Sen. Chris Dodd has released a new ad proclaiming himself the only presidential candidate who has a plan to save the planet.
The ad text is as follows:
“All the Earth’s creatures are threatened by global warming. One candidate for President is doing something to stop it: Chris Dodd. He’s the only one with an energy plan that has a courageous Corporate Carbon Tax to transform American industry. It’s the plan Al Gore and Bill Bradley call ‘creative,’ ‘honest and bold.’
“DODD: I’m Chris Dodd, and I approved this message, because stopping global warming is in our hands.”
Does Dodd really believe that global warming can be taxed out of existence? Can he possibly believe that a carbon tax on American industry alone will halt global climate change and save “all the Earth’s creatures”? I suspect he’s much smarter than that, but he’s betting that the Democratic primary voters are not.
Comment from Denise Blaha of Nottingham: More likely Dodd knows that 164 towns (90%) in our state have endorsed the New Hampshire Climate Change Resolution and are calling for federal action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If I were running for President, I’d certainly be forthcoming with a detailed action plan for addressing climate change: there is broad bi-partisan support among NH voters for curbing emissions. (See: http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/action/nh_voters_want_solutions.php)
The carbon tax Dodd proposes is only one of 14 steps he has outlined to reduce emissions, increase energy efficiency and promote renewable energy technologies. And it’s certainly a much saner approach than liquefying coal, which would only increase our emissions. Because environmental degradation isn’t factored in, coal and petroleum are “cheap” and as a result, we continue to pump about 6 billion metric tons of these heat trapping gases annually in the United States. The gases themselves are invisible, but their impact is not and is clearly evident here in New Hampshire. Our winter recreation, fall foliage tourism, maple syrup and logging industries are already being negatively impacted by our changing climate and many of these industries may disappear entirely in this century if we continue our reliance on fossil fuels.
Whoever is elected President in 2008 must have a solid action plan for addressing climate change in his or her administration. Doing so will create new jobs and new markets for energy efficient technologies and will help restore the loss in international credibility we’ve incurred for not leading on this issue.
Mike Lopez, chairman of Manchester’s Board of Aldermen, said yesterday he would not run for mayor of Manchester this year. Today Ward 4 Alderman Jerome Duval announced that he would not run for re-election. Duval, a centrist Democrat in his single term on the board, said he needed to devote more time to his growing real estate business, which often requires meeting clients in the evenings. Will Democrats ask Mary Sysyn to run again or find a young professional to follow Duval? I think Ward 4 presents a great opportunity for each party to find a younger professional and bring some new blood to city hall.
The U.S. Secret Service is having to scale back its criminal investigations to devote more resources to protecting presidential candidates, The Washington Post reported today.
“While its goal is to spend 65 percent of its resources on investigations — 50 percent in presidential election years — the service is cutting investigators’ budgets and is on track to flip its usual ratio, spending nearly two-thirds on protective duties,” the Post reports.
“Candidate protection is expensive. Flight, lodging and per diem expenses are sizable, exceeding the $100 million that the Secret Service normally spends on travel per year. Security details require three shifts of agents that rotate every three weeks, bomb-sniffing dogs, sophisticated communications equipment, hundreds of vehicles, and even, at times, specialized gear such as detection and jamming devices.
“Chertoff’s recent decision to authorize protection for Obama was also unexpected. The Secret Service initially estimated that it would need to staff 739 “candidate protection days” for 2008, on the low end of the range of 300 to 2,000 days it has staffed for campaigns over the past 40 years.
“But with coverage of Obama starting 18 months before Election Day, his campaign alone could consume 540 days, at a rate of about $44,360 a day.”
Paul Smith of Farmington was the first to correctly answer the last trivia question: What is Gov. John Lynch’s position on the seat belt bill? Some thought Lynch was for the bill. But Smith knew that, as usual, Lynch had no position on the issue.
Gov. Lynch still has no position on the bill, House Bill 802, though the House passed it 59 days ago and it is up for a vote in the Senate on Thursday. How peculiar is it that quite possibly the only adult in New Hampshire who does not have an opinion on the seat belt bill is the man who runs the government and the one individual who would have the most sway on whether it passes or fails?
For knowing that Lynch was riding side-saddle on this issue, Smith won the book of his choice, which was The Five Jerks You Meet on Earth, by Ray Zardetto, a parody of Mitch Albom’s “The Five People You Meet In Heaven”.
The seat belt bill is one of several controversial nanny-state bills up for a vote in the Legislature this week. If you want a shot at a fabulous prize from my secret stash of goodies, tell me what is the first bill on the House’s regular calendar for Thursday.
