The Greenpocrisy of Congress: Canceling ‘Carbon Offset’ Buys for Congress’ Power Plant

-By Warner Todd Huston

Go “green” or go out of business. That is the message Congress wants to send to America’s power plants run by coal — and any and every other power facility for that matter. Congressmen after Congressmen have waddled forth onto TV and into print to wag a green finger at our power grid scolding it for being “too dirty” and not environmentally friendly. These politicians, you see, know better and they must be listened to. After all, they are trying to save the planet!

And to show how the folks walking the marbled halls of the nation’s capitol care about the environment they are canceling the buying of so-called “carbon offsets” and announcing that they are abandoning efforts to further “green” the aging coal powered power plant that keeps the lights on, cools its halls, and heats Congress in the summer.

Yes, while they are attempting to force the lowly, great-unwashed people of the country to “go green,” they themselves are abandoning their own efforts to do so. The folks of the Democrat controlled Congress are nothing short of green hypocrites, see them at their greenpocrisy.

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The Greenpocrisy of Congress: Canceling ‘Carbon Offset’ Buys for Congress’ Power Plant”


Adam Kinzinger For Illinois 11th — Hero, Patriot

-By Warner Todd Huston

Captain Adam Kinzinger, 30, officer in the Air National Guard, was enjoying a night on the town in Milwaukee in May of 2007 when he saw before him a woman clutching her neck and bleeding profusely, a man with a knife standing behind her. Acting quickly, then Lt. Kinzinger subdued the man and stopped any further harm from coming to the unknown woman.

Others also came to his aid to keep the attacker subdued and still others whisked the injured woman off to a local hospital for treatment. It is reported to have taken about 100 stitches to close the wound. The attacker is in jail awaiting trial for the assault.

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Adam Kinzinger For Illinois 11th — Hero, Patriot”


An Internet Economy or “Ecommony?” Growing pushback against ‘Information wants to be free’

-By Scott Cleland

The recession has created new urgency for multiple content industries to find a better way to protect and monetize their property/content in the digital world. The dot-com bubble ethos that “information wants to be free” is like a gross mold destroying the incentives to create valuable content and distribute it digitally. (Be sure not to miss the shocking analysis at the end of this e-mail comparing revenue generation per user in the digital “ecommony” versus the real economy.)

The first point of this e-mail is to connect-the-dots about why several content industries are currently in the news, actively pushing back against the “ecommony” anti-business model, where content owners are expected to essentially give away their valuable content to the open Internet/digital commons without the requirement of permission or payment.
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An Internet Economy or “Ecommony?” Growing pushback against ‘Information wants to be free’”


‘Oh, God!’ It’s Bobby Jindal!

-By Frank Salvato

It is no secret that today’s mainstream media has morphed into an ideological and agenda-driven propaganda machine, complete with preconceived notions and pre-existing biases. We witnessed the repercussions of this ethical degradation first-hand in the mainstream media’s failure to critically examine the Obama presidential candidacy prior to the 2008 Presidential Election. This bastardization of the media’s informational charge can only be understood as being detrimental to the United States.

Recent episodes involving Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews illustrate precisely how the mainstream media is leading the intolerance movement and why their actions serve to divide our country.
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‘Oh, God!’ It’s Bobby Jindal!”


ABC News: Conservatives Are Biggest Porn Consumers?

-By Warner Todd Huston

ABC News is excited about porn. At least excited by the “fact” that conservative and religious states have the highest levels of porn usage in the country. This, ABC says, is according to a study by Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School. Yes, it’s another one of those dime-a-dozen studies.

ABC trumpets the bare “facts” in its February 28 piece titled, “Porn in the USA: Conservatives Are Biggest Consumers.” In its first few paragraphs the report claims that, “Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious” than states in the more liberal areas of the country. But there is a problem with ABC’s heavy-handed claim. Even the Harvard researcher doesn’t put too much emphasis on the “conservative states” aspect because his data doesn’t show a very wide gulf between states, conservative or not.

In fact, professor Edelman takes pains to say, “When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different.” This tends to relay that the rates from state to state really aren’t that notable. Edelman also says later in the piece that, “The differences here are not so stark,” where it concerns the data he compiled.

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ABC News: Conservatives Are Biggest Porn Consumers?”


More on Where Our Schools go Wrong

-By Warner Todd Huston

U.S. colleges are demanding. That’s right they are sternly demanding. You see, they are all upset that the Japanese government is not promoting study abroad for its citizens and they are demanding that the Japanese government get more of its citizens to pony up the cash for a U.S. college degree and if the people won’t do it, why these U.S. colleges demand that the government do it in their stead.

