Truth Serum Today: energy

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Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Hillary gives Haiti a sweatshop

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Haiti needs electricity - Hillary gives them a sweatshop

Until Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti nearly a month ago, on October 4, the impoverished island country was out of the headlines—pushed aside by election news.

But new emails which were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Republican National Committee and then shared with ABC News, made public on October 11, make Haiti part of the U.S. election news, as they highlight the cozy connections between the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton’s State Department and the Clinton’s cronies.

The corruption that has been brought to light is nothing short of scandalous—though, since it’s merely one more such story, few are probably following it.

I’m aware of this new information due to my multi-year collaboration with Christine Lakatos and her Green Corruption Files. She alerted me to the “bombshell new evidence” and she now has a full 26-page report available.

Hurricane Matthew made clear that the billions of dollars that poured into Haiti after the 2010 earthquake did little to help the 1.5 million people who were displaced when the 7.0 magnitude earthquake destroyed their homes in 2010. According to the New York Times, 55,000 people were still living in shelters when Matthew hit.

However, earlier this year, HBO’s VICE newsmagazine series did a segment titled: The Haitian Moneypit. In it, Vikram Gandhi takes viewers through the deplorable conditions found in the refugee camps that have no electricity, fresh water, or functioning toilets. He claims: “hundreds of thousands of survivors are still displaced.”

Gandhi says that despite the $10 billion in relief that came into Haiti after the earthquake, “many parts of Port-au-Prince still look like the earthquake struck just yesterday.” He addresses the Zoranje model home project—described as a $2.4 million dollar showroom and the first approved reconstruction project headed by Bill Clinton and the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission.

However, Gandhi reports, the homes were unsuited to Haiti. Once the expo was over, zero homes were built for Haitians. Today the model homes are occupied by squatters who live in the make-shift village without plumbing or electricity.

Perhaps the homes were never built because the companies didn’t donate, or didn’t donate enough, to the Clinton Foundation. In his film Clinton Cash, Peter Schweizer relays a story about a Florida firm with extensive disaster relief experience.

The company spent $100 million getting equipment into Haiti, but only made a small contribution to the Clinton Foundation. The company didn’t get any relief contracts. Many contracts went to relief organizations that were also involved in the Clinton Foundation—which brags about its role in Haiti.

Lakatos explains: “In digging through over 1000 emails from Hillary’s State Department related to Haiti, I discovered additional damning proof that the Haiti ‘reconstruction plan’ was a huge pay-to-play scheme for filling the coffers of the Clintons and their cronies.” She continues: “We now have an ocean of evidence confirming that our former president Bill Clinton and his wife, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, exploited the poor Haitian people in the wake of the 2010 earthquake.”

In 2015, in an article titled The King and Queen of Haiti, Politico summarizes: “The amounts of money over which the Clintons and their foundation had direct control paled beside the $16.3 billion that donors pledged in all.”

While Lakatos’ complete report provides details with links to the supporting documentation, due to space here, I am jumping to, what I believe is, the most dramatic example: The Caracol Industrial Park (CIP)—a $300 million project that was planned before the 2010 earthquake and was built in a part of Haiti that was not impacted by the earthquake (therefore not helping the victims).

The CIP was originally lauded by Secretary Clinton as creating 100,000 new jobs in Haiti, but got revised down and down—with current jobs at a dim 8000-9000.

The comingling of players, companies and organizations is overwhelming—but one of Hillary Clinton’s closest confidants, Cheryl Mills, is at the center of it. Addressing the project and the Clinton’s “public-private web,” the New York Times (NYT) states: “Cheryl D. Mills worked ceaselessly to help a South Korean garment maker open a factory in Haiti, the centerpiece of United States government’s efforts to jump-start the island nation’s economy after the 2010 earthquake.”

In short, “Sea-A Trading secured millions of dollars in incentives to make its Haiti investment more attractive,” writes NYT. Sea-A Trading’s chairman Woong-ki Kim became a Clinton Foundation donor after his firm secured the lucrative contract in Haiti. NYT calls Kim: “the sort of enlightened global capitalist the Clintons favor.”

Adding to the intrigue, when Mills left the state department, she started a company called BlackIvy Group—for which Kim is a financial backer. NYT describes the relationship this way: “The partnership with Mr. Kim sheds light on the business activities of Ms. Mills—a longtime Clinton loyalist who is likely to play a significant role in any future Clinton White House—as well as the interlocking public and private relationships that have long characterized the Clintons’ inner circle.”

The company makes clothes using Haiti’s cheap labor (roughly $6.85 a day—though reports claim the factory doesn’t pay that much and accuse the factory of sexual harassment, bullying and humiliation). Workers complain that after they pay for lunch and transportation, they don’t have enough money left to feed their families. Many feel that they were better off farming the land they were thrown off of to make room for CIP.

The primarily female workforce makes clothes for large American retailers, including Wal-Mart and Gap Inc., which get special tax breaks for importing the clothes made in Haiti. Both companies are Clinton Foundation donors: Wal-Mart has given $1 million to $5 million and Gap has given between $250,000 and $500,000 to the foundation.

