CALIFORNIA YANKEE

Coleman concedes

Norm Coleman congratulates Al Franken on Senate win.

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The 2008 election is over.

Minnesota Supreme Court gives Coleman 10 days to appeal

The Minnesota Supreme Court, in deciding Al Franken won the U.S. Senate race,  gave Republican Norm Coleman 10 days to appeal.

NBC Justice Correspondent, Pete Williams discusses the situation in the following video report:

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Minnesota court rules Democrat Al Franken won Senate seat

The Minnesota Supreme Court declared Democrat Al Franken the winner in the long fought  battle for the U.S. Senate race with Republican Norm Coleman.

Franken's win will give Democrats the 60-seat majority they need to overcome procedural obstacles and push through President Obama's agenda.

Coleman has said in published reports he is unlikely to appeal the state court's decision to the federal courts.

Only 19% believe the House cap and trade bill will help the economy

Rasmussen reports that only 19% believe the Waxman-Markey cap and trade tax climate change legislation the House passed last week will help the economy, but 42% say it will hurt the U.S. economy.

A majority of both Republicans (56%) and Independents (52%) think the bill will hurt the economy.

Among Democrats, 30% say it will help the economy.

Just like polling on bailouts, tea parties, and immigration, Rasmussen found a telling divide between divide between Mainstream America and the Political Class on cap and trade:

Fifty percent (50%) of Mainstream Americans say the climate control measure will hurt the economy, but two-thirds of the Political Class (67%) say it will help.

How can our leaders be that out of touch with their constituents?

New York Democrats refuse to stand for the Pledge Of Allegiance

New York State Senate Democrats caught on tape refusing to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag:

The Senators can play all the political games their constituents will let them get away with, but they should not disrespect the Flag of the United States of America.

They should know better.

United States Code, Title 36, Chapter 10 - Patriotic Customs, provides:

§172. Pledge of allegiance to the flag; manner of delivery
The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, 'I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.', should be rendered by standing at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart. When not in uniform men should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Persons in uniform should remain silent, face the flag, and render the military salute.

Perhaps the New York Democrats learned flag etiquette from Presidential candidate Obama.

More Obama say one thing do another - science suppression edition

In his December 20, 2008 weekly address, President-elect Obama set forth some soaring rhetoric regarding science:

Because the truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources – it’s about protecting free and open inquiry.  It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology.  It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient – especially when it’s inconvenient.  Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us.  That will be my goal as President of the United States – and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work.

Just words.

Contrary to Obama's rhetoric his administration has suppressed inconvenient scientific evidence that global warming isn't as bad as the cap and trade advocates have been telling us.

The following video outlines the story:

Declan McCullagh reports that according to recently disclosed emails, the Environmental Protection Agency suppressed an internal report that was skeptical of claims about global warming:

Less than two weeks before the agency formally submitted its pro-regulation recommendation to the White House, an EPA center director quashed a 98-page report that warned against making hasty "decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data."

The EPA official, Al McGartland, said in an e-mail message (PDF) to a staff researcher on March 17: "The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward...and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision."

The e-mail correspondence raises questions about political interference in what was supposed to be an independent review process inside a federal agency--and echoes criticisms of the EPA under the Bush administration, which was accused of suppressing a pro-climate change document.

E-mail messages released this week show that Alan Carlin, the primary author of the 98-page EPA report, was ordered not to "have any direct communication" with anyone outside his small group at EPA on the topic of climate change, and was informed that his report would not be shared with the agency group working on the topic.

The suppressed Carlin report was especially inconvenient for Obama's cap and trade push:

Carlin's report listed a number of recent developments he said the EPA did not consider, including that global temperatures have declined for 11 years; that new research predicts Atlantic hurricanes will be unaffected; that there's "little evidence" that Greenland is shedding ice at expected levels; and that solar radiation has the largest single effect on the earth's temperature.

If there is a need for the government to lower planetary temperatures, Carlin believes, other mechanisms would be cheaper and more effective than regulation of carbon dioxide. One paper he wrote says managing sea level rise or reducing solar radiation reaching the earth would be more cost-effective alternatives.

How long will President Obama get away with saying one thing while he does the opposite?

Only 15 more Senate votes needed for cap and trade

Darren Samuelsohn reports cap and trade backers are 15 Senate votes short of the 60 needed for passage.

According to Samuelsohn's article, the Senate count stands at 45 yes or probably yes, 32 no, and 23 fence sitters:

To start, there are 45 senators in the "yes" or "probably yes" camp, including Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Maine Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe.

There are 23 fence sitters. Alaska's Mark Begich (D) and Lisa Murkowski (R) need to keep their home state's oil and gas interests in mind, while Ohio's Sherrod Brown (D) and Michigan Democrats Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow are pressing for provisions that help agriculture and their state's ailing manufacturing and auto industries.

