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	<title>Obama&#039;s Enemies List: A Growing List of Obama&#039;s Enemies &#187; Al Gore</title>
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		<title>Taking Seriously Glenn Reynolds’s Column on Environmentalist “Eliminationist Rhetoric”</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/06/taking-seriously-glenn-reynolds%e2%80%99s-column-on-environmentalist-%e2%80%9celiminationist-rhetoric%e2%80%9d/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/06/taking-seriously-glenn-reynolds%e2%80%99s-column-on-environmentalist-%e2%80%9celiminationist-rhetoric%e2%80%9d/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Sep 2010 02:03:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>markboabaca</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Gore]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/06/taking-seriously-glenn-reynolds%e2%80%99s-column-on-environmentalist-%e2%80%9celiminationist-rhetoric%e2%80%9d/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Yesterday I posted about Glenn Reynolds&#8217;s column advocating the the banishment of certain environmentalist sentiments from the realm of polite society. I wondered whether the column was serious or satire. I e-mailed him to ask. In response, Glenn ran a poll on his site. The possible answers included &#8220;deadly serious,&#8221; &#8220;Swiftian satire,&#8221; &#8220;kidding on the square,&#8221; and unknown. The overwhelming majority of his readers say he was &#8220;deadly serious&#8221; (between 65%-69%, depending on the time the poll is accessed). (I voted &#8220;kidding on the square&#8221; &#8212; which is a phrase meaning that he was joking, but also really meant it.) Prof. Reynolds won&#8217;t say whether his column was satire or not, but enough people took it seriously that I think it&#8217;s worthwhile for me to treat his point seriously. My problem is that Prof. Reynolds is using a leftist tactic &#8212; the attempt to ban certain categories of speech from polite society &#8212; to suppress discussion of a problem that concerns conservatives like myself. Rather than dealing with these issues in the conservative way that I would advocate, which consists of debating issues straight up, Prof. Reynolds instead argues for a mode of &#8220;debate&#8221; that I believe is rooted in leftism: namely, slap a disparaging label on a viewpoint, link it with Nazism if at all possible, and pronounce it &#8220;unacceptable.&#8221; I believe overpopulation is a problem that should concern conservatives. I am a conservative. I believe in limited government, fiscal responsibility, personal responsibility &#8212; and controlling our borders. My work on immigration is at least partially rooted in my belief that opening up the borders to anyone who wants to cross over has a detrimental effect on our quality of life. Especially in the border states, our fundamental institutions are being overwhelmed by illegal immigrants. Our hospitals are overcrowded. Our freeways are overcrowded. Our schools, jails, and prisons are overcrowded &#8212; and this is in part a function of a population out of control. We did not design those institutions to deal with the millions of extra people that are currently burdening those systems. But we are nevertheless having to deal with those millions, thanks to our liberal betters. Similarly, I believe that there is an overpopulation problem in the world at large. It reminds me of our national debt: it expands and expands and expands, and you can point to times when it expands slower than others, but it is still constantly expanding. We&#8217;re at close to 7 billion people now on Earth. We reached 2 billion, 3 billion, 4 billion, 5 billion, and 6 billion all in the 1900s. If aliens came down to Earth and silently observed this planet over the last 200 years, they would likely conclude that one species was spiraling out of control. They might conclude, quite reasonably, that humanity appears to be behaving like a cancer or a virus. To the extent that I share such a view, I share it not out of contempt for humanity. I want humanity to survive. That&#8217;s why I am concerned by the population explosion of the last 100+ years. It&#8217;s not because I am worried about the planet per se , but because I am worried about the planet as a home for humans . Because they happen to be my favorite species. I don&#8217;t want us to kill the host, because if we do, it will kill us. Now, to you don&#8217;t have to agree with me about this. I expect that many of you won&#8217;t. All I ask is that you recognize that these arguments I am making are good-faith arguments that are not founded in a hatred of the species, or a desire to see it destroyed. Quite the opposite. But regardless of how you feel about overpopulation, I do want to secure your agreement on my larger point, which is that arguments such as these are worthy of discussion. It seems to me that Prof. Reynolds is trying to take good-faith arguments like the one I just made, and deem them &#8220;unacceptable.&#8221; The fundamental goal of Prof. Reynolds&#8217;s column is to banish from polite society any analogy of human beings to viruses or cancers. He accomplishes this by using a tactic I associate with leftists &#8212; namely, taking arguments and branding them as Nazistic: Likewise, references to particular ethnic or religious groups as “viruses” or “cancers” in need of extirpation are socially unacceptable, triggering immediate thoughts of genocide and mass murder. Why, then, should it be acceptable to refer to all humanity in this fashion? Does widening the circle of eliminationist rhetoric somehow make it better? I don’t see why it should, and I don’t see why we should pretend &#8212; or allow others to pretend &#8212; that hate-filled rhetoric is somehow more acceptable when it’s delivered by those wearing green shirts instead of brown. Here&#8217;s the problem with the analogy: Everyone who refers to Jews as a virus wants to see all Jews eliminated. Not everyone who refers to humanity&#8217;s population explosion as a virus or a cancer wants to see all humans eliminated. As I have already argued, it is possible to see the overpopulation explosion as a problem without holding humanity in contempt. It is possible to oppose overpopulation out of a love for humanity. Now, I might agree with Prof. Reynolds that it&#8217;s over the top to be talking about humanity as a cancer that needs to be extirpated . If the only reason you are analogizing humanity to a cancer or a virus is to argue that humanity should be exterminated, then you are certainly not in my camp , and I have every right to distance myself from your rhetoric. But later in his piece, Reynolds appears to expand the definition of &#8220;unacceptable&#8221; rhetoric to encompass anyone who analogizes humanity&#8217;s current population explosion to the behavior of a virus or cancer : But biotechnology is getting more common and &#8212; thanks to folks ranging from Paul Ehrlich (Holdren’s coauthor) to Al Gore &#8212; so are apocalyptic environmental views that treat humans as a cancer upon the earth. How common are these views? I typed “Humanity is a” into Google and the top three suggestions were “Humanity is a virus,” “Humanity is a disease,” and “Humanity is a cancer.” With such views spreading, and with technology making it steadily easier for individual or small groups to try creating their own viruses or diseases to, in their mind, level the score, perhaps we need to hold the environmental movement responsible for its frequent use of eliminationist rhetoric. Policing the science is likely to prove difficult. But policing the rhetoric &#8212; as American society has long done with expressions of racial hatred or genocidal sentiment &#8212; seems well within reach. In this passage, Reynolds implies that there is an equivalence between analogizing humanity to a cancer or a virus, and arguing that humanity must be exterminated. I have already told you that these concepts are not equivocal in my mind &#8212; but let me expand my proof, to show that plenty of other people have made the analogy without calling for the extermination of the species. Reynolds argues that if you type the phrase &#8220;Humanity is a&#8221; into Google, you get suggestions like &#8220;Humanity is a virus.