Part of the $124 million in “incentives” the U.S. government provided (an unwitting donation from taxpayers) for CIP was to build a power plant to run the factory. While I have been unable to ascertain what fuels the plant, video makes it clear it is not wind or solar that Clinton touts. My research revealed: “Haiti is highly dependent on imported fossil fuels for electric generation.” It is most likely oil-fueled.

The electricity provided by the Caracol Electrification Project also powers some of the surrounding communities. The USAID site features stories of people living with electricity for the first time and elaborates on the dramatic improvement in health and quality of life since the area has reliable power. Many other similar reports exist.

A few months ago, Lakatos and I wrote about Hillary’s clean cookstove initiative: The developing world wants natural gas and electricity, Hillary Clinton sends cookstoves. This story is similar. Haiti needs electricity and Hillary gives them a sweatshop.

Considering the conditions in the Sea-A Trading factory and the hundreds of thousands of people throughout Haiti living in plastic tents and without electricity and the benefits it provides—one must wonder if the hundreds of millions of dollars that went to enriching Clinton Foundation donors, like Kim, wouldn’t have been better spent providing reliable fossil-fuel power to the people of Haiti.

Doing so would have boosted the economy and helped families improve their lives. But that’s not how the Clintons operate and their fingerprints are all over the Haiti recovery efforts. Obviously, they have hurt the Haitian people, while helping themselves and their friends.

On November 8, America will decide if this is the kind of leadership we want.

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The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy.

Marita hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy - which expands on the content of her weekly column.

Follow her @EnergyRabbit.

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Monday, October 24, 2016

Get ready to break wind says Noon

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If Hillary Clinton becomes our next president, one of the changes you can expect is an invasion of industrial wind development in your community that has the potential to severely damage your property values, ruin the viewshed, impact your sleep patterns, and cause your electricity rates to “necessarily skyrocket”—all thanks to your tax dollars.

The Democratic presidential candidate frequently references her pledge to install 500 million solar panels. Her website promises: “The United States will have more than half a billion solar panels installed across the country by the end of Hillary Clinton’s first term.”

And, while we know she wants to make America “the clean energy super power of the 21st century,” finding her position on wind energy is not so obvious. Perhaps that is because, as more and more people learn more about its impacts on their lives, its support continues to wane.

Pragmatic environmentalists find it hard to ignore the millions of birds that are killed by the giant spinning blades—including bald and golden eagles, as well as massive numbers of bats (which are so important for insect control) that are being slaughtered. Some have even “successfully sued to stop wind farm construction,” reports Investor’s Business Daily.

More and more communities are saying: “We don’t want wind turbines here.” For example, in Ohio, a wind project was “downed” when the Logan County Commissioners voted unanimously to reject EverPower’s request for a payment in lieu of taxes to build 18 wind turbines—though since then, the developer is taking another bite at the project, and the locals are furious.

In Michigan, the entire Lincoln Township Board opposes a plan from DTE Energy to bring 50 to 70 more wind turbines to the community—despite the fact that four of the five members would profit from easement agreements they’d previously signed.

While not one of her top talking points, a President Hillary will increase the amount of taxpayer dollars available to industrial wind developers. At a July 2015 campaign stop in Iowa, she supported tax incentives and said: “We need to continue the production tax credits.” Previously, she claimed that she wants to make the production tax credits (PTC) for wind and solar permanent.

(Note: without the PTC, even the wind industry acknowledges it won’t “be able to continue.”)

She frequently says: “I want more wind, more solar, more advanced biofuels, more energy efficiency.” Remember, her party platform includes: “We are committed to getting 50 percent of our electricity from clean energy sources within a decade.” And: “We believe America must be running entirely on clean energy by mid-century.”

So, if your area hasn’t been faced with the construction of the detrimental and dangerous turbines, you can expect that it will be—even if you live in an area not known to be windy. That’s the bad news. The good news is the more wind turbines spring up, the more opposition they receive—and, therefore, the more tools there are available to help break the next wind project.

Rather than trying to figure out what to do on your own, John Droz, Jr., a North Carolina-based physicist and citizen advocate, who has worked with about 100 communities, encourages citizens who want to protect their community from the threat of a proposed wind project to maximize the resources that are available to them.

Kevon Martis, who, as the volunteer director of the Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition, has helped protect citizens in 7 states, told me: “Nothing makes it harder for a wind developer in one community than if the neighboring community already has an operating wind plant.

Once they can see the actual impacts of turning entire townships into 50 story tall power plants, they can no longer be led down the primrose path by wind companies and their agents.” Martis’ equitable wind zoning advocacy has been extremely effective.

In his home state of Michigan, wind has been on the ballot at the Township level 11 times since 2009 and has never won. In Argyle Township, in Sanilac County, Invenergy spent $164,000 in campaign funds in the 36-square-mile township, yet the people prevailed at the ballot box.

