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Policy

Maybe the warm weather is affecting my judgement, but I’m finding myself in the odd position of admiring some folks on the left for their honesty.

A few days ago, for instance, I (sort of) applauded Matthew Yglesias for openly admitting that punitive tax rates would put us on the downward-sloping portion of the Laffer Curve.

Laffer-Curve-graph

He still favors such a policy, which is very bizarre, but at least his approach is much more honest than other statists who want us to believe that very high tax rates generate more revenue.

Today, I’m going to indirectly give kudos to another leftist.

Writing for the Washington Post, Katrina vanden Heuvel openly argues that the meaning of freedom should be changed. Here’s some of her argument, and we’ll start with her reasonably fair description of how freedom currently is interpreted.

For conservatives, freedom is centered in markets, free from government interference. …Government is the threat; the best thing it can do is to get out of the way. …freedom entails privatization, deregulation, limiting government’s reach and capacity.

Needless to say, I agree with this definition. After all, isn’t freedom just another way of saying “the absence of coercive constraint on the individual”?

Heck, this is why I’m a libertarian. Sure, I like the fact that liberty produces more prosperity, but my main goal it to eliminate needless government coercion.

But I’m digressing. Let’s get back to her column. She complains that folks on the left have acquiesced to this traditional conception of freedom.

Democrats chose to tack to these conservative winds. Bill Clinton’s New Democrats echoed the themes rather than challenge them. “The era of big government is over,” he told Americans, while celebrating “ending welfare as we know it,” deregulation of Wall Street… Obama chose consciously not to challenge the conservative limits on what freedom means.

Then she gets to her main argument. She wants Hillary Clinton to lead an effort to redefine the meaning of freedom.

This is Hillary Clinton’s historic opportunity. …She would do a great service for the country — and for her own political prospects — by offering a far more expansive American view of what freedom requires, and what threatens it. …expanding freedom from want by lifting the floor under workers, insuring every child a healthy start, providing free public education from pre-k to college, rebuilding the United States and putting people to work… Will she favor fair taxes on the rich and corporations to rebuild the United States and put people to work? Will she make the case for vital public investments — in new energy, in infrastructure, in education and training — that have been starved for too long? Will she call for breaking up banks…? Will she favor expanding social security…? …to offer Americans a bolder conception of freedom…and set up the debate that America must decide.

Needless to say, I strongly disagree with such policies. How can “freedom” be based on having entitlements to other people’s money?!?

Heck, it’s almost like slavery since it presupposes that a “right” to live off the labor of others. But that’s not technically true since presumably there wouldn’t be any requirement to work. So what would really happen in such a society is that people would conclude it’s better to ride in the wagon of government dependency, as illustrated by these cartoons.

Which means, sooner or later, a Greek-style collapse because a shrinking population of producers can’t keep pace with an ever-expanding population of moochers and looters.

Nonetheless, I give Ms. vanden Heuvel credit for acknowledging that her preferred policies are contrary to the traditional definition of freedom.

To be sure, I’d admire her even more if she simply admitted that she favors government coercion over freedom. That would be true honesty, but I can understand that folks on the left would prefer to change the meaning of words rather than admit what their agenda really implies.

P.S. Some of you may recognize that the issues discussed above are basically a rehash of the debate between advocates of “negative liberty” and supporters of “positive liberty.” The former is focused on protecting people from the predations of government while the latter is about somehow guaranteeing goodies from the government.

P.P.S. As mentioned in Ms. vanden Heuvel’s column, today’s effort to redefine freedom is similar to the so-called economic bill of rights peddled in the 1940s by FDR.

[mybooktable book=”global-tax-revolution-the-rise-of-tax-competition-and-the-battle-to-defend-it” display=”summary” buybutton_shadowbox=”true”]

Some leftists, including the Washington Post's Katrina

Opinion

 

nsa-headquarters

June 6, 2013: A sign stands outside the National Security Agency (NSA) campus in Fort Meade, Md. (Photo: AP)

Last week, Republicans and Democrats in Congress joined President Barack Obama in congratulating themselves for taming the National Security Agency’s voracious appetite for spying. By permitting one section of the Patriot Act to expire and by replacing it with the USA Freedom Act, the federal government is taking credit for taming beasts of its own creation.

In reality, nothing substantial has changed.

Under the Patriot Act, the NSA had access to and possessed digital versions of the content of all telephone conversations, emails and text messages sent between and among all people in America since 2009. Under the USA Freedom Act, it has the same. The USA Freedom Act changes slightly the mechanisms for acquiring this bulk data, but it does not change the amount or nature of the data the NSA acquires.

