June 20, 2013

Posts

Obama’s war on fossil fuels hitting home to Dems & unions

April 27, 2012 By Carol Greenberg

Joe ManchinYea Sen. Manchin, you better look pensive because you and your state of West Virginia are in big-time trouble because of Obama’s failed policies on coal and other fossil fuels which are costing your state jobs, revenue and YOUR votes.

We know that the Obama administration’s all-out assault on the coal industry has made enemies of energy producers, consumers, businesses, construction workers, utility workers, miners, and anyone who flips a light switch.

As election time draws nearer and the President shows no sign of reigning in his runaway EPA, we may be able to add unions and Democrats from coal-powered states to that laundry list.

Human Events reports:

With United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts likening EPA head Lisa Jackson’s treatment of the coal industry to the Navy Seals taking out Osama bin Laden and hinting the UMW may not endorse President Obama for re-election, it is considered certain that West Virginia’s five electoral votes will be in the Republican column this fall.

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D) went a step farther, publicly stating that he may not vote for his party’s incumbent president:

“I’ll look at the options,” Manchin said this week. The last three years “have made it pretty rough” for his state, he said…

“Manchin said his own vote will depend on how his constituents view the contest.

“The people in West Virginia, they basically look at the candidates—whatever you’re running for, whether it be the president itself, or whatever—[they look at] the performance and the result that’s been attained,” Manchin said when asked how he will vote. “Right now in West Virginia, these first three and a half years haven’t been that good to West Virginia. So, then you look [at] what the options will be, who will be on the other end.”

With the Obama EPA showing no sign of stopping its quest to ransack the coal industry, and the recent revelation of the agency’s “philosophy” of “crucifying” energy producers that don’t fall in line, its looking like the pro-business community may have some diverse allies in the legislative battle against the EPA’s new cap-and-tax rule that looms ahead (more details to come on that).

FYI no word from the other Dem senator from WVA, Jay Rockefeller. Could be because unlike Manchin he ain’t up for re-elect.

Crossposted at Unified Patriots

Share
Filed Under war on coal Tagged With Cecil Roberts, coal, energy, EPA, Jay Rockefeller, Joe Manchin, Obama, UMW, unions, United Mine Workers, West Virginia

Snake River dams should come down to protect salmon, says federal judge

April 26, 2012 By Carol Greenberg

In another man v. fish fight a federal judge, James Redden of Portland Oregon, rejected the federal government’s plans for the 3rd time for the continued operation of hydroelectric dams without jeopardizing salmon. He is citing the Endangered Species Act as the reason, and of course environmentalists are again giddy. Redden wants the dams taken down, and claims “it’s a whole lot easier to take a dam down, than to build one.”

The 83-year old judge showed his bias in an interview with Idaho Public Television:

Even though the judge has taken himself off the case, the interview is to be aired in July for a documentary. U.S. district Judge Michael Simon is now overseeing the case and hopefully he will rule that the dams, which provide electricity for the area, should stay now that salmon populations have increased greatly. This controversy has been spread over the presidencies of Clinton, GW Bush and now Obama, and Judge Redden has rejected plans from all three.

In 2006 Redden ordered water should be diverted from turbines to spill over dams to help young salmon migrate to the ocean. Sound familiar? Eerily like the delta smelt fiasco.

House Natural Resources Chair Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) whose district entails part of the Columbia River basin which holds a multitude of dams, reacted this way, excerpted:

“This interview candidly reveals the activist bias of Judge Redden that I and many in the Pacific Northwest have suspected for years. Due to his personal views, this one judge unilaterally dragged and drove costly litigation on for nearly a decade.

He issued unprecedented, questionable and expensive rulings resulting in his literally seizing control of the river system’s operation. He ignored clear and sound science that salmon species are returning in numbers greater than before these dams were built, and forced taxpayers to pay for millions of dollars in higher energy bills and lawyers’ fees. He ordered the waste of tens of millions of dollars by forcing the spilling of water past dams that science reveals has benefited few, if any, fish, and may have actually harmed them. He’s ignored federal science that shows more fish benefit from safe barge transportation, and he’s clouded any semblance of the best science and the law regarding federal salmon protection measures supported by three states, many tribes and other stakeholders.”

So Judge, you cause all this commotion, cause the spending of millions of dollars, make this documentary and then take yourself off the case. Nice.

Related story: Delta smelt wars: man v. 3″ fish

Crossposted at Unified Patriots

Share
Filed Under Uncategorized Tagged With dams, Endangered Species Act, House Natural Resources Committee, hydroelectric power, Judge James Redden, Judge Michael Simon, Rep. Doc Hastings, salmon, Snake River

EPA admits to wanting to “crucify” energy producers

April 25, 2012 By Carol Greenberg

Update 4/27/12. Per the Daily Caller Almendariz received $540,000 in taxpayer money to “fund his projects.”

