The political party in control of congress touts itself as the “party of the people,” as represented by their party name. Their legislative priorities then are subject to scrutiny to ascertain their commitment to pursuing the interests of the people they claim to be the voice for.

It seems obvious that one of the primary concerns of “the people” is the high price of gas. Having gone from $2.19 per gallon in November of 2006 when they took over, to $4.00, the price of gas is dramatically affecting the prices of everything, because of the high cost of transportation.

Since high fuel prices are such a concern we would assume that the leadership of the “party of the people” would want to do something about it, right? Well, obviously that’s assuming too much. Rather than dealing with the crucial energy issue at all, Congress strikes out on its 5 week August recess. But they did take the time to deal with one really critical issue: apologizing for slavery and Jim Crow laws of the 19^th Century. Wow, that makes it so much easier to pay $4.00 for gas! So much for legitimate legislative priorities.

Without so much as allowing a discussion on their own proposals to reduce high gas prices Congress is now officially on recess. There is no indication whatsoever that Congress will follow the President’s lead and rescind the Congressional ban on offshore drilling in the outer continental shelf. In other words, what matters most to “the people” is not a concern of the Congressional leadership. They wouldn’t even allow their own plan to be voted on, which was conspicuously absent any substantive recommendations to increase our supply.

Congress has no viable solutions to alleviate the pricing pressure of oil. Their “solutions” have been anything but that. Speaker Pelosi recommends releasing 10% of the Strategic Petroleum Reserves to alleviate pricing pressure. That amounts to about 2.5 days of U.S. consumption. I’m sure that’ll make a big difference. Harry Reid (true to form) wants to sue OPEC. I’m sure that will drop the price. Senator Obama wants to give us another stimulus check, which again, does nothing to solve the pricing problem. And his most recent recommendation this week was to put more air in our tires. And they all want to tax oil companies more. That sure creates incentive to produce more! Can these people really be so devoid of logic and detached from economic reality? If this is the best leadership the “party of the people” can muster, they should be disbanded and start a new party that has at least a modicum of common sense and economic consciousness.

All they had to do before their recess (I think we could actually argue that they’ve been on recess since they took control two years ago!) was agree to rescind the Congressional ban on offshore drilling. Witness what happened two weeks ago after the President announced he would rescind the Executive Order banning outer continental shelf drilling. The price per barrel dropped from $147 on July 11 to $122. That’s a 17% drop in the price of crude based on the market’s perception that supply might be increasing. That’s even with the threat of a tropical storm disrupting operations in the Gulf. The weekly report from the EIA (Energy Information Administration) indicated a drop of 2.1% in gasoline consumption from a year ago, and inventories increased by 3mm barrels the prior week. That type of news typically causes crude prices to drop about 1-1.5%. The only other factor then is the President’s announcement. If Congress was to follow the President’s lead we would probably see crude oil drop to $100 per barrel, and drift slowly toward the $80-85 level that is fundamentally justifiable.

Many contend that it would take years to start seeing any production from offshore. However, a Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst said recently that there is a lot of offshore crude that can be produced relatively quickly. The Minerals Management Service said that of the estimated 18 billion barrels of oil in off-limits coastal areas, almost 10 billion are off the coast of California. California could actually start producing new oil within a year if the moratorium were lifted, because the oil is under shallow water, has been explored and drilling platforms have been there since before the moratoria.

There are some who think that the President has been asleep at the wheel on the energy issue, and have choked at a gnat over the Vice President’s “secret” meetings with energy officials early in the first term. From that series of meetings, the President’s energy plan was spelled out in detail, calling for more expanded drilling domestically, more funding for alternative energy sources, and expanded implementation of nuclear energy into the mix. A drastically watered down version was finally enacted in 2005.

But here we sit with $4.00 gasoline, with a lame-duck President no one listens to, and a congress that is perpetually on a mental recess. “The people” deserve better.

Some Americans casually throw around words and phrases that have become clichéd, even though they are not factual. One that was immensely popular four years ago was “tax cuts for the wealthy.” Since that phrase is coming back into vogue with the current crop of presidential candidates, it might be a good time to review the data to ascertain how apropos the phrase is.

You’ll recall, the phrase gained prominence with President Bush who in 2001 and 2003, proposed, and Congress ratified, two series of tax cuts. The 2001 version reduced the income tax rates for all tax-payers, while the 2003 version cut the tax rates paid on dividend income and capital gains.

