Thursday, July 02, 2009

Larwyn's Linx: Another Tea-Bagging Racist

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email! or reply via Twitter.

Nation

President Obama's Unemployment Promises: Wizbang
Times Square Tea Party Report: Instapundit
Clinton urged Obama to talk tough on Iran: Times

Slashing the Military to Pre-9/11 Levels: Tank
Obama's true colors shine: AT (Shiver)
Follow the Money: the John Murtha Story: Burns (Video)

Health Care

Rationing Health Care the Canadian Way: Stossel

Economy

No climate debate? Yes, there is: Jacoby
Video: Pelosi’s national energy tax: Morrissey
Cap-and-Tax requires home renovations before sale: GWP

World

Afghanistan Operations: Hatless
Falun Gong help students break Iranian regime's censorship: TAB
It begins: Israel drops purchase of US weapon systems: NeoX

Hands Off Honduras: LegalIns
China News: Obama's Economic Reform Is In Conformity With Marxist Doctrine: GWP
Maybe these are the moderate Taliban Obama told us about: Taliban buying children for suicide bombers: Times

Media

Fox News surges to record primetime ratings: JWF
Blue on Blue: Helen Thomas hammers Gibbs: Hot Air
Ziegler shreds Politico reporter on Palin: Hot Air

Cornucopia

ARVN Nights, IA Days: Crittenden
Don't Trust Your Brain: Rubicon3

Today's Podcast

Mark Levin, 30 June 2009: Mark Levin Show

Headline: "U.S. 'ready' for N. Korean missile" (Washington Times)

So a Democrat commander-in-chief is going to deploy the same weapon system for which he's slashed funding, which his party has mocked for decades, which his party has ruthlessly tried to kill, and which their partners in the media derided as "Star Wars" and claimed "would never work".

Do I have that about right? -- Me. Just now.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

The Club



Hat tip: Papa B -- one of my favorite paintings. Linked by: Patriot Room and Common Sense Junction. Thanks!

Wondering who's behind all of these Obamacare ads?


Have you noticed all of the pro-Obamacare ads running in primetime?

Ever wondered who's behind them?

I'll give you one guess.

That's right: the SEIU -- a.k.a. ACORN -- a.k.a. Socialists -- a.k.a...

Your George Soros-controlled, far left Democrat Party.


Related:
RED ALERT -- La Raza: "If the American people found out..."
Top 10 Questions ABC's Infomercial 'Forgot' to Ask
Cold Chills and Assisted Suicide: Why Every Senior Must Oppose Democrats' Health Care Plans
The curious case of 200 nearly identical MSM headlines

Linked by: Double Plus Undead. Thanks!


Best. Idea. Ever. Cap-and-Trade for Congress.


You know the Cap-and-Trade bill that Democrats narrowly passed late last week? The bill -- the ill-named "American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009, H.R. 2454") -- consists of well over a thousand pages of government intrusions into every aspect of our lives.

Among other things, the bill regulates farming; fertilizers; animal husbandry and animal diets; feedstock; soil; light bulbs; home mortgages; banking; power generation and transmission; water and sewer systems; manufacturing; building codes; land use (forested, cleared, wetlands, etc); "manure management"; and creates gigantic new government bureaucracies (unionized, of course) to regulate, control, monitor and audit American citizens. It even reaches into your neighborhood and overrides Home Owners Assocation agreements.

Most importantly for companies, it specifies "emission allowances" for carbon dioxide. You know, the stuff that plants breathe and we exhale. Somehow, the environmental, flat-Earth, no-growth Marxists were able to have it categorized as a pollutant. Worked out well for California, didn't it? But I digress. The bill assigns companies the right to emit carbon dioxide. Industry can trade those rights, but each year the amount of CO2 they emit is ratcheted down. Thirty years from now, the amount of CO2 is supposed to be roughly one-fifth of what it is today. The goal would appear to be to transform the U.S. into Somalia (their CO2 emissions are very low).

