Blatant Reality

According to the Heritage Foundation, there may be some hope that the Global Warming Alarmists won’t get any of their legislation passed any time soon.

On the surface it may seem as though the Senate moved closer to “doing something” about global warming since 54 Senators said they would have voted for cloture on Lieberman-Warner last week compared to only 43 votes in favor in 2003. But as the New York Times points out, 10 senators (including liberal Senators from rust-belt states) said they would not have actually voted for final passage of the bill unless it was amended to help industries sensitive to high energy prices. So in the span of five years, the environmentalists only gained one vote. And looking at the political environment ahead, their case will only get weaker.

Now that is some good news however I don’t think our luck will last for long. If Democrats win it big this November, I don’t know how long the alarmists will be kept at bay.

Here is a post from over at Right Wing News that describes what will happen if Obama wins the presidency and Democrats gain several members in Senate and  the House. The legislation that will most likely be passed will be quite grim. Take a look.

Once again, we see that Planned Parenthood is raking tons of money with a third of it coming from taxpayer money. The question remains, why aren’t Republicans in Washington doing anything about it?
-Michelle Malkin has more on this:
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/06/04/planned-parenthoods-obscene-profits/

The Wall Street Journal has an article today about how much the government subsidizes different energy sources. The kicker was just how much green energy was costing the American taxpayer.

Some clarity comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent federal agency that tried to quantify government spending on energy production in 2007. The agency reports that the total taxpayer bill was $16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like. That’s double in real dollars from eight years earlier, as you’d expect given all the money Congress is throwing at “renewables.” Even more subsidies are set to pass this year.

 

An even better way to tell the story is by how much taxpayer money is dispensed per unit of energy, so the costs are standardized. For electricity generation, the EIA concludes that solar energy is subsidized to the tune of $24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and “clean coal” $29.81. By contrast, normal coal receives 44 cents, natural gas a mere quarter, hydroelectric about 67 cents and nuclear power $1.59.

I personally find that absolutely outrageous that the government would be wasting that much money on wind, solar, and clean coal when nuclear power is so “cheap” in comparison. Even the founder of Greenpeace thinks nuclear energy is “green” so why aren’t we focusing on building more nuclear power plants?

I mean, if the government is going to be hellbent of subsidizing something it might as well be something that we can at least get a good return off of.

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint is often herald as one of the few Senators to stand up against the immigration bill last summer. He was the one the tipped off Drudge to what was going on which led to the ultimate defeat of the bill in the Senate. According to Senator DeMint, this experience is what showed him the true power of the internet.

Now, in order to continue his message of border control, DeMint has created a new website to keep voters informed on what is happening.

He recently created a new Web site — www.completethefencenow.com — to update progress on security the nation’s border with Mexico. “People want to know. We’re responding in a traditional marketing sense. Here’s a consumer need. We’re going to put this site on and let people know,” he said. “I know it’s frustrating for people who call our office and say ‘Nothing is happening.’ I don’t hear anything.”

 

Byars said the site also is a way to communicate with bloggers, who can link to it or ask DeMint’s office to research questions they have about drug or sex trafficking along the border. “It’s an interactive way for us to work to build support outside the dome,” Byars said.

 

“If I don’t have support outside the dome — loud and vocal support — people inside are not going to listen to me,” DeMint added. “They’re going to ignore me whenever they can if it’s anything about changing the culture or the ways things are done. I’m almost completely dependent on the American people to help me push some things through.

 

“In some ways, it’s been encouraging that people have been responsive and engaged. They get information and have a way to respond. They do. It’s like it is a government for the people.”

This is the way government should work. It should allow the people to be educated about what is happening in Congress and allow them to voice their opinions. Whether or not the Congressman listen to their constituents all depends on if they feel voting against the people’s opinion is worth the possibility of them losing their job.

Dr. Longin Pastusiak visited and gave a speech at the University of South Carolina yesterday. If you are unfamiliar with who Dr. Pastusiak is (as I was before I went to this speech), he has served as a member of Poland’s lower house of Parliament for ten years and as the President of the Polish Senate (comparable to our Speaker) for four years. Along with this, he has written over 600 scholarly publications, 60 books, and 3,000 (yes 3,000) articles in daily and weekly journals. If that wasn’t enough, he is currently a Professor at Appalachian State in North Carolina. (I tried to find more information to put on here but it was all written in what I’m guessing was Polish.)

The title of his speech was “Is Poland America’s ‘Trojan Horse’ in the EU?” The whole idea of his speech was to shed some light on the current missile defense base that the United States has proposed to install in Poland. Poland has seemed somewhat reluctant in recent months to go along with this plan. Therefore, to try to get things moving again, talks between the two countries started yesterday and according to the International Herald, things preceded smoothly. However, in his speech, Dr. Pastusiak pointed out several reasons why the US might run into problems with Poland cooperating completely.

Before Dr. Pastusiak listed some of the reasons tensions are forming between our two countries, he gave a lbried history of Polish/US relations and why Poles seem to have such a strong liking for the United States. He contributed several things to why we are on such good terms. One of the reasons is that Poles have had such a long history with our country, going back to having colonists at Jamestown. Poles were also present during our Revolutionary War and played and important part training some of our forces.