When the net benefits of both series of tax cuts are run against the actual tax collection data from the IRS, the results in absolute as well as relative terms are staggering. Dividing taxpayers into five brackets, those who benefited most were the lowest income, under $25,000 (a tax cut of 17.6%) per year, and those making about $60,000 per year (12.6%) according to IRS data. When the benefits of the second round of tax cuts are factored in, those in the $60,000 per year income level realized a total Federal tax savings of 24 percent. Those who make over $350,000 received a tax cut of 12.5%, while those who make over $1 million got about a 6% reduction. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the average Idaho household saw their Federal taxes drop by $1,811 per year.

The Wall Street Journal last week pointed out that the Bush tax cuts, in effect, triggered what may be the biggest increase in tax payments by the rich in American History. The top 1% of taxpayers, who earn $388,806 and higher, paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006, the highest percentage in at least 40 years. Taxpayers in the top 10% in income, those earning over $108,904, paid 71% of the total income taxes collected in 2006, again, the highest in at least 40 years.

When we look at the lowest income taxpayers, the figures are amazing. Those below median income levels paid a record low of 2.9% of all income taxes, while the top 50% paid 97.1% of the income taxes collected for 2006.

What this illustrates is the fact that our Bush tax brackets, due to begin expiring in two years, is very progressive. The cries for the “rich” to pay their fair share are hollow whines bred of class envy and socialistic efforts to separate the financially successful from their earnings in the name of redistribution of wealth. As the figures from the IRS and the Wall Street Journal prove, the wealthy are paying more of their fair share than they’re given credit for.

Even with the tax cuts, the Treasury department receipts have run higher every year since they were implemented, and each year sets a new tax receipt record. As the Wall Street Journal points out, “This is precisely what supply-siders predicted would happen with lower tax rates on capital gains, dividends and income. The economy and earnings would grow faster, which they did; investors would declare more capital gains and companies would pay out more dividends, which they did; the rich would invest less in tax shelters at lower tax rates, so their tax payments would rise, which did happen. The idea that this has been a giveaway to the rich is a figment of the left's imagination. Taxes paid by millionaire households more than doubled to $274 billion in 2006 from $136 billion in 2003. No President has ever plied more money from the rich than George W. Bush did with his tax cuts. These tax payments from the rich explain the very rapid reduction in the budget deficit to 1.9% of GDP in 2006 from 3.5% in 2003.”

If you want a surefire shot in the foot of the economy, allow the Bush tax cuts to expire. That will take more capital out of the economy, reduce velocity in a slowing economic environment, and assure that we not only drop into a recession (we still don’t have a recession since it’s defined as two quarters of negative GDP growth) but that ensures that the recession is deep and prolonged.

John McCain may claim to not have the economic acumen he should, but he correctly calls for making the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent. Otherwise, tax rates will rise substantially in each tax bracket, some by 450 basis points; low-income taxpayers will see the 10-percent tax bracket disappear, and they will have to pay taxes at the 15-percent rate; married taxpayers will see the marriage penalty return; taxpayers with children will lose 50 percent of their child tax credits; taxes on dividends will increase beginning on January 1, 2009; taxes on capital gains will increase, also beginning on January 1, 2009; and Federal death taxes will come back to life in 2011, after fading down to nothing in 2010.

Not only should the tax reductions be made permanent, but any politician who says they should not be or calls for more taxes, should be relegated to the heap of discarded presidential wannabes represented by George Bush Sr., John Kerry, Al Gore, and Michael Dukakis. After all, don’t you think you can use that extra $1,800 more advantageously than your government?

Over 160 years ago, a group of Americans left the heartland of America seeking religious liberty and seeking to escape the persecution bred of suspicion and intolerance. Their creed demanded of them subservience to the laws of the land, and submission to presidents and magistrates in honoring and upholding the law. Yet due to the murders, rapes and pillaging they suffered at the hands of local residents in Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri, they headed west where they hoped to establish communities and settlements where they could live without fear of reprisal because of their religion.

The courage those thousands of freedom-loving pioneers is what we celebrate around the 24^th of July every year. On the 24^th of July, 1847 the first of the LDS people arrived at the edge of the mountains overlooking the Salt Lake Valley and their leader, Brigham Young declared, “This is the place.” A monument and a pioneer village now mark that spot in the Eastern foothills of Salt Lake City.