In Spain, 16 men have been arrested for allegedly recruiting terrorists. The men are mostly Moroccan, and the government says their primary goal was to recruit jihadists to fight in Iraq and North Africa.
One of the suspects in the 2004 Madrid train bombings “is believed to have died in a suicide attack in Iraq.”
Now, why would Islamist terror networks be recruiting combatants for the Iraq War? Wouldn’t it be easier to build those terror cells in-country and attack soft targets? Why go to all the effort and expense of shipping warriors and equipment into Iraq when you could just blow up a train or mall or skyscraper?
Because Iraq IS the central front in the terror war. A victory there would tell the world that the jihadists are much, much more than small bands of lunatics with bombs, but a magnificent power with the strength to defeat the mightiest military force in the world. It would be a stunning and history-changing military victory — and the greatest propaganda and recruitment tool the terrorists have ever had.
Blowing up soft targets spreads terror. But it also releases the hounds, and the foxes have to scurry back to their holes for a while. Why risk so much for so little gain, when you can accomplish a great deal more, at less risk to the network because Western countries still haven’t figured out how to stop you from traveling and communicating, by bringing Western recruits to the main battlefield, where they can inflict great damage again and again and again with less chance of being hunted down and exterminated, and where a victory would bring rewards many times those that could be won in the USA or Spain or Britain?
What would change that? The disappearance of the Iraqi front. Some network resources would be shifted to recruiting for the Afghan war. But after Iraq is won, there will be more recruits, and the terror networks will want to inflict even greater damage on the infidels. Some of their resources will be transferred out of Iraq and into other countries, where they will work on duplicating their Iraq success, meaning changing government policy by killing massive amounts of people. Only this time the victims will be civilians back in America, Britain, Spain, Australia, Italy, etc.
Right now it is a global jihad with recruitment going on worldwide but the fighting concentrated mostly on two battlefields. Remove one of those battlefields and the fighting will spread to others of the terrorists’ chosing.
A couple of good pieces on immigration:
Tony Blankley
Thomas Sowell
In a conference call this morning, Sen. John McCain was asked about New Hampshire passing a civil unions law.
“I disagree with what has been decided by the state of New Hampshire, but I respect it,” McCain said.
That is, McCain views marriage as a state’s rights issue. He said he opposes civil unions and same-sex marriage, but he would not use the federal government to force states to adopt policies that conform to his line of thinking. (Sen. John Sununu holds the same view, by the way.)
That’s a very reassuring position in a presidential candidate. I want a President (and a Congress) who believes fully in federalism and has a reflexive disdain for Washington using its power to coerce the states into whatever policy positions the President and Congress happen to hold at the moment. If only Sen. McCain were universally averse to using Washington’s coercive power to mold the views and behaviors of the public instead of selectively averse to it.
Seth Cohn of Canterbury won the last trivia question by knowing the political measurements of Playboy chairman and CEO Christie Hefner. He was the first to identify Barack Obama as Hefner’s presidential choice. (Chicagoan Obama beat out native Chicagoan Clinton for Chicagoan Hefner’s support, for obvious reasons. Obama looks better in a centerfold.) Cohn takes home a copy of Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America, by Mark Levin.
Now I’ve got a real brow-sweater for the next question. If you know it, you’ve really been paying attention. It is:
What is Gov. John Lynch’s position on the proposed mandatory seat belt law?
Of the 160 Republicans in the House, 133 have told Republican leader Mike Whalley that they support the House GOP’s constitutional amendment. So far.
Other stories from the day Jimmy Carter called the Bush administration the worst in history:
Neil Young says Chris Martin can’t carry a tune
Paris Hilton labels Lindsay Lohan trampy
Al Sharpton calls Mike Gravel history’s worst presidential candidate
Bill Gates says George Lucas “a real nerd”
Manny Ramirez says Shaq “laziest athlete I ever saw”
Republicans are being clobbered online, reports The Washington Post. Democrats have huge advantages in online fund-raising and networking, and Republicans are struggling to catch up. It’s talk radio in reverse. The Left loves the disparity, as it should. What would the netroots do, though, if Congress attempted to apply the fairness doctrine to the Internet?
The Left wants Washington to force talk-radio broadcasters to counter Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boortz and other successful right-of-center radio hosts by making them give equal time to liberals. Public airwaves and all that. But the theory is bunk. It’s the marketplace that determines the content of on-air political talk, not corporate paymasters.
If we have a fairness doctrine for political talk, why not for everything else? For every misogynistic rap song, make the stations play one with lyrics that respect women. For every fart joke, make the juvenile morning DJ give an intelligent commentary on current affairs. Why not? Because the fairness doctrine is all about control of political speech — the other guy’s political speech. Restrictions on talk radio, but none on the Internet, where the Left has an enormous advantage.
