Those greedy corporate CEOs and their absurdly high salaries

Corporate CEO salaries have been a target of criticism for a long time, and that criticism increased during the mortgage banking collapse, when bank CEOs also became targeted for doing a lousy job.

The heads of large companies do make huge salaries, as shown by this sample from the 2008 AFL-CIO CEO Pay Database: Robert A. Iger, The Walt Disney Company, $51 million; Lloyd C. Blankfein, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., $42.9 million; Mark V. Hurd, Hewlett-Packard Company, $34 million; and Rex W. Tillerson, Exxon-Mobil Corporation, $32 million.

There are a few reasons for this criticism, including envy and not understanding how businesses work. However, some people who understand perfectly well how businesses work also think CEOs are overpaid. People wonder how CEOs can be worth multi-million dollar salaries.

The short answer is that this is America – at least for a little while longer – and people are able to make as much as they can. Businesses want the best talent they can find, and they’ll pay what they must to get the right person to run the company.

Here’s one example:

Rex Tillerson’s company, Exxon-Mobil, is the world’s largest publicly traded company, the world’s largest refiner and marketer of petroleum products and also among the world’s largest chemical companies. It provides a job for 30,000 Americans and 80,000 people worldwide.

Exxon-Mobil had total income of $477.3 billion in 2008, and spent $395.6 billion on operations and other expenses. Some of the same people who get upset with CEO pay also get upset with the amount of money Exxon-Mobil earned in 2008, and for the same reasons. The company’s profit was $45.2 billion, which is a lot of money. But considering that Exxon-Mobil had $477 billion in income, $45.2 billion really isn’t excessive; only about 8.9 percent.

The company paid taxes of approximately $120 billion, more than twice its profit, and paid its shareholders $40 billion in dividends. Mr. Tillerson was in charge of the company and responsible for its performance. He did his job well. How much is that performance worth to shareholders?

If you still think Mr. Tillerson and his fellow corporate heads are overpaid, remember that corporate CEOs are not the only ones making a lot of money, even though they are the ones whose incomes are most frequently criticized. So do professional athletes, entertainers, and TV personalities, including some news anchors.

The top five athletes last year, for example, were also highly paid, and because of their success attracted lucrative endorsements from product manufacturers: Golfer Tiger Woods earned $100 million; boxer Oscar De La Hoya, $43 million; golfer Phil Mickelson, $42 million; auto race drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher, $40 million and $36 million.

Salaries in the world of entertainment also boggle the mind. Take movie actors: Matt Damon made $26 million for The Bourne Supremacy; Johnny Depp takes home $20 million per film; Nicole Kidman gets up to $17 million per film; and George Clooney routinely collects more than $15 million per film.

On television, the highest-paid person on the 2008 prime-time series list is Charlie Sheen at $825,000 an episode, and with money he gets from owning a stake in his show, he makes nearly $20 million a year. David Letterman gets $40 million annually, and American Idol’s Simon Cowell’s annual pay is $36 million.

We even see that some of the people that deliver the news have seven- and eight-figure annual salaries, like CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric at $15 million; Matt Lauer, NBC Today co-anchor, $12 million; ABC News’ Diane Sawyer makes $12 million; Meredith Vieira, NBC Today co-anchor, $10 million; NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams takes home $8 million, Anderson Cooper of CNN is paid $5 million; and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann gets $4 million.

These CEOs, athletes, entertainers and news people are among the best in their respective fields. Their pay is not based entirely upon their performance, however, because some CEOs drive their companies into the ground; some athletes make horrible mistakes and lose instead of win; some movies and TV shows do not do well, despite the stars that appear in them; and news anchors often produce lousy ratings. Some high earners in every career field have notoriously bad personal problems, and some have committed crimes.

Because of the expectation of high levels of performance, these folks are in high demand, hence the high paychecks, sometimes in spite of embarrassing personal problems or criminal involvement.

Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg sees no problem with big salaries in sports. "People should be able to make what they make," he said. That idea applies equally to everyone in America, even CEOs.

Maybe we should make thoughtful judgments about the value of what each of these people produces. Which of them contributes the most to the society at large; which is the more valuable: a movie, a television program, a winning team or athlete, a news program or a business that provides useful products or services, jobs and that pays taxes to support government activities?

Viewed in that light, a CEO running a successful business deserves more than contempt and resentment.

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Technorati Tags: Culture, Politics, Business, Democracy

Confused: Sen. Leahy has forgotten about the U.S. Constitution

According to CNSNews.com, “Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) would not say what part of the Constitution grants Congress the power to force every American to buy health insurance – as all of the health care overhaul bills currently do.”

That actually is not quite accurate: Leahy, who has been in office far too long to remember why he is there, could not say what part of the Constitution authorizes the unauthorizable.

CNS continues: “Leahy, whose committee is responsible for vetting Supreme Court nominees, was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution Congress is specifically granted the authority to require that every American purchase health insurance. Leahy answered by saying that “nobody questions” Congress’ authority for such an action.

CNSNews.com: "Where, in your opinion, does the Constitution give specific authority for Congress to give an individual mandate for health insurance?"

Sen. Leahy: "We have plenty of authority. Are you saying there is no authority?"

CNSNews.com: "I’m asking--"

Sen. Leahy: "Why would you say there is no authority? I mean, there’s no question there’s authority. Nobody questions that."

CNSNews.com tried a second time to get an answer, “Leahy compared the mandate to the government’s ability to set speed limits on interstate highways – before turning and walking away.”

CNSNews.com: "But where, I mean, which–"

Sen. Leahy: "Where do we have the authority to set speed limits on an interstate highway?

CNSNews.com: "The states do that."

Sen. Leahy: "No. The federal government does that on federal highways."

Here’s the exchange:

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Technorati Tags: Leahy, Politics, Constitutional Government, Democrats

Washington, DC: Chicago on the Potomac and the Land of Make Believe

The Land of Make Believe. Those words form the title of a great song and the name of some amusement parks. But they also describe President Barack Obama’s perception of the health care reform process.