The thousand mile trek, navigated by some on wagon and some with crudely constructed handcarts, left hundreds of gravestone markers strewn along the way, marking the final resting spot of those who were willing to sacrifice everything for their freedom and their faith, and who ultimately did. The tales of courage, sacrifice, and determination manifest by those early pioneers stand as veritable ensigns of their character to us more than 160 years later. They also stand as reminders of the traits we will need as pioneers of our own era to preserve and perpetuate the greatness of America.

The pioneers of the 19^th century faced primarily physical perils of cold, disease, and exhaustion. We are pioneers of sorts in our time, as we face a new wave of perils that threaten not so much our lives, but the quality of life we enjoy in America. In our time, we face the peril of diminished freedom for questionable causes, and cynicism of the free market system that is the economic extension of fundamental personal liberty. We face the peril of secularism which seeks to remove any semblance of religion from the public square and would have us rewrite history to remove the Judeo-Christian value system from our culture and advocates pantheism centered in worship of the earth over advancement of human civilization.

We also face the peril of indoctrination by a mainstream media that advances an ideological agenda, sometimes subtly but increasingly overt. Most susceptible to such propaganda are our young people who are bombarded with subliminal and overt messages that would have them believe there is more truth and contemporary pertinence to contemporary secularists than in the words of our Founding Fathers.

We face the peril of a continued erosion of morality and propriety as any sense of right and wrong, but what is taught is couched in strictly secular terms. By so doing, morality is made relative, having no absolute values at the foundation of our collective belief system.

I relish the fact that our local observance of Pioneer Day has become an inclusive celebration. People of all races, creeds, and backgrounds enjoy the local festivities with apparently equal enthusiasm. This is truly a microcosm of the pioneering we face for future generations of Americans as we similarly unite across socio-economic and cultural lines to preserve the greatness of America for future generations.

In 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”

The phrase “energy independence” is used by many of us who maintain a preference for self-sufficiency in our energy needs with the corollary of increased self-determination as a nation by not being beholden to other nations. As we see with the current oil crisis, those other nations can literally hold us over a barrel in fulfilling our consumption needs.

There are many reasons why we find ourselves in this situation, but one of the most significant factors is that we have literally had our hands tied in procuring and refining oil domestically to fill our needs. Although we have ample oil reserves to meet our needs, the strength of the environmental lobby and the Democratic Congress prevent us from accessing those reserves. Many current leases for off-shore drilling by U.S. companies are not producing in existing wells because the bureaucratic requirements for permits to actually make those leases productive precludes many from being exercised. 

The dirty little secret, that is not really a secret but is definitely dirty, is that the Democrats like having oil this high priced. In 2000 when President Bush took office, the price of a gallon of gasoline was about $1.44 nationally. By 2006, when the Democrats took control, it was as at $2.10. Since that time, it has spiked to over $4.00 per gallon.

Recall four years ago, John Kerry, while running for the Presidency, declared that the Federal Government should impose an additional 50 cent tax on gasoline to help curtail consumption. They want prices to be high!

In Oregon last week Obama said, “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times whether we live in the desert or in the tundra, and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. You guys keep on using 25% of the world’s energy even though you only account for 3% of the world population, you go ahead and we’ll be just fine.” Karl Marx would be so proud.

To liberals like Obama, economics are zero-sum gains. If we’re doing okay, someone else is not because of us. And since we Americans enjoy such a high standard of living, we’re culpable for all the suffering in the world because we’re taking from the others. For anyone who understands the dynamics of market economics, this is pure gibberish. But from the perspective of socialistic, centralized control economics, it makes sense. So to liberals, what Obama is saying is like gospel, but to those who have even a modicum understanding of economics and common sense, it is idiocy.

Plus his facts are wrong (as usual, like the 58 United States), and lacking some key insights. Americans constitute 5.6% of the world population, and with our 20% of the world energy consumption, we produce over 25% of the global GDP, according to World Bank data.

I’m convinced that the underlying reason the Democrats oppose any viable solution to increasing the oil supply is that they see America as the problem not only with our consumption, but also because it ties so nicely into their notion of global warming. They want us to not use oil, and the higher the price is the less likely it is that we will continue to use it at current levels. That means fewer carbon emissions and all the irrational “end of the world” conclusions they draw from their fallacious ideological premise.

It is unfathomable to me that we would send “leaders” to Washington who condemn our standard of living and preach a form of minimalistic egalitarianism. What we need are solutions to our current challenges to facilitate our continued growth, not defeatist, effete denunciation of our American way of life!