And this demand proves once again just how unAmerican U.S. colleges are.

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More on Where Our Schools go Wrong”


MSNBC Headline Focuses on ‘Assault Rifle’ in Killing — No Other AP Headlines Do

-By Warner Todd Huston

MSNBC took the occasion of a triple homicide on Chicago’s south side to push its own anti-“assault rifle” meme on February 27 by including the words “assault rifle” in the headline of its story on the incident. No other media source, however, took this unusual step. So, here we have some old fashioned bias by MSNBC.

MSNBC’s version of the story clumsily screams “Man charged in assault rifle killings of 3 teens” over the top of its AP wire feed. Yet, while every story in the news and certainly every AP story mentions that the killer used an “assault rifle,” only MSNBC put the words in the headline. This befits MSNBC’s anti-gun agenda, presumably.

It is well known that many news outlets write their own headlines for AP wire stories. Not every paper, TV station or radio website does this, of course, but it does happen frequently. So, it is no surprise to see the MSNBC website with a different headline than other versions of the same AP wire story. However, no other story has “assault rifle” in the headline but MSNBC.

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MSNBC Headline Focuses on ‘Assault Rifle’ in Killing — No Other AP Headlines Do”


In Defense of the White Man

-By Selwyn Duke

While many believe that prejudice has diminished over time, it’s not really true. Prejudice is much like the wind: Its direction changes, and the sheltered and well-situated may not sense it, but it’s always blowing on some people somewhere. Put literally, every age has its fashionable biases – and unfashionable people.

This was obvious during the presidential inauguration benediction, given by the Reverend Joseph Lowery. While making a supplication to the Lord, he made the following anachronistic plea:
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In Defense of the White Man”


Publius Podcast: The Battle Hymn of the Republic — A Fantastic School Concert

-By Warner Todd Huston

You’ve just got to hear this great effort of some school bands and choruses doing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. It is inspiring.

It can be found on greatdanepromilitary.com and had it recommended to me by my friend Paul Young at prying1.blogspot.com.

Take a listen to this fantastic arrangement…

Feel free to visit the Publius Forum TalkShoe page to see my past podcasts. New podcasts appear approximately monthly, or whenever the mood strikes me to do one.


Stop Illinois from Adopting California’s Destructive Fuel Standards

-By Warner Todd Huston

California has always been a destructive force in American politics. All too often the worst ideas from the farthest Euro-left spectrum have leaked out of the Golden State to blight the rest of America. Just one of those currently destructive ideas is the absurdly stringent fuel economy standards that California has foolishly enacted. Several western states have pegged their standards to California’s and many other states are attempting to do the same. The current effort in Illinois is one of those attempts.

Illinois H.B. 422 (see .pdf of legislation), sponsored by Karen May (D, Highland Park) creates the Illinois Clean Air Act establishing new motor vehicle emission standards based on California’s Low Emission Vehicle Program requirements.

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Stop Illinois from Adopting California’s Destructive Fuel Standards”


SanFran Chron Columnist: Obama is ‘Articulate, Zen-like, Brave,’ There’s ‘Obamafied Bliss’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mark Morford out does himself with sycophantic, hyperbole over his Obammessiah, today, February 27. He so revels in hero worship for The One, it’s amazing that the White House doesn’t feel compelled to get an order of protection against this creepy columnist.

No one in the Old Media is more sold on The One and less credible for his girlish crush than Morford. He is a fount of mush as he wonders if he should be scared of today’s problems or suffused with lust in his heart for Obama (if you’ll remember the Carterism).

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SanFran Chron Columnist: Obama is ‘Articulate, Zen-like, Brave,’ There’s ‘Obamafied Bliss’”


Neutralism: Identifying the ideology behind net neutrality —

-By Scott Cleland

Where did the net neutrality issue come from? And why is it such a persistent issue? In researching answers to these important questions, I came across a key quote by Yale Professor Yochai Benkler in his 2006 book “Wealth of Networks”:

“There was a moment…in 2001, when a range of people who were doing similar things … seemed to cohere into a single intellectual movement, centered on the importance of the commons to information production and creativity in general, and to the digitally networked environment in particular.”
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Neutralism: Identifying the ideology behind net neutrality —”


Paul Harvey, Good Day and Goodbye

-By Warner Todd Huston

Paul Harvey is gone. Harvey was a giant in the industry of radio broadcasting but he was a singularly different sort of news reporter. In a day when the goal of every other broadcaster seems to be to dive straight to the lowest common denominator, to celebrate to low born and venal, Harvey’s was always to uplift the listener and to celebrate the greatness of America.