The emission allowance schedule looks like this (Sec. 721):


2012 4,627
2013 4,544
2014 5,099
2015 5,003
2016 5,482
2017 5,375
2018 5,269
2019 5,162
2020 5,056
2021 4,903
2022 4,751
2023 4,599
2024 4,446

2025 4,294
2026 4,142
2027 3,990
2028 3,837
2029 3,685
2030 3,533
2031 3,408
2032 3,283
2033 3,158
2034 3,033
2035 2,908
2036 2,784
2037 2,659

2038 2,534
2039 2,409
2040 2,284
2041 2,159
2042 2,034
2043 1,910
2044 1,785
2045 1,660
2046 1,535
2047 1,410
2048 1,285
2049 1,160

An epiphany struck me after seeing this schedule: what if we slapped a similar cap-and-trade on Congress, only it would be their spending they'd have to reduce?

Let's take the defense and intelligence communities out of the mix. They seem to be good stewards of our money and, hell, they're protecting our country from harm, which is more than we can say for Congress.

No, the truly outrageous offenders are the government bureaucracies that endlessly grow, never improving taxpayers' lives while formulating new regulations and rules to further empower themselves.

So here's how my Cap-and-Trade plan works.

We start with the most useless government agencies we can find. The Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, The Department of Health and Human Services, The Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency, the FCC and Amtrak. For the sake of argument, let's say that together, they consume $250 billion a year.

Congress' job? They would be required to cut spending for these ridiculous bureaucracies according to the following schedule (which I had a lot of fun creating -- all numbers in billions).


2012 250
2013 210
2014 190
2015 160
2016 140
2017 120
2018 110
2019 100
2020 90
2021 75
2022 60
2023 50

Pay-cuts? Layoffs? Closing unnecessary facilities? Who gives a crap? That's for them to figure out.

How do you like Cap-and-trade now, Democrats?



Linked by: Boker Tov, Boulder, Cheat Seeking Missiles and Wolf Howling. Thanks!

Larwyn's Linx: Everything Inside the State

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email! or reply via Twitter.

Nation

Everything inside the state: Doc Zero
EPA suppressed report skeptical of warming: CNet
Video: EPA dissenter Alan Carlin speaks: Malkin

What will she do for an encore?: Power Line
More Dem Scandals: Stabenow, Conyers Linked: GWP
The Conyers Corruption Probe Deepens: BlogProf

Franken Wins: Power Line
Franken ruled winner, thanks to 2,812 dead voters: Red State
Democrats refuse to stand for Pledge of Allegiance: Hot Air

The $3.5 billion climate bill payoff for Kaptur: Times
NOW conference infiltrated by NOW members: ReclLeft
Obama and the 'Noble Lie': Hanson

Judge: go after ACORN!: Blogster

Health Care

Pelosi won't let public review Obamacare bill: CNS
Where Will Canada Send its Preemies?: AIP
Because Universal Healthcare is so 'wonderful': Toldjah

Economy

Where's Krugman? Times' retirement plan hit by $154M loss: BJ
May San Diego Home Sales Increase Revised From 89% to 6.5%: Zero Hedge
Starve the Beast: Denninger

Climatologist slams RealClimate.org: Depot
Does the GOP have a shot at attracting black voters?: PJM (Farrow)
GOP to 6 Dems Who Voted for Energy Tax: Say Hello to My Little Friend: PatRoom

World

Banana Democrats: IBD
Neda Never Strapped On A Bomb: LegalIns
United By Hate: The uses of anti-Semitism in Chávez’s Venezuela: S, C & A

Al Qaeda threatens France over burqa: PJM (Chesler)
Okay, concedo; the world is nuts: Anchoress
The Ugly Face of Liberalism: AT (Duke)

Media

Purdum's Hit Piece Example of 'Palin Derangement Syndrome': NewsBusters
Another reason to throw McCain under the bus: Riehl
What media bias? Newspaper Columnists Give Palin 'Sitting Duck' Award: E&P

MSM ignores Germany, Hungary tax cuts: NewsBusters

Cornucopia

Hyundai Ad Pulls Out All the Stops: Denny (Graphic language)

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Was His Birth Foretold?


