EPA May Have Suppressed Report Skeptical Of Global Warming

“How many scientists does it take to establish that a consensus does not exist on global warming?” Is 32,000 enough?

The Petition reads:

We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

YOU CAN READ THE SUPPRESSED EMAILS  & COMMENTS HERE:

Global Warming Consensus Gone Up in Flames

The UN global warming conference currently underway in Poland is about to face a serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who are criticizing the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.  Set for release this week, a newly updated U.S. Senate Minority Report features the dissenting voices of over 650 international scientists, many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN. The report has added about 250 scientists (and growing) in 2008 to the over 400 scientists who spoke out in 2007. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)

The collapse of the “consensus” has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth’s temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

EPA May Have Suppressed Report Skeptical Of Global Warming

The Environmental Protection Agency may have suppressed an internal report that was skeptical of claims about global warming, including whether carbon dioxide must be strictly regulated by the federal government, according to a series of newly disclosed e-mail messages.

Less than two weeks before the agency formally submitted its pro-regulation recommendation to the White House, an EPA center director quashed a 98-page report that warned against making hasty “decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data.”

The EPA official, Al McGartland, said in an e-mail message to a staff researcher on March 17: “The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward… and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision.”

The e-mail correspondence raises questions about political interference in what was supposed to be a independent review process inside a federal agency — and echoes criticisms of the EPA under the Bush administration, which was accused of suppressing a pro-climate change document.

Alan Carlin, the primary author of the 98-page EPA report, told CBSNews.com in a telephone interview on Friday that his boss, McGartland, was being pressured himself. “It was his view that he either lost his job or he got me working on something else,” Carlin said. “That was obviously coming from higher levels.”

E-mail messages released this week show that Carlin was ordered not to “have any direct communication” with anyone outside his small group at EPA on the topic of climate change, and was informed that his report would not be shared with the agency group working on the topic.

“I was told for probably the first time in I don’t know how many years exactly what I was to work on,” said Carlin, a 38-year veteran of the EPA. “And it was not to work on climate change.” One e-mail orders him to update a grants database instead.

Carlin’s report listed a number of recent developments he said the EPA did not consider, including that global temperatures have declined for 11 years; that new research predicts Atlantic hurricanes will be unaffected; that there’s “little evidence” that Greenland is shedding ice at expected levels; and that solar radiation has the largest single effect on the earth’s temperature.

In the last few days, Republicans have begun to raise questions about the report and e-mail messages, but it was insufficient to derail the so-called cap and trade bill from being approved by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The revelations could prove embarrassing to Jackson, the EPA administrator, who said in January: “I will ensure EPA’s efforts to address the environmental crises of today are rooted in three fundamental values: science-based policies and programs, adherence to the rule of law, and overwhelming transparency.” Similarly, Mr. Obama claimed that “the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over… To undermine scientific integrity is to undermine our democracy. It is contrary to our way of life.”

“All this talk from the president and (EPA administrator) Lisa Jackson about integrity, transparency, and increased EPA protection for whistleblowers — you’ve got a bouquet of ironies here,” said Kazman, the CEI attorney.

CBSNews.com/blogs

Callers against climate bill crash phone system

This was barely voted for 219-212……maybe it can be killed in the Senate. Don’t forget the Spanish Study Shows Green Jobs Could Lead To 11m More Lost US Jobs Just what we need more job losses.

A coordinated conservative push to kill a climate change bill took down the House of Representatives’ phone switchboard.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A coordinated conservative push to kill a climate change bill managed to at least take down the House of Representatives’ phone switchboard.

The volume of calls to House members Friday was so high that a spokesman for the House chief administrative officer told CNN Radio the system could not handle it.

“Phone traffic has increased to a level where some callers are receiving an ‘all circuits are busy now, please try back again later’ message,” communications director Jeff Ventura wrote in an e-mail response.

This came as conservative radio hosts and congressmen made direct pleas for voters to dial the Capitol and oppose a Democratic bill that would set strict limits on carbon emissions. Both sides believed the bill was within a few votes of passing or failing.

“Call your congressman, right now!” urged Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana, from the House floor as the chamber seemed to near a vote.

Ventura said the bill was likely behind the phone-line crash. “The suspected cause … is believed to be interest and inquiries regarding the expected vote on the climate bill,” he wrote.

