Freedom Line Blog

Count us surprised here at CFIF that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has any hangups about the current state of the economy. Remember, this is the man who said last year that without him the world would have slumped into a global depression. Apparently, though, the senior senator from Nevada has now realized there is a crisis — too little government spending going towards public employees:

9.1 percent of Americans are currently unemployed, as are 13.4 percent of Senator Reid’s fellow Nevadans. “Just fine”, we suppose, is a relative concept.

Regular readers of the blog know that there is a small gallery of Washington pundits that I simply cannot abide; not because I disagree with their views, but because I despise the predictability of their positions, the ballast of their prose, and the intellectual laziness of their work.

That’s a group that includes Tom Friedman, Joe Klein, and E.J. Dionne, amongst others. But there’s a special place in pundit hell for the professional joiner: the columnist who always has to march in lockstep with Beltway fashion. That’s why it’s so delightful to see the once-respectable Fareed Zakaria get noted in the New Republic’s list of over-rated DC thinkers. The précis is priceless:

Fareed Zakaria is enormously important to an understanding of many things, because he provides a one-stop example of conventional thinking about them all. He is a barometer in a good suit, a creature of establishment consensus, an exemplary spokesman for the always-evolving middle. He was for the Iraq war when almost everybody was for it, criticized it when almost everybody criticized it, and now is an active member of the ubiquitous “declining American power” chorus. When Obama wanted to trust the Iranians, Zakaria agreed (“They May Not Want the Bomb,” was a story he did for Newsweek); and, when Obama learned different, Zakaria thought differently. There’s something suspicious about a thinker always so perfectly in tune with the moment.

Indeed. Fareed Zakaria is a man who writes Gallup polls in paragraph form. Nice to see the media take notice.

I’ve posted before on the difficulty that Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy presents: while Paul is utterly at sea on foreign policy issues and too philosophically pure to countenance the type of compromise that real political progress requires, his libertarian beliefs also make him one of the best candidates in the Republican race on economic issues. Thankfully, Paul has no hope of being the nominee, but let’s hope that his “Restore America” economic plan, unveiled earlier today, has an influence on the GOP field. This is solid stuff, as the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire blog reports:

Mr. Paul does get specific when he calls for a 10% reduction in the federal work force, while pledging to limit his presidential salary to $39,336, which his campaign says is “approximately equal to the median personal income of the American worker.”  The current pay rate for commander in chief is $400,000 a year.

The Paul plan would also lower the corporate tax rate to 15% from 35%, though it is silent on personal income tax rates, which Mr. Paul would like to abolish. The congressman would end taxes on personal savings and extend “all Bush tax cuts…”

While promising to cut $1 trillion in spending during his first year, Mr. Paul would eliminate the Departments of Education, Commerce, Energy, Interior and Housing and Urban Development…

Mr. Paul would also push for the repeal of the new health-care law, last year’s Wall Street regulations law and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the 2002 corporate governance law passed in response to a number of corporate scandals, including Enron.

What’s most remarkable is that Paul — long considered an ideological outlier — is now in line with the majority of the Republican establishment (the movement was on their end, not his). With the exception of his call to abolish the federal income tax and a few of his cabinet department eliminations, these are all priorities that a Republican congress could support coming from a GOP president. That man won’t be Ron Paul … but let’s hope he’s read his plan.

The ‘Occupy’ protests that have been springing up around the nation aren’t particularly well-defined. As best I can tell, there’s a visceral aversion to capitalism, accompanied by an endless array of non sequitur liberal causes (one protester’s sign at Occupy Los Angeles read “end heterosexism”).  In truth, however, this seems to be first and foremost an aesthetic movement aimed at recapturing the grimy romance of the halcyon years of protest in the Vietnam era. As such, it defines itself primarily by its opposition to institutional power, capaciously defined.

