As goes Energy, so goes the country.

“The worse, the better,” Vladimir Lenin is said to have observed. What Lenin meant was that the worse social conditions became in Russia, the more likely he and the Bolsheviks could foment a communist revolution. President Barrack Obama’s White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel recently updated Lenin’s maxim, saying, “Never allow a crisis to go to waste.”Last Friday, the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives took those maxims to heart when they pushed through their 1,200-page American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act by a vote 219 to 212. The bill is supposed to address the twin crises of economic recession and climate change by creating millions of new “green” jobs. Instead of an old-fashioned Soviet-style five-year plan, ACES can be thought of as 50-year plan to radically transform how Americans produce and use energy.

…Well, look, Ron Bailey, this entire administration seems to me to emulate the tactics of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, in all things, not just energy… and in my view we’ve not seen nearly the worst of it yet. (A Depressing thought as we come to July 4th, isn’t it?)

So why should Energy be any different? Energy, after all, is the key to our country and it’s prosperity. Which of course was why I raised such holy hell when the first thing Obama did upon being sworn in was to reverse President Bush’s sign off on offshore drilling. That action is the major reason oil prices have better than doubled in the last 6 months.

The question that Ron asks, though, seems to me pertinent:

Will Americans tolerate such sweeping interventions into their lives and workplaces?

…

The 1994 mid-term election became a referendum on [...]

To begin with, let’s get a snip of this morning’s op-ed up on National Review:

Arlen Specter belongs to a type familiar to Congress: the time-serving hack devoid of any principle save arrogance. He has spent three decades in the Senate but is associated with no great cause, no prescient warning, no landmark legislation. Yet he imagines that the Senate needs his wisdom and judgment for a sixth term. He joined the Republican party out of expediency in the 1960s, and leaves it out of expediency this week.

Indeed. At the end of the day,what we have here is the second in a line of what will be many ‘victims’ of what are now being called the Tea Party protests. The first, I think, was John McCain.

Now, you’re going to be hearing, over the next weeks and months between now and the mid-term elections, how the supposed GOP swing to the extreme right has cost the Republicans the 2008 election. These charges have come from such as Lindsay Graham and Ramesh Ponnuru, among others, and of course from staunch Democrats, who it would appear are simply pulling themselves up on any available handhold. Specter, in particular blames that factor on his leaving the party. But it’s not so. In truth, the movement of the party for the time that Specter has been in office, has been to the left… The exception… Reagan.. being their wildest success. That leftward march since Reagan has damaged the party, and the country and culminated in the GOP losses in 2008. The Tea Parties have been a [...]

Bruce McQuain, this morning at Q&Q:

Well there’s an agreement on the Generational Theft Act of 2009. The squishy middle has capitulated.

As expected, just enough Republicans have signed on to ensure its passage. Names?

Specter for one:

Specter said Friday night that action was “very necessary,” and this bill, though not perfect, is better than inaction.

“I think no one could argue with the fact that the situation would be much worse without this bill,” Specter said at a news conference.

And of course, Susan Collins is the other (and Olympia Snowe is also reportedly going to vote for it). Voinavich and Martinez bailed. They’ll give this the veneer of bi-partisan legitimacy.

Which, doubtless, will be endlessly touted by the Democrats over the following two years. And, forever, for that matter, each time the amount of debt incurred by this mess turns up as a discussion point on online venues, or talking head programs.

The problem is obvious; it is what Bruce describes as the “squishy middle” . I’ve been telling you people for nearly a decade now that it is the centrists among us that are going to kill us off as a nation. If this [...]

Here we are! 2009! What can we say?

2008 is gone and I think we’re all grateful for that. Republicans had their hats handed to them, although Conservatives fared pretty well. And there’s the difference. Moderate Republicanism is indistinguishable from the Democrats. If Republicans want to regain their stature in Washington and the state houses across America, they need to do it at the grass roots level and they need to return to Conservative values. Barack Obama is the President-elect not because of his microscopic resume, or because of the political cesspool he climbed out of, or the message of change and hope, because he represents neither. He won the national election because the Republican candidate was a moderate with a poorly-crafted message, and so since the two were indistinguishable, people chose the candidate that was younger, better-looking, and articulate. We can’t do that again.

After 18 months of the media (and Obama) telling us [...]

The Wall Street Journal states the bloody obvious:

According to recent Gallup polls, the president’s average approval rating is below 30% — down from his 90% approval in the wake of 9/11. Mr. Bush has endured relentless attacks from the left while facing abandonment from the right.

This is the price Mr. Bush is paying for trying to work with both Democrats and Republicans. During his 2004 victory speech, the president reached out to voters who supported his opponent, John Kerry, and said, “Today, I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust.”

Those bipartisan efforts have been met with crushing resistance from both political parties.

Rejected from the Democrats because that’s what the Democrats do. Reach out to them, they’ll break your arm… as Bush Sr found out. Remember[...]

Thursday morning’s Wall Street Journal featured an opinion piece from Karl Rove titled “The GOP Must Stand for Something“.  The piece is well focused on the most critical battleground we face this year: Congressional seats.
In the midst of watching the melee within the Democratic Party, the scant attacks by the MSM against McCain, and the [...]

What a day. I’m sorry, but politically, not one that I’m proud of:
1) Alphonso Jackson resigns as HUD secretary (effective April 18). Few doubt there is something to allegations of favoritism. See my previous posting on the temptations of power.
2) Henry Paulson presents a plan to overhaul the Fed that is not [...]

This had been a disconcerting election year so far, and certainly we still have a long road ahead, but the state of the Democratic Party, and the latest Gallup Poll, are giving me reason to smile today.
Democrats really don’t know what they want any longer.  They’ve found themselves stuck with either a chronic liar, or [...]

Today we got to see some of the substance of Barack Obama’s plan for solving the current economic crisis.  Both Reuters and the Wall Street Journal have good write-ups.
Obama’s approach includes:

More power to the Federal Reserve over non-bank investment firms that borrow from the central bank
A ‘financial oversight commission”
$30 billion in aid for financially stressed [...]

Joe Lieberman, Independent Senator from Connecticut (although, oh, he does still caucus with the Democrats in the Senate) explains his position supporting John McCain today in the Stamford Advocate. Lieberman says McCain is “really a reformer” who is not bogged down by partisan politics.
You’ll recall that in January Lieberman and McCain co-authored a well-written [...]