It works for Luke Skywalker... and Neo... and Barack Obama...

A paradigm some teachers use for wrestling literature into submission is a checklist for heroes. Students may not see many of the different strata of a great story. They might miss the symbolism or the message or how the story applies to their own lives or the lives of others. Now I'm not necessarily endorsing the checklist (often called the Monomyth as laid out by Joseph Campbell), and I'm certainly not saying it's the only way to get the most out of the layers of stories that twang something deep inside us but we can't quite articulate why they do so. Generally, though, stories of heroes which last from generation to generation tend to deal with many of the issues in this list:

• Oracle of conflict
• Significant birth (often miraculous)
• Hiding of the child/exposure
• Rescue and rustic rearing
• Preparation and Meditation, withdrawal
• Call to adventure
• Departure on Quest
• Road of Trials/Tests/Tribulations
• Ritualized (often) death or scapegoating
• Descent into the underworld
• Rebirth
• Atonement with Father/God (apotheosis)

Think about it in terms of significant figures from history, and it after a while you begin to say, "Yeah, yeah... I see that. Yeah, it's just like Jesus, or King Arthur, or..."

Read the rest at Denny's place.


The new bumper stickers are here! The new bumper stickers are here!


Papa B sent these in. And my usual caveat applies: no one ever said Papa B was politically correct.

Obama's Stim-u-Loss Package: Get Your Blood Pressure Meds


On CNBC today (hat tip: Tyler Durden), Merrill Lynch Economist David Rosenberg had some discomfiting news for those betting on a quick recovery.

"...Although jobless claims have peaked, they've been over 600,000 for what, about 20 weeks in a row... consistent with job losses and a higher unemployment rate...and what's very interesting about this particular cycle is that companies have let go 8,000,000 workers... and we have the work-week at a record low of 33 hours. So what's gonna happen is, even if these 'green shoots' turn out to be something more significant and we get a recovery, companies are going to take their part-time workers... and raise people's hours, so the traditional 100 to 150 thousand workers that come into the labor force every month, well I've got bad news: There's not going to be any jobs for them...

This is going to be the 'Mother of All Jobless Recoveries', it's going to last a couple of years... the unemployment rate is still going to make new post-World War II highs."

Rosenberg's track record for predictions is a good one, with the only criticism coming from those who say he got paranoid about the equity markets two years too soon.

The job loss is further evidence that the Obama "Stimulus" Package was an utter and complete disaster. Even the New York Times (if it really can be considered a news source these days), reports that the "Stimulus Package discourages hiring."

It's hard to have a recovery when hiring is impaired and unemployment can't recover due to an egregiously flawed "Stimulus" package.

As for those who believe that the credit markets have essentially healed and that the toxic vehicles are working their way out of the system, I have only two words. See below.

Doctor Housing Bubble has followed the mortgage crisis more closely than most and calls attention to the impending tidal wave of bizarre mortgage product "resets".

First a little nomenclature: Subprime loans -- the toxic mortgages we've heard so much about of late -- are those issued to borrowers with credit scores below 620. Alt-A loans are a notch above subprime, say, where borrowers' credit scores ranged from 620 to 660. And Option ARMs are weird variants of Adjustable Rate Mortgages, which give borrowers the option of various payments (called "pick-a-pay"). To put it bluntly, Alt-A and Option ARMs appear to be almost as poisonous as sub-prime.

What many analysts fear are the waves of "resets", when the teaser interest rates for these products expire. That means Freddie Flipper, who bought that $1 million McMansion in 2006 as an "investment property", will see his monthly payment double on a house that's now worth $600,000. And he will, like so many others, walk away after dropping the keys in an envelope and mailing them to his mortgage company (i.e., "jinglemail").