I’ve never been a great fan of the comedian George Carlin. His politics were dubious and his take on religion was an unmitigated attack on anyone of faith. That combined with more than his share of expletives made listening to an uncensored routine by him in his later years unbearable. Those objections aside, he did provide his share of laughs over the years.

Many from my generation will recall his role as the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman from routines on The Tonight Show. One of my favorite lines from that role was his weather forecast, “Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely-scattered light towards morning.”

Always the master of new insights to the obvious, he brilliantly captured the illogic of human theory regarding some of the most elementary truths of life. One that he nailed precisely was the radical environmental movement, and he revealed the illogic of the movement in a fashion only he could.

Quoting from his routine, Carlin said, “Let me tell you about endangered species, all right? Saving endangered species is just one more arrogant attempt by humans to control nature. It's arrogant meddling. It's what got us in trouble in the first place. Doesn't anybody understand that? Interfering with nature. Over 90% of all the species that have ever lived on this planet, ever lived, are gone. They're extinct. We didn't kill them all. They just disappeared. That's what nature does. We're so self-important. Everybody is going to save something now. Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails. And the greatest arrogance of all, save the planet. What?

“I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths, people trying to make the world safe for their Volvos. There is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The people are (bleep). The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. It's been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little more than 200 years.

“Two hundred years versus four and a half billion, and we have the conceit to think that somehow we’re a threat, that somehow we’re going to put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin’ around the sun? The planet has been through a lot worse than us, been through all kinds of things worse than us, been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sunspots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages, and we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn't going anywhere. We are! We’re going away.”

That’s the inimitable George Carlin putting into perspective the arrogance of man, while at the same time, trying to maintain that we’re all simply products of nature.

When you think about it, the ideologies are all wrong here. Those who are most adamant from a secular perspective that we all evolved from the primordial slime with a few proteins adapting to form our world and humankind are the ones who think we can control nature. While those of us who believe that we were created by God seem to be the ones mostly cognizant of the fact that we are part of nature and we’re not omniscient and omnipotent and can’t control it. What a perplexing dichotomy! You would think the ideologies would be swapped.

Now let’s apply the radical lunacy Carlin identified to a real-life scenario, and voila, we have the 2008 Democratic National Convention! Vowing to make the convention the “greenest” in history, they’ve struggled to find the necessary accoutrements to make the convention environmentally friendly and politically correct. To pull this off, the DNC hired an official “Director of Greening,” longtime environmental activist Andrea Robinson.

They need the balloons to be biodegradable, as well as everything else used in the convention. Ms. Robinson hired an Official Carbon Adviser, who will measure the greenhouse-gas emissions of every placard, every plane trip, every appetizer prepared and every discarded coffee cup.

They’ve ruled out fried food, and every meal must include “at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and while.” They’ve also stipulated that 70% of the ingredients should be organic, or grown locally to cut down on shipping emissions.

I have a sneaky, uneasy feeling that this is what we can expect if these clowns ever completely run the country.

It’s really too bad Carlin graduated from mortality when he did: he could have had a lifetime of new comedy routines from just this one event!

Mark Twain provided many invaluable insights into American life. Time has only validated the veracity of many of his truisms. In his inimitable way, Twain once declared, “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress…But then I repeat myself.”

Many statements coming from the Democratic leadership in Congress this past week proved once again how correct Twain was. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barak Obama all parroted this week, “We can’t drill ourselves out of this problem,” referring to $135 per barrel oil prices. This was in response to President Bush and John McCain calling for expanded drilling on the outer continental shelf. Since when has increased supply not eased demand and pricing issues? We absolutely can drill ourselves out of this mess! Increased supply and reduced consumption are always solutions to market scarcities.

Crude oil production in the United States has declined 40 percent over the past 25 years even though demand has soared. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 75 billion barrels of oil have been precluded from drilling due to Congressional action over that period. That oil would be enough to replace all of our imported oil, excluding Canada and Mexico, for over 22 years. World oil demand is projected to increase by 40% over the next 22 years, and U.S. demand projected to increase by 28%, and yet Congress’ solution is to claim “we can’t drill our way out” and tax the oil companies more!

I find it unbelievable that Venezuela and China can drill 60 miles off the Florida coast but the U.S. cannot because of the power of the environmental lobby. Why is it that the Democratic Congress will not allow U.S. oil companies, empirically the most environmentally sensitive oil companies in the world, access to these areas but will allow Venezuela and China access, when they have the most abysmal records of environmental sensitivity? The argument against expanded drilling is obviously not based on environmental concerns.

