As the health care debate continues, your representative is cowering in fear because there are people who vocally disagree with them. Protests and angry mobs have a time and place. For example, if you’re being refused entrance to your representative’s town hall by union thugs, this is cause for protest and anger. If your representative is only answering “soft-ball” questions that seem to be pre-selected, this is cause for protest and anger. If you see someone being beaten up by counter-protesters, this is cause for more protest, anger, and even violence.
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All over America, concerned citizens are showing up at Town Hall meetings and showing their disapproval of their elected lawmakers. Many of them are switching venues so they can hide behind “human shields” to avoid these citizens. Nancy Pelosi even pulled the “Nazi Card” by claiming she saw “swastikas” at these Town Hall meetings.
The White House wants people to report “disinformation” to flag@whitehouse.com. Barack Obama has even said he doesn’t want people who disagree with him to “do a whole lot of talking“.
This is nothing short of a desperate “President” trying to scare his critics into backing down. But, hey, if he wants to get a whole bunch of e-mails, that’s his business. I think We the People should report our neighbors for spreading disinformation. And I say we start with the Obama supporters.
No doubt that this community activist has enlisted a large army of kool-aid drinkers into doing his bidding. To level the playing field, we should do the same. In the next week, I’ll be debuting a website where fellow conservatives can report Obama supporters. Upload pictures of their bumper stickers (including license plates). Use the Freedom of Information Act in your state to obtain their address, phone number, and any other identifying information. That information will be publicly displayed for people to see.
Unlike the White House, this list will not be illegal since the information is publicly available. What people decide to do with the information is not up for the state to decide.
Once I have the website up and running, I’ll make another announcement on this site and on Twitter.
A couple of weeks ago, Congress was voting on HR 2454 (Known as Cap & Trade). I completely disagreed with this bill since every “green” initiative makes everything more expensive. Ultimately, it’s the poor people that can’t afford “Cap & Trade” but environmental activism sounds more pretty than dirty poor people who can barely afford the cardboard they have to eat.
Enter Rep. Jim Moran, who represents me and my district in Northern Virginia. This guy has never represented any of my views. His responses are always the party line. I don’t think this guy even thinks for himself.
I sent the form letter that was available on a website to Rep. Moran. Here’s his “response”:
Dear Mr. Soh:
Thank you for contacting me to register your opposition to legislation (H.R. 2454) to curb greenhouse gas emissions. I appreciate your comments but regret that we may disagree on this issue.
There is almost complete consensus on the science of climate change. The International Panel on Climate Change states in its recent report that there is a growing body of evidence which demonstrates that increases in greenhouse gas concentrations, due to human emissions, have caused most of the warming observed over the past half century.
Both the spatial patterns and trend of warming can only be explained by the inclusion of human emissions. The rapid increase in global temperatures seen over the past half century could not have been caused by natural factors alone. The warming effect of human emissions is around ten times that of solar variations. I would encourage you to read the statements of the International Panel on Climate Change and the Academies of Science of the 11 largest countries in the world. There is also a good website with YouTube videos that effectively refute some of the more popular claims that global climate change is not occurring or the result of human activity: http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610.
If you accept that humans are the cause of global climate change, then it is hard not to argue that as the largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions on a per capita basis and the second largest by country, the U.S. should take a leadership role in reducing emissions. I believe we also have a moral obligation to consider what cost future generations will bear for our impact on the environment. Concerns about the cost to the economy should be secondary to the welfare of our children and future generations.
The legislation approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday, June 26, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) seeks to reduce greenhouse gases below 80 percent of their 2005 levels by the year 2050. The act achieves this objective through a combination of mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from major sources, a clean renewable energy standard for electricity production, greater energy efficiency, and conservation measures and subsidies to support the development of carbon sequestration technologies. The mandatory reductions are achieved through a cap and trade program that is modeled after the market-based program enacted under the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990. This program successfully reduced sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-fired plants that were responsible for acid rain that acidified lakes, destroyed aquatic wildlife and fresh drinking water sources. Within seven years of its implementation, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that compliance costs were 75 percent below those originally predicted by EPA and far below what opponents at the time of its passage claimed. EPA also found that within that seven-year period acid deposition in the eastern United States had declined by as much as 30 percent, resulting in marked improvements in lakes and streams.
There is no doubt that transforming to less carbon intense energy sources will have an impact on the economy. The Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act places the cost at less than 50 cents per family, per day for the first ten years. While there will be economic disruption and job losses, there will also be new jobs and industries created. We currently spend more than $700 billion annually on oil imports. By comparison, the total cost of the war in Iraq is estimated at $2 trillion to $3 trillion when the health care and retirement benefits of returning veterans are included. Bearing the cost of transitioning toward a less carbon-intense society is possible, appropriate and necessary.
There are also significant costs for doing nothing. And, we do not need to wait a generation to measure the impact of inaction. We have already begun to bear these costs. Arid subtropical climate zones have already expanded by about 250 miles, endangering native plant and animal species. The European heat wave of 2003 is estimated to have killed 35,000 people. In 1998, floods in China adversely affected 24 million. The World Health Organization estimates that as of the year 2000 the annual death toll from climate change had reached more than 150,000.
