Archive for the 'Democrats' Category

EPA Thinks You Can’t Figure Out That A Nissan Leaf Is More Fuel Efficient Than Ferrari 612

Published by steve on August 30, 2010 in Democrats, Progressives, autos and global warming. 0 Comments

Yep, the EPA want’s to ‘help’ you select the most fuel efficient vehicle possible. To accomplish this, the EPA is proposing revised window labels for new cars. Via the controversial EPA:

“We are asking the American people to tell us what they need to make the best economic and environmental decisions when buying a new car,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “New fuel economy labels will keep pace with the new generation of fuel efficient cars and trucks rolling off the line, and provide simple, straightforward updates to inform consumers about their choices in a rapidly changing market. We want to help buyers find vehicles that meet their needs, keep the air clean and save them money at the pump.”

EPA’s press release gets more condescending:

EPA and DOT are proposing two new label designs for comment. One label design prominently features a letter grade to communicate the vehicle’s overall fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions performance. The new design will also provide consumers with an estimate of the expected fuel cost savings over five years compared to an average gasoline-powered vehicle of the same model year.

The second proposed label retains the current label’s focus on miles per gallon (MPG) and annual fuel costs, while updating the overall design and adding the required new comparison information on fuel economy and emissions.

Both proposed label designs expand on the content of the current label by including new information on fuel consumption, tailpipe carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and smog-related emissions. The new labels would provide information on a new web-based interactive tool that can also be accessed by smart phone. This tool would allow consumers to personalize the information about a vehicle’s performance.

For EVs and PHEVs, the agencies are proposing to show energy use by translating electricity consumption into miles per gallon equivalent. The proposed label designs for EVs also include energy use expressed in terms of kilowatt-hours per 100 miles.

According to the Detroit News, the median grade for vehicles would be a B-

Vehicles would get an “A+” to “D” grade, and the median grade would be a “B-.” No vehicle would get a failing grade. To get an “A,” a vehicle would have to average at least 59 miles per gallon; to avoid a “D” a vehicle would have to average at least 14 mpg.

Fully electric vehicles, such as the Nissan Leaf, would get an “A+,” while a plug-in hybrid would get an “A.” Many hybrids like the Ford Fusion hybrid and Toyota Prius would get an “A-.” The Ferrari 612 would be one of those gas-hungry high performance vehicles that would get a “D.”

No van would rate higher than a “C+” and most SUVs would get a “C+ or lower. Some versions of the Toyota Tundra, Nissan Titan, Cadillac CTS, Lexus 570 and GMC Sierra 15 would all get a “C-.”

The move could dissuade some consumers from buying the biggest, most polluting vehicles on the roads. The new design also will provide consumers with an estimate of the expected fuel cost savings over five years, compared to an average gasoline-powered vehicle of the same model year.

Who knew that a Ferrari 612 is less fuel efficient than a coal powered …I mean a plug in electric Nissan Leaf?

V12 Ferrari

Go figure this is more fuel efficient than the V-12 Ferrari

Sarah Palin “former Alaska Governor”

Published by steve on August 28, 2010 in 2010, Democrats and Progressives. 0 Comments

Why is Sarah Palin is referred to as “former Alaska Governor” while Geraldine Ferraro is referred to as “former Vice Presidential Candidate?”

(Its a rhetorical question).

The New Minimalist Movement During The Era of Hope and Change

Published by steve on August 16, 2010 in Democrats, Progressives, economy, news and video. 0 Comments

Via The BBC:

Chris Yurista, a DJ from Washington, DC, cites this trend in digital music as one reason he was able to hand over the keys to his basement apartment over a year ago.

“It’s always nice to have a personal sense of home, but that aside – the internet has replaced my need for an address,” the 27-year-old said.

Since boxing up his physical possessions and getting rid of his home, Mr Yurista has taken to the streets with a backpack full of designer clothing, a laptop, an external hard drive, a small piano keyboard and a bicycle – an armful of goods that totals over $3,000 (£1,890) in value.

The American University graduate, who spends much of his time basking in the glow emanating from his Macbook, earns a significant income at his full-time job as a travel agent and believes his new life on the digital grid is less cluttered than his old life on the physical one.

“I don’t feel a void living the way I’m living because I’ve figured out a way to use digital technology to my advantage,” Mr Yurista explained.