Two communities in Vermont have industrial wind on the ballot on November 8 and it is playing a big role in the state’s gubernatorial race where many Democrats are pledging to vote for the Republican candidate, who opposes more wind energy development. There, the foreign developer is essentially offering a bribe to the voters to approve the project.

Martis uses a concept he calls “trespass zoning”—which he says is a “de facto subsidy extracted from neighbors without any compensation.”

Because the definition of trespassing is: “to enter the owner’s land or property without permission,” Martis argues that wind turbine setbacks, that cross the property line and go to the dwelling, allows the externalities of wind development—noise pollution, turbine rotor failure and its attendant debris field, property value loss, and visual blight—to trespass.

He explains: “Where the wind developer can use these unleased properties for nuisance noise and safety easements free of charge, they have no reason to approach the neighboring residents to negotiate a fair price for their loss of amenity.

Trespass zoning has deprived wind plant neighbors of all economic bargaining power. It has donated their private property to the neighboring landowner’s wind developer tenant.”

Droz agrees that zoning is important—as are regulations. He believes that since an industrial wind project is something you may have to live with for more than 20 years, it seems wise to carefully, objectively, and thoughtfully investigate the matter ahead of time.

Droz says: “In most circumstances, your first line of defense is a well-written, protective set of wind-energy regulations that focus on protecting the health, safety, and welfare of the community. They can be a stand-alone law, or part of a more comprehensive zoning document.”

Mary Kay Barton, a citizen activist from New York State, began writing about the industrial wind issue more than a dozen years ago when her home area in Western New York State was targeted by industrial wind developers.

Wyoming County was slated to have more than 2,000 industrial wind turbines strewn throughout its 16 Townships. So far, the massive projects have been limited by the outrage of residents to the current 308 turbines in 5 rural districts.

Barton told me: “We wouldn’t even be talking about industrial wind if cronyism at the top wasn’t enabling the consumer fraud of industrial wind to exist with countless subsidies, incentives and renewable mandates.”

Minnesota citizen energy activist, Kristi Rosenquist, points out: “Wind is promoted as mitigating climate change and benefiting local rural economies—it does neither.”

Through his free citizen advocacy service, Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions, Droz tries to make it easier for communities to succeed when dealing with industrial wind energy by learning lessons from some of the other 250 communities—including those near Martis, Barton, and Rosenquist—that have had to deal with it.

At WiseEnergy.org, Droz has a wealth of information available including a model wind energy law that is derived from existing effective ordinances plus inputs from numerous independent experts.

He advocates a wind energy law that contains carefully crafted conditions about these five elements:

Property value guarantees;
Turbine setbacks;
Noise standards;
Environmental assessment and protections;
Decommissioning.

Droz, Martis, Barton, and Rosenquist are just four of the many citizen advocates that have had to become experts on the adverse impacts of wind energy—which provides negligible benefits while raising taxes and electricity rates. Because of their experiences, many are willing to help those who are just now being faced with the threat.

Because I’ve frequently written on wind energy and the favorable tax and regulatory treatment it receives, I often have people reaching out to me for help—but I am not the expert, just the messenger. These folks are dealing with it day in and day out.

Here are some additional resources they suggest:

National Wind Watch
Ontario Wind Resistance
Stop These Things
Master Resource

If the threat of industrial wind energy development isn’t a problem for you now, save this information, as it likely would be under a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Barton explains: “My town was able to stop the ludicrous siting of these environmentally-destructive facilities by enacting a citizen-protective law back in 2007.

Since then however, Governor Cuomo enacted what I refer to as his ‘Power-Grab NY Act,’ which stripped ‘Home Rule’ from New York State communities and placed the decision-making process regarding energy-generation facilities above 25 MW (that translates: industrial wind factories) in the hands of five unelected Albany bureaucrats.

Other states are sure to follow Cuomo’s authoritarian lead. I urge people to be pro-active! Get protective laws on the books now—before corrupt officials steal your Constitutional rights to decide for yourselves.”

Think about your community 20, 40, 60+ years from now.

“There was a time when the environmental movement opposed noise pollution, fought industrial blight, and supported ‘little guys’ whose quality of life was threatened by ‘corporate greed,’” writes Martis. “But that was a long time ago, before wind energy.”

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Saturday, October 22, 2016

WikiLeaks: Hillary comments on fracking

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WikiLeaks: Hillary’s conflicted comments on fracking

One of the recent WikiLeaks email dumps revealed some interesting things about hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. (This enhanced drilling technology is a big part of America’s new era of energy abundance.)

First, they add to the growing question about what Hillary Clinton really believes: her public comments, or her private positions?

Regarding fracking, the leaked emails offer a glimpse into speeches she made to closed groups that we’ve previously been unable to access. One such speech was given to the troubled Deutsche Bank on April 24, 2013. There, she praised fracking as a tool to “make even more countries more energy self-sufficient.”

She told the audience: “I’ve promoted fracking in other places around the world.” She bragged about “the advantages that are going to come to us, especially in manufacturing, because we’re now going to produce more oil and gas.”

Yet, everything she’s said in the campaign, paints a different picture.

