EPA Deception Exposed, Energy Prices Dropping, NY Times Panics

Barney Brenner / Townhall Columnist

The Sunday Times headline smacked of conspiracy and governmental corruption: “Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General.” The firms and the AGs have valid concerns that the EPA is grossly overestimating air pollution caused by energy companies order to place even more restrictions on US energy drilling and production.

The Times fretted instead that a complaint letter sent to Washington by the Oklahoma AG was drafted by industry lawyers. No insight from the article whether the letter was truthful or accurate. (The AG had edited the letter and made appropriate changes, but it was so well-researched and written, few were needed.)

And it takes some searching of the article’s internal links to get to the text of the letter. Readers who did would find it damaging not to the targets of the article but to the EPA. Judging from the 1500+ comments, few bothered.

Citizens, taxpayers and energy users (meaning all of us) should be cheering that there’s a new sheriff in town, actually a posse of attorneys general, who have the power to stand up against the overreach of Obama’s EPA.

In 2008, Obama famously declared war on coal. We now have more insight into his frack-attack: concerns in the letter were damning. Under Obama, the EPA changed its methods for measuring emissions to show 35 times as much discharge from conventional gas wells. For frack wells they multiplied prior results by 8850.

But wait, there’s more! Factor in multiple incorrect assumptions about how those emissions are managed and you get results which can fairly be trusted by no one. The obvious questions are, “Which of the wildly divergent estimates are correct, if either, and if the EPA can be so inaccurate in its assessments, how can we believe anything they say?”

In fact, the EPA has a history of playing fast and loose with facts in order to promote its current eco-fascist agenda. (For anyone bristling at that label, harsh socioeconomic and political control over industry and the livelihoods of citizens defines fascism. Throw in some environmental hysteria and the portrayal is complete.)

U.N. Expert: In Wake of Intel Report, Let's Prosecute Bush-era Criminals

Daniel Doherty / Townhall Tipsheet

 

According to skeptics, there are several problems with the Senate Intelligence report released earlier today. First of all, Republicans declined to partake in the investigation. This raises eyebrows right off the bat. Second, the timing of the report's release was influenced by politics. Third, "no CIA officers” were reportedly interviewed about their involvement in extracting information from detainees. 

 

And lastly, the report is heavily redacted and therefore the names of CIA operatives allegedly involved in the program are not publicly known. 

 

All that notwithstanding, a “U.N. Human rights expert” wants to see someone in the Bush administration held accountable:

A U.N. human rights expert said a report that the U.S. Senate released on Tuesday revealed a "clear policy orchestrated at a high level within the Bush administration" and called for prosecution of U.S. officials who ordered crimes, including torture, against detainees. Ben Emmerson, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, said senior Bush administration officials who planned and authorized crimes must be prosecuted, along with as CIA and other U.S. government officials who committed torture such as waterboarding. 

"As a matter of international law, the U.S. is legally obliged to bring those responsible to justice," Emmerson said in a statement issued in Geneva. "The U.S. Attorney General is under a legal duty to bring criminal charges against those responsible." The CIA routinely misled the White House and Congress over its harsh interrogation program for terrorism suspects, and its methods, which included waterboarding, were more brutal than the agency acknowledged, a Senate report said on Tuesday.

Perhaps. But will he? In a word, no:

The release of the Senate report on CIA interrogation techniques prompted the Justice Department to say that it stands by its decision not to bring criminal charges after its own probe five years ago. "That review generated two criminal investigations, but the Department of Justice ultimately declined those cases for prosecution, because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain convictions beyond a reasonable doubt," the agency said in a statement Tuesday.

Torturing America: The Democrats Join the Jihad — Islamic State, Muslim Fighters, Twitterati promise revenge over US torture report

Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

The left ratcheted up its unceasing war on America and took it to a whole other level today. America’s fifth column.

The release of the torture report was unnecessary and uneventful. Big yawn. The savages who attacked this country were more sleep-deprived than originally thought? Awww. Fed rectally? Awww.

More than 3 were waterboarded? Awww.

They lived when they should have faced a firing squad.

If the 2,997 souls that were murdered on 911 were given a choice between sleep deprivation or waterboarding as opposed to the choice they were given — facing the blistering fire of the massive fuel tanks of a Boeing 767–222 or jumping 100 floors to their certain death, I can say with absolute certainly that they would have chosen...

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Poll: 80% of “Palestinians” support jihad terror attacks on Israeli civilians

By Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

 

They’re approving of hit-and-run attacks on Israeli civilians, and of stabbing whole families to death in the homes in the middle of the night. They’re glorifying and celebrating savagery. Just don’t call it that, you racist, bigoted Islamophobe. “Poll shows strong Palestinian support for attacks,” The Associated Press, December 9, 2014:

JERUSALEM (AP) — An overwhelming majority of Palestinians support a recent spate of attacks on Israelis amid heightened tensions over the most sensitive holy site in Jerusalem, according to an opinion poll released Tuesday.

The poll also found that more than half of Palestinians support a new uprising against Israel, and that the Hamas militant group would win presidential elections if they were held today.

Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki said the results reflected Palestinian anger over Israeli statements about the Jerusalem holy site, which is revered by Jews and Muslims, as well as a loss of hope following the collapse of U.S.-brokered peace talks and Israel’s recent war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research interviewed 1,270 people in the West Bank and Gaza last week. The poll had an error margin of 3 percentage points.

“There is an environment in which violence is becoming a dominant issue,” said Shikaki.

“This seems to be one of the most important driving forces.”

There has been a spate of attacks in Jerusalem over the past month and a half, at a time of rising tensions over the contested holy site, revered by Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount.

Prominent members of Israel’s government have become more vocal in recent months about demands that Jews be allowed to pray at the Muslim-run site, which is home to the Al Aqsa Mosque and iconic Dome of the Rock.

Many Palestinians fear this is a pretext for a gradual Jewish takeover — a claim Israel denies.

The poll found 86 percent of respondents believe the shrine is in grave danger from Israel. It said 80 percent supported individual attacks by Palestinians who have stabbed Israelis or rammed cars into crowded train stations….

NEWSMAX

Reagan Adviser David Stockman: Towering Federal Debt Is Hidden in a 'Roach Motel'

By John Morgan

David Stockman, White House budget chief under President Reagan, notes it took the United States 205 years to reach $1 trillion in debt, but only 33 more years to get to the current $18 trillion debt mountain. And he says things are about to get worse.

In Stockman's recollection, the stage for today's fiscal irresponsibility in Washington, D.C. was set in the 1980s, when Congress finagled to show delayed revenue gains from tax increases and a massive payroll tax was buried in a Social Security rescue plan.

"Thereafter, Social security and Medicare entitlement reform was off the table due to the trick of the front-loaded payroll tax increase," he wrote on his Contra Corner blog.

"Likewise, the White House took any further tax increases or defense cuts off the table in January 1985. The spending-cut weary politicians of both parties, in turn, were more than happy to oblige by shelving any further meaningful domestic spending reductions, as well.

"So in 1985, fiscal policy went on automatic pilot — where it has more or less languished ever since."

Stockman estimated today's federal debt amounts to 106 percent of GDP, and when state and local debt is factored in, total government debt is 120 percent of GDP – a load that would put many Americans in a homeless shelter if they owed it money on an individual basis.

In his view, what makes today's titanic debt burden possible is concerted action by the Federal Reserve and other central banks to create massive credit expansion and the fact the Fed sells Treasurys to other countries.

"That convoy of money printers generated large but dangerous central bank 'vaults' where Uncle Sam's debt has been temporarily sequestered," Stockman noted.

"It was the equivalent of a monetary roach motel: the bonds went in, but they never came out."

In Stockman's view, the massive monetization of the public debt cannot go on much longer or the global monetary system will be destroyed.

He believes the rosy scenario currently projected by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for 4 percent GDP growth in coming years is ridiculously optimistic and "does not have a snowball's chance of materializing over the next decade. Rather than $8 trillion of cumulative baseline deficits over the next 10 years as projected by CBO, the current policy stalemate in Washington — that has been running for 30 years now — will generate at least $15 trillion of new public debt in the decade ahead."

When that new debt is added to the current $18 trillion hole the nation has dug itself, the mountain of public debt will hit $33 trillion in 10 years, he wrote. At that point, Stockman estimates America's public debt will total a whopping 140 percent of GDP.

The federal debt has risen 70 percent under President Obama, and when it hit $18 trillion last week, it meant that each household in the U.S. now carries the burden of $124,000 in national debt alone — or $56,378 per individual, according to GoldCore's Mark O'Byrne.

"This does not include the massive private debt or household debt burden – people's mortgages, personal loans, credit card debt, student loans, car loans and other household debt," he wrote.

RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS...LIVE...TODAY

Today, Wednesday, December 10th, on RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS from 2 to 4pm EST on CPR Worldwide Media, Craig and Diane will discuss the release of the CIA report just to make the 'alphabets' happy, the USA becoming the world's #2 economy, and Jonathan Gruber testifying before the House Committee on ObamaCare.

Hope you can join us...http://cprworldwidemedia.com/live-radio/
and chat with live shows at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/cprworldwidemedia/

Op-ed: 
It's Still All About the Economy and Jobs
By: Diane Sori

As our national debt officially crossed the 18 trillion dollar mark a week or so ago, another sad reality has become fact for as 2014 ends our beloved America has now and possibly forever lost its claim as the world’s largest economic super power. China will enter center stage in 2015 as number one and will likely remain number one for a very, very, long time...if NOT forever.

Another sad reminder of an administration run amok.

And all this happened while we've been media 'spoon-fed,' amongst other things, a fabricated 'for profit' race war scenario initiated by the likes of Barack HUSSEIN Obama and crew...'spoon-fed' to keep us from focusing on a situation that could have serious economic ramifications for generations to come as it directly affects the still dismal job numbers. According to the Economic Policy Institute, we are losing half a million jobs to China every year, hence we do NOT produce as much as we used to because the workforce to do so is simply NOT there. And this wake-up call to kick-start our economy was indeed sounded in time to reverse this downward trend but was ignored by the man occupying the White House, showing once again his true intention to economically implode America from within. And this dropping to number two is especially troublesome at this point in time...at a time when the world is as volatile a place as it is...because history has proven time and again that political and military power has always depended upon and been tied into a country's economic strength and political stability.