That’s why it’s so ironic that the movement now has the backing of one of the most powerful — and malign — special interests in the nation. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

The California Teachers Association jumped on the Occupy Wall Street bandwagon Thursday, throwing the weight of 325,000 state teachers behind the movement for “tax fairness and against corporate greed.”

About that last bit: the CTA, which is one of the most nation’s destructive teachers unions, knows a thing or two about big money. It’s spent over $210 million in the course of the last decade to influence California state government — more than “big oil”, “big tobacco”, and “big pharma” combined. The results? Defeats for school voucher propositions, teacher accountability measures, and paycheck protection for educators. Not to mention that California — formerly a national leader in the classroom — now ranks among the bottom five American states in most education metrics.

Corruption, nest-feathering, and sticking it to the little guy. Sound familiar, Occupy protesters? Don’t look know, but you just got in bed with The Man.

In my column this week, I argued that members of Congress from both sides of the aisle are playing with fire in their attempt to prevent China’s “currency manipulation.” The problem, I contended, is actually much smaller than the damage that could be engendered by the proposed remedy; damage that could include a trade war, driving up prices throughout the American economy.

In the column’s coda, I noted:

The antidote to America’s economic ills won’t come from engaging in trade wars. It will come from reducing the debt and making Chinese credit irrelevant; strengthening incentives for entrepreneurs and job creators, and expanding exactly the kind of international trade that this proposal will derail.

Now comes news that House Minority Leader (the three sweetest words in the English language when appearing before her name) Nancy Pelosi not only wants to shut down trade via the China bill, she also wants to gut  free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea that have already been delayed by nearly half a decade. Per Politico:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took to the floor Wednesday to urge lawmakers to abandon work on three pending free-trade agreements until they take up a bill dealing with China’s manipulation of its currency.

Both the House and Senate are expected to pass the trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea with bipartisan majorities later Wednesday. But the California Democrat, who’s been critical of the pacts, said in a fiery speech that targeting currency manipulation would ultimately benefit more U.S. workers than the free-trade agreements.

At least give the erstwhile speaker credit for consistency. Passing the currency manipulation bill and blocking the free trade agreements would have exactly the same effect: keeping prices artificially high for American businesses and consumers, making it harder to sell American goods overseas, and further delaying meaningful economic recovery. Reviewing that list, it quickly becomes apparent that Nancy Pelosi is a much bigger threat to the state of the American economy than the value of the yuan.

Well, sort of. One of the most common complaints from the unwashed masses gathered in urban centers throughout the nation has been the astronomical cost of their student debt. And they have a point. As Jenna Johnson notes at the Washington Post:

Two-thirds of the Class of 2008, graduated with debt and an average of $24,651 in student loans. Since then, graduates have faced some of the worst job markets in recent history. In August 2010, the amount of student loan debt ($829.785 billion) outpaced credit card debt ($826.5 billion) for the first time.

The cost of a good college education is probably never going to be cheap. But that doesn’t mean that it has to be as expensive as it is now. The dilemma for the union-backed, government-expanding protesters, however, is that it is precisely those two forces — organized labor and big government — that have driven the inflated costs of a college degree. As Conn Carroll writes at the DC Examiner

[The] University of California chapter of the American Federation of Teachers is doing all they can to make it harder for the state to lower tuition by blocking the development of online courses:

“We believe that if courses are moved online, they will most likely be the classes currently taught by lecturers,” reads a brief declaration against online education on the website of UC-AFT, the University of California chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, “and so we will use our collective bargaining power to make sure that this move to distance education is done in a fair and just way for our members.”

More convenience, less cost, better professors (otherwise you’ll just take a different course with a more capable instructor), and theoretically limitless access. What’s not to love? Plenty, if you’re tenured mediocrity is on the line. No word yet on any concern for the students from the AFT.

I’ve written at length here at CFIF about the doomsday scenario that will ensue should the congressional supercommittee fail to pass at least $1.2 trillion in debt reduction by its November 23 deadline. Because of an outrageous provision in last summer’s debt ceiling agreement, a fail to act would produce defense cuts that could end up cutting as much as $1 trillion from American’s national security budget.