Busy signals blared from congressional offices beginning Friday morning. Traffic was especially jammed at key committees and in offices of potential swing voters, including Democrats from traditionally Republican states, like Texas.

“I can’t begin to tell you how many calls we’ve received,” said Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-Texas, “and it’s disproportionately vote ‘no.’” Gonzalez said calls were disproportionately “yes” during the committee process and he planned to support the bill.

Ventura said technical staff was working to try and resolve the issue late Friday.

CNN.com

Fed engaged in “cover-up” of BOA-Merrill deal-lawmaker

And we’re being asked to make the Federal Reserve a “super regulator” and give them even more power, the authority to “regulate” any company whose activity it believes could threaten the economy and the markets. We’re being told by the Fed…that the answer to this is giving them more power?

WASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve sought to hide its extensive involvement and concerns about Bank of America Corp’s (BAC.N) acquisition of Merrill Lynch amid the latter’s worsening financial condition, a top Republican congressman said on Wednesday.

“The committee has already learned that Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve made inappropriate threats to fire Bank of America management unless they went ahead with the ’shotgun wedding’ that was the Merrill Lynch acquisition,” Rep. Darrell Issa of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said in a statement released to Reuters.

“The Federal Reserve also engaged in a cover-up and deliberately hid concerns and pertinent details regarding the merger from other federal regulatory agencies,” the statement said.

The committee has obtained a number of emails and documents from the U.S. central bank about its behind-the-scenes role in the merger, according to sources familiar with documents.

Reuters.com

ABC employees donated heavily to Obama

Well  with all the hype about Obama on ABC tonight, it’s beginning to look like a payback to me for all those donations they made. Eigthty times more than any other network for Obama.

ABC: Obama’s ’state-run television network’?
40 congressmen send letter blasting in-White House coverage of health reform

A newly formed group of U.S. congressmen called the Media Fairness Caucus fired off a letter of protest to ABC News today over the network’s planned coverage of President Obama’s health care reform initiatives, declaring the scheduled programming “gives the appearance of a state-run television network.”

“Without giving time to an opposing viewpoint,” the letter signed by 40 U.S. representatives states, “ABC News’ programming on June 24 will amount to a day-long infomercial for the president and his government-run health care plan.

“We urge you,” the letter concludes, “to give the American people the facts and let them make up their own minds, not tell them what to think.”

WorldnetDaily.com

ABC employees donated heavily to Obama

Jennifer Harper

As indignation turned to outrage Thursday among critics of an ABC News prime-time special on President Obama’s health care policy, The Washington Times has learned that ABC employees gave 80 times as much money to Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign for president than to his rival’s.

According to an analysis of campaign donations by the Center for Responsive Politics, conducted at The Times’ request, ABC employees in several divisions donated $124,421 to the Obama campaign, compared with $1,550 to the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain.

The 60-minute ABC program, to air live from the White House on Wednesday, is sparking hardball politics in other ways. Grass-roots boycotts, Republican outcry and a study citing media bias are all part of the mix.

A study released Thursday by the Business & Media Institute (BMI) found that since Inauguration Day, ABC has aired news stories with positive reviews of Mr. Obama’s health care policy 55 times, compared with 18 times when the network highlighted negative reviews.

Citing Census Bureau figures, the BMI analyses also accused ABC of “exaggerating the breadth of the uninsured problem,” saying the network’s claim that up to 50 million Americans are uninsured is false.

“ABC is in bed with their source, so to speak. ABC is supposed to be a news organization, not a producer of infomercials for national health care. And I wonder what they would have done if the Bush administration had asked for positive programming to support the war on terror or Social Security initiatives,” said Dan Gainor, BMI vice president of business and culture.

Longtime Democratic strategist Tad Devine, however, said he detected the vast right-wing conspiracy of the last Democratic administration, and warned Republicans that complaining could backfire.

“It’s the same old, same old from Republicans. People who run political parties have a responsibility to get their side of the story out, and they’re attacking ABC to do that. ABC is the vehicle,” said Mr. Devine, whose Democratic roots go back to the presidential ticket of Jimmy Carter and Walter F. Mondale.

“Republicans think they must undercut news organizations who give President Obama favorable coverage – or they will lose elections. They’re going to go after anyone who gives Obama a showcase,” Mr. Devine said. “But it could backfire. If the GOP keeps this up, everyone will tune into that ABC special on Wednesday.”