Looking into the future, extraordinary heat waves, storms and floods will kill many people and harm many others, and this increasing toll of death and destruction will not be limited to developing countries. Tropical diseases will increase their range of infection and exact their toll in human lives. Changing patterns of rainfall and mountain runoff will lead to local water shortages and crop failures in California and the Southwest. Ocean acidification will destroy coral reefs and the chain of sea life they support, endangering a leading food source for up to one-third of humanity. If coastal ice shelves in the Antarctic continue to disintegrate, sea levels will rise several meters in a century. At such a rate, almost half of the world’s great cities will disappear. Large-scale human migrations in response to rising sea levels and other climate-induced stresses will impoverish many people. In general, an increasingly harsh climate will greatly endanger future generations’ life expectancy and diminish everyone’s quality of life. Some warn that mass extinctions of species may occur, leaving a far more desolate planet for our descendants than the world that we inherited.
While there are a number of provisions that cause me concern, this legislation sets in play an ambitious program to transform the way we produce and consume energy and moves us away from the precipice of environmental and ecological disaster. The current debate, which I welcome, is long overdue.
Thank you again for contacting me.
Sincerely,
James P. Moran
There is just so much wrong with these “facts”. It’s been said that facts should never get in the way of political change. And you, Mr. Moran, embody that.
Outside of the fact that many of the statements he made are soundbites from various organizations, not one of his sources are acedemic. Since I’m enrolled in grad school, I did a quick search on scientific journals that contained articles showing global climate change as natural. I found hundreds of sources — all peer reviewed and referried.
Here is my reply to Mr. Moran:
Mr Moran
I appreciate your reply, but I’m deeply troubled.
First of all, there is no complete consensus on global climate change. If there was, there would be no scientific debate and there clearly is. Many, many well-known organizations such as the Meteorological Association as well as renown scientists have shown that there is no causal link between carbon dioxide and global climate change. Furthermore, data from the NOAA has shown that global temperatures have gone up and down throughout the course of history and have not significantly changed because of carbon emotions. In fact a new study was released in the Journal of Geophysical Research that shows that that global climate changes are a result of naturally occurring elements such as southern oscillation than human-made carbon dioxide
I’m shocked and appalled that you offer YouTube videos as your evidence to global climate change. And most of the sources you site are not academic. In a quick search at my local university, I found numerous academic papers (which are not clouded by political gain) that show that changes in climate are natural.
Mr Moran, if you are using YouTube videos to vote on policy instead of listening to your constituents, you should not be a congressman.
I’m deeply troubled that you are failing to represent my views. I hoped that you would be a politician that thought critically about all bills, and not simply went along with the party line. I’ve looked at your voting history and you’ve voted with the party 97% of the time. This tells me you’re a party candidate and not my candidate. I’ve asked you to vote on my issues but you have repeatedly let me down.
Your re-election is fast approaching. If you do not start representing my views soon, I will actively campaign against your re-election.
Sincerely,
Michael Soh
Mr. Moran is up for re-election next year.
About a month ago, I made a suggestion to fellow #TCOT member MarkRMatthews concerning the current state of our legislative body. Everyone agrees that special interest groups have way too much control yet not one politician will admit that they are affected by them. The reality is that our legislative body has become way too powerful. Every year we seem to hear about some congressman or senator having some sort of ethics issue.
Politics was never meant to be a full-time career. In fact, it was supposed to be a group of individuals who believed in bringing REAL results from the national level down to the local level. But we’ve gone far beyond this vision. The majority of the elected legislators are millionaires. They live cushy lives from lobby kickbacks. They air a sense of entitlement, like they deserve to have popularity, money, prestige.
I want to believe that there is at least one honost politician. But due to the fact that politics is now a game as opposed to a mission, these honest home-grown politicians fall by the wayside.
Despite elections, I don’t believe that the everyman’s concern is addressed. Congress has gotten so partition that the majority of votes now can be counted by which party the politician is in. We, the people, must wake up from this fact and seek real change. Not the change that Obama promised because it isn’t enough.
I’m calling my proposal the 3-2-1 plan. It’s simple:
- Three: Elected legislative members are limited to three consecutive terms. It doesn’t matter if he puts in two terms in the House and then one term in the Senate or all three terms in the Senate. After serving three consecutive terms, the member must not seek ANY federally-elected office for two full terms of his last office.
- Two: The legislator-to-constituent ratio is way too high. Using 2010 census data, we must double the number of legislators in both the House and Senate. This makes it so that more specific concerns can be heard from a smaller group of constituents and makes it harder for lobby groups to control one group of legislators.
- One: Each legislator will earn a different salary, which will be equal to the median income level of his constituents. This salary will be determined by the last census. This will force the legislator to relate to his constituents and understand their financial needs better. If he needs to take on a second job, so be it.
I need help getting this message across. Right now, the foxes guard the hen house. There is no way that a bill like this will pass because no legislator in their right mind would want to give up the power that they have right now.
Our elected officials have forgotten that they work for the people. We don’t have to cater to them. The only way that a bill like this can pass is through grassroots support. I doubt either house will introduce this bill. The only way for it to pass is for it to be voted on by referendum at the state level.
I’m not a lawyer by any stretch of the imagination. But I know enough about the constitution that a bill like this will require an amendment to the constitution. With your help, we can make this happen.
Please tell your friends about this plan. It’s a good plan and gives power back to the people and away from the lobbiest and the carear politicians. Your comments are always appreciated. Please post them below.