This past weekend, there were several articles addressing the marriage amendment up for a vote this coming fall.  Instead of dealing with it rationally, the Star Tribune printed two articles that merely defame conservatives without addressing the actual issue. The Democratic Party is creating a narrative that suggests if you are for the amendment, which merely memorializes the law as it stands, you are engaging in hateful vitriol and vile acts of bigotry.  However, if you are in favor of same-sex marriage rights, it is perfectly acceptable to allow the status quo to continue; marriage as between only one man and one woman.  The idiocy of this position and the negativity it propounds should be called out and a case should be made for resolving the issue.  First, let’s explore the bungled case against the marriage amendment.

From Marilyn Carlson Nelson, January 14, 2012, ‘The marriage amendment, from all angles;’

“Do we want to shackle our grandchildren, perhaps for decades, with the vitriolic debate and sometimes violence that have preceded the great human-rights victories of our nation?”  I am baffled by this characterization of the situation.  Nelson isn’t a firebrand liberal, yet she is engaging in the most divisive and obtuse argument the Democratic Party uses against conservatives.  Perhaps Nelson has been plagued by lawless gangs of homophobes wandering the state looking for gays to bash, but I haven’t.  AND I’M GAY.  Besides, this argument about whether or not to make the definition of marriage a part of the Minnesota constitution is academic at this point.  Same-sex marriage isn’t legal in this state now and Nelson doesn’t make an argument for any kind of accommodation.  Her case is entirely negative, but she goes even further afield.

“I see myself at the dock waving goodbye to a ship filled with friends, family and colleagues — all of whom happen to be gay. People who through a lifetime of ups and downs have laughed with me, supported me and enriched me”   I have searched high and low, and I haven’t found a single marriage amendment advocate who suggests shipping people like me out of the state.  If we want to find a group of people who enjoy shipping people off to places, it would be progressives who do that.  During World War I, it was progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson who gathered German-Americans into camps.  During World War II, it was progressive Democrat FDR who gathered German-Americans and Japanese-Americans into concentration camps.  We don’t find that kind of behavior among conservatives.  It’s always ‘us versus them’ collectivists who adore marginalizing, demonizing, and isolating groups based on identity.  Nelson’s argument is pure nonsense and it only obscures the issue and brings no light to the debate.

The local Democratic spokesmodels are also willing to add no substance and lots of hyperbole to the discussion.  Lori Sturdevant addresses another strange argument the Left has been making.   She suggests all Republicans must be considered ‘anti-gay’ through guilt by association.  Since Republicans passed the marriage amendment proposal, Republicans must now be perfect people or they are somehow ‘hypocrites.’

“I raise the Smith gossip not to dwell on the personal lives of state politicians, diverting though that topic has been of late.

Rather, my attention is drawn to how quickly a nexus developed between reported affairs of the heart and other body parts, and legislators’ votes for the anti-same-sex-marriage amendment last May.” ‘Lori Sturdevant: The marriage amendment vote,’ January 14, 2012

Let’s take this apart carefully.  Her first canard is absolutely ridiculous.  Rep. Steve Smith of Mound was the victim of a leftwing rumor involving a sexual relationship.  Smith is single.  There is no evidence of a dalliance.  But, Sturdevant, perhaps jealous of the scandalmongers at Politico, brings up an unsubstantiated bit of gossip to make a point that isn’t even a point.  Smith voted against the amendment, but somehow, in the rickety attic which is her mind, Sturdevant thinks this provides her a case against the amendment.  Huh?

She then states her attention is directed to how a legislator votes and their romantic lives.  Why?  Because she’s making political hay over the Koch affair and will continue to connect individual behavior of Republicans to the same-sex marriage argument, a truly wild stretch.  This argument is another case of intellectual dishonesty that obscures the issue.

I have yet to hear an argument for the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman because that will make people faithful.  No one believes a traditional definition will cause fidelity.  The inverse is also ridiculous.  No one I know has ever said if same-sex partners can get married, this will allow opposite sex couple to cheat on one another.  The argument is that marriage is a sacred union between two people of the opposite sex.  What they do within that union is between them.  This mingling of the concept of marriage and private behavior is illogical and borders on the insane.  There is no causal ‘nexus’ between the institution and the actions of individual couples.  Yet, charges of ‘hypocrisy’ never take into account this philosophical dilemma.

To make it even worse, neither so-called advocate, Nelson nor Sturdevant, make a positive case for same-sex unions.  They name-call and smear proponents of the definition as between a man and a woman, but never actually commit to the cause they argue.

Just like President Obama and his so-called, ‘evolving’ opinion on same-sex marriage.  The Panderer-in-chief is against same-sex marriage, well maybe.  He rides the fence because he wants to cater to both sides of the issue.  Yet, no one calls into question the position of the national leader of the Democratic Party.  We don’t hear accusations of Obama being a hypocrite, which he blatantly is.

John Edwards, Democratic Party vice presidential nominee in 2004, gave us a more likely example of excusing infidelity within marriage than do supporters of the marriage amendment.  So did Democratic President Bill Clinton, known perjurer and serial adulterer.  They are certainly far more destructive to the institution of marriage, yet Nelson and Sturdevant never mention their perfidy.  In fact, the organization Moveon.org was established to excuse Clinton, signer of the Defense of Marriage Act, of his crimes.  The Democratic Party sits on the sideline and snarks, but doesn’t do a single thing about the issue. It’s almost like they don’t want to actually help gay people but want an issue to keep gays on their plantation.

As I’ve previously noted.

So, I will make a conservative case for partnership rights for same-sex couples. I will do so without calling anyone a name or casting aspersions at any group.  I will do so with sincerity and integrity.

Same-sex relationships exist and the law makes no accommodation to deal with them.  For example, my partner and I have ordered our lives as a unit.  We planned our retirement, living arrangements, and daily lives around one another.  Our relationship isn’t just a couple of roommates, but two people who have organized our behavior toward a shared end.  Lots of other gay people have done the same.  As a result, when there is a death, or a breakdown, or some other dilemma, the courts have no way of dealing with the situation.  While we are not a married couple, we are also not a casual partnership.

I’ve listened carefully to objections to same-sex marriage and several points make sense. While I don’t agree, I can respect the belief of marriage as an exclusively heterosexual relationship that is a union of two and spiritually ordained.  I can agree that our law’s treatment of marriage is to further the ends of childrearing and care for one another.  Two people are the optimal grouping for these ideals.

What I suggest is we continue to reserve marriage as a unique institution to those ends.  That doesn’t mean we cannot have other arrangements for people like me and my partner.  We can have a legal arrangement like a civil union that our courts and other civil officials can recognize as something different than just two ships which pass in the night.  This is actually a rather conservative idea because instead of using the law to shape human behavior, conservatives like the law to reflect reality.

Let’s consider business relationships as an example.   Formal “C” corporations were initially the first kind of partnership which gave an entity the independence and liability of its own being.  Shareholders were no longer on the hook for the debts or problems of this business relationship.  You could buy stock and earn dividends, but creditors couldn’t go after you personally for the actions of the entity.

This older form of corporation didn’t work well for some kinds of businesses.  Yet, these entities needed to insulate their personal lives from liability for the actions of their agents.  They also needed a kind of organization that would allow others to invest so they could grow, yet didn’t need the expense and formalities of a full blown corporation.  So, we created “S” corporations in 1982 and later LLC’s.  These were business forms that allowed groups of people to invest and operate more flexibly than with the traditional form.  They aren’t better or worse than historically defined corporations, but simply different.

I propose the same kind of arrangement to be created for same-sex couples.  This would allow courts and civil officials to deal with our relationships as we intend instead of simply acting as though we are strangers before the law.  It would allow us the ability to articulate our arrangement instead of pretending we are just roommates.  It’s as with corporate forms, it wouldn’t be better or worse, just different.  It would give same-sex couples standing in the law and yet preserve the traditional form of marriage as it has always been.

The state legislature could create such a form even should the marriage amendment pass.  The constitutional amendment only defines marriage as between one man and one woman.  It doesn’t exclude other forms of relationships having similar status.  It would be a reasonable accommodation that would alleviate an ongoing problem.  And, it wouldn’t change the traditional view of marriage.

See.  I managed to make a positive case for same-sex relationship legal status without recriminations or abuse of another.  I didn’t need to demonize or make spurious accusations toward another person.  I managed to present a position that could alleviate an issue, engage the debate, and make a positive contribution.

