It becomes ever more striking just how illiberal todays liberals are. A word that once represented a school of thought including the likes of James Madison, John Locke and John Stuart Mill now provides a comforting home for Marxism. No longer does liberalism represent freedom and tolerance of different views and ideas. Rather, those who take that label today are narrow-minded, intolerant and authoritarian.

Exhibit A (Hat tip: Right Wing News):

Times defends hiring conservative Kristol

The New York Times’ hiring of Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol to write for its op-ed page caused a frenzy in the liberal blogosphere Friday night, with threats of canceling subscriptions and claims that the Gray Lady had been hijacked by neo-cons

But Times editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal sees things differently.

Rosenthal told Politico shortly after the official announcement Saturday that he fails to understand “this weird fear of opposing views.”

“The idea that The New York Times is giving voice to a guy who is a serious, respected conservative intellectual - and somehow that’s a bad thing,” Rosenthal added. “How intolerant is that?”

Exhibit B:

Rendells planning a dictatorship in 2008?

Metcalfe posted an article called “Judge Rendell Endorses Dictatorship” in which Mrs. Edward G. Rendell, aka Judge Midge, advocates a dictatorship for her husband, the governor.

Apparently that’s the only way Rendell can get his way despite having a Democratic majority in the state House.

Mrs. Rendell’s “benevolent dictatorship” comments were made at a Nov. 8, 2007, panel discussion in Philadelphia by The National Association of Women Judges.

Judge Midge told the audience that a “benevolent dictator” like her husband could solve all the state’s problems.

“The arrogance of Mrs. Rendell’s comments expose the liberal core beliefs of her and her husband that have been evident through the actions of the tax, borrow and spend Rendell administration,” writes Metcalfe, a Republican from Butler County.

These two stories exemplify everything that is wrong with modern liberalism. Intolerant and growing ever more distrustful of freedom, todays liberals have tarnished a once respectable word.

Al-Reuters is up to their usual tricks, this time regarding the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The casual observer might not notice the inherent bias in this report, but to my all-seeing eye it is all too obvious. It begins with the title, “Pakistan accuses al-Qaeda of killing Bhutto.” Generally speaking an accusation is most noteworthy when the accused denies the offense. When the accused admits guilt, however, one would think that fact would overshadow the accusation. Al-Qaeda has taken credit for killing Bhutto. Not only does the headline imply otherwise, but that fact is entirely omitted from the article. Rather, the article plays up conflict between Bhutto’s supporters and Musharraf and all but ignores al-Qaeda involvement:

Pakistan accused al Qaeda of killing opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, whose assassination has plunged the nuclear-armed country into crisis and triggered bloody protests.

But Bhutto’s party dismissed the official explanation and said President Pervez Musharraf’s embattled administration was trying to cover up its failure to protect her.

…”We have intelligence intercepts indicating that al Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud is behind her assassination,” Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said on Friday.

…But Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party rejected the claim. A spokesman said the government must show solid evidence.

…Many mourners chanted slogans against Musharraf and the United States, which backs the former general in the hope he can maintain stability in the face of Islamist violence and relies on Pakistan as an ally against al Qaeda and Afghanistan’s Taliban.

Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup in 1999 but left the army last month to become a civilian president, has appealed for calm and blamed Islamist militants for the killing.

But many accused him of failing to protect Bhutto, who died in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, home of the Pakistani army.

Even the mention of the previous attempt on Bhutto says merely that “The government said al Qaeda was also behind that attack.” And then goes on to highlight that “she also had enemies in other quarter including among the powerful intelligence services and some allies of Musharraf.” Failing, of course, to point at the that Pakistan’s intelligence service (ISI) is riddled with Islamist supporters who regularly provide assistance to al-Qaeda. This is the same intelligence service that founded the Taliban. The informed reader, however, is left to believe such intelligence officials are simply another part of Musharraf’s government, when the fact is that he has himself worked to rid his government of these sympathizers, which triggered several al-Qaeda attempts on his life.

This is agenda journalism at its ugliest.

The fight against the myth of global warming has seen much progress in 2007. More and more scientists are speaking out against the intimidation and political deceptions behind the scam. But now is not the time to rest on our laurels. We are in grave danger of losing the next generation as the grip of government propaganda on our children continues to advance the global warming agenda. Here’s an example of how this is accomplished, via the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Hat tip: Michelle Malkin):

Dear Fifth/Sixth Grade Educators,

We invite your students to participate in the annual Environmental Pathways statewide poster and poetry/prose exhibit. The theme of the 2008 event will be ?Global Warming ? What Can We Do?? focusing on the importance of clean air and protecting our environment.

