Dear Fellow Wind Warriors,
Here is the ROADMAP to ENERGY PROSPERITY that I promised you earlier today. I truly believe that this is the year we will defeat wasteful subsidies for wind energy. Failure is not an option because if we fail, hundreds of thousands of acres will be despoiled and tens of billions of dollars wasted on this failed technology. Please jump on this immediately because we are facing a make or break moment in DC THIS WEEK. We have a shot at a 1-2 punch to stop these mostly foreign companies from looting and pillaging our national treasury. This is punch #1 and it needs to be a good hard sock in the kisser! Assuming we survive this payroll tax cut legislation bill, the second punch will consist of a nationwide educational tsunami that will convince both lawmakers and voters that there are cheaper, cleaner and greener solutions to our energy goals.
Phase 1 of our game plan is simple: Make 20 phones ring off the hook in DC in the next 3 days. The wind industry lobbyists are going full tilt tomorrow and Wednesday to get a FOUR YEAR extension of the Production Tax Credit slipped into the Payroll Tax bill that is being considered by a Conference Committee. The final vote is expected to come sometime this week, possibly as early as Wednesday afternoon. We need everyone and their brother to call these committee members and tell them in no uncertain terms that they should NOT include the PTC or any other energy subsidy in this bill. Please take a moment right now to call the lawmakers listed below and tell their office staff that you OPPOSE any extension of energy subsidies. You may further tell them that you SUPPORT HR 3308, which would end all energy subsidies (including fossil fuels) except for research and development grants in basic science. That’s it. Really simple. You can also fax or email them if you wish but telephone calls are the best, fastest, most secure way to know that your opinion registered. Then send this to your entire list of contacts and ask them to do the same. And so on, and so on, and so on. We need to keep those phones ringing in DC all this week.
The aides basically just keep a running tally of the input that the Senator or Representative is getting, but if you want to go beyond the thumbs up or down level of comment, please avoid anything that can come off as NIMBY. When you talk to Democrats it may be OK to talk about how wind is victimizing innocent neighbors, is an energy tax on the poor, kills eagles and harms wildlife, etc., especially if you have personal experience with those issues. Otherwise, it’s best to stick to the key economic issues, which are listed toward the end of this email.
Here is the list of the key committee members that we need to call. A document containing this information is also attached for your convenience. Apologies in advance for the funky formatting but it just wouldn’t convert to plain text. If you have limited time, please call the Senators first. Please call the first number after the name and you will be connected. The second number is the fax and the last link is their online contact form. You can also access this information on Contact Congress Here!. Phone is the best, with fax and email tied for second. This will be the best 10-20 minutes you have ever spent fighting wind. If you call now you may never have to sit through another local hearing or county board meeting again. Thank you for all your hard work and support in working for smart energy solutions.
Industrial wind is a failed technology. After 20 years of tax breaks and billions of dollars in giveaways, this industry still provides a lousy 2-3% of our electricity. Even if its market share were to miraculously quintuple, it would still have such a tiny impact on our nation’s overall carbon emissions as to be laughable. Increasing our energy prices and/or imposing higher taxes encourages our manufacturers to move their plants overseas to nations with lower environmental standards. As a result, there is no way this industry will ever “save the planet.” A market-driven move toward natural gas would be far more “green,” both in terms of saving money AND the planet. Most of Europe has learned this the hard way. Spain just ENDED subsidies for wind.
There is no free lunch. American taxpayers and consumers are paying for this directly or indirectly. Forcing American consumers and industry to bear the brunt of higher energy costs in order to support mostly foreign corporations is particularly dangerous given the current economic slowdown. That money could be left in the hands of consumers who will stimulate our economy by buying goods they actually need. It could be left in the control of small business owners who will expand their businesses and create real jobs. Or it could be collected and used to retire billions of dollars’ worth of our toxic national debt. The government should not be picking winners and losers among energy sources by letting some of them off the hook for paying taxes. This is crony capitalism at its worst. All energy subsidies other than true research and development should be phased out as quickly as possible. We support HR 3308 in this regard.
The assertion that the PTC is a performance-based subsidy is a lie.
The tax credits will be sold to huge conglomerates before the wind turbines are even built, leaving behind empty, liability-ridden shell corporations. Meanwhile the highly profitable conglomerates who scoop up the PTCs at a discount will avoid paying taxes that should have gone into the national treasury.
The wind industry has never proven that it actually reduces carbon when added to the grid. Independent studies suggest it does not.
Wind kills more jobs than it creates. Independent studies from around the world confirm that subsidizing renewable energy results in a net loss of jobs.
