Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (37287)	9/23/2009 1:45:19 AM
From: RMF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

Wasn't it BUSH that really kick started ACORN???? It seems that they really started getting big bucks under Bush, did they not? If ACORN's screwy then maybe people should start asking the folks from the Bush Administration why they were giving them big bucks in the first place.

To: longnshort who wrote (37287)	9/23/2009 10:15:48 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 71588

Gloves Are Off in Texas Race 'Kay Bailout' Faces 'Tricky Ricky' in Fierce Fight for the GOP Gubernatorial Nod SEPTEMBER 23, 2009 online.wsj.com By LESLIE EATON and RUSSELL GOLD Charges of economic cluelessness and political hackery are flying in Texas as U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison challenges Gov. Rick Perry for the Republican nomination for governor. The primary isn't until March and the big bucks haven't yet been spent on advertising, polling or voter-luring barbecues in this large and heavily Republican state. But from the get-go the race has been fierce, even by the bare-knuckled standards of Texas politics. For instance, both sides have taken to posting attack videos on YouTube, referring to one-another as "Kay Bailout" and "Tricky Ricky." Mr. Perry, who appeals to the conservative wing of the party, took office in December 2000 and is already the state's longest-serving governor. Ms. Hutchison, who was elected to the Senate in 1993 with 67% of the vote, is more moderate and considered one of the most popular officials in the state. That makes for a high-profile battle, one that is often seen as a microcosm of the national debate within the Republican party over its future direction. "What we're not used to is having a bitter Republican primary between two rock stars," said Harvey Kronberg, editor of the Austin political newsletter the Quorum Report. Mr. Perry is still fighting back over the latest incident, involving a brief YouTube video of his speech at a Chamber of Commerce lunch in Houston Thursday. In it, he mentions a report that predicts Texas will be among the first states to emerge from the recession and adds in a joking tone, "We're in one?" The next day, the state released data showing that Texas lost 62,200 jobs in August, more than any other state, and that the unemployment rate hit 8%, the highest since November 1987 (though below the national 9.7%). According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, the Texas economy went into recession before 2009 began. Ms. Hutchison's campaign, which made and posted the tape, has been accusing the governor of laughing about the recession. "It's rare to see a politician so out of touch and arrogant," said Jennifer Baker, a Hutchison spokeswoman, on Tuesday. "Rick Perry will have plenty of time to work on his comedy routine after the election." Mr. Perry has spent the past few days firing back. He said on Tuesday that taking "a snippet of a speech, and trying to twist that around is, I would suggest to you, a political hack at work." He added: "It is very clear the seriousness of how I take our economy." Political mavens say that the furor over the recession video, which has hit all the local newspapers and political blogs, is the first sign that Ms. Hutchison is getting her political legs under her. "He's been hammering her pretty hard," said Robert M. Stein, a professor of political science at Rice University in Houston. "It's a very competitive and very, I guess, colorful campaign, would be the nicest way to put it." 'Bailout bucks' put out by the Perry campaign Running on the Democratic side is Fort Worth lawyer Tom Schieffer, a former ambassador and business partner of former President George W. Bush. Rounding out the Democratic slate are singer, writer and cigar salesman Kinky Friedman, and Hank Gilbert, an East Texas rancher who ran for agricultural commissioner in 2006. So far the Republican campaign has been more about politics than policy. Mr. Perry has accused Ms. Hutchison of being a creature of Washington, not of Texas, but also of missing key votes in the Senate. The campaign sponsors a Web site where viewers can download a "missing senator" flyer, similar to ones pet owners post when their dogs go astray. At a campaign stop Ms. Hutchison made in Austin last month, Perry volunteers wearing pig snouts passed out "bailout bucks" bearing her photograph. The Hutchison campaign points out that despite all the Washington-bashing, Mr. Perry used $12 billion of federal stimulus money to balance the state budget. (Ms. Hutchinson voted against the Obama administration's stimulus package). The senator's campaign also accuses the governor of playing politics and overstaying his welcome in Austin, and says she favors a more inclusive GOP. A Hutchison campaign graphic linking Mr. Perry to Acorn. If the campaign has been nasty so far, once Ms. Hutchison leaves the Senate to stump full-time, it may get even rougher as "she gets down here and makes a daily show of it," said Bruce Buchanan, a government professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Write to Leslie Eaton at leslie.eaton@wsj.com and Russell Gold at russell.gold@wsj.com Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A3 Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