&#8221; To my way of thinking, that&#8217;s a rather unpersuasive way of &#8220;demonstrating&#8221; the prevalence of a particular viewpoint. It&#8217;s especially unconvincing if you&#8217;re trying to demonstrate, as Reynolds is by implication, that the viewpoint calls for something as extreme as the extermination of all humankind. So let&#8217;s take that next step &#8212; the one Reynolds apparently did not take &#8212; and see what happens when you click on a search term like &#8220;Humanity is a virus.&#8221; We&#8217;ll put quotes around the phrase to increase accuracy, so we&#8217;re not pulling up results that just happen to talk about humanity and viruses together. If you look at the top ten results. Surely at least nine of them will call for the extermination of the human race, right? As it turns out, not so much . The top entry is the Wikipedia entry for Agent Smith from the Matrix . He thinks humanity is a virus. He is an evil character. The second entry is from a blog that discusses the concept of humanity as a virus and rejects it . That blog entry discusses the range of viewpoints held by people who believe humanity is a virus, from the innocuous (let&#8217;s not expand into space but rather confine our contamination to one planet) to the more extreme (the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement , which seeks not to kill humans, but rather secure a voluntary pledge from them not to reproduce). The link to the third entry doesn&#8217;t work, but the cached version is some kind of unreadable personal outpouring that seems to have nothing to do with the current discussion. I&#8217;ll stop with the examples now, but the fact is that you can perform the search and scroll and click to your heart&#8217;s content, and you&#8217;ll have a tough time locating that collection of seriously advanced writings that call for the destruction of humanity. I&#8217;m sure such hateful rhetoric exists. But are the majority of people discussing these analogies engaged in this &#8220;eliminationist rhetoric&#8221;? That is far from clear. Reynolds seems to assume that any analogy between humanity and viruses or cancers is an action alert for the destruction of the human race. And that, I contend, is a faulty assumption, perhaps born of the unwillingness to actually click on Google&#8217;s suggestions. And based on that faulty assumption, Reynolds now appears to want to squelch all talk of comparing humanity to a virus or cancer. And this is what bothers me. His article is full of phrases like &#8220;policing the rhetoric&#8221; and discussions of whether certain ideas are &#8220;acceptable&#8221; or &#8220;unacceptable.&#8221; He wants to take the analogies I have discussed and slap the &#8220;unacceptable&#8221; label on them, as we do with pro-Nazi speech, or speech that stigmatizes minority groups. No, he doesn&#8217;t want to &#8220;ban&#8221; speech in the legal sense. But he wants to take what I believe is a leftist approach to this speech: compare it to the Nazis, slap the &#8220;BAD&#8221; label on it, and put it up on a shelf, where polite people need not talk about it. And this is where we get to the whole &#8220;is he serious&#8221; part. Because for those who have followed me this far, there is always the fallback argument: well, he isn&#8217;t really advocating labeling this speech unacceptable. He&#8217;s just holding the left to its own standards! Look: if that is all he is doing &#8212; if he is truly rejecting the David Neiwert school of &#8220;blame the speaker for the violence of the nut case&#8221; &#8212; I am totally with him. But a good 65% of his readership think he is making the Neiwert point in reverse. Another 14% think (as I do) that he is &#8220;kidding on the square.&#8221; And make no mistake: when you&#8217;re &#8220;kidding on the square&#8221; you&#8217;re actually being serious. It&#8217;s like when someone pays the bill and &#8220;jokes&#8221; that you are a cheapskate. Ha, ha! They&#8217;re really just calling you a cheapskate, but doing it in a way that gives them a phony &#8220;out.&#8221; I see it as a way of having it both ways: you get to make your point &#8212; but if someone calls you on it, you can always claim you were kidding. In any event, drawing a connection between rhetoric and violence &#8212; whether you do so in a &#8220;deadly serious&#8221; fashion or &#8220;kidding on the square&#8221; &#8212; requires one to accept the flawed Neiwert premise : that your passionate rhetoric can be deemed morally responsible for a murder committed by some crazy person. That is a flawed premise, and if we accept it to score a cheap rhetorical point against the environmentalists, we are playing the other side&#8217;s game. It is a game that allows them to ignore their own side&#8217;s violent rhetoric and treat people like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity as accomplices to murder . This is a road we don&#8217;t want to go down, folks. Not even &#8220;kidding on the square.&#8221; UPDATE: I condense the argument here , noting that Reynolds&#8217;s proposed tactic is the same thing leftists do when they (refuse to) debate &#8220;torture&#8221; with us &#8212; declare the whole topic taboo and Nazi-like, and end the discussion. ]]></description>
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		<title>Poetic Justice for Jesse</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/03/poetic-justice-for-jesse/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/03/poetic-justice-for-jesse/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 04 Sep 2010 01:02:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>markboabaca</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Gore]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[barack obama]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[cadillac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cnn]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[green-economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[henry-payne]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[ The Michigan View's ]]></description>
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		<title>Et Tu, Harlem?</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/03/et-tu-harlem/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/03/et-tu-harlem/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:30:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>markboabaca</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Gore]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Kerry]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[powell]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rangel]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/03/et-tu-harlem/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ It&#8217;s debatable what&#8217;s the most loyally Democratic district in the country, but NY&#8217;s 15th District would have to be in the running. The district , centered in Harlem, went 87% for Al Gore in 2000, 90% for John Kerry in 2004, and 93% for Barack Obama in 2008, is rated D+41 by Charlie Cook, and in various formats has been represented in Congress since 1971 by arch-liberal Charlie Rangel, who took the seat when his predecessor, Adam Clayton Powell jr. , was enveloped by a decade-long series of scandals and ultimately booted from office by the House Democratic caucus after 26 years in office. But in 2010, with the now scandal-marred Rangel facing a primary challenge from Powell&#8217;s grandson, Adam Clayton Powell IV (who he defeated previously in 1994), the NY Daily News finds even the Democratic voters in NY-15 dispirited by their choices , in an article helpfully titled (in the print edition) &#8220;Pick Rangel or Powell for Congress? Yuck!&#8221;: &#8220;Everybody wishes there were better options,&#8221; said Pax Williams, a 33-year-old party promoter who plans to vote for Rangel because &#8220;you don&#8217;t want to get anyone worse.&#8221; Rangel faces a House trial on 13 ethics charges, including tax evasion, and, as the Daily News reported Thursday, Powell took thousands in campaign cash - which he is returning - from an ex-con strip-club king. &#8220;You don&#8217;t know what else is coming out of the bag with either of them,&#8221; said 73-year-old Leo Mobley of central Harlem&#8230;. &#8220;This is the problem in Harlem. They haven&#8217;t developed a generation of young leadership,&#8221; said one high-profile Rangel supporter. That&#8217;s your energized base, Democrats. Of course, I should point out here that there is a Republican running even in NY-15 (the GOP has fielded candidates in a record 432 of the nation&#8217;s 435 districts, for which the RNC and NRCC deserve some credit), former NY Jet and now pastor Rev. Michel Faulkner. RedState&#8217;s Moe Lane talked to Rev. Faulkner back in June . ]]></description>