Today a vid surfaced from an EPA administrator comparing its tactics to “Roman crucifixions.” Yes, you heard that right:

Pertinent part of the text which shows a top EPA official, Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz stating the following:

“But as I said, oil and gas is an enforcement priority, it’s one of seven, so we are going to spend a fair amount of time looking at oil and gas production. And I gave, I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the meeting but I’ll go ahead and tell you what I said. It was kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they would crucify them [emphasis mine].And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years. And so you make examples out of people who are in this case not compliant with the law. Find people who are not compliant with the law, and you hit them as hard as you can and you make examples out of them, and there is a deterrent effect there. And, companies that are smart see that, they don’t want to play that game, and they decide at that point that it’s time to clean up. And, that won’t happen unless you have somebody out there making examples of people. So you go out, you look at an industry, you find people violating the law, you go aggressively after them. And we do have some pretty effective enforcement tools. Compliance can get very high, very, very quickly. That’s what these companies respond to is both their public image but also financial pressure. So you put some financial pressure on a company, you get other people in that industry to clean up very quickly. So, that’s our general philosophy.”

Via Heritage a statement from Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK):

His comments are indicative of the “EPA’s war on fossil fuels,” claimed Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) in a news release on Wednesday.

Yes, via a speech on the House floor Inhofe stated “this video gives us a rare glimpse into Obama’s true agenda” and he has launched investigations.

Crossposted at Unified Patriots

Share
Filed Under EPA Tagged With Al Armendariz, energy, EPA, Heritage, Obama, Sen. Jim Inhofe

Bankrupting America initiates new hashtag in effort to “pass a budget”

April 23, 2012 By Carol Greenberg

Bankrupting America logo

I had the pleasure of being on a conference call today with Gretchen Hamel who discussed Congress’ inability to pass a budget in over 3 years and a recent Public Notice poll showing that an overwhelming number (84%) of voters find it extremely or very concerning that the U.S. Senate has not passed a budget in nearly three years.

Because of this, Bankrupting America is launching a new grassroots hashtag campaign to try and move our elected officials to do what’s right for the country – pass a budget and do their job.

#DuringTheLastBudget – will be used to identify items or events that did not exist since the last budget was passed. Below are a couple of examples:

#DuringTheLastBudget

  • The iPad had not been invented
  • Bruno Mars had never released an album
  • Anthony Weiner was a respected member of Congress
  • No one had ever heard of Rebecca Black
  • Charlie Sheen was still on 2 1/2 Men

They are asking for help in getting this campaign off the ground, in an effort to get congress to do their job. Create your own and we may just retweet it from @BankruptingAm.

In addition they launched a new video asking everyone to contact their members of Congress to tell them to *do their job*:

You can check out quotes from Congress on this issue on Bankrupting America’s “Fact Sheet.”

Share
Filed Under budget, Uncategorized Tagged With Bankrupting America, budget

A unified database needed for The Right

April 23, 2012 By Carol Greenberg

This article was written by guest blogger John Fowler.

A Unified Database for the Right or Defeat by a Networked Democratic Party?

It’s been a good week for Republicans. First we find out that Obama’s secretary paid a higher percentage in tax than he did (However, Axelrod was quick to point out that Obama would not make an additional donation to the Treasury to correct this egregious unfairness.); next we find out that while Mitt Romney may have put his dog on top of his car, Obama had actually eaten a dog! (So much for DogsAgainstRomney.com); and finally we see Gallup polls with Romney actually leading Obama among registered voters. It’s almost enough to make a Conservative lean back and rest on his laurels, remembering the heady feeling of victory that swept Republicans into office in the 2010, midterm elections. Almost enough.

6 Months to Go; Where’s The Ground Game

With 6 months to go until the General Election, Republican precinct chairs and activists are sitting on the sidelines. The Tea Party movement, the energized Conservative base, is also effectively idle with no connection to the Party or to the Romney Campaign. The highly touted Republican Database, VoterVault, has fallen into disuse and disrepair and is viewed by Party Members and Activists as a clunky resource that most would rather not even use. Talk to a precinct chair in the Republican Party and ask them how they have been ignored, sidelined and under-equipped. There may be a plan to involve the Conservative Grassroots in this campaign, but if there is, it must be very closely held. In a close election, the party with the better “Ground Game” will win every time. If the Republican Primary is indicative of the General Campaign, we can look forward to a highly centralized, “Air War” with negative campaign ads dominating. This may not deter the loyal base, but moderate, independent and undecided voters will be turned off by such campaigning, and the base may even tire of the repeated requests for nothing other than contributions to fund more negative campaigning. In 2008, Obama and the Democrats had an overpowering Ground Game. If they are able to replicate most of that in 2012, they will be able to turn out a larger percentage of their voters than the Republicans. In a close election, Ground Game wins.

