You have to love the double-talk on earmarks in the budgets:
“The bill will contain about 9,000 earmarks totaling $5 billion, congressional officials say.” AP, Sunday, February 22, 2009, AP’s Miami Herald article on earmarks.
“I’m proud that we passed a recovery plan free of earmarks.” President Obama, February 24, 2009
“We are going to ban all earmarks, the process by which individual members insert pet projects without review,” President Obama, January 6, 2009
“We need earmark reform. And when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.” Obama September 2008 presidential debate in Oxford, Miss.
It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, “You toil and work and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.” No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.Abraham Lincoln, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
On Monday (Nov 10, 2008), NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), run by Al Gore’s chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, stated that October 2008 was the hottest October on record. The problem? NASA had used September’s figures again for October. We’ve mentioned before how NASA and Hansen have had to revise figures due to errors and problems with methodology, but the cult of global warming is willing to ignore data and rely solely upon computer models to make their arguments. GISS is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures.
From NewsBusters.org and a January 17, 2008 San Francisco Chronicle interview. See the link below for the full NewsBusters story. Obama, January 17, 2008:
Let me sort of describe my overall policy.
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.
What I’ve said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else’s out there.
I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.
That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches.
The only thing I’ve said with respect to coal, I haven’t been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a (sic) ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can.
The point is, though, that — and it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s not just charity, it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s not just that I want to help the middle class and working people who are trying to get in the middle class — it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s that when we actually make sure that everybody?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s got a shot…
Senator, it is not charity when it is someone else’s money. It is not charity when it is not voluntary. Holding you up at the point of a gun and then giving the money to charity does not make it virtuous.
Yahoo’s current problems are of their own making and consequently Yahoo can fix them. While Google has been building a network of advertisers and publishers, Yahoo Publisher Network/YPN has been in an endless beta while turning away publishers and then wondering why advertisers are going to Google’s Adsense. Advertisers are following the publishers to reach their audience. Let’s look at some of the problems, Continue reading Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) Problems→
Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?
Senator Biden’s full response:
Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history.The idea he doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the Executive Branch.He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, andas vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there’s a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.
The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he’s part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.
I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes. … [Y]ou will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime.