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"Pledged to vote for Woodrow Wilson and support the reorganization of the Democratic Party"

"Democrats in every county in Pennsylvania have been betrayed times without number and to-day trickery and deception walk hand in hand to again mislead them"

"Canidates have been found, who, for a price, are willing to represent the twin-machine traitors."

"Every alert, active Democrat will easily detect the tricksters, and on Saturday, April 13th, 1912, between the hours of 2 PM and 8 PM, will register his vote for the Purification of this Party."

Potentially Big News on Lieberman's Cap-and-Trade Proposal

Posted September 20, 2007 | 05:06 PM (EST)

Recently, one of the most irksome members of the Senate, Joe Lieberman (I-Clowntown) expressed openness to one of the boldest and most effective climate-change policies possible. Some background,

A cap-and-trade system begins by placing a cap on carbon emissions and distributing permits (permission to emit a certain amount of CO2) equal to the capped amount. The notion is that permits will be bought and sold, allowing market forces to determine where emission reductions can be made fastest and easiest. The question is how to distribute those initial permits.

When the EU carbon trading system was established, permits were given away based on emissions, meaning the biggest polluters got the most permits. The idea was that those polluters most needed the money because they had the biggest reductions to make, but in practice it was an enormous financial windfall for their shareholders and prompted very little action on their part to reduce emissions.

The alternative is to sell the permits at auction. This would, in effect, put the proceeds in government coffers rather than in the pockets of utility shareholders. The question then becomes: what should the gov't do with all that money (up to $50B a year)?

The Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade proposal, released early this year, was widely seen as the "moderate" bill that could get some support from Senate Republicans. One of the biggest criticisms it faced is that it would auction only 20% of the permits -- 80% would be given away to polluters.

But an intriguing item in Politico indicates that Lieberman may be open to changing that:

Lieberman, following a forum sponsored by the Progressive Policy Institute Wednesday, said such a change to his legislation was possible. "We've heard [calls for a 100 percent auction] from some stakeholders and heard that from some of our members. We're thinking about it. Warner and I haven't closed our minds to that. It's on the table," he said.

This could be huge news. The L-W proposal is viewed as the middle of the road. If it moves to 100% auctioned credits, that will effectively sanctify it as the new baseline. The policy and political implications are both huge.

McCain's Emission-Reduction Plan Receives Favorable Review

by: Frank Carlson

Posted August 11, 2008 | 11:43 AM (EST)

As U.S. Senators Barack Obama and John McCain begin their long descent into tit-for-tat rhetorical games, it's easy to forget key issues the two still broadly agree on: federally funded stem-cell research; nuclear nonproliferation; comprehensive immigration reform; faith-based social services; and global warming.

Obama and McCain agree that human-induced global warming exists and even on the system America should adopt to counteract it -- cap and trade, a plan that sets a limit (cap) on the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by manufacturers and power plants, for example, and then hands out credits that polluters can trade among themselves to pull themselves within the legal limits. Heavy emitters of greenhouse gases have to buy credits from low-level emitters. Cap-and-trade plans reward all sides for reducing emissions. Low-level emitters reduce in order to pile up additional credits to sell and high-level emitters reduce in order to spend less on credits.

Where Obama and McCain disagree on the plan concerns the role of the government, specifically how the government should allocate permits to companies. And unlike the current, silly spat over tire pressure gauges, this one matters.

Obama favors a full auction of the credits, which would act like a tax on companies, collecting a great deal of money right off the bat for the government to redistribute. This cash, he says, could go to alternative energy research and projects, then the credits would go to markets.

McCain says he would dole out permits in much the same way proposed by the Climate Security Act of 2007. That act failed in June to receive enough Senate support to even bring to a vote, but the basics are the same: Give the great majority of the permits away, and let the market set the price to support investment.

Here is where conventional political lines become blurred.

If you favor a more free market approach, McCain's plan may be for you because the government would collect far less money from businesses for redistribution. But if you're spooked by special interests, political favors for lobbyists and political corruption--as McCain says he is--then perhaps you side with Obama's strategy.

So what does Richard Sandor, architect of the wildly successful cap and trade system for reducing sulfur dioxide(SO2) and now CEO of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), say?

He's for a partial auction of credits like the one McCain is backing.

"If you look at full auctioning of permits, what happens?" Sandor asked reporters during a recent interview at his office near the Board of Trade in downtown Chicago. "The day that they are auctioned, you have a net transfer of wealth from the private sector to the public sector at that moment. What, then, happens to climate change? Nothing has happened. You have just had a transfer of wealth.
Climate Exchange, the first voluntary but legally
binding market for trading emissions in North America.

It's better to let the private sector decide where the money should go, Sandor says, which is why he's against a carbon tax. And, he adds, there is precedent for believing so.

"The program that's worked is SO2," Sandor said. "Some amount of auctioning is, I think, OK. We will implement whatever the government does. We don't have an official opinion, but I'm guided by the SO2 program and how it accomplished its objectives so cheaply that that's the way to do it."