Mr. Obama recently announced from The Land of Make Believe that all of the objections to the health care reform plan have been heard: "This is another milestone on what has been a long, hard road toward health insurance reform. In recent months, we’ve heard every side of every argument from both sides of the aisle."

He is right about one thing: Many arguments against the dangerous features of the dominant Democrat proposals have been voiced. But our elected leaders had their fingers in their ears so they couldn’t hear them.

"The approach that is emerging includes the best ideas from Republicans and Democrats, and people across the political spectrum," Mr. Obama continued.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is manifestly false. The best ideas of Republicans have been rejected out of hand, such as medical liability reform to encourage speedy resolution of claims, and deter junk lawsuits that drive up the cost of care; letting families and businesses buy insurance across state lines; that individuals, small businesses and other groups should be able to join together to get health insurance at lower prices, the same way large businesses and labor unions do; and that insurers should be able to offer incentives for wellness care and prevention. These beneficial and practical ideas are regrettably absent from the several radical Democrat plans.

"In fact, what’s remarkable is not that we’ve had a spirited debate about health insurance reform,” the president continued, “but the unprecedented consensus that has come together behind it," including the nation’s doctors and nurses.

Well, no. Some doctors and some nurses support the Democrat proposals, but not nearly most doctors and nurses.

A White House Rose Garden meeting with doctors was touted as a summit of physicians. While the doctors looked impressive in their spiffy white lab coats, it was an invitation-only event of doctors who were and are Obama supporters. This Chicago-style propaganda is what the president terms “consensus.”

Now, it is true that the American Medical Association supports the president’s vague plans to reform the health care system, but it does so despite the fact that some of the most important of its seven critical elements of reform are ignored in the various Democrat plans. The AMA’s support does not mean that most doctors support the plan, because only about 20 percent of practicing physicians are members of the AMA. The truth: most doctors oppose the reform measures.

A poll of more than 1,300 randomly selected practicing physicians conducted by mail by Investor’s Business Daily and TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics found that 65 percent of participants oppose reform measures and, far worse, some 45 percent said they will consider leaving the practice of medicine if Democrat reform measures become law.

Having willfully distorted the support of physicians, Mr. Obama next proudly announced the support of two former Republican Senate Majority Leaders: Bob Dole and Dr. Bill Frist.

This, too, stretches truth past the breaking point. Bill Frist supports certain aspects of the reform effort, but there are several he doesn’t support. He thinks, for example, that reform proposals don’t do nearly enough to bring costs under control, and believes the plans would fall far short of providing universal coverage, leaving millions out.

Bob Dole’s support is also equivocal: He said that he “supported the Democrats’ attempt to overhaul the health care system.” (Emphasis added.) He and former Democrat leader Tom Daschle issued a joint statement that said, in part: “The current approaches suggested by the Congress are far from perfect, but they do provide some basis on which Congress can move forward.” (Emphasis added.)

So, while the president plays fast and loose with the truth, many Americans believe him when he says that there is bi-partisan consensus, despite their natural suspicion of the health care reform measures. That is a highly dishonest tactic. One vote by one Republican on one measure in one committee of one house of Congress does not a consensus make.

The president’s comments are the sort of deliberate distortion and outright misstatement of fact that prompted South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson to shout an unkind comment at Mr. Obama during the address to the Congress not long ago. Rep. Wilson’s behavior was wrong, and he expressed regret for it.

The president, on the other hand, misrepresents the truth with impunity and without shame or regret and, indeed, is ably assisted in his deception by a compliant, discredited and dishonest national media that has replaced its professional ethics with adoration for and allegiance to the person who, more than any other individual, ought to be the focus of its objective scrutiny.

The health care reform “plan” is a bunch of bad ideas cobbled together with duct tape and bailing wire, with the reluctant participation of insurers and providers pressured into subservience by the threat of something far worse if they don’t get on board.

This is the hope and change we elected last November.

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Technorati Tags: Health Care, Politics, Government, Democrats

Strange bedfellows:Senators Kerry and Graham join forces for …

Many people reading the op-ed piece in The New York Times co-authored by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) titled “Yes We Can (Pass Climate Change Legislation)” might scratch their head at this odd alliance of political personalities.

Some would give up reading after a couple of paragraphs, since the article proceeds from the deeply flawed premise that man’s activities produce harmful air pollutants in sufficient quantities to negatively affect Earth’s environment. Those who listen to only one side of the climate change argument hold this position. They accept as fact a theory with at least as many disbelievers among climate scientists as proponents.

Even though Graham and Kerry are wrong about humans causing climate change, the odd couple makes some points later in the article that are right on target. They acknowledge, for example, that “for the foreseeable future we will continue to burn fossil fuels.” While emphasizing the need for environmental sensitivity and protecting the right of coastal states, they acknowledge that in the near term we should focus on breaking our dependence on foreign oil by harvesting oil and natural gas reserves off shore and from within US boundaries. This piece of common sense escapes most liberals.

They even go so far as to acknowledge the need to pursue clean coal technologies, and to stimulate research with financial incentives, because the “United States should aim to become the Saudi Arabia of clean coal.” Kerry and Graham also endorse the increased use of nuclear energy. Still more common sense.

But they have a naïve idea of what the proposed cap and trade system will produce: “… we are advocating aggressive reductions in our emissions of the carbon gases that cause climate change. We will minimize the impact on major emitters through a market-based system that will provide both flexibility and time for big polluters to come into compliance without hindering global competitiveness or driving more jobs overseas.”

Those two goals are, of course, mutually exclusive: it is not possible to aggressively reduce emissions without creating economic problems both for businesses that burn fossil fuels and for the people who purchase their services and products. Even President Obama recognizes this and has commented on it. During the campaign, candidate Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle that “under my plan of a cap and trade system electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket.” And so will the price of everything relying upon and using electricity. Acknowledging this reality, but with a tremendous amount of understatement, Graham and Kerry say, “We recognize there will be short-term transition costs associated with any climate change legislation, costs that can be eased.”