With his easily parodied style, his was a distinctive voice. He was from a time when the sound was important, the delivery the thing. And deliver he did. His well used pause and distinctive cadence was so entirely compelling that one simply could not turn away.

But it wasn’t only the style and sound that interested Harvey. It was the content.

Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story” segments always, always told the story of some man or woman that struggled hard through life until they found that one thing that brought them fame, fortune or adulation. Harvey meant these stories to give us all hope. His guiding principle was that “tomorrow is always better than today.”

Paul Harvey, gone at 90. He will be missed and we will wait a long, long time to see his like again… if we ever do.

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Paul Harvey, Good Day and Goodbye”


Publius Podcast: Why I Want Obama to Fail

-By Warner Todd Huston

This is a reading of my op ed from a month ago on why I want Obama to fail, the next Publius Forum podcast. Enjoy…

Feel free to visit the Publius Forum TalkShoe page to see my past podcasts. New podcasts appear approximately monthly, or whenever the mood strikes me to do one.


Lib Talker Malloy And a Racist Spoof: Jindal As Computer Tech from India

-By Warner Todd Huston

Our friends over at Radio Equalizer caught liberal radio talker Mike Malloy in a bit of hypocrisy. Malloy obviously thought his wife was a scream as she pretended to be Governor Bobby Jindal portraying him as an outsourced computer tech from India replete with cutsey faux Indian accent. Malloy’s wife acted as if Jindal was the Simpson’s character Apu, or something.
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Lib Talker Malloy And a Racist Spoof: Jindal As Computer Tech from India”


A Reminder of What Jindal’s Made of

-By Warner Todd Huston

We all saw the rocky performance that Bobby Jindal gave in his response to the president’s not-the-state-of-the-union speech earlier this week. There was a lot of wincing going on during and after his performance. But, let me stress the word “performance,” here. It was NOT the basic theme of the speech that was so bad. It was but how he delivered it.

Still, despite his less than show-stopping performance, a lot of second guessing on Jindal started to waft about conservative circles. The “he’s not ready yet” stuff was everywhere. So, we need to remind ourselves of just what sort of stuff Governor Jindal is made of. That reminder comes in the form of his reaction and efforts during Hurricane Katrina. If you want a show-stopping performance, there you have one.

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A Reminder of What Jindal’s Made of”


Update: Unelected Ill. GOP Committeemen Stall Effort for Free Elections

-By Warner Todd Huston

And the effort to prevent the people’s vote by Republican insiders jealous of their unaccountable positions rolls ever onward in Illinois, the most corrupt state in the union.

Earlier in the week I wrote about the regrettable system in Illinois that governs the selection of members of the central committee of the Illinois Republican Party, the group that runs the state party. I reported on the singular fact that the rank and file membership of the GOP cannot elect their leaders and that these committee members, the people that plan every move the party makes, are selected by back room deal making among local committeemen, ward bosses and precinct captains, etc.

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Update: Unelected Ill. GOP Committeemen Stall Effort for Free Elections”


Union Prez: GOP ‘Fomenting Rebellion’ In Military Against Obama

-By Warner Todd Huston

Ron Moore, AFL-CIO local president and Examiner writer, absurdly and irresponsibly claimed on February 25 that “the Republican Party” is trying to “foment rebellion” inside the U.S. military against President Obama. This is exactly the sort of irresponsible charges that the left loves to throw around to create fear and loathing, sadly.

Moore bases the untruths in his headlined, “Is the Republican Party fomenting rebellion among the armed forces as a political tactic?,” on the fact that individuals that happen to be Republicans — or once were — are still pursuing the Obama birth certificate issue. But he takes that extra untenable step to say that these few people represent “the Republican Party.”

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Union Prez: GOP ‘Fomenting Rebellion’ In Military Against Obama”


Unions a-Hatin’ on Unions

-By Warner Todd Huston

Ben Smith of Politico reports on some interesting union-on-union hatin’ this week.

HERE responds: ‘Tactics of anti-union bosses’

A official in the the HERE wing of the feuding UNITE HERE union responded just now to mailings from the union’s other wing casting its leaders as examples of labor corruption.

“This is an example of Bruce Raynor’s take-no-prisoners tactics,” the official, Pilar Weiss, told me, referring to UNITE HERE’s president. “They are no different from the the mail from the most anti-union employers.”