Under the Patriot Act, the NSA installed its computers in every main switching station of every telecom carrier and Internet service provider in the U.S. It did this by getting Congress to immunize the carriers and providers from liability for permitting the feds to snoop on their customers and by getting the Department of Justice to prosecute the only CEO of a carrier who had the courage to send the feds packing.

In order to operate its computers at these facilities, the NSA placed its own computer analysts physically at those computers 24/7. It then went to the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and asked for search warrants directing the telecoms and Internet service providers to make available to it all the identifying metadata — the times, locations, durations, email addresses used and telephone numbers used — for all callers and email users in a given ZIP code or area code or on a customer list.

The first document revealed by Edward Snowden two years ago was a FISA court search warrant directed to Verizon ordering it to make available to NSA agents the metadata of all its customers — more than 113 million at the time. Once the court granted that search warrant and others like it, the NSA computers simply downloaded all that metadata and the digital recordings of content. Because the FISA court renewed every order it issued, this arrangement became permanent.

Under the USA Freedom Act, the NSA computers remain at the carriers’ and service providers’ switching offices, but the NSA computer analysts return to theirs; and from there they operate remotely the same computers they were operating directly in the Patriot Act days. The NSA will continue to ask the FISA court for search warrants permitting the download of metadata, and that court will still grant those search warrants permitting the downloading. And the NSA will continue to take both metadata and content.

The Supreme Court has ruled consistently that the government must obtain a search warrant in order to intercept any nonpublic communication. The Constitution requires probable cause as a precondition for a judge to issue a search warrant for any purpose, and the warrant must “particularly (describe) the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Because this is expressly set forth in the Constitution itself, Congress and the president are bound by it. They cannot change it. They cannot avoid or evade it.

Probable cause is evidence about a person or place sufficient to permit a judge to conclude that evidence of a crime will probably be found. Both the Patriot Act and the USA Freedom Act disregard the “probable cause” standard and substitute instead a “government need” standard. This is, of course, no standard at all, as the NSA has claimed under the Patriot Act — and the FISA court bought the argument — that it needs all telephone calls, all emails and all text messages of all people in America. Today it may legally obtain them by making the same claim under the USA Freedom Act.

When politicians tell you that the NSA needs a court order in order to listen to your phone calls or read your emails, they are talking about a FISA court order that is based on government need — not a constitutional court order, which can only be based on probable cause. This is an insidious and unconstitutional bait and switch.

All this may start with the NSA, but it does not end there. Last week, we learned that the FBI is operating low-flying planes over 100 American cities to monitor folks on the streets and intercept their cellphone use — without any search warrants. Earlier this week, we learned that the Drug Enforcement Administration has intercepted the telephone calls of more than 11,000 people in three years — without any search warrants. We already know that local police have been using government surplus cell towers to intercept the cellphone signals of innocent automobile drivers for about a year — without search warrants.

How dangerous this is. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. It applies in good times and in bad, in war and in peace. It regulates the governed and the governors. Yet if the government that it regulates can change it by ordinary legislation, then it is not a constitution but a charade.

Suppose the Congress wants to redefine the freedom of speech or the free exercise of religion or the right to keep and bear arms, just as it did the standards for issuing search warrants. What is the value of a constitutional guarantee if the people into whose hands we repose the Constitution for safe keeping can change it as they see fit and negate the guarantee?

What do you call a negated constitutional guarantee? Government need.

The government is lying to you about

Opinion

The first time I met Marcia Grace, she adopted me as her project.

She was 5 at the time.

Marcia Grace was the niece of my future husband — I didn’t know that yet — and the youngest granddaughter of his mother, an intimidating woman of Southern grace and iron will. I was meeting her for the first time, too, and I was ridiculously nervous for a 45-year-old longtime single mother.

Even at 5, Marcia Grace was self-possessed enough to intuit my anxiety. She appointed herself my constant companion for the duration of the visit, until we left for a formal event.

Standing in her grandmother’s guest bathroom, I zipped up the first ballgown I’d owned in 20 years and tugged at the neckline with limited success. Three times I tried to steady my hand to draw a clean line on my eyelids. Three times I failed. Marcia Grace observed all of this from her perch on the closed lid of the toilet. Every time I sighed, she handed me another tissue from the box on her lap. “You’ll get it,” she said. “Just keep trying.”

It was so like her, as it has turned out.

Before we left that evening in 2003, Marcia Grace wanted to stand with us for a picture. In the photo, she is quite the contrast to our tux-and-gown ensemble, standing in lime-green ankle socks as a flowered skirt ruffles around her knees. She is smiling, and we are, too, tucked around her like moonstruck fans.

