Interior Secretary Salazar has decided that America has serious energy needs – needs which must be addressed through an emergency effort to activate new sources quickly. Is this a sudden move to expedite offshore drilling – and reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil? Not quite . Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday said his department would propose regulatory changes to simplify and speed the leasing process for wind energy development off the Atlantic coast. In addition, the department will work aggressively to process applications to build transmission lines to move the electricity produced by offshore wind farms to consumers, he said at a news briefing in Baltimore with officials from Maryland and Delaware. The proposed changes are the result of lessons the department learned in implementing the controversial Cape Wind lease off the coast of Massachusetts earlier this year, a process that took eight years. Salazar described the lease, which is expected to power 200 homes, as a “historic milestone in America’s renewable energy future.” But he said it was clear federal officials needed to make the permitting process more efficient if they are to realize the Obama administration’s goals of harnessing the economic and environmental benefits of producing energy from the strong and steady winds that characterize much of the Atlantic coast. Through the accelerated leasing process, led by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, the department could issue new leases by the end of 2011. But while the administration is rushing to license offshore wind farms, offshore oil drilling is still stalled – by the same Department of the Interior : A meeting between Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and offshore drilling executives on the Gulf Coast orchestrated by Senator Mary Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, failed to yield much progress on streamlining the permitting process for new wells in the aftermath of the BP oil spill, Ms. Landrieu said this week. “I am extremely disappointed that Secretary Salazar’s presentation today failed to provide regulatory certainty and a clear path for speeding up the process of issuing drilling permits,” she said in a statement. “Our industry leaders are skeptical and have every right to be,” she said. Salazar met with drilling advocates on Monday, and made clear the White House will not be moving forward on drilling anytime soon. On Tuesday, he made clear where the administration’s favor lies: with green energy interests. But the failure to expand offshore drilling is extremely costly . If the White House were willing to move forward with drilling, it would create thousands of jobs and add billions in new tax revenue – both of which would be especially valuable at a time of record deficits and a shortage of jobs. Instead, wind farms appear to be the nation’s only strategy for attending to domestic energy needs. Cross-posted at Liberty Central
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White House Expedites Wind Farms; Stalls Drilling
A few months ago, Congressman Phil Hare (D-IL) was an obscure backbench Democrat in a safe House seat, in the president’s home state. With each passing day, however, it becomes clearer and clearer that his big government voting record and apathy toward the Constitution has led to a real race. First Congressman Hare was caught on video confusing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and saying the Constitution ‘doesn’t matter to me .’ Then he calls questions about the Constitution ‘ silly stuff .’ He had already earned an ‘F’ on the Liberty Central legislative scorecard . And now comes word that he has filed an FEC complaint against a group of veterans : “The collusion between Bobby Schilling and ‘Veterans for the Constitution’ is not only unethical, it’s illegal,” Moody said in a statement… In the news release announcing the complaint, [Rep.] Hare said Schilling should “emerge from the shadows and demonstrate the courage to challenge me directly.” Schilling and the veterans group denied wrongdoing. Bill Albracht, treasurer of Veterans for the Constitution, said the complaint is a sign it’s having an effect. “We have taken the fight to Hare, and I see this as retaliation and intimidation,” he said. The group Hare is targeting has raised just $6,000 . Furthermore, I’m told by a source on the ground that Congressman Hare’s supporters have prodded the City of Canton, Illinois, to try to force Schilling’s supporters to remove a legal billboard that highlights the importance of the Constitution – Hare’s statements notwithstanding. Hare is apparently nervous enough about his race to resort to attacking groups whose resources are so limited -a few thousand dollars here, a billboard there – that they have negligible influence. At least, they had negligible influence – until Congressman Hare elevated them. As Jim Geraghty has pointed out, at least one poll shows Hare trailing his Republican challenger by a margin of 45%-32% . Hare’s panicky reactions to these small groups suggests that poll may be right. After all, a confident incumbent would have shrugged off this opposition. Instead, Hare has given them more attention than they ever could have gotten for their $6,000, and he’s done so in a way that makes him appear vindictive and petty. Cross-posted to Liberty Central
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Rep. Phil Hare is Starting to Panic