The Alt-A and Option ARM tsunami still looms large casting a dark shadow over the state of California housing. This is on top of the reality that we are now talking about issuing IOUs for only the second time since the Great Depression.


...As you can tell, much of what is occurring is status quo. It will remain that way until the end of the year, when we shift from less than $2 billion in option ARM recasts per month to close to $4 billion at the end of Q4 of 2009. Most of these loans are in California. Of the over 2 million in Alt-A loans 643,000 are in California. If you think we are doing much to address this look at these facts:

...Much of the losses are occurring because these loans are defaulting left and right and we have yet to hit the major recast wave as the above chart shows. Alt-A and option ARMs are toxic waste and will be hitting California at a time where the state is financially vulnerable...

Credit Suisse says that the tidal wave of Option Arm resets will begin in earnest around March of next year.

If you think that the Democrat Utopia of California is in bad shape now, plenty of folks believe next year will be worse. And a recovery won't be coming until 2011, if this chart has any merit.

The inevitable results of the Obama-Democratic economic plan can be seen today in California. Count 'em: bankruptcy; insane spending on socialized medicine; unchecked government growth; union control of major institutions; rampant illegal immigration; punishing taxes, adherence to the religion of environmentalism; and an unaccountable Democrat leadership.

I can just taste the change. Or maybe I just vomited a little inside my mouth.


World War III Propaganda Posters


J.T. sent these in.








Larwyn's Linx: A Slapdown of Sotomayor

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email! or reply via Twitter.

Nation

An Invitation for Janeane Garofalo: YouTube
Sotomayor slapped down by High Court: Times
Shoulder high in dung: the Conyers links: BlogProf

Basic Truths Challenge ObamaCare: Kesler
ACORN role in Census challenged: WSJ
Is the President unable to fight Congress -- or unwilling?: TigerHawk

A Close Look at Obama’s New Partners: PJM (Poole)
Cap-and-trade Tea Party at Rep. Mark Kirk's office: Marathon
Charlie Crist: The Republican Barney Frank: WSJ

Client #9 thinks he is all that: Malkin
House Phone System Crashed: NCTPR
The Diversity Delusion: Shrinkwrapped

Searched by the Office of the President?: Coffee Shop

Economy

Carbon Credits: a Scam: Denninger
Energy Myths... and Realities: Rattie
The BOHICA Cycle: AmDig

Bankrupting America, the Video: Joshua
Energy Czar didn't read Cap-and-Tax, Either: Morrissey
Wentzville car dealer sues Chrysler execs: StL Today

World

Refusing to see evil clearly: Ledeen
The face of evil ever renews itself: Sanity
Mumbai: what really happened: Telegraph (UK)

Iran: Basij Carry Out Nighttime Raids On Homes - Mousavi Attacks Khameini: TAB
A Deadly Power Vacuum: Spengler
They will have peace, when...: GM

Creeping Sharia: AT
Obama's Cairo Address: Distortions, Fabrications, Inaccuracies, Exaggerations, and Outright Fallacies.: PJM (Solway)

Media

The Potemkin Presidency meets a moment of sanity in The New York Times: PJM (Kimball)
Video: Press corps now openly laughing at Obama’s backtracking on taxes: Hot Air
Ezra Klein Takes On Ed Morrissey…and Digs Himself In Deeper: Serum

Cornucopia

Kenneth L. Reusser | Marine aviator, 89: Philly

Monday, June 29, 2009

Stimulus FAIL, Chapter 723


Via the excellent Denninger Market-Ticker.

We recently learned that "Hope for Homeowners" made a grand total of..... wait for it..... 51 loans.

FIFTY ONE? No, that is not a misprint:

Senior federal housing officials say that of 51 loans made under the program, 50 were made by Melville, N.Y.-based Lend America, and those 50 loans are being held up pending ongoing federal investigations...

...The officials, who insisted on anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the matter, declined to offer specifics except to say anything from inadequate documentation to unethical practices could be the focus of the queries.