Weiss dismissed a UNITE leader’s charge that HERE has a history of corruption — such questions were “way in our past,” she said, and raised questions about spending at UNITE and the Amalgamated Bank, which it controls.

“It’s disappointing that people who call themselves labor leaders would resort to the tactics of anti-union bosses,” she said.

One footnote on the wider ramifications of the battle: Weiss said a prominent labor operative, Steve Rosenthal, had been running the campaign, and Rosenthal confirmed in an email that he’s an advisor to Raynor. Rosenthal is also a close advisor to SEIU President Andy Stern, who backs Raynor’s call for splitting the union.

The last bit, the “footnote,” is of special interest. Here we see again the heavy handed, take no prisoners version of SEIU President Andy Stern’s brand of unionization.

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Unions a-Hatin’ on Unions”


The Pendulum Swings

-By Marie Jon’

There are people who have many misconceptions of Christianity. Some believe it is a heavy weight of do’s and don’ts piled upon one’s shoulders. Others believe that it’s an “if you sin, you’ll go to hell” doctrine.

Some believe that preachers are only in the pulpit to make money. There is the proverbial lie that God is always watching to catch you when you make a mistake, and there’s the pesky inconvenience of attending church in the first place.

The human mind can create a list of impossible expectations that lead to fear and a spiritual disconnect of hopelessness. Eventually, people who feel this way close their Bibles and never darken the doors of a church. They make the decision simply not to believe in God anymore.

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The Pendulum Swings”


What Will Obama’s Budget Cost You? $25,573.48… EACH!

-By Warner Todd Huston

Obama is about to unleash a $3.552 TRILLION budget on this poor nation. So, if we each of us were expected to fork over our share of that tab, what would it cost us? Well, according to Toby Harnden, blogger for the Daily Telegraph, it would amount to $25,573.48 each.

I don’t know about you but, I just don’t have it.

So how much will President Barack Obama’s budget cost us? The projected 2010 budget of $3.552 trillion can be found on page 114 of the “New Era of Responsibility” budget here.

The US Census bureau estimates that the current US population is 304,059,724. Dividing the $3.552 trillion by that gives us close to the $11,833 that Drudge came up with. ABC’s Jake Tapper reports that there wil be $989 billion in new taxes over the next decade.

I’m an American taxpayer and the starkest figure is what this could cost me. The latest figure I could find for the number of US taxpayers is 138,893,908 returns in 2007 here. By my reckoning, that’s $25, 573.48 each.

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What Will Obama’s Budget Cost You? $25,573.48… EACH!”


Obama’s Radical Appointees Piling Up

-By Warner Todd Huston

We all remember the drubbing that conservatives took during the campaign when they openly worried, and even directly charged, that Barack Obama was a far left radical. Pointing to the racist Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the domestic terrorist William Ayers and wife, and several others of Obama’s close friends and associates conservatives sounded a clarion call to alert the country that we were about to get one of the most extremely leftist presidents ever.

Of course, the so-called rational and presumably non-partisan commentators that abound in the center left of the chattering classes scoffed at what they claimed to be the wild demagogues on the “extreme right” who then said Obama was a radical. They have for the last two years excoriated anyone that worries about how far to the left Obama is, saying that Obama is just an average Democrat that seeks to “bring us together.”

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Obama’s Radical Appointees Piling Up”


Professor: Southerners are Slavery-Loving Racists

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember how during the run up to the election, all the left pundits and talking heads and their compatriots in the Old Media said that no white person would vote for Barack Obama? Well, despite the singular fact that Barack Obama convincingly won the popular vote in a country that sees a majority of its voters are white, the Old Media is still insisting that all southerners are slavery-loving, neo-confederates that are no different than they were in 1860.

For the Washington Post, Robert S. McElvaine is here to tell us in “The Red, the Blue and the Gray” that Barack Obama is “just like Lincoln” in the same way that Lincoln didn’t get the south’s vote in 1860. Professor McElvaine also intimates that this is because the south is little different than it was in 1860.

Bet you southerners didn’t know that you are all still slavers and racists, eh?

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Professor: Southerners are Slavery-Loving Racists”


Flight 93 Update

Mother of Flight 93 hero calls for “a full and transparent review” of the crescent-shaped memorial

Blogburst logo, petition

For two years, Tom Burnett Sr. has been speaking out against the crescent-shaped memorial to Flight 93. This week Beverly Burnett (mother of Flight 93 hero Tom Burnett Jr.) stepped into the public eye to support her husband, and to make her own appeal for a full investigation:

Today, I am adding my voice for a full and transparent review of the National Park Service and Flight 93 design selection process that produced Crescent of Embrace. Does it have Islamic symbols or doesn’t it? Let’s settle this once and for all.

