do you share your ideas with others? If you use any of the following means, please briefly explain how: social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), electronic email list, radio show, podcast, blog, regular newspaper column, occasional letters to newspapers, organize or participate in politically-oriented meetings or discussion groups.
8. What (if any) ideological or political organizations do you contribute to financially or volunteer to support?
9. Were you exposed to free-market ideas in college? If so, please briefly explain how.
10. What are your main, regular sources of politically-related ideas and information? Please list the most significant radio shows, TV shows, publications, blogs, organizations, or writers that you turn to on a regular basis.
11. Have you read any books since the rise of the modern Tea Party movement that have strongly influenced your political ideas? If so, which ones?
12. For each of the following figures, please briefly explain whether you have heard of the figure, whether he or she has influenced you, and, if so, how:
a) Milton Friedman
b) Friedrich Hayek
c) Ayn Rand
d) Henry Hazlitt
e) Ludwig von Mises
f) Thomas Sowell
13. Besides the figures already listed, have any scholars, intellectuals, or religious leaders strongly influenced your political ideas? If so, please name them and briefly explain how they influenced you.
Thank you for your replies! Please feel free to forward this survey to others in the Tea Party movement.
Ari Armstrong
http://FreeColorado.com/
Original Post: Free Colorado
In which the Washington Bureau Chief still doesn’t get foreigners
by Eileen McGuire-Mahony | 12:00 pm, January 25, 2012
One must suppose any state with a functioning hereditary monarchy has let obsession with the rich and famous get out of hand. Here in the states, we got rid of royalty and replaced it with Hollywood, the U.S. Senate, and drunk Kennedys. These individuals support a rip-roaring pulp journalism industry, which those of us with degrees pretend not to read.
Across the pond, its football players, shadows ministers, and drunk Windsors, but the same theory applies. The recent kerfuffle over widespread phone hacking has focused keen eyes on British tabloid and their excesses. Which has led to the Levenson Inquiry on Press Standards (why start now, say I). Editors of ‘celebrity magazines’ have apparently been receptive, coldly as that may be, to the Inquiry’s idea that a ‘Privacy List’ be established, on which the famous who do not wish to be photographed might enroll.
Hmmmm.
It seems that the U.K.’s motley crew of sensationalist papers have their own board, and they (sometimes) abide by the rules of something called the Press Complaints Commission (PCC). The PCC is itself a nascent creation, brought about last summer in the wake of the News of the World scandal. Now, to my American mind, the British (nay, the European) attitude toward celebrity privacy is, at times, goofy. If you don’t want to be famous, you don’t need to be. Wash your soiled linen in private, keep your own counsel, and behave yourself in public. If those of us with personal entourages can manage it, so can you, darling.
Be that as it may, I will also admit journalists are, not infrequently, vicious. But what is noteworthy here is that the action that so incensed people involved hacking into the phone of a dead girl and, by showing activity on her voicemail, leading police and her family to falsely believe she was alive. Why is it that fallout of such horrific intrusion on private citizens is being met with chatter about how better to suit the whims of celebrities? Read more
I am Still Here!
by Jon Caldara | 9:15 am, January 25, 2012
Since my late night radio show on 850 KOA ended last week, I’ve been bombarded with the most heart warming messages from fans on my blog, on my Facebook wall (both of them), via Twitter, on YouTube, in person, and through email. It’s sometimes difficult for me to fully understand the kind of impact my radio show and commentary has had on people over the years, so all this outpouring of love from you guys means a whole lot. I cannot thank you enough for your support.
Getting all this love the past week from so many people from all over the country got me thinking: I wonder what someone on the Left thinks about me leaving nightly radio… hmmmm… and then the phone rang. It was Jason Salzman. He wanted some commentary from me on leaving my nightly radio spot for his blog, The Big Media Blog. We chatted for awhile and in no time, I got to read his latest blog post about me. I’m glad he will miss me. And I’m glad he decided to publish some of the best material I gave him. Thanks for giving us the Left’s perspective Jason.
However, I wonder if most people on the Left believe I was “advancing evil” every night like Jason does.
Whether you think my ideas are evil or not, you can still listen to me spew something on the radio on a weekly basis. I have a new time slot, this time on 630 KHOW. That’s right, you didn’t get rid of me yet! I’ll be on KHOW from 5 to 8pm every Sunday, with appearances on both KOA and KHOW as a fill-in host when needed. Which means now I’ve got a regular gig AND I’ll be coming out of the bullpen in relief. And don’t forget about my Public Television channel 12 show, Devils Advocate!
