Why spending reform is so difficult. From the Weekly Standard:

SENATOR JIM DEMINT has led a crusade against pork barrel spending during his tenure in office, successfully blocking the omnibus spending bill last winter, pushing for various lobbying reforms, and even chastising his fellow Republicans for some of their earmark indulgences. Most recently, he tried, for a second time, to enact immediate rules changes in the Senate that would require increased disclosure of earmarks. But Democrats attempted to steal his thunder almost two weeks ago with a “reform” of their own.

Democrats have been fighting DeMint’s efforts from the very beginning. When the Senate was debating lobbying reform legislation back in January, DeMint proposed an amendment that called for increased transparency, since the original language of the bill only required about 2 percent of earmarks to be disclosed. DeMint’s amendment required all earmarks in committee-passed bills to be clearly identified with the name of the senator requesting the earmark, the recipient of the earmark, the purpose, and a certification indicating no financial interests on the part of the senator or his or her spouse.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wanted to table DeMint’s amendment, but the Senate voted against this motion 46 to 51. The amendment then passed by a vote of 98-0.

So the Majority Leader didn’t want to vote on the bill, and 45 other Senators voted with him to stop the ammendment from going for a vote. But once it was up for vote 98 Senators voted for it, including all 46 who had voted against a vote in the first place.

Sounds like it was such an obviously good amendment that no one dared vote against it. But mose of the Dems were hoping they could avoid it by stoping the vote all together.

Nice editorial in the weekend WSJ about attempts to raise taxes in the state that has brought us Walter Mondale and Al Franken:

Plans that include a dizzying array of new taxes totaling $4 billion. This, in a state of five million people with a biennial state budget of $31.5 billion.

And this, too, in a state whose general fund is running a $2.2 billion surplus — even after an automatic, built-in increase of $1 billion.

Nevertheless, Democrats have introduced bills raising all income tax rates, including one for the highest top rate in the nation at 9.7%. In the name of transportation, i.e., mass transit, they’ve proposed increasing the gas tax 50%, to 30 cents per gallon at the pump, as well as raising the state sales tax by a half-cent. Add to that levies on everything from beer to mortgages to paint. House Republican leaders say the hikes will cost Minnesota families well over $1,000 per year.

This next part turns my stomach.

But if the state already has a surplus why raise taxes?

Well, it’s simple. Here in the Land of 10,000 taxes it’s called “ability to pay.” State Rep. John Lesch, a liberal Democrat from St. Paul, once explained it clearly in a recent email to a constituent. “Once the wealthy simply pay their fair share, then we can have a discussion of whether government has greater or lesser needs,” he wrote.

All this tax increase talk led to an anti-tax protest on the capital steps on April 14th. Coincidently, there was a smaller global warming rally going on nearby. This next bit of attempted MSM propaganda is funny:

The lead anchor for the CBS television affiliate here as well as the Star Tribune of Minneapolis played up a competing “global warming day of action” rally on the mall, while playing down the much larger tax protest just a few hundred feet north on the Capitol steps.

Indeed, on Saturday, April 14, an estimated 7,000 Minnesotans lined up in St. Paul to protest against run-away government spending and a push to feed it with yet with more tax hikes on the “rich.” Former State Senator and now Congresswoman Michelle Bachman told me it was one of the largest rallies — if not the largest — she had ever seen at the Capitol.

Not bad. But rather than report that tax protestors far outnumbered a much better financed (MoveOn.org was sending email reminders) Sierra Club event by at least 2-1, local news outlets merely noted the combined totals for both. The local CBS affiliate also posted an Internet story on the global warming get-together using video footage of our anti-tax rally.

El Gusano de Luz documentary- how Chavez fabricated the 2002 coup to consolidate his own power.

Related to one of our recent posts. From the IHT:

In the past year, concern for the environment has risen to the top of the public’s agenda. Now the environmental movement must face a monster of its own making. The very success of environmentalism threatens to undo two of mankind’s most significant environmental victories. The first is the near stabilization of humanity’s agricultural footprint, expansion of which is the single largest threat to biodiversity worldwide. The second is the spectacular reduction in chronic hunger and malnutrition without which the pressure to convert land for agricultural use would have been stronger.

