EPA Issues More Rules It'll Have to Defend In Court

Just as the EPA is introducing strict new rules of dubious legitimacy, its last such gambit is set to go before the Supreme Court and it just got whacked in court over shutting down a gold mine in Alaska.

Based on recent evidence the EPA is not doing so well in court.  These new rules will attract suits and be tied up, and a Republican President will one day kill them off.

NY Times Sees What Isn't There To Slime Oil Industry

This is kinda neat, although I must say that I was afraid that in the hands of the New York Crimes, this analysis might have taken on the typical moralistic tone of disapprobation that nearly every treatment of the energy industry gets in the Crimes.  The feature is somewhat free of that, but one can easily envision Crimes' readership getting the vapors, and no doubt the authors' purpose was to provoke that reaction sotto voce.

There are plenty of points to be made here, but this is the big one - those drilling pipes are NOT aboveground, which is probably the number two reason that fracking technology is AWESOME!  (The #1 reason being that it actually gets us oil to use as we have chosen to do.)  You can try to conjure up images of industrial scale despoliation of the Earth as much as you want, but the fact that we can draw resource efficiently an unobtrusively is cause for celebration.

Finally, one point that will obviously be missed by Crimesians, is that the alternatives they pine so fervently for (in the name of saving the planet) ARE ACTUALLY ABOVEGROUND!!  Lefties have to imagine and conjure a reality that doesn't exist in order to cast aspersions on hydrocarbons, while completely ignoring the reality of their preferences that are staring us all in the face.  Indeed, scientists have extrapolated how much of the Earth's surface would need to be covered by solar panels and/or wind farms in order to replace fossil fuels 100%, and the answer isn't pretty.

(HT: Mark Perry)

Finally We Know: Obama Scoffs At the Very Essence of America

Well, we've been waiting six years for "Obama unleashed", the outpouring of the raw essence of the man that we elected twice that has heretofore eluded us because he was not eager to tell and the media was either not eager to discover or actively colluding to suppress. Now we have it and it is shockingly bad, even for the most jaded anti-Lightworker folks among us.

Read it.  It's bad.  You'll vomit.

Obama doesn't believe in the sovereignty of the United States of America, he certainly doesn't believe in the sovereignty of the people.  Every nation on Earth claims the sovereign right to define and regulate citizenship, but Obama feels that the USA has no such right, that every living person ought to be able to reside in America.  He denies the citizenry of this country, from whence flows its sovereignty since its founding, to define and regulate who can be a citizen or resident of this nation.  Naturally, a corollary to this, given our massive social safety net, is that every person in the world thus has a right to a portion of your income.  If everybody can come here and avail themselves, the people who pay for that social safety have an open-ended financial obligation to the entire world.

This is globe-spanning socialism of the worse kind.  It's not pure economic socialism, it is that but also a socialism that denies the entire value of the America project and its history - all of its institutions of self-government and commitments, big and small, to individual liberty.  It is a socialism of the soul.  It is infused with a moral relativism so severe as to wipe the notion and history of the United States of America off the record of humankind altogether.  It is anti-individual, it denigrates the souls of people earning to be free and to govern themselves accordingly.  It dismisses individuality.  It scoffs at you.

Leading Candidate Bows Out of SecDef Job

Yeah, I wouldn't take this job either. 1) You're inheriting a big mess, 2) It's not clear your boss will let you clean anything up, 3) You are a C-Teamer simply by association with this wrecking crew.  If you've got talent, best to bide your time for Hillary or burnish your bi-partisan cred for a Rick Perry or other administration.  The worst career move you could make would be to sign onto this rolling disaster for two years.

Obama's problem from the beginning was shallow and narrow networks.  He was renting donkey talent so long as he had star power and could win elections.  Now that he's destroyed the Democrats and lacks all credibility with the populace, they're not letting him have access to the bench.  Expect the next SecDef to be an even worse choice than Hagel.


UPDATE:  I'm not the only one thinking along these lines.  End result, we're gonna have an inert placeholder in the job of Secretary of Defense for two years.  Hard luck for us.