We ask that you use our educational packet, ?Environmental Pathways - Youth Investigating Pollution Issues in Illinois,? in your classroom during the month of January. Following this year’s theme, emphasis will be on air pollution issues and global warming.

We believe that the creation of posters and written works gives your students an opportunity to express and share, on a deeper and more personal level, what they have learned. The student exhibit also draws attention to environmental issues.

Here’s what I learned expressed on a deeper and more personal level:

Roses are red,
Liberals are too.
Global warming’s a sham,
So they can regulate you.

The assassination of pro-democracy reformer and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has threatened to thrust Pakistan into severe civil unrest and has everyone asking one question: Who is behind this attack?

Bhutto’s supporters seem to be reflexively laying blame on their dictatorial rival, Pervez Musharraf. Yet despite the fact that Bhutto was threatening Musharraf’s holdon power, it is unlikely that he would think an assassination would make his position better, rather than worse. The real winners here are the Islamic extremists who can now hope to take advantage of the destabilized political situation. Al-Qaeda already tried to kill Bhutto once and they have also claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack (Hat tip: Say Anything):

A spokesperson for the al-Qaeda terrorist network has claimed responsibility for the death on Thursday of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

?We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,? Al-Qaeda?s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.

It is believed that the decision to kill Bhutto, who is the leader of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was made by al-Qaeda No. 2, the Egyptian doctor, Ayman al-Zawahiri in October.

Death squads were allegedly constituted for the mission and ultimately one cell comprising a defunct Lashkar-i-Jhangvi?s Punjabi volunteer succeeded in killing Bhutto.

If Bhutto’s supporters can set aside their anger at Musharraf, some of it certainly justified, and realize they share a common enemy in radical Islamic jihad, they can perhaps make some headway in advancing the ideals Bhutto’s represented. At the least, it would go a long way in preventing the region from sliding further away from their reformist vision as it would if radicals gained power.

Chalk another one up for common sense.

Illegal immigrants packing up and leaving Arizona

Illegal immigrants in Arizona, frustrated with a flagging economy and tough new legislation cracking down on their employers, are returning to their home countries or trying their luck in other states.

For months, immigrants have taken a wait-and-see attitude toward the state’s new employer-sanctions law, which takes effect January 1. The voter-approved legislation is an attempt to lessen the economic incentive for illegal immigrants in Arizona, the busiest crossing point along the U.S.-Mexico border.

And by all appearances, it’s starting to work.

“People are calling me telling me about their friend, their cousin, their neighbors — they’re moving back to Mexico,” said Magdalena Schwartz, an immigrant-rights activist and pastor at a Mesa church. “They don’t want to live in fear, in terror.”

Yes, what a “terror” it must be to have to follow the legal process to enter a new country. Oh the humanity. This just goes to show, once again, that incentives matter. Remove the benefits of being here illegally and they will stop being here illegally. This was never rocket science. But it’s good to see yet another blatant straw man - that the only way to remove illegals is to deport them all - shot down by empirical evidence. And to think, the law hasn’t even gone into effect yet!

President Bush (White House comments can be found here) recently signed into law the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. If we lived in a world where titles have meaning, this would be a positive occasion. Sadly, this bill provides neither security nor independence. Rather, it forces on consumers a product they do not want, subsidizes a number of pipe-dream “alternative fuel” projects that, if they were truly sources of potential fuel, would be funded by the market, and adds a $1.4 billion tax burden on businesses and workers.

Ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator James Inhofe, finds much to fault in this legislation:

“I simply could not support an ‘energy bill’ that will further drive up the already high price of gas at the pump or the cost of energy in our homes,” Senator Inhofe said. “Absent from this ‘energy’ bill are domestic energy resources - such as oil, natural gas, nuclear and clean coal technologies - that are essential to securing an American energy supply that is stable, diverse, and affordable.”

“Further, I am disappointed that this bill significantly increases the renewable fuels mandate in an irresponsible manner. Through my leadership position on the EPW Committee in 2005, I successfully worked with my colleagues to create a comprehensive program to increase the use of renewable fuels in a measured way that makes economic sense. This bill, however, contains a nearly five-fold expansion in the bio-fuels mandate. The fact is there are a growing number of questions surrounding ethanol’s effect on feed prices and our agricultural community, its economic sustainability, its transportation and infrastructure needs, and its water usage. As a result, I believe it’s just too early to significantly increase the mandate. The fuels industry needs more time to adapt and catch-up with the many developing challenges facing corn-based ethanol.”

“Unfortunately, this bill raises $1.4 billion by extending the ‘temporary’ Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) surtax on businesses which was first established in 1976 to repay loans from the federal unemployment trust fund. Even though this money was fully repaid in 1987, Congress has extended this temporary tax five times, imposing an annual $1.4 billion tax burden on America’s workers and employers.”