Further evidence of the imbecility of Congressional Democrats on the oil issue was provided courtesy of Sen. Charles Schumer a few weeks ago. He said that even if we drilled in Anwar it would only affect the pump price of gas by a penny. Yet when the President went to visit Saudi Arabia Schumer said if the President could convince them to increase output of 1 million barrels a day it should drop the price of gas by $.50. That is the same output potential from Anwar, and yet he, and other obstructionists on Capital Hill continue to get away with such duplicity and idiocy. If we had started drilling there in the ‘90s when it first passed Congress, we would now have more control over our own oil production while working on viable alternative sources of energy.

Instead, what is their solution? Impose a “windfall profit tax” on the oil companies. What is that likely to do? Is that going to decrease oil and gas prices? Of course not! If they’re going to be taxed at a higher level, they have to pass on the cost of those increased taxes to their customers. Do none of these people understand economics?

If Congress authorized increased domestic drilling, even the short-term price of gasoline would likely improve because the futures prices are affected in large part by perceptions of supply and demand. With the anticipated increased domestic production, prices would start to drop.

It would appear that the Democrats in Congress are in a full-court press to make the country as miserable as possible to ensure a victory in November. And even if they win they will not change their position on domestic oil production since they’re so firmly in the back pocket of the environmental lobby. The no drill, no refining, no nuclear energy Democrats obviously want us to pay more for energy, more for government, more in taxes of all types. If they take control, our modest .6% growth rate for the first quarter of 08 will look like a roaring economy!

One of the side affects of a horrendously out-of-control county budget is the fact that the Assessor’s office has to generate the tax revenue to pay for it. With apparent questionable operations and the lack of ethical guidelines and competence previously characteristic of the Assessor’s office, the County has been able to generate the necessary property valuations to meet the budgetary demands of a 30% increase in the County budget this year.

This past week I’ve visited with dozens of individuals who have had dealings with the Assessor’s office, and the emerging picture is downright ugly. Having been run with competence and fairness for years under the leadership of Diane Bilyeu, it is now a veritable cesspool of cronyism, incompetent leadership, retribution against taxpayers, and unethical operations.

Since Jo Lynn Anderson took the helm at the Assessor’s office, the department has steadily declined in professionalism and competence. According to the State Tax Commission, the office is out of compliance with state guidelines, and it appears it will be so again this year. After two years of being out of compliance, the state can intervene to remedy the situation and the County can lose State revenue. That appears likely to occur.

Our current Assessor and her assistants, “the management,” have refused repeated offers to receive management training to improve operations. She came into the office with no management or assessment experience other than drawing maps for 35 years for the department. Consequently, the de facto managers of the office are her assistants. Jo Lynn also no longer attends Idaho Association of County Assessor’s meetings since they sometimes go into Executive Session where only Assessors can attend, and since Jo Lynn has no functioning knowledge of the appraisal business, she won’t attend those without her assistants.

Much of the problem seems to be the hostile work environment that the management has created. The professional appraisers who are or have been there have been coerced to perform unethical adjustments to assessments contrary to standards of the industry. The appraisers’ reluctance to make such adjustments created significant tension between them and management, and has resulted in the loss of all but two certified real property appraisers and one manufactured home appraiser, where there should be at least seven altogether. The Assessor has hired unqualified friends and political supporters who draw pay at the high end of their scale. The Assessor brags that the reason they receive such high compensation is because she brought in so much revenue for the County last year.

The Assessors office is required to abide by the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) developed by the Appraisal Standards Board (ASB). These standards mandate equitable and ethical appraisal of property values. Yet my research consistently turned up examples of excessive valuations next to properties virtually unaffected by reassessment, in spite of more improvements made to the neighboring properties. Also contrary to USPAP standards, if the Assessor’s office can’t gain access to a residential property, management has instructed department appraisers to value the property with a half-finished basement. When the reluctant appraisers were told to engage in these unethical practices, the issue was forced by telling them they have to do it “because I’m management.”

Commercial assessments are now being done by an appraiser not trained or experienced in commercial appraisal. This has created profound inequity in assessments in similar properties throughout the county, and significantly higher than similar properties in neighboring cities.