While the supercommittee’s broad goal of debt reduction is laudable, congressional Democrats are digging in their heels and asserting that the real problem is that Americans are being taxed too lightly, not that Washington is spending too much. From the Associated Press:

The supercommittee is struggling. After weeks of secret meetings, the 12-member deficit-cutting panel established under last summer’s budget and debt deal appears no closer to a breakthrough than when talks began last month…

Democrats won’t go for an agreement that doesn’t include new tax revenue; Republicans are just as ardently antitax. The impasse over revenues means that Democrats won’t agree to cuts to popular entitlement programs like Medicare…

 “There’s been no movement on (new) revenues, and I’m not sure the Democrats will agree to anything without revenues,” said a Democratic lobbyist who required anonymity to speak candidly.

Let’s be clear here: either scenario — either massive cuts to the Pentagon’s budget or higher taxes — would imperil America’s ability to maintain its global leadership position. The former would gut our defense resources now, while the latter would hollow out our ability to generate the economic growth that will be necessary to fund our military in the future.

The other candidates running for the Republican presidential nomination could learn a lot from Texas Congressman Ron Paul. During his 2008 presidential bid, Paul was essentially Tea Party before Tea Party was cool, delivering a principled defense of the constitution and limits on federal power. That’s all for the good, and it seems to be a growing sentiment throughout the Republican base.

Where Paul is deeply problematic, however, is in his fundamentally flawed understanding of foreign policy. As the Daily Caller reports today, Paul’s latest misstep is his condemnation of President Obama for allowing the drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American cleric who was one of the leading public faces of Al Qaeda:

Speaking to a group of reporters at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire on Friday, Rep. Paul said that American leaders need to think hard about “assassinating American citizens without charges.”

“al-Awlaki was born here,” said Paul. “He is an American citizen. He was never tried or charged for any crimes. No one knows if he killed anybody.”

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, my friend and podcast partner (and frequent guest on “Your Turn”) John Yoo sets Paul and his sympathists to rights:

Today’s critics wish to return the United States to the pre-9/11 world of fighting terrorism only with the criminal justice system. Worse yet, they get the rights of a nation at war terribly wrong. Awlaki’s killing in no way violates the prohibition on assassination, first declared by executive order during the Ford administration. As American government officials have long concluded, assassination is an act of murder for political purposes. Killing Martin Luther King Jr. or John F. Kennedy is assassination. Shooting an enemy soldier in wartime is not. In World War II, the United States did not carry out an assassination when it sent long-range fighters to shoot down an air transport carrying the Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.

American citizens who join the enemy do not enjoy a roving legal force-field that immunizes them from military reprisal.

Lest this be oversimplified to a libertarian vs. neoconservative argument (a caricature of both Congressmal Paul and Professor Yoo), I should note that Richard Epstein — perhaps the leading libertarian legal scholar in the country — happens to agree with John Yoo. If you’re interested in hearing more, you can hear professors Epstein and Yoo hash this issue out on the newest episode of Ricochet’s Law Talk Podcast (hosted by yours truly and available by subscription).

On Saturday, the Washington Post ginned up some controversy by running an unnecessarily long-winded investigative piece alleging that the Texas hunting camp owned by Governor (and now presidential candidate) Rick Perry, along with his father, possesses a racially-offensive name (involving the most common — and jarring — epithet for African-Americans).

The piece made for good election cycle copy, but bad journalism. In essence, the name far predated the Perrys’ acquisition of the property and never seems to have been used by them — in fact, they actually painted over a rock that included it (and eventually just turned it over). In addition, the Post never made clear what it means to say that the offensive name is what the property “is called,” apart from the fact that the name had been used by previous owners and the rock still remains on the land.

If the WaPo had any journalistic sense, it would have left the story there. Instead, they’ve now published a follow-up piece by Amy Gardner claiming to examine Perry’s “complicated record” on racial issues. Like recent stories wondering what Chris Christie’s weight says about his potential mettle as president, this was an example of journalism that was long on space to fill and short on meaningful analysis.