Her stated energy policies are decidedly anti-fossil fuel. The party platform calls for “a goal of producing 100 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2050.” In addition to promoting “enough clean renewable energy to power every home in America within ten years,” Hillary’s website outlines her desire to “reduce the amount of oil consumed in the United States and around the world.”

She’s declared that banning fossil fuel extraction on public lands is: “a done deal.” While she won’t come out and clearly state that she’d ban fracking, at a March 6 CNN debate with Bernie Sanders in Flint, Michigan, she proudly stated: “By the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place.”

And, she has pledged to “stop fossil fuels.”

Then there’s her comment about green-group funding, as coming from Russia. It’s long been suspected that Russia is protecting its national oil-and-gas interests by funding anti-fracking activism—while not a new idea, the current attention makes it worth revisiting.

To the best of my knowledge, Russia’s reported involvement in shaping public opinion came to light in 2010, when different WikiLeaks revelations made public private intelligence from Stratfor—which had previously published a background brief on Shale Gas Activism—that speculated on Russian funding for the anti-fracking movie Gasland.

In 2013, filmmaker Phelim McAleer, in his film FrackNation, pointed out Russia’s “disingenuous objections” to fracking. In it, British journalist James Delingpole said: “Russia is screwed if it can’t export its gas, so it is really important for Russia that the shale gas revolution does not happen.

It is also in Russia’s best interest to fund those environmental groups which are committed to campaigning against fracking.”

Then in June 2014, while serving as NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Prime Minister of Denmark, stated that he’d “met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations—environmental organisations working against shale gas—to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas.”

According to The Guardian, “He declined to give details of those operations, saying: ‘that is my interpretation.’” A few months later, the New York Times (NYT) featured a story titled: “Russian money suspected behind fracking protests.”

It recounts several cases in different Eastern European countries that are most dependent on Russian energy, where Chevron planned exploratory gas drilling that then “faced a sudden surge of street protests by activists, many of whom had previously shown little interest in environmental issues.” NYT quotes the Romanian Prime Minister, Victor Ponta: “Energy is the most effective weapon today of the Russian Federation—much more effective than aircraft and tanks.”

“Russia,” the NYT adds, “has generally shown scant concern for environmental protection and has a long record of harassing and even jailing environmentalists who stage protests. On fracking, however, Russian authorities have turned enthusiastically green, with Mr. Putin declaring last year that fracking ‘poses a huge environmental problem.’

Places that have allowed it, he said, ‘no longer have water coming out of their taps but a blackish slime.’” Russian television aimed at foreign audiences, carried warnings about poisoned water. Yet, exploration in western Romania by Gazprom, Russia’s biggest oil firm, has not stirred similar mass protests. Additionally, “Pro-Russian separatists in the east, who have otherwise shown no interest in green issues, have denounced fracking as a mortal danger.”

In January 2015, The Washington Free Beacon reported on a Bermudian firm that had connections to Russian oil interests and was funneling money to anti-fracking groups in the U.S. It outlines how the money-laundering scheme works and concludes: “The overlap between executives at firms with ties to Russian oil interests and a multi-million-dollar donor to U.S. environmentalist groups has some experts worried that Russians may be replicating anti-fracking tactics used in Europe to attack the practice in the United States.”

I addressed it in February in my column titled: “Naming enemies of U.S. fossil fuel development”—where I also brought up reports of OPEC reported involvement in funding anti-fracking activities.

In March 2015, at the Forbes Reinventing America Summit in Chicago, Harold Hamm, Chairman and CEO at Continental Resources—also known as the “fracking king”–said: “Russia’s spent a great deal of money over here to cause a panic in the United States over fracking to stop it, because suddenly their market share is going away.”

Anti-fracking groups such as Greenpeace, dismiss such accusations as “silly.”

Despite all the multiple claims linking Russia to anti-fracking activity, there’s been scant hard evidence.

But, now, thanks to WikiLeaks, Russia’s reported anti-fracking funding is back in the headlines: “Leaked emails show Hillary Clinton blaming Russians for funding ‘phony’ anti-fracking groups,” wrote the Washington Times.

With knowledge only someone with a high-level security clearance and an understanding of foreign relations, like the Secretary of State, would have, Hillary, in a June 2014 speech in Edmonton Canada, reportedly said the following to an audience: “We were up against Russia pushing oligarchs and others to buy media.

We were even up against phony environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians to stand against any effort, oh that pipeline, that fracking, whatever will be a problem for you, and a lot of the money supporting that message was coming from Russia.”

Now, thanks to WikiLeaks, we have the first “semi-official confirmation,” as Delingpole called it, “of Russia’s sponsorship of the vast, influential and obscenely well-funded anti-fracking industry.”

McAleer, in a press release, accuses these groups of “acting as paid agents for a hostile foreign power.”

Remember, these groups are big supporters of Hillary and she’s, based on her stated public policies, a big supporter of their anti-fracking agenda. As I’ve said before, we are in an economic war and there are many who don’t want America to win.

The cheap energy prices fracking has provided give the U.S. an economic advantage—hence the hostility toward it.