Extending the PTC is throwing good money after bad. Astute investors believe that the wind industry will go under due to other market forces such as the glut of cheap natural gas (which provides better, greener energy), the soft economy, the Chinese monopoly on rare earths, and overwhelming competition from Asian manufacturers. Extending the PTC will only allow the wind companies to package and sell one last batch of highly discounted tax credits to their fat cat corporate partners.
We will never win “the race with China.” China can manufacture turbines and parts cheaper than we can for the same reasons it beats us in virtually every other manufacturing business. If we are dumb enough to try to “race with China,” we will lose because they buy at wholesale prices and we buy at retail prices with money we borrow from China and other foreign investors.
We need comprehensive tax reform, not more piecemeal tinkering. These PTCs will go on for 10-12 years after the subsidy is allowed to expire. Most of the money is going to China and foreign corporations. They PTC should be repealed now rather than allowed to do more damage to our economy. If you are thinking about using it as a bargaining chip, think again. The country would be better served if Congress worked together to pass positive, carefully-designed, comprehensive tax reforms that will truly benefit our economy nationwide.
The time has come to put the PTC to bed. Please vote AGAINST any extension of the PTC and support HR 3008. Thank you.Carolyn K. Gerwin - Illinois Wind Watch
Conference Committee Contacts Here
See below how it is incorporated in McHenry County's Mission Statement:
McHenry County's Mission Statement:
McHenry County Government is dedicated to providing the highest quality services for the health, safety, and welfare of the County’s residents and communities. We foster representative, and transparent government "to ensure social, economic and environmental justice." <--Since when is the function of government?
(This is a nice way for Marrxists to mask their global agenda)
What you can do...
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This just posted on the Drudge Report:
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More than 200 new laws, covering everything from local library boards to murder, will go into effect on January 1, according to State Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-24th). It seems Republicans write laws to protect the public. Democrats write laws to regulate the people.
The entire list of new laws can be found at Sen. Dillard’s legislative Web site.
Published December 28, 2011
President Obama keeps pushing for gun control. "I just want you to know that we are working on [gun control]. We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar,” President Obama told Sarah Brady, the former president of the Brady Campaign, this past spring.
His push as been quiet but relentless.
Just this past week Obama signaled that he was going to just ignore two new parts of the 2012 Omnibus Spending bill. Although he signed the spending bill into law, he simultaneously issued a so-called "signing statement," a note that presidents have started attaching to legislation stating how they interpret the law they are signing or whether they believe part of it is unconstitutional.
Obama’s statement claimed that Congress couldn’t put restrictions on how he wanted to spend to fund lobbying for gun control and the National Institute of Health studies of gun control.
But why should the federal government use taxpayer dollars to pay for lobbying?
Obama has had numerous false starts on gun control. Just in November, his administration moved to ban target practice on public lands, but the opposition was so swift and strong they immediately backtracked.
A couple of weeks ago the Obama administration suffered another embarrassment. It was discovered that the Obama administration oversaw the sale of guns to Mexican drug gangs in its Fast & Furious program to bolster statistics of guns crossing over to the border to these very drug gangs.
This scandal is quite incredible as the Obama administration ordered gun dealers to make sales to Mexican drug gangs against their wishes to help the administration’s push for more gun control. And this follows the revelation in July that the Obama administration had pushed federal agents involved in the Fast & Furious scandal to support gun control regulations during their congressional testimony.
It doesn’t help that the Obama administration started pushing these sales at the same time they wanted to bolster their case that America was supply illegal guns to Mexico backfired. All this undercut any justification for new regulations and destroyed any support that they might have had.
With 90 congressmen signing a "no confidence" resolution in Attorney General Eric Holder’s handling of “Fast & Furious,” last week Holder lashed out against his critics. “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American,” Holder told the New York Times. Holder seems unwilling to recognize the genuine outrages the administration’s gun-control agenda has produced.
Still the administration has successfully manage to push through gun control regulations in many, less visible ways: -- The Obama administration instituted a ban on importing "historic" semi-automatic rifles into the US. -- In sharp contrast to the Bush administration, President Obama strongly supports the UN Arms Trade Treaty even though he knows that any such treaty are unlikely to obtain the two-thirds vote in the Senate needed for ratification. What the regulations will do is lead to severe restrictions on private gun ownership around the world.
The administration instituted new rules on selling "high-powered rifles," defined as a caliber of greater than .22. -- The administration nominated Andrew Traver, someone who supports gun bans, as the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Obama has stuck by Traver despite his nomination being stalled in the Senate for a year and the fierce opposition it has generated.