“This bill could have been even worse. Fortunately, however, I was able to work with my Senate colleagues to ensure major sections of the bill were stripped out. Democrat attempts to include a tax increase of $21 billion dollars, mostly aimed at the oil and natural gas industry, were defeated, as well as the attempt to include a Renewable Portfolio Standard that would have significantly increased the cost of electricity in Oklahoma and across the country.”

Representative Barton said this of the bill on the House floor:

Let’s take the issue of fuel economy standards. If there is a crown jewel in this bill, it apparently is that we’re going to raise CAFE standards significantly for the first time in 30 years. On the surface, that may appear to be a good thing, but let me point out a few things.

There are over 350 models of automobiles and trucks that are currently available for sale to the American public. There are only eight vehicles that get 35 miles to the gallon. They are the Honda Fit, the Honda Civic, the Honda Civic Hybrid, the Toyota Yaris, both manual and automatic, Toyota Corolla, Toyota Camry Hybrid, and the Toyota Prius. That’s it.

Now, let’s look at the top eight selling vehicles that the American public have bought so far this year. Number one is the Ford F-series pickup. Number two is the Chevrolet Silverado pickup. Number three is the Toyota Camry, not the Camry Hybrid. Number four is the Dodge Ram pickup. Number five is the Honda Accord. Number six is the Toyota Corolla. Number seven is the Honda Civic. Number eight is the Nissan Altima. Only two or three of those get 35 miles to the gallon.

I will stipulate, as smart as our engineers in Detroit are, it is going to be very, very difficult, if not impossible, for the Ford F-series pickups, the Chevy Silverado and the Dodge Ram pickup to get 35 miles to the gallon by the year 2020.

Of course you won’t have any Ford F-series pickups getting 35 MPG. Nor do the democrats care. They don’t believe in choice and freedom. They’d mandate everyone putz around in a Prius if they didn’t have that pesky problem of elections to deal with. He goes on to say:

What the bill before us is is a mandatory conservation bill. Now, conservation in and of itself is a good thing. I won’t deny that. But conservation without some supply is a bad thing, and that’s what this bill is. We’re preempting State and local building codes with Federal building standards for so-called “green buildings.” We’re mandating 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels that right now the technology simply doesn’t exist. Hopefully our engineers and scientists can make that happen, but what if they don’t?

We are also basically just changing the way that we operate in a market economy for energy in this country to the government knows the best and the government is going to tell the American people what’s best for them, whether the American people like it or not. I think that’s a mistake, Mr. Speaker. And for that reason, I would hope we vote against the bill.

There is no energy independence in this bill. There is no exploration of domestic fuel sources that we can make substantial use of now or in the immediate future. There is no new call for nuclear power. There is absolutely nothing tangible in terms of new energy sources from this legislation. We cannot merely conserve our way into energy independence, not if we expect to grow our economy at the same time.

In addition to these issues, that old socialist boogey-man of “price gouging” is yet again attacked. According to Project Vote Smart the bill includes the following on “price gouging”:

- Establishes that in times of energy emergency as declared by the President, price gouging and market manipulation is prohibited and punishable by a civil penalty up to $1,000,000 fine or a criminal penalty of up to a $5,000,000 fine or up to 5 years in prison (Title 1(Subtitle B(Sec. 609))).

- Defines “price gouging” as charging an unconscionably excessive price charged by a supplier. Defines “unconscionably excessive price” as a price that has a gross disparity from the average price at which the item was offered for sale in the usual course of the supplier’s business prior to the President’s declaration of an energy emergency, a price that grossly exceeds the prices at which similar crude oil gasoline or petroleum that is obtainable from other purchasers, represents an unfair leverage on the part of the supplier, or if the price cannot be attributable to increased wholesale or operational costs (Title 1(Subtitle B(Sec. 602))).

I’ve written on price gouging before (here, here and here), but the sheer stupidity of this idea needs to be challenged yet again.

The argument behind “price-gouging” legislation is one of emotion rather than logic. Price-gouging, the argument goes, is when evil business operators raise prices in the midst of some crisis, emergency or other sudden event. This takes advantage of consumers extraordinary need of some good and shouldn’t be allowed. Or should it?

Let’s put this another way and do a little economics 101. What purpose do prices serve? Prices are a means to signal where goods and resources should be utilized. Rather than having some central planner direct scarce resources, the price system (in conjunction with the profit motive) works to get the right amount of resources into the right places to satisfy consumer preferences. So, when demand for certain goods increases during an emergency, what purpose does the subsequent rise in price serve? It serves to signal the need for more of that resource in a given area. Removing these signals has consequences. Price controls enacted to prohibit “price gouging” exacerbate shortages.