And I didn’t suggest shipping anyone anywhere, angry gangs of thugs, or the sex lives of political officials to do it.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com

You know it’s gotten bad when the Democratic spokesmodels at the reliably liberal Star Tribune are chiding President Obama.  In a commentary entitled, ‘Recess appointment flap — a sign of the rule-bending times,’ Strib editor D.J. Tice has some cautionary words for his friends on the left.  Using a comparison that is more akin to that of the Tea Party, Tice warns that if we let President Obama circumvent the Senate’s authority to advise and consent, we may find ourselves becoming Libya.  He suggests, quite rightly, that our political procedures encased within the Constitution are what keep us free and democratic.  Tice’s poking of the Democrats, while necessary, was rather weak tea, but it shows just how radical this (his) party has become.

The situation isn’t very complex.  In the Clinton administration, they figured out just how long an absent Congress must be before making recess appointments, legally.  The magic number was three.  Clinton could safely appoint high officials without the consent of the Senate if they weren’t in session for over three days.  This number came in handy because when George W. Bush became president, Democrats kept Congress going with pro forma sessions to prevent Bush from appointing people to vacancies.

Constitutional Professor Obama, never one to cater to something as pathetic as the law, decided to appoint some officials even though Congress wasn’t in recess.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat Nevada, endorsed the procedure, even though it means the blunting of one of the Senate’s most important duties; deciding whether appointees are trustworthy and acceptable to administer the laws Congress has enacted.  Obama basically took the constitutional powers of the Senate into his own hands.  Democrats are mostly silent over this blatant exercise of unlawful authority.

For the most part, Democrats realize if they relinquish this powerful tool, when a Republican president is elected, they will be without the ability to stop his or her appointees, no matter how much they disagree or doubt the candidate.  But, Professor of Constitutional Law Obama is becoming desperate both politically and policy-wise.  He continues to get kicked in the teeth by his most radical leftwing allies for being too soft.  This act would prove Obama could be a cowboy too, albeit a lawless outlaw.

So, the editors of the Star Tribune knew they needed to publish their protests to this blatant, flagrant abuse of presidential power, no matter how muffled.  In order to retain even a modicum of credibility, they had to get this on the record.  Tice did three things in his article.  First, he pretended the paper cared about the warp and weave of the Constitution, though Democrats only really bother with the ‘general welfare’ and ‘commerce clause.’  Second, he had to warn rank and file progressives and socialists that this could easily bite them in the derriere once The Party loses power.  The final, and most important thing Tice wanted to achieve, was to twist the president and the Democratic Party’s feckless behavior into something to blame Republicans with.

So Tice mischaracterized the situation like this:

“So, let’s review: 1) Obama has called the Senate’s bluff on its fake sessions, 2) in order to make recess appointments that really aren’t justified by a prolonged Senate absence, 3) while all the while Republicans are blocking confirmation votes they couldn’t win to paralyze agencies that they can’t abolish or restrain via legislation.

It’s shenanigans all the way down.”  January 10, 2012.

Pro forma sessions aren’t fake sessions.  In fact, it was during a pro forma session just a couple of weeks ago the Senate passed the two month extension of the payroll tax rebate Obama and his fellow prevaricators in the Senate had wanted.  From the United States Senate Democrat website:

“During today’s pro forma, the Senate entered an agreement to pass a bill providing for a 2 month extension of the reduced payroll tax, unemployment insurance, TANF, and the Medicare payment fix; agree to the request for a conference with respect to HR 3630; and authorize the Chair to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate, all occurring if the House sends us a bill to extend reduced payroll tax and other provisions for a period of 2 months.”

http://democrats.senate.gov/2011/12/23/agreement-on-2-month-extension-of-payroll-tax/

If pro forma sessions are fake sessions, the payroll tax cut, passed by Reid in a pro forma session, is in fact null and void.  I wonder if Tice is bothered by that idea.

Tice then characterized Obama’s abuse of power concerning the appointments, “really aren’t justified by a prolonged Senate absence.”  What mealy mouthed drivel is this?  Tice specifically picked words that neither condemn nor admonish, but instead suggest the president was being a little too assertive.  He should have called Obama’s act criminal in that he stole the powers of the Senate to judge appointed officials and actually bypassed the representatives of the people.

Tice ends with the idiotic narrative that Republicans are obstructionists.  This in spite the fact the Democratic controlled Senate hasn’t passed a budget in almost 1000 days and there are fifteen jobs bills passed by the House and ignored by the Democrats.  Tice also pretends the House didn’t pass a YEAR LONG payroll tax rebate while the Senate only passed a two month extension because Minnesota’s Sen. Amy Klobuchar had to get home and hang the mistletoe and cut the fruitcake for her union thug bosses and enviro-fascist allies.

Tice ends with the dismissive “shenanigans all around” when it clearly one-sided.  The only shenanigans going on are in and amongst the Democratic Party and their tyrant-in-chief, Professor Obama.  The Republicans are doing their job by stopping the installation of a lackey by the name of Richard Cordray.  Republicans insisted the job he was getting had too much power and was too broad.  They contended, quite reasonably, other regulatory agencies had boards to oversee financial institutions, yet the Consumer Protection Safety Bureau was a fiefdom that would ruled by one person.  This certainly seems like a fair reason to object to an overreaching executive branch hellbent on singular control of the economy out of the White House.

Tice doesn’t mention that.  He and his cohorts at the official DFL newsletter whitewash that in order to excuse the dictates of an authoritarian president and his toady followers in the Senate.  But, at least we have to give Tice credit.  He spoke out against the president’s actions, unlike our two cowardly Senators, Klobuchar and Franken.  They wanted the president to recess appoint communist Elizabeth Warren to head this totalitarian bureau.  I’m sure they think Obama’s appointment of Cordray was the safe way out, even if it was at the expense of their own constitutional authority and responsibility.

Tice may use a rhetorical device like the Tea Party, but he twists and contorts the facts like a progressive.  We should all demand our elected officials protest this unlawful act by the president, or at least get them on the record of where they stand.  Someday, people like Sen. Franken will be whining and crying because he can’t stop President Mitt or President Ron’s appointments.  It will be because of unlawful President Obama and his unabashed theft of power.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com as “D.J. Tice’s “Weak Tea” Party Protest

Fox Lake Power Plant has been listed as an electrical generating plant to be closed down by the EPA ostensibly due to it being ‘dirty’ and not complying with new rules generated by the EPA administrator uber-radical Lisa Jackson.  In my last post I questioned why this small rural Minnesota power plant being placed on the list because it doesn’t even burn coal and hasn’t since 1998.  It seems the EPA, as administered by the Obama administration, is using a kind of “slide rule of law” in determining what plants should close and which remain open.  Instead of adhering to a historically American version that demands all people to be treated equally before the law, Lisa Jackson and President Obama view some populations as more equal than others.

How is Fox Lake being treated in comparison to other plants serving other populations?  Is there a political calculation being used instead of a scientific standard?  These questions arise because it seems rather bizarre a natural gas fired power plant would be closed for coal-burning reasons.  It has been suggested the reasons are Fox Lake still has a coal burning boiler on the premises and an ash pond, though that pond isn’t polluting.  Following these standards, let’s look at two other power plants and see how they are treated.

I looked into the power plants that generate electricity for the Twin Cities Metro power grid.  The entire metropolitan area is served by several power plants, two within the city limits of Minneapolis and St. Paul.  One, in St. Paul, is called the High Bridge Power Plant.  The other in Minneapolis is the Riverside Power Plant.  Other plants also feed the Twin Cities Zone of the grid including a plant called Sherco (Sherburne Power Plant).

Riverside Power Plant was converted to burning natural gas, in 2009.  It is five times the size of Fox Lake and serves the dark blue inner city.  If we consider the fact it once was a coal-fired plant, we’d have to conclude it spewed poisonous gases far more copious that little Fox Lake did, and for eleven years longer.  Yet, Riverside isn’t on the EPA’s shut down list.  According to an EPA filing, the Riverside Generation Plant is now 100% gas-fired but “Unit #8 is currently idle, is not producing ash, and is not expected to operate on coal again before it is converted to gas.”  This document was sent on March26, 2009 and there is no reason to believe the coal-fired boiler was removed since them.  The pond was dredged and going to be removed.  However, the ash had to go somewhere so its existence is an issue.

So why isn’t Riverside being shut down?  It burned coal until April 2009, according to Xcel Energy’s website.  It has a coal-fired boiler on site.  In fact, it lists coal-fired boiler Unit #7 as being used as a secondary steam generating unit from the exhaust from the gas-fired units.  Sure, it’s not burning coal but the mere existence of a coal-burning unit at Fox Lake was considered enough to shut it down.