The two senators warn that we had better pass whatever measure they develop, because, “If Congress does not pass legislation dealing with climate change, the administration will use the Environmental Protection Agency to impose new regulations … [which] are likely to be tougher and they certainly will not include the job protections and investment incentives we are proposing.”

The warning about the excessive actions of the EPA is a very real concern. Just ask the people of Virginia and West Virginia, where the federal agency’s manic war against coal mining promises to wreck local and state economies. The EPA has been aggressive against coal mining projects for years, and since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled two years ago that carbon dioxide is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, and encouraged the EPA to regulate this essential and naturally occurring gas, things have not improved.

However, just because an out-of-control federal agency, acting on an over-reaching court ruling, may take the opportunity to itself over-reach, that is not a reason to hurriedly enact legislation that is only slightly less dangerous to the national economy than what the EPA would do.

Perhaps it’s progress of a sort that two senators who still believe in manmade climate change do at least recognize the necessity of fully utilizing conventional energy sources by opening up currently closed areas for oil and natural gas production, and pursuing clean coal and nuclear technology, at least until new alternative sources are developed enough to make a noticeable contribution to the nation’s energy needs.

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Play Obama's brand new board game!

This is pretty interesting.

Someone (don't know who) put a lot of time in on this.





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U.S. losing economic freedom

What do Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand have in common? An odd assortment, to be sure, they share the fact that each of them has a greater degree of economic freedom than the United States.

The Index of Economic Freedom is an annual analysis of world economies, now totaling 183 countries. It is a collaborative effort of The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. The rankings are an average of 10 components analyzed during the last half of 2007 and the first half of 2008, on a 100-point scale, with 100 representing the highest degree of economic freedom.

The components of economic freedom are: Business Freedom, Trade Freedom, Fiscal Freedom, Government Size, Monetary Freedom, Investment Freedom, Financial Freedom, Property rights, Freedom from Corruption, and Labor Freedom.

The Heritage Foundation describes economic freedom as “the fundamental right of every human to control his or her own labor and property. In an economically free society, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please, with that freedom both protected by the state and unconstrained by the state. In economically free societies, governments allow labor, capital and goods to move freely, and refrain from coercion or constraint of liberty beyond the extent necessary to protect and maintain liberty itself.”

Heritage tells us that the U.S. economy “is the world's largest. Services account for more than 70 percent of economic activity, but the U.S. is also the world's largest producer of manufactured goods and fourth-largest producer of agricultural products. The United States is the world's oldest constitutional democracy, and its size, culturally and ethnically diverse population, and republican form of government that reserves significant powers to the state and local levels all promote a competitive atmosphere in which a variety of economic policies and strategies can be pursued.”

To achieve its 6th place ranking, the U.S. scored 80.7, which is three-tenths of a point lower than last year, due to declines in five of the 10 economic freedoms. We scored 90 or more in three of the 10 components, Business Freedom, 91.9; Property Rights, 90.0; and Labor Freedom, 95.1.

The two lowest scores were in Fiscal Freedom and Government Size, where the U.S. scored below the world average.

In terms of Fiscal Freedom, we scored 67.5, seven-plus points below the average of 74.9. “U.S. tax rates are burdensome,” according to the Heritage. “Both the top income tax rate and the top corporate tax rate are 35 percent. Other taxes include a property tax, an estate tax, and excise taxes, and additional income and sales taxes are assessed at the state and local levels. In the most recent year, overall tax revenue as a percentage of GDP was 28.2 percent.”

No surprise to proponents of small government, the United States’ score of 59.6 for Government Size was the lowest of the 10 components, and below the world average of 65.0. “Total government expenditures, including consumption and transfer payments, are high” Heritage said. “Government spending has been rising and in the most recent year equaled 36.7 percent of GDP. Stimulus measures passed in the second half of 2008 promised to push government spending significantly higher,” the report noted. No doubt the 2010 ratings will be downwardly affected by the events of late 2008 and early 2009.

Heritage acknowledges this: “Presidential and congressional elections in 2008 raised serious questions about the overall direction of future economic policies, particularly with respect to trade liberalization, regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, taxes, and the role of government.”

The Economic Freedom ranking is less a goal to achieve than a measure of how we are doing, and while the U.S. made progress in past years, for the last two years we’ve been moving in the wrong direction. Last year, the U.S. ranked 5th, and in 2007 it was 4th. We are losing economic freedom.

The Heritage analysis identifies high taxes as a major factor in our loss of economic freedom, yet today, in the midst of a deep recession, the administration and Congress are pursuing health care reform and a plan to reduce greenhouses gases, and both will increase taxes and costs on businesses and on individuals at all income levels.

Furthermore – and more to the point – neither of those is the most serious problem facing Americans today; unemployment is the paramount concern.

But instead of stimulating job creation and easing the financial burden on the Americans by cutting taxes, our leaders piddle around trying to jam through highly controversial and unpopular measures that will take us in the wrong direction.

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Technorati Tags: Freedom, Politics, Economics, Democrats

Citizens deserve faithful service from lawmakers and public employees

As if Michigan isn’t having enough trouble with the effects of the recession and the ailing auto industry, some of its citizens are suffering under laws and enforcement policies that simply defy common sense.

Each morning before the school bus comes to pick up kids in Irving Township, Lisa Snyder allowed the children of three of her friends to come to her house about an hour before school to wait for the bus. “Well, we can’t have that sort of thing going on,” state Department of Human Services employees said, and sent her a letter telling her that she was in violation of a law against operating an unlicensed day care center, which prohibits anyone from caring for unrelated children in their home for more than four weeks each calendar year unless they are a licensed provider.

Obviously, this action frightened Ms. Snyder and has angered her friends, but it also got the attention of Governor Jennifer Granholm and some state legislators, who are now at work fixing this legislative folly, and hopefully correcting the idiotic bureaucratic thinking that drove the state agency to persecute a woman for helping her friends.

But Michigan is not alone in having goofy laws and dopey bureaucrats. Vermillion County, Indiana, Prosecutor Nina Alexander said that she is proud to be "enforcing the law as it was written" by prosecuting a grandmother for buying two boxes of cold medication in less than a week. Horrors!