Take for example the case of a Miami man who responded to a shortage of generators by traveling to North Carolina and returning with 35 generators much desired by the area struck by Hurricane Wilma. That’s 35 generators that would not have been available to the people of Miami had this man not acted. If government had it’s way, he never would have. Miami-Dade County sued him for “price-gouging”. Never mind the fact that any purchase is voluntary and that his customers obviously found his prices reasonable (the act of purchasing says so). Never mind that without being able to charge those prices he wouldn’t have spent his time and energy bringing those goods where they were needed. This is the folly of “price-gouging” legislation. It harms economic activity and thus does a disservice to those it claims to protect. One estimate finds that, had price controls such as those proposed by anti-price-gougers been in place following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, an additional $1.5-$2.9 billion in economic damage would have been caused.^[1]

Though President Bush ignored their findings in signing this energy bill, the White House Council of Economic Advisers, finding that such a law “contradicts standard economic principles” and thus that “‘price gouging’ legislation should be opposed,” sternly warned against the consequences of such legislation just 6 months ago:

Such legislation is harmful for primarily two reasons:

* “Price gouging” legislation that effectively places controls on prices exacerbates shortages and potentially increases lines at gasoline stations.

* The difficulty in defining “price gouging” would create an unnecessary regulatory regime with potentially high litigation costs and great uncertainty for sellers, enforcement agencies, and the courts. These added costs and uncertainties would deter investment in new supply, increasing prices in the long run.

“Price gouging” legislation would reduce incentives to supply areas facing a fuel shortage. For example, in the days after natural disasters, such as hurricanes, price increases induce domestic refineries outside the affected region and foreign suppliers to rapidly ship additional gasoline to affected areas. If this legislation were implemented, it could deter retailers from increasing prices and it might not be worthwhile for suppliers to divert their shipments. Retailers in the affected region would have even less gasoline and drivers would face additional hardship. With gasoline prices kept below market levels, there would be shortages. Consumers would be forced to line up at gas stations, but gasoline would run out before satisfying demand and many would be forced to do without.

Without the flexibility for prices to increase, supply disruptions last longer than they would otherwise. By disrupting the price mechanism, price controls make lines longer during emergencies, misallocate the available supply, and prevent those with the greatest need for gasoline from getting access. Also, by making it illegal for prices to increase when supplies are tight, price gouging legislation makes retailers reluctant to lower prices when supplies are readily available, for fear of not being able to adjust to future supply changes.

The White Paper also notes that law already prevents anticompetitive behavior, and that firms may not use disasters as an opportunity to collude. Real price fluctuations, however, are to be expected following a disaster and serve a vital role. Politicians can make easy sound-bytes out of attacking such price spikes, but they do nothing but harm by attempting to legislate them out of existence. So not only does this bill provide nothing to help with energy independence, it provides real and tangible harm to the functioning of the economy.

^[1]Montgomery, W. David, Robert A. Baron, and Mary K. Weisskopf. 2007. POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF PROPOSED PRICE GOUGING LEGISLATION ON THE COST AND SEVERITY OF GASOLINE SUPPLY INTERRUPTIONS. Journal of Competition Law and Economics 3, no. 3 (September 1): 357-397. http://jcle.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/3/3/357.

We must remain ever vigilant of the incessant meddling of I-know-better-than-you liberal bureauweenies. The latest incarnation of social engineering comes to us from, big surprise, San Francisco.

For years, the idea of taxing soda to beat back obesity has been tossed around in medical circles. But now, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is proposing a tax on beverages high in fructose corn syrup.

Newsom says obesity accounts for tens of millions of dollars in city health care costs. He cites a recent San Francisco Health Department survey that found nearly a quarter of the city’s 5th, 7th and 9th graders were overweight and that high sugar drinks make up a tenth of a kid’s daily calorie count.

I propose a big-government tax. Every time some liberal do-gooder proposes government action designed to influence the behavior of free citizens, we take them out back and beat them with copies of the constitution.

Ron Paul is once again raking in the dough.

GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul is raking in millions of dollars even as he remains one of the candidates with the least face time in mainstream media.

Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul’s campaign says it plans to beef up staff in Florida and other states.

His campaign said it raised $6 million-plus in 24 hours earlier this week — one of the largest single-day fundraising totals in U.S. election history — but he remains low in the polls.

Paul says those polls might be mistaken and insists he has a wide following.

Much of Paul’s money comes from individuals contributing smaller amounts, according to his campaign and records dating back to September filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Of course the polls are mistaken. They are run by the “establishment” and have as their singular purpose the task of fighting off the Ronvolution by keeping Ron Paul down!

All of this just goes to show the validity in the old saying, “A fool and his money are soon parted.”