At the time, I thought it was funny that she wanted the picture. Now I cherish it. The photograph marks the beginning of my life with Marcia Grace in it.

Every merged family needs time to get used to the idea of one another, and ours was no different. Most of us reach middle age pretty set in our ways.

Marcia Grace would have none of that. I married her uncle, and that made me her aunt. Period. She, more than anyone else, helped me fit in.

At first, she was the happy only child who enjoyed being the center of my attention. As she matured, so did her focus. By high school, she was your typical overachiever, except to me there was nothing typical about her. At an early age, she was looking out for others, with an ability to discern who did and didn’t have her advantages. When she started working for her school newspaper, our conversations turned to best practices in journalism. She was interested in all of it — interviewing, confirming, writing and editing, responding to readers.

“OK, one more question,” she’d say, and then she’d rattle off another list of things that were on her mind. Her overarching theme: How do we get people to care?

Living in Shaker Heights, a diverse inner-ring suburb of Cleveland, Marcia Grace became obsessed — I mean that as highest praise — with issues of racial justice. She is a woman of her times.

Cleveland is facing a court-ordered overhaul of its police department, which has alienated many black residents with its excessive use of force. Marcia Grace would rightfully object to that phrasing, as she insists that these tragedies in the black community are white citizens’ problem, too.

Which brings me to her graduation this week from Shaker Heights High School, where she gave one of the student speeches. I realize I’m coming off as an insufferably proud aunt. I plead guilty. Marcia Grace has taught me the bone-deep joy my sister Toni and my friend Sue have described to me in their many years as their families’ favorite aunts. You don’t have to be a parent to feel a parent’s pride in a child you love.

But it’s more than familial affection that drives me to write this column about Marcia Grace. Quite simply, I am grateful. She keeps me honest, keeps me trying.

On Tuesday night, she walked to the lectern and spoke for her generation. These young people are something. Our exhaustion bores them. Our apathy appalls them. Yes, they are young and life will whittle away at some of that, but I see in them a commitment to fix what we were supposed to repair.

“We have a common hope that our future will be more inclusive, more compassionate and more daring than that of our parents,” Marcia Grace said. “Whatever we choose to do with our lives, we will have opportunities to be friends to outcasts, mentors to the disadvantaged and lights for the depressed. When those opportunities occur, we must present ourselves for action.”

I’ve known this child for a long time now.

Overnight, she became a woman who fills me with hope.

Again.

Hope: Marcia Grace was the niece of

Video

[brid video=”9687″ player=”1929″ title=”Kevin Jackson to DeRay McKesson ‘You’re a Race Pimp Just Admit it'”]

Fox News host Sean Hannity and his guest Kevin Jackson clashed Tuesday night with paid professional protestor and so-called “Black Lives Matter” activist DeRay McKesson.

Fox News host Sean Hannity and his

Politics

us-soldiers-iraq

U.S. troops take a knee at a street corner before continuing a patrol in Baghdad in this file photo from Oct. 23, 2011. (PHOTO: JOHN LAUGHTER/U.S. ARMY

The White House announced Wednesday the will deploy at least 400 additional U.S. troops to Iraq where they will assist with the training of Iraqi forces at a new base in Anbar Province. The plan is to train a 10,000-strong majority Sunni fighters and 3,000 new Iraqi security force soldiers as part of a bid to retake the city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province that fell in May.

The move also comes on the heels of the Islamic State’s public execution of gay men by the terror army, a lambasting by the Iranian prime miniter and the president’s embarrassing admission at the G-7 summit this week that his administration still does not have a strategy to confront the threat.

But it is also the latest ironic twist in the president’s incoherent policy in Iraq, the same president who ignored the advice of his generals to move forward with the withdrawal of American forces in 2011. There are currently just over 3,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, most of which are U.S. special operations forces task with training an army that has little confidence in both the U.S. commitment to them, or themselves.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, during his speech at a conference in Paris last week, blamed the U.S.-led coalition that is training his security forces for the spread of ISIS in his country.

“Why are there are so many terrorists from Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, Egypt [and] European countries,” al-Abadi demanded to know. “If it is due to the political situation in Iraq, why are Americans, French and German [fighters] in Iraq?”

Meanwhile, the Shiite-led government in Baghdad has for years failed to train and arm the Sunni tribesmen, while hundreds of American soldiers and Marines have been sitting on their hands awaiting orders and trainees at the al Asad training facility in western Iraq for weeks.