When the rare successful appeal of an assessment rescinds the Assessor’s valuation, an attitude of retribution is assumed. Within earshot of many witnesses, a member of the management team told one taxpayer who was successful in his appeal, “We’ll get you next time you son-of-a-b****.” And to another, “You got me this time, but we’ll get even.” One of them, after a successful appeal by a residential taxpayer, inquired “How quickly can I go after (taxpayers’ name) again?” Management demanded a $20,000 higher assessment on a residential property declaring, “He’s a tax crybaby and he needs to learn a lesson.”

We all saw the headlines earlier this week of how the Assessor’s office is attempting to “tax-rape” ON Semiconductor. This is unacceptable, and all too characteristic of how the Assessor’s office now operates. If something isn’t done immediately to remedy the situation, Bannock County will be decimated. Retirees will be forced out of their homes, residents forced to relocate outside of the county, and businesses forced to close their doors because of the exorbitant tax rates. It would be disastrous if ON closed shop here because of property taxes. And we’re dreaming if we think new businesses will be willing to locate here when they get a whiff of what’s happening with property taxes.

I don’t think we can wait for two more years when the Assessor’s term ends. It’s time for a recall and time to clean up the Assessor’s Office!

Here we are on the verge of a possible recession (we haven’t had two quarters or even one quarter of negative GDP growth), and in the midst of an energy crisis with $135 oil, and what was Congress debating this week? A tax that will hit the economy from $1.7 to $4.8 trillion, and cost the average American family up to $3,726 per year! Such legislation will, if eventually passed, virtually ensure an ongoing recession by adversely affecting national GDP by 2 to 3% per year according to Time magazine, which inexplicably thinks it’s a good idea.

The Warner-Lieberman bill, the so-called cap and trade bill would have done that, and probably more. After all, when was the last time a government program cost projection was accurate? This bill, defeated by the Senate, was heralded by mainstream media, and certain politicians, as “bold national policy” designed to reduce carbon emissions and “contain climate change.” Yet even in the best-case scenario, the potential climatic impact would be a change in global average temperatures by about 1/100 of a degree between now and 2030. Who in their right mind would think that’s a cost-effective use of tax-payer money? Apparently a bunch of Federal legislators and many in the mainstream media fall into that inane category. It really makes me wonder what has happened to common sense in politics. It obviously is a rare commodity on Capital Hill and is declining as precipitously as Congressional approval numbers.

Cap and trade legislation forcibly lowers carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by placing limits, or caps, on companies that emit CO2, and affords a mechanism for them to trade or buy credits from companies that are under those limits. By creating such a mechanism, utilities and companies emitting less than the limit could sell credits to companies over the limit, which would have to buy the right to emit more CO2. The net affect on the environment is negligible, but the potential to drive energy related costs higher and higher is significant, according to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).

MIT published a study earlier this year that estimated the cost of implementing such a system would cost $3,500 to the average American family of four by creating a massive tax on energy that is then passed on to consumers including a 44% increase in the cost of electricity. The NAM estimates the impact on the cost of gasoline would be as much as an additional $5.00 per gallon by 2030. That means if this bill was in effect now, gas would cost $9.00 per gallon.

Even if the CO2 emissions are reduced as predicted, based on the “science” of the proponents, the impact on the global environment is a decrease of 0.013 degrees of “prevented warming,” according to the National Center for Public Policy Research. Look at it this way, if you were buying a car, and the salesman said it may or may not run, and even if it did, it may not function the way it was designed to, would you dish out $3,500 for that car?

What makes much more sense is to do the same thing we did last year. Global temperatures dropped by 0.7 degree Celsius last year. That decline actually eradicates the increase of the past 100 years, according to all three monitoring agencies. So what did we do to achieve such a drop in global temperatures? Aside from individual conservation, we did nothing. Could it be that climate temperatures actually fluctuate regardless of mankind’s CO2 emissions?

The fundamental premise of this kind of legislation must be rejected. That premise seems to be that we can “save the planet” by reducing our carbon footprint. There is no underlying science that proves we can do so. Secondly, we must learn from the mistakes of Europe which has implemented cap and trade policies. The three years of Europe’s experiment has been a disaster both from an environmental perspective and economically, according to the UK Times.

Let’s consider a few facts. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas in the atmosphere that is measured in parts per million, or ppm. The vast majority of CO2 emissions, about 97 percent, comes from Mother Nature, including what we humans exhale.

CO2 is nowhere near the most important greenhouse gas; water vapor holds that distinction. An astounding 99.9 percent of Earth's greenhouse gas effect has nothing to do with manmade CO2 emissions. If measured on a football field, manmade CO2 would amount to less than a centimeter.