Sheriff Jon Marvel of neighboring Vigo County took the opportunity to show his concern: “I feel for [the grandmother], but if she could go to one of the area hospitals and see a baby born to a meth-addicted mother …” she would what? Not buy the cold medicine she needs?

Cold medications of the type that grandmother Sally Harpold purchased can be used to make methamphetamine, as it turns out, and there is a law that prohibits anyone, even someone with a cold, from purchasing two boxes of it in less than a week, a legal concept that has several logical fallacies.

Ms. Alexander admits that Ms. Harpold had no intention of making meth with the medicine, but, hey, so what? Everyone knows that the way to prevent babies from becoming addicted to meth is to arrest grandmothers who buy cold medication.

"The public has the responsibility to know what is legal and what is not, and ignorance of the law is no excuse," Ms. Prosecutor said. But does the public not also have a reasonable expectation that laws will be rational and bureaucrats will use common sense?

And, if the ingredients in cold medicine are potentially harmful, wouldn’t it be more effective to regulate them on the sales side rather than prosecuting innocent grandmothers, who probably have no idea they are doing something illegal when they buy two packs in one week?

Many stupid laws are on the books in most every state. In Huntington, W.Va. for example, it is legal to beat your wife so long as it is done in public on Sunday, on the courthouse steps.

In Massachusetts, an old ordinance declares goatees illegal unless you first pay a special license fee for the privilege of wearing one in public. And, all men must carry a rifle to church on Sunday.

Animals are banned from mating publicly within 1,500 feet of a tavern, school, or place of worship in California, a state that also prohibits a vehicle without a driver from exceeding 60 miles per hour.

Such laws are routinely ignored by law enforcement agencies, as they should be, because most public servants employ common sense, unlike the aforementioned ones in Michigan and Indiana.

How do you explain the creation of carelessly designed laws such as those cited, and the mindless behavior exhibited in their enforcement? There seems to be an epidemic among public servants, many of whom have forgotten that they exist only to serve the best interests of the citizenry.

Most laws, even the goofy and intrusive ones, are written with good intentions in mind, but as we have seen over the last forty-plus years of increasing government intrusiveness, good intentions often produce undesirable results, because the public good is not uppermost in the minds of public servants.

Overzealous lawmaking is not limited to the individual states, however, and one of many examples of federal malfeasance is the effort by Congress and the administration to devastate the existing health care system because it serves only 90 percent of our legal population adequately. The examples of legislative impropriety in this exercise are legion. One proposed component of this unwarranted government intrusion would fine or perhaps jail anyone who does not purchase health insurance.

That is both absurd and intolerable. What aspect of the history of how and why our country was established inspires a lawmaker to even imagine such un-American ideas?

Public servants need to be reminded of their sworn duty to uphold their oath of office and to serve the interests of the people. Examples of failure in these areas abound, and it may take a few of them being driven from office to get their attention.

Nominations, anyone?

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Technorati Tags: Culture, Politics, Justice, Government

SNL attacks Obama

Technorati Tags: Obama, Politics, Media, Humor

Jack Webb and Harry Morgan give Obama some needed direction

Technorati Tags: Culture, Politics, Obama, America

Democrats continue to mislead on the energy issue

Our government still has not figured out what to do about the dependence on foreign oil that everybody agrees is an unacceptable situation.

The sensible thing to do, of course, is to produce more oil and natural gas from sources within the United States and off the coasts, and the sooner, the better. “Drill here, drill now” is not just a slogan; it’s a prescription for energy independence.

The 30-year old ban on offshore drilling along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts expired a year ago, and yet the federal government has sat on its hands, allowing time to pass without moving to reduce the need to buy oil from countries that are unfriendly to us by opening up these areas for exploration.

Instead, our elected representatives have busied themselves with other things, including an unrealistic focus on immature “green” and alternative energy sources, while accessible oil and natural gas supplies lie undisturbed within our reach.

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate each have bills that would not just delay sensible development and progress, but punish the American people needlessly. The House put forth the Waxman-Markey bill last summer which passed by a thin seven votes, and just this week the Kerry-Boxer bill was brought forth. Both are cap-and-trade measures that will cause enormous problems.

American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard issued the following statement on the Kerry-Boxer climate bill: “Unfortunately, the Kerry-Boxer legislation is beginning to look a lot like the House’s Waxman-Markey bill and a loser for American consumers. We can do better. If the Kerry-Boxer approach mimics the House bill, as early indications suggest, it will undermine our energy security by making American consumers more reliant on foreign sources of refined products, kill jobs and increase fuel costs.”

While the leadership in Washington plays politics and ideological football with energy policy, the people they work for languish. Either of these bills will place significant pressure on the existing job levels in the oil and natural gas industry, which supports nearly 10 million jobs today, will also push the costs of fuel higher, and will increase, not reduce, our dependence on foreign oil.

Conversely, increasing domestic oil and natural gas production will create jobs and keep prices low, and has the added advantage of having no detectable effect on global climate change/global warming/global cooling.

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Technorati Tags: Energy, Politics, Environment, Democrats

Obama puts nation at risk with CIA investigation

President Barack Obama has made another horrid decision, deciding not to put an immediate stop to the dangerous probe into activities of the CIA in working to protect the United States from terrorist attacks during the Bush administration.

Attorney General Eric Holder launched a preliminary investigation in August into some old cases that had already been reviewed by the Justice Department and determined to be without merit. The reviews were performed by career employees who are non-partisan and have no ideological or political motives.

In a letter to the president, seven past directors of the CIA – representing the administrations of George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon – asked that the investigation be dropped, and, Mr. Obama’s own CIA chief, Leon Panetta, has also voiced opposition to the investigation.

“Those men and women who undertake difficult intelligence assignments in the aftermath of an attack such as September 11 must believe there is permanence in the legal rules that govern their actions,” the former director’s wrote. And they told the president that reopening these cases “creates an atmosphere of continuous jeopardy,” which will inhibit CIA officers in their efforts to thwart terrorist activities.