In a somewhat but typical contradiction, a Defense Department official said Tuesday that recent Iraqi trainees at al Asad were pulled to join the fight in Karmah and Samarra and to provide security for a Shiite pilgrimage in the area. They said they should return to training indigenous soldiers in a few weeks, and that a total of 8,920 Iraqi troops have received training at four different sites throughout Iraq, with another 2,601 in another phase of training.

The White House announced Wednesday the will

Politics

majority-leader-mcconnell-swearing-ceremony-2015

Vice President Joe Biden, right, administers the Senate oath to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky. during a ceremonial re-enactment swearing-in ceremony, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2015, in the Old Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington. McConnell’s wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is at center. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Monday refused to answer questions regarding the Senate leadership’s plan in the event the Supreme Court rules against federal subsidies in the president’s deeply unpopular healthcare law.

“We’ll have a plan that makes sense for the American people,” the Republican leader said during an interview with The Joe Elliott Show. “If the plaintiff is successful it will require some addressing of the issue, and if that were to happen we’ll be ready to announce our proposal.”

However, according to a congressional aide who spoke to PPD on Tuesday, Mr. McConnell is trying to avoid the the inevitable blowback from Republican base voters who are about to find out that he intends to “fix the subsidies.” Senate leadership, according to the source, will not support efforts by House Republican leaders to repeal — let alone replace — aspects to the law McConnell and others have long promised to do away with.

“House leaders are frustrated, if that’s the right word,” the aide said. “The plan the majority leader outlined last week to House members — to end IPAD (Independent Payment Advisory Board), stop the cuts to Medicare, repeal the medical device tax — this is all low-hanging fruit. But the Senate apparently has a different plan. And that plan is to fix the subsidies.”

For conservatives, who have long-warned against blindly believing McConnell’s campaign promises, the revelation wasn’t at all surprising.

“Unfortunately, there are a number of Senate Republicans who are already planning to surrender and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory,” Senate Conservatives Fund President Ken Cuccinelli said in an email. “These Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, believe that they should SAVE ObamaCare by amending the law to affirmatively extend the subsidies to every state. This would be the ultimate betrayal of the voters who gave them the majority last year after they promised to repeal ObamaCare, ‘root and branch.'”

In fact, Mr. McConnell’s state is one of only a handful of Republican-controlled states that won’t be impacted by the Supreme Court ruling in King v. Burwell expected this month. The case addresses the legality of subsidies offered in states that refused to set up a State-Based Marketplace. Because Kentucky did setup a State-Based Marketplace, the ruling is somewhat irrelevant to his constituency, whom overwhelmingly support repeal of the law.

“These spineless Republicans are so worried about being blamed for a law they opposed that they’re willing to break their promises and bail it out,” Cuccinelli added. “If the Supreme Court stops the President from illegally spending $20 billion on subsidies, illegally subjecting Americans to the individual mandate, and illegally forcing employers to comply with the 30-hour rule, the last thing Republicans should do is make these policies lawful.”

The BlueGrass State is often cited by proponents of the law as a notable success story, though this argument fails to go beyond the 223,335 top-line enrollment number. According to the latest numbers from the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), out of the 153,920 in the state that have begun to apply for coverage in 2015, only 94,447 have completed their applications.

Out of the 106,330 who have selected a plan from the marketplace — versus the 152,529 eligible for Medicaid enrollment and 138,320 eligible to receive subsidies — only 39 percent are active enrollees in the state. The misleading top-line HHS number, consequently, also includes the 35 percent of Kentuckians who are automatic enrollees.

No wonder McConnell wouldn’t discuss the details of what Senate Republicans would do if subsidies for people in at least 34 states disappear. He apparently plans to pass legislation that will make the nation as a whole mirror the “success” in his own state. Of course, conservatives contend that Republicans should allow the Democrats to reap what they have sown.

“If people lose their subsidies as a result of the Court’s decision and have trouble paying for coverage, Democrats should be held accountable for the health care takeover that raised premiums in the first place,” Cuccinelli said. “ObamaCare was passed by President Obama and the Democrats and it’s more unpopular than ever. This is not the time to surrender.”

Yet, despite the falling poll numbers and rising premium and out-of-pocket costs, that is exactly what Republican Senate leaders plan to do.

“We’ll let you know depending on the outcome of the decision,” McConnell replied when asked.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will not

Opinion

Blackfish-Tilikum

A from the documentary Blackfish, depicting Tilikum the killer whale.

Millions go to SeaWorld to learn more about sea life and get closer to killer whales. But fewer go now because the documentary “Blackfish” exposed what one reporter called “the darker side” of SeaWorld.