To: longnshort who wrote (37287)	10/5/2009 7:08:09 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

The 'Absurd Results' Doctrine Turning the carbon screws on businesses so they lobby Congress for cap and trade. OCTOBER 4, 2009, 7:15 P.M. ET. 'In recent years, many Americans have had cause to wonder whether decisions made at EPA were guided by science and the law, or whether those principles had been trumped by politics," declared Lisa Jackson in San Francisco last week. The Environmental Protection Agency chief can't stop kicking the Bush Administration, but the irony is that the Obama EPA is far more "political" than the Bush team ever was. How else to explain the coordinated release on Wednesday of the EPA's new rules that make carbon a dangerous pollutant and John Kerry's cap-and-trade bill? Ms. Jackson is issuing a political ultimatum to business, as well as to Midwestern and rural Democrats: Support the Kerry-Obama climate tax agenda—or we'll punish your utilities and consumers without your vote. The EPA has now formally made an "endangerment finding" on CO2, which will impose the command-and-control regulations of the Clean Air Act across the entire economy. Because this law was never written to apply to carbon, the costs will far exceed those of a straight carbon tax or even cap and trade—though judging by the bills Democrats are stitching together, perhaps not by much. In any case, the point of this reckless "endangerment" is to force industry and politicians wary of raising taxes to concede, lest companies have to endure even worse economic and bureaucratic destruction from the EPA. Ms. Jackson made a show of saying her new rules would only apply to some 10,000 facilities that emit more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year, as if that were a concession. These are the businesses—utilities, refineries, heavy manufacturers and so forth—that have the most to lose and are therefore most sensitive to political coercion. The idea is to get Exelon and other utilities to lobby Congress to pass a cap-and-trade bill that gives them compensating emissions allowances that they can sell to offset the cost of the new regulations. White House green czar Carol Browner was explicit on the coercion point last week, telling a forum hosted by the Atlantic Monthly that the EPA move would "obviously encourage the business community to raise their voices in Congress." In Sicily and parts of New Jersey, they call that an offer you can't refuse. Yet one not-so-minor legal problem is that the Clean Air Act's statutory language states unequivocally that the EPA must regulate any "major source" that emits more than 250 tons of a pollutant annually, not 25,000. The EPA's Ms. Jackson made up the higher number out of whole cloth because the lower legal threshold—which was intended to cover traditional pollutants, not ubiquitous carbon—would sweep up farms, restaurants, hospitals, schools, churches and other businesses. Sources that would be required to install pricey "best available control technology" would increase to 41,000 per year, up from 300 today, while those subject to the EPA's construction permitting would jump to 6.1 million from 14,000. That's not our calculation. It comes from the EPA itself, which also calls it "an unprecedented increase" that would harm "an extraordinarily large number of sources." The agency goes on to predict years of delay and bureaucratic backlog that "would impede economic growth by precluding any type of source—whether it emits GHGs or not—from constructing or modifying for years after its business plan contemplates." We pointed this out earlier this year, only to have Ms. Jackson and the anticarbon lobby deny it. Usually it takes an act of Congress to change an act of Congress, but Team Obama isn't about to let democratic—or even Democratic—consent interfere with its carbon extortion racket. To avoid the political firestorm of regulating the neighborhood coffee shop, the EPA is justifying its invented rule on the basis of what it calls the "absurd results" doctrine. That's not a bad moniker for this whole exercise. The EPA admits that it is "departing from the literal application of statutory provisions." But it says the courts will accept its revision because literal application will produce results that are "so illogical or contrary to sensible policy as to be beyond anything that Congress could reasonably have intended." Well, well. Shouldn't the same "absurd results" theory pertain to shoehorning carbon into rules that were written in the 1970s and whose primary drafter—Michigan Democrat John Dingell—says were never intended to apply? Just asking. Either way, this will be a feeble legal excuse when the greens sue to claim that the EPA's limits are inadequate, in order to punish whatever carbon-heavy business they're campaigning against that week. Obviously President Obama is hellbent on punishing carbon use—no matter how costly or illogical. And of course, there's no politics involved, none at all. online.wsj.com