Mr Yurista feels by digitising his life, he no longer has to worry about dusting, organising and cleaning his possessions. And he says his new intangible goods can continue to live on indefinitely with little maintenance.

“Things like records snap and wear down over time. It’s upsetting. MP3s don’t,” he said.

Chris Yurista Mr Yurista feels his digital possessions can now live on indefinitely with little maintenance

The DJ has now substituted his bed for friends’ couches, paper bills for online banking, and a record collection containing nearly 2,000 albums for an external hard drive with DJ software and nearly 13,000 MP3s.

I wonder what Mr. Yurista will do if all his friends (whose couches he sleeps on) decide to embrace his ‘minimalist’ lifestyle as well? I guess it wouldn’t be so cool or trendy then.

For some reason I can hear Mt. Yurista saying “all I need is my laptop, my back pack, this paddle-ball game. No more… And this chair”:

Video: Democrat Pollster Sees a Voter Tidal Wave in November

Published by steve on August 12, 2010 in 2010, Democrats, news and video. 3 Comments

Having been Jimmy Carter’s pollster, Pat Caddell would know a thing or two about voter ‘tidal waves.’

h/t: Lee

Scary Unemployment Graphs

Published by steve on August 7, 2010 in 2010, Democrats, History and economy. 2 Comments

Via Calculated Risk:

The underlying details of the employment report were mixed. The positives: a slgiht increase in hours worked and in hourly wages, and the slight decreases in part time workers (for economic reasons) and in the long term unemployed.

The negatives include the weak hiring of only 12,000 ex-Census, the declines in the participation rate and employment-population rate, and the significant downward revision to the June employment report.

Overall this was a weak report.

The graphs show a scary picture:

Note what happens in 2007.

Big spending liberal Democrats seized both chambers of congress… and unemployment started to rise.

The Latest Liberal Talking Points About The Deficit

Published by steve on July 26, 2010 in 2010, Democrats, Progressives, economy and news. 3 Comments

I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible. The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, “How do you hold down government spending?” Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up. The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes.

Milton Friedman, September 16th, 2003

The Baltimore Sun has published an Op-Ed today that perfectly captures the latest Liberal Democrat talking point that the very idea the Bush tax cuts should be extended will make our national deficit even worse. Furthermore, they are completely apoplectic that some Democrats (this is only an election year ploy, they would never actually implement the cuts) are suggesting that we should extend the cuts to people who earn above $250K.

The argument is this: “George Bush cut taxes. George Bush started the Iraq war. George Bush is a bad man. Obama did the right thing to run the deficit to $1.4 trillion and George Bush squandered the budget surplus. Did we mention George Bush is a bad man. Now we can’t ‘afford’ the tax cuts.”

Several things completely lost on our intrepid,and Bush Derangement Syndrome inflicted, op-ed writer. First, congress has been controlled by Nancey Pelosi, Harry Reid and the Democrats since 2006. For nearly 4 years they have watched the stock market tank, unemployment rise, the housing market implode and deficits soar. Remember, Congress controls spending.

Government spending has skyrocketed under Pelosi, Reid and now Obama.. There is no discussion at the Baltimore Sun or among Democrats about spending cuts. They only are looking at tax increases.

Increasing taxes and governmental stimulus spending doesn’t work as evidenced by Japan and its Lost Decade.

The Sun’s op-ed writer acknowledges the pain the middle class is suffering due to the recession and that increasing taxes (i.e. letting the tax cuts expire) will cause additional economic pain. However, the Baltimore Sun op-ed writer and Democrats in general are now Deficit Hawks. After nearly two years with Obama, Pelosi and Reid on a spending binge of an unprecedented scale, when presented with an opportunity to extend tax cuts, our political leaders are concerned about deficits.

Today, the newly minted Deficit Hawks point out “the deficit is a really big problem” and is projected to be worse. They say that “Mr. Obama repeatedly promised never to raise taxes on the middle class (a promise we considered ill-advised, then and now), so he would no doubt take a political hit for letting the tax break for middle-class families expire. We, however, are far more concerned with the fiscal health of the nation than the president’s political fortunes.”

My question is, if they are so concerned about the “fiscal health of the nation” why are they not calling for spending cuts rather than tax increases? There is no discussion of canceling the the balance of the stimulus bill and using it to cut the debt. Why not call for the repeal of government run health care if they are afraid of future deficits? England is moving away from national health care because of costs and lack of efficiency. Germany is fighting the costs of their national health care system. It doesn’t work there. Why would it work here?