Around the globe between 1990 and 2003, the amount of land given over to agricultural uses increased less than 2 percent, even though population growth increased 20 percent. Chronic hunger in developing countries declined to 17 percent from 37 percent between 1970 and 2001, despite an 83 percent increase in population. These improvements, largely due to greater agricultural productivity, increased food production per capita, helping to drive down global food prices by about 75 percent since 1950. As a result, access to food increased worldwide, despite increasing demand from a wealthier and more populated world…

…Global warming hysteria - a boon for the ethanol and other biofuel enterprises - has boosted demand for crop-based fuels worldwide. This now threatens to reverse a half century of gains not only against world hunger, but also in holding the line against conversion of undeveloped land…

…Ironically, much of the hysteria over global warming is itself fueled by concerns that it may drive numerous species to extinction and increase hunger worldwide, especially in developing countries. Yet the biofuel solution would only make bad matters worse on both counts.

As long as global warming is hyped as the world’s most important environmental problem - as many politicians and environmental pressure groups claim - it will be virtually impossible to rationally evaluate other options in dealing with climate change, or confront the unintended consequences unleashed by global warming hysteria.

Not sure why its any of their business, but EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was recently criticizing the fence the US is building on the Mexican border. From AP:

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Tuesday criticized U.S. plans to extend barriers along its border with Mexico, saying immigrants should not be treated like criminals.

“A wall that separates one country from another is not something that I like or that the European Union members like,” Solana said at a news conference in Mexico City. “We don’t think walls are reasonable instruments to stop people from crossing into a country.”

Actually, immigrants are criminals, if they are immigrating illegally. And for the record, here are a couple of EU border examples.

Here’s the Ceuta border between Spain and Morocco. According to Wikipedia the EU actually financed the fence in an effort to stop illegal immigration and smuggling.

This second one is in Cyprus. Cyprus doesn’t have any international land borders, they just have fences and walls running right through the middle of the country - their population is at war with itself. Cyprus has been an EU memberstate since 2004.

Finally, seven aspriring illegal immigrants were killed by landmines on the Greek-Turkish border in 2003. Greece is a full member of the EU, Turkey is an associate member.

From World Politics Watch:

While the war between Israel and Hezbollah raged in Lebanon and Israel last summer, it became clear that media coverage had itself started to play an important role in determining the ultimate outcome of that war. It seemed clear that news coverage would affect the course of the conflict. And it quickly transpired that Hezbollah would become the beneficiary of the media’s manipulation.

A close examination of the media’s role during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon comes now from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, in an analysis of the war published in a paper whose subtitle should give pause to journalists covering international conflict: “The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media as a Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict.” Marvin Kalb, of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, methodically traces the transformation of the media “from objective observer to fiery advocate.” Kalb painstakingly details how Hezbollah exercised absolute control over how journalists portrayed its side of the conflict, while Israel became “victimized by its own openness.”..

… Journalists did Hezbollah’s work, offering little resistance to the Islamic militia’s effort to portray itself as an idealistic and heroic army of the people, facing an aggressive and ruthless enemy. With Hezbollah’s unchallenged control of journalists’ access within its territory, it managed to almost completely eliminate from the narrative crucial facts, such as the fact that it deliberately fired its weapons from deep within civilian population centers, counting on Israeli forces to have no choice but defend themselves by targeting rocket launchers where they stood. Hezbollah’s strong support from Syria and Iran — including the provision of deadly weapons — faded in the coverage, as the conflict increasingly became portrayed as pitting one powerful army against a band of heroic defenders of a civilian population…

…Within Hezbollah territory, journalists were led through scenes of the destruction caused by Israel. Journalists rarely complained about Hezbollah’s restrictions, but they frequently complained about Israel’s efforts to limit coverage deemed useful to the enemy. Still, circumventing Israeli restrictions proved easy in a country like Israel, while in Hezbollah-controlled areas it proved all but impossible. Cameras enjoyed full access to civilian victims of Israel’s actions, but never to the perpetrators of violence against Israel. And in Israel journalists could interview soldiers complaining about the weaknesses in Israeli tactics. On more than one occasion, Hezbollah choreographed theater for visiting journalists, with ambulances ordered to parade on command for journalists, who rarely challenged the inconsistencies in what they saw…