If Riverside were to be shut down, the city of Minneapolis would be starved of electricity.  The plants in the surrounding areas would be hard pressed to fill the void.  Yet, Riverside and Fox Lake fit the same criteria.  They simply serve different populations, one urban and dark blue, the other rural and red.

Next, if we look a little to the north of the Twin Cities, we find a far more stark comparison to Fox Lake.  Up in Becker Minnesota is a plant called Sherco.  Sherco supplies power for the northern and western parts of the metropolitan area grid.  Becker is in a conservative part of the state, but it serves a population that is blue as well.  Sherco is the polar opposite of Fox Lake, yet it isn’t being shut down either.

Sherburne Power Plant is enormous, generating 2400 megawatts of power, five times the amount of electricity as Riverside and 24 times that of Fox Lake.  It’s a coal-fired plant with state of the art scrubbers to keep pollution at a minimum.  However, Sherco isn’t on the EPA’s list, even though it burns coal and has enormous ash ponds, one which leaked in 2007, according to EPA filings.

Sherco was even listed as one of America’s ‘dirtiest’ power plants by the Environmental Integrity Project in 2007.  It was listed in the top twenty producers of mercury and thirteenth biggest producer of that evil, toxic gas carbon dioxide.  It spews out sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides, yet curiously it isn’t on the EPA’s list.  Why would such a filthy polluter get away with all this terrible energy production while meek little Fox Lake gets padlocked?

Well, Sherburne Power Plant is the big dog that fuels business and homes for most of the Twin Cities area.  In fact, if you add up all the other electrical generating plants throughout the Twin Cities, only then do they match the power generated by Sherco.  Almost half of the electricity used by the Twin Cities area comes from the coal-burning Sherco plant.  If that plant were to convert to natural gas, it would burn as much as 80% of all of Minnesota customers use now.  It’s a big plant and important in keeping the Twin Cities’ lights on.

But, according to the EPA, it is a dirty, polluting plant.  So, why isn’t Sherco getting shut down and leaving Fox Lake alone?

In a word:  political calculations.

Shutting down such a plant would be the death of the Twin Cities economy and howls of public protest would shout down any argument to the contrary.  The plant is the heart and soul of the economic engine of the Twin Cities metropolitan area.  So, the EPA had to get out their slide rule to factor in the political considerations.

Fox Lake is little and rural. Sherco is enormous and serves a highly populated area.  Even though Fox Lake’s ‘transgressions’ pale in comparison to Sherco, one is shuttered, the other ignored.

This is not an argument for shutting down Sherco or any power plant for that matter.  It is the use of political considerations while making public policy that should trouble us.  The people of southern Minnesota and northern Iowa shouldn’t be treated differently than people of the Twin Cities, regardless of political power.  The EPA should be generating rules and regulations that can be implemented regardless of population served.  If the rules promulgated do irreparable damage to a large group, it will do so to a small group, though with less of a political impact.

This is just plain wrong.  It doesn’t fit our strict standard of a law impacting everyone equally.  It creates a sliding scale of harm compared to cost.  Regulations should treat all players the same.  One group doesn’t get a pass while another is punished for the same offense.  The Obama administration doesn’t care about such considerations.  Lisa Jackson gets out her slide rule and calculates harm and political risk, and makes a determination.  That’s the rule of man, and not of law.  We should not tolerate it.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com

References are as follows:

http://www.xcelenergy.com/About_Us/Our_Company/Power_Generation/Sherburne_County_(Sherco)_Generating_Station

http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/surveys/northern-states.pdf

http://www.environmentalintegrity.org/news_reports/documents/DirtyKilowatts-Top50MercuryPowerPlantReport.pdf

http://minnelectrans.com/documents/2011_Biennial_Report/2011_Biennial_Report.pdf

The Obama administration’s EPA has declared a war on coal-fired power plants.  The president famously remarked he didn’t care if coal power plants operated, but he would make sure they were cost-prohibitive.  His EPA rolled out rules that would make coal-burning power plants a target in his war on mercury and other pollutants.  His radical EPA chief said, “This has been 20 years in the making,” Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator, said today at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington. “This is a great victory for public health, especially for the health of our children.” Bloomberg News, December 21, 2011.  But, when you look a little deeper, it seems the list of 32 power plants targeted by Obama doesn’t jibe with their reasoning.  It appears the EPA isn’t just targeting polluters, but targeting specific demographic and political areas.

Consider this, in southern Minnesota along Interstate 90, there is a little town by the name of Sherburn.  Outside Sherburn is a power plant that is on the list of targets issued by the EPA.  The Fox Lake power plant has been generating electricity in the area since 1950 and produces power for nearby homes and businesses.  The new rules being promulgated by the EPA define Fox Lake a ‘dirty’ producer of electricity.

From the AP:

“Combined, the rules could do away with more than 8 percent of the coal-fired generation nationwide, the AP found. The average age of the plants that could be sacrificed is 51 years.

These plants have been allowed to run for decades without modern pollution controls because it was thought that they were on the verge of being closed by the utilities that own them. But that didn’t happen.”  ‘Federal clean-air regulations mean closure for dozens of power plants,’ Dec 20, 2011,by Dina Cappiello.

So, finally Fox Lake is being slated for shutdown because it’s time has run out to change over to cleaner forms of energy, right?

Wrong.

From the Fairmont Sentinel, the newspaper from the county where Fox Lake is located:

“There are four production units at the Fox Lake plant, but only two are in operation. Those units produce about 100 megawatts, enough to power about 100,000 homes.

While the plant formerly burned coal, today it only uses natural gas.”

So, we now find out Fox Lake isn’t a ‘dirty’ coal operation at all.  It is a clean electricity producer using only natural gas . . . since 1998.  For the past fourteen years, Fox Lake has been making electricity without the use of coal, and so suddenly it’s a target of the EPA.  But why?  This seems outlandish and capricious.

Ryan Stensland, spokesman for Alliant Energy explained it like this:

“What the EPA looks at are the units, specifically the boilers associated with the units,” he said. “They are identified as being tied to units that could potentially burn coal. If they still have that
capability, they need to be upgraded to bring it into compliance … Even if it were to burn coal for only 10 minutes only one day out of the year, the EPA still wants to have that upgraded to be environmentally compliant.” ‘Fox Lake power plant to be retired — eventually,’ December 23, 2011, Jenn Brookens – Staff Writer , Fairmont Sentinel

So, the EPA created rules that just having a coal burning boiler on the premises makes you a dirty producer of energy.  Given the nearest coal mines to Minnesota are in Illinois, it would be quite the trick for Fox Lake to sneak a few loads of coal to the plant just to skirt the rules.  Since it converted to natural gas over a decade ago, why would it go to all that trouble?  The EPA seems to be creating a rule that prevents an event that simply wouldn’t happen, especially since the coal burners are off-line to begin with.

This is curious.  So, what other reason would the EPA rationally have for shutting down Fox Lake?

From the AP story, “Other rules in the works, dealing with cooling water intakes at power plants and coal ash disposal, could cause the retirement of additional generating plants.”  So, perhaps Fox Lake has water and coal ash disposal issues that caused its shutdown.  Since burning natural gas doesn’t create coal ash that seems to be eliminated as a reason.  However, in a response to the EPA in 2009, Alliant Energy, owner of the plant answered this as to water issues:

“Ash Pond: IPL [Interstate Power and Light] is not aware of any known spills or unpermitted releases from this pond within the past 10 years. For purposes of this question, all discharges exiting the pond via the discharge point governed under the NPDES/SDS permit, including any water quality exceedances, are interpreted to be ‘permitted releases’.” http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/surveys/alliant-fox.pdf

Regardless, if the ash pond was the issue and water runoff or discharges affected the environment, the EPA would demand a cleanup and containment process.  Since they have not done so, it would appear the environmental angle is not the issue.  The Fox Lake plant burns natural gas which doesn’t emit mercury or other poisonous gases.  It hasn’t had an issue with the ash pond or water.  The entire reason Fox Lake is being shut down by the EPA appears to be because an old coal boiler sits in the building.

This stinks to high heaven.  If the issue were that Fox Lake was inefficient and outdated, it is the owner and the purchasers of electricity who should close it down or modernize it.  If it were an excess of electrical power in the area, this would be a concern of the public utilities commission and the Department of Energy.  However, this is the EPA demanding Fox Lake close down in spite its compliance with every material issue considered.  I refuse to believe the existence of an old-fashioned coal-fired boiler is as the reason for shutting down an electrical generating plant.  Such a thing is simply too stupid to accept.