The truth is they only care about providing cover for liberal Democrats and advancing their progressive agenda.

Obama Want’s His CO2 Regulation And Will Get It Through The EPA

Published by steve on July 25, 2010 in Democrats, Progressives, global warming, news and video. 5 Comments

“We will continue to use all the tools available to us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the president believes in the science. He believes we have a Supreme Court decision and we will continue to move forward.”

Carol Browner, Obama’s Global Warming / Climate Change Czarina

Obama is beholden to the hard core environmentalists and can’t get the Senate to push through new regulations limiting the gas, CO2, that we all exhale and plant life uses for photosynthesis. Therefore, he will regulate CO2 through the EPA and they will deploy regulations and measure more draconian than anything the legislature would dream of voting for.

Coal Keeps The Lights On!

And the next target for Obama and the EPA is the backbone of our nations electrical grid. Coal power.

Next up are rules due early next year dealing with coal-fired power plants. A number of other petitions from states and environmentalists are on EPA’s doorstep that press for climate-focused limits on petroleum refiners and other major industrial sources.

Senate and House Democrats from Virginia and West Virginia are trying to craft legislation to delay the EPA regulation for two years, however Obama is threatening a veto.

This is more bad news for our economy. Just as the drilling “moratorium” in the Gulf of Mexico will take years to turn around, constructing power plants takes years as well. And energy is the key to any economy. Even writers at Pravda (yes, that Pravda) understand:

That brings us to Cap and Trade. Never in the history of humanity has a more idiotic plan been put forward and sold with bigger lies. Energy is the key stone to any and every economy, be it man power, animal power, wood or coal or nuclear. How else does one power industry that makes human life better (unless of course its making the bombs that end that human life, but that’s a different topic). Never in history, with the exception of the Japanese self imposed isolation in the 1600s, did a government actively force its people away from economic activity and industry.

Even the Soviets never created such idiocy.

Of course Obama and Democrats “believe” that CO2 and is causing ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’ (if we have a few unseasonably cool days). Of course, they cant put forth actual, testable proof that it is happening. All we get is “we believe it is happening” and “the only way to solve the problem is to funnel more money and more control to the federal government.”

Christopher Monckton puts things in to perspective nicely:

If you want further proof that the greenhouse and the theory of atmospheric back radiation effect is a bunch of nonsense, check out this post at The Hockey Schtick.

Worst Governor In America, Michigan’s Jennifer Granholm, is One Of The Politico’s 50 To Watch

Published by steve on July 23, 2010 in 2010, Democrats and Green Energy. 4 Comments

The worst Governor in America, Michigan’s very own Jennifer Granholm (D), is on Obama’s short list for an administration job after her term ends. Via the Politico’s 50 to watch list:

Granholm’s résumé includes a Harvard law degree and stints as a state attorney general and a Detroit federal prosecutor. She hopes to find work near her current passion: creating clean energy jobs.

Imagine what our unemployment rate would be without those heavily subsidized ‘clean energy’ jobs.

“I am very bullish on green,” she said.

Good for you, Jenny. You might be bullish on ‘green energy’ but people in Europe and Asia are finding that ‘green energy’ is an economic loser.

An adviser on the economic transition team when Obama was president-elect, Granholm has worked tirelessly to transform Michigan’s old automotive manufacturing towns. She wooed a chairman of a solar panel company with Super Bowl tickets, traveled to Japan to lobby an auto-parts company to expand in Michigan and launched the job-retraining program for auto workers called “No Worker Left Behind.”

“[Granholm was] an adviser on the economic transition team when Obama was president-elect.” That sentence speaks for itself.

And like the president, she’s deployed an economic arsenal of tax credits and loans to ensure clean energy components are made in America. In fact, the two leaders’ energy policies frequently harmonize, especially as the administration pushes for electric-car manufacturing plants that Granholm wants to build in her state.

Electric vehicles have been hyped for a 100 years and have never really come to fruition. There are no free lunches when it comes to powering automobiles. You either will burn gasoline or coal for an EV. Wind power will never be a viable source for large scale electric power. One other problem with EV’s is the United States has very little lithium for lithium ion batteries. We need to import lithium from places like Bolivia

By the way, the Nissan Leaf EV isn’t selling so well.

