Free Republic

Warming: After stifling a report questioning the science behind climate change, the EPA is censoring two of its lawyers for saying the proposed solutions are also problematical. The debate isn't over. It's being suppressed. In the proud tradition of EPA whistle-blower Alan Carlin, whose leaked study blew the lid off the EPA's hyped and flawed science behind climate change, two EPA lawyers, Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, have produced a Web video titled "A Huge Mistake." In it they say cap-and-trade in general and the Waxman-Markey bill in particular are the wrong answers anyway. Williams and Zabel do not deny...

Global Warming: President Obama warns of planetary doom at the U.N. if we fail to pass cap-and-trade legislation. Meanwhile, a former warm-monger predicts decades of cooling as the sun stays nearly "spotless."The president had hoped to address Tuesday's United Nations climate change summit in New York with a finished cap-and-trade bill. Failing that, he hoped he'd at least have a version of the Waxman-Markey bill that has passed the House on his desk before the Copenhagen talks in December to cobble together a follow-up to the failed Kyoto Protocol. Not only did that not happen in the cool summer of...

Washington- The road to comprehensive health care reform may be clearing up again after weeks of doubt, wrangling and obstructions had threatened the likelihood of its passing through committee and onto the floor of the House of Representatives for a full vote by that body. Moments ago members of the Committee on Homefront Imperialism emerged from seclusion with an announcement that The Healthfare Reform Act of 2009 had passed through and would be the first item of business taken up after the House returned from its summer recess. At the center of the debate impeding this bill, while in committee,...

Junk Science: The EPA may be considering closing the watchdog office that exposed the flimsy evidence of man-caused warming. So much for the administration's promise to "restore science to its rightful place."Recently we commented on the plight of Dr. Allen Carlin, the EPA senior research analyst at the National Center for Environmental Economics who dared to say, in essence, that emperor Al Gore and his environmental sycophants at the Environmental Protection Agency wore no clothes. The EPA had been working on an "endangerment finding" that would say carbon dioxide, rather than being the basis for all life on earth, was...

Energy Policy: A new study shows that Waxman-Markey will increase prices at the pump, deepen our dependence on foreign oil and shred our ability to turn crude into gasoline. Even fuel-efficient cars will still need fuel.Oil may bubble up out of the ground, but gasoline does not. It's made in those ugly little NIMBY places called refineries we are loath to build anymore because we're too busy trying to save the Earth rather than our economy and American jobs. When Hurricane Katrina shut down 20% of our refining capacity in a single day and raised gas prices in a single...

Cap-And-Trade: The administration likes to defend bad policies with analogies to the post office. New studies from a business group and the administration itself confirm that cap-and-trade belongs in the dead-letter bin.Along with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Rep. Ed Markey likens the cost of the Waxman-Markey cap-and trade bill to "about a postage stamp a day," based on estimates made by the Congressional Budget Office and the EPA. But as we and others have shown, they arrive at this magical number in part by ignoring the hit on gross domestic product and employment that will occur. As Garret Vaughan, economist...

Surprising absolutely nobody last night, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce delivered its “compromise” health care reform package after certain of the so-called “conservative” Democrats (popularly called “Blue Dogs”) gave in to committee Chair Henry Waxman, the radical Congressman from Beverly Hills. …By a vote of 31 to 28, with all Republicans and 5 Democrats voting against (the 5 remaining Blue Dogs were allowed off House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leash, we must assume), a new version of HR 3200 — the much-maligned and frankly very poorly-written “reform” bill — was duly delivered to the Democratic House leadership team, mainly...

Pelosi doesn't gaurantee Blue Dog provisions By Mike Soraghan Posted: 07/31/09 06:35 PM [ET] Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) indicated Friday that some of the most hard-fought provisions of the healthcare bill, including parts meant to appease conservative Democrats, could change by the time the final measure reaches the House floor. Pelosi's remarks came as the House Energy and Commerce Committee hammed out the final details of the bill, including a deal with Blue Dog Democrats and a tax to pay for the legislation. Three committees have worked intensively on the bill, and assuming passage by the Energy and Commerce Committee...

WASHINGTON — Democrats have pushed sweeping health care legislation through a key congressional committee, clearing the way for a September showdown on President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. The 31-28 vote Friday came after majority Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee agreed to a last-minute series of changes including limiting how much health insurance companies can raise premiums. The changes were made to placate liberal Democrats — who rebelled after a deal was struck earlier in the week with conservative Democrats. Energy and Commerce was the last of three House committees to act on the health bill. The vote...