'Yeah, We Screwed Up With ObamaCare' Says, Chuck Schumer

'Boy did we screw up by bloody-mindedly jamming ObamaCare down Americans throats' says...
...Chuck Schumer?
Yup.

Democrats made a mistake by passing President Barack Obama’s health-care law in 2010 instead of focusing more directly on helping the middle class, third-ranking U.S. Senate Democrat Charles Schumer said today.

“Unfortunately, Democrats blew the opportunity the American people gave them” in electing Obama and a Democratic Congress in 2008 amid a national recession, Schumer of New York said in a speech in Washington. “We took their mandate and put all our focus on the wrong problem -- health care reform.”

It's looking like ole' Chuckie is taking a shot at Harry Reid, his main competition for Senate leadership, albeit in the minority...

Will the New, More Fuel-Efficient F-150 Win Kudos from the Climatistas? Nope.

So, Ford has replaced steel in its best-selling F-150 pickup truck with aluminum to make it 700 lbs. lighter and thus more fuel efficient (up to 29% percent more efficient depending).  This is precisely the type of change that "sustainability" types say that corporate America should be making.  Will Ford get any credit for this?  Will the climate warriors tip their hats to the folks from Dearborn?

Nope.  Climatistas hate trucks, hate people who drive trucks, and always will.  Ford could make the F-150 out of hemp and pixie dust and it will always be hated.

Still, new F-150 owners can drive that much more on tank of gas.  More money in their pocket.  Good for them and good for Ford.

It Alright When WE Do It...

Hey, remember when George W. Bush kept saying our Social Security system is broken and that he wanted Democrats in Congress to pass SS reform? 


No?  OK, here is a reminder.


Well, what if he said he was just going to pass an order giving Americans private Social Security accounts because the Democrats in Congress hadn't passed anything?


DICTATOR!!  IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY!!  RIGHT-WING TYRANNY!!


You know it's true.

Lower Energy Costs To Keep Inflation At Bay? Maybe Not

In challenging CNBC journeyman Ron Insana's inflation dovishness I said this:

I don't buy his argument because it's not a very good one.  Corn and soy futures are down?  So what.  This has no bearing on whether your chicken or corn flakes prices are going to be lower in the future.  Supply and demand dictate prices, not input costs.

Check this out from Brian Wesbury today on the latest producer price numbers:

Producer prices surprised to the upside in October versus consensus expectations for a slight decline due to falling energy prices. The gain in overall producer prices was all due to the services sector, where prices rose 0.5%. Oddly, about half of the gain in service prices was due to refiners generating fatter margins while the energy prices fell. In other words, the drop in energy prices did not get fully passed on to users. 

See that "odd" bit?  Supply and demand allowed producers to capture lower input costs for themselves, the lower commodity costs didn't make it to the consumer.  Thoughts on that Ron?


Inflation exists everywhere but in the minds of our elites who tasked with preventing it.


Oh, and speaking of inflation, check out this and this.  You won't find these government services in the official measures of inflation, because then you pesky stupid voters might start asking questions, like "Why does all this inflation seem to be driven by all this stuff run by the government?"

Who's Stupid?

The rampant lying by the Obamacrats is grating in theory, but, alas, it is politics.  What is starting to grate in practice is sheer shittiness of their lying, which is insulting to our intelligence in direct proportion. 


Now, they've got Ole' Lightworker in a particularly bad one.


I just watched the first Gruber video again, and what struck me this time is both the glee in his voice and body language at pulling the wool over the public's eyes.  He's like a kid who just stole a lollipop.  He's also got that classic liberal weasel tone, sounding so clever.  But he's too clever by half.  There is a good chance that Obamacare as we know it, between the King case before the SCOTUS and the public's newly revived revulsion, will be gone within 5 years.  And Gruber will be crying in his soy latte at having played an integral role in its demise as well as its creation.


So, who will be "stupid" at that point?

Huge Business Owner: Inflation Rages, Bernanke Be Damned

So, what have I been saying about inflation?  This.

And all the easy-money elitists keep telling us to shut up because we are so wrong.

Check out this interview.  This guy says that 1) inflation is raging, 2) Bernanke was lying, 3) academic economists leave a lot to be desired.  It's good stuff.