So, why is Fox Lake the victim of the EPA’s overreach?

After reviewing a list of the power plants to be shut down by the EPA, a specific pattern began to emerge, rural, conservative areas.  Martin County and surrounding counties are consistently more conservative and Republican.  Would this reflect the list as a whole?  http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/List-of-power-plants-retiring-in-face-of-EPA-rules-2410590.php

An overwhelming majority of the list of thirty two sites to be closed voted Republican in 2008.  At least 21 of the 32 sites are represented by Republicans or voted with Republicans in the last election cycle.  Almost every site, with the exception of Alexandria, VA and Louisville, KY, are rural areas that tend to vote for more conservative candidates.  Almost every power plant on the list supplies areas that are hostile to Obama and the radical environmentalist agenda being promoted by this administration.  Since inexpensive energy is the life blood of a dynamic, growing economy, it seems strange only these areas would be held to these capricious standards.  Meanwhile, there are plenty of other power plants that are not on the list but burn coal.

This is not to suggest Lisa Jackson sat down with David Axelrod and plotted which districts they wanted to punish because of political reasons.  On the contrary, I think we have been told Obama isn’t even going to try and get the blue collar, rural or exurban white vote.  Instead of picking victims, the demographics of these areas allowed them to be targeted without worry of political fallout.  If there were questions, the EPA would just refer to mercury and other pollutants as the reason for the closures.  Any anger at the arbitrary rules wouldn’t affect the president’s reelection effort in the least since the people served by the plants have been written off already.

But, the Fox Lake example shows the EPA rules are not driven by environmental concerns.  Lisa Jackson has written energy sector rules, not environmental rules that make sense.  It’s also no surprise the Fox Lake power plant sits within an area with several wind farms.  The electricity generated by these windmills is significantly more expensive than that generated by burning natural gas.  To equalize prices, the EPA is making fossil fuel electricity more dear and therefore more expensive thereby making wind energy more competitive.  This kind of duplicity and abuse of power is becoming more apparent in the Obama administration.  Instead of just making the case for a policy, they make up an excuse to change the nation’s power grid with contrived reasons.

We are witnessing the most ‘transparent’ administration in history revealing itself as the most devious.  The war on Fox Lake is just a good example of their disingenuous nature and a philosophy of deceit and thuggery.  The people served by these power plants should be furious.  The rest of the country should be alarmed.  After all, it could be your power plant and pocket book that are affected next.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com

The StarTribune did the right thing this past weekend.  They condemned Hamline’s aborted offer to have Tom Emmer, the Republican nominee for Minnesota governor in 2010, teach business law classes.  They attacked it on ethical grounds, arguing Hamline promised diverse viewpoints and ideas as part of their mission and denying a conservative a teaching position was wrong.  They also stated it wasn’t fair to Emmer and it was bungled.  The StarTribune gave a nod to the idea “that offering students a broad range of perspectives better
enables them to discern the truth.”  By not offering classroom time to conservatives and Republicans, they are giving their students only half an education, and that is a dereliction of their academic duty.

I’m a 2002 graduate of Hamline University and learned a lot.  During my time there, almost every instructor was far left of center.  But, as a right of center guy, I injected a dynamic into the classroom when I challenged the dogmatic leftist paradigm.  While I may not have been the favorite of all my professors or classmates, I did get a few asides from other students for having the courage of my convictions and bringing the material to life with a different perspective.

This was the entire purpose of diversity in an educational setting; to give many different viewpoints to ideas.  It would give students an array of ways to look at things which gave the ideas a three dimensionality and value in the world.  Simply presenting a one sided argument seriously limits both the ability of the student to process the idea and make it applicable outside the academic exercise.  I was very enriched by liberal, libertarian, socialist, anarchist, Christian thoughts and ideas.  But, immersion in the Neo-Marxist and liberal thought process only gave me half the picture.  It took self-study on my part to get a full view of the world of ideas.

Since I was a non-traditional student and quite comfortable in my own philosophic underpinnings, their ideas intrigued me, but didn’t
change my perspective.  As a student of the truth, I actively sought the other side of the argument and read and listened to other thoughts about things.  I had to get the second half of my education on my own.

Hamline, by reneging on a promise to Emmer, has denied its students the full education I should have had and these students today deserve.  But, I was lucky to have the background in classical liberal thought that gave me a head start.  Not all students are so blessed.

We are seeing students from liberal colleges who don’t have even the most basic understandings of thought on the right side of the
spectrum.  When confronted with ideas about classical liberalism, individual responsibility, the power of capitalism and the inherent corruption in transfer payments from the private sector to the public sector, they are like deer in headlights.  They cannot even understand conservative language, ideals, and ethical contentions.  They weren’t challenged with these ideas and so don’t know how to counter them.

Several things happen when these poorly taught student go out into the world of diverse ideas.  First, when confronted with opposing viewpoints, they are shocked.  They think the ideas are stupid or wrong.  Then, when pressed, they begin to realize the world is intellectually a much, much bigger place than their professors introduced them to.  Finally, they question or they retreat.

If they question, they self-educate and many of them become conservative or at least receptive to these ideas.  They explore the entire world of thought and may even begin to question the foundations of their own education.  Or, it strengthens their own beliefs while
understanding the other side of the debate.  At least then they can argue coherently and purposefully.  These results are the most positive ones.  The other reaction is the growing reality of our political system.

Those who retreat race from anything that challenges their liberal convictions.  They become polarized and ignore any ideas which don’t comport with their indoctrination.  They rail wildly against other perspectives and attempt to shut down thoughts which are at odds with their paradigm.  These unfortunate students then also try to exclude conservatives from the debate.  Since they are ill-prepared to meet the intellectual challenges of opposing viewpoints, they close their ears and minds.

I’m not saying liberal academics don’t introduce any conservative ideas or thoughts in classrooms.  But what they do is present a biased view that excludes the heart and soul of a philosophic debate.  It is the guts of those ideas which are the meat of intellectual exchanges and without an understanding they are ill-equipped in the wider world of thinking.   A committed Neo-Marxist simply cannot understand the basis of capitalism or individualism or traditionalism at its heart.

In fact, we see it all around us.  The Left is frantically trying to press a narrative and philosophy that the rest of the country can see is morally and ethically bankrupt, not to mention isn’t working.  When confronting conservatives they must fall back on smear campaigns, ad hominem attacks, or daily doses of Democratic Party propaganda by their operatives in the media.  Hell, they even have to quickly whitewash the mushrooming scandals like Solyndra, Sun Power, MF Global, a failed stimulus, a failing Obamacare, and a stagnating economy with half-truths and distortions.  Instead of arguing merits, they argue strawmen and conjecture.  There is very little intellectual honesty on the Left and it is because of the half of an education that schools like Hamline provide.

In the meantime, our students are not given the tools to discover intellectual truths and explore the world of ideas because it’s too much work for European socialists like David Schultz to teach.  He just wants to present his little, moldy corner of the world.  Can’t let someone like Emmer show students just how limiting Schultz’s world view really is.  So, they lashed out and Hamline’s president, Linda Hanson caved.

Linda Hanson is a shining example of the intellectual narrowness of academia today.  In a bizarre apologia for their handling of the Emmer situation, Hanson begins citing all the ‘diversity’ Hamline engages in with the public.  However, with few exceptions, her list is just a laundry list of progressive, socialist, Democratic leaning events.  She cites one gun rights advocate as being on the law school’s staff, like he’s a token that proves how ‘diverse’ they are.

This is supposed to burnish their credentials as ‘diverse.’

“Two of our School of Business professors edit the prestigious Journal for Public Affairs Education. One of the top journals of its kind, the publication focuses on public administration, public affairs and government affairs.”

For three consecutive years, Hamline has hosted the Minnesota Economic Association’s annual conference. This year’s topic was on financial inequality and education.

This fall, Hamline School of Law’s Business Law Institute hosted a wide range of scholars, mortgage professionals and lawyers seeking
purposeful conversation around the critical issue of reforming the secondary mortgage market.” ‘Despite Emmer fiasco, Hamline embraces diversity’ by Linda Hanson, December 20, 2011, StarTribune.com

Really.  A public affairs journal that tries to figure out the best ways to have government run our lives, a conference on the artificial construct of class and how to fight an imaginary war on it and finally, reforming a system that would have never been broken had the government not had its fat fingers in the system trying to get people loans that they couldn’t afford.  This is Hanson’s lame-brained idea of intellectual ‘diversity.’  No wonder Hamline only provides half of an education.  The president of the college is half-baked.