Congress: In exchange for a vague promise of cuts in the cost of health care "reform," a few fiscally conservative Democrats agree to release the bill to a September floor vote. Have the pit bulls become Chihuahuas?Apparently even a Blue Dog Democrat will stop growling if you toss him a big enough bone. Four of the seven who helped keep the House bill bottled up in the Energy and Commerce Committee — Mike Ross of Arkansas, Baron Hill of Indiana, Zack Space of Ohio and Bart Gordon of Tennessee — agreed to vote the bill out of committee in exchange...

House healthcare negotiations dissolved in acrimony on Friday, with Blue Dog Democrats saying they were “lied” to by their Democratic leaders. The seven Blue Dogs on the Energy and Commerce Committee stormed out of a Friday meeting with their committee chairman, Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), saying Waxman had been negotiating in bad faith over a number of provisions Blue Dogs demanded be changed in the stalled healthcare bill. “I’ve been lied to,” Blue Dog Coalition Co-Chairman Charlie Melancon (D-La.) said on Friday. “We have not had legitimate negotiations. “Mr. Waxman has decided to sever discussions with the Blue Dogs who are...

Palin Vs. Kerry (And MoveOn.org) By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:20 PM The political death of Sarah Palin has been greatly exaggerated. In a devastating op-ed in the Washington Post, Alaska's governor exposes the cap-and-tax fraud that has nothing to do with earth's temperature and everything to do with government control of the economy. She also exposes the stealth socialism ambitions of the Democratic left and once again points out the availability of abundant "shovel-ready" resources under America's soil, off America's shores and even in America's rocks. Judging from the reaction from Sen. Kerry and...

Great IBD Editorial Regarding My "Cap and Tax" Article Yesterday at 7:20pm The political death of Sarah Palin has been greatly exaggerated. In a devastating op-ed in the Washington Post, Alaska's governor exposes the cap-and-tax fraud that has nothing to do with earth's temperature and everything to do with government control of the economy. She also exposes the stealth socialism ambitions of the Democratic left and once again points out the availability of abundant "shovel-ready" resources under America's soil, off America's shores and even in America's rocks. Judging from the reaction from Sen. Kerry and the political arm of George...

On June 28, 2009, the House of Representatives, by a narrow margin (219-212), passed the Waxman-Markey bill. The so-called “cap and trade” bill has been sold as a system for cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the struggle against global warming. There’s a full-court press on the U.S. Senate to pass its version of “cap and trade”...The Obama administration’s EPA sees the increasing evidence against global warming as a threat to their agenda and has taken desperate measures. About a week before the House vote on “cap and trade,” the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released some EPA e-mails, demonstrating...

Politics: John Kerry, replying to an op-ed Sarah Palin wrote on cap-and-trade, suggests the Alaska governor "check the view from her front porch." What she sees from there, senator, is energy wealth going to waste.The political death of Sarah Palin has been greatly exaggerated. In a devastating op-ed in the Washington Post, Alaska's governor exposes the cap-and-tax fraud that has nothing to do with earth's temperature and everything to do with government control of the economy. She also exposes the stealth socialism ambitions of the Democratic left and once again points out the availability of abundant "shovel-ready" resources under America's...

Here's what I wrote in last year's column titled "Global Warming Rope-a-Dope" (12/24/2008): "Once laws are written, they are very difficult, if not impossible, to repeal. If a time would ever come when the permafrost returns to northern U.S., as far south as New Jersey as it once did, it's not inconceivable that Congress, caught in the grip of the global warming zealots, would keep all the laws on the books they wrote in the name of fighting global warming. Personally, I would not put it past them to write more." On June 28, 2009, the House of Representatives, by...

Fiscal Policy: The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on an anti-stimulus package that in the name of saving the earth will destroy the American economy. Smoot-Hawley will seem like a speed bump...As we've said before, capping emissions is capping economic growth. An analysis of Waxman-Markey by the Heritage Foundation projects that by 2035 it would reduce aggregate gross domestic product by $7.4 trillion. In an average year, 844,000 jobs would be destroyed, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by almost 2 million. Consumers would pay through the nose as electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket, as President Obama once...

Climate Change: A suppressed EPA study says old U.N. data ignore the decline in global temperatures and other inconvenient truths. Was the report kept under wraps to influence the vote on the cap-and-trade bill? This was supposed to be the most transparent administration ever. Yet as the House of Representatives prepared to vote on the Waxman-Markey bill, the largest tax increase in U.S. history on 100% of Americans, an attempt was made to suppress a study shredding supporters' arguments.