In truth, Perry’s record couldn’t be less complicated. He appointed the man who became the first black chairman of Texas A&M’s board of regents, had an African-American chief of staff, and hired two black general counsels. According to the story, however, his views on race are questionable because he (A) supports the Tea Party (B) believes in the Tenth Amendment (C)  ran a campaign ad in 1990 featuring his opponent with Jesse Jackson and (D) once had misgivings about a piece of hate crimes legislation (which he eventually signed).

While there’s no evidence to suggest Perry is actually a racist (and, in fact, plenty of evidence showing exactly the opposite), don’t expect that to prevent the formation of a meme on the left. We fully expect to see the Perry-as-racist shtick on parade in Bill Maher’s next monologue. Perhaps some of the Washington Post‘s writers would feel more comfortable on Maher’s staff — at least there the belief that facts are immaterial is explicit.

Ever since his victory in last weekend’s Florida straw poll, Herman Cain is getting a lot more attention from political pundits who had previously considered him nothing more than B-level fodder for the Tea Party. This works out nicely for Cain, who may reap financial dividends in addition to electoral ones because of the upcoming release of his book, This is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House (it’s out next Tuesday).

Reviewing the book over at Pajamas Media, Pajamas CEO Roger L. Simon makes it abundantly clear why Cain — despite some previous gaffes — is a deeply attractive candidate. As Simon writes in his opening:

The secret of Herman Cain is that he seems — at least to me — genuinely to be a mentally healthy human being.

This is no small thing, particularly in the world of politics — even more so presidential politics, where large dollops of nearly clinical narcissism are necessary to propel the ambition needed to run for this most powerful of offices.

As most of us know by now, Cain leavens his narcissism with generous jolts of humor — much of it self-deprecating — that make him, at this moment anyway, the most engaging figure on the political scene.

Then there’s this impressive digest of Cain’s resume:

This is the same man who put himself through Morehouse College majoring in math, got a masters in computer science from Purdue (while improving academically), plotted rocket guidance for the Navy, started in business at Coca-Cola, then went on to turn around the fortunes of Philadelphia’s Burger King franchise, take over the aforementioned Godfather’s Pizza chain, become the head of the National Restaurant Association, be appointed to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and host a radio show into the bargain. And, of course, he defeated the Big C.

The most heartening insight, however, may be this one:

This Is Herman Cain also includes an appendix spelling out the candidate’s stands on the issues. Its final section — My Candidacy, Against the Odds — contains the following in bold face:

1. I don’t claim to know everything:
2. I don’t pander to groups;
3. I am terrible at political correctness.

Not bad for starters.

Cain still has a very long way to go to prove that he’s got presidential mettle. But if it turns out that he does, it will be a beautiful thing.

Those of us who objected to the federal bailout of the automotive industry were delighted when Ford recently launched this ad, playing up the fact that it didn’t take taxpayer money:

Apologies for the handheld quality, but there’s a reason for it: Ford has now pulled the ad — including taking down the YouTube version. And at least one of the sources of their newfound timidity seems to be in the White House. Daniel Howes, a columnist in the Detroit News, writes:

Ford pulled the ad after individuals inside the White House questioned whether the copy was publicly denigrating the controversial bailout policy CEO Alan Mulally repeatedly supported in the dark days of late 2008, in early ’09 and again when the ad flap arose. And more.

With President Barack Obama tuning his re-election campaign amid dismal economic conditions and simmering antipathy toward his stimulus spending and associated bailouts, the Ford ad carried the makings of a political liability when Team Obama can least afford yet another one. Can’t have that.

The ad, pulled in response to White House questions (and, presumably, carping from rival GM), threatened to rekindle the negative (if accurate) association just when the president wants credit for their positive results (GM and Chrysler are moving forward, making money and selling vehicles) and to distance himself from any public downside of his decision.