The movie, which CNN bought and ran over and over, tells how greedy businessmen take baby whales from their mothers and imprison them in small aquariums, where the frustrated animals are a threat to each other and their trainers.

“All whales in captivity have a bad life,” says a biologist in the film. “They’re all psychologically traumatized.”

“Blackfish” is persuasive. Watching it made me agree with the protesters who shout, “SeaWorld is synonymous with cruelty!”

SeaWorld wouldn’t talk to CNN, but they did talk to me. I will be showing their responses on Fox News this weekend.

I asked SeaWorld why they separate whales from their mothers.

“We haven’t done that in 35 years,” says Kelly Flaherty Clark, SeaWorld head trainer. “We have no plans to do it again, and the film implies that we’re doing it yesterday.”

SeaWorld says much of “Blackfish” is deceitful. “The things they describe just didn’t happen.”

“Eighty percent of the whales that we care for were born right here,” says head veterinarian Chris Dold. “The key difference between what our whales experience and what killer whales in the wild experience is the fact that … our trainers work with them every day.”

I was most disturbed by a “Blackfish” scene that plays the mournful cry of a mother whale whose baby was taken from her. But it turns out the “baby” was an adult with kids of her own. “Blackfish” faked the scene by adding “sound effects that aren’t even appropriate to a killer whale.”

Blackfish also claims captive whales’ droopy dorsal fins indicate that the whales are miserable. But whale expert Ingrid Visser says killer whales in the wild have collapsed dorsal fins, too.

The director of “Blackfish” and others who appear in the film would not talk to me, but biologist Lori Marino, who’d said that “all whales in captivity have a bad life,” did.

I pointed out that life in the wild is rough, too — there’s competition for food, sex, life itself. She answered, “these animals evolved over millions of years to be adapted to the challenges of the wild, not with living in a concrete tank. … They need space … and a social life.”

SeaWorld claims its whales are “happy.” But as “Blackfish” points out, “we can’t ask the whales.”

Dold replied, “While I may not know what my dog is thinking, I certainly know that he’s happy and that we have a good relationship.”

There have been moments when that human-whale relationship wasn’t good. One whale drowned a SeaWorld trainer. But Clark says there’s no evidence that the whale’s behavior meant that he was frustrated because he lives in a tank.

Finally, “Blackfish” claims that captive whales die young. But Dold points out, “We have a 50-year-old whale living at SeaWorld. … (O)ur whales’ life parameters are the same as whales in the wild.” Government research confirms this.

It’s romantic to fantasize about freeing whales so that they can frolic in the ocean. That probably wouldn’t work out very well. After the movie “Free Willy” ran, the whale depicted in the film was set free. But wild whales wouldn’t accept him in their pods. Willy kept returning to shore to be near people. He let children ride on his back. Willy died not long after he was set free.

It’s hard to think rationally when animals tug at our heartstrings.

Lori Marino says it’s cruel to imprison whales in tanks where they “have to do stupid pet tricks.” I see her point, but marine parks and zoos are often the only way people learn about nature, and ticket sales pay for education and conservation efforts. SeaWorld alone has helped rescue 25,000 animals.

I don’t presume to know if it’s moral to keep animals in captivity. But I do know that the activists distort the truth. I’ll give more examples in my “Green Tyranny” TV special Sunday on Fox News at 9 p.m. (EDT).

John Stossel gives a preview of the

Video

Josh-Fox-Gasland-Stu-Varney-fracking-interview

Stu Varney, the host of Vaney & Co. on FOX Business, booted Gasland director Josh Fox after he accused him of “lying right now” over the water situation on his own property.

Fox Business host Stuart Varney booted anti-fracking activist Josh Fox after he accused him of lying during an interview to discuss a recent EPA report. The Environmental Protection Agency concluded in the recent study that there is not enough evidence to support claims fracking has caused harmful effects to drinking water.

Varney was first shocked when Fox rejected the supposition that the report meant what it said, yet still attacked the president as being pro-fracking, despite his administration’s radical environmental record and regulatory defeat at the Supreme Court.

“You think this administration wants to frack?” Varney asked. “That’s news to me!”

The interview began to get contentious when Fox tried to impugn Varney’s character by saying off-air he had told him that he would not support fracking on his own upstate New York property.

“Why would you not frack on our own property and then prescribe it for other people in America?” Fox asked.

However, Varney’s objections were based upon the fact his property is located in the watershed, not upon hypocrisy as Fox suggested.