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		<title>Reaping What the Greens Sow</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/02/reaping-what-the-greens-sow/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/02/reaping-what-the-greens-sow/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:36:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>markboabaca</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Gore]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[ My former colleague Richard Morrison articulates matters very well elsewhere on AmSpec, here , but in the wake of yesterday's terrorism outside Washington, DC by Discovery-network hostage-taker James J. Lee, let's consider the position articulated by, say, radio host Glenn Beck to not attribute responsibility to Al Gore's eco-ranting. The latter is of course larded with assurances of a certain eco- catastrophe brought about by dark forces impeding salvation, and disturbing utterances like "the tide in this battle will turn only when the majority of people in the world become sufficiently aroused by a shared sense of urgent danger to join in an all-out effort." (Earth in the Balance, p. 269) Any sane person knows that such exhortations for an all-out effort to stop urgent danger are merely calls to get involved , say with direct mail campaigns and bake sales. Now, both Fox News and CNN have reported that Lee attributed his radicalism to the writings of two men -- Daniel Quinn and Al Gore. The Washington Post carried a fairly lengthy article exploring the former, who dismisses any connection. That piece and the main news feature are both silent on the deceased's giving equal credit to Gore (although a pop-up ad for China's solar industry does accompany one of them). This is true of the Wall Street Journal's coverage, among others. Beck's (somewhat backhanded, I understand) rationale for exculpating Gore of partial responsibility is that the terrorist was sick. Yep. But the two -- culpability by Gore and other radical green imams, and acting out by mentally unstable members of their targeted demographic -- aren't mutually exclusive. We know that individuals bear responsibility for reasonably foreseeable consequences of their actions, both the instigator and the instigated. One might not like the connection, what with environmentalism being as chic as a Che Guevara handbag, but you can't deny it. Take the quiz, " Did Al Gore say it? Or was it the Unabomber? ". I dare you to score better than 50%. That should make you uncomfortable. Then read Lee's manifesto , and really squirm at the similarities. This isn't Jody Foster somehow recklessly taunting John Hinkley. Al Gore dressed up quite nicely to stand on a stage and...show a near-term swamping of much of America, with massive loss of life, unless people are stopped. He vows there is no disagreement of this "truth" except for a few crazies and those in the pay of the oil industry causing the planetary crisis, what Gore calls "the most serious threat that we have ever faced,"[ (EITB, p. 40). Gosh. What could possibly go wrong? I made the connection on Washington, DC's WMAL morning radio show this morning, to the distress of one of the hosts who responded with the obvious counter that, erm, the Tea Party used the word "target" in their rhetoric accompanied by a scope-sight in graphics showing targeted races . Ah. I suppose that reasonable minds can differ whether assassination is a logical or reasonably foreseeable consequence of this repetition of the long-standing use of "target" in the political context. No rash of actions has borne this out, however. But yesterday's hostage-taking is just the latest "isolated incident" of eco-nuts engaging in "all-out efforts" that "we must make the environment the central organizing principle for civilization." (Gore, EITB) And it is the logical, foreseeable consequence of the green movement's perspective and rhetoric. In my first book " The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism) ", I serially lay out quotes by establishment greens reflecting Lee's eco-driven revulsion at population (as always, the peril of this mostly white, middle class movement is other people being born, other people building homes, other people getting wealthy, etc.), and a whatever-means-necessary attitude. These remarks are too numerous to cherry-pick one or two. In short, environmentalists think people are pollution. And they must be stopped. Just like Lee writes in his manifesto. Also difficult to ignore are the examples cited backing up the title of my second book, " Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed ": attempts and threats on the lives of those who...dare disagree, and oppose the eco-agenda. There is a reason an astrophysicist who oddly suggested the sun might have a somewhat larger ]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>What if ….</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/02/what-if-%e2%80%a6/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/02/what-if-%e2%80%a6/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:33:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>markboabaca</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Gore]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Sarah Palin]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The radical environmentalist who held hostages at the Discovery Channel yesterday was inspired by Al Gore and his book Inconvenient Truth. The story will die quickly. What if he had been inspired by Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin? How do you think the incident would have been covered? Read More: Hat tip: MSNBC]]></description>
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		<title>The Rhetoric of Violence</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/02/the-rhetoric-of-violence/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/02/the-rhetoric-of-violence/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:59:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>markboabaca</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Gore]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fox News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rush Limbaugh]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[beauty]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[ Today, James Jay Lee died, shot by police. Lee walked into the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in Silver Springs, Maryland, armed and seemingly strapped with a bomb. Though most of the building was evacuated safely, Lee managed to take three people hostage. The stand-off lasted several hours, and ended when Maryland police had no choice but deadly force to finally ensure the safety of the hostages. During the long stand-off, people across the airwaves and internet discovered and discussed volumes of information on the gunman. His motives were dissected, his family was interviewed, his disturbing list of demands parsed. When something like this happens, this search is inevitable and understandable. Everyone, politically motivated or otherwise, has the same question. Why? The simplest answer is generally the correct one: these people are crazy. In the case of James Jay Lee, witness his bizarre list of eco-demands . He wants to undo civilization because human beings are filth. He believes man is destroying the earth, that it is happening rapidly, that development, consumption, and overpopulation are the root causes, and that only swift, drastic, unilateral action can save the planet. Stop me if you&#8217;ve heard this before. Lee was the very picture of instability. His radical environmental views were at their most extreme in his list of demands for programming changes at The Discovery Channel. He wanted them to stop &#8220;encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants.&#8221; He stated that humans &#8220;are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what&#8217;s left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.&#8221; Notice the detached language. He uses &#8220;human&#8221; as an accusation, not a description. This was a man who had rejected humanity whole cloth. The entire manifesto oozes with contempt and rage. Humans are the bad guys, at war with the only true good: nature. Stop me, please, if you&#8217;ve heard this before. One might expect, with all of this information being uncovered about this man as he held three &#8220;filthy&#8221; humans at gunpoint and under threat of a possible bomb, in service to nature against man, that it would be pretty generally well-accepted that his radical environmental views were his motivation. Not least because, well, he said so. Not if you&#8217;re Think Progress . In a blog post titled &#8220; Purported Eco-Terrorist Angered Over ‘Immigration Pollution And Anchor Baby Filth’ ,&#8221; Think Progress, apparently without shame, named &#8220;anti-immigration&#8221; sentiment the culprit. The blog post focuses in on one demand from the eco-screed in order to make the case: 5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!) All alone on the page, I&#8217;m sure the reader saw &#8220;anchor baby filth&#8221; and believed the author had a point. But that&#8217;s the beauty of selective excerpting, isn&#8217;t it? Viewed in full, he truth is more obvious. Why wouldn&#8217;t he call anchor babies filth? He has already explained that ALL human babies are filth. All humans are filth. He&#8217;s not complaining about immigration because he doesn&#8217;t like furners. He&#8217;s complaining about over-population. This item on the list is no different than any other. It&#8217;s about earth vs. humans, as anyone can plainly see. But that didn&#8217;t stop the blogger from ominously linking him to supposed &#8220;anti-immigration&#8221; groups. Lee’s immigration screed bears a troubling resemblance to views and policies espoused by anti-immigrant groups such as NumbersUSA, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Progressives for Immigration Reform, and others. The &#8220;and others&#8221; is my favorite part. No doubt referring to a &#8220;certain portion&#8221; of the population. Such blatant attempts to pin the gunman on right-wing sentiment are de rigeur among the online left in the wake of tragedy these days. But James Jay Lee&#8217;s screed was so obviously green in nature that this round of pin the tail on the righty was doomed. There was just no chance it would fly. Now, what do you think happens when this sort of violence can&#8217;t be pinned on the right? Is it pinned on the left? If DailyKos and Media Matters and Think Progress can&#8217;t somehow paint Lee&#8217;s tree-hugging on Erick Erickson, Glenn Beck, or Rush Limbaugh, do you think they&#8217;ll have to accept that this time, their name the blame game points at their own houses? Of course not. That tweet about not trying to score political points on a tragedy takes you to a Media Matters post where they try to score political points on a tragedy, by the way. Now, let me tell you something that may sound crazy. Media Matters has a point. Minus the link, I think Media Matters has a decent point, albeit accidentally and hypocritically. James Jay Lee was a criminal. And more than that, he was unhinged. Neil Cavuto interviewed Lee&#8217;s brother-in-law, Thomas Leonard, close to the end of the stand-off. Leonard describes Lee as &#8220;unstable&#8221; and &#8220;disagreeable&#8221;, and paints a picture of the downward spiral of a disturbed soul. When Cavuto asked Leonard whether he thought his brother-in-law was capable of murder, he replied &#8220;absolutely.&#8221; Lee acted irrationally. His environmental extremism was likely a function of his derangement, rather than the source of it. He latched on. He took it to the extreme, to say the least. Lee was not, by any measure that I would choose, a sane man. The story told by his brother-in-law - one of temper, erratic behavior, and irrational views - recalls Jerry Kane . Jerry Kane, and his son Joe, killed two police officers and were killed themselves, in a shoot-out precipitated by a simple traffic stop. Jerry Kane, too, was an unstable man. His hometown mayor said of him that &#8220;You were always looking over your shoulder to make sure he wasn&#8217;t there. You never knew what he was going to do. I always thought he was an unstable individual.&#8221; Like Lee, the aftermath anecdotes painted a picture of paranoia and fear. But that didn&#8217;t stop liberal sites like Crooks and Liars from laying him at the feet of the conservative movement. Or Joseph Stack . Or Richard Poplawski . Or Byron Williams . It didn&#8217;t stop them from suggesting that Erick was responsible for a census worker slaying . In fact, every time someone is shot in a lone gunman scenario, the right, and the tea parties and talk radio in particular, are virtually instantaneously blamed by the left at large for &#8220;violent&#8221; rhetoric and instigation. Stop me, again, if you&#8217;ve heard THAT one before. We never stop hearing from the MSNBC left how the Fox News right is stirring up violence. But when someone clearly basing his murderous intent on the idea that humans are going to destroy the world, and soon, acts on the dire prophecies of Al Gore &#8230; well suddenly you can&#8217;t blame rhetoric for crazy people. I do think the increasingly apocalyptic green movement scares people. They intend to scare people. And when you are blasting doomsday from every bully pulpit on earth, some crazy is bound to take that to heart, possibly even act on it. But &#8230; Crazies will always find something to take to heart. Could be global warming apocalypse rhetoric. Could be taxes. Could be a birth certificate. Could even be Jodie Foster. By all currently available evidence, James Jay Lee was one of those crazies. Media Matters was right about that. What they, and virtually all the other liberal blogs are wrong about, is their absolute hypocrisy in laying every horrific crime at the feet of the right, while crying for circumspection when crazies cite the rhetoric of the left. &#8220;Progressives&#8221; say calling President Obama&#8217;s socialist policies socialist is inviting assassination. How much more so, I wonder, to say that Republicans want you to die quickly? Or that the world will literally end in a spectacular cataclysm if capitalism isn&#8217;t halted and reversed? If indeed we are to ascribe violence to rhetoric, can anyone say with a straight face that tea partiers opposing government spending represent a greater risk than Democrats telling you Republicans are trying to kill you and bring about the end of human civilization? James Jay Lee was a disturbed, lone actor. His twisted mind latched on to the green movement and he took a horrifying step from there. It has happened before for other reasons. Sadly, it will happen again. And while we must certainly be vigilant in guarding against rhetoric designed to incite such a result, we must be equally careful that we do not attribute to mainstream political dissent the actions of the unwell. And those of us on the right must be especially vigilant in calling out those on the left when they do. As they do routinely. Oh by the way, one more thing about that Media Matters tweet about not scoring points. In the linked blog entry? They reiterate the ridiculous Think Progress talking point about immigration. Point scoring indeed. ]]></description>