The investigation will make them less willing to take risks and will damage relationships with foreign intelligence agencies that assist US efforts, the former directors said. The investigation requires the CIA officers to obtain expensive legal counsel, and distracts them from their important work. Now, instead of working to prevent attacks by fanatics who want to kill Americans, they will be defending themselves against politically-motivated attacks from the government they have successfully defended from terrorism for the last eight years.

So how did the president respond to the former CIA directors request to put the kibosh on this reckless and partisan investigation? The White House said Mr. Obama – who didn’t hesitate to take over an auto company and some banks, and wants to take over your health care – doesn’t involve himself in these activities.

Perhaps President Obama and his followers believe the terrorist threat isn’t real. After all, 9-11 was eight whole years ago. Maybe they believe the terrorist threat and the entire War on Terror were cooked up by George Bush and Dick Cheney as an excuse to encroach on the freedoms of the American people, and to illegally imprison innocent Muslims in that hell-hole in Cuba where they must endure three square meals of special food, accommodation on religious issues, and American-quality health care. That is, however, a very dangerous position, given the recent discovery of three separate home-grown terrorist cells. The US is absolutely under attack by terrorists.

Much credit is due to the FBI in uncovering these terrorist activities on our own soil, but we must understand that it had help from folks like the CIA employees the attorney general wants to investigate. Ideally, we want to find the terrorists at work here in America before they kill people, and we want to find their support networks overseas, and for that to happen, the CIA has to be at the top of its game. By his equivocation on stopping the investigation, Barack Obama has insured that the CIA will not be at the top of its game, and that puts every American at increased risk of being a victim of terrorism.

At the root of this inquisition are political motives, an obsession with destroying George W. Bush, and a naïve view of war and how to win. This is the attitude that caused the United States to lose in Vietnam; we cannot afford to lose this one.

There are abundant quotes from famous people about the inhuman and evil nature of war. These ideas are certainly noble, and worthy of being held up as goals for mankind. But they ignore the reality that some people think differently and will eagerly indulge in violence to achieve their goals. Those are the sort who attacked us on September 11, 2001, and are determined still to bring us down.

When Aristotle said, “We make war that we may live in peace,” he was saying that when confronted by an enemy, if you want to survive, you have to defeat him.

We must defeat our terrorist enemies by capturing or killing them before they act and kill innocent Americans, and we will accomplish that through the intelligence work of the CIA. We cannot allow it to be shackled by goofy platitudes and high-minded but self-defeating policies that protect the enemy and put Americans at risk. And to do this we must have the assistance of foreign intelligence organizations, but if they are afraid to work with us because our president behaves stupidly and puts their lives in jeopardy through ill-advised and dangerous policies, we will lose their assistance.

Through his recent actions Mr. Obama appears to believe that our CIA presents a greater danger to the country than the terrorists the CIA is fighting. Can our country survive this type of leadership? Community organizing may be a useful skill set in our cities, but it is a poor substitute for the wisdom of warriors when you are in a war.

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Technorati Tags: Obama, Politics, War on Terror, National Security

The drug price issue is ripe for demagoguery

Politicians love issues that get voters upset and they use them to attract votes. One of those is the cost of drugs and the evil, greedy pharmaceutical industry. People think they’re being ripped off when pills cost more than a few cents each, and some enterprising politician will likely use that issue to his or her advantage.

You can make the argument that a drug that is effective in treating a serious medical condition is worth whatever it costs, but that argument often collapses when someone thinks about how a bunch of powder formed into a tablet can cost more than a few cents.

In fact, pills aren’t expensive to make, so that argument is correct, as far as it goes. But as is so often the case with political issues, there’s a lot more to it.

The thing that drives the cost of medicines so high is the enormous up-front costs of research and development, and testing to get the drug approved by the government.

Pharmaceutical companies develop several drugs simultaneously, looking for the right combination of ingredients to most effectively deal with the medical need, and most of these efforts are unsuccessful. According to MedicalNet.com, “it takes an average of 12 years for an experimental drug to [get] to your medicine cabinet … Only 5 in 5,000 drugs that enter preclinical testing progress to human testing. One of these 5 drugs that are tested in people is approved. The chance for a new drug to actually make it to market is thus only 1 in 5,000,” and a U.S. State Department publication says that the cost of developing a new drug varies from $800 million to nearly $2 billion per drug.

Okay: one drug in 5,000 actually makes it to market, and it costs between $800 million and $2 billion to get it there. The company has to sell enough of that one drug to pay not only for its development, but also for the development of the ones that didn’t make it through the process, and to have enough left over to finance new research and development.

Like other inventors, drug companies patent their ideas. A patent is issued for 20 years from the date of filing, and filing usually occurs early in the development stage to prevent other drug companies from moving in on the idea. If it takes an average of 12 years to get a drug to market, the pharmaceutical company has on average only eight years to sell enough of the drug to recoup the $800 million to $2 billion in development and approval costs, plus money to finance new research. At the end of the patent period, any other drug maker can make a generic form of the drug and sell it for a lot less. Since all the work has already been done and paid for, all they have to do is just make the pill.

So, when you do the math for a drug at the low end of the cost spectrum, with development costs of $800 million, produced by a company we’ll call PharmX, you find that if PharmX charges a quarter a pill, it will have to sell 3.2 billion pills in eight years just to break even. If PharmX charges $1 a pill, it will have to sell 800 million pills in eight years, and if PharmX charges $2 a pill, it will have to sell 400 million pills in eight years, just to break even. And that pays for the pill that made it through to the market, but not the ones that didn’t. If PharmX’s costs were $2 billion, those numbers more than double.

Another aspect of this issue is when drugs made by US companies cost more at home than they do in Canada and other countries. It doesn’t seem right that Canadians can buy American drugs cheaper than Americans can. But what is the drug company supposed to do when the Canadian government, or another government, wants to buy millions of dollars of its product at lower than market price when it is trying to recoup millions or billions in costs? There are other drugs made by other companies that treat the same disease that these governments could buy instead, so should the drug company pass up that opportunity, leave the millions of dollars on the table, and perhaps suffer financially as a result, while a competitor sells millions of dollars of its product to Canada?