Sandor insisted the CCX is not a policy-making entity and that it will implement any system lawmakers put forth. Much like pilots, he said, the CCX will fly whichever planes the engineers--or rather, politicians--design.

"If you design it wrong," he said, "you may have to go 30 extra miles, you may have some accidents, or crashes, and we really speak to the efficacy of the design and leave public policy to the people who are policy makers in Washington. We're not advocates."

The CCX is currently North America's only voluntary but legally binding platform for trading carbon and other emissions. Even without a mandatory cap and trade system in the U.S., many companies have already begun to reduce their emissions in the hopes of improving their public image and perhaps reaping revenues through emissions reductions.

While Sandor explains why he's against Obama's plan for the full auction of credits, his greatest priority is getting mandatory cap and trade in place, whatever the framework. Undoubtedly, this would be a great boon to the CCX, and Sandor believes it is coming.

"Both candidates, McCain and Obama, have publicly embraced it," Sandor said. "I believe in their hearts that they're committed to reducing global warming and see it as a major threat. Is it inevitable? I think so. Could there be bumps? Yes."

Those bumps, worries Sandor, include a terrorist attack that could dislodge global warming from the political agenda in favor of dealing with more immediate problems.

"And that's the nightmare scenario that I worry about because it's easy to not worry about intergenerational problems when you have immediate security needs," he says. "And I'm not suggesting that they aren't more important. In fact, they are. But the thing that will slip will be the longer-based horizon, and I think that's a danger that we have."As U.S. Senators Barack Obama and John McCain begin their long descent into tit-for-tat rhetorical games, it's easy to forget key issues the two still broadly agree on: federally funded stem-cell rese...

I dont have to defend my education or knowledge of history. I know what I have been taught. This endless attack gets tiring. Time to go do something more constructive than read your attacks to me. Later Gator

This is definitely scary. When we lose control to raise or own children......what else do they want to take away from us. This is beyond ridiculous.

You people who cry and whine about government staying out of your uterus....well how about stay out of my home and let me raise my kids I decided to have instead of aborting. What about those rights?

I don't post under a name, because when you do you are crucified by the drive-by bombers. It's best to keep the them confused.

But first to a story horrifying even by the coarsening standards of Iraq, the brutal murder and torture of two U.S. soldiers.

Privates first class Kristian Menchaca and Thomas L. Tucker went missing Friday after an attack on a checkpoint they were manning south of Baghdad. Their bodies were found on Monday night. They were reportedly so badly mutilated they were tentatively identified by tattoos and scars. The corpses were also booby-trapped, an apparent effort to kill recovery teams.

Al Qaeda�s new leader in Iraq has claimed responsibility for the soldier�s slaughter.

In the face of brutality like this, is Iraq worth the cost in American lives? Here to answer that question, Brad Blakeman. He�s the former deputy assistant to the president. He joins us tonight from Washington.

CARLSON: So we have spent untold billions of dollars, 2,500 American soldiers killed, all in an effort to bring democracy and prosperity to Iraq. In return, they torture and murder and mutilate our soldiers. Remind me why this is a good bargain?

BLAKEMAN: Well, Tucker, look, this is a tough thing, and our hearts go out to every soldier who has made the ultimate sacrifice so that we can live in freedom.

But Iraq is worth fighting for. The region is worth fighting for. It�s in our interest. These terrible, brutal dictatorships must be brought down when they become a threat to our national security. You know...

CARLSON: OK. But that�s not the rationale the president has offered. He has said now, because as you know, and not to rehash the whole war, but no weapons of mass destruction were found. And he�s said now this is worth doing because it�s worth bringing freedom to the Iraqi people. They yearn for freedom, and it�s our duty to give them the freedom they yearn for.

My question is how have they earned our sacrifice to bring them that freedom? What about Iraq justifies the death�brutal deaths of American soldiers? Why should we feel like it�s worth it to bring these people democracy when they behave like animals like this?

BLAKEMAN: We�re focusing on the animals and not the good and decent people of Iraq. The vast majority of Iraq is peaceful.

CARLSON: Is that right? I don�t think�I don�t think there�s any evidence of that.

BLAKEMAN: There are 12 million people who went to�who went to the polls. They have four successful elections. They have a new government. We tend only to focus on the very bad, on the insurgencies, and the evil people. But the vast majority of Iraqis want to be free.

BLAKEMAN: Hold on, Tucker. If we took your attitude, we would have turned back at the beaches of Normandy when all those people...

CARLSON: Spare me the tired, hackney, cliched World War II analogies. Let�s get to the war in progress, and that�s Iraq. There are decent people there. I have been there. I�ve met decent people there. I know firsthand.

CARLSON: It certainly is. A poll undertaken by the ministry of defense from Great Britain, part of the coalition, said 65 percent of Iraqi citizens support attacks on U.S. citizens.