Thanks again to everyone who left me encouraging messages. It means a lot. For those on Left who thought I’d go away quietly. Sorry. I’m still here.
Original Post: Jon Caldara » PPC
Tags: 630 KHOW > 850 koa > Caldara > Devil's Advocate > Jason Salzman > jon caldara > media > Radio > the cauldron
Lt. Gov. Garcia: Kids Can’t Learn Without the Nanny State
by Randall Smith | 8:32 am, January 25, 2012
Colorado's Early Childhood Education Commission wants womb to workforce "guidance" of students.
“Early literacy, we know, is a key to long-term education success,” said Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia, who was instrumental in developing the plan. “We also know it’s not something that begins and ends in third grade, or even begins in kindergarten. It really begins at birth.”
Okay, I'm with you so far. We started teaching our kids early and, by the time they were kindergarten age, they were doing second grade material. At that point, we decided that homeschooling would be a better choice but it goes to show that kids are ready for academic learning much earlier than people realize. They're not always ready for school but they are certainly ready for the ABCs and 123s at three and four.
It transcends digestion of the written word and hinges on the interplay of nutrition, health care and other support services government provides to families, Garcia said.
Wait, what? Did he really just say that kids can't be educated without huge nanny-state programs? It sounds like another round of "it's for the children" to create new government programs and protect existing ones from cuts.
The article goes on to talk, briefly, about the pros and cons of higher standards for childcare centers. Having high standards isn't a bad thing in and of itself but increasing the standards will almost certainly increase the costs of childcare. If a family can still afford childcare, they will have even less money for the rest of the family's needs.
The increased cost of childcare will then provide lawmakers with an excuse to create another big government program to confiscate money from everyone to help pay for childcare for "the poor". Don't forget Lt. Gov Garcia's claim that all of the other government support services are essential. The have to have more of your money, too.
This is sounding more and more like another big government power grab. Don't worry though. "It's for the children."
Original Post: PerlStalker's Ramblings
Tags: Joe Garcia > nanny state
You didn’t want your Fifth Amendment rights, anyway, did you?
by Eileen McGuire-Mahony | 8:00 am, January 25, 2012
Monday afternoon, a federal judge in Denver ordered a criminal defendant to turn over a decrypted version of her entire hard drive.
Yes, that alone should have you sweating bullets.
Worse yet, the woman, Ramona Fricosu, has only been immunized for the act of producing the material, not for anything that might be found. The courts openly sought to force her to produce incriminating evidence and a judge smiled on that idea.
Legal types can (and likely, will) go on ad infinitum about the precise wording of the ruling and the meaning of every last comma. I myself indulged in a little when the case’s decision was still imminent. Fricosu may have held there are case-specific facts that make the defendant’s Fifth Amendment claim legally invalid, but this is not a good sign that future cases will
Hair splitting sophistry aside, this realistically is a sign the government is no longer even pretending not to be waging war on privacy. Anyone with regard for their personal life is now going to need to go much further than merely encrypting a drive – and encrypting an entire computer is not a ‘nothing’ step toward describing privacy.
The usual rejoinder from naive sorts convinced the state never spies on ‘good’ people and from the state itself is the tired old ‘If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to hide’ trope. Indeed, that’s just what the U.S. Attorney’s office implied in applying for Fricosu’s compelled decryption, explicitly saying that allowing the woman to decline to decrypt her computer would set a precedent allowing terrorists, child rapists, and other assorted creeps to get away with anything; and implicitly stating that the only people who ever actually try to protect their privacy must be nefarious and reprehensible.
Directions for seeking compelled decryption came from D.C., a clear signal that this was never a standard procedure undertaken in Denver; this case always represented the opportunity for the state to move one step closer to rendering any encryption and data protection available to civilians utterly moot. Anyone who has followed the tenor of civil rights and privacy since 9/11 won’t be surprised. On all things related to how far the government can go in surveilling tax payers, Bush felt, and Obama feels, that nothing is too far.
Already, we are operating in a theater where ISP providers must save user records for longer and longer spans; where many of the companies that hold your data will turn it over to the state on request, rather than requiring a subpoena or warrant; and where the government openly seeks to require that any encryption technologies have backdoors for the government.
We are told the awesome privilege of snooping through the most personal papers of 300-some-million Americans will be available only to those who ‘need’ it and will be used sparingly. However, that the state is willing to trample on the Bill of Rights itself to prosecute what is, in the end, a minor criminal trial – nothing at all to do with the twin stand-bys of terrorism and child predation -should tell us very differently.