Climate Change: Supporters of economy-killing cap-and-trade legislation not only misquote the Congressional Budget Office's report lowballing the costs. They ignore how CBO cooked the books to get its numbers.We have often cited the CBO in our editorials. It's a nonpartisan entity whose staffers normally do a decent job analyzing data and crunching numbers. But as regards the true cost of climate change legislation, they have fallen victim to the computer-age trap: garbage in, garbage out. In recent weeks, ABC's "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos twice misquoted a CBO analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill that claims that we can save the...

Climate Change: A switch of four Republican votes would have defeated Waxman-Markey, the Democrats' global warming legislation. But like the Clinton Btu tax, the bill could die in the Senate and turn the House over to the GOP. What were these RINOs thinking? The GOP is supposed to be the party of low taxes and free markets. Rep. Mike Castle, one of the eight offered an explanation right off of President Obama's teleprompter...Illinois Republican Mark Kirk, who has senatorial ambitions to replace the choice of impeached former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Sen. Roland Burris, demonstrates why GOP fortunes in the Land...

Rep. Henry Waxman on passing health care reform: "Failure is really not an option on health care, this is a make or break issue for President Obama and the Democrats in the Congress." "I can't imagine some of the Democrats in difficult districts going home and running for re-election in 2010 and saying 'well, I don't have a health care bill," Waxman said.

House Democrats will not unveil their full healthcare reform package on Friday nor begin committee work on the bill next week as planned, the latest sign that President Obama’s signature domestic initiative is in trouble. The delay caps off a rocky week for Democrats and puts Obama’s goal of having both chambers pass a bill by the August recess increasingly at risk. In spite of the disorder among congressional Democrats, Obama said his goals and timeline remain doable. “There are going to be some tough negotiations in the days and weeks to come, but I'm confident that we're going to...

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) explains his remark that the Republican party is "rooting against" America.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) made a joke about "restless leg syndrome" on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" this morning. Waxman was schooled when a man suffering from the disorder called in and told the Congresmann how he got it.

Actually, he says, it’s more like “rooting against the world,” echoing Krugman’s declaration this morning that opposing C&T constitutes “treason to the planet.” I wonder who came up with this new lefty talking point, in which disagreeing with leftist solutions to environmental problems constitutes the rape of Gaia herself. (Among the rapists in this case: 44 Democrats.) Suspicions, as always, fall on Rahm, although in fairness it’s Pelosi who’s traditionally been most apt to label her opponents unpatriotic or un-American for refusing to embrace the left’s agenda. No matter. File this one away in your “dissent is not patriotic” cabinet....

I think not. See comparison pics here...

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) on Republicans voting against the energy plan and Rep. John Boehner's comments on the House floor Friday evening: "They [Republicans] want to play politics and see if they can keep any achievements from being accomplished that may be beneficial to the Democrats. They're rooting against the country and I think in this case, even rooting against the world because the world needs to get its act together to stop global warming."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put cap-and-trade legislation on a forced march through the House, and the bill may get a full vote as early as Friday. It looks as if the Democrats will have to destroy the discipline of economics to get it done. Despite House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman's many payoffs to Members, rural and Blue Dog Democrats remain wary of voting for a bill that will impose crushing costs on their home-district businesses and consumers. The leadership's solution to this problem is to simply claim the bill defies the laws of economics. Their gambit got...

Henry Waxman said this about his own climate bill. “I certainly don’t claim to know everything in this bill, I know that we have left it to uh, we rely very heavily on the scientists.” WHY can these so-called leaders write bills and then claim they do not know everything in the bill? They redirect and lay responsibility on other entities such as scientists in this case rather than taking responsibility and demonstrating knowledge of their own proposed legislation. READ THE BILL!!!!

Climate change has a new Knight in Shining Armor - Henry Waxman (D-CA). His 900+ page Climate Bill, also known as Cap-and-Trade or more affectionately as Cap-and-Tax, is supposed to somehow stop, and possibly reverse, Global Warming. Waxman, and other supporters are obviously not true believers in the climate change cause, or CO2’s role as a root cause.It should be plainly obvious that an energy tax will have absolutely no effect on either global atmospheric concentrations of CO2, nor average temperatures. Not one additional inch of arctic ice will be gained. Snow will not magically form on Mount Kilimanjaro. Ocean...