“Everything he says about clean energy are words that I could have said,” she said with a chuckle. “I shouldn’t say that. He’s says them so much more eloquently than I do.”

Gack…..

Detroit And Its Third World ‘Aura’

Published by steve on July 22, 2010 in Democrats, Progressives and economy. 5 Comments

Laura Berman, the uber-liberal Detroit News columnist who has a serious case of Palin Derangement Syndrome, is at it again. Today, she is touting the wonders of Detroit’s status as a ‘Third World’ city. She even goes as far as describing the city as having a Third World ‘Aura.’

Via The DetNews:

Tim Bryan took his company to Bangalore, India, in 2002. Now, he’s moving it into the new Third World alternative: Detroit.

At the foot of Woodward, adjacent to Campus Martius, Bryan is steadily hiring information technology professionals to work in GalaxE Systems Inc.’s new Detroit hub.

The New Jersey-based firm is leasing at least two stories of a 25-story office tower that’s otherwise almost vacant — a star-crossed building that in the 1960s was built to be the dazzling headquarters for First Federal Bank of Detroit.

GalaxE’s entry onto the scene shows how even Detroit’s notoriety can be a selling point to American companies that want to put their dollars to work in the United States. (emphasis added)

According to one of Detroit’s ‘opinion leaders’ its a great thing that Detroit is now regarded by business leaders as a ‘Third World’ destination.

I wonder if Laura has actually been to a Third World country? Has she seen the crushing poverty in the border towns of Mexico or the former communist countries of Eastern Europe? I don’t see how someone can actually try and spin the economic devastation Detroit is experiencing as a good thing.

Getting back to Laura, she displays her complete and absolute lack of business acumen.

If urban turnaround hasn’t always been at the top of corporate agendas, it could be moving up the scale, as the mystique of doing business thousands of miles away wears thin and high national unemployment rates create new empathy for Michigan’s jobless.

In this climate, few cities offer more visibility or potential reward for such commitment than Detroit.

In Laura’s liberal world, businesses exist to push an urban revitalization agenda and not to make money. Furthermore, in her liberal fantasy land businesses outsource to places like China, India and Mexico due to the mystique of the location and not because of the high costs, over regulation and the fact that the United States has the highest corporate tax rates (40%) in the world.

To close out the story about the ‘big time’ investment in Detroit and its status as a Third World Destination:

The reality is that Bryan flies in one to three days a week to work with 20 employees in a skyscraper originally built for thousands. To Detroit’s latest clutch of business visionaries, this is what opportunity looks like.

Of course, Laura neglects a small fact about GalaxE:

- GalaxE. Solutions Inc. – The New Jersey-based IT provider in the business of developing and modifying software, particularly in the healthcare, retail, and financial services industries, plans to invest $4.2 million to expand its U.S. presence in Detroit. The company’s first operation in Michigan is expected to create 987 total jobs, including 500 directly by the company. Based on the MEDC’s recommendation, the MEGA board today approved a state tax credit valued at $4.6 million over five years to convince the company to locate in Michigan over a competing site in New Jersey. The city of Detroit is considering a personal property tax abatement in support of the project.

When the State of Michigan starts crying poor in the coming years and has a X billion dollar budget shortfall and politicians want to reach further in our pockets, remember stories like this.

Next Up: The Senate Democrats ‘Climate Bill’

Published by steve on July 20, 2010 in Democrats, Green Energy, Progressives and economy. 0 Comments

The Democrats latest measure to keep their boot on the throat of the economy.Via The WaPo Post Carbon:

Reid has drafted a scaled-back bill that appeals to the Democratic base, sources said, complete with a provision limiting the amount of greenhouse gases that the electric utility sector will be able to emit in the years ahead and a low-carbon fuel standard. It will also include a renewable energy standard, but it is still unclear if the measure will demand utilities to source 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar. The sources asked not to be identified because the bill details have not been announced publicly.

An aide to Reid said the leader will not provide all the measure’s details at the Tuesday Democratic Caucus lunch. “He is not unveiling a bill in caucus,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley said in an e-mail.

While Reid is going to try to pick up Republican votes as well as unify the Democratic Caucus behind his plan, if he brings his bill to the floor next week it may just signal the starting gun for a debate that will culminate in the fall, after the August recess. (emphasis added)

Renewable energy standard, just like Eigg, Scotland. Their ‘renewable energy’ system can’t provide reliable power for 87 people.

This is not going to help our economy.