An informal online poll at the New York Daily News on Thursday found that 75 percent of the respondents did not “trust” ABC to provide even-handed coverage. And conservative bloggers have been intensely critical of ABC in recent days.

“I’m not watching ABC entertainment, and I’m not watching their news programming either,” said New York-based Karen Dougherty, who writes LonelyConservative.com, one of many blogs issuing a call for boycotts of ABC and its advertisers.

The broadcast, they say, is tantamount to an infomercial for the administration, made worse by the fact that ABC also will broadcast “World News Tonight” from the White House on Wednesday.

“It’s not enough to say that ABC is exercising terrible journalistic judgment. The American public has to let ABC know that these decisions matter. As a believer in the marketplace, I think that an advertiser boycott is the way to deal with this unseemly display of media partisanship. After all, every American has a voice in the marketplace,” said Sunny Berman of Bookwormroom.com, another conservative blog based in California.

An ABC executive responded to criticisms with the following:

“We welcome feedback from an audience in whatever form it might take. The top and bottom line is that we intend to produce a fair, probing and thoughtful discussion about a vitally important issue,” said Jeffrey Schneider, senior vice president of ABC News communications.

The Republican National Committee disagrees.

Denied a chance to question Mr. Obama on his policy or buy advertising time on the program, Republicans said ABC denied them equal time for the town-hall-style event, accusing the network of turning over “its entire programming over to President Obama and his big-government agenda,” RNC Chairman Michael S. Steele said in the organization’s second public letter to the network in 48 hours.

ABC’s Mr. Schneider called the Steele letter “a little sad. But that’s how it all goes down. First you leak a letter from the RNC chief of staff to the press – all based on false premises – then the chairman writes something and riles everybody up. Then you ask for money. That’s politics 101.”

WashingtonTimes.com

Ron Paul/Judge Napoliano Slam the Federal Reserve’s New Dictatorial Powers

More unconstitutional authority given to the Federal Reserve:

Article 1 section 8:

“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes……..To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;” (nothing in the Constitution about private banks like the Federal Reserve which isn’t federal at all.)

Ron Paul/Judge Napoliano  Slam the  Federal Reserve’s New Dictatorial Powers

Congressman Ron Paul tells MSNBC  that the very entity responsible for the economic crisis is now more powerful than Congress..

“They’re giving a tremendous amount of more power to the Federal Reserve – the very institution that created our problem. That’s about the way Washington works,” said the Congressman.

“Too much regulations to begin with, so they give it more. The Federal Reserve creates the problem, so we give them more power. It’s fiat money that’s the problem, so we allow them to double the money supply – you can’t solve the problems that way. That’s like saying you can take care of a drug addict by just giving them more drugs,” concluded Paul, adding that the lack of understanding about how the Federal Reserve created the problem and how the free market ought to work was the root of the crisis.

Responding to the Obama administration’s new regulatory reform plan, which will officially hand the Federal Reserve complete dictatorial control over the U.S. economy.Paul emphasized that no amount of regulation could compensate for a financial system created and controlled by the Federal Reserve that was completely unstable to begin with.

“The regulations should be on the Federal Reserve. We should have transparency of the Federal Reserve. They can create trillions of dollars to bail out their friends, and we don’t even have any transparency of this. They’re more powerful than the Congress,” said Paul.

As the LA Times reports, the government, in conjunction with the private Federal Reserve, would effectively have the clout to simply seize and take over any company it desires or considers a threat to the economy. Take over like General Motors?

In order to appease those opposed to the plan, such as Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, chairman of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, the Obama administration has agreed to create a “watchdog” council of regulators to “advise the Fed”.

However, as former chairman Alan Greenspan has most recently pointed out, given that the Fed is an independent entity, and therefore accountable to no one, it will have the power to simply reject and overrule any advice it is offered.

Good Explanation

Got this in my email the other day.  Think it says it well.  Enjoy

LETTER FROM THE BOSS:

As the CEO of this organization, I have resigned myself to the fact that Barrack Obama is our President and that our taxes and government fees will increase in a BIG way. To compensate for these increases, our prices would have to increase by about 10%.

But since we cannot increase our prices right now due to the dismal state of the economy, we will have to lay off sixty of our employees instead.  This has really been bothering me, since I believe we are family here and I didn’t know how to choose who would have to go.   So, this is what I did. 