Remember, "Hope for Homeowners" was supposed to help four hundred thousand people stay in their homes.

The net closed loan count is fifty one over a period of six months.

Oh, and the reason for that article? The company responsible for 50 of the 51 loans is under investigation by The Department of Justice!

Gee, I'm not real good at math, but if we omit the loans not under investigation, the Hope for Homeowners program is therefore responsible for... uhm... precisely one revised loan.

Well done, bureaucrats! On to health care and climate change!

Oh, and after all of the bad publicity, President Obama recently decided to revise the program.

I emailed in a suggestion that they call it Change the Hope for Homeowners program, but haven't received a reply yet.


Get your Steve Driehaus Blog Widget!


Steve Driehaus is a Democrat from Ohio who ran as a "fiscal conservative" in a very red district (OH-1). Seriously. And yet he voted for every single one of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid economy-killers including Cap-and-Trade. If you have a blog and you want to express your disgust with PelosiCons like Driehaus, please join me in posting a Steve Driehaus blog widget.

I can't guarantee it will lead to an additional 5,000 or 10,000 visitors to your blog, but I can say that you'll feel all warm and gooey inside after you post. While that could be constipation, odds are it's knowing you helped light a bonfire for 2010.


Steve Driehaus votes to steal $4,000 from your family.  Thanks, Steve!



Let me know if you post the widget and I'll reciprocate with a back-link... and gladly pile on if you have a similar Blue Dog or Turncoat you're interested in politically targeting in 2010.

Yes we can!


Hat tip: Frank Kratovil.

My favorite Twitter sites


Twitter clients

  • HootSuite - Web-based and multi-account Twitter management platform
  • Twhirl - AIR-based client that can manage multiple accounts
  • Tweetdeck - Well-regarded client, which is also AIR-based
  • TweetFunnel - Multiple users can funnel tweets into a single account (with approval workflow)
  • TwitterFeed - Feed your blog posts (e.g., via RSS) into Twitter automatically

News and Search

  • Collecta - #2 Twitter Search site in CNet's rankings
  • Hashtags.org - Top-trending hashtags
  • Monitter - Real-time, multi-channel Twitter news feed
  • Retweetist - Highly re-tweeted news
  • Scoopler - #3 Twitter Search site in CNet's rankings
  • Twazzup - #1 Twitter Search site in CNet's rankings
  • TweetMeme - Hottest links on Twitter (Digg-like)
  • TweetScan - Real-time search with email delivery options
  • TweetPsych - Gauging sentiment on individual feeds
  • Twendz - Hot trends, with sentiment assessments, on Twitter
  • Twitlinks - Tech news from Twitter

Should we keep this mutt?


My daughter likes him, eh, her, eh, whatever.



Hat tip: Amalr.

Larwyn's Linx: How do we fix this?

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email! or reply via Twitter.

Nation

Surprise: Axelrod hints at tax hike to pay for Obamacare: Hot Air
How do we fix this?: Doc Zero
Good news for Obama!: Crittenden

Obama bluffs on defending Hawaii: Times
Reading ObamaCare Bill Endangers Human Health: Murdock
Obamacare: No, you won't be able to keep your health insurance: WSJ

Who killed the ACORN probe?: Times
Corruption in America: John Conyers: Examiner
House members were front-running banking meltdown: Cleveland

Unions’ Health Benefits May Avoid Tax Under Proposal: Bloomberg
'I Didn't Fall In Love With Any of Them' : JWF
Fed leadership partnering with ISNA?: Atlas

Anthology of lies: Pundette
For FL Senate seat, it's Rubio, not Crist: Times
Our Louisiana Legislature: SIGIS

Climate bill's passage 'an unrestrained exercise of raw political power, arm-twisting and intimidation': Depot

Economy

Carbongate: IBD
Gerstner: Obama picked wrong advisers for auto overhaul: Bloomberg
Severely Bearish Treasury Development: Denninger

The Debt Tsunami: CBO says its even worse: WaPo
Democrats are the ones politicizing science: Howling
Financial Karate: MYODBP