And right now thanks to Obama's failed politics and policies we have neither the economic strength nor the political stability to hold that coveted top economic position. And know that Obama knew back in 2011 that China's economy was already 87% of ours...and yet he did NOTHING to move our economic recovery forward beyond that of a mere crawl. And that was in addition to the Democrats wanting to raise our already highest corporate tax rate of any nation.

And that is one first place position that NO nation wants to be in if it's serious in wanting companies to do or emanate business from within their country.

So as I said NOTHING of substance has been done as our national debt increased to reach an absolutely mind-boggling $18 trillion and counting (and NEVER forget that during Obama's first term the federal government accumulated more debt than it did under the first 42 U.S presidents combined). And lest we forget that in 2011...for the first time since 1941...we lost our top-tier AAA-credit rating (which raised borrowing costs for the U.S. government, companies, and consumers) under this man's lack of stewardship (S&P had called for $4 trillion in fiscal savings as an acceptable 'down payment' for fixing America's finances and retain our AAA rating while Obama offered to reduce the deficit by only $2.1 trillion over 10 years), in addition to the fact that the U.S. has fallen in the all-important global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.

And now as if rubbing salt into an open wound, last week The International Monetary Fund released the newest numbers for the world economy and we...the greatest nation the world has ever known...did indeed officially drop to number two. And while just a decade ago the U.S. produced nearly three times as many goods and services as China, now its China...communist China...who last year had already surpassed us in terms of global trade...who now surpasses us in actual producing power...producing power to the tune of China garnering $17.6 trillion this year as opposed to $17.4 trillion for the U.S.

And this figure translates into China accounting for 16.5% of the global economy when measured in 'real purchasing-power' (the number of goods or services that can be purchased with a unit of currency), as opposed to our 16.3% of 'real purchasing power'. And China accomplished this by bringing their gross domestic product calculations in line with international standards as Obama looked away, ignoring the warnings of his economic advisers that this could indeed happen. In fact, at the beginning of this year before it became reality, the World Bank’s International Comparison Program came out with new numbers of their own showing that China would become the world’s largest economy much sooner than the 2019 date that was originally projected...much sooner thanks to the Obama stagnating U.S. economic recovery with its declining buying power combined with the fact that the U.S. does NOT produce as much as it once did.

And sadly, that sooner has indeed come to pass as our economy...the world's largest since 1872 when it overtook the economy of Great Britain...slips to number two. But like the old TV commercials where Avis tries harder and overtakes Hertz in the car rental business, try as we might it will most likely now be impossible to overtake China's ever-growing, ever expanding economy coupled with its industrial growth.

By using calculations to come up with estimates based on the economic measure known as 'purchasing-power parity' (PPP)...the real way of comparing economies as it's a system which measures and compares actual monetary output as opposed to fluctuations in international exchange rates of chosen countries...and when you add in the much cheaper cost of living in China...figures show that China did indeed bound ahead of our once and always thought would be number one economy.

And guess who's number three and moving ever closer to the U.S entering 2015 according to the World Bank rankings...India...as our neighbor to the north...once in the top tier Canada...moves down to 15th place. Canada used to have a top-10 economy, thus securing membership in the G7, but a number of developing countries have moved ahead of them in recent years, including Brazil (#8), South Korea (#12), Japan (#4), and the afore mentioned India NOT to mention Vladimir Putin's Russia (#6) as well.

The Russian Bear and Russia itself might indeed get the last laugh both as a super-power and as an economic force to reckoned with as long as Obama is the president of the U.S.

But the question that must be answered knowing all the numbers and facts stated is can we...the United States of America...ever regain our position as the world's top economy. I believe it will be hard...very hard...but that we can do it if a number of things are done. First, taxes must be lowered...as in initiating flat-rate taxes...which in turn will promote positive economic growth and allow for jobs to be created. Then, the federal government must show major restraint in spending and start to pay down our current out-of-control debt, followed with accruing treasure to back our dollar so that it remains strong. Lastly, free trade must be encouraged with the current regulations placed on companies...both foreign and domestic...being pared down and held to a bare minimum because many revenue generating job creating companies...both large and small...are being over regulated right out of business.

And lest we forget the most important factor in gaining back our number one economic status...Barack HUSSEIN Obama must be led out of the White House in handcuffs... need I say more. 
______________________________________________________________


Today, Wednesday, December 10th, on RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS from 2 to 4pm EST on CPR Worldwide Media, Craig and Diane will discuss the release of the CIA report just to make the 'alphabets' happy, the USA becoming the world's #2 economy, and Jonathan Gruber testifying before the House Committee on ObamaCare.

Hope you can join us...http://cprworldwidemedia.com/live-radio/
and chat with live shows at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/cprworldwidemedia/