I walked through our parking lots and found sixty  ‘Obama’ bumper stickers on our employees’ cars and have decided these folks will be the ones to let go. I can’t think of a more fair way to approach this problem. They voted for change, I gave it to them. I will see the rest of you at the annual company picnic.

Excuse me, are we at it again.

Can we make an argument for supply and demand, or just plain ol gouging?  Our friends at the NYMEX are at it again…it’s vacation driving season.  There’s your demand.  Here’s a story from Bloomberg, and please note the increase in gas supplies.  It seems someone didn’t slide all the marbles to the left on the calculator again.

Crude Oil Rises as U.S. Supply Declines, Fuel Demand Increases
By Mark Shenk

June 17 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil rose for the first time in four days after a government report showed a bigger-than- forecast inventory decline and an increase in fuel demand.

Crude oil stockpiles fell 3.87 million barrels to 357.7 million, the Energy Department said today. The drop was more than twice the size forecast by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Fuel consumption climbed 1.3 percent to 19 million barrels a day last week, the highest since March. Refineries increased operating rates and gasoline output, the report showed.

“There have been several multimillion-barrel inventory declines recently,” said Rick Mueller, a director of oil markets at Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Wakefield, Massachusetts. “Imports have been in the 8-to-9 million-barrel- a-day area, which is just not enough to maintain stockpiles during this period of high refinery runs.”

Crude oil for July delivery rose 56 cents, or 0.8 percent, to settle at $71.03 a barrel at 2:43 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures earlier touched $69, the lowest since June 9. Prices are up 59 percent this year.

Oil dropped earlier today after the Energy Department report showed that fuel stockpiles increased. Gasoline inventories climbed 3.39 million barrels to 205 million last week, the biggest gain since January. Supplies of distillate fuel, a category that includes heating oil and diesel, rose 308,000 barrels to 150 million.

“The initial move lower was fueled by the gasoline supply increase,” said Gene McGillian, an analyst and broker at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut. “Overall the report was mixed. The crude-oil drop was greater than people expected and gasoline demand was up a bit.”

Apologizing for Something You haven’t done…

Oh please, not again.  I ain’t apologizing, I never have owned a slave, and I don’t know anyone who has.   My comments in red.

Senate Backs Apology for Slavery
Resolution Specifies That It Cannot Be Used in Reparations Cases
 

By Krissah Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 19, 2009

The Senate unanimously passed a resolution yesterday apologizing for slavery, making way for a joint congressional resolution and the latest attempt by the federal government to take responsibility for 2 1/2 centuries of slavery. Wonder how many of them are slave owners?

“You wonder why we didn’t do it 100 years ago,”  Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), lead sponsor of the resolution, said after the unanimous-consent vote. “It is important to have a collective response to a collective injustice.” Probably because he wasn’t around 100 years ago to meet smarter legislators than he is.

The Senate’s apology follows a similar apology passed last year by the House. One key difference is that the Senate version explicitly deals with the long-simmering issue of whether slavery descendants are entitled to reparations, saying that the resolution cannot be used in support of claims for restitution. The House is expected to revisit the issue next week to conform its resolution to the Senate version.  Ahh, apologize, but we ain’t paying anything…

Harkin, who called the Senate’s vote an “important and significant milestone,” said he wanted the resolution passed yesterday to closely coincide with Juneteenth, a holiday first celebrated by former slaves to mark their emancipation.

This recent willingness to deal with the nation’s difficult racial history has come about in part because of President Obama’s election, said Rep. Stephen I. Cohen (D-Tenn.), who began pushing for an apology more than a decade ago when he was a state senator and pronounced himself “pleased” with the Senate vote. I’m sure he is, he’s looking to be re-elected over and over in a black home base.  Puleese, obviously this country is already over it if Obama was elected.

Still, Cohen said, “there are going to be African Americans who think that [the apology] is not reparations, and it’s not action, and there are going to be Caucasians who say, ‘Get over it.’ . . . I look at it as something that makes people think.” What people should be thinking is how to get rid of this idiot who comes up with this stuff instead of something that will actually help his constituents.

Even among proponents of a congressional apology, reaction to yesterday’s vote was mixed. Carol M. Swain, a professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University who had pushed for the Bush administration to issue an apology, called the Democratic-controlled Senate’s resolution “meaningless” since the party and federal government are led by a black president and black voters are closely aligned with the Democratic party.