He even stated that in more recent times, the United States has always helped Poland. At the end of WWI, Woodrow Wilson established an independent nation of Poland with his Fourteen Points. American aid programs were also there helping the Poles reconstruct their country after the war. Another reason for our good relationship can be contributed to the fact that we have never had a war with Poland. This might not seem like a lot but when you consider that the rest of Europe has some deep seeded animosity because of past wars, our peaceful relationship helps a lot.

After stating all these reason why Poles like Americans, he stated some issues that are presently straining our relationship. One problem is that despite the good relationship in politics between our two countries, the economical relationship isn’t there. According to Dr. Pastusiak, Poland is currently our 11th largest trading partner. Another issue that is straining our relationship is the unfullfillment of our promise to help Poland’s army modernize. Dr. Pastusiak pointed out that our current promised aid is only $20 million. This is minuscule compared to the billions that we have given to Israel and Egypt.

Finally, the missile defense base that the US wants to install in Poland is straining our relationship. Poland had an assessment taken and the risk currently outweigh the benefits for installing a defense base. Combine this with the fact that 52% of Poles don’t want the base there and you get some tension forming between our two countries. This is why the talks mentioned above are taking place; the US is trying to negotiate some way to make sure the benefits outweigh the risks to the country. According to Dr. Pastusiak, some of the issues on the table are things like installing patriot missile systems to defend this base along with demanding the necessary funding to successfully modernize the Polish Army.

If you want to watch the part of his speech where he talks about the missile defense base, you can watch it here:

Dr. Longin Pastusiak talks about Missile Defense in Poland

Go here if you would like to watch the whole, roughly 40 minute speech:

Dr. Longin Pastusiak Speaks at USC (Part 1)

Dr. Longin Pastusiak Speaks at USC (Part 2)

Dr. Longin Pastusiak Speaks at USC (Part 3)

Dr. Longin Pastusiak Speaks at USC (Part 4)

Overall, even if you don’t care too much about the missile defense debate going on right now in Poland, I would recommended watching his whole speech because it shed a lot of light on the history of US/Polish relations that I had no idea existed.

Yep, in their most recent poll, the New York Times finds that 48% of those polled consider themselves as conservatives. That is the highest percentage this poll has gotten in the past 15 years it has been conducted! This record high has only been tied twice, in polls conducted in the months of June and November in 1996.

Also, those who consider themselves to be liberals is at its lowest point in the past 15 years at 15%! This record low has only being tied once, in December of 1995.

Now remember that these polls can be misleading. For example, even though the conservative/liberal percentages stood at 45% to 20% respectively at the time of the 2006 election, conservatives still got annihilated at the polls. Therefore, take these poll results with a grain of salt.

Complete poll results located here.

(Conservative/Liberal results located on page 14)

Yep, it seems that the democrats, who claim they want more bipartisan action, are actually the most partisan in congress.

In fact, the Democrats take nine of the top ten partisan spots, as well as scoring 8 points higher in partisanship as a party. The lone Republican ties for first, though:

 

100% - Charlie Norwood (R-GA)
100% - Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
99.7% - Nita Lowey (D-NY)
99.4% - Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-CA)
99.1% - Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)
98.9% - Xavier Bacerra (D-CA)
98.7% - Diana DeGetter (D-CO)
98.6% - Gary Ackerman (D-NY)
98.6% - Hilda Solis (D-CA)
98.6% - Ellen Tauscher (D-CA)
98.6% - Al Wynn (D-MD)

 

Of course, Norwood is dead, and has been since February (h/t: The Anchoress). After Norwood, the next Republican comes in at 94.8%. JoAnn Davis (R-VA) has only cast 134 votes, however, as she has missed significant time while fighting a recurrence of breast cancer. She comes in at #174 on the list of partisans — which means that Democrats occupy all of the previous 173 slots, of those among the living, anyway.

What I find as extremely funny is that Nancy Pelosi, in her speech upon her election to speaker of the House, said that she was expected to be more bipartisan.

“And the American people told us they expected us to work together for fiscal responsibility, with the highest ethical standards and with civility and bipartisanship.”

Obviously she forgot to pre-read her speech before she delivered it. Maybe then she would have been able to edit that part out and now she wouldn’t have to be held accountable for being the most partisan in the House.

This article by HumanEvents.com swears that a majority of democrats aren’t as anti-Iraq war as we all think. I don’t know if I believe this statement. However, the reason they state democrats seem this way is because they are trying to appease the extreme fringe leftists.

Today’s Democrats are trying to appease two distinct constituencies, which may explain Congress’s all-time low approval numbers. But, with 2008 looming, they will have to decide whether to stand for victory against Islamofascism and take their lumps from the extreme Leftwing or whether to align with the anti-American bullies who hope for their own country’s destruction. For most Americans, that would not be a tough choice.

The democrats should know from history that appeasement can only lead to one thing: you getting screwed over. I for one hope they stand for victory. This wishy-washy nature of our congress is helping the terrorists win. If they start standing for what’s right, the rest will fall into place.

Good list of Republican Senators up for reelection in 2008 and analysis of their chances for success.