Obama’s most lasting impact on gun control is likely to be through the federal court judges he appoints. His most visible appointments have been the gun-control advocates he has made to the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan headed up President Clinton’s push for gun control when she worked for his White House during the 1990s. And Justice Sonia Sotomayor has signed on to a Supreme Court opinion stating that there is no individual right to "private self-defense" with guns.
The pro-gun control views of Obama’s nominees have played a role the Senate filibustering of two Appeals Court nominees. Caitlin Joan Halligan was particularly controversial when nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit because she opposes an individual’s right to self defense and – even more damning -- she was one of the trial lawyers who had sued gun makers. Thus in New York v. Sturm & Ruger, she argued that gun makers should be liable for the criminal acts of third parties but not given any credit for the benefits from self-defense.
If elected to a second term, Obama will end up appointing over half the federal judges. That sure can make a big difference.
Most importantly, the Supreme Court is only one vote away from reversing the 5 to 4 decisions that so narrowly struck down the handgun bans in Chicago and the District of Columbia.
Two of the Justices who voted to strike down the bans, conservative Antonin Scalia and moderate Anthony Kennedy, will be well into their 80s during the next administration.
While a couple of Justices have made it to 90 while serving on the court, remember the rare glimpse into Obama’s views during the 2008 campaign when he referred to those “bitter” Americans who “cling to their guns, cling to their religion.”
It surely fits his earlier statement: “I don’t believe that people should be able to own guns.”
Yet, despite all this evidence of an anti-gun agenda, recent articles by the Associated Press and other news media paint Obama as a moderate on guns and as somebody who wants to "protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens” and merely support so-called “gun safety” measures.
Of course, they are wrong. Unfortunately, Obama’s patient “under the radar” campaign seems to be working. He is fundamentally changing the courts and leaving them much more hostile to gun ownership. If Americans catch on, this could still be a major issue in the 2012.
John R. Lott, Jr. is a FoxNews.com contributor. He is an economist and author of the third edition of "More Guns, Less Crime" (University of Chicago Press, 2010).
The Huffington Post Alexander Eichler First Posted: 12/29/11 05:43 PM ET Updated: 12/29/11 06:45 PM ET
Young people -- the collegiate and post-college crowd, who have served as the most visible face of the Occupy Wall Street movement -- might be getting more comfortable with socialism. That's the surprising result from a Pew Research Center poll that aims to measure American sentiments toward different political labels.
The poll, published Wednesday, found that while Americans overall tend to oppose socialism by a strong margin -- 60 percent say they have a negative view of it, versus just 31 percent who say they have a positive view -- socialism has more fans than opponents among the 18-29 crowd. Forty-nine percent of people in that age bracket say they have a positive view of socialism; only 43 percent say they have a negative view.
And while those numbers aren't very far apart, it's noteworthy that they were reversed just 20 months ago, when Pew conducted a similar poll. In that survey, published May 2010, 43 percent of people age 18-29 said they had a positive view of socialism, and 49 percent said their opinion was negative.
It's not clear why young people have evidently begun to change their thinking on socialism. In the past several years, the poor economy has had any number of effects on young adults -- keeping them at home with their parents, making it difficult for them to get jobs, and likely depressing their earning potential for years to come -- that might have dampened enthusiasm for the free market among this crowd.
Indeed, the Pew poll also found that just 46 percent of people age 18-29 have positive views of capitalism, and 47 percent have negative views -- making this the only age group where support for socialism outweighs support for capitalism.
Young people have also been among the most involved in the nationwide Occupy movement, whose members have leveled pointed criticism at the capitalist ethos and often called for a more equal distribution of American wealth.
In general, income inequality -- which a Congressional Budget Office report recently pointed out is at historic levels -- has received more and more attention in politics and the media since the Occupy movement launched in mid-September. Usage of the term rose dramatically in news coverage following the start of the protests, and politicians from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to President Barack Obama have used the movement's language to describe divisions in the American public.
Still, the nationwide Occupy demonstrations notwithstanding, socialism doesn't score very well in other age groups in the Pew poll, or across other demographic categories.
Pew broke down its results by age, race, income and political affiliation, as well as support for the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements. There were only two other groups among whom socialism's positives outweighed its negatives -- blacks, who say they favor socialism 55 to 36 percent, and liberal Democrats, who say they favor socialism 59 to 39 percent. These were also the only two groups to show net favor for socialism in the 2010 poll.