“The Republican Party needed to do it,” Swain said. “It would have shed that racist scab on the party.” Oh yeah, that would have helped.  I think what would have helped both is that they were actually concentrating on something that helped this country rather than reminding everyone how they think that we’re all bad people who need to apologize over everything.  How about term limits, and then we don’t have to listen to this crap?

Republicans, however, were supportive of the resolution. “It doesn’t fix everything, but it does go a long way toward acknowledgment and moving us on to the next steps to building a more perfect union, doing the things that Martin Luther King would talk about, like building a colorblind society,” said  Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.).

As with all congressional apologies — but especially this one — concerns about liability for restitution were part of the political calculations, in this case because of the long-running debate about whether the descendants of slaves should be compensated.

Charles Ogletree, the Harvard law professor who has championed restitution, was consulted on the Senate’s resolution and supports it, but he said it is not a substitute for reparations. “That battle will be prolonged,” he said.

Randall Robinson, author of “The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks,” said he sees the Senate’s apology as a “confession” that should lead to a next step of reparations. “Much is owed, and it is very quantifiable,” he said. “It is owed as one would owe for any labor that one has not paid for, and until steps are taken in that direction we haven’t accomplished anything.” A confession huh?  I call it a plea for a free dime.

Cohen said he and Harkin worked closely with the NAACP and other civil rights groups on language that would not endorse or preclude any future claims to reparations. “It will not harm reparations but won’t give any standing to it,” Cohen said.

 

Taxes for Insurance…and especially if you already have it

Just so you know what they’re up to on the new insurance thing…here’s some ideas on how their coming up with the money.  Didn’t you count on new taxes, or were you waiting on the free gas from Barack?

House eyes new taxes as senators pare health bill
 

By ERICA WERNER

 

WASHINGTON (AP) – Early work on the ambitious health care overhaul the Obama administration is seeking has exposed the kinds of in-house fights that typify just how hard it will be to get meaningful legislation this year. Case in point: A proposal to help bankroll universal health coverage with a dime-a-can increase in the price of soft drinks.

House Democrats have lots of potential targets for higher taxes as they aim to expand health care coverage to reach the roughly 50 million that experts say are uninsured.

Also under consideration are higher alcohol taxes, increases to the Medicare payroll tax and a value-added tax, a sort of national sales tax, of up to 1.5 percent or more.

The list of options being weighed by the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, and obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, aims to raise some $600 billion over 10 years to partially pay for President Barack Obama’s goal of overhauling the nation’s health care system to tame costs and cover the 50 million uninsured.

The final price tag for that effort could top $1 trillion, with cuts to Medicare and Medicaid covering the rest of the cost.

The tax options include:

- Increasing the price of soda and other sugary drinks by 10 cents a can.

- Applying a potential 2 percent income tax increase to single taxpayers earning more than $200,000 a year and households earning more than $250,000.

- A new employer payroll tax could target 3 percent of employers’ health care expenditures.

- Taxing employer-provided health insurance benefits above certain levels – a less likely option but one that still is in the running.

House Democrats planned to unveil a draft of their sweeping health care bill Friday. It would require all individuals to obtain health insurance and force employers to offer health care to their workers, with exemptions for small businesses. A new public health insurance plan, strongly opposed by Republicans, would compete with private companies within a new health care purchasing “exchange” where Americans could shop for coverage. Government subsidies would help the poor buy care.

The draft, being released at a news conference of the chairmen of the three committees with jurisdiction – Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Labor – was not expected to mention the potentially unpopular tax options.

On the other side of the Capitol, two Senate committees were going in separate directions on their health care bills. The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee spent a second full day working on an expansive bill reflecting Democratic priorities, while members of the Finance Committee were laboring to produce legislation that could attract Republican support.

To that end Finance Committee senators were looking at leaving a new public insurance plan out of their bill, instead creating nonprofit co-ops to offer insurance in competition with private companies, according to an outline obtained by The Associated Press. The co-ops could accept federal loans for startup operations, but would have to repay the money.

Struggling to pare their bill from an earlier $1.6 trillion cost estimate to about $1 trillion over 10 years, Finance Committee members also were looking at making federal subsidies available to help families with incomes of up to 300 percent of poverty, or $66,000, purchase insurance. An earlier proposal set the level at 400 percent of poverty, or $88,000.

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., reviewed the plans behind closed doors Thursday with a group of senators he deemed “the coalition of the willing.” Republicans present were top committee Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Olympia Snowe of Maine.