Why do you think Tom Sr. opposed this design? It is pretty simple; Tom Sr. saw the Islamic symbols and knew those symbols did not belong at the crash site of Flight 93.

Tom Burnett Sr. traveled to Pennsylvania last August to attend the Task Force Meeting to voice his opposition to the memorial design. A Family Board member as well as a commissioner accused Tom Sr. being “just like the Islamic terrorists” that killed our son.

Why didn’t someone speak up and defend Tom Sr.’s right to voice his opinion?

Thanks to The Somerset Daily American for publishing Mrs. Burnett’s complete statement, which she also entered into the record of the most recent Memorial Project meeting. Read the whole thing.
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Flight 93 Update”


U.S.News: Claims Palin Supporters Are Smearing Gov. Jindal as ‘Secret Muslim’

-By Warner Todd Huston

One has to wonder about the thought process of some people. Dan Gilgoff, Faith reporter with U.S. News and World Report and Huffington Post writer, is a perfect example of what I am talking about. After a February 23 posting on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s Catholic faith, Gilgoff followed up the next day with a post claiming that Sarah Palin fans were smearing Jindal over his supposedly “secret Muslim” faith. Where did Gilgoff get such a ridiculous idea? Why, from just two commenters that posted on his entry of the 23rd, that’s where.

That’s right, just two people claiming in the comments section of his U.S. News post that Jindal was a secret Muslim was enough for Dan Gilgoff to decide that Sarah Palin’s entire support base is smearing Bobby Jindal as a secret Muslim. Just two people. Two nuts is enough for U.S. News and World Report to slander Sarah Palin and all her followers as crazy, racist, hatemongers.

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U.S.News: Claims Palin Supporters Are Smearing Gov. Jindal as ‘Secret Muslim’”


McCain Warms to Calling Obama a Liar

-By Warner Todd Huston

In the hours after President Obama’s not-the-state-of-the-union address, the Networks rounded up the usual suspects to give reply to the speech. CBS, for its part, found the always smiling John McCain asking for his reaction to Obama’s starry-eyed rhetoric and long list of promises.

The prosaic, yet perky, Katie Couric asked McCain if Obama “convinced him at all” with the rhetoric? McCain, after saying Obama’s was “a very effective speech,” seemed, though, to call the president a liar — though certainly in the nicest way possible.

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McCain Warms to Calling Obama a Liar”


What Obama Said About Cars That Bush Would Be Slammed for…

-By Warner Todd Huston

During his not-the-state-of-the-union speech last night, president Barack “givitaway” Obama said the following:

“I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.”

Sorry, Prez, but while we did make the automobile an integral part of American life, while we did popularize the personal vehicle for the whole world, and while we certainly revolutionized its manufacture… we just didn’t invent the automobile.

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What Obama Said About Cars That Bush Would Be Slammed for…”


The Limitations of Econometric Computer Models

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Computer models were the tools employed to inflate the subprime mortgage balloon that precipitated collapse of our financial markets. And the same sorts of inherently faulty computer models are generating proclamations that President Obama’s near-trillion-dollar stimulus and mortgage protection programs will create millions of new jobs and restore the economy to prosperity.

The old saw is “garbage in; garbage out.” When the computer model is too complex and attempts to cover too wide a scope, its output is worse than useless; disaster is just around the corner.
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The Limitations of Econometric Computer Models”


CNN Claims Obama The New Ronald Reagan, Reassigns ‘Morning in America’ to The One

-By Warner Todd Huston

Once again CNN goes over the top in its gobsmacked praise of its Obammessiah. This time appropriating Ronald Reagan’s famous “morning in America” theme and assigning it to President Obama as a result of his not-the-state-of-the-union speech last night. In reality, Obama’s speech was more like a moaning in America as opposed to that bright new morning that Reagan invoked.

Worse, Reagan’s main theme for his “morning in America” ideal was to provoke Americans into a renewal of the American way of self-reliance, one removed from sucking at the teat of government. On the other hand, Barack Obama’s main point was that without government, without The One and all his fixes, we are all doomed.

It was obvious to anyone’s ears that Obama’s theme was as far removed as Reagan’s as can be.

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CNN Claims Obama The New Ronald Reagan, Reassigns ‘Morning in America’ to The One”