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		<title>Environmentalist Nutjob Who Stormed Discovery Building Radicalized by the Goracle, Experienced an “Awakening” After Watching “Inconvenient&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/01/environmentalist-nutjob-who-stormed-discovery-building-radicalized-by-the-goracle-experienced-an-%e2%80%9cawakening%e2%80%9d-after-watching-%e2%80%9cinconvenient/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/09/01/environmentalist-nutjob-who-stormed-discovery-building-radicalized-by-the-goracle-experienced-an-%e2%80%9cawakening%e2%80%9d-after-watching-%e2%80%9cinconvenient/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Sep 2010 01:23:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>markboabaca</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Gore]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[ Good job, Al&#8230; (MSNBC) - At the time of his conviction in March 2008, Lee was identified as being from San Diego. Court records said he was arrested Feb. 21, 2008, on the sixth day of a protest at the Discovery building. Police were called when a crowd that had gathered began growing “unruly” as Lee threw thousands of dollars of cash into the air, some of it still in shrink-wrapped packages, police said at the time. (Lee was found not guilty of littering.) Lee said he experienced an ‘‘awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth.” Nathaniel Harrington, a former Discovery employee, told msnbc TV’s Peter Alexander that he saw Lee outside the building during the 2008 protest. ]]></description>
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		<title>Crabs vs. Kochs</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/08/31/crabs-vs-kochs/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/08/31/crabs-vs-kochs/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:08:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>markboabaca</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/08/31/crabs-vs-kochs/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ The sometimes organized Left has caught on to the big dirty secret about the Tea Parties and it is now blasting the news all over its blogs and media outlets : that conservative patrons exercise total mind and body dominion. Look, for example, at the weekend's Lincoln Memorial rally hosted by Glenn Beck (from whom they take their cues ). Somehow the coercive Astroturf effect of Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks made hundreds of thousands of people -- from all over the country -- appear suddenly in Washington. They spilled off the steps of the Memorial past the Vietnam War Wall, the Korean War Memorial, the Reflecting Pool, the World War II Memorial, and onto the hill in front of the Washington Monument. As leftists like the New York Times ' Frank Rich and the New Yorker 's Jane Mayer reported, the billionaire private oil profiteers Charles and David Koch enabled AFP/FW to make it all happen. You see, the Kochs have lots of money -- intoxicating, limb-controlling gobs of it . With it they lured those flag-waving lawn chair-toters onto planes and buses from all over the South and Midwest to head to the nation's capital. These zombies, after enduring long lines to obtain their Metro farecards, then rode the subway to the Mall where they could congregate in the August heat for several hours and listen to Beck talk about God. And everyone knows that's the message the Big Oil Kochs are paying for everyone to hear. But it's pretty hard to put a good conspiracy like that over the deep-thinking Left , especially the environmentalist ones -- at least for very long. Now nearly all of them have caught on to the scheme: Greenpeace , Center for American Progress , Media Matters for America , Mother Jones , the Rockefeller Brothers Fund , MSNBC , among many others -- oh, and the White House too:]]></description>
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		<title>Corny Capitalism</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/08/27/corny-capitalism/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/08/27/corny-capitalism/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>markboabaca</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/08/27/corny-capitalism/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency issued another one of those announcements read exclusively by government bureaucrats and green policy wonks. The EPA decided to delay a decision to increase the concentration of ethanol legal in gasoline from 10% to 15%. So-called E15 fuel would have to wait for approval until November. It was a little-read regulatory decision that barely made a splash in the media. But it was also a rock thrown at Washington's hornets' nest of food and agricultural lobbyists. "We are disappointed," warned food giant Archer Daniels Midland. "We find this further delay unacceptable" and a "dereliction of duty," harrumphed ethanol lobbying group Growth Energy. By delaying the decision, the EPA punted on a crucial decision. The pressure brought to bear against the agency by the agriculture industry has been incredible. It's also been applied well; the EPA will most likely still approve E15 fuel in the fall. That's bad news for any American who likes to drive. In a country powered by the automobile, E15 is an enormous question mark. Since the 1970s when ethanol was first regulated by the feds, concentrations of alcohol in fuel above 10% have been illegal. But the government, lost in a dream world where cars can run on corn, has tied itself in regulatory knots trying to force ethanol into the fuel supply. The history of ethanol is a sad torrid affair of crony capitalism and green fantasies. By jumping in bed with the agriculture industry and blindly slapping on new regulations, the government artificially propped up an industry and put itself in a bind from which there may be no return. From Suing Toyota to Subsidizing E15 Across America, pumps at gas stations are emblazoned with the words, "Contains 10% Ethanol." That's no free market innovation. Since the 1970s, the federal government has heavily subsidized the production of "gasohol"--a blend of 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol that reduces tailpipe emissions. For decades, progressive politicians and environmental groups have revered ethanol as a miracle additive that will help purify America's air. "No country has ever gone to war over ethanol," reads one sign on the Washington, D.C. Metro subway. There's just one problem: Ethanol fuel is wildly inefficient. The amount of corn required to soak the fuel supply is massive. To shift America's car culture entirely from gasoline to gasohol would require 700,000 square miles of land growing corn exclusively for ethanol production. That would mean converting one-fifth of the United States into a sprawling corn farm. Then again, the government never found a green boondoggle it didn't love. For five years now, Congress has been mandating that the fuel supply be diluted with ethanol. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 required 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol in the fuel supply by 2012. A Democratic Congress went a step further in 2007, mandating 9 billion gallons by 2008, 15.2 billion by 2012, and 36 billion by 2022. Unfortunately, that whole Economics 101, supply-and-demand thing got in the way. The maximum amount of ethanol that can be produced to meet demand, called the "blend wall," is expected to level out at 15 billion. That will make it impossible to meet the government's mandates. The agriculture industry, represented primarily by Archer Daniels Midland and Growth Energy, spied an opportunity. Why not increase the legal gasohol concentration from 10% ethanol to 12% or even 15%? That would immediately ignite ethanol production and allow the government to meet its mandate. More importantly, it would make Big Agriculture some serious money. The EPA looked ready to raise the limit until science finally intervened. A study surfaced by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory from 2008 that found E15 ethanol caused a raft of problems in cars, including a loss of fuel economy and spikes in exhaust temperatures. Meanwhile the higher concentration of ethanol did nothing to reduce tailpipe emissions. The