Any hopes President Barack Obama would use his second 100 days to build a bipartisan bridge are being dashed as the House Committee on Energy and Commerce pushes a climate control bill that contains a controversial cap-and-trade tax system. Republicans have offered up to 500 amendments to a bill they believe will further burden an already troubled economy. Democrats, confident the bill will pass, are doing little to ease GOP concerns over the bill. “This bill — in its current form, in its draft form, or in any form — may do more harm to our economy than any bill...

Most Americans are sleepwalking right now through the early reign of Obama the Magnificant. He tells them he is cutting spending, cutting taxes, and cutting the deficit, and they believe him. When they find in 2010 and 2011 that he deliberately misled them and has been doing just the opposite, and they are deep in the soup as a result, public opinion will turn decisively against him. Meanwhile, our "mainstream media," which should be called the Party Controlled Press, are quite successfully maintaining the smokescreen in promoting the Obama propaganda line, acting as slavishly as Pravda and Izvestia did towards...

Congressman Henry Waxman played to the crowds this week with high-profile hearings designed to boost his climate legislation. To listen to the Energy and Commerce committee chair, a House global warming bill is all but in the recyclable bag. To listen to Congressman Jim Matheson is something else. During opening statements, the Utah Democrat detailed 14 big problems he had with the bill, and told me later that if he hadn't been limited to five minutes, "I might have had more." Mr. Matheson is one of about 10 moderate committee Democrats who are less than thrilled with the Waxman climate...

Cap-and-trade theologians love to invoke markets: Merely put a price on carbon, they say, and the invisible hand will shoo us toward an eco-friendly future. Of course Congress has its own ideas. Take the climate bill just offered by House powers Henry Waxman of California and Ed Markey of Massachusetts. The 648-page "discussion draft" ducks the most important policy questions about what Democrat Ben Cardin calls "the most significant revenue-generating proposal of our time" -- namely, how the tax will be levied and the proceeds spent. But it does find space to impose thousands of new environmental regulations on the...

When the housing bubble burst, it exposed an unseemly alliance between special interests and the financial sector. Activists wanted homes for all at any cost, and lenders were happy to oblige despite the inherent risk. Although the economic devastation this bubble wrought is still not under control, a similar toxic alliance is working on the next one: The green bubble. Failing companies such as AIG, General Electric and General Motors, already propped up with tax dollars, have partnered with radical environmentalists in a scheme their CEOs believe will allow them to profit on fears about global warming. Corporate members of...

Now that the next gold rush...I mean, free-for-all for government cash (that doesn't exist) is on to expand the welfare class again, thanks to b. Hussein's pompous signature of GoFrigYourselfus today, next on the evil Zombies' agenda is the Fairness Doctrine...the outright silencing of talk radio in America. But...HARK! The evil plot (the leathery sound of Zombies rubbing their hands together maniacally should be filling your ears right about now...gee...I hope their fingers don't fall off) has many tentacles.

If Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) is not trying to investigate conservatives, he is trying to squelch their voices. Waxman has jumped into the so-called Fairness Doctrine discussion as of late. Waxman, however, has added another dimension to the issue...the internet (h/t The Prowler). Media Research Center's Jeff Poor spoke with FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell last year about the internet and the Fairness Doctrine. McDowell talked about a real possibility of internet content being regulated in the near future. According to The Prowler, Waxman and his staff are already looking at ways to police content on the web. (Bolding is mine...

The American Spectator's Prowler column published today has a disturbing report on the plans by the Democratic Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Henry Waxman to regulate political speech on the Internet.In addition to details of methods Waxman is considering to rein in conservative talk radio, The Prowler reports on Waxman's desire to use the power of the federal government to investigate amd control political content on the Internet.The article quotes an unnamed committee staffer as saying of Waxman's power grab:"Does one heavily trafficked Internet site present one side of an issue and not link to sites that...

US Senator Dianne Feinstein hopes to update President Barack Obama's $838bn economic stimulus package so that American ISPs can deter child pornography, copyright infringement, and other unlawful activity by way of "reasonable network management." Clearly, a lobbyist whispering in Feinstein's ear has taken Comcast's now famous euphemism even further into the realm of nonsense. According to Public Knowledge, Feinstein's network management amendment did not find a home in the stimulus bill that landed on the Senate floor. But lobbyists speaking with the Washington DC-based internet watchdog said that California's senior Senator is now hoping to insert this language via conference...

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want the Henry Waxmans of the world telling me what to do. Mika Brzezinski does. The Morning Joe co-anchor climbed up on her Big Mommy Government soapbox again this morning. The subject was sin taxes on things like cigarettes and soda. When Dylan Ratigan proposed reducing income taxes and replacing them with sin taxes, Willie Geist made a pitch for individual freedom and responsibility. Mika shot him down, managing to insult her fellow Americans in the bargain. DYLAN RATIGAN: How about if we just cut income tax and allow — stop taxing...