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Monday, October 17, 2016

OPEC agrees to production and price quotas

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OPEC agrees to production decrease - prices increase but could be just right

At the end of September, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) surprised the markets by agreeing to a production cut. As soon as the 14-nation deal was announced, oil prices jumped more than 5 percent to some of the highest levels since the crash two years ago.

The proposed output cap is historic and represents a shift in the “pump-at-will policy,” as Bloomberg called it, “the group adopted in 2014 at the instigation of Saudi Arabia.”

Many analysts see that the Saudi gamble, aimed at putting American producers out of business, has failed. While U.S. oil production is down from last year’s highs and bankruptcies are up, the industry has become more efficient and the cost of extracting oil from shale is continuing to come down—resulting in the sixth straight week of an increased rig count and the 15th without a decrease. Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports: “Many oil producers believe drilling in some U.S. regions can be profitable even with oil prices in their current range of $40 to $50 a barrel.”

Additionally, U.S. crude stockpiles have fallen for the fifth consecutive week—as have crude imports. American drivers are consuming more gasoline than ever. Exploration budgets, due to the low oil prices, have been slashed with the predicted result of lower production in the next few years.

It appears that demand is catching up with production and prices have been creeping up since February’s lows. Phil Flynn, senior market analyst with the PRICE Futures Group explains: “While supply is still at a historically high level for this time of year, strong U.S. demand and rising U.S. exports are cutting down the glut.”

Meanwhile, the social costs of low-priced oil have been high for OPEC members—hitting Saudi Arabia especially hard. The cartel’s biggest producer has lost billions of dollars of revenue, which has resulted in a 20 percent pay cut for its ministers, reductions in financial benefits for government employees, and an increase in fees and fines, and cuts in subsidies, for all in the kingdom.

Fear that the loss of the coddled lifestyle could throw the country into chaos, according to industry veteran and consultant Allen Brooks, likely convinced Saudi Arabian officials to moderate their position. The view from Bloomberg concurs: “Saudi Arabia’s willingness to do a deal, in particular, demonstrates the economic pain lower oil prices has caused producers.”

Iran, OPECs other majordomo, has, due to sanctions, gotten used to austerity and is now seeing its economic pressures easing and its oil exports increasing. It, therefore, heading into the OPEC meeting, appeared to be rejecting the Saudi output offer and dashed hopes of a compromise to cut crude production. The Financial Times quotes one Gulf OPEC delegate as saying: “All producers are hurting.”

The surprise came on Wednesday, September 28, when, after two years of failed attempts at an agreement and months of dialogue leading up to the meeting, “Saudi Arabia agreed to take on the bulk of OPEC’s proposed cuts,” wrote the WSJ. The headline from the New York Times read: “OPEC agrees to cut production, sending oil prices soaring.”

The proposed cuts are moderate in reality, only 1-2 percent of the 14-nation cartel’s 33.2 million barrels a day of production and they represent less than 1 percent of total global production. Yet, the announcement buoyed markets and added power to the previously mentioned price momentum. According to CNN Money, the agreement offers “powerful symbolism.”

While the price of oil received a bounce from the news that has given the industry cautious optimism, it is not expected to have a big impact on the price of gasoline. Oil prices are now expected to stay near $50 a barrel through the end of the year and below $60 a barrel through 2017—which will likely mean an increase of a few cents a gallon at the pump.

Julian Jessop, chief global economist at Capital Economic, in CNN Money, called the situation “a period of ‘Goldilocks’ oil prices”—low enough to help consumer spending and “high enough to keep major producers afloat.”

The slight bump in prices the proposed deal adds to the upward trend is enough to send some producers back into the oil field and encourage another burst of drilling. That increased production will have a self-leveling effect on prices. As prices go up, production increases. As more oil enters the already-glutted market, prices come down.

Additionally, the OPEC agreement is only a plan. It isn’t finalized. That could happen in Vienna in November if, and it is a big if, the members can agree on who will make the cuts, when the cuts will go into effect, how long they will last, and how they will be enforced.

While all 14 countries—and non-OPEC producers such as the U.S. and Russia—will benefit from higher prices, no one wants to be the one taking the cut. Iran, Libya, and Nigeria are all trying to increase production that has been stifled due to sanctions or conflict.

Plus, as WSJ reports: “OPEC has a long history of agreeing to production cuts, only to have the pact collapse when countries change their minds.” CNN Money adds: “cartel members also have a tendency to overshoot production quotas.”

So, while the OPEC announcement is “not a game-changing move that will send oil prices shooting back up towards the $100 a barrel level,” as The Guardian reported, it is big news that brightens prospects for the energy industry while keeping things just right for consumers.

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Thursday, October 6, 2016

Thursday's Top News with Trade Martin

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Courtesy of Trade Martin Music "On Top of the News"
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Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Hillary says "They Can Eat NAFTA"

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Click Here - Grab that Morning Coffee and Check Out Branco Online

Okay, I’m hyperventilating. Tony combines beautiful drawings with biting politically incorrect wit and laugh out loud humor.” – Larry Elder – TV and Radio personality at at Fox News and KRLM AM 870

Lighten things up! Political discussions and debates don’t always have to be deep and long-winded arguments with points and counter points. Sometimes we just need to take a step back from it all and have a good laugh.