study also found problems when E15 fuel was used in lawn trimmers. The car industry exploded in outrage. Most car warranties only cover E10, which could leave customers stuck with hefty bills if their engines were damaged. A study done by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers found E15 "made engines run hot, compromised catalytic converters, and even damaged cylinder walls." To its credit, the EPA ultimately delayed its decision in order to review the science. But in the meantime they'll have an army of powerful agricultural lobbyists leaning on them. Even supported by its scaffolding of government subsidies and mandates, the ethanol industry is collapsing. The recession shuttered several ethanol companies. Others were gobbled up by oil giants at bargain prices. Some estimates suggest ethanol producers are losing 10 cents on every gallon of gasoline. This is all despite the fact that 25% of corn grown in the United States goes towards ethanol production. The agricultural industry needs E15. And if history is any indication, it'll probably get what it wants. The Agricultural Mafia and Its Kingpin It was 1978 and the Persian Gulf oil crisis was in full swing, with lines of cars snaking around fuel pumps and ghostly abandoned gas stations everywhere. President Jimmy Carter was in the midst of his own political crisis, seemingly unable to do anything except ask people to don sweaters. That year, Carter was approached by Dwayne Andreas, CEO of Archer Daniels Midland, one of the nation's largest food companies. Standing diminutively at 5-foot-4, Andreas bore a strong resemblance to James Cagney. But he was also endlessly charismatic and took to the halls of Washington like a fish to water. He convinced the hapless Carter that there was only one way to strip OPEC of its power and make America energy independent: a miracle fuel called ethanol. At Carter's urging, Congress passed ethanol's first big boon: a tax exemption for gasohol. But Andreas was far from done. Over the next 20 years, he would hopscotch across Washington, wooing politicians from both sides of the aisle. Almost singlehandedly, he would build Archer Daniels Midland into an ethanol powerhouse with a thicket of new legislation that benefitted his company. But first, the competition had to go. Ethanol was more established overseas, particularly in Brazil which produced ethanol from sugar cane. America could import this fuel for cheaper prices than were available domestically. Andreas knew Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign was in trouble, so he struck a deal. If Congress would slap a tariff on foreign-produced ethanol, Andreas would open a new ethanol plant in Des Moines, boosting Carter's political fortunes in the Midwest. Carter agreed and the tariff was passed. By then, Congress had caught ethanol fever. Liberal environmentalists talked up gasohol as a step towards cleaner skies. Midwestern politicians from rural states waxed poetically about the American corn farmer. In 1980, the government passed an income tax credit for companies that produced gasohol. The credit would be increased in 1990 and again in 2004. With business booming, Andreas extended his outsize personality across the ocean to the Soviet Union. Crippled by poverty, the USSR was searching for a way to modernize food distribution. Andreas quickly won over Mikhail Gorbachev, secured more business for ADM, and became America's most visible businessman in Moscow. Then disaster almost struck. In 1991, the EPA implemented a new set of rules in the Clean Air Act. The regulations imposed a strict cap on volatility, the amount of smog-producing hydrocarbons in an emission. Despite being revered as a miracle fuel, E10 gasohol actually produces more hydrocarbons than standard gasoline. Under the new Clean Air Act, ethanol fuel would have been outlawed. Andreas quickly swooped in with a $400,000 donation to George Bush's presidential campaign. The money worked its magic and Bush announced an exemption for ethanol in the Clean Air Act. After Bush lost reelection, Andreas suddenly popped up at Bill Clinton's inauguration, which he heavily financed. Clinton paid Andreas back handsomely, repealing Bush's exemption and instead putting in place America's first ethanol mandate. The mandate was later stricken down in court. All this didn't sit well with Clinton's secretary of transportation, Federico Peña. Peña fired off a letter to the White House worrying that continuing to promote ethanol would impoverish the Highway Trust Fund, since gasohol was tax-exempt. A few days later, the Department of Transportation retracted Pena's letter, hastily claiming that Peña's autopen had signed it without his approval. By then, nobody was crossing Andreas, whose ethanol empire seemed unstoppable. "There is an agricultural mafia in this town, and Dwayne Andreas is its kingpin," wrote Frederick Potter, a Washington consultant. A few years later, Potter was singing a different tune. Andreas had become his client. By 1995, ADM was producing about 60% of America's ethanol. One of Andreas' most valuable allies was Republican Sen. Robert Dole, then Senate majority leader. Representing corn-dependent Kansas, Dole had a reason to support ethanol legislation. But Andreas sweetened the pot significantly. In addition to campaign contributions, Andreas sold Dole and his wife Elizabeth a three-room apartment at the picturesque Sea View Hotel on the oceanfront in Bal Harbor, Fla. According to a New York Times exposé, the Doles received preferential treatment for the apartment and paid only $150,000 for it. The actual value was estimated to be around $190,000. Bob Dole wasn't the only power broker vacationing at Sea View. Former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill owned a Sea View apartment and was a close friend of Andreas's. Republican Senate leader Howard Baker and veteran journalist David Brinkley vacationed at Sea View. Hubert Humphrey was also a frequent guest. Andreas used Sea View as his Camp David to entertain guests and solidify his influence with powerful people. As one of Andreas' associates recalled to Fortune magazine in 1990, "There was Dwayne in his cabana, holding court. Surrounding him were David Brinkley [whose Sunday-morning TV show ADM regularly sponsors] and Mrs. Brinkley, Ambassador [Robert] Strauss and Mrs. Strauss, Ambassador [Allan] Gotlieb [former Canadian envoy to Washington] and Mrs. Gotlieb, Speaker O'Neill and Mrs. O'Neill, and Senator Dole and Mrs. Dole." Andreas plucked his friends from the trees of power, regardless of ideology or political party. All that mattered was making a fortune off of taxpayer-funded ethanol. Veteran Democratic strategist Bob Beckel called Andreas "the shrewdest guy I've ever met at playing both sides." Andreas stepped down as CEO of ADM in 1997 at the ripe age of 79. By then, his power had weakened slightly. Some executives and investors were wary of their flamboyant leader. Andreas' loyal son and heir apparent, Michael, was charged in a price-fixing scandal that cost ADM $200 million to settle. (Nephew Allen Andreas took over the company instead.) But the world that Dwayne Andreas created lived on. Congress continued to promote gasohol as a feel-good way to save the earth, mandating ethanol in the fuel supply twice during the Bush Administration. Soon after assuming office, Barack Obama created the federal government's Biofuels Interagency Working Group, the express purpose of which was to assist the ethanol industry. Faking Green Emissions, Running Red Ink It's time to put an end to this crony capitalism. Ethanol may be beneficial for greedy CEOs and craven politicians, but it's a miserable idea for almost everyone else involved. It's a deeply inferior fuel that can't survive on the free market and doesn't deserve another dime in taxpayer funding. Those who try to justify the government's relentless ethanol promotion usually make two arguments. The first is that ethanol production helps the all-American corn farmer. This is impossible to deny. More than 25% of corn in the United States is used for ethanol production in what has become a multi-billion dollar industry. But what about actual food consumers? In 