Savvy types have already thought through the implications of how someone could retain a meaningful Fifth Amendment claim in the face of courts who clearly see that right as an inconvenience, but no one tuned in to this debate thinks the trend is anywhere other than toward decreasing privacy and, thus, decreasing privacy, which ultimately means decreasing freedom.
Seeing Stars: Rerun of the Union
by Randall Smith | 7:00 am, January 25, 2012
Obama used his State of the Union speech to push socialism. Again. And again, he dragged out the line that it's not "fair" that a wealthy person might pay a lower overall percentage that his secretary. If I were the Republicans in the House, I would have a quick and ready answer and it's simple. Just say, "We agree," and introduce a Flat Tax. The pitch goes something like this:
"We agree with President Obama that it is totally unfair for a rich man to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary. Therefore, we are introducing this Flat Tax that will ensure that everyone pays the same rate. We are sure that President Obama's plan to ensure a fair tax will pass quickly and that the Senate will pass President Obama's plan."
Obviously, I'm not a speech writer but you get the idea. Republicans can use President Obama's own words -- his own demands for "fairness" -- to push the Flat Tax. They can get out in front of the spin and build off of Obama's own speech. Every time they talk about the bill, they should tie Obama to it. Yes, he'd get some credit for it if it passes but I'm okay with that. On the other hand, tying him to it means that he gets to take his share of the blow back and it gives the Republicans legislators a hammer to wield in Congress. Every time a Democrat speaks out against it Republicans can respond with "We don't understand why Senator So-and-so doesn't want to support a fair tax rate like President Obama called for."
Sadly, I think the Republicans in the House are too timid to do it.
Anyway, on to the links.
Colorado
- Fraudulent ballots were cast in Colorado and Kansas. How can that be when Democrats keep trying to convince us that there's no voter fraud thus no need for voter ID.
Everywhere else
- Mitt Romney followed through with promise to release his tax returns. The Blaze has the breakdown for you. He donated more to charities than was confiscated by the Federal government.
- The Fifth Amendment took another hit when a Colorado judge ruled that Ramona Fricosu is required to turn over the encryption keys to her laptop.
- Who's up for nationwide drone surveillance by DHS?
- Obama's State of the Union was last night. Hot Air has linked to both Obama's speech and Mitch Daniels' rebuttal. Heritage has their own reaction.
- What's the point of being President if you can't use your power to benefit your friends at the expense of the rest of the country.
"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts." -- Will Rogers
Original Post: PerlStalker's Ramblings
Tags: Flat Tax > Mitt Romney > state of the union > voter ID
Keynesian Economists Finally Catch Up and Agree: China to Have Hard Landing
by Bob Adelmann | 5:31 am, January 25, 2012
Mainstream economist Robert Samuelson admitted last week that the case for the ending of the economic boom in China has some substance. Keynesian economist Paul Krugman also confirmed that China is in trouble and questioned its ability to avoid a hard landing.
Samuelson raised rhetorical questions about China’s economic future, all with the same answer: “Could the world’s economic juggernaut, having grown an average of 10 percent annually for three decades, face a slowdown…or a recession?” Yes, it could. “Does it have a real estate ‘bubble’ about to ‘pop?’ ” Yes, it does. Could that have “global consequences?” Yes, it will.
Noting that Nomura Securities is predicting a one-in-three possibility of a hard landing—defined as a drop in China’s GDP to five percent or less—Samuelson said that such a sharp slowdown “would raise unemployment and social discontent” with consequences similar to the start of the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009 in the United States. Samuelson admitted that the Chinese government has created Continue reading Keynesian Economists Finally Catch Up and Agree: China to Have Hard Landing
Original Post: Light from the Right » ppc
Tags: Austrian School > China > economy > Great Recession > Inflation > International Monetary Fund > Keynesian > Real Estate > recession > unemployment
Commerce City should consult with Greeley before fracking vote
by amy | 10:22 pm, January 24, 2012
Commerce City is twisting itself in knots over whether or not to allow hydraulic fracturing within its city limits. The City Council delayed the moratorium vote for another month so it could discuss the issue further according to reports from 9 News.
Commerce City officials would be wise to head north and seek counsel from Greeley. In an interview on the Amy Oliver Show, Greeley Mayor Tom Norton revealed that the city has roughly 200 wells within its boundaries that are hydraulically fractured. It’s been going on for years, and he has no cause for concern. Furthermore, the wells serve as a revenue stream for the city.
With more than 18,000 wells, 90 percent of which are hydraulically fractured, Greeley and Weld County have proven that oil and gas can peacefully and environmentally co-exist with landowners, including those in urban areas.