Sources at the White House have been quick to insist that there was no actual pressure on the automaker. But there didn’t have to be. The fact that there was even communication on the issue was a major ethical breach. The idea that the executive branch would gripe at a private company over a perfectly legitimate ad campaign is antithetical to the American tradition of free speech. This is what we would expect from Vladimir Putin on a slow day, not the team surrounding the President of the United States.

Don’t think that the adminstration was simply peeved that a major corporation would have the temerity to criticize the visionary mandarins of the Obama White House. More than anything, they were terrified that it would work.

In my column last week, I detailed the devastation that the Pentagon will be in for should the bipartisan congressional “supercommittee” not enact major debt reduction by early next year. While paring back the size of the federal government is essential, the Obama Administration was unspeakably reckless in allowing defense cuts that could reach over $1 trillion to be triggered automatically should the committee fail to act.

The staff of the House Armed Services Committee has now released their analysis of the proposed reductions and, according to a report in Politico, the outcomes could be every bit as dire as warned:

The analysis notes that the Navy would need to take two aircraft carrier battle groups out of service and the Air Force would lose a third of its fighters. The Marine Corps would no longer be able to maintain forward-deployed amphibious forces around the world. New weapons systems, such as the Navy and Marine Corps’ versions of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, would be canceled. The U.S. nuclear arsenal would be drastically reduced and modernization plans scrapped.

Aside from the troop cuts, there would also be massive layoffs of Pentagon civilian employees and the elimination of many jobs in the defense industry, according to the analysis.

It was less than a month ago that the Federal Reserve wrapped up its annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming with all signs pointing to the prospect that the nation’s central bank was going to cool it on the “quantitative easing” (dumping new currency into the markets) for a while. Though the insanity has (at least temporarily) abated, the central bank is still making mischief.

As Politico reports:

The nation’s central bankers dusted off a 1960s-era plan in hopes of rousing the sluggish economy Wednesday, taking the unusual step of shifting $400 billion into longer-term bonds in hopes of slashing interest rates further.

The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee voted 7-3 to embark on what’s informally called “Operation Twist,” a move first used during the heyday of Chubby Checker and named for his song of the same name.

The policy is mostly inert, as it won’t actually result in a monetary injection ala quantitative easing. The early consensus is that it won’t have much effect one way or the other. But the possible rationale, if true, is revolting:

Exerting political pressure on Bernanke may have rallied the Fed to act, since the committee likely found “this political meddling repugnant,” wrote JPMorgan Chase economist Michael Feroli in a client note.

Let’s be clear about this: the Fed already operates independent of “political meddling.” Various members of Congress and candidates for president may have been carping about Bernanke’s leadership (a point on which they’re certainly justified), but their influence was limited to the range of their voices. Nothing they said could actually effect policy.

If something so immaterial to the Fed’s work could drive monetary decisions, then this may be the most petulant institution in the federal government. At a time when the economy teeters on the brink of another devastating downturn, making market decisions in response to slights real and imagined shows a staggering lack of seriousness. If this is Mr. Bernanke’s swipe at Governor Perry, he should note that he’s only strengthening the governor’s argument.

Warren Buffett has enjoyed a fair bit of celebrity over the last few weeks, acting as the iconic symbol of President Obama’s proposal for tax hikes by ubiquitously making it known that he hasn’t been debited enough by the feds. Buffett’s rhetorical trope of choice is to invoke the fact that he pays lower taxes than his secretary. That’s because most of Buffett’s income comes in the form of capital gains from his investment empire, which are taxed at 15 percent, not earned income like his assistant’s paycheck, which is likely taxed at a federal rate of either 25 percent or 28 percent, depending on whether her annual salary is above $83,600.

This sounds unjust at first blush — until you consider the fact that the capital gains tax is essentially double-dipping. That is, the money you have to invest is what’s left over after your earned income is taxed. In other words, the investment money on which Buffett is paying the cap gains tax was already skimmed by Washington when he earned it in the first place. If his assistant was investing, she’d be paying the same rate as Buffett. As pointed out by S.A. Miller in the New York Post:

Buffett actually was taxed twice on his investment income.