Hamline isn’t the only college that simply refuses to embrace academic freedom in its curricula and staff.  However, they are certainly the poster child for why we need academic reform so badly.  If we ever hope to find the best solutions for our worsening problems, it will require people who see the whole world and not just the progressive/socialist/Neo-Marxist slice today’s education system offers.  It will require questioning, discussing, arguing, and passionately speaking truth to power.  Only then will we have a truly informed electorate and not an indoctrinated group of intellectual serfs.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com

The eruption of alleged malfeasance by the Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder should not be a surprise to anyone.  This man was a deeply flawed candidate for the post and was cheered on by Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar.  This is not a tale of guilt by association or partisan sniping.  This is a post about the questionable judgment exhibited by Klobuchar during the confirmation process of Holder.  Instead of exercising her constitutional powers to make sure a terrible candidate was closely vetted for a powerful governing post, Klobuchar glossed over Holder’s previous mistakes and issues.  She followed her hyper-partisan instincts and in doing so burdened us with an Attorney General who has corrupted the Department of Justice in order to further progressive/socialist Democratic plans.  She stood on the floor of the Senate and endorsed this disastrous candidate.

From Senator Klobuchar’s website, a February 2, 2009 speech on the Senate floor endorsing the confirmation of Eric Holder for Attorney General.

“He is the right man to lead the department of justice at this critical time. And most importantly, coming from a state that had our own share of problems with a political appointee as U.S. attorney, he is the right man to get the department back on course, to put the law first when it comes to the department of justice.”  Klobuchar is referring to her issues with Bush appointees.  She believed the Republican president had appointed a U.S. Attorney that was too partisan and too controversial.  Klobuchar argued Holder would be a head of the Justice Department that wouldn’t pander to party line and would make decisions based on rule of law as it stands.

That is absurd.  Holder was neck deep in the pardoning of a Democratic Party donor by President Bill Clinton.  Holder’s explanations of his actions are weak sauce, sauce Klobuchar bought because she wanted to and not because they explained his actions.  Sen. Charles Grassley, R-IA asked Holder about the political nature of the pardon of Marc Rich and this was Holder’s sworn testimony in the New York Times transcript of the hearing January 16, 2009.

“HOLDER: The mistakes that I made in the Rich matter as I think I said earlier all involved the fact that — a variety of things — among them, I should have been more informed about Marc Rich and his case. I was not.

I should have kept the people who were involved in the prosecution in the Southern District of New York — good lawyers — and people at Main Justice who were involved in the pardon process, I should have kept them involved. I assumed that they were. I found out later that they were not.

With regard to the political stuff and the money going back and forth between, I guess, Rich’s wife or supporters, whatever, that I did not know about. That did not enter into the decision or the actions that I took.”

Of course, it was Holder’s job to ferret out such information, even if one believed he didn’t know about the political donations.  But, as a partisan Democrat, he probably just avoided the issue.  Marc Rich had fled the country, taken up residence overseas, renounced his citizenship, and avoided ending up in prison as a tax cheat.  Klobuchar swallowed Holder’s absurd defense that he didn’t know, wasn’t informed, and should have looked into it.  This is the standard Eric Holder line.  Compare the previous statement with his avoidance of blame in Fast and Furious.

From ABCNews, Jake Tapper reports:

“On October 18, 2010, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer wrote a memo to Holder, noting that among the “SIGNIFICANT UPCOMING EVENTS” would be an October 27 indictment of eight individuals involved with trafficking hundreds of firearms to Mexico. “The sealing will likely last until another investigation, Phoenix-based ‘Operation Fast and Furious,’ is ready for takedown,” Breuer wrote.

[. . .]

Issa asked Holder when he first knew about the Fast and Furious program.

Holder replied: “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”  ‘Fast and Furious: GOP Says Eric Holder is ‘Either Incompetent’ or ‘Misleading Congress’ – October 4, 2011.

According to Holder, he didn’t know anything, he didn’t read his memos, and he never looked into these reports.  It was as though the Attorney General was just an old duffer scanning the newspaper, sitting in the park feeding pigeons instead of being the chief law enforcement officer in the nation.

Just like with Marc Rich.  But, Klobuchar was copacetic with Holder’s hazy memory, lazy collecting of evidence, and apparent lack of interest in pursuing the facts of any issue.  In fact, Klobuchar excuses Holder’s incompetence or complete lack of ethics with this:

“He explained that one thing was a mistake, that he wouldn’t have made that decision if he had more information. He admitted that, and we were able to question him at length.”  So, Klobuchar states it was just one little teensy mistake to have allowed Rich’s pardon to slip through.  There was more than just one lapse of judgment that should’ve given pause to her.

Senator Grassley questioned Holder about the commuting of sentences for some convicted FALN terrorists.   President Clinton ended up releasing these fine fellows.  Here is the exchange, again from Holder’s confirmation hearing:

“GRASSLEY  “. . . The video shows Cortes and Torres in the process of building a bomb. Were the two terrorists in this video in the group that you asked the pardon attorney to draft a positive recommendation for?

HOLDER: Senator, I can’t answer that question. I don’t have the records in front of me. I don’t know the names of the people who were among that group of 15, I guess.

I don’t know the answer to that.

GRASSLEY: OK. Well, as I said, their names were Edwin Cortes and Alejandria (sic) Torres. At the time you directed the pardon attorney to draft a neutral options memo, had you ever seen this video before?

HOLDER: No. I’ve not seen this video before.

GRASSLEY: Are you weren’t aware that the video existed?

HOLDER: I think I’ve seen it in some news accounts in the recent past, like, over the last week or so, something like that.

GRASSLEY: Were you aware that after this video was taken, a search to the apartment led to the seizure of 24 pounds of dynamite, 24 blasting caps, weapons, disguises, false identification, and thousands of rounds of ammunition?

HOLDER: I can’t say that I’m aware of that specific fact. I did know that the people who were a part of that group, for lack of a better term, had access to, had been captured with explosives. I don’t know the amounts or whether it was in connection with this particular thing.

GRASSLEY: Were you aware that FALN terrorists threatened to kill the judge at their sentencing hearing?

HOLDER: That one I’m not. I’m not aware of that.

Holder doesn’t seem to have a clue as to what he was doing.  He didn’t know any salient facts.  He didn’t know any specifics.  I don’t think I would forget if there were pounds of dynamite and a video of them making bombs but absent-minded Holder is completely at sea about the entire matter.  It’s almost as though he never even worked up the case.  Klobuchar conveniently forgets about this Holder lapse.  Or, she just ties in the Rich pardon in 2001 with the FALN pardons of 1999 as one event.  In either case, she’s lacks serious credibility because this exchange raises serious questions about Holder’s fitness to lead and to faithfully follow the law.  That’s especially when coupled with the Marc Rich fiasco.

Klobuchar, after hearing this testimony about Holder’s inability process even pardon requests says this:

“Eric Holder’s background is, first of all, as a prosecutor in the field. But just as importantly, it’s also as a sound, solid, competent manager who is guided by justice. Someone who will lead quietly but firmly.”  Now if that isn’t evidence of a hyperpartisan apologist, I don’t know what is.  Holder’s deficits when it comes to collecting facts and managing legal matters are glaringly apparent.  But, Klobuchar is even bolder.  She actually argues Holder would not be as partisan as Bush appointees.

“As I mentioned at the beginning, I saw it in my own state when one bad decision made up on high, when the Attorney General was Alberto Gonzales, putting in an inexperienced political appointee into the top spot of a gem of a U.S. attorneys’ office in Minnesota created havoc in our state and that office.”  This blatant attack with purely political motives presages Holder’s own partisan actions leading to the Fast and Furious debacle.

Holder and Obama have repeatedly called for more gun control legislation because of the situation on the Mexican border.  Their Democratic allies in the House have urged more gun restriction legislation and draconian limits on gun sales.  These calls ratcheted up right before the breaking of Fast and Furious.   And now we find this:

From CBSNews, Sharyl Attkinsson reports, December 7, 2011, ‘Documents: ATF used “Fast and Furious” to make the case for gun regulations’

“On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF’s Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

“Bill – can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks.”

Attkinsson writes, “ATF officials didn’t intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called “Demand Letter 3″. That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or “long guns.” Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.”

It appears the entire arrangement was to push the left’s agenda.  But Holder can’t admit to the creation of havoc to give evidence to gun control legislation.  He has to deny, pled ignorance, and generally dissemble as well as he can.