… Before long, Hezbollah had achieved a definitive propaganda victory. The media had not only acquiesced to tell Hezbollah’s version of the war, they had started contributing to the creation of the narrative, with at least one Reuters photographer altering photographs to make Israeli attacks look more damaging…

More on how Reuters doctored photographs of Beruit at LGF.

Some documentaries on how Palestinian’s stage battles and massacres for the willing Western media - at Second Draft.

I’ve never really understood the carbon offset idea. Al Gore, John Edwards, the Academy Awards, rock concerts, even towns have declared “carbon neutral” not by reducing their own consumption of natural resources, but by buying these alleged offsets.

If these people really think we are facing imminent armegeddon due to humanity’s CO2 emissions, shouldn’t they be adjusting their own behavior beyond just buying offsets? If there was a global food shortage, would it be acceptable for Al Gore to waste enough food to feed dozens of people, then declare that he paid for the food so its all okay? If, as people like Gore want, we had a liquid market in carbon credits, wouldn’t he just be pushing the price of CO2 offsets up, making it more expensive for normal people to lead normal lives?

Of course, this doesn’t even address a more basis question - what the hell is a carbon offset? How do we know, for example, Gore isn’t just paying himself, then doing nothing for the environment with the money.

This morning’s FT has an illuminating article on the subject. From the article:

A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place.

Others are meanwhile making big profits from carbon trading for very small expenditure and in some cases for clean-ups that they would have made anyway…

…The FT investigation found:

• Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.
• Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.
• Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.
• A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.
• Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

Seems to me most companies buying carbon offsets consider it a marketing expense and don’t really care what happens to the money. Most of the groups selling them are on the take. Celebrities like Al Gore don’t really give a damn about CO2 or they would adjust their own lifestyles - for them climate change is just another opportunity to increase their political power at the expense of everyone else’s personal liberties.

ht: CK

Update (4/29/07):

On a related note, from Mark Stein’s Sunday Chicago Sun-Times column:

Everything’s difficult, isn’t it? In the Democratic presidential candidates’ debate, Sen. Barack Obama was asked what he personally was doing to save the environment, and replied that his family was “working on” changing their light bulbs.

Is this the new version of the old joke? How many senators does it take to “work on” changing a light bulb? One to propose a bipartisan commission. One to threaten to de-fund the light bulbs. One to demand the impeachment of Bush and Cheney for keeping us all in the dark. One to vote to pull out the first of the light bulbs by fall of this year with a view to getting them all pulled out by the end of 2008.

If you believe, as Al Gore does, that Global Warming is “the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced,” then you can justify just about anything.

And that includes destroying the environment, whether by cutting down forests, deliberately injecting millions of tons of erstwhile closely regulated pollutants into the atmosphere, setting aside real security threats, or simply persuing a generally collectivist agenda (which history has shown is generally pretty lousy for the environment).

From last weekend’s LA Times:

Forget the whales — save the Earth
Global climate change makes all other environmental issues irrelevant.

ENVIRONMENTALISM is dead.

True, there are plenty of events Sunday marking the 38th anniversary of Earth Day. But most of the causes Americans associate with traditional environmentalism — recycling, cleaning up a local waterway, protecting a piece of open space, saving an endangered species or even cleaning up the air — well, they’re pretty much irrelevant now…

…Traditional environmental concerns have been trumped by a single, overriding problem: global climate change. Henry David Thoreau asked, “What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?”

Separately, Senator Inhofe (R-OK) released this Friday:

“With Earth Day this Sunday, I am issuing an Earth Day Challenge to Hollywood’s global warming activists who talk the talk to walk the walk,” Senator Inhofe said. “I am asking celebrity activists to take the ‘Gore Pledge’ to reduce their home energy usage to that of the average American.  Activists in Hollywood who assert that mankind only has 10 years left to act in order to avoid a climate catastrophe have made personal energy use a cornerstone of their pleas to the general public to save the planet. Hollywood activists should make personal energy sacrifices themselves before demanding others do so.