It’s a natural reaction to want to punish the “greedy” drug companies, maybe by removing patent protection or shortening the protection period. However, doing something like that puts at risk the continued research and development of new drugs to fight and cure disease, and even if most Americans don’t understand the economics of producing pharmaceuticals, they do understand that American companies produce some of the best and most effective drugs in the world.

Let’s hope they also understand that we would be much worse off by tinkering with this process, except to speed it up and make it less costly, and that they will tell the politicians to not to make things worse.

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Technorati Tags: Health care, Politics, Drug prices

Important energy deadline approaching

The nation has been consumed with health care reform, politicians not listening to the people’s concerns, the ACORN scandals, and rampant racism among critics of the new president, but the world continues to move on around all that chaos.

One of those other things is the extended deadline for commenting on the Draft Proposed Program on Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) energy development, which expires September 21, 2009, after which time the Minerals Management Service (MMS) will analyze comments and make recommendations regarding offshore energy development.

Some very good information about this process and the possible effects, either positive or negative, to the nation’s domestic energy program can be found at Energy Tomorrow.

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Technorati Tags: Energy, Politics, Democrats

Boobus Maximus: Kanye West

I do not suffer fools gladly. The name “Kanye West” has intruded on my consciousness twice in the last few years – two times too many – and both times it was associated with idiocy.

The last of those was when KW charged onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards and interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance remarks by yanking the microphone from her hand to complain to the world that someone he liked better hadn’t been selected.

Gross stupidity arouses curiosity, sometimes, and this was one of those times. I figured if this dope managed to do something stupid enough twice to get my attention, maybe I should at least know who he is. So I looked him up.

I found that he is a rapper, which gets him no plus points from me, given that rap is musically inferior, and so much of it is vile, vulgar, and misogynistic. I also learned that he released his debut album The College Dropout in 2004, and his second album Late Registration in 2005. The titles say a lot.

In 2005, during a benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina relief, KW lost another bout with idiocy and deviated from the script he was reading to announce his opinion that then-President George Bush didn’t care about black people. He later appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine as Jesus with a crown of thorns on his head.

In response to his latest doltish episode, he told Jay Leno that the reason he was a jackass at the awards show was that he hadn’t fully gotten over his mother’s tragic death a while back. Right.

As nearly as I can determine, KW has provided zero positive energy for humanity. He is obviously one of the many self-absorbed boneheads that litter the world and hasn’t yet realized his own insignificance. He is fortunate to live in a time where bad behavior is not punished, and, indeed, is often celebrated. Had he done these things in the 40s and 50s, he would have been ostracized and never heard from again. Oh, for the good ol’ days, when character counted, and was expected.

Here’s a little advice that KW will never see, and is unlikely to take even if he saw it: Grow up. You’re over 30 years old; you’re not a child anymore, and you’ve not earned the right to behave like a troll.

KW should apologize to the world for the last several years of living, and exile himself to the North Pole where he can busy himself protecting the ice cap and bears from the ravages of global warming, and spare the rest of us from the misery of observing his screwed-up life.

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Technorati Tags: Culture, Liberals

The Government Can - Tim Hawkins

This is excellent on many levels!!!

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Technorati Tags: Entertainment, Politics, Government, Democrats

What Obama could have said to bring bipartisan effort to health reform

Those anticipating leadership and clarity from President Obama in last week’s address to Congress on health care reform were disappointed.

He could have shown us that he had at last started listening to what most Americans were telling him and the Congress to do, and outlined proposals to address the weaknesses of the current health care system, the one that provides the highest level of care in the world.

He could have endorsed several needed reforms, ones that Republicans support, which would change this Democrat crusade into a bi-partisan effort, changes like tort reform to lower malpractice and health insurance rates and the tendency of providers to prescribe procedures and tests that are needed only to protect them from predatory lawyers and their clients.

He could have said he would work with states to remove the barriers preventing insurers from offering their policies in all states, thereby increasing competition, improving policies, bringing premiums down and increasing the number of Americans with coverage.

He could have committed to reducing expensive and unnecessary regulation. And as someone who keeps telling us how wonderful government healthcare is and will be, he could have promised to get Medicare and Medicaid to pay their fair share to doctors and hospitals, eliminating shifting costs to insured patients.

He might have renounced the half-truths and outright distortions of fact he and fellow liberals have been using to scare people into accepting the idea of a single payer, government-run health care system that ultimately will result from his idea of reform.

He could have cited the actual number of people without health insurance, the number that omits the 12 million illegal aliens, as well as the millions with enough money to buy insurance but who voluntarily decline to, and those who are without coverage for three months or less; a number that is a mere fraction of the 46 million so frequently cited.

But he didn’t.

What we heard instead was more of the same tired rhetoric Mr. Obama has relied on to create the greatest divide in the American people we have seen in the last 40 or more years, on a subject that has frightened and angered those that oppose any additional government influence in how health care is provided in the country.

This time his speech threatening those who have the temerity to oppose him and his ideas was angrier and more petulant, accusing his critics of spreading "lies" and saying opponents want "to do nothing.”

It was the “All about Barack Hour,” “I” this, and “me” that – 68 times he said “I,” “my,” or “me.” “I will protect Medicare,” and “I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services … ,” and “I have no interest in putting insurance companies out of business ... I just want to hold them accountable.”

Mr. Obama continually said things that simply weren’t true, and that got the better of many in the House Chamber, who groaned and emitted other sounds of disapproval, including an unfortunate interjection by South Carolina Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, who screamed out “You lie!” after one of the president’s misstatements of fact. (Isn’t it curious that the House has had a rule in existence for a hundred years prohibiting members from calling any president a liar? Mr. Wilson is apparently not the first to have done so.)

However, crude as Mr. Wilson’s comment was, he wasn’t wrong on the facts. So how do we accurately characterize the president’s factual misstatements?