This seems to be a pattern.  He pleads ignorance and that got him past the confirmation hearing with saps like Klobuchar but it no longer is enough.  He should have known, probably did know, and since the killing of a border agent, Brian Terry, hasn’t done anything to fix the situation.  It’s quite obvious this Attorney General is incapable of fulfilling his sworn duties.

Once again from Klobuchar’s speech vouching for Holder.

“We need to put justice and the law at the helm. I support Eric Holder’s nomination to be Attorney General because I believe that Eric Holder can steer this big ship and get it back on course and put justice at the helm.”

As I said at the beginning, this isn’t a case of Klobuchar’s guilt as a fellow Democrat.  This is about her poor judgment.  This is her hyperpartisan belief Democrats can do no wrong.  In spite of crushing evidence apparent at the hearings that Holder wasn’t capable either organizationally or ethically,  Klobuchar supported him.  It’s not merely because she voted for a bad candidate for Attorney General but her partiality was so terrible she stood on the floor of the Senate and praised him.  Now we have hundreds of people dead on both sides of the Mexican-American border, thousands of guns are floating around in criminal circles, and Amy Klobuchar is mute on Holder.

Yet another reason this woman should not be returned to Washington, D.C.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com

Nothing exemplifies the history and accomplishments of the Obama administration like the Chevy Volt.  The Chevy Volt was an experimental electric car that was supposed to bring our nation into the future.  The Obama administration was an experiment that would change our economy from a capitalist, free market economy, into a centralized command and control economy planned by the brightest and the best.  The Chevy Volt was the transformation of General Motors from a company that wasted resources into one that would create clean, green jobs and provide a template for the rest of America.  The Obama administration would make the United States the country that made collective socialism work and thereby provide a template for the world on smart economics.

Both are abject failures.

The Chevy Volt had been on the drawing boards at GM when they went belly up.  The Obama administration took over GM and decided to make the Volt their car of the future.  Planners had said it wasn’t ready, but that didn’t stop Obama.  Whether the design was ready or not, it was time to show the world and the rest of America what the progressive/socialist economic planners could do.

The Obama administration decided it would recreate the Clinton economic miracle by retooling the energy sector with ‘green’ energy.  Clinton’s economic miracle was an accident of economy and technology.  Computers became smaller and fast enough to do a lot of good.  Ordinary Americans got computers and businesses refitted with these increasingly faster models with better, more useful programs.  The Internet exploded and we had tons of jobs and new industries created.

The Obama administration wanted to arrange conditions so the new, green technology would affect the same economic miracle.  But, the efficiency and effectiveness of the green solar, wind, and alternative fuels weren’t nearly advanced enough.  Didn’t matter.  Obama and his team began pouring money and mandates into experiment after experiment.  Didn’t work.  These companies are going broke and so goes the rest of the country.  Solyndra, Sun Power, and a bevy of other green energy businesses are failing because the technology isn’t ready.  Just like the Volt.

The Chevy Volt isn’t safe.  After crashes, it can burst into a ball of flames.  The federal government knew this.  GM knew this.  But, regardless of safety issues, they sold them anyway.  They wanted to prove to the world and to Americans just how much smarter they were than the rest of us.  They’d hope these cars didn’t burst into flames.  They hoped nobody would notice they produced a product that was unsafe at any speed.  They even hid the fact it didn’t work, but we figured them out.

The Obama administration and the Democratic Party wanted to reform health care.  They hobbled together a series of ideas to have our health care payment system controlled by the president.  Critics argued this entire mousetrap of bizarre notions and half-baked theories would force business to drop employee insurance plans.  They were also warned that all these mandates  would make insurance costs higher and therefore raise prices for premiums.  The Obama administration put their fingers in their ears and went;  la, la, la, la, la.  We are now watching as people get booted from their insurance at work and costs escalating even more dramatically than they did before.

The Chevy Volt isn’t selling.  They have sold just a few thousand cars even with expensive government subsidies and tax breaks.  Nobody wants the car.  Most people intuitively understand it was a rushed product made for political purposes and probably not a good vehicle.  They also know just because a car runs on electricity, doesn’t mean it’s cheaper.  In fact, it increases electric bills far more than it saves money on gas.  It isn’t a product that works as it should.  It’s just a silly experiment done by sillier government fools.

Obamanomics isn’t selling either.  The bizarre mix of tax cuts here, tax increases there, a subsidy for him, a regulation for her has all made people question the concepts.  How is this supposed to save the economy?  How will paying off teacher unions increase sales?  How is subsidizing a train to nowhere making products cheaper?  Where are the jobs when it seems all we do is cut unemployment checks?    It doesn’t work on a common sense level.  It doesn’t pass the smell test.  It doesn’t even pass the ‘hold my nose, and say a prayer’ test.

Neither the Chevy Volt nor the Obama administration are good bets.  I think that is becoming increasingly obvious.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com

We have been promised by Democrats like Minnesota’s U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar that if we just passed a bunch of well-intentioned laws, we would never be robbed by those greedy Wall Street overlords.  It was the mean, vile bankers and investment gurus that were putting our democracy and economy at risk.  If only we passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, all our worries would be fixed.  The wise and benevolent federal government would safeguard our money and make all our troubles go away.  In fact, from her website, Klobuchar said this:

“The reckless gambling on Wall Street cost millions of Americans their jobs, homes, and nest eggs,” Klobuchar said. “Trillions of dollars in wealth were gambled away because of a financial system that lacked the necessary safeguards to protect Main Street. This bill establishes safeguards to protect our economy and will help bring accountability back to our financial system.”

Accountability?  Protect Main Street?  Is that what is happening with Jon Corzine and MF Global and over a billion dollars AWOL?

From a story at the Startribune, October 2, 2011, ‘MF Global woes ripple into heartland,’ Jim Spencer reports, “When MF Global declared bankruptcy, farmers like Magnuson and Dean Tofteland, who raises pigs and grows corn and soybeans in Luverne, Minn., thought they were safe. They had been told their money was held in “segregated” accounts to be invested only in their best interest.”  What actually happened was a Democratic Party former senator and New Jersey governor, Jon Corzine ran a company that moved their money from these discrete accounts into shady European investments to shore up his interests.  While we still don’t know how much money is missing, estimates are now in the 1.2 billion dollar range.

So what is Klobuchar’s reaction to this?  “[Regulators] are still investigating if what [MF Global] did was illegal,” Klobuchar said in an interview after the hearing. “And it may well have been illegal. We don’t know that yet. But what we know is that the law is inadequate when it comes to disclosing transactions like they made … it is possible that they were able under existing law to hide those risky transactions.”

Inadequate?  How can that be?  We passed the massively intrusive Dodd-Frank financial reform bill over a year ago.  According to Klobuchar’s own words, this law was supposed to provide accountability should something nefarious occur with Main Street money.  One would be hard-pressed to find a more Main Street group of people than farmers.  So why isn’t Jon Corzine, who managed to lead the state of New Jersey and MF Global into financial ruin, in jail?  What happened?

“The Senate hearing Thursday showed how difficult it would be to answer such questions. MF Global was allowed to invest in bonds of foreign countries and lend money from one part of the company to another. Federal regulations did not require the risky loans to be recorded on MF Global’s balance sheet. Klobuchar called the rules, put in place in 2000 and 2005, ‘part of this Wall Street expansion where basically Wall Street gets to go down the street in their Ferraris and the government’s falling behind in a Model-T Ford.”

Let’s take Klobuchar’s statement apart.  First, Klobuchar calls this theft a skirting of the ‘rules.’  Are we playing Candyland?  Did Corzine jump a square and go up a level in Chutes and Ladders?  We are talking about theft and misappropriation of funds.  The money didn’t just get tired and wander over into a European investment.  The fact it didn’t get reported on a balance sheet in the right column isn’t the issue.  The money was taken from an account that was supposed to be guarded and used as Monopoly money in foreign investments.  Who cares if it was or wasn’t reported?  The most vital part is the money was used by Corzine and his lackeys to shore up their other accounts.

Second, even if rules were put in place in 2000 and 2005 (which I don’t believe) Dodd-Frank was supposed to stop any of this.  Klobuchar proudly proclaimed she “fought for comprehensive reform in the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This bill contains a number of provisions designed to protect consumers and restore transparency. Those measures include efforts to monitor and address systemic risk, increase accountability at financial firms, and reform the complex derivatives markets.”  Once again, this is from her website in the Issues/Legislation tab as of December 3, 2011.  The idiotic rules put in place previously should have been washed away with her bright shiny new law.  Yet, here we are with Main Street robbed and Jon Corzine free as a bird.