Michelle Obama received a lot of criticism a few years ago when she said “ for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country .” She said it was not just because Barack Obama was winning, but because ‘people are hungry for change.’ It was a stunning admission – an acknowledgment that she could not ‘really’ be proud of her country while a majority of her fellow Americans disagreed with her. The response to the World Trade Center attack, our actions in Kosovo to protect religious minorities, our liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban, our attempts at mediation between Israel and her enemies – even something apolitical like the space program – none were a cause for ‘real’ pride, because Mrs. Obama disagreed. Given that sharp insight into her thinking – and into the way of thinking of many liberals – it should be no surprise that the shrinking circle of Obama supporters is no longer proud of America. Americans still want change, and they are still largely united. But now they want change from the Obama agenda, and they are united around their opposition to big government. And as Charles Krauthammer points out , that’s reason for liberals to regard Americans with shame and criticism, instead of the praise they lavished on them scant months ago. Liberalism under siege is an ugly sight indeed. Just yesterday it was all hope and change and returning power to the people. But the people have proved so disappointing. Their recalcitrance has, in only 19 months, turned the predicted 40-year liberal ascendancy (James Carville) into a full retreat. Ah, the people, the little people, the small-town people, the “bitter” people, as Barack Obama in an unguarded moment once memorably called them, clinging “to guns or religion or” — this part is less remembered — “antipathy toward people who aren’t like them.” That’s a polite way of saying: clinging to bigotry. And promiscuous charges of bigotry are precisely how our current rulers and their vast media auxiliary react to an obstreperous citizenry that insists on incorrect thinking… It is a measure of the corruption of liberal thought and the collapse of its self-confidence that, finding itself so widely repudiated, it resorts reflexively to the cheapest race-baiting (in a colorful variety of forms). Indeed, how can one reason with a nation of pitchfork-wielding mobs brimming with “antipathy toward people who aren’t like them” — blacks, Hispanics, gays and Muslims — a nation that is, as Michelle Obama once put it succinctly, “just downright mean”? Go and read the whole piece . Krauthammer points out that on the key hot-button issues of size of government, gay marriage, the mosque, and immigration, liberals argue that a significant majority of the American people are bigoted. Yet these are the same American people that Michelle Obama was so proud of just two years ago – the same ones who embraced Barack Obama and gave him a resounding majority. Have they really transformed so suddenly into bigots? Isn’t it more likely that they have gotten a taste of what liberals believe, and decided that it’s wrong for America? Hopefully liberals can be proud of America – rather than contemptuous of it – even when they disagree. Cross-posted from Liberty Central
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Is Michelle Obama Still Proud of America?
Do you want to attend the 9/12 rally and events, but can’t spare the money right now? The grassroots organization Liberty Central (for which I work) is sponsoring a contest to send one luck participant to Washington, DC for the upcoming 9/12 march. All you need to compete is a camera and a little creativity! Watch and enter: Visit Liberty Central for more information!
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Win a Trip to the 9/12 March in Washington, DC
Giffords’ district – one with a significant Republican lean – is currently rated as vulnerable by respected analyst Charlie Cook. For a Democrat in a conservative state, representing a Republican-leaning seat, it is important to stake out moderate stances on controversial issues. That’s particularly true on a hot-button issue such as immigration, which is obviously very important to Arizona voters this year. That’s probably the reason Giffords took to the airwaves to make clear that she opposes the boycott favored by some liberals to pressure the state to rescind its new immigration law. This was probably smart politics, but it put her at odds with the liberal grassroots – and with Congressman Raul Grijalva, who was an advocate of the boycott. Worse still, Giffords’ border district abuts Congressman Grijalva’s and the two share the Tucson media market. It’s that market where her ads are airing. For the grassroots, this is a major offense : Giffords is looking like the point of the Blue Dog spear being thrust into the House progressive infrastructure. As we pointed out over the weekend, despite Pelosi’s efforts to tamp it down, the Blue Dogs are going on the warpath against progressive Democrats, using Henry Waxman’s interview with The Hill as an excuse. One thing we can always be sure of inside the Democratic Caucus– well, two, actually: Blue Dogs will always put self-preservation above the party’s principles, and the DCCC will do whatever it can to help them get re-elected… When Grijalva took a leadership role in speaking out against SB1070 and called for civic, political and religious organizations not to bring their conventions and conferences to Arizona, it was a defining and courageous political stand. Since then, he has said that economic consequences mean nothing to political ideologues, and he has been actively working with industries to bring business back to the state to help amplify his voice and effect change (www.vivaarizona.org is one such example). Giffords’ attack on his stand and on everyone who joined him in fighting for what is right obfuscates her failure to exhibit meaningful leadership in this fight, and hurts those who did… Minutes before publishing time I reached Raúl in Tucson and I was surprised to find him in such a determined mood. “I kind of feel like a character in the movie The Expendables, he told me. “In an effort to maintain their presence in Congress, Blue Dogs are throwing progressives under the bus. I find it disheartening and, quite frankly, I am embarrassed as a Democrat. In their effort to be Republicans, Blue Dogs often paint progressives as expendable. They’re going to find out that we definitely are not.” Not only was Grijalva exorcised enough at this ‘attack’ to discuss it with liberal activists, he has now taken to the pages of DailyKos to attack Giffords, and to complain about being ‘thrown under the bus.’ He’s appealing for donations that will be used to advance the ‘progressive agenda’ – a thinly veiled attack at Members like Giffords. Discord in the House majority seems to have hit a new level – with moderates and progressives more intent on fighting each other than governing the country. Cross-posted to Liberty Central
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Blue on Blue: Grijalva, Giffords Tangle over SB1070
