You Decide

Friday, April 24, 2009

Newt in the House, Yo   [Edward John Craig]

Newt Gingrich's testimony before Energy and Commerce is available here. Not included there, of course, is a priceless floor exchange between the former Speaker and Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Beverly Hills).

It may be news to the Renewable Energy Now crowd, but America has had a little experience with market-driven technological advance — and it didn't come at the point of a regulatory gun, using the “tax and destroy” method preferred by President Obama and Congressional Dems.

“We didn’t build the trans-continental railroad by punishing stage coaches,” Gingrich sagely observed.

“Well I am glad you’re not in charge of foreign policy,” replied Waxman (as if today's Democratic caucus is well known for its use of sticks over carrots in foreign-policy negotiations).

Replied the former Speaker: “I don’t think of the American people in the same terms as foreign dictators.”

Newt ZINGrich!

04/24 05:00 PM Share

The Pits   [Henry Payne]

04/24 04:30 PM Share

House of Pain   [Chris Horner]

I don't know about your experience, but watching the House's spotty audio and video webcast feed of today's global warming confab left me even less comfortable than before about the prospects of their keen ministrations engineering a ration- and quota-driven energy supply.

When the feed managed to come through, however, highlights included Congressmen Henry Waxman and Jay Inslee not even bothering to conceal the fact that they were reading from pre-printed scripts, prepared before they even sat down, expressing outrage and surprise over "what we just heard" from former Speaker Gingrich. The only thing I can imagine is that Newt Gingrich actually was asked to provide — and provided — his testimony the day before, just as mere mortal witnesses are required to do. Al Gore, I understand, still has not provided his tightly held slides from recent Senate testimony — which the rules apparently dictate should have been provided in advance.

I was comforted by how the Democrats were reduced to relying upon a thoroughly exposed effort by an MIT professor that seems to require at least one of the following assumptions: either a) the Obama administration is lying when it admits to just a fraction of the billions it plans to take in energy taxes (their advertised $650 billion over ten years from selling cap-and-trade ration coupons might actually total in the several trillions); or b) that every dollar taken from the taxpayer is actually a dollar in benefit to the taxpayer — which is the more likely assumption, and patently absurd.

With such great lead arguments, I can hardly wait to hear the rest.

04/24 03:30 PM Share

Al Gore, Climate Propheteer   [Edward John Craig]

Get a load of Rep. Ed Markey (D., People's Republic of Massachusetts) swooning over Al Gore earlier today:

Long before greenhouse gases and global warming became a subject of daily discussions, Al Gore, Henry Waxman, John Dingell and I debated ways to improve the Clean Air Act. Vice President Gore was a leader of the debate in the 1980s. And now the whole world knows that he has long been a visionary. It is sometimes said that a prophet is someone who is right, but too soon. Al Gore is an example of someone who, not only was right early, very early, in fact, but who dedicated his life to educating our country so that they, too, saw the threats he foresaw decades ago.

04/24 03:00 PM Share

Dingell: Cap-and-Trade is Toast   [Chris Horner]

At today's House platform for Al Gore to push the investment portfolio for which he is so aggressively lobbying, we just saw something of great import, affirming what I have been telling thumb-suckers for a while now.

That is, former Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Dingell said:

"cap-and-trade is a tax and it’s a great big one."

Remember what MoveOn said last week:

“If Republicans convince voters that clean energy legislation amounts to a new tax, Obama’s plan is toast.”

So, it seems that Mr. Dingell is convinced, and his party's cap-and-trade rationing taxes are now toast.

04/24 02:30 PM Share