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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wayners who wrote (660551)	7/2/2012 5:13:40 PM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 1583410

Media Liberals Laughing at John Roberts breitbart.com by Joel B. Pollak 2 Jul 2012 Don't be fooled by the false praise being heaped upon Chief Justice John Roberts by the mainstream media and its favorite go-to legal commentators. Jeffrey Toobin, no less, of the New Yorker and CNN, lets the cat out of the bag--they are celebrating Roberts's opinion in the Obamacare case, even though they know it is a total farce: In the end, of course, Roberts did uphold the A.C.A. as an exercise of the constitutional power to tax. Frankly, that argument is not a persuasive one. As the conservative Justices wrote in their joint dissenting opinion, taxes are enforced contributions to support a government; penalties are punishments for unlawful acts. The individual mandate is clearly designed to induce the purchase of insurance, and the only people who have to pay the fees are the ones who refuse to go along. That sounds a lot like a penalty. But it was good enough for Roberts, and it led to the correct result. Any port will do in a constitutional storm. A constitutional storm, yes--one of Obama's own creation, when Obamacare passed in March 2010 and when he attacked the Supreme Court in March 2012. It's in the left's interest to praise Roberts now, having demonized him in the weeks leading up to the decision. Not only does the ruling uphold Obamacare and give apparent substance to the Obama presidency, but it also gives the left an excuse to keep beating up the so-called conservative, "politicized" Court over its Commerce Clause holding, while demonstrating that such bullying is devastatingly effective. As the Wall Street Journal notes today, Roberts's decision is a blow to the rule of law. And the left is laughing.

To: Wayners who wrote (660551)	7/3/2012 12:19:51 AM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1583410

Nice Try: Obama Released Restrictive New Energy Plan Under Cover of SCOTUS, Holder Contempt Kate Hicks Web Editor, Townhall.com Jul 02, 2012 townhall.com File this one under While You Were Out: the Obama Administration unveiled its new five-year energy plan on Thursday, when the rest of us were conveniently preoccupied with SCOTUS and the Holder contempt vote. Real smooth. Of course, it's pretty clear why they wanted this to fly under the radar: as Hot Air's Erika Johnsen noted on Saturday, the plan is just not good. She points out that it opens up a miniscule percentage of our offshore resources, but not nearly enough to make a dent in our energy use, and what's more, by constraining the number of jobs that this could produce, it does nothing to help the economy. Some details: U.S. oil companies will be allowed to drill in more areas of the Gulf of Mexico but won only limited access to the Arctic under the final version of the Obama Administration's five year drilling plan that was slammed by industry and some environmentalists. The 2012-2017 plan calls for three potential lease sales in areas offshore Alaska but the auctions would not be held until the final years of the plan because of environmental concerns about operating in the Arctic. "Today, the Obama Administration has announced a bleak future for American energy production by keeping 85 percent of America's offshore areas under lock and key and refusing to open any new areas to drilling," said Doc Hastings, Republican chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. The plan calls for 15 potential lease sales in six offshore areas, including in the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico, and the portion of the Eastern Gulf not currently under Congressional moratorium. Indeed, the plan is so bad that it's been panned by everyone, from the GOP to hard-left environmentalists (who, ironically, think it's too permissive) -- but interestingly, it's produced a fair amount of unity in the Virginian Congressional delegation. Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat, has joined with his Commonwealth brethren to oppose the president's restrictive plan: Republicans pounced on President Obama on Thursday afternoon for his administration’s failure to include Virginia in the final five-year plan for offshore oil and gas drilling. But it wasn’t just Republicans complaining. Sen. Jim Webb (D) joined the bipartisan dissent. “I regret that the administration failed to include Virginia in its proposed final five-year lease plan,” Webb said. “Energy exploration . . . would boost domestic energy production, while benefiting the commonwealth’s economy.” The plan announced Thursday postpones drilling off Virginia’s coast until at least 2017. Obama had announced that Virginia would become one of the first East Coast states to drill offshore. But the administration postponed lease sales after the spill and never included Virginia in subsequent plans. The last study of the Atlantic Ocean by the federal government, conducted two decades ago, estimates that at least 130 million barrels of oil and at least 1.14 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could be off Virginia’s coast. That’s equal to the amount of oil used in six days and the amount of gas used in less than a month in the United States. Errr, so is this what an "all of the above" energy plan looks like? Here's a fun fact, though: the government has restricted Virginia's right to drill offshore because they don't know for certain that there's oil to be found...and they don't know that there's oil to be found because there are federal restrictions on doing the necessary research. From the same story: Many experts think tests in similar geographic areas in other parts of the world and limited seismic work off Virginia’s coast indicate that there is far more oil and natural gas offshore, although no one has been able to show accurately what is there because of federal restrictions. Efficiency! Indeed, the fact that the Obama administration released the plan on one of the busiest news days in recent history is all the more reason to take a look at it now. It's yet another reminder of the damage four more years could do, both to energy policy and job growth.

To: Wayners who wrote (660551)	7/3/2012 12:33:22 AM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1583410

Rep who led Solyndra charge wants probe into Massachusetts wind farm By Molly Line Energy In America July 02, 2012 After more than a decade of push and pull, the nation's first offshore wind farm got the green light -- but longtime opponents of Massachusetts' Cape Wind claim they have a smoking gun that shows the Obama administration applied "pressure" to get the project approved. Now the same congressman who led the investigation into failed solar panel firm Solyndra is calling for a probe into Cape Wind. "The emails that came from the FAA that I have seen obviously shows the White House is pushing the FAA for political reasons," said Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla. Audra Parker, the president of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, an organization that's working to prevent the wind farm's development, said her organization has obtained documents she believes are proof the Federal Aviation Administration fast-tracked the project despite safety concerns for local aviation. "We have at the federal level and at the state level a very, very strong green agenda but this project is a perfect example of a green agenda at any cost," she said Parker welcomed a congressional investigation. "The documents are based on responses that we got through a Freedom of Information Act request to the FAA, and they reveal a very strong pattern of political pressure and ultimately the FAA succumbing to that political pressure and sacrificing the lives of the flying public over Nantucket sound," she said. Parker's paperwork reveals that an internal FAA email from 2009 acknowledges "The Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound is highly political..." A PowerPoint presentation given in 2010 states: "The Secretary of the Interior has approved this project. The Administration is under pressure to promote green energy production. It would be very difficult politically to refuse approval of this project." These documents have caught the attention of Stearns. "I think the Cape Wind project is something similar to Solyndra in the sense there's a lot of pressure from the White House," the congressman said. The White House dismissed Stearns' latest accusations. And Cape Wind spokesman Mark Rodgers said that despite the concerns raised by opponents, the project has been heavily vetted. "Cape Wind has been through the most comprehensive review of any power facility in the history of the Northeast U.S., and so if we're on any kind of fast track I'd hate to see the slow track," said Rodgers. In fact, the FAA is again reviewing the project after a federal appeals court overturned the agency's ruling that 130 proposed turbines posed "no hazard" to aviation. Rodgers believes the FAA will once more rule in Cape Wind's favor despite political pressure from opponents. "We know in the early years there was a lot of political pressure by project opponents to try to prevent the FAA from ever approving Cape Wind. But despite that negative political pressure the FAA has approved this three times after reviewing the full record -- twice during the Bush years, once now in the Obama years, and we're confident when they have this one more decision to make that we'll be approved again," Rodgers said. Despite the latest efforts to fight the project, Cape Wind hopes to begin building next year. But they are facing multiple lawsuits and the possibility of further delays as both sides -- for and against the development -- charge that politics is playing a role in the battle. Read more: foxnews.com