“We’re getting closer and closer,” Baucus said during a break in the meeting. “There’s no doubt in my mind we’re going to have a bipartisan bill.”

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who’s presiding over the Health Committee work session, dismissed bipartisanship as an end in itself.

“My goal here is to write a good bill. My goal is not bipartisanship,” said Dodd, who has taken the committee reins in the absence of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who’s being treated for brain cancer.

It ain’t as if we weren’t warned

From the Southern National Congress as written by Clyde Wilson.  He says our Southern Fathers told us what to expect.  Another great article Carl, who say’s “Makes you proud to be a Southerner, don’t it?”

Steve

“ . . . and bank-notes will become as plentiful as oak leaves”

—Thomas Jefferson

“ They [the people], and not the rich are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labours and our amusements . . . our people . . .must come to labour sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses . . . .”

—Thomas Jefferson

“But an opinion that it is possible for the present generation to seize and use the property of future generations has produced to both parties concerned, effects of the same complexion with the usual fruits of national errour. The present age is cajoled to tax and enslave itself, by the errour of believing that it taxes and enslaves future ages to enrich itself.”

—John Taylor of Caroline

“A crocodile has been worshipped, and its priesthood have asserted that morality required the people to suffer themselves to be eaten by the crocodile.”

—John Taylor of Caroline

“We are now making an experiment, which has never yet succeeded in any region or quarter of the earth, at any time, from the deluge to this day. With regard to the antediluvian times, history is not very full; but there is no proof that it has ever succeeded, even before the flood.”

—John Randolph of Roanoke

“I said that this Government, if put to the test—a test that it is by no means calculated to endure—as a government for the management of the internal concerns of this country, is one of the worst that can be conceived . . . .”

—John Randolph of Roanoke

“Why should the government pay the expenses of one class of men rather than another?”

—John C. Calhoun

“A habit of profusion and extravagance has grown up utterly inconsistent with republican simplicity and virtue, and which was rapidly sapping the foundation of our government.”

—John C. Calhoun

“It was impossible to force the minds of the public officers to the importance of attendance to the public money, because we had too much of it.”

—John C. Calhoun

“It has been justly stated by a British writer that the power to make a small piece of paper, not worth one cent, by the inscribing of a few names, to be worth a thousand dollars, was a power too high to be trusted to the hands of mortal man.”

—John C. Calhoun

“We must curb the Banking system, or it will certainly ruin the country.”

—John C. Calhoun

“The government is the executive committee of great wealth.”

—Frank L. Owsley, Southern Agrarian, 1936

From the beginning of the U.S. Government, Southerners saw it as a locus of liberty, honour, and American mutuality. From its beginning, the predominant class in the North regarded the government as a source of profits. To Southerners, the Constitution was the means of the people’s control over government power. To Northerners, it was an instrument to be manipulated for their advantage. This difference came to a head in the struggle between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson and his friends, notable Virginians of the time like John Randolph and John Taylor, called Hamilton, John Adams, and their friends “monarchists.” By this was meant not only that they favoured kingship, which they did, but also that they wanted a strong central government built on patronage to the wealthy (at the expense of the ordinary hard-working producers). This patronage was to be financed through national debt, manipulation of the currency, and various types of business subsidy, which they falsely claimed were necessary and beneficial to all Americans.

Jefferson and his friends (which, to be fair, included a valiant minority of Northerners) managed to hold Hamilton’s schemes in abeyance for two generations, although the Hamiltonians never ceased to put them forward aggressively. Lincoln’s conquest and near-destruction of the South established the Northern program without any effective check. Yet Jeffersonian ideals continued to wield a certain power long afterward, right up to World War II. The regime of the Republican George W. Bush and the Democrat Barack Obama (there is no real difference) have now delivered the final death blow to the system of government and to the ideals of freedom established by our forefathers. The Constitution no longer exists except as a collection of minor procedural rules. The distinction between government spending for public purposes and for private profits has been abolished, as has the distinction between federal spending for national purposes and for merely local purposes. The government is now making sure the economy is frozen so that those who are presently wealthy will remain wealthy and so that your and my children and grandchildren will pay the price in diminished life.

Only among the Southern people is there still enough allegiance to the genuine American founding principles to offer a viable alternative, but these principles can never be made real under the present evil empire.

________________________________

Clyde Wilson, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of the University of South Carolina, is the South’s leading historian, prolific author, and South Carolina Delegate to the Southern National Congress.