But it was Fox’s response to Varney recalling how locals had always joked about lighting their tap water on fire 12 years ago when he bought the property, long before fracking was ever introduced and conducted.

“You are absolutely wrong,” Fox said. “I do believe you are lying right now.”

And that was all she wrote for Fox, who will not only likely never appear on FOX Business again but any one of the sister FOX News Channel cable networks.

“Lying?” Varney asked. “The interview is over, young man! I am not lying. I did it myself. Thank you. Goodbye. You are out of here, son! You are out of here! Don’t call me a liar! Don’t do that, son! Cut. That’s it. Thank you very much. Will you please leave?”

For Josh Fox, a radical environmentalist best known for directing the fraud-ridden “documentary” film Gasland, to accuse anyone of being a liar is rich to say the least. Below is the iconic “Flaming Faucet” scene from Gasland, which Fox bet his own credibility on, as well as the credibility of the film and the entire anti-fracking movement. It was also the first act of deception by Fox uncovered by those in the media who actually care about reporting the truth.

[brid video=”9667″ player=”1929″ title=”Bogus ‘Flaming Faucet’ Scene in ‘Gasland’ by Josh Fox”]

Powerful scene, isn’t it? However, the problem is that two years before the release of Gasland, Colorado regulators had investigated that exact same case and determined hydraulic fracturing and oil and gas development had nothing to do with it.

“There are no indications of oil & gas related impacts to water well,” according to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission report. In response to the blowback that followed in the aftermath of the film’s release, the COGCC once again clarified that the landowner’s water well “contained biogenic gas that was not related to oil and gas activity.”

But Fox wasn’t finished. In 2013, the release of Gasland Part II plastered another iconic scene showing a man in Parker County, Texas, lighting the end of a garden hose on fire, which the viewers (and targets, i.e. persuadable younger Americans) are supposed to believe is a result of fracking.

[brid video=”9668″ player=”1929″ title=”Bogus ‘Flaming Hose’ Scene in Gasland Part II by Josh Fox”]

Except, according to a 2012 ruling of the Texas District Court, the landowner in the film conspired with a local consultant to “intentionally attach a garden hose to a gas vent — not to a water line — and then light and burn the gas from the end of the nozzle of the hose.”

So, what beef does Mr. Fox, who also lied about his own backstory (more on that below), have with the most liberal and environmentally active EPA the country has ever seen?

As the Texas court said, the “demonstration was not done for scientific study but to provide local and national news media a deceptive video, calculated to alarm the public into believing the water was burning … [and] alarm the EPA.”

And alarm the EPA it did.

Al “Crucify Them” Armendariz, a senior EPA official, initially worked with activists and Fox to request an endangerment order against the operator of the wells, Range Resources. Unfortunately, for Fox, the activists and the EPA, thorough geochemical gas fingerprinting concluded a natural source for what methane they did find in the area. Fracking had nothing to do with it and an EPA official later admitted under oath that the agency had not even bothered to conducted fingerprinting to find the source.

In 2012, the EPA dropped its case and Mr. Fox as quickly as they had carelessly picked both of them up.

“Range Resources’ Parker County gas wells did not contaminate groundwater,” the Texas Railroad Commission concluded and stated after the EPA dropped the order.

No wonder why Mr. Fox is hostile not only to Mr. Varney, a pro-fracking and pro-domestic energy advocate, but also to the diametrically opposed EPA.

More Pundit’s Perspective

Back to the backstory on Mr. Fox, shall we? The following is the transcript of Mr. Fox’s comments in the beginning of Gasland:

One day I got a letter in the mail. It was from a natural gas company. The letter told me that my land was on top of a formation that was called the Marcellus Shale which stretched across Pennsylvania…New York…Ohio…and West Virginia and that the Marcellus shale was the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.

I could lease my land to this company and I would receive a signing bonus of $4,750 an acre. Having 19.5 acres that was nearly $100,000…right there in my hand. Could it be that easy?

First, the lease was a draft developed by the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance (NWPOA), not a gas company lease. Second, it was drawn up after Fox said he received his offer, not before it. When confronted with these little discrepancies, Fox changed his story and admitted it was the NWPOA lease. He then went on to claim he and/or his father — though he wasn’t sure — had been members. His father was the actual owner, it turns out, and Fox claimed he dropped out before being forced to sign.

Except, no one was forced to sign nor did anyone even receive a letter in the mail. But, according to NWPOA official Betty Sutliff, the lies are even deeper and harder to keep up with. Below is her statement to Natural Gas Now:

Josh claimed he was part of the landowner pool that developed the lease and got the same lease as the farmers, even saying, “Duh!” He said they “formally” dropped out “at the stage when they said ok, you have to sign this.”