First, Buffett had to make the money he invested. Those earnings were taxed as corporate income, at about a 35-percent rate.

Then, Uncle Sam took another cut when Buffett invested the money and earned a profit. That’s when Buffett paid the 15 percent capital-gains tax rate.

All told, after combining corporate taxes and capital gains taxes, Buffett forked over about 45 percent of his earnings.

We’ll put Buffett in the same category as Albert Einstein and Noam Chomsky: experts in their field who should have never been given automatic credibility when it comes to politics.

The bad news about the Obama Administration’s more than half a billion dollar investment in Solyndra — the California solar energy company that has gone bankrupt and laid off approximately 1,100 employees — keeps piling up. In addition to being a waste of taxpayer money, there are also issues about whether or not the federal loan guarantees were properly vetted, about private investors getting to jump in front of the taxpayers as secured creditors, and about why Solyndra received dramatically lower interest rates than similarly situated firms.

While all those issues are both troubling and relevant, the proliferation of trees runs the risk of obscuring the forest here. That’s why this passage from Matthew Continetti’s new piece in the Weekly Standard is so valuable:

In today’s economy, risks are socialized while profit is privatized. The government uses deficit spending to shape investment decisions and support markets that otherwise wouldn’t exist. Political connections determine the recipients of government largesse. Rentiers conceal their self-interest behind the organic hemp cloak of environmentalism and global “competitiveness.” The illusion can be maintained for a time, but in the end the bill comes due. There’s no money left. And everything disappears.

Ably stated. There’s a reason they’re starting to call it “venture socialism”.

Oh, the policy initiatives of a First Lady. In most White Houses, they’re confined to feel-good exhortations to increase child literacy or avoid the temptations of drugs. And at their best, they’re an opportunity for the president’s spouse to take a stand on an issue better handled by civil society than government. That’s not without merit. The voice of an influential public figure can certainly change popular attitudes for the better.

What’s a little dismaying however, is when what starts as an earnest appeal to self-improvement becomes an excuse for nannyism and artificial quotas. Consider this, from the Daily Caller:

Bending to the whims of Michelle Obama, Darden Restaurants — the company that owns the Olive Garden, Red Lobster, LongHorn Steakhouse and other restaurant concepts — announced Thursday that it will cut the “calorie footprint” and sodium levels in its meals and create new kids’ menus to comply with the first lady’s public health objectives.

With Michelle Obama, Darden unveiled its plans for all 19,000 of its restaurants in 49 states at an Olive Garden restaurant in Hyattsville, Md., in front of a prominent sign advertising the first lady’s “Let’s Move!” campaign.

The company pledged to reduce the overall calories and sodium in its meals by 10 percent over the next five years, and by 20 percent over 10 years.

Is the First Lady’s goal to suck all the joy out of life? Has our concept of limited government been so diminished that we’ll accept being hectored by the waiter at the Red Lobster over how many cheddar bay biscuits we’ve had because it’s a directive from Michelle Obama’s office?

The First Lady is certainly right that Americans could stand to step up their excercise regimes and cut back on the calories. But taking away options is the low road to virtue. If her case is compelling, it’ll sink in on the merits. If not, those are the wages of living in a free society.

As for those cheddar bay biscuits, I have five words for Mrs. Obama: “… from my cold, dead hands.”

Rush may have the bravado. Hannity may be able to move the polls. But when it comes to sheer depth of insight, few figures in conservative talk radio can match the great Dennis Prager. In his most recent column, available on National Review Online, he makes an important point about 9/11 in his trademark style: simple yet profound.

The United States of America is a flawed society. Composed of human beings, it must inevitably be flawed. But in terms of the goodness achieved inside its borders, and spread elsewhere in the world, it is the finest country that has ever existed. If you were to measure the moral gulf between America and those who despise it, the distance would have to be measured in light-years.