If the federal government is “falling behind in a Model-T Ford,” it’s because Klobuchar put that in place.  But, she didn’t give us a Model-T Ford.  She gave us a Chevy Volt that is now bursting into flames because someone set a cup of coffee on the hood.  Klobuchar was one of the senators making Dodd-Frank’s financial strangulation possible.  She owns this law and its failure.  It is because of stupid laws like this that provide lanes and paths and reports and byzantine rules and committees of oversight that give plausible deniability to people like the corrupt Corzine.  Corzine will throw his accountants and clerks under that bus because they put the wrong number in the wrong column and he will stroll off scot free.

Klobuchar is already laying the groundwork for getting Corzine a pass.  It wasn’t Corzine’s criminally fraudulent theft of segregated funds that caused these people to lose their money.  It was the system, a system she helped put into place.  “I don’t have a scandal meter,” she said. “I just think it’s another example of why we just can’t let these financial firms run roughshod over people on Main Street or people who are doing nothing but growing crops or raising pigs. They should not have to know every in and out of the regulatory system to protect their money.”

No, Ms. Klobuchar.  It was your system that gave people like Corzine a path out of the swamp of idiotic regulations and red tape.  We don’t need someone like you passing random laws and promulgating committees and rules, we need actual accountability like sending Corzine to jail so other investment types think twice before robbing farmers to support their risky schemes.  But, Klobuchar won’t do that.  She will make sure all the heat is on someone else because Corzine is her buddy and her fellow Democrat.  And her campaign donor.

From Newjersey.com, May 7, 2011, ‘Corzine still a big political spender,’ Herb Jackson writes:

“Corzine, who shares his time between the New York apartment and his home in Hoboken, is no stranger to big money in politics. He had used his position as chairman of Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs to become one of the nation’s biggest “soft money” contributors to Washington Democrats when his name first began circulating in 1999 as a possible Senate candidate.”

Corzine is a big bundler of campaign cash for Obama.  He also has given generously to Senate campaigns outside Washington and in his home state of New Jersey.  According to the side bar to this story, “Most of the recipients of $111,500 in contributions from former Gov. Jon Corzine and his relatives since he lost the 2009 election were national committees or U.S. Senate candidates in other states.”  This includes $1,000 to Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-MN.  He has also provided ample funds to the DNC and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee which also support Klobuchar’s reelection bid.

Given the amount of money Corzine has funneled to the movers and shakers in the Democratic Party, it will not be surprising to see Klobuchar and her Democratic colleagues in the Senate give Corzine the benefit of the doubt.  The emphasis going forward will be on the loopholes in the law and not Corzine’s accountability.  But, given Klobuchar’s participation in that law, it should be her on trial as well.

No doubt, this accidental journalism by the Startribune in the farmer story will be squelched in the future.  Klobuchar will be quoted as seriously questioning and carefully examining the problems with the law.  But, this is her baby.  She bought this ridiculous farce that Dodd-Frank “establishes safeguards to protect our economy and will help bring accountability back to our financial system.”  There are no safeguards for Main Street.  There will be no accountability as long as the Democratic Party donors are involved.  Jon Corzine will not see the inside of a jail if Klobuchar has her way.  He will be dismissed as an incompetent but innocent while others take his rightful place.  He’ll just write another check, and it will all go away, courtesy of Klobuchar and her comrades.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com

The current bugaboo invented by the progressive/socialist Left, is on the subject of economic class in this country.  They are ginning up a kind of class envy that is supposed to divide us by income and/or wealth.  Several problems arise with this tactic.  There is no economic class in this country because there is just too much socio-economic mobility.  This subject divides people into distinctions that are artificial and arbitrary. Finally, the distinctions made are simply loaded with popular culture narratives that bear no resemblance to actual events in the world.  This entire issue is rife with strange memes, cultural inventions, and outright misrepresentations of the facts and should be tossed into the dustbin of history.

From a dialogue I’ve been having with a candidate for my local state representative seat in the legislature:

“In the interest of continuing this dialogue I have two questions for you. One is historic and the other is completely subjective. What do you believe is the cause of increasing income inequality in America since the 1980s? Do you think there is anything wrong with some people having significantly more than enough material resources and some people having significantly less than enough material resources?”

To address these questions, I must carefully navigate the loaded assumptions within it.  His first question presumes, a) there is income inequality in America. b) this income inequality is stratifying c) it is getting worse d) it is getting worse since Reagan, since that is the implied time frame.

His second question is also loaded with moral imperatives.  It suggests that material resource allocation is something that should become part of the political dialogue.  Second, it qualifies the idea that having more resources is better than having less.  It is equally as loaded, though less obviously so.

To take the first question, we must dig into the idea of class as historically understood.  Class and caste are concepts entirely driven by government enforcement of a socio-economic stratum.  When a group conquered a group of people, let’s take England as an example, the conquerors would reward their kin and brethren with offices.  These offices were powerful and rich by force of law making a small group dominant economically.  When we read the story of Robin Hood, it must be remembered when he robbed from the rich, he was robbing the government.  When he gave to the poor, he was giving to the productive class.  The economy was controlled by the ruling class through taxes and monopolies.

In North America, those offices weren’t powerful.  Labor could just leave and carve out a new existence.  As a result, we forged an entirely different dynamic. Businesses could open with a minimum amount of material resources and the new businesses could challenge and overtake old ones.  There was a churning effect to socio-economic class.  It was almost impossible to find stable classes in America except in the South.

In the South, slavery caused a specific kind of class stratum.  This institution was a governmentally enforced class.  Without the active engagement of the Democratic Party, slavery would not have existed.  After the fall of the Confederacy, the slave stratum became the black servitude of Jim Crow, once again enforced by law by the Democratic Party.  The Democratic Party and progressive movements believed they could pick and choose the winners and losers in the game of life.  They became entwined in FDR’s administration and collectivism was born.

Pres. Andrew Jackson started the idea that “to the winner belong the spoils,” giving the Democratic Party ideal of rewarding their identity groups with material resources collected from the general population and funneled to their supporters.  Progressives believed they could morally arbitrate achievement through experiments in the population and build a ‘better’ society.  Roosevelt drew these two ideas together and forged a consensus.

However, the truth on the ground wasn’t quite so simple.  While government distributed resources and progressives experimented with the population, the socio-economic strata they envisioned eluded their grasp.  Poor people became rich.  The rich bet on the wrong horse and lost both material resources and power.  The so-called economic classes never really emerged like in Europe and the former European colonies.  That’s because the United States people wouldn’t enforce the social and economic servitude as inherited by other nations.

Even today, there is scant evidence that economic classes exist in a stratified way.  When young, people have fewer resources and less experience.  As they begin to accumulate material resources and skills, they gain more income.  There are also people who start businesses and that require accumulation of capital and utilization of labor.  Since running a business requires resources to provide the tools to produce, the people who own them have more resources than labor.  Labor, needing only the knowledge in their heads and the ability of their bodies to use that knowledge, has fewer resources.  They may save and invest that money in other businesses, but they are not taking nearly the risk.  Therefore, the rewards aren’t as big as with those who own the business.  Labor can diversify their risk and this makes it more stable and therefore less productive.

When I was in college a few years ago, one of my political science professors remarked on wealth disparity by noting 20% of the population owned 80% of the wealth.  I shocked him by saying that makes a lot of sense.  Since large amounts of capital accumulation are necessary to provide the tools to create products, it seems quite reasonable that one in five people control most of the capital.  That number actually shows that America is still a country controlled by small businesses, and not large corporations.  If the income disparity were more like 1% owning 99% of the material resources, the OccupyThisandThat movement would make sense.  But it doesn’t.   Our wealth is distributed toward making products and selling them as a market economy should.

So, to answer the questions posed to me, I will answer as history informs me.  If there is any growth in disparity of income since the 1980’s, it will have occurred due to an expansion of the government sector gathering more from the middle and lower income groups and giving it to their allies.  The more government spends, the more it must collect.  This process benefits those politically connected and takes from the productive sector.  Even redistribution of resources to poorer groups only augments the rich more quickly.  Since the poor are more likely to simply buy things and not to invest or save, they contribute more to larger businesses with a larger economy of scale.  Meanwhile, larger businesses can also use that economy of scale to spread the cost of additional government cost to the masses while smaller businesses become less efficient due to the increased tax and regulatory costs.

Government experiments actually exacerbate income and wealth distinctions.  They don’t stop them.  The real problem is the size, scope, and moral danger of a large centralized government intent on picking the winners and losers.