This presents several new problems for Josh as far as telling the truth. First there was no formal way of dropping out of NWPOA. The members were never under any obligation to remain members and were never required to sign anything.

In reality, NWPOA membership was always fluid with any number of people leaving to sign with another company, unable for whatever reason to stay the course with NWPOA. Even when it came down to crunch time, no one was forced to sign a lease and that was made very clear to the membership. It was not a group lease. Each member received his/her very own lease to either sign or not sign.

But, Fox said they dropped out before signing. However, that only makes his story harder to believe because now the biggest fabrication that Josh will have to try to cover up is his statement that he received the lease in the mail, and he doesn’t have any wiggle room here whatsoever.

All versions of the lease prior to the actual signing were sent electronically. None of the landowners got a hard copy in the mail.

The leases were handed out at the signings, which were held in various neighborhoods. At the signings volunteers sat for hours hand-collating the leases. Volunteers also manned computers on location to print out the cover pages with the lessors’ names on them. The page descriptions showing the parcel numbers and acreage were printed in advance to be inserted into the body of the lease that day. There were boxes and boxes of papers printed in advance so the leases could be assembled on the premises on the day of the signing.

So, how is it that Josh alone received a hard copy in the mail especially if they dropped out before the signings? And how did it arrive in the mail in 2008, a full year before it was even compiled at a signing in 2009?

Quoting Josh, “To suggest we never received a gas lease is insane, absurd.” Well, as far as I’m concerned, to suggest that they did receive a gas lease is insane, absurd.

I would say that Josh has got more ‘splainin’ to do. It’s no wonder he doesn’t want to talk about it!

Indeed, it would seem to a rational thinking individual that Mr. Fox was luck to have even received an offer from Mr. Varney, which he ended up blowing with rampant dishonesty, just like the rest of his endeavors.

Stuart Varney booted anti-fracking activist and Gasland

Policy

us-president-obama-greece-pm-tsipiras

U.S. President Barack Obama, right, and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, left. (Photos: AP)

I wrote in May 2011 that the situation in Greece was hopeless because nobody with power and/or influence wanted the right policy. So, I wasn’t bashful about patting myself on the back later that year when it quickly became obvious that bailouts weren’t working.

Ever since then, I’ve tried to ignore the debacle, though I periodically succumb to temptation and highlight the wasteful stupidity of the Greek government.

Having shared all sorts of bad news, I now feel obliged to point out that the situation isn’t hopeless.

Just last year, I explained that the right reforms could rescue Greece. And just in case you think I’m laughably naive, others have the same view.

Writing for the U.K.-based Telegraph, Ivan Mikloš, and Dalibor Roháč explain how Greece can enjoy and economic renaissance.

Greeks have to stop seeing themselves as victims… True, Greece’s international partners need to bear their share of responsibility for the economic catastrophe that has been unfolding in the country. However, it is not its creditors that are holding Greece back – rather, it is the lack of domestic leadership and ownership of economic reforms.

And what gives Mikloš and Roháč the credibility to make this assertion?

Simple, they’re from Slovakia and that nation faced a bigger mess after the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the peaceful breakup of Czechoslovakia.

As Slovaks, we have learned a fair bit about these matters. Once home to much of Czechoslovakia’s heavy industry – exporting arms and heavy machinery to the former Soviet bloc – Slovakia bore a disproportionate share of the costs incurred by the transition from communism in the early 1990s. …At the time of the country’s break-up, in 1992, the per capita income in Slovakia, expressed in purchasing power parity, was merely 62 per cent of that in the Czech Republic.The years that followed were not happy. The lingering sense of victimhood fostered nationalism and authoritarianism, as well as cronyism and corruption… By the time of the parliamentary election of 1998, Slovakia was on the brink of a financial meltdown.

But the election didn’t result in victory of crazed leftists, as we see with Syriza’s takeover in Greece.

Instead, the Slovak people elected reformers who decided to reduce the size and scope of the public sector.

The new government, formed by a coalition of pro-Western parties, restructured the banking sector, brought the public deficit under control… The parliamentary election of 2002 opened a unique window of opportunity. Slovakia’s novel tax reforms, spearheaded by domestic reformers under the auspices of Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda, were seen by the IMF at the time as far too radical. However, the new, simpler, and leaner tax system, alongside other structural reforms, incentivized investment and turned Slovakia, nicknamed the “Tatra Tiger”, into the fastest-growing economy in the EU.

And a handful of other EU nations have followed the right path.