2007, the world was rocked by a sudden spike in food prices that caused massive rioting in Africa and Asia. A subsequent study by the World Bank attributed the crisis primarily to biofuel subsidies in America and Europe, arguing that subsidies had raised the cost of food by 70-75%. Other research, including a study by the Department of Agriculture, came to similar conclusions. When we divert corn to ethanol, we're letting demand for food go unmet. The second argument for ethanol is that it's a green fuel. But this simply doesn't pass the laugh test anymore. Gasohol produces more smog-causing hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide than gasoline. It also belches out carbon dioxide, the bane of Greenpeace clipboard-carriers and Al Gore groupies everywhere. The Competitive Enterprise Institute's Tim Carney dug up a study by scientist Marcelo Dias de Oliveira. Oliveira looked at ethanol's broader environmental picture -- its ecological footprint, if you will. Between the land destroyed by crop planting, the water consumed, and the resultant air pollution, Oliveira found that ethanol does more damage than good to the environment. This is the sort of cockamamie policy that crony capitalism produces. Currently the government spends $6 billion per year on subsidies for a fuel that isn't environmentally friendly and caused a global spasm of starvation. Pull out just one subsidy block and the entire Jenga tower that is the ethanol industry will come tumbling down. Congress has indicated in recent days that it's growing tired of subsidizing ethanol and is thinking about slashing the industry's tax credit. Unfortunately the EPA will probably still wilt under pressure and legalize E15. And thus will the same administration that crusaded against Toyota make all our cars less safe and Dwayne Andreas's business will keep booming. ]]></description>
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		<title>Corny Capitalism</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/08/27/corny-capitalism/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2010/08/27/corny-capitalism/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>markboabaca</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[ Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency issued another one of those announcements read exclusively by government bureaucrats and green policy wonks. The EPA decided to delay a decision to increase the concentration of ethanol legal in gasoline from 10% to 15%. So-called E15 fuel would have to wait for approval until November. It was a little-read regulatory decision that barely made a splash in the media. But it was also a rock thrown at Washington's hornets' nest of food and agricultural lobbyists. "We are disappointed," warned food giant Archer Daniels Midland. "We find this further delay unacceptable" and a "dereliction of duty," harrumphed ethanol lobbying group Growth Energy. By delaying the decision, the EPA punted on a crucial decision. The pressure brought to bear against the agency by the agriculture industry has been incredible. It's also been applied well; the EPA will most likely still approve E15 fuel in the fall. That's bad news for any American who likes to drive. In a country powered by the automobile, E15 is an enormous question mark. Since the 1970s when ethanol was first regulated by the feds, concentrations of alcohol in fuel above 10% have been illegal. But the government, lost in a dream world where cars can run on corn, has tied itself in regulatory knots trying to force ethanol into the fuel supply. The history of ethanol is a sad torrid affair of crony capitalism and green fantasies. By jumping in bed with the agriculture industry and blindly slapping on new regulations, the government artificially propped up an industry and put itself in a bind from which there may be no return. From Suing Toyota to Subsidizing E15 Across America, pumps at gas stations are emblazoned with the words, "Contains 10% Ethanol." That's no free market innovation. Since the 1970s, the federal government has heavily subsidized the production of "gasohol"--a blend of 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol that reduces tailpipe emissions. For decades, progressive politicians and environmental groups have revered ethanol as a miracle additive that will help purify America's air. "No country has ever gone to war over ethanol," reads one sign on the Washington, D.C. Metro subway. There's just one problem: Ethanol fuel is wildly inefficient. The amount of corn required to soak the fuel supply is massive. To shift America's car culture entirely from gasoline to gasohol would require 700,000 square miles of land growing corn exclusively for ethanol production. That would mean converting one-fifth of the United States into a sprawling corn farm. Then again, the government never found a green boondoggle it didn't love. For five years now, Congress has been mandating that the fuel supply be diluted with ethanol. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 required 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol in the fuel supply by 2012. A Democratic Congress went a step further in 2007, mandating 9 billion gallons by 2008, 15.2 billion by 2012, and 36 billion by 2022. Unfortunately, that whole Economics 101, supply-and-demand thing got in the way. The maximum amount of ethanol that can be produced to meet demand, called the "blend wall," is expected to level out at 15 billion. That will make it impossible to meet the government's mandates. The agriculture industry, represented primarily by Archer Daniels Midland and Growth Energy, spied an opportunity. Why not increase the legal gasohol concentration from 10% ethanol to 12% or even 15%? That would immediately ignite ethanol production and allow the government to meet its mandate. More importantly, it would make Big Agriculture some serious money. The EPA looked ready to raise the limit until science finally intervened. A study surfaced by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory from 2008 that found E15 ethanol caused a raft of problems in cars, including a loss of fuel economy and spikes in exhaust temperatures. Meanwhile the higher concentration of ethanol did nothing to reduce tailpipe emissions. The study also found problems when E15 fuel was used in lawn trimmers. The car industry exploded in outrage. Most car warranties only cover E10, which could leave customers stuck with hefty bills if their engines were damaged. A study done by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers found E15 "made engines run hot, compromised catalytic converters, and even damaged cylinder walls." To its credit, the EPA ultimately delayed its decision in order to review the science. But in the meantime they'll have an army of powerful agricultural lobbyists leaning on them. Even supported by its scaffolding of government subsidies and mandates, the ethanol industry is collapsing. The recession shuttered several ethanol companies. Others were gobbled up by oil giants at bargain prices. Some estimates suggest ethanol producers are losing 10 cents on every gallon of gasoline. This is all despite the fact that 25% of corn grown in the United States goes towards ethanol production. The agricultural industry needs E15. And if history is any indication, it'll probably get what it wants. The Agricultural Mafia and Its Kingpin It was 1978 and the Persian Gulf oil crisis was in full swing, with lines of cars snaking around fuel pumps and ghostly abandoned gas stations everywhere. President Jimmy Carter was in the midst of his own political crisis, seemingly unable to do anything except ask people to don sweaters. That year, Carter was approached by Dwayne Andreas, CEO of Archer Daniels Midland, one of the nation's largest food companies. Standing diminutively at 5-foot-4, Andreas bore a strong resemblance to James Cagney. But he was also endlessly charismatic and took to the halls of Washington like a fish to water. He convinced the hapless Carter that there was only one way to strip OPEC of its power and make America energy independent: a miracle fuel called ethanol. At Carter's urging, Congress passed ethanol's