The visible protest is by and large a data point on a historic timeline of young people confronting a tired old regime; in that sense, it's a periodic renaissance, the refreshment that society needs to move from one epoch to another.Funny, but that sounds an awful lot like something Glenn Beck would say, as noted here (with Beck having been promoted by Klein, of course, as noted here).
In the present instance, however, there's an undercurrent moving in the opposite direction, a careful manipulation of participants by a deeply non-democratic band. Behind the current Occupy Wall Street protests is a "red army" of radicals seeking no less than to provoke a new, definitive economic crisis, with their goal being the full collapse of the U.S. financial system, with the ensuing chaos to be rebuilt into a utopian socialist vision.
Update 10/27/11: And speaking of nutty OWS conspiracy theories, I give you this.
With the collapse of taxpayer subsidized solar panel maker Solyndra, and the revelation that a Democratically-connected electric car company took large Energy Department loans and is making those cars in Finland, Obama had better hope that voters don't hold him to his own standards.Ha and ha – as noted here…
ABC News has published a lengthy article on its website that misleadingly suggests taxpayers are being ripped off because a car company that got a federal loan guarantee is assembling its vehicles in Finland. The story is headlined "Car Company Gets U.S. Loan, Builds Cars In Finland."As noted here, though, Hemingway is a serial misinformer on this as well as other topics (way beyond pathetic that this is the best he and his ilk can do when it comes to manufacturing an Obama “scandal”).
In fact, the article reports that the company, Fisker Automotive, has created 100 auto-plant jobs in Delaware in addition to 500 manufacturing jobs in Finland. Fisker's founder also told ABC that his company has spent the federal money it has received on marketing, engineering, and design work done in the United States, not on the Finnish jobs.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed two new air quality rules that pose substantial threats to both employment and the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers. The first is the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) that would cap key emissions crossing state lines and the second is the Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology Rule (MACT) that would set absolute limits in mercury and other chemical emissions. As designed, the Utility MACT would be the most expensive direct rule in EPA history. Indeed, the EPA itself has estimated it would impose costs of about $11 billion a year on the U.S. economy, though third-party estimates of compliance costs are considerably higher.Geez oh man, $11 billion? $18 billion?
For example, a recent analysis by National Economic Research Associates (NERA) finds that complying with the proposed standards would cost power companies close to $18 billion per year for the next 20 years. Some coal-fired plants would be so expensive to retrofit they would simply be shut down. The NERA study also projects that about 48 gigawatts of coal generation would be retired over the next five years, representing a 13 percent decline.
Check this out…
According to the EPA, by 2014 the required emissions reductions (as mandated by the CSAPR) will annually avoid:And by the way, updating the Clean Air Act regulations creates jobs. And that’s not “blowing smoke” (or ozone too, for that matter).
• 13,000 to 34,000 premature deaths
• 15,000 nonfatal heart attacks
• 19,000 hospital and emergency room visits
• 1.8 million lost work days or school absences
• 400,000 aggravated asthma attacks
Compared to 2005, EPA estimates that by 2014 this rule and other federal rules will lower power plant annual emissions in the CSAPR region by:
• 6.4 million tons per year of SO2 - a 73 percent reduction
• 1.4 million tons per year of NOX - a 54 percent reduction
The final rule, according to EPA estimates, yields $120 to $280 billion in annual health and welfare benefits in 2014, which outweighs the estimated annual costs of CSAPR of $800 million in 2014, along with the roughly $1.6 billion per year in capital investments already under way as a result of (the Clean Air Interstate Rule, or CAIR, implemented in 2005 and scheduled to be phased out by CSAPR).
Update 10/26/11: Oh, and speaking of regulations, I give you this.
Against obvious voter fraud like Al Franken’s car-trunk ballots in Minnesota in 2008 as well as the typically vigorous turnout from cemeteries in Chicago and other large cities, Republican legislators are trying to even the playing field or at least keep it from resembling the Dawn of the Dead.In response, I give you the following from here…
On The Beltway Boys, co-host Fred Barnes echoed the discredited rumor that ballots in the (U.S. Senate race in Minnesota between Norm Coleman and Al Franken in 2008) were mishandled, stating: "We've seen, under some questionable circumstances, Franken gaining, you know, 32 ballots from the trunk of somebody's car that had been sitting there for a few days. I mean, I find that a bit suspicious." In fact, state officials refuted rumors that the ballots were handled improperly, and a lawyer for Coleman's campaign, who initially raised questions about those ballots, reportedly said afterward that he had been assured the ballots were not tampered with. [11/15/08]However, if Robert Knight and Fred Barnes are interested in an actual voting horror story (a stretch, I know), they should read this.
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