Its called the Gore Pledge because Inhofe asked Gore to take the pledge at the former VP’s recent Senate testamony. Gore declined. Here’s the pledge:

As a believer:

-that human-caused global warming is a moral, ethical, and spiritual issue affecting our survival;

-that home energy use is a key component of overall energy use;

-that reducing my fossil fuel-based home energy usage will lead to lower greenhouse gas emissions; and

-that leaders on moral issues should lead by example;

-I pledge to consume no more energy for use in my residence than the average American household by one year from today.”

Clever, but no one in the target audiance will take it. Most of Hollywood understands that personal responsiblity is just an evil GOP ploy, and that the only thing that really matters is creating a government system that can force all the unwashed masses to fall in line.

The American Left’s favorite Latin American strongman is well on his way to converting Venezuela into a Stalinist paradise. We’ve seen land seizures, currency devaluation, election fraud, price fixing, and now, mass re-education. From Bloomberg:

Venezuela’s government will require workers to spend four hours a week in “socialist formation” classes, and is mandating employers form “Bolivarian Work Councils” to run courses on the job, El Universal reported, citing Labor and Social Security Minister Jose Ramon Rivero…

…Topics to be addressed in the four-hour classes include Venezuelan history and “basic tools for analyzing reality, the environment, the role of the state and socialist scheme,” to speed the transition from capitalism to socialism, Rivero said, according to the newspaper.

“Analyzing reality”? - should be interesting.

He’s getting the divide and conquer thing, the theft of natural resources thing, and the dismantling rule of law thing down, too. From a radio interview with a Detroit Times journalist who recently visited Venezuela:

I think one of the most noticeable differences is the tension that exists. You drive through neighborhoods and there’s a distinct us-versus-them atmosphere. Chávistas are boldly marking their territory and taking over the weak fringes, too. Most non-Chávista neighborhoods don’t spray paint their entrances with signs that proclaim their allegiances.

Chávez has spent millions plastering the country with propaganda. “Socialism, patriotism or death” banners hang throughout Caracas as well as a litany of “death to American imperialism” murals.

There also is an unquestionable concern about crime among locals and visitors (though there aren’t nearly as many tourists as there once was). Chávez has created such an atmosphere of entitlement among the truly poor that some now think they have a mandate to take what they want and redistribute it to themselves and their families. And why not? Though there is a decent police presence, I’m told they apparently don’t act on theft or assault charges that often.

Ironically, the socialists are so caught up in the so-called revolution and the attack on middle and upper class Venezuelans, that they don’t stop and think about why Chávez hasn’t significantly redistributed the tremendous amount of oil money he’s raking in. Since he took office the number of truly poor is the same, but he’s confiscated more oil money than the three previous governments combined.

The same journalist wrote this in the Detroit News last week:

Poverty, crime, corruption and anti-American sentiment aren’t unique to Chavez’s regime. But there are fundamental failures in the market and society in Venezuela, a country that traditionally has been a stable, democratic nation.

Chavez calls it 21st-century socialism. A more honest interpreter would call it communism…

..Chavez is interested only in personal power, which is rooted in giving the poor two grains of rice instead of one and telling them a shipment of chickens is coming. Only there are no longer any chickens…

…Water in Barcelona was available daily for a few hours in the morning and maybe at night. Similarly, the electricity turned on and off without warning. The only certainty was that both utilities would fail daily. This is inexcusable given the oil wealth in this country.

Socialist paradise here we come!

Wednesday the WSJ wrote about some new online video services for what they term ‘eggheads’. One is fora.tv, which I’ve been browsing for the last few days and strongly recommend.

For starters I recommend this public debate between Associate Supreme Court Justices Breyerd and Scalia. I have strong opinions on the issues discussed, but this is certainly a worthy debate between two very intelligent men of good faith who represent our federal government’s most influential concentrations of arbitrary power.