As an answer to the second question, I believe it is answered by the necessary capitalization of a business.  Since creating products involve the accumulation of more material resources than the labor used to produce it, there will be a disparity.  This disparity will exist independent of governmental controls or experiments.  Even if government itself takes ownership of the means of production, the control of those means will still be in the hands of a small group.  That small group will enrich themselves and their own while distributing less to others.  At least a free market allows this disparity to be fluid and flow to the more efficient evening the scales while creating more wealth in the process.  Creation of more material wealth will help even the poorest among us.  It allows them to live a life of some comfort, dignity and safety.

The Churning of the Free Market

The dirty little secret is, small business is more threatened by big government than big business is.  Big business, on the other hand, is more threatened by small business.  Small businesses can take risks, respond more quickly to market needs, and operate on thinner margins for a time.  Big businesses need government redistribution to fend off small business threats to their market share.  If government is neutered, the natural churn of socio-economic strata will equalize incomes and wealth.  Big businesses will fail and small businesses will grow.  Investors in one will become poorer, while investors in the other will get rich.

Here’s another dirty little secret, the largest richest businesses now were once small businesses.  Also, most of the largest and richest businesses in the past no longer exist.  They were upstaged and replaced by smaller more efficient entities.  We need only look to the recent past to see the truth in this.

In the early 1980’s, Sears was the biggest retail company in the world.  It dominated the retail market and was able to utilize its size to demand the lowest costs and the highest returns.  But, it is no longer even in the top ten.  Sears, as of last year, is the twentieth largest retailer in the world.  Walmart, a company that was only started in 1962 and publicly traded first in 1970, is now the world’s largest retailer.  It was a mere blip on the radar screen when Sears dominated the market.

In 2000, the biggest, most powerful Internet company was America Online, AOL.  It was so big, and so ubiquitous, it merged with the venerable Time Warner but AOL shareholders retained a 55% control over the newly created entity.  AOL is now a bit player that isn’t even considered in the top ten.  It was unable to use its market share and capitalization to keep up with the market changes.  AOL is another poster child of the churning power of the free market.

The free market works to even out the excesses if allowed to do its job.  But, when we step into the process and create monopolies, virtual monopolies, excessive taxation, burdensome regulation, and bail out certain entities or sectors, we pervert the process.

Why Centralized Control Never Works

Let’s juxtapose this example of the free market working with the biggest boondoggle in American history, the government sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the forced sales of bad loans throughout the globe.

In her excellent book documenting this fiasco and the ensuing economic firestorm, Gretchen Morgenson documents the government forcing mortgage companies and banks through these GSE to market mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them.  The government policy starting with Carter and integrated more fully through Clinton, threatened mortgage businesses with legal action if they didn’t sell more loans to lower income people.  Morgenson’s book, “Reckless Endangerment” painstakingly details the process which inflated the real estate market through artificial home sales using loans that the market would have never sold without this interference.  Ranking members of Congress like Barney Frank and Maxine Waters, repeated threatened legal action against mortgage lenders if they didn’t engage in this economically dangerous behavior.

But, there’s more.  We are now watching in real time as progressive experiments in so-called Green Energy initiatives enrich political allies of the Democratic Party.  GE, using government tax credits, made a fortune on products that were made necessary by government interference in the market.  Solyndra, among others, took government loan guarantees and wasted the money.  The entire “Green Bubble” is about to burst as inefficient ways to produce energy become economically insolvent.  These are political not economic experiments.  The money flowing to these sectors is because a certain segment of the population believes enriching the experiment will be a greater good.  However, it isn’t working because instead of making economic bets, the bets are entirely political, benefiting cronies instead of efficiencies.

In order to keep our society as classless as it is, we need the free market to continue its unerring march toward greater efficiencies and effectiveness.  It is exactly the opposite approach which will lead to a stratified society with set socio-economic classes that can pass political power down to its own.  Or, as Thomas Sowell succinctly remarks in his article, ‘Liberal and Class: Part II,’

“So long as each generation raises its own children, people from different backgrounds are going to be raised with different values and habits. Even in a world with zero barriers to upward mobility, they would move at different speeds and in different directions.”

It is the universal centralization of economic power by the government which will make class stratification a reality.  It is not the free market capitalism which creates these groups.  We cannot let them have this enormous taking of our economic freedom.  It will be serfdom for us all.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com

When Jimmy Fallon’s little band played the beginning of the song, “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” from Fishbone as an overture to Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann’s  entry on the stage, it was an intentional act to shame her.  The Roots, Fallon’s show band, has routinely played songs as a kind of commentary on the guest’s perceived moral or personal fitness.  It was all in good fun to insult pop stars or reality show wannabe’s.  However, when it’s used as a sub lingua commentary on a presidential candidate and sitting member of Congress, there is more to it.  There is a rising attitude in this country which suggests if a conservative is a black person, a woman, a gay person, or some other ‘minority’ group, it is open season on them.  The Hollyweird Left believes it can demean, belittle, and smear a conservative with impunity.  However, it is time to hold the Left’s feet to the fire and hold them to the same standards they demand of us.

Were Jimmy Fallon and his band of misfit tools misogynistic to Michele Bachmann?

Historian and feminist Cheris Kramarae coined the phrase that “feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.”  This idea that women are not extensions of men or accessories, but complete individuals with their own thoughts, experiences and feelings arose out of the existential feminist theories of the 1960’s.

“A myth invented by men to confine women to their oppressed` state. For women it is not a question of asserting themselves as women, but of becoming full-scale human beings.”  Simone de Beauvoir from ‘Second Sex.’  These ideas drove the establishment of a kind of moral measuring stick for behavior toward women.  If a man disrespected or dismissed a woman’s right to assert her own prerogatives, it was deemed sexist, chauvinistic, and by logical extension, misogynistic.  If a man didn’t accept women’s inherent right to having human reactions that differed with a male perspective, he necessarily ‘hated’ women.  This is the club that has been used against conservatives for the past forty years.  Since conservatives were predominantly male and therefore fundamentally their viewpoint was masculine, it followed that misogyny against women was a given.  But what about liberal men?

So, let’s set the scene.  Michele Bachmann is asked to appear on Fallon’s show.  As she walks onto the stage, unbeknownst to her, the band plays the beginning of a song, “Lyin’ Ass Bitch.”  She greets Fallon who asks questions and jokes with her.  He never really challenges her views about things.  He never confronts her on the truth of her statements.  Fallon just uses Bachmann as a prop meanwhile grinning like an idiot over the joke they just played on her.

First, Fallon’s band played the song referring to Bachmann as a ‘bitch.’  As we know from feminist theory, calling a woman a ‘bitch’ is simply a way for men to diminish her moral authority about an idea.  While men would be commended for being assertive, novel, and strong-willed.  Women are routinely demeaned for the same qualities summed up in a hateful suggestion she’s just a female dog in heat.

Next, Fallon never respected Bachmann enough to confront her on her ideas and allow her to defend herself.  His use of the song without her knowing was as a juvenile.  But, instead of letting her respond, he robbed Bachmann of her individual humanity and turned her into his own shared private joke with the audience.  She wasn’t treated as a full member of the human race, but as his own little prop.

Finally, instead of soberly realizing he was at fault.  Fallon continued with his dehumanizing jocularity.  He wrote on Twitter that ‘Questlove is grounded.’  This has the continued effect of pouring salt and lemon juice on the wound by pretending a mere woman, especially a conservative one, isn’t as important or completely human as his very male employee.

Let’s consider the reaction if the shoe were on the other foot.  Let’s say Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was invited on Bill O’Reilly’s show.  O’Reilly had his minions play “Fat Bottomed Girls” as Clinton was being introduced, without her knowing.  He then peppered her with some easy questions, smirking like a pimply sophomore boy in high school.

Can you imagine the enraged reaction the feminist community would have?  Can you hear the shrieks and feel the fury of the Left.  The lame-brained media would have an on-air conniption.  Tingles Matthews would bust a blood vessel.  There would be calls for O’Reilly to be lynched by Democratic congressmen.  Gloria Allred would run for the nearest soapbox.  The cacophony would be deafening and it would be noted O’Reilly did this because Clinton was a woman.  He did it because he wanted to demean her and belittle her.

I ask you, is what Jimmy Fallon did any different?  Why isn’t the outcry just as thunderous?  Where are the accusations of his misogyny?  I’ll tell you, because misogyny can only occur on the right.  On the Left, it’s called community organizing.  But, the principles remain the same.  Time to apply them equally.

We don’t have to hold them to our standards.  We can hold them to their own.

And watch their feet burn.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com