A lie is when someone deliberately passes on information known to be false. But sometimes people say things they don’t realize are false. They haven’t lied; they were just wrong.

Therefore, if the president made statements he didn’t know were untrue, he is poorly informed; but if he made statements he knew were untrue, he lied. Neither is acceptable.

There is an element of fantasy in Mr. Obama's statements on health care, including that we are going to save money by spending money; that we will solve our fiscal problems with a program that will increase the national debt by $1 trillion over a decade; and, that we will guarantee you can keep your current insurance by passing a bill that encourages your employer to stop offering it.

As the details of Mr. Obama’s Fantasyland ideas meet the light of day, he is losing support among his own party in Congress and among voters. His logical inconsistencies, implausible scenarios and the unacceptable possibility of another government takeover have generated protests by hundreds of thousands of unhappy Americans voluntarily participating in tea party rallies and a march in Washington last weekend.

Barack Obama is a smart man. He has an Ivy League education and he was a constitutional law professor.

So isn’t it curious that so much of what he wants to do isn’t permitted by the Constitution? Things like circumventing the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate and appointing “czars” to manage billions of taxpayer dollars, taking over banks and auto companies and reforming the health care system are not permitted by the Constitution.

Perhaps Mr. Obama needs a refresher course on how the United States actually works.

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Technorati Tags: Obama, Politics, Health care, Democrats

Honoring the victims of 9-11

Editors Note: What follows originated in 2006, and is repeated in 2009.
2,996 is a tribute to the victims of 9/11.

On September 11, 2006, 2,996 volunteer bloggers joined together for a tribute to the victims of 9/11. Each person payed tribute to a single victim.
We honor them by remembering their lives, and not by remembering their murderers.

So reads the introductory material on the 2996 Web page. I was assigned James Arthur Greenleaf, Jr. I was the 1357th blogger to sign up for the 2,996 Tribute project.
The name of each 9-11 victim was been assigned to a blogger.
This project was a very moving one for me. In searching for information on Jim Greenleaf’s life, I was deeply touched by who this young man was.

James Arthur Greenleaf, Jr., age 32, native of Waterford, Conn. Mr. Greenleaf was a foreign exchange trader at Carr Futures and died at the World Trade Center. He was a resident of New York, N.Y. Mr. Greenleaf was a 1991 graduate of Connecticut College, he was the son of Mr. And Mrs. James Greenleaf, Sr., and the former husband of Susan Cascio, a 1992 graduate of Connecticut College.

The following was posted by Mr. Greenleaf’s mother on Legacy.com

April 6, 2002

My Dearest Jim,

Almost 7 months have passed and not a day goes by that I don't think about you. Some days I pretend that I just haven't seen you in long time and that you will be visiting soon. I know that it will be a long time till we see each other again, but it does help on the bad days.

Just this week Dad and I received 2 letters from old friends of yours recalling some great times that they spent with you and they wanted us to know what an impact you had on their lives. One letter we received said that she had children of her own and just hoped that some day they might grow up to be the kind of person that she remembers you as being. What a wonderful tribute to the fine man that you were. You touched so many people and I'm sure that you had no idea of how others thought of you.

I know that I kissed you and told you how much I loved you every time I had the opportunity to, but I wanted to say it to you today again.

I love you so much,

Mom

Peter, Bryn and I talk about you all the time and remember all the wonderful times we spent together. (Patricia Greenleaf, Waterford, CT)

Quilt graphic thanks to Kim at United in Memory

The James A. Greenleaf, Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund has been established to honor and remember a dear family member and friend who lost his life as a result of the catastrophe which occurred in New York City in 2001. The fund will be used to provide financial assistance to students attending St. Bernard High School.
Dave McBride also hopes to help others by honoring the memory of his long-time friend with the 5th Annual 5K River Run For The Fund. The race, which takes place this Saturday, May 13th at Ocean Beach Park in New London, is part of the Greenleaf Memorial Foundation, which also incorporates an annual Golf Tournament and a Memorial Dinner. McBride and James Greenleaf were best friends since high school, graduating from St. Bernard in 1987.

Sadly, Greenleaf lost his life because of the terrorist acts that occurred as he was working in New York City on the morning of September 11th, 2001. In a tribute to Greenleaf, his family and friends created the James A. Greenleaf, Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund, Inc., with proceeds used to award full book scholarships for 8th grade students to attend St. Bernard High School. The organization received approximately 30-40 scholarship applications annually, which require a formal essay and teacher recommendations that are reviewed by the Foundation’s Board of Directors. The fund also hopes to increase its scholarship offerings either to St Bernard students or other local students who will be attending college.
Leave a message in honor of James Arthur Greenleaf Jr.

From: Lisa LaGalia Date: 11/19/2004 Message: Hi babe it me. Still not better without you. Can't you take me there where you are. We should be together

From: Maureen Griffin Balsbaugh Date: 08/29/2005 Message: At every one of your events. We know you are there in spirit....laughing.

This comment was left just a few days ago:

Thank you for posting information on Jim Greenleaf. We went to high school together. During the three years, we played football and ran track together. We ate many lunches together.
With my return to the US in 2007, I have been able to attend the annual golf outing twice. The outpouring of help given by friends of Jimmy is very inspiring. His scholarship is helping many children attend St. Bernard H.S.

Thank you for the great site.
John

PS As an aside, we lost another high school friend that day, Eric Evans. He was in one of the towers when they fell. Both gone but not forgotten.

John DeVivo | 08.31.09 - 10:05 am

Jim Greenleaf, rest in peace.

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Technorati Tags: War On Terror, Terrorism, Islam, Islamic Fascism, Politics, War, Islamic Fanaticism

Why did Barack Obama hire Van Jones?

Van Jones’ sins are well known at this point: He called conservatives a vulgar name, to the cheers of his radical audience. He accused white people of deliberately polluting black neighborhoods and he signed on to a movement that accused the US government of being behind the 9-11 attacks, or that at least it knew of them in advance.

And, most significantly, he is/was an avowed communist.