The Warner-Lieberman bill has been defeated but it was a dress rehearsal for another version next year, especially if Congress moves more to the left in the November elections. These efforts amount to draconian command-and-control attacks against our quality of life under the auspices of environmentalism. The underlying premises are flawed, and the recommended measures can virtually destroy the American economy. Unilateral disarmament was wrong militarily; and cap-and-trade legislation amounts to unilateral economic disarmament.

The administration of JFK has been largely whitewashed as a “Camelot” presidency due in large part to its tragic premature termination. Some of that revisionist history is justified in light of subsequent events, but some is not.

The continuing flap over Senator Barak Obama’s assertion that he would be willing to meet unconditionally, yet with preparation, with any world leader, including those who seek to harm the United States, prompted one such opportunity for historical revisionism. The Senator defended his position, “If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy led by the president of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F. Kennedy, because that’s what he did with Khrushchev.” He went on to state, “When Kennedy met with Khrushchev, we were on the brink of nuclear war.”

Historically, this is incorrect. The tendency is to envision a handsome, youthful President Kennedy facing the enemy of freedom, the Premier of the Soviet Union. However, the historical reality is far different. Kennedy’s faceoff with Nikita Khrushchev in June of 1961 was disastrous and actually led to an escalation of the Cold War, the construction of the Berlin Wall, led directly to the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as an escalation of the Vietnam War.

Just months into his administration, President Kennedy wanted desperately to visit face to face with the Soviet Premier. In his inaugural address in January, 1961, he declared, “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” With that as his foreign affairs theme, he was convinced that he could approach the totalitarian leader in a way not done before, and that he could have success in bridging some of the ideological chasms separating the two because of his intellect and eloquence.

Most of Kennedy’s senior advisors counseled the President not to meet with Khrushchev. Dean Rusk, then Secretary of State, queried, “Is it wise to gamble so heavily? Are not these two men who should be kept apart until others have found a sure meeting ground of accommodation between them?” George Kennan, Truman’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union, counseled Kennedy to not rush so quickly without qualifications into such a meeting. He argued that Khrushchev had ramped up his rhetoric against the U.S., appeared to be more aggressively confrontational, and that the current pressing issues between the two countries should be handled by diplomats through the State Department.

As Nathan Thrall and Jesse Wilkins recently wrote, “Kennedy went ahead, and for two days he was pummeled by the Soviet leader. Despite his eloquence, Kennedy was no match as a sparring partner, and offered only token resistance as Khrushchev lectured him on the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, and cautioned America against supporting ‘old, moribund, reactionary regimes.’ Khrushchev used the opportunity to warn Kennedy that his country could not be intimidated and that it was ‘very unwise’ for the United States to surround the Soviet Union with military bases.”

The face-to-face with the Soviet Premier was an unmitigated disaster. Diplomats on both sides of the table offered the same assessment. One of Khrushchev’s aides recorded that Kennedy seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.” Khrushchev himself said of the two-day meeting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak,” and returned to Moscow elated at his newfound elevated position of advantage, and extremely unimpressed at the naïveté and seeming impotence of the new President.

Kennedy’s self-appraisal was no less severe. He said of Khrushchev, “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts.”

The consequences of this humiliating diplomatic effort could not have been foreseen. Just a few months later, Khrushchev ordered the construction of the Berlin Wall, and a few more months after that, authorized the shipping of nuclear missiles to Cuba to, as he phrased it, “throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam’s pants.”

There can be no doubt that Kennedy’s weakness contributed significantly to Khrushchev’s perception that he could build the wall and install nuclear missiles off our Southern coast. As a result, Berlin was divided by a wall for nearly half a century and we were brought to the brink of a nuclear Armageddon in spite of Kennedy’s intelligence and articulation. It could therefore be argued that these events were precipitated because of Kennedy’s hubris and his self-perceived ability to persuade. To counter this weakness, Kennedy resolved that he wouldn’t get pushed around by the Soviets any more, and determined to make his stand in Southeast Asia. The rest is regrettable history.

A profound reminder to those who seek political office: “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Senator Obama is providing his share of memorable gaffes that should yield considerable fodder for the late-night comedians as well, except that some of them are serious. Were it not for the fact that the mainstream media has already anointed the Senator as President, we would have his more significant blunders plastered across the pages of the nations’ newspapers. In fact, coverage is so abysmally and incompetently absent from the mainstream media, one has to peruse the primary texts of his speeches to find them.