MI offers GM $900M for 1,200 jobs: BlogProf
Good ol' fashioned socialism: TAB
2010 may be too late: MoneyRunner

World

A Coup in Honduras: Fausta
Real men of terrorist genius: Palestinian leaders: Rubin
Lies of Obama: National Post

The roots of an incoherent policy: Power Line
You mean we still have a reputation problem?: Instapundit
Klinghoffer murderer freed; sent to Syria: Klinghoffer

Media

Michael Jackson autopsy results: 112 lbs, bald, covered with needle marks: Sun (UK)
Wonkette Goes After Trig Palin Again: LegalIns

Reference

Financial disclosure filings for the House: House
Financial disclosure filings for the Senate: LegiSite

Cornucopia

What's it gonna be?: YouTube (Language warning)
TV pitchman Billy Mays found dead at home: TBO

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Steve Driehaus votes to steal $4,000 from every American family


By voting for the massive Waxman-Markey Energy Tax bill, Representative Steve Driehaus (D-OH) voted to steal four thousand dollars from your family, as a pagan tribute to the weird state religion of radical environmentalism. Astoundingly, he represents a very red district and runs as a fiscal conservative (rimshot, please).

Steve Driehaus has now voted for multiple, poisonous, trillion-dollar bills without reading them, much less their last-minute 300-page amendments.

We cannot afford politicians like Steve Driehaus, who vote for economy-crippling legislation, then hope their colleagues in the other house of Congress will kill it before it hardens into a tumor.

This nightmare was unleashed by President Obama, who intends to personally execute the death warrant on their futures. This man thinks you’ve got $4,000 too much in the bank, he intends to take it, and Steve Driehaus stands by his side in doing so.

If you work in the manufacturing sector, Obama and Driehaus think your job belongs in another country.

If you’ve been worried about the economy since last fall, Obama and Driehaus think it should be three-percent smaller every year, stretching decades into the future.

Spread the word.

Steve Driehaus must go.


Hat tips: Doc Zero, for his excellent Blue Dog Decloaking template which I encourage everyone to copy, Virtuous Republic and COAST-USA. Linked by: TigerHawk, One Big Dog (hat tip: Frank Kratovil), Legal Insurrection, Grouchy Denny, Marathon Pundit, Taxman Blog, Throw the Bums Out!, Conservatism Today, Country Store, Norwood Township, Tri-County and Shooter Ready. Thanks!

What was in the Waxman-Markey 'Manager's Amendment'? The Green Gestapo, for starters

Once again, Barack Obama reads bald-face lies to the American people from his teleprompter

Yesterday, President Obama gushed over the Democrat Energy Tax bill that passed the House and glossed over the economic impact of the legislation: "Don't believe the misinformation out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and economic growth... It's just not true. ...We cannot be afraid of the future... And we must not be prisoners of the past... [the bill was] written carefully to address the concerns that many have expressed in the past."

He is a bald-faced liar.

A 300-page "Manager's Amendment to the 1,000-page Energy Tax bill" was delivered Friday at 3:00 in the morning. Not a single person had read the amendment when it was voted upon later that same evening.

So much for Obama's vaunted transparency and his promise of "five days" for Americans to review each bill. Just as they did with the outrageous "Stimulus" package, Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the corruption-riddled Democrat Party jammed the most intrusive and un-Constitutional piece of legislation since the New Deal down the throats of the American taxpayer.

The climate bill's passage was facilitated by a wild orgy that some called "an unrestrained exercise of raw political power, arm-twisting and intimidation."

These tactics were necessary because if the American public had time to read and digest the bill, they would have marched on Washington with torches and pitchforks.

Consider some of the insane, Constitution-eradicating "features" of just the Waxman-Markey Energy Tax Manager's Amendment, gleefully applauded by Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama upon its razor-thin passage Friday.

• It creates massive new regulatory structures for all power generation and power transmission systems.