Hooray for Obama's Phony Climate Pact With the Chi-Coms!

If you're are global warming climate change crusader, don't get too excited about the "pact" that China and the Lightworker have announced to great media fanfare.  It's a Potemkin affair.

There is no way that the USA will cut emissions (unless of course a cut means what it means in government budgeting - a slightly smaller increase than what was previously contemplated or planned). 

And China will never abide by any agreement that impedes their continued aggressive economic development.  China's strategy is very clear.  They can afford to give Obama a phony agreement for him to crow about and take back home to his demoralized base.

But if it makes all the climate warriors happy, so be it.


UPDATE:  If you needed definitive proof of the above...'nuff said.

Attorney General Who?

Long-time readers have heard me discuss the Obama administration as a collection of B-Teamers at best, more likely C and D-Teamers.  After the 2010 mid-term elections I mused about who would be attracted to work in a presidential administration on the downslope.  Naturally, the Lightworker's reelection gave a brief jolt to the attraction of working in the administration, which was ever so brief as Lightworking 2.0 got mired in scandal almost immediately thereafter.

Now, he's looking for an Attorney General in the wake of Shellacking 2.0 and news reports are leaking that it is likely to be this lady. 

Hard to say what to make of this.  I've lived in and around New York City all of my life, I come from a family of lawyers, and I follow local politics obsessively...and I've NEVER heard of this woman.  That doesn't mean she's bad or unaccomplished, but if you marry her obscurity with Obama's poor record of choosing personnel and Eric Holder's chief role as a protector of the administration from numerous probes of wrongdoing, there is no alternative but to have pause over this appointment.  To go from such a position to the highest law enforcement office in the land is a quantum leap only to be dreamed of.  And it's a two year stint at best.  This has the hallmarks of handing out a gift so as to ensure loyalty.

Of course, this could be all wrong and an egregious slander against this admirable and fantastic servant, and I hope it turns out to be...but I don't think so.

Did I Predict Shellacking 2.0 in 2010? Yeah, Kinda

Over at his economics blog, Brian Wesbury, who understands the intersection of policy and economics as well as anybody, has an interesting take on the election.  He sees it in socio-historical terms as an inflection point, rather than just another election cycle shift in leadership. 

Loosely translated, Brian is saying this marks the end of our modern experimentation with big government, statism, progressivism, whatever you want to call it.  Consequently, we are embarking on a long term societal trend of reducing government's power and influence in society and thus the economy.

I sure hope so, but the evidence for this will come what happens on the Democratic side of the aisle.  The Democrats are the political party that pulls the nation leftward on the political spectrum.  If the weight and power of the Democrats huddles in the center, then I think we will have evidence of Brian's thesis confirmed.  However, if the Democrats, after licking their wounds, elevate the progressive lodestars of the party (e.g. Fauxcahontas Warren) to leadership, court ever-increasing amounts of donor dollars laser focused on pet progressive issues (e.g. climate change), and turn up the volume of victimologist claims on behalf of putatively aggrieved groups (could that volume be any louder?), then we'll know that we have not hit an inflection point. 
Democrats will need to figure out how to win elections, and if we've truly changed focus as a society as to what we want out of our government, then you'll see Democrats marginalize the progressives, the Pelosicrats, for more moderate leadership.  I got at this point in a post entitled, "The Moderate Democrat, Can They Rebuild Him?"  Read the post.  In it I recount how the Republican base turned its party around (kicking and screaming I might add) in a few short years.  The Democrats could do the same, but after 2010 they failed to learn the lessons.  Maybe after 2014 they will, who knows.  Anyway, I have to highlight this highly prescient passage from that post, written in 2010 after Shellacking 1.0.  I foreshadow Shellacking 2.0 pretty nicely...