With so many discouraging things happening in our country lately, that’s the only thing we can do to keep from crying.

Conservative artist Antonio Branco is a master at encapsulating deep and complex issues in a simple comic.

He has written his first book in a series and takes on a wide array of issues, from food stamps to global warming to foreign policy, Antonio isn’t afraid to say what he thinks.

Presented in a coffee table book style, this is the perfect conversation starter with friends and family that pick it up and start glancing through it’s pages.

Who knows, that liberal aunt of yours just might come over to the right side because of this book!

This 80 pages, hardcover comic measures 8″ x 10".

ORDER HERE ORDER NOW – also autographed editions available

Read more from A.F. (Tony) Branco at this link.

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Green pixie dust energy policies

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“There’s been a record six straight years of job growth, and new Census numbers show incomes have increased at a record rate after years of stagnation.”

NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt misinformed Americans, as he launched the first Trump-Clinton presidential debate September 26.

In reality, Obama era economic growth has been an anemic 1-2% annually. More than 93 million working-age Americans are still not working, and over 6 million are working part-time, because their hours have been cut back or they cannot find full-time positions. We’re creating private sector jobs by turning four high-pay full-time jobs with good benefits into six lower-pay part-time positions with few or no benefits. Average middle class family incomes are still lower than in 2007.

The primary reasons: the world’s third highest top marginal corporate income tax rate (38.9%); a $1.9-trillion-per-year federal regulatory burden, equal to all individual and corporate taxes collected by the federal government in 2015; and an administration obsessed with “dangerous manmade climate change” and replacing reliable, affordable fossil fuels with expensive, mandated, subsidized “green” energy.

Hillary Clinton and the Democrats would expand these policies and the harm they cause.

America could become “the clean-energy superpower of the twenty-first century,” Mrs. Clinton said during the debate. “We can deploy a half-billion more solar panels. We can have enough clean energy to power every home. That’s a lot of jobs, a lot of new economic activity.”

The “climate emergency,” the Democratic Party Platform (DPP) proclaims, is an “urgent threat” that demands immediate “ambitious investments” in new “green” energy systems. America must slash greenhouse gas emissions by 80% below 2005 levels by 2050; get half of its electricity from renewable sources by 2027; and ensure that the nation runs “entirely on clean energy by mid-century.”

The DPP also supports impeding or rejecting oil and gas leasing, drilling, fracking and pipelines, as well as gas-fired power plants – while accelerating and incentivizing wind and solar installations and transmission lines. It says America should “lead the fight against climate change,” locally and globally.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton has said she would stringently regulate hydraulic fracturing, banning oil and gas extraction from public lands is a “done deal,” and her party is “going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” (But it will re-train miners and fund their pensions with taxes and red ink.)

In short, Democrats support a government mandated and regulated energy system that would require constant infusions of taxpayer and consumer subsidies via grants, loans, feed-in tariffs and crony-corporatist arrangements. It will oppose fossil fuels that provide reliable, affordable energy – and generate tens of billions of dollars a year in lease bonuses, royalties, and corporate and personal taxes.

The Democrat policies are green pixie dust. They will never generate the energy and revenues required to put America back to work and rebuild our aging, broken infrastructure. And they ignore what developing countries are doing at a feverish pace: producing, buying and burning coal, oil and natural gas, to lift billions out of poverty and bring them modern living standards. But the Democrat Party faithful apparently believe chanting DPP mantras often enough will make them come true.

(By contrast, the Republican Party Platform supports free enterprise innovation and policies that increase domestic fossil fuel production on public and private lands, to create jobs, generate revenues, reinvigorate the economy, and “reduce America’s vulnerability” to foreign suppliers and price volatility.)

Many poor countries signed the Paris climate treaty. But they did so (a) to share in the trillions of dollars they expect currently rich nations to give them for climate change adaptation, mitigation and reparation; and (b) because developing nations are not required to reduce fossil fuel use or greenhouse gas emissions.

That means America may slash its plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide emissions, make its energy costs skyrocket and become uncompetitive in the international arena – but developing countries will emit 100 times what we painfully reduce. It is not the “leadership” that any sane country would provide.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Obama unilaterally ratified the Paris climate treaty on September 3. Barely three weeks later, China said it can no longer afford current levels of wind and solar subsidies, and so is sharply reducing renewable power generation.

Instead, it plans to increase its thermal coal production by 182 million tons per year. Meanwhile, Chinese banks and construction companies are financing and building hundreds of new coal-fired generating units in Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Africa, Latin America and beyond – including nearly two dozen in the Balkan countries.

India has become “the center of the world’s oil demand growth,” says Citigroup. Its economy will likely expand by 8% per year through 2021, its domestic coal production even faster, and coal demand for factories and electricity generation is rising so rapidly that India is financing a major coal mining operation in Mozambique.