• It creates hundreds of new bureaucracies that benefit Obama's contributors; for example, it creates a "Development Corporation for Renewable Power Borrowing Authority" that issues "Community Building Code Administration Grants" under a "Low Income Community Sustainable Development Capacity Grant Program". This scam serves two purposes: it rewards failed housing programs like those run by Presidential Adviser Valerie Jarrett; it also provides yet another spigot of funds -- in blocks of $1,000,000 -- for groups like ACORN.

• It creates and regulates every building code in the country and will purposefully overrule any "city, county, parish, city and county authority, or city and parish authority having local authority to enforce building codes and regulations and to collect fees for building permits."

• It reaches into every neighborhood by eradicating "any private covenant, contract provision, lease provision, homeowners' association rule or bylaw, or similar restriction" to force localities to accept "green technologies" whether it fits in the neighorhood or not.

• It touches every aspect of water and sewer systems by regulating every "residential water efficient product or service"; ensuring those offerings are rated and forcing state government, local or county government, tribal government, wastewater or sewerage utility, municipal water authority, energy utility, water utility, or nonprofit organization to comply.

• It creates revolving loan facilities for "Certified manufacturing clean energy facilities", which provide $500 million blocks of taxpayer dough to promote green manufacturing. Of course, it does so using wages dictated by the Secretary of Labor under the Davis-Bacon Act, a New Deal-era payoff to the unions.

• It funds propaganda to ensure that generations of students are brainwashed to believe that carbon dioxide is a toxin. It directs the Secretary of Energy to issue grants to colleges and universities to "study consumer actions to conserve energy", rate effectiveness of consumer education, determine how best to regulate consumers, etc.

• It impacts civil aviation with new restrictions and regulations.

• It controls construction of all buildings, residential and non-residential alike, ensuring that every structure "complies with... energy efficiency requirements, standards, checklists or ratings systems..."

• It mandates "Energy audits" to ensure that a "Green Gestapo" checks to ensure that homeowners and businesses aren't bypassing regulations.

• Somehow, it also provides grants (welfare) for tenants in multi-family buildings.

• It defines "energy-efficient mortgages" (with our favorite GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so what could possibly go wrong?) that artificially boosts the income of the borrower based upon how much "green technology" is employed. In other words, the Democrats are socially engineering mortgage underwriting standards again, just as they did in the nineties, which will lead to yet another financial disaster.

• It also artificially raises maximum mortgage loan amounts based upon green improvements and can reduce down payment requirements.

• It will fund "tree planting organizations" (can't you just smell the ACORN-scented fraud?), landscapers and others with taxpayer funds.

• It creates new real estate appraisal processes, new training mandates for appraisers and, through an "Appraisal Subcommittee", describes new standards for all real estate valuations based upon green considerations.

• It creates an "Alternative Energy Sources State Loan Fund", controlled by another presidential appointee (HUD), to loan money to states for alternative energy projects. Each state or Indian tribe is eligible to receive up to $500,000,000 of taxpayer dough.

• It creates "Green Banking Centers", which mandates federal financial agencies and regulatory bodies to provide "green housing information" to anyone seeking a mortgage, a home improvement loan, a home equity loan, or similar products. A new, federal job role called "energy rater" will exist; and will be used to provide guidance and ensure compliance around energy efficiency.

• It will also require reporting by the GAO on "affordable mortgages".

• It creates a "secondary market for residential renewable energy lease instruments" that will "encourage private investment in the green economy." HUD will determine the residual value all "all renewable energy assets" in order to facilitate a secondary market.

• HUD will also "guarantee" the "green portion" of all mortgages issued under the guidelines, which will consist of as much as 10% of each mortgage.

• It empowers the Secretary of Agriculture to interfere with farming markets and processes to promote "green technologies".

• It defines trading systems of carbon offset credits, term offset credits, emission allowances, compensatory allowances, and similar "currencies" operated by new government-sponsored entities. These "carbon derivative markets" will support the taxation and monetization of all entities required to conform to the new rules.