Congressman for life Henry Waxman (D-CA) chairman of the house committee on Energy and Commerce has promised that he will move quickly and decisively to move climate legislation out of his committee before memorial day.       The Associated Press quotes Waxman as saying, "Our environment and our economy depend on congressional action to confront the threat of climate change and secure our energy independence." Waxman continued, "U.S. industries want to invest in a clean energy future, but uncertainties about whether, when and how greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced is deterring these vital investments."       Waxman envisions that industries are...

Special Guest Commentaryby Waxulon-6, Lord High Admiral of the Kremulakian Earth InvasionThe Being Formerly Known as Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA)Continued

California Rep. Henry Waxman said Thursday the environment and U.S. economy depend on congressional action to confront the threat of climate change. Waxman, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, spoke as he opened Congress' first hearing on climate legislation. A group of 14 corporate

Sitting chairmen are nearly impossible to depose, never mind one with the seniority and record of Mr. Dingell, who has served longer than anyone else in the House. The Democratic caucus nonetheless stripped him of his 28-year position atop the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has great power over the climate change and health-care bills that Mr. Obama hopes to pass next year. Instead, California's Henry Waxman, who was elected by a reported 137 to 122, will do the honors. (We say "reported" because the vote was by secret ballot, which in a rich irony Democrats want to prevent for...

(The Politico) Rep Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has won round one in his bid to unseat Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) as chairman of the powerhouse commerce committee. Waxman won a critical preliminary vote on the Dem's steering committee vote 25-22. The vote goes to the full caucus, likely tomorrow. A steering win doesn't always translate into a caucus victory -- but it's a big step for Waxman. Dingell supporters downplayed the Wednesday vote, arguing the Democrats' Steering and Policy Committee is misrepresentative of the broader caucus. "We're in a much stronger position with the rank-and-file," Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Doyle said on...

Abstract: Five of the world's richest hedge fund managers, including George Soros, the man who the broke the Bank of England, have been called to account by US politicians for their role in the collapse of the global financial system. The quintet – including John Paulson, who made $3.7bn (£2.49bn) last year betting against the US mortgage market – were grilled over their roles in buying unregulated derivatives products, which some politicians believe contributed to the financial markets' meltdown. The men, who each earned more than $1bn each last year, were called to account by Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman, who...

When environmentalists oppose regulations that yield environmental benefits, something is afoot. So it is with the gathering furor over a possible Bush Administration upgrade of U.S. clean-air regulations. Senate Democrats Barbara Boxer and Tom Carper wrote to the Environmental Protection Agency last month expressing their "grave concern" about "this dangerous proposal." House Oversight Chairman Henry Waxman is "gravely concerned" too, about the EPA's "reckless disregard of legal constraints on its rulemaking authority." The trio and the green lobby are already shouting about "midnight regulations," the last-minute ritual at the end of every Presidency. But this rule was first proposed in...

Seated at the Washington Gridiron dinner March 31, I was interrupted by a man crouching at my feet who was dressed Air Force formal with the four stars of a full general. It was CIA Director Michael Hayden, who complained to me profanely that my column had misrepresented him in the Valerie Plame Wilson case. Denying he favors Democrats, Gen. Hayden indicated to me he had not authorized Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman to say Mrs. Wilson had been a "covert" CIA employee, as he claimed Hayden did, but only that she was "undercover." Keeping busy at a Gridiron evening supposedly...

If, like most fair-minded people, you are having a good chuckle over the way Rush Limbaugh has turned the tables on the attempt by Senate Majority Leader Reid to smear Rush and then to focus the enormous power of the federal government on him to shut him up - think again. Rush may have won this battle, but it is the opening salvo in a war the left is starting in order to shut down conservative talk radio, which they fear like Dracula feared the sight of a cross.

Media: A manufactured flap over Rush Limbaugh has stirred talk of new "fairness doctrine" hearings in Congress. That's just what Media Matters, the flacks behind it, were after. Their agenda is worse than it looks. Media Matters, a left-wing nuisance group, recently sought headlines by distorting a Sept. 26 conversation between conservative radio commentator Limbaugh and a listener about a soldier who misrepresented his military record. Media Matters screamed that Limbaugh, whose record of supporting U.S. troops is long and real, was insulting anti-war soldiers as "phony." The claim was as silly as the one Media Matters made a week...