In 2008, instead of devaluing its currency – as recommended by the IMF – Latvia slashed public spending, cutting the salaries of civil servants by 26 per cent. The economy rebounded quickly to a growth rate of 5 per cent in 2011.

Here’s the bottom line.

Today, Slovakia’s per capita income rivals that of the Czech Republic. Together with Poland and the Baltic states, these countries have been catching up with their advanced Western European counterparts.

And the lesson for Greece should be clear, both politically and economically.

The purpose of economic reforms should not be to please the Troika, but to restore durable, shared prosperity. Deep, domestically led reforms need not be a form of political suicide, either. In 2006, after eight years of deep – and sometimes painful – reforms, Slovakia’s leading reformist party recorded its best electoral result in history. Similarly, many of the radical reformers in the Baltic states did well in subsequent elections. And a Greek leader who turns his country into a “Mediterranean Tiger” will most certainly not go down in infamy.

Unfortunately, the slim odds of good policy being adopted in Greece are partly the fault of the United States.

Or, to be more accurate, the Obama Administration is being very unhelpful by urging bailouts instead of reform.

Here’s some of what is being reported by the U.K.-based Guardian.

The Greek television channel, citing a senior German official, described the US treasury secretary, Jack Lew, imploring his German counterpart Wolfgang Schäuble to “support Greece” only to be told: “Give €50bn euro yourself to save Greece.” Mega’s Berlin-based correspondent told the station that the US official then said nothing “because, as is always the case according to German officials when it comes to the issue of money, the Americans never say anything”.

I’m not a big fan of Wolfgang Schäuble. The German Finance Minister is a strident opponent of tax competition, and some of his bad ideas are cited in the CF&P study that I wrote about yesterday.

But I greatly appreciate the fact that he basically told Obama’s corrupt Treasury Secretary to go jump in a lake.

And I’m also happy that Congress has done the right thing so that Obama and his team don’t have leeway to bail out Greece either directly or indirectly.

P.S. Since we ended on some good news, let’s also enjoy some Greek-related humor.

This cartoon is quite good, but this this one is my favorite. And the final cartoon in this post also has a Greek theme.

We also have a couple of videos. The first one features a video about…well, I’m not sure, but we’ll call it a European romantic comedy and the second one features a Greek comic pontificating about Germany.

Last but not least, here are some very un-PC maps of how various peoples – including the Greeks – view different European nations.

Greece was hopeless because nobody with power

Politics

NV-Gov-Brian-Sandoval

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval during his 2015 State of the State address. (Photo: AP)

Democrats Breath Sigh of Relief After Sandoval Says No to Senate

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval announced Tuesday that he will not run for the open U.S. Senate seat after the retirement of Democratic Sen. Harry Reid. While the race will remain a Toss-Up on PPD’s 2016 Senate Election Projection Map, for now, there is little doubt that the development is bad news for the Republican Party, which hopes to keep its new majority next cycle.

“My heart is in my responsibilities as governor and continuing to build the New Nevada,” the popular Nevada governor said in a statement. “My undivided attention must be devoted to being the best governor, husband and father I can be.”

Sandoval, 51, who was polling far ahead of potential Democratic challengers in head-to-head matchups, sailed to re-election in November with 71 percent of the vote.

Former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, the favorite Democratic choice for outgoing Reid, announced in April that she would run. U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, who could’ve thrown a wrench in Reid’s plans, was instead chased out of the race and decided only to seek re-election to the House.

On the Republican side of the aisle, three-term Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Heck confirmed he is exploring a run, while Republican Las Vegas City Councilman Bob Beers, considered an underdog, has long made his interest in the race known, as well.

Reid, 75, the former majority leader and current minority leader in the Senate, announced in March that he would not seek a sixth term. While the decision came after an exercise injury left him blind in one eye, Reid would’ve begun the race as an underdog against Sandoval.

Lucky for Democrats, Sandoval, a Hispanic rising star in the Republican Party, has decided to focus on getting his $1.1 billion tax plan and other policy proposals through the Republican-controlled Nevada Legislature.

“I sincerely thank Sen. Dean Heller and the many people who encouraged me to run and graciously afforded me and my family the time to arrive at this decision,” he said Tuesday. “I look forward to supporting the ultimate Republican nominee.”

The state’s two national Senate seats are split between the parties and, even though Republicans will be on the defensive in a presidential election cycle, Nevada Senate races have not leaned as heavy toward Democratic candidates as the state’s presidential vote preference. The state will be one of several that determine control of the U.S. Senate.

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval announced Tuesday that

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