Southeast Asian fossil fuel consumption is expected to double by 2040, to 1,070 million tons of oil equivalent per year. Oil, gas and coal will then represent 78% of the region’s energy mix, up from 74% today. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte again criticized Western powers for their “hypocrisy” in trying to restrict poor country development on the grounds of CO2 emissions and climate change.

Japan has joined this Asian bloc. Instead of reopening nuclear power plants or expanding renewable power generation, it is using coal and natural gas for 75% of its power, compared to 54% in 2011.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama’s “Power Africa” initiative has been a dismal failure. In 2013 he promised that the USA would bring the continent “more than 10,000 megawatts of cleaner, more efficient” renewable electricity. (By comparison, total US generating capacity is 1,069,000 MW.) So far, the project has provided less than 400 MW – 4% of what was promised, and 0.04% of US capacity.

As to getting all US energy from “clean, renewable” sources by 2050, that is a ridiculous pipe dream.

The United States currently plants corn on an area the size of Iowa, to produce ethanol that accounts for 10% of its gasoline fuel blend. Replacing 100% of US gasoline and diesel with corn ethanol would require cropland the size of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico combined! Plus massive amounts of water, fertilizer, pesticides, tractor and truck fuel, and electricity for distilleries.

The USA now generates a measly 4% of its electricity from 49,000 wind turbines. Assuming 75 acres per megawatt, those turbines tower over lands the size of Connecticut. Generating all US electricity with wind would require more than 710,000 monstrous 400-foot-tall 1.5- to 2.0-MW turbines across 93 million acres – an area the size of Montana – costing over $3 trillion! (The same issues imperil solar power.)

It would also require thousands of miles of new transmission lines – crossing state and private lands via eminent domain and a “streamlined” federal permitting process. Of course, all those turbines and lines would require billions of tons of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass, rare earth metals and other raw materials … plus land and energy for mining, production and installation … to produce electricity 15-20% of the time, so we end up with electrical power when it’s available, instead of when we need it.

Meanwhile turbine blades moving 180 mph at their tips will slice and dice millions of eagles, hawks and other birds and bats, from local habitats and even from nesting areas 100 miles from the turbines.

Put bluntly, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party are trying to impose an energy – and economic – system that is totally, utterly unsustainable. It would bankrupt the nation, leave millions more jobless and homeless, impair human health and environmental quality, and bring no global CO2 reductions.

It’s time we had some grownup thinking and policies, instead of green pixie dust.

Democrats fight climate change with renewable pixie dust, while rest of
world burns fossil fuels by Paul Driessen

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Paul Driessen at CFACT.org

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death, and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: Saving the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine.
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They're coming to take him away

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Click Here to Check Out Dan Youra Daily at Utoons

Dan Youra is one of the outstanding conservative cartoonists in the trade today who follows in the footsteps of the great political cartoon masters, whose quotes inspire a new generation of followers.

"Outside of basic intelligence, there is nothing more important to a good political cartoonist than ill will." ~ Jules Feiffer, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist.

"Too many of today's artists regard editorial cartooning as a trade instead of a profession. They try not to be too offensive. The hell with that. We need more stirrer-uppers." ~ Bill Mauldin.

Youra was one of the first recipients of a Fulbright Scholarship and worked in Latin America. He served as an editor of Current Thought on Peace and War at the United Nations in New York.

"As long as there are politicians who continue to try and fool the voters, there is no chance of ever running out of material to work with because they create it themselves and about themselves," says Dan Youra.

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Dan is the small business owner and operator of the Youra Studios located in the State of Washington. Visit the Youra Studios at Utoons.com
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Striking down Obama’s climate legacy

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Striking down Obama’s climate legacy has its day in court

President Obama’s flagship policy on climate change had its day in court on Tuesday, September 27. The international community is closely watching; most Americans, however, are unaware of the historic case known as the Clean Power Plan (CPP)—which according to David Rivkin, one of the attorneys arguing against the plan: “is not just to reduce emissions, but to create a new electrical system.”

For those who haven’t followed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rule, here’s a brief history that brings us to up to date:

EPA published the final CPP rule in the Federal Register on October 2015.
More than two dozen states and a variety of industry groups and businesses immediately filed challenges against it—with a final bipartisan coalition of more than 150 entities including 27 states, 24 trade associations, 37 electric coops, 3 labor unions, and about a half dozen nonprofits.
On January 21, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied a request for a stay that would have prevented implementation of the rule until the court challenges were resolved.
On February 9, the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS), in an unprecedented action, before the case was heard by the lower court, overruled, and issued a stay that delays enforcement of CPP.
The Court of Appeals was scheduled to hear oral arguments before a three-judge panel on June 2, but pushed them to September 27 to be heard by the full court—something the court almost never does (though for issues involving “a question of exceptional importance” procedural rules allow for the case to proceed directly to a hearing before the full appeals court).

The court, which is already fully briefed on a case before hearing the oral arguments, typically allows a maximum 60-90 minutes to hear both sides and occasionally, with an extremely complex case, will allow two hours. The oral argument phase allows the judges to interact with lawyers from both sides and with each other.

