Obama Covers for OPEC - Robert Zubrin

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/265930/obama-covers-opec-robert-zubrin?page=2

The power of the [OPEC] cartel lies solely in its ability to limit the world’s supplies of liquid fuels by limiting access to petroleum resources. But there is a fuel that can be produced cheaply, without the use of petroleum. This is methanol, commonly known as wood alcohol. It can be made from coal, natural gas, garbage, or any kind of biomass without exception. It costs about $0.50 per gallon to make, and its current spot price, without any subsidy, is $1.20 per gallon. (This is equivalent in miles per dollar to gasoline at $2.18 per gallon.) The only problem is that the cars on the road today can’t use it. This, however, can readily be corrected. Flex-fuel technology will allow any car to run equally well on methanol, ethanol, or gasoline. It adds only $100 to the cost of a new car. Were such a feature made standard, gasoline and ethanol would be forced to compete with methanol, and OPEC’s power to limit access to fuel supplies and drive prices up would be broken.

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The Media Don’t Get Economics - Conrad Black

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/265693/media-don-t-get-economics-conrad-black

In the 27 months of the Obama administration, there have been spectacular rises in the prices of gasoline ($1.83 per gallon to almost $4), oil ($41 per barrel to over $90), gold ($853 per ounce to $1,500), corn ($3.56 per bushel to $6.33), and sugar ($13.37 per pound to $35.39). The real median household income has declined by $300, to under $50,000; the number of food-stamp recipients has increased from 32 million to 43 million; the number of people officially in poverty has increased by 10 percent, to 44 million (more people than the whole populations of Poland or Spain); the ranks of the long-term unemployed have increased from 2.6 million to 6.4 million; and the U.S.’s position in the rankings of economic freedom of the world’s countries has declined from fifth to ninth. 

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Gold Slams Bernanke - Larry Kudlow

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/265816/gold-slams-bernanke-larry-kudlow

I recall how President Reagan often argued in the 1980s not simply that a strong dollar was in the nation’s interest, but that a great country, by necessity, needs a strong and reliable currency. Link to gold — that was Reagan’s argument. Paul Volcker and then Alan Greenspan (during the first three of his four Fed terms) essentially agreed with Reagan. The 20-year collapse of gold prices that ensued was associated with a remarkable non-inflationary prosperity and a huge stock market rally that generated unbelievable volumes of new wealth for investors and entrepreneurs.

Today, this hard-money thinking is nowhere to be found in official Washington. Yes, the Fed can produce new money. But no, it can’t produce new jobs and growth in any permanent sense. What does? Limited spending, flat tax rates, minimal regulation, and stable money.

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Rand Paul Vs. Trump - By Katrina Trinko

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/265872/rand-paul-vs-trump-katrina-trinko

At a breakfast this morning in New Hampshire, Sen. Rand Paul took a swipe at Donald Trump.

“I’ve come to New Hampshire today because I’m very concerned. I want to see the original long-form certificate of Donald Trump’s Republican registration,” Paul said.

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Pressure from Left causes law firm to abdicate responsibility | Byron York

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/04/pressure-left-causes-law-firm-abdicate-responsibility

When word got out that King & Spalding was defending DOMA, there was talk of gay groups cutting all ties with the firm. Of discouraging top students from joining the firm. Of protests.

Clement's representation caused tension inside King & Spalding, and on Monday that tension spilled into public view. The firm publicly withdrew from the DOMA case and Clement immediately resigned.

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Atlas Endures

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=43140

The key to appreciating the violent media reaction to this film is to understand that while the critics complain loudly about the stiff dialogue and wooden acting of Rand’s heroes, it’s the portrayal of the villains that really bothers them… and every damn word they say is completely realistic and believable.

Some of the dialogue in this movie was ripped from today’s headlines… and by “today” I mean last Friday, months after filming was completed.  

If you know the story of Obama’s National Labor Relations Board, and how it’s using government power to force Boeing back into the waiting arms of Washington State unions instead of opening a plant in South Carolina, there are passages in Atlas Shrugged that will make your hair stand on end.

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More on Tax Redistribution - By Veronique de Rugy

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/265367/more-tax-redistribution-veronique-de-rugy

As you can see, the top 1 percent of earners shoulder 38 percent of the personal federal income taxes and make only 20 percent of income. The top 5 percent of income earners pay almost 60 percent of income taxes and make almost 35 percent of all personal income.

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Default is still an option

http://www.aei.org/article/29262

In 1933, the United States intentionally defaulted on its Treasury debt, an action supported by both Congress and the Supreme Court.

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Enron Writ Large - By Kevin D. Williamson

http://www.nationalreview.com/exchequer/265018/enron-writ-large

In FY2010, we spent $164 billion just on interest payments on the debt — up 18 percent from the year before. And that’s at historically low interest rates. If rates should go back up to their 1970s or 1980s levels, we could easily end up spending more on debt service than we spend today on big-ticket items like Medicare or national defense.

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Arthur B. Laffer: The 30-Cent Tax Premium

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704116404576262761032853554.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

This [tax compliance] is a cost markup of 30 cents on every dollar paid in taxes. And this is not even a complete accounting of the costs of tax complexity.