• It affects every industry in America using "tonnage of production" measures; requiring each industry to calculate its "trade intensity" and "greenhouse gas intensity". The administrators of the program will compare other countries emissions by industry (how those numbers are achieved aren't spelled out) to U.S. industries in order to punish or reward companies on an industry basis.

• It will guide all treaty law with other countries, using measures such as "competitive imbalances that lead to carbon leakage" as trade levers.

• It will create -- with the U.S. Customs Department -- an "International Reserve Allowance Program" (IRAP) that will facilitate the trade, sale, purchase, exchange, transfer and banking of international reserve allowances. All material leaving and entering the country will engage with IRAP to ensure the equitable international balance of carbon leakage.

• It will create a "USDA Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction and Sequestration Advisory Committee" to oversee new regulation of farmlands.

• It will spend $150,000,000 on an "Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Worker Training Fund", which will involve the Secretaries of Education, Housing and Labor, and appears to be a funnel of money flowing directly to union bosses.

• It will spend millions on a "Green Construction Careers Demonstration Project", a boondoggle of the first order and another payoff to union bosses.

• It modifies the Earned Income Credit portion of the tax code, providing massive new welfare payments to the poor; and which adjusts for inflation.

• It moves these billions in new expenses into programs that govern every aspect of human life including, but not limited to, farming; fertilizers; animal husbandry and animal diets; feedstock; soil; land use (forested, cleared, wetlands, etc); "manure management"; and creates gigantic new government bureaucracies (unionized, of course) to regulate, monitor and control American citizens.

This bill was jammed through Congress by Democrats, sight unseen, using threats, favors, pork and payoffs without a whit of analysis as to what any of it might mean for the American economy or the citizenry.

We know it is anti-job, anti-business, anti-taxpayer and anti-prosperity. The only question is: just how much damage will it do?


Update: Buffett on Tax and Trade: "It's a Huge, Regressive Tax". Gee, I wonder what gave it away?

How much is an illegal download worth?


Something is very, very wrong here.

Lane painting FAIL


I suspect drinking, drugs and/or a disgruntled city worker.







Hat tip: IZI.

Larwyn's Linx: The report the EPA tried to suppress

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email! or reply via Twitter

Nation

The report the EPA tried to suppress: Malkin
Boehner's Filibuster: YouTube
Don't give me any damn facts: Kesler

Obama plays hardball with watchdogs: McCain
Cap-and-trade would nuke the steel industry: Seeking Alpha
Changing the vote on Cap-and-Trade?: TPP

Manure: Crittenden
Where are the 'Stimulus' jobs?: Hot Air
Democrats' FOIA problems: Times

The new building codes mandated by Cap-and-Trade: Riehl
Health care reform dangers highlighted in video: BMW

Economy

The Eight Republicans Who Gave America the Finger: Levin
More front-running: where are the cops?: Denninger
Big Tourism Depends on K Street PR Whiz: Kesler

Obama peddles climate bill to Senate: Times
Voting for Economic Suicide: Hewitt
Waters vs. Obey: TigerHawk

World

Why Iran's dictatorship is bleeding out: FreePlow
What do these first six months mean?: Hanson
'We will knock on the doors of paradise...': Ziyon

North Korea's Nukes are No Joke: PJM (Rosett)
The Mumbai Terrorist Recordings: Atlas (Caution: Very Graphic)

Media

Conservatives always face uphill climb: Steyn
Milbank blasts the Obama show: Wizbang
Even Der Spiegel turning on Dear Leader: GWP

Breakthrough on the Authorship of Obama's 'Dreams': AT (Cashill)
“We Go Live To Somewhere Tangentially Related…”: Driscoll

Cornucopia

Rickles roasts Reagan: YouTube
Shotgun made from iron bedposts: AmerDig
Aide's tale of John Edwards Sex Tape: Daily News

The Ten Cannots

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

-- Rev. William John Henry Boetcker, 1873