However, for the CPP, the court scheduled a morning session focusing on the EPA’s authority to promulgate the rule and an afternoon session on the constitutional claims against the rule—which ended up totaling nearly 7 hours. Jeff Holmstead, a partner with Bracewell Law, representing one of the lead challengers, told me this was the only time the full court has sat all day to hear a case.

One of the issues addressed was whether or not the EPA could “exercise major transformative power without a clear statement from Congress on the issue”—with the 2014 Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG) v. EPA determining it could not. Republican appointee Judge Brett Kavanaugh noted that the UARG scenario “sounds exactly like this one.”

Judge Thomas Griffith, a Bush appointee, questioned: “Why isn’t this debate going on in the floor of the Senate?” In a post-oral argument press conference, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) pointed out that the debate has been held on the Senate floor in the form of cap-and-trade legislation—which has failed repeatedly over a 15-year period.

Therefore, he said, the Obama administration has tried to do through regulation what the Senate wouldn’t do through legislation.

“Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, one of Obama’s mentors,” writes the Dallas Morning News: “made a star appearance to argue that the Clean Power Plan is unconstitutional.”

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a Bush appointee, concluded: “You have given us all we need and more, perhaps, to work on it.”

The day in court featured many of the nation’s best oral advocates and both sides feel good about how the case was presented.

For the challengers (who call CPP “an unlawful power grab”), West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who along with Texas AG Ken Paxton, co-lead the case, reported: “We said (then) that we were looking forward to having our day in court on the merits.

Today was that day. I think that the collective coalition was able to put very strong legal arguments forward, as to why this regulation is unlawful, and why it should be set aside.”

But the case has its proponents, too, and they, also, left feeling optimistic. In a blog post for the Environmental Defense Fund, Martha Roberts wrote about what she observed in the courtroom: “The judges today were prepared and engaged.

They asked sharply probing questions of all sides. But the big news is that a majority of judges appeared receptive to arguments in support of the Clean Power Plan.” She concluded that she’s confident “that climate protection can win the day.”

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) summarized the session saying that stakeholders on all sides were left “parsing questions and reactions, and searching for signs of which way the judges are leaning.” U.S. News reported: “The judges repeatedly interrupted the lawyers for both sides to ask pointed questions about the legal underpinnings of their positions.”

The decision, which is not expected for several months, may come down to the ideological make-up of the court: 6 of the judges were appointed by Democrat presidents and 4 by Republicans. Though, according to WSJ, Obama appointee Judge Patricia Millet “expressed concern that the administration was in effect requiring power plants to subsidize companies competing with them for electricity demand.”

She offered hope to the challengers when she said: “That seems to be quite different from traditional regulation.” Additionally, in his opinion published in the Washington Post, Constitutional law professor Jonathan Adler, stated: “Some of the early reports indicate that several Democratic nominees posed tough questions to the attorney defending the EPA.”

Now, the judges will deliberate and discuss. Whatever decision they come to, experts agree that the losing side will appeal and that the case will end up in front of the Supreme Court—most likely in the 2017/2018 session with a decision possible as late as June 2018.

There, the ultimate result really rests in the presidential election, as the current SCOTUS make up will be changed with the addition of the ninth Justice, who will be appointed by the November 8 winner—and that Justice will reflect the new president’s ideology.

Hillary Clinton has promised to continue Obama’s climate change policies while Donald Trump has announced he’ll rescind the CPP and cancel the Paris Climate Agreement.

The CPP is about more than the higher electricity costs and decreased grid reliability, which results from heavy reliance on wind and solar energy as CPP requires, and, as the South Australian experiment proves, doesn't work. It has far-reaching impacts.

WSJ states: “Even a partial rebuke of the Clean Power Plan could make it impossible for the U.S. to hit the goals Mr. Obama pledged in the Paris climate deal.” With Obama’s climate legacy at stake, the international community is paying close attention.

And Americans should be. Our energy stability hangs in the balance.

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Tuesday's Top News with Trade Martin

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Sunday, October 2, 2016

2017 Calendar from Branco at Comically Incorrect

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The 2017 Comically Incorrect Calendar features artwork from widely acclaimed conservative cartoonist A.F. Branco. From Obamacare to illegal immigration, this calendar provides a humorous take on the issues of the day.

I think we all need a good laugh at least once a day. Especially with the frustrations of an election year coming up on us. But humor can be useful for more than just a laugh.

Sometimes it's the most effective way to get an important point across. Which is why we're so excited to announce Patriot Depot's 2017 Comically Incorrect Calendar!

America is facing a lot of important and serious issues in the coming months and years. But sometimes you have to take a break and laugh at the insanity of it all.

With this calendar on your wall, you'll be able to get a laugh every day at issues that normally make you want to scream or cry (or both). But this calendar does more than just provide some humor on serious issues.

It points out and illustrates the politically incorrect facts of the matter in a unique and creative way.

13 month calendar, from January 2017 to January 2018. Calendar is approximately 8.5"x11" folded, opens to 11"x17".

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