David Keating of the National Taxpayers Union provides a useful perspective on how big the tax compliance industry is. According to his research, as of 2009 the income-tax industry employed "more workers than are employed at the five biggest employers among Fortune 500 companies—more than all the workers at Wal-Mart Stores, United Parcel Service, McDonald's, International Business Machines, and Citigroup combined." Without diminishing in any way the professionalism of tax attorneys, accountants and financial planners, all of these efforts produce nothing other than, well, tax compliance.

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The UN disappears 50 million climate refugees, then botches the cover-up

In 2005, the UN predicted that there would be 50 million climate refugees by 2010 and provided a map showing the areas of highest risk.  We're not sure if it happened, but if it did, someone has pulled off the world's largest cover-up.  The UN apparently would rather forget the whole thing.  My question: Who got to them?

Fortunately, Anthony Watts has managed to recover the missing map with a little help from Google.  Follow the link for more info:

http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/16/the-un-disappears-50-million-climate-refugees-then-botches-the-cover-up/

This is what the UNEP web page originally said:

Fifty million climate

 refugees by 2010. Today we find a world of asymmetric development, unsustainable natural resource use, and continued rural and urban poverty. There is general agreement about the current global environmental and development crisis. It is also known that the consequences of these global changes have the most devastating impacts on the poorest, who historically have had limited entitlements and opportunities for growth.

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New Efficiencies in Health Care? Not Likely

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704116404576262943694897016.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_lifeStyle

All attempts to reduce bureaucracy increase it, and the same goes for cost. Such, at any rate, has been my experience of the British health care system—its famed, or infamous, National Health Service.

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TaxProf Blog: Jon Stewart on President Obama's 'Spending Reductions in the Tax Code'

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2011/04/jon-stewart-on.html

Quote from Jon Stewart:

I guess what you said is tax "code", code for raising taxes. You managed to talk about a tax hike as a spending reduction. Can we afford that and the royalty checks you're going to have to send to George Orwell? That's the weirdest way of... just say "tax hike"! That's like saying, "I'm not going on a diet, I'm going to add calories to my excluded food intake!"

Follow the link for video (NSFW).

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Paul Ryan: A budget for the 21st century

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-budget-for-the-21st-century/2011/04/14/AFFnBndD_story.html?hpid=z1

Two months ago, President Obama submitted a budget for fiscal 2012 that did not deal with the major sources of government spending while calling for much higher taxes on American businesses and families. This budget was widely panned as lacking seriousness.

Now comes a deficit speech that doesn’t even rise to the level of a plan. Missing was a credible way to curb out-of-control spending. Instead, the president called for greater reliance on government price controls, which would strictly limit the health-care options of current seniors while failing to control costs. The president would couple this approach with $1 trillion in tax increases, which would destroy jobs and hurt the economy.

We cannot accept an approach that starts from the premise that ever-higher levels of spending and taxes represent America’s new normal. 

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Translation for ‘Spending reductions in the tax code’

(via instapundit)

http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/04/13/spending-reductions-in-the-tax-code/

> Spending reductions in the tax code…that’s what President Obama called the thing that we commonly call “tax cuts” in his speech today.

http://polipundit.com/?p=30146

> Hey, at least he’s not calling them “kinetic spending action.”

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Charles Krauthammer On Obama's Speech: "It Was A Disgrace"

http://realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/04/13/charles_krauthammer_on_obamas_s...

Krauthammer: "I've rarely heard a speech by a president so shallow, so hyper-partisan and so intellectually dishonest"

(follow the link for video)

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Reynolds: Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Drink

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704641604576255161172364474-lMyQjAxMTAxMDEwMjExNDIyWj.html

The "old enough to fight, old enough to drink" argument has force. In fact, 18-year-olds in America are old enough to do pretty much everything except drink. Along with joining the military, 18-year-olds can vote, marry, sign contracts, and even take on a crippling lifetime burden of student loan debt in pursuit of an education that may never land them a job. Yet we face the absurd phenomenon of colleges encouraging students to go into six-figure debt—which can't be discharged in bankruptcy—but forbidding them to drink on campus because they're deemed insufficiently mature to appreciate the risks.

To be fair, over 130 college presidents, as part of something called the Amethyst Initiative, have called for an end to the drinking age of 21.

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Instapundit proposal: A 50% surtax on post-government salary increase

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/118348/

SO OBAMA’S PEOPLE ARE TALKING TAX INCREASES AGAIN. Here’s my proposal: A 50% surtax on anything earned within five years after leaving the federal government, above whatever the federal salary was. Leave a $150K job at the White House, take a $1M job with Goldman, Sachs, pay a $425K surtax. Some House Republican should add this to a bill and watch the Dems react.

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Ending America as We Know It - Mark Steyn

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/264288/ending-america-we-know-it-mark-...

> But, if this is the level on which the feckless patronizing spendaholics of the permanent governing class want to conduct the debate, bring it on:
>> Paul Ryan’s plan would “end Medicare as we know it.”
>> The Democrats’ “plan” — business as usual — will end America as we know it.