A couple of weeks ago while addressing a crowd in Missouri about Afghanistan, Obama said, “It's like Arab -- Arab -- Arabic interpreters, Arab language speakers, we only have a certain number of them, and if they're all in Iraq, then it's harder for us to use them, and -- and obviously they may not speak Arabic, but the various dialects that they speak in Afghanistan.” Afghans do not speak Arabic, Senator. They speak Dari and Pashto. Well, there goes the “smartest guy in the room” label.

On Tim Russert’s “Meet the Press” on May 4, the Senator was asked, “Would you respond against Iran?” He answered, “It – Israel is an ally of ours. It is the most important ally we have in the region, and there’s no doubt that we would act forcefully and appropriately on any attack against Iran, nuclear or otherwise.” Somehow in there Obama got Israel and Iran confused. I’d say there’s quite a difference between the two, and yet he says he’d act forcefully on any attack against Iran. If that had been President Bush or John McCain, we’d still be hearing about it.

The best one is a real winner. Two weeks ago he told an Oregon audience that “I’ve been in 57 states, [with] I think one left to go.” I guess if he had that American flag lapel pin on that he makes a point of not wearing (unless he’s in a red state) he could have glanced down and counted the stars and realized there are only 50, not 58 states in the Union. Maybe it’s just a math deficiency, but you know it wouldn’t have been shrugged off to fatigue if it was John McCain who had said it; they would have called it a “senior moment.”

Maybe his comment was a Freudian slip and reflected his Muslim upbringing. for there are in fact 57 Muslim states around the world. But then he’d still be off by one. I’m perplexed. What makes his statement even worse is that it wasn’t even a complete sentence. I had to add the conjunction parenthetically for the Senator’s phrase to make sense!

Senator Obama is very articulate when he’s got a teleprompter. It’s when he goes off script that he runs into problems. I wonder if he’ll have to carry around a stack of 3x5 cards with cues and factoids for him if he’s president since he won’t be able to take a teleprompter everywhere.

The state of Israel this past week celebrated its 60^th birthday, one that it would not have been able to observe had it not been for the leadership and tenacity of one American president. President Harry Truman, going against nearly the entire Washington establishment, made the United States the first nation to grant official recognition of the State of Israel a scant 11 minutes after they declared their state official.

Israel is the only free country in a region that is dominated by monarchies, theocracies, and dictatorships that repress freedom, oppress women, limit educational opportunities, outlaw religious and racial tolerance, and sponsor terrorism against freedom-loving people. As such, the approximately 7 million citizens of Israel, including Jews and Arabs who live within the original borders, enjoy freedoms not available to the hundreds of millions living in neighboring Muslim dominated countries. They can express their opinions, criticize their government, publish opposition newspapers, and hold free un-coerced elections. It’s an affront to logic for Arab authorities in the region, who deny the most fundamental freedoms to their own people, to criticize Israel for violating Palestinians’ rights.

On May 14, 1948, the day the British Mandate over Palestine expired, the Jewish People's Council gathered to declare their independence. In that document, they declared that the Land of Israel “was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance.

“After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.

“Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.” This right to gather in Israel “was recognized in the Balfour Declaration (1917), and reaffirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.” This right was reaffirmed in 1948 by the United Nations.

The declaration then states the principles upon which the nation would be established. “THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”

Since that time, Israel has struggled for its very existence, having fought military onslaughts in seven wars of self-defense against 22 hostile Arab dictatorships, and faced a determined terror-led attack that makes those against America pale in comparison. In the 18 month period following 9/11/01 alone, Israel suffered 12,480 terrorist attacks that killed more than 400; a per-capita death toll more than six times that of America’s 9/11 attacks.

It is with this historical backdrop that President Bush addressed the world at Israel’s celebration of independence this week, where he declared, “You've lived too long with fear and funerals, having to avoid markets and public transportation, and forced to put armed guards in kindergarten classrooms. The Palestinian Authority has rejected your offer at hand, and trafficked with terrorists. You have a right to a normal life; you have a right to security.”

The President went on to say, “Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.” Does anyone truly believe the bellicose leaders of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, and Islamic Jihad, who all call for the eradication and annihilation of Israel, can be persuaded to change their minds?

Israel, Iraq, and Afghanistan are the primary front lines of battle in the war against terrorism. Recognizing this, and the fact that Israel is a free and democratic country, and an ally in combating the evil of terrorism, we should always maintain a resolute determination to stand by them and assure their def