first big boon: a tax exemption for gasohol. But Andreas was far from done. Over the next 20 years, he would hopscotch across Washington, wooing politicians from both sides of the aisle. Almost singlehandedly, he would build Archer Daniels Midland into an ethanol powerhouse with a thicket of new legislation that benefitted his company. But first, the competition had to go. Ethanol was more established overseas, particularly in Brazil which produced ethanol from sugar cane. America could import this fuel for cheaper prices than were available domestically. Andreas knew Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign was in trouble, so he struck a deal. If Congress would slap a tariff on foreign-produced ethanol, Andreas would open a new ethanol plant in Des Moines, boosting Carter's political fortunes in the Midwest. Carter agreed and the tariff was passed. By then, Congress had caught ethanol fever. Liberal environmentalists talked up gasohol as a step towards cleaner skies. Midwestern politicians from rural states waxed poetically about the American corn farmer. In 1980, the government passed an income tax credit for companies that produced gasohol. The credit would be increased in 1990 and again in 2004. With business booming, Andreas extended his outsize personality across the ocean to the Soviet Union. Crippled by poverty, the USSR was searching for a way to modernize food distribution. Andreas quickly won over Mikhail Gorbachev, secured more business for ADM, and became America's most visible businessman in Moscow. Then disaster almost struck. In 1991, the EPA implemented a new set of rules in the Clean Air Act. The regulations imposed a strict cap on volatility, the amount of smog-producing hydrocarbons in an emission. Despite being revered as a miracle fuel, E10 gasohol actually produces more hydrocarbons than standard gasoline. Under the new Clean Air Act, ethanol fuel would have been outlawed. Andreas quickly swooped in with a $400,000 donation to George Bush's presidential campaign. The money worked its magic and Bush announced an exemption for ethanol in the Clean Air Act. After Bush lost reelection, Andreas suddenly popped up at Bill Clinton's inauguration, which he heavily financed. Clinton paid Andreas back handsomely, repealing Bush's exemption and instead putting in place America's first ethanol mandate. The mandate was later stricken down in court. All this didn't sit well with Clinton's secretary of transportation, Federico Peña. Peña fired off a letter to the White House worrying that continuing to promote ethanol would impoverish the Highway Trust Fund, since gasohol was tax-exempt. A few days later, the Department of Transportation retracted Pena's letter, hastily claiming that Peña's autopen had signed it without his approval. By then, nobody was crossing Andreas, whose ethanol empire seemed unstoppable. "There is an agricultural mafia in this town, and Dwayne Andreas is its kingpin," wrote Frederick Potter, a Washington consultant. A few years later, Potter was singing a different tune. Andreas had become his client. By 1995, ADM was producing about 60% of America's ethanol. One of Andreas' most valuable allies was Republican Sen. Robert Dole, then Senate majority leader. Representing corn-dependent Kansas, Dole had a reason to support ethanol legislation. But Andreas sweetened the pot significantly. In addition to campaign contributions, Andreas sold Dole and his wife Elizabeth a three-room apartment at the picturesque Sea View Hotel on the oceanfront in Bal Harbor, Fla. According to a New York Times exposé, the Doles received preferential treatment for the apartment and paid only $150,000 for it. The actual value was estimated to be around $190,000. Bob Dole wasn't the only power broker vacationing at Sea View. Former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill owned a Sea View apartment and was a close friend of Andreas's. Republican Senate leader Howard Baker and veteran journalist David Brinkley vacationed at Sea View. Hubert Humphrey was also a frequent guest. Andreas used Sea View as his Camp David to entertain guests and solidify his influence with powerful people. As one of Andreas' associates recalled to Fortune magazine in 1990, "There was Dwayne in his cabana, holding court. Surrounding him were David Brinkley [whose Sunday-morning TV show ADM regularly sponsors] and Mrs. Brinkley, Ambassador [Robert] Strauss and Mrs. Strauss, Ambassador [Allan] Gotlieb [former Canadian envoy to Washington] and Mrs. Gotlieb, Speaker O'Neill and Mrs. O'Neill, and Senator Dole and Mrs. Dole." Andreas plucked his friends from the trees of power, regardless of ideology or political party. All that mattered was making a fortune off of taxpayer-funded ethanol. Veteran Democratic strategist Bob Beckel called Andreas "the shrewdest guy I've ever met at playing both sides." Andreas stepped down as CEO of ADM in 1997 at the ripe age of 79. By then, his power had weakened slightly. Some executives and investors were wary of their flamboyant leader. Andreas' loyal son and heir apparent, Michael, was charged in a price-fixing scandal that cost ADM $200 million to settle. (Nephew Allen Andreas took over the company instead.) But the world that Dwayne Andreas created lived on. Congress continued to promote gasohol as a feel-good way to save the earth, mandating ethanol in the fuel supply twice during the Bush Administration. Soon after assuming office, Barack Obama created the federal government's Biofuels Interagency Working Group, the express purpose of which was to assist the ethanol industry. Faking Green Emissions, Running Red Ink It's time to put an end to this crony capitalism. Ethanol may be beneficial for greedy CEOs and craven politicians, but it's a miserable idea for almost everyone else involved. It's a deeply inferior fuel that can't survive on the free market and doesn't deserve another dime in taxpayer funding. Those who try to justify the government's relentless ethanol promotion usually make two arguments. The first is that ethanol production helps the all-American corn farmer. This is impossible to deny. More than 25% of corn in the United States is used for ethanol production in what has become a multi-billion dollar industry. But what about actual food consumers? In 2007, the world was rocked by a sudden spike in food prices that caused massive rioting in Africa and Asia. A subsequent study by the World Bank attributed the crisis primarily to biofuel subsidies in America and Europe, arguing that subsidies had raised the cost of food by 70-75%. Other research, including a study by the Department of Agriculture, came to similar conclusions. When we divert corn to ethanol, we're letting demand for food go unmet. The second argument for ethanol is that it's a green fuel. But this simply doesn't pass the laugh test anymore. Gasohol produces more smog-causing hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide than gasoline. It also belches out carbon dioxide, the bane of Greenpeace clipboard-carriers and Al Gore groupies everywhere. The Competitive Enterprise Institute's Tim Carney dug up a study by scientist Marcelo Dias de Oliveira. Oliveira looked at ethanol's broader environmental picture -- its ecological footprint, if you will. Between the land destroyed by crop planting, the water consumed, and the resultant air pollution, Oliveira found that ethanol does more damage than good to the environment. This is the sort of cockamamie policy that crony capitalism produces. Currently the government spends $6 billion per year on subsidies for a fuel that isn't environmentally friendly and caused a global spasm of starvation. Pull out just one subsidy block and the entire Jenga tower that is the ethanol industry will come tumbling down. Congress has indicated in recent days that it's growing tired of subsidizing ethanol and is thinking about slashing the industry's tax credit. Unfortunately the EPA will probably still wilt under pressure and legalize E15. And thus will the same administration that crusaded against Toyota make all our cars less safe and Dwayne Andreas's business will keep booming. ]]></description>
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