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Mark Steyn: 'I think Lindsey Graham is unfit for office'

http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/08/mark-steyn-i-think-lindsey-graham-is-unfit-for-office/

“This is why I don’t want elites setting the rules, because when you look at your elites, they’re not the kind of wise men that they pass themselves off as,” Steyn said. “They’re boobs, which is what Lindsey Graham is. I’m embarrassed by him.”

Follow the link for audio.

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Wild One in Waukesha

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/264219/wild-one-waukesha-daniel-foster

“I discovered that the data that was sent to me from the city of Brookfield was not transferred to the final report that was given to the media on Tuesday night,” Nickolaus said. Heavily red Brookfield, she said, had cast 10,859 for Prosser and 3,456 for Kloppenberg, netting the incumbent over 7,000 votes and a lead that could put him beyond the legal trigger for a mandatory recount.

Not to Jinx it, But. . .

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/264213/not-jinx-it-daniel-foster

272201774.jpg

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Paul Ryan's Budget Plan: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

http://reason.com/archives/2011/04/06/paul-ryans-republican-budget-t/singlepage

More important, Ryan's budget, like his 2010 "Road Map For America's Future" (from which much in the budget is inspired), is a serious attempt to think through the implications of the past decade's wild spending spree, in which federal outlays increased by more than 60 percent in real terms and debt held by the public exploded from 36 percent of GDP in 2007 to its current 62 percent level. Ryan should be commended for refusing to be passive in the face of spending trends that threaten to swamp the nation's economy. Shockingly, the "new normal" for the 21st century has been massive expansions in government spending and reach, first under Bush and now under Obama.

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Paul Ryan: The GOP Path to Prosperity

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576242612172357504.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

The president's recent budget proposal would accelerate America's descent into a debt crisis. It doubles debt held by the public by the end of his first term and triples it by 2021. It imposes $1.5 trillion in new taxes, with spending that never falls below 23% of the economy. His budget permanently enlarges the size of government. It offers no reforms to save government health and retirement programs, and no leadership.

Our budget, which we call The Path to Prosperity, is very different. For starters, it cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president's budget over the next 10 years, reduces the debt as a percentage of the economy, and puts the nation on a path to actually pay off our national debt. Our proposal brings federal spending to below 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), consistent with the postwar average, and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion.

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Graham: "Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war"

http://reason.com/blog/2011/04/03/it-doesnt-get-any-clearer-than

Here's what Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said today about Florida pastor Terry Jones' burning of a Koran, which has been used an excuse by Afghanis to murder 22 people, including seven United Nations workers:

I wish we could find some way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war. During World War II, you had limits on what you could do if it inspired the enemy.

Senator Lindsey Graham is wrong again.  Murderers in Afghanistan don't get to blame their actions on somebody else who burned their holy book.  They are responsible for their actions.  We should go after them unapologetically.  Just because we have some impolite people in America doesn't mean we should curtail our fundamental freedoms, and it certainly doesn't mean we should excuse murder.  

Mark Steyn has some comments:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/263767/re-lindsey-graham-and-first-amendment-mark-steyn

The reason we’re losing this thing is because of a lack of cultural confidence, of which the fetal cringe of this worthless husk out-parodies anything Coward could have concocted. When I’m speaking on this subject, I often get asked to reprise the words I quote in my book, from Gen. Sir Charles Napier in India explaining to the locals his position on suttee — the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Napier was impeccably multicultural:

You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.

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Stephen Hayward: The Secret to Brazil's Energy Success

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576233071178867598.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Mr. Obama ought to tell the whole story about Brazil, instead of just half of it. He touts the measures Brazil took to improve its energy independence, such as flex-fuel vehicles and biofuels. And yes, Brazil has gone from importing 77% of its oil from foreign sources in 1980 to importing no oil by 2009. A great success story in conservation and alternative energy? Not really. Total Brazilian oil consumption still more than doubled.

The biggest factor is that Brazil increased its domestic oil production over the last two decades by 876% (not a typo). Most of that production has come from offshore exploration.

Brazilians achieved independence from foreign oil the old-fashioned way—they drilled.

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Into the Libyan Labyrinth - By Victor Davis Hanson

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/263632/libyan-labyrinth-victor-davis-hanson

We should watch for some very strange things in Libya in the days ahead: (a) Euros bet on the wrong rebel horse, and if Qaddafi survives, he will surely “renegotiate” his massive oil exports to Europe, or perhaps prefer to deal with the Chinese. So Britain, Italy, and France will become increasing panicky and want us to ratchet things up. (b) Expect to hear less and less about the UN and the Arab League as Obama, to win, needs more and more to ignore their restrictions on using American ground troops and direct bombing of Libya’s assets. (c) Expect the Left to get increasingly antsy as it weighs the viability of Obama’s progressive domestic agenda versus their own humiliation at having to keep still and support a preemptive bombing campaign against a Muslim, Arab, oil-exporting nation, without congressional approval, that was not a national-security threat to the U.S.

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