Mr. Jones told the East Bay Express in 2005 (from examiner.com): “I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th [1992], and then the verdicts came down on April 29th. By August, I was a communist. (...) I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'This is what I need to be a part of.' I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.”

It is undeniable, by even the most confused denier, that Van Jones was, during one significant period in his life, a communist. For most of his adult life, according to incontrovertible evidence, he was a radical leftist, and remains one today.

So, Barack Obama certainly knew who Van Jones was before he brought him into the White House. But what were the “inside baseball” reasons to hire him?

Here’s columnist Ben Shapiro’s thinking: “He picked Jones because he is deeply insecure about his racial status. Despite his repeated insistence that he is the culmination of the American dream of racial unity, Obama surrounds himself with racial radicals -- and he has for decades. Obama's associations with black communist Frank Marshall Davis during his teenage years, his apprenticeship to Rev. Jeremiah ‘God Damn America’ Wright during his adult years, and his continuously comfortable relationships with racialists like Cornel West and Van Jones demonstrate his commitment to racial polarization.”

He goes on: “The Van Jones story isn't about another radical federal employee or even about President Obama's addiction to executive authority (he has appointed over 30 czars with whom he meets regularly, but he has held just one cabinet meeting since his inauguration). The Van Jones story is about our president: a man who fills the void in his emotional past with ‘authentic’ black men who have no interior struggle for definition.”

And he concludes with this: “President Obama's pathologies are playing out before us on a national stage. Unfortunately, the policies and appointees his pathologies produce are not merely wrongheaded -- they are dangerous. How much racial polarization and economic and international instability must we endure to fill the hole that Barack Obama Sr. left in his son's heart?”

Joseph C. Phillips believes that the “reason the president surrounds himself with radical leftists like Van Jones is because on this point he is in fundamental agreement.”

And he asks this: “Quick question: how many Marxists, Communists, Domestic Terrorists and raving racialists does the President get to associate with before reasonable people can assume that the president on some level shares their particular vision of America?”

Good question. When, if ever, are good Americans going to demand that Barack Obama behave like a real president should?

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Technorati Tags: Obama, Politics, Liberalism, Democrats

Sensible policies, not cap and trade, are the key to our energy future

The price of oil hit its all-time high in July of 2008, but since then has dropped by nearly 75 percent. Oil prices are now rising again and are likely to continue to climb as the world economy recovers.

Oil man T. Boone Pickens believes that oil prices may reach $300 a barrel 10 years from now. History proves it, he said, and referred to the five OPEC revenue increases in the last five years.

Why did oil prices rise last year to historic highs? And why are they rising again this year? Oil speculators are a favorite villain, but evidence supporting speculators as a major factor in price change is lacking. Speculators get blamed because people really don’t understand what speculators do, and how speculation works.

Ben Lieberman and J. D. Foster of The Heritage Foundation have a good description of the role speculators play in the commodities markets: “Speculators are rewarded for accepting risk if they prove right, and they lose money if they get it wrong. When oil prices began to rise in 2008, some speculators bet that prices would rise further, and they made a bundle. Others bet that prices would rise less or fall, and they lost a bundle when prices jumped up rather than down.”

“Speculators are often easy targets,” Lieberman and Foster continue, “because they seem to make money without working for it, and sometimes they make a lot of money. But professional speculators typically succeed by their wits, the sum total of their research, training, and experience, not luck. In so doing, they perform a vital role in financial markets: Speculators accept risk that somebody else does not want.

“For example, airlines have enormous demand for fuel, but they do not want to bear the risk of higher oil prices. At the right price, the speculator will take that risk. So the speculator contracts with the airline to deliver an amount of oil (or jet fuel) at a certain place and time and for a fixed price. The speculator, of course, does not have the oil. Rather, at the appointed time, the speculator buys the oil on the spot market for delivery. If the spot price is then below the price contracted with the airline, the speculator makes money. If not, the speculator loses. Either way, the airline's future oil price is locked in today.”

The tried and true explanation for rising prices is a basic economic principle: supply and demand. When demand for oil goes up without the supply increasing, prices rise; people will pay what they must to get what they need. To control oil prices, or at least moderate the up-side price movement, the amount of oil on the market must increase; the more oil that is available, the lower the price.

So to keep prices low and at the same time reduce dependence on foreign oil, rather than further regulating oil speculators Congress and the administration ought to incentivize American oil and natural gas companies to increase domestic production by removing bans, red tape and costly permitting processes so that they can drill in the areas where oil and gas supplies are most likely to reside, most of which are currently off limits.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) believes that the massive new taxes and fees – totaling as much as $400 billion – that Congress is considering for the industry would reduce investment in new energy supplies when nearly two-thirds of Americans support developing domestic oil and natural gas resources, according to API’s Energy Tomorrow Web site. API believes this will cost thousands of jobs, cut into local, state and federal tax revenues, and further threaten our energy security.

Since it is not yet sensible to shift to the so-called “green” energy sources, it only makes sense to maximize harvesting our own oil and gas supplies, thereby increasing the amount of oil and gas on the world market, and holding prices relatively steady, or perhaps lowering them.

And, instead of restricting access to domestic oil supplies, bills like the American Energy Innovation Act (H.R. 2828), the No Cost Stimulus Act (S. 570 and H.R. 1431) and the American Energy Act (H.R. 2846) must be passed. These measures seek to increase domestic production by expanding and expediting offshore leasing and opening up promising onshore sites such as Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where it is believed 10 billion barrels of oil reside.

We simply must abandon the ideological mania that puts the US in an ever more vulnerable position with regard to foreign oil suppliers, and do everything possible to utilize our own resources to solve these problems.

And if we insist on obsessing on the role of speculation, the speculation we need to worry about is what our elected representatives in Washington are doing, risking our freedom, our economic well-being and our future by flirting with high-minded but impractical ideas, such as an forcing a transformation to infant technologies that are incapable of meeting the challenge, and may never be.

The problem with the Democrat leadership in Washington is that while their ideals seem wonderful in the abstract, they are abject failures in reality.

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Technorati Tags: Energy, Politics, Government, Democrats