Now, granted I am not in on the progressive scene, but I see none of this happening on the left. There doesn't appear to be any tug of war, there is only one theme - voters are dumb and Obama didn't communicate his awesomeness properly. Nobody is saying, "we ought to rethink our policy agenda." And I am thrilled to see it. This guarantees years of wasted time and futile efforts. Obama can redouble his communication efforts all he wants and it won't do a lick of good, it might even add to the damage that the Democrats have suffered. There is no demand for what he and the Pelosicrats are selling and what they stand for. The sooner they realize this, the sooner they'll be competitive again. Don't hold your breath, the Blue Dogs have been wiped out and the Democrat caucus is as far left as ever. The Moderate Democrat will have to be built up again from scratch, marketed and sold along totally different lines. That will take time, but first it must take desire.

McConnell Got His Wish, Obama Is a One-Term President

So, Mitch McConnell is much in the news after Election Day 2014.  Let me go back to something McConnell said way back when and was widely ridiculed for it - he said his job, and that of Republicans in Congress in general, was to make Barack Obama a one term President.

Effectively he has.

Of course, technically Obama isn't a one term President.  We will not get one of the inherent benefits of our system's ability to kick an executive out after one term, which is the ability to move on, to get on with life.  At the official end of Obama's Presidency, I think we will look back and have a panoply of regrets, but the major regret will be that of lost time.  All the other things aside, we wasted too much precious time dealing with this joker. 

But effectively, Obama is a one term President.  He has been a spent force for some time now, and, after this past Tuesday, he has been relegated to a bystander role in the proper and legitimate governance of our country (that is not to say that he will be a bystander - there is the ability to play a role in the improper and illegitimate governance of our country).

So, Mitch McConnell achieved, in a sense, his goal.  However it is half a loaf.  We've avoided an extra four years of Obama's policy desires, we just haven't been freed up to get on with life.

Shellacking 2.0

Well, who knew that Massachusetts, Illinois, and Maryland voters were so racist.

Other observations, I guess the "coalition of the ascendant" had a tough time taking flight from Mom and Dad's basement, or something.

The Senate win was fairly predictable, the Democrats governed poorly and campaigned insultingly.  The states mentioned above, solidly blue at most if not all times, seem to have soundly rejected what Walter Russell Mead calls "the blue model".   Maybe, we'll see.  Certainly, in Illinois, things couldn't have been more mismanaged, voters clearly wanted a new direction.  Massachusetts and Maryland might be cases of uninspiring candidates on the Dem side.  Even if you are a hard-core Dem, I not sure that Martha Coakley fires you up.

I'll have more...
UPDATE:  BTW, a day or two removed from the election, no less a student of American politics than Michael Barone said that Obama would leave the Democrats in shambles.  Fine.  Good prediction Mike.  However, I made that prediction years ago.

UPPDATE:  Byron York attributes Kentucky and West Virginia GOP wins to guns, coal and freedom.  Fine, I happen to like all of those things.  I think each GOP win had something to do with at least one of those...most likely freedom  (n.b. what liberals don't understand is that guns are a subset of freedom).

UPPPDATE:  And this just in from my source deep within DC (the guy who told me years ago that Obama was a spent force in DC)...1) a GOP Senate intensifies the civil war within the party (think Ted Cruz/Rand Paul versus Establishment types), 2) Obama really unleashes the leftist Kraken, intentionally provoking crises so that the GOP can't govern and do policy, 3) Senate Dems will have a difficult time adjusting.
UPPPPDATE:  I just ought to note that it is a somber day here in NYC, wot with the virtually assured poisoning of our water supplies and closing of schools and forced indentured servitude that is sure to come from a GOP-led Senate.  To my fellow New Yorkers, I can only add this consolation, at least Sarah Palin isn't President...

Greatest Level of Denial Among Lefty Media Outlets...?

As highlighted by Drudge, various media outlets have differing, but fairly overwhelming prediction odds for a Republican takeover of the US Senate.  WashPost has 95%, CNN has 96%, the NY Times has 70%.

But all these guys are pikers compared to Al Hunt's Bloomberg News.  How does BN characterize the race?  "GOP has the edge."  Edge?  Really?  OK.

NY Times Thinks 20-Year Olds Have Deep Wisdom About Our Constitutional Order

Please tell me that the New York Times hasn't published an op-ed by a college junior proposing a massive rethink of America's constitutional order...

OK, it's co-authored, but really...?

This is why I haven't read the Times in 20 years.