Key to the Ground Game: An Accessible Unified Database

The key to a Ground Game is a database of voters that has the voters’ position on the issues, their voting history, their current contact information, and that is accessible to the activists who are willing to use this information to contact their neighbors and get them out to vote. The Democrats have such a database—Catalist, which is accessed through VoteBuilder or Voter Activation Network (VAN). This is a networked, distributed, unified database that improves with usage and time. It is accessible to Democratic Precinct Chairs, Community Activists, and Unions such as SEIU and NEA. This was the tool that swept Obama to the Democratic Nomination and ultimately, the White House. When each of the tens of thousands of users of Voter Activation Network, contribute information to the Database through a phone call or a personal door knock, that information can be shared across the network. Even in a losing election, Democrats can gain potential political power by refining their knowledge of the electorate.

The Republican Dilemma

In the late 90’s the Republicans developed VoterVault, which was at the time the most powerful political database in existence. The party was able to use the information in VoterVault to conduct Voter-ID and Get Out The Vote efforts. In the absence of a better tool on the Democratic side, VoterVault was highly successful during the early George W. Bush Presidential years. The rise of Voter Activation Network (VAN) however, marked a “Revolution in Political Affairs”. The architecture of VAN enabled local activists to take control of the voter-contact features of the database and enhance the information they collected through personal contact while enriching the information available to all other campaigns that included the voters contacted. Put simply, a door-knock and survey conducted by any Democrat activist improved every Democrat’s knowledge of the electorate.

VoterVault continued to coast while maintaining its top-down, centrally controlled, activist unfriendly architecture. VAN took advantage of the concept of Social Capital and Social Networking and used technology to empower the Activists on the Left by giving them a state-of-the-art organizing tool and trusting them to use it to contribute to the now Progressive cause of the Left. Increasingly on the Right, if a campaign wants to collect data on the electorate, a unique database must be built for each campaign. This results in a disjointed, stove-piped, architecture where each individual door-knock and survey can only benefit the specific campaign that collects and enters the data.

A Unified, Distributed Database for the Right?

With the withering of VoterVault, and the diminished power of the Republican Party in the wake of McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform,(thanks John) the Republican Party is seeking to outsource the Republican Database. There are several competing, highly classified, database projects underway, but the view from the Grassroots is that they are not going to be available in time to empower the activists who need this information to organize their communities. Another explanation could be that the Databases like Themis or Data Trust are not intended to be made available to the Grassroots; that they are merely a new and improved version of the top-down, centrally-controlled model that Voter Vault represented. The result is the same for Precinct Chairs or Tea Party Activists—there is no unified database and voter-contact-management tool for you to use in the 2012 election.

rVotes: The Conservative Solution to VAN

If Conservatives are to harness the immense anti-Progressive, anti-Obama energy of the engaged Grassroots, Conservative Activists must be given the tools to get in the game. The same tool that Obama is using is available to the Right under the name rVotes. Unfortunately, the powers on the Right, including the Party, Incumbents, Candidates, and most importantly Consultants are not ready to embrace the distributed model that the Left is using and that is now available to the right in the form of a fully field-tested voter-contact-management system: rVotes. The software is online and available to be used in seven states (FLA, OH, VA, MI, AZ, IA, and RI) but it is only being adopted by small organizations and campaigns. This is not a new software development; this system is field tested by over a million users and is identical to that being used by the Democrats.

A distributed but unified database for Conservatives is essential to compete with Democrats in the 21st century. Already, 2011 has shown the power of a unified minority on the Left in wreaking havoc in Wisconsin and Ohio and NY CD-26. This theme will be repeated in the future as Democrats are able to turn out their supporters using VAN in order to gain electoral success.

If Republicans continue to deprive the Grassroots organizers of the technological tools like rVotes, Democrats will continue to win elections and build power by gaining a more complete knowledge of the electorate and empowering their activists to use that information to win elections.

Related articles: rVotes now a reality for Ohio

OFA/DNC database system now available for Republicans

U.S. Senate candidate Jamie Radtke licenses rVotes

Share
Filed Under election databases, rvotes Tagged With campaign database systems, Catalist, DNC, Jamie Radtke, Obama, OFA, precinct activism, Romney, rvotes, SEIU, tea party, VAN, Votebuilder, Voter Activation Network, VoterVault