If the academic and opinion-forming classes of the world had any moral courage, they would instead have asked the most obvious question that the events of 9/11 provoked: Were the mass murderers who flew those airplanes into American buildings an aberration, or were they a product of their culture?

The further we get from that horrible day, the dimmer our view of the moral horizon tends to become. Here’s to Dennis Prager, for always being a source of illumination.

We’ve long known that Pat Sajak counts himself a resident of the political right. Now, thanks to this new video from Chuck Woolery, it looks like we may be able to go so far as to carve out a game show host exception to the otherwise ironclad rule of Hollywood leftism. No word yet on Alex Trebek, but don’t hold your breath … he’s Canadian.

It’s a little something called “false consciousness.” An essential aspect of Marxist thinking (though it was actually propagated by his partner, Friedrich Engels), false consciousness is a term that one uses to tell an ideological adversary, in essence, “You disagree with me not because of your reasoned conclusion, but because your ability to understand reality is so polluted as to prevent you from even discovering truth without the enlightened guidance of your betters.”

That seems to be the tact that former Vice President Gore is taking on — what else? — climate change skepticism. And his need for proselytization is now taking on a particularly bizarre form. According to Reuters:

“24 Hours of Reality” will broadcast a presentation by Al Gore every hour for 24 hours across 24 different time zones from Wednesday to Thursday, with the aim of convincing climate change deniers and driving action against global warming among households, schools and businesses.

The campaign also asks people to hand over control of their social networking accounts on Facebook and Twitter to it for 24 hours to deliver Gore’s message.

That last paragraph is particularly cultish. Tell the former VP to get his own damn Twitter account.

Gore and his ilk are accustomed to referring to their critics as “anti-science”. Yet they’re the ones engaged in something that sounds a lot more like televangelism than a climatology symposium.

Here’s an idea: if Gore really wants to be seen as a paragon of sweet reason — and really intends to convert the skeptics — why not have that hour of programming feature a debate between himself and one of the leading critics of his theories? Someone, perhaps, like Christopher Monckton of the British House of Lords, the former Thatcher advisor who has been challenging Gore to a scrimmage on global warming for years.

Of course, this format would put Gore on the spot. But when the science is ‘undeniable’ that should be an easy fight to win, no?

Republican control of the House of Representatives may have stifled the Obama Administration’s grand statist designs in Congress, but the White House continues to push costly, job-killing regulation through the rulemaking power of the administrative state. Because new regulations enjoy nowhere near the media scrutiny of new legislation, however, the public often remains unaware of their role as silent predators on America’s economy. That’s why credit is due to House Speaker John Boehner for calling Obama to account for this economic poison. From Politico:

In a letter that will be sent to President Barack Obama on Friday, House Speaker John Boehner charges that planned regulations have jumped nearly 15 percent over the past year and he calls on the administration to calculate and publicize their economic impact.

“This year, the administration’s current regulatory agenda identifies 219 planned new regulations that have estimated annual costs in excess of $100 million each. That’s almost a 15 percent increase over last year and appears to contradict public suggestions by the administration this week that the regulatory burden on American job creators is being scaled back,” Boehner wrote.

“I was startled to learn that the EPA estimates that at least one of its proposed rules will cost our economy as much as $90 billion per year. The administration has not disclosed how many of the other 218 planned rules will cost more than $1 billion, nor identified these rules,” he noted.

If Obama is serious about “pivoting to jobs” (a promise we seem to hear on a quarterly basis), there’s no way he can ignore the costs of federal regulations, which are de facto tax increases. According to the Small Business Administration, the annual cost of federal regulation alone amounts to $1.75 trillion dollars. That’s nearly 12 percent of America’s GDP gone every year because of the Washington bureaucracy.

A failure to repeal many of these draconian monstrosities is economic malpractice. But a failure to simply reveal their costs is a dereliction of duty.