Our own polling, done by World Opinion, public opinion, 47 percent approve attacks on U.S. forces, 88 percent of Sunnis, 88 percent approve of attacks on U.S. forces.

These are�are these�these are the people our sons and daughters are dying to make rich and free? How does that work?

BLAKEMAN: It is our responsibility. We brought down this dictator, this evil dictator...

BLAKEMAN: ... who used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. Now, it�s our responsibility to bring democracy to these people. We can�t cut and run and defeat the dictator and then leave...

CARLSON: Why is it our responsibility? There are countries across the world who live in shackles.

BLAKEMAN: We are the freest nation on earth. That�s why it�s our responsibility. We�re the freest nation on earth. We brought down the dictator, and now it�s our responsibility...

CARLSON: How does that work? They have not done one thing for us. Look�look, think of the implications of what you are saying. I don�t know if you have thought this through.

CARLSON: Nation after nation after nation, starting with Mugabe in Zimbabwe, moving all the way to communist�still communist, still unfree China, people who are living in fetters who are unfree, who are oppressed, is it our, as you put it, obligation as a free a nation to free those nations? Do you really want to play this?

BLAKEMAN: Is it�do you know what our obligation is? It�s to bring freedom to those people who yearn to be free. And China has come a long way.

CARLSON: ... people I�ve never met in countries that hate us? You�ve got to be kidding. It�s my obligation to do that?

BLAKEMAN: Yes, it is our obligation. Was it our obligation to go�was it our obligation.

CARLSON: Where does the obligation come from? I didn�t sign up for that obligation.

BLAKEMAN: It�s our obligation. Was it our obligation to go�was it our obligation to go into Europe where we weren�t attacked? No, Europe let a dictator get so strong that collectively they couldn�t take him down, and we had to come down.

BLAKEMAN: We lost 400,000 Americans in that war. We lost�a million people were wounded in that war.

CARLSON: Let me just remind you, we entered that war on December 7, 1941, when our soil, the protectorate of Hawaii, was attacked by a foreign nation and thousands of Americans died. We went to war on that day, and not before. OK? So the overall principle you are stating here, that we have a moral obligation to free the unfree, think it through, man. It�s...

BLAKEMAN: I didn�t say that, Tucker. I said when we took down the dictator, when we made an obligation to risk our soldiers to free a country, we just can�t cut and run. We have to establish a government for them. We�ve got to give them the opportunity to succeed. That�s our obligation.

CARLSON: And you may be right as far as that goes. But the blanket obligation that Bush implies, and you just stated, that we have to go free the world, to send our sons and daughters to go...

CARLSON: ... die for other people�s freedom, people who hate us, it�s a scary thing.

BLAKEMAN: They�re our allies. They our allies, and they stand shoulder to shoulder with us. Should we have waited to get attacked by the Iraqis? No.

CARLSON: You know, I thought�when I supported the war initially, I thought that they were capable of attacking us, and it turns out, as you know, and I�m sad to report, that we weren�t.

on TV. I didn't see the whole video clip of them singing but the little bit I did see was enough to show me how eerie and just messed up that is. This whole thing is just creepy.

where someone had decorated their house for Halloween and hanging from a rope was a mannequin dressed like Sarah Palin. They had her hanging by the neck. How horrible is that? The authorities said that they couldn't do anything since it was a Halloween decoration. That is just sick though. I mean seriously....if they had Barrack Obama hanging by the neck or Joe Biden.....I'd still be sickened by it. What is wrong with people?

Leaning to the right said it and I want to put it in a separate post. I think this is one of the main reasons why people are voting for McCain.

about the election. He's 10 and they're studying this election in social studies. He told me they were going to have an "election" in class. I asked him if he knew who he was voting for and he immediately answered Obama. When I asked him why, he said because he likes him. I asked him if they studied the issues and the candidates' stances on these issues and he said yes. I began asking him some general questions -- their running mates, their economic policies, their military stances, etc. He didn't really know much other than who their running mates were and that Obama was going to "cut taxes on anyone making less than 250 thousand".

I thought that's not bad for a fifth grader, but when I asked him about their stance on abortion and same-sex marriage, he didn't know how the candidates stood. I told him that Obama is pro-choice and McCain is pro-life and I explained the difference. My son didn't know what an abortion was yet, so I didn't go into any graphic detail, just that the doctor could do a procedure on a woman to end the pregnancy. He was shocked that Obama would believe in this.

All these kids in his class are so hyped about Obama and yet I wonder how many wouldn't be here today if Obama had been elected 12 years ago. After I was done talking with him, I asked him what was more important to him: money or life?

He chose life. He said he was voting for McCain, even if it wasn't the popular choice, and when his class asks him why he's supporting McCain, he's going to tell them. Maybe some of these kids will go home and educate their parents. It's a shame how many people are going to vote next week without any clue as to how their candidate stands on the issues.

their date night out --

David Roberts

Potentially Big News on Lieberman's Cap-and-Trade Proposal