There are also 32 Republicans who are unlikely to vote for a climate bill of the shape and size that Obama and congressional Democratic leaders envision, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Missouri Sen. Kit Bond and Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, an outspoken skeptic about the link between man-made greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Have things change so much since the 1990's? Back then, the House approved President Clinton's energy tax, also known as the BTU tax. That vote was as close as Friday's on the Democrats' cap and trade energy tax:

In 1993, the legislation containing the Clinton energy tax was adopted on a 219-to-213 vote with 38 Democrats defecting. On Friday, the House bill was approved 219 to 212, with 44 Democrats defecting.

Clinton's energy tax didn't pass the senate and the Democrats lost the senate in the following election.

The whole point of both Clinton's BTU energy tax and the current cap and trade energy tax is to price fossil fuels out of the market. Imposing higher energy costs on our economy, costs which don't apply to economic competitors such as China and India, does not make sense for a struggling economy facing Obama's out of control spending, higher taxes and ever growing multi-trillion dollar deficits.

In 1997 the Senate unanimously passed, 95–0, the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing nations as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States." Byrd-Hagel prevented Clinton from even trying to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which also would have put the U.S. economy at an economic disadvantage to China and India.

Have things really changed so since the 1990s that the U.S. Senate would vote to give our economic competitors an advantage?

President Obama hasn't even tried to wiggle out of his admissions that under his cap and trade plan electricity rates will skyrocket and would bankrupt anyone who builds a coal-powered plant.  

Have things really changed so much that the Senate would vote cause electricity rates to skyrocket and to bankrupt anyone who builds a coal powered plant?

Supreme Court rules for white firefighters

The Supreme Court has ruled, in a 5-4 decision, that white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut, were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

The firefighters claimed New Haven unfairly threw out a civil service examination because not enough minorities did well on the test, and the city feared a discrimination suit by the black firefighters.

The Supreme Court decided New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion test because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities. The Court held that the city's fear of litigation cannot justify the refusal to apply the test.    

The decision will certainly play a role in Judge Sotomayor's confirmation.

The 93 decision is available here.

Pawlenty to Obama: Stop spending

"With all due respect, Mr. President, if we're out of money, quit spending it." - Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, CNN's State of the Union, June 28, 2009

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty discussed, health care, cap and trade and stimulus on CNN's State of the Union with John King. Pawlenty did a terrific job countering Obama/Democrat talking points:

• On President Obama's so-called stimulus:

  The General Accounting Office, said recently of the $800 billion stimulus bill, only about $150 billion of it is really stimulative for the economy. The rest was spent on government programs, government social service programs that are not stimulative. And so this is a bill that was misdirected,mis-targeted, mis- prioritized, mis-focused.

• On Out-of-Control Spending:

Well, the president said not long ago in an interview quote-unquote, "we are out of money." With all due respect, Mr. President, if we're out of money, quit spending it.

This is a nation that has got a debt load and a deficit load that is unsustainable. We're going to have, in my view, the federal government debt crisis equivalent of the mortgage crisis within 20 years.

• On Cap and Trade:

It's a cap and trade bill. It's going to cap our job growth and trade our jobs to other countries who provide a more competitive business environment. 

We should do things to reduce emissions and pollution, but we have to do it in a way that doesn't wreck our economy or put unreasonable burdens on our citizens. And this bill does not meet that test.

• On Health Care:

  Well, there are goals of three parts for health care reform, John. One is extending coverage, called access, but there are other goals, as well, which is cost containment, because it's bankrupting cities, states, businesses, the federal government. And the third is making sure we maintain quality.

  So you can obsess just about access, but if you don't also contain costs and preserve quality, you're in big trouble.       

  We share, as Republicans, the goal of health care reform, to get more access, to control costs, to improve quality. But the way to do that isn't to have the government take over the system.

Watch the video:

The full transcript of Governor Pawlenty is available here.

Going cap and trade green

The Tax Foundation released the following video to educate folks about cap and trade:

Here are the lyrics, in case you want to sing along:

We're gonna...
Cap and trade
all carbon emissions
gonna cap and trade
that will be our mission

We're gonna cap and trade
see what I mean
the government is
going green today...
We cap and trade.

See cap and trade
charges folks for releasing carbon
like companies that use
vehicles that park and

utilities and factories
who pass the cost
to people who will pay
for cap and trade.

It sounds like cap and trade
is a tax we pay then
No sir, cap and trade
is just a regulation

See tax is when there's
money spent
this is just a fee to the government
Okay?
It's cap and trade.

So with cap and trade
won't things be more expensive?
Well just...everything
but don't be so apprehensive

Just clothes and food
and heating bills
and anything that needs
to be shipped will
be raised
with cap and trade.

But how is cap and trade
not a tax there, sonny
when we all have to pay
the government our money

You don't seem to understand my friend
we're going green, doesn't that make sense?
they'll pay
for cap and trade.

Sounds like cap and trade
is some sort of weird humor
because these fees will just be
passed on to the consumer

Yes, but check this chart
you'll see for sure
the biggest burden will be
on the poor who'll pay
for cap and trade.

See who cares if cost of most goods go higher?
And household income levels all go down?
and if estimated environmental impact is not really calculable,,,

Oh, what a scene, I'm really keen
the government is going green
We're going green
with cap and trade!