Commerce City residents have no reason to fear hydraulically fracturing. In fact the only people who should be afraid of fracking are those who make money selling Middle East oil to the United States. In our new energy economy, we have the Saudis running scared.
Original Post: Energy Policy Center
Tags: Amy Oliver Show > Archive > Hydraulic Fracturing > new energy economy > Weld County
VIDEO: Losing Local Voices in Colorado Media
by Jon Caldara | 1:48 pm, January 24, 2012
Original Post: Jon Caldara » PPC
Tags: Caldara > Devil's Advocate > jon caldara > Local > media > the cauldron
Foundation Gives High-Performing Poorer Denver Area Schools Cause to Celebrate
by Eddie | 12:59 pm, January 24, 2012
Today’s lead story at Ed News Colorado highlights the disparity in private parent and community giving within Denver Public Schools. Reporter Charlie Brennan notes that no school raked in more than the nearly $230,000 at Bromwell Elementary, a school with a low 8 percent study poverty rate. The general findings are no surprise, yet nonetheless disappointing:
At the other end of the poverty – and fund-raising – spectrum is Johnson Elementary in southwest Denver, which reported fewer than $3,000 in private gifts in 2010-11.
If a donation of five or six figures came through the door of the school, where 96 percent of students are low-income, said Principal Robert Beam, “You’d be writing a story about a principal who is dancing in the streets all day long.”
The timing of the story is remarkable. Why? Yesterday substantial checks went out to 14 metro area public schools and 2 public charter management organizations (CMOs) serving high-poverty student populations, with awards totaling $500,000. And they didn’t just go out to schools based on need, but to schools with a proven record of serving their students well:
Award winners were selected based on a variety of factors, including academic performance and growth, percentage of students qualifying for the Federal free and reduced lunch benefit, school culture, leadership, and instructional effectiveness.
So states the media release from the benefactor Foundation For Great Schools, a coalition of five private Colorado foundations, including the Daniels Fund (which also helps support my Education Policy Center friends). When they cite “academic performance and growth,” they aren’t kidding. All 16 recipients earn an A or B from the new Colorado School Grades site:
- Montview Math and Science Elementary (Aurora)
- Tollgate Elementary (Aurora)
- South Elementary (Brighton)
- Ricardo Flores Magon Academy (Charter School Institute – Westminster)
- Community Leadership Academy middle school (Charter School Institute – Commerce City)
- Beach Court Elementary (Denver)
- Bryant Webster Dual Language K-8 middle school (Denver)
- Denver School of Science and Technology CMO (Denver)
- Girls Athletic Leadership School (Denver)
- Greenwood ECE-8 middle school (Denver)
- KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy (Denver)
- West Denver Prep CMO (Denver)
- Deane Elementary (Jeffco)
- Stein Elementary (Jeffco)
- East Elementary (Littleton)
- Valley View K-8 elementary school (Mapleton)
I haven’t seen any reports indicating increased street-dancing activity taking place near any of the above schools. Yet while various kinds of celebrations may take place at each of those centers of learning, I will study up on the definition of this great word philanthropy. Remember: You can find more information on Colorado schools and the open enrollment process at the fantastic, parent-friendly School Choice for Kids website.
Original Post: Ed is Watching
Tags: Denver > Elementary School > High School > Independence Institute > learning > Middle School > Parents > Principals > Public Charter Schools > School Accountability > School Choice > Urban Schools
The Beauty of Private Property—from China?
by Bob Adelmann | 12:17 pm, January 24, 2012
A farmer in the communist collective of Xiaogang, a small village in eastern China, was starving, along with his family and his neighbors. At one of the political indoctrination classes he was forced to attend, Yan Junchang had a revolutionary idea: why not try privatizing the farms and letting the farmers keep what they grow?
He huddled together in his hut with a number of other farmers and, in 1978, signed a secret agreement to establish the beginnings of a private property society. It had to be kept secret because if they were found out, they would be considered “capitalist roaders,” a pejorative term first used by Mao to describe anyone who dared introduce any principles of private capitalism into his collectivist society.
Prior to the agreement, starvation was the rule. There was never enough food. Children went hungry, and wives were forced to make soup from tree leaves and bark. They went to other villages to beg only to discover that they were suffering as well. In 1958 the village population was 120. After Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” 67 of them had died of starvation.
Yan’s agreement divided the collectivist farm into individual pieces with the understanding that any excess food crop beyond what was required by the collective they could keep for themselves. As Yan explained:
Original Post: Light from the Right » ppc
Tags: Capitalism > China > communism > Constitution > economy > free market > History > private property
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