No Runny Eggs

Briefly from Steve Lonegan, New Jersey is looking at selling off their toll roads to buy up all the power-generating utilities in NJ. Brother.

On to questions (same rules as last time; it’s all paraphrased, questions are in italics, answers are in plain text, my comments are in parentheses):

Q 1 – How can we win with logic against people who only appeal to emotion? Phil – Focus on the cost. Look at what happened to Algore’s BTU tax.

Q 2 – What do we do about the brainwashing? Jim – Contact the school board that tries to cram this down the skulls full of mush to get the other side out. Points out that a British court said that Algore’s movie is a bunch of bunk.

Q 3 – Can the Legislature intervene in stuff like the court-ordered efficiency drop at the Oak Creek power plant? Jim – We would have to write specific legislation.

Q 4 – What about breathing? Phil – Many of the Gorebal Warming acolytes are also population cullers.

Q 5 – What about the claim that CO₂ is a product of Gorebal Warming, not the other way around? Jim – That would make thermodynamic sense. We don’t have the accurate historical data. An example was the “cooling” of the 1960s was the move of thermometers from the downtown areas to the airports. Now, since the cities have expanded around the airports where the airports had once been surrounded by fields, the well-documented heat-island effect is once again taking effect.

Q 6 – Are there venues where there is a true debate? Paul – They’ve generally demurred. Jim – I’ve been in a few debates. Follow-up; it’s not exactly visible Paul – They want to shut everybody up. Phil – We’re working on it.

Q 7 – Further follow-up; the few formal debates that have been graded have been graded as a loss for the Gorebal Warming acolytes. Has there been a real study on how carbon-efficient corn-a-hole is? Jim – I haven’t seen it. Phil – It’s not exactly carbon-neutral as the acolytes claim.

Q 8 – Isn’t this a serious tax increase? Phil -Yep. The only reason the study McCain was touting that said that there would be a slight improvement is that it is sold as reducing other taxes. That isn’t exactly happening, as every penny is going to be spent. Jim – Cap-and-trade doesn’t work. Phil – Buy your carbon credits from Russia because their economy collapsed.

And we’re out. I will not, repeat, not be blogging the gathering, which I think I’m already late for.

Next up, Rep. Jim Ott, formerly a meterologist with WTMJ. He has other issues, such as keeping taxes low and keeping a heap of bad Dem legislation from seeing the light of day in the Assembly. It is a political topic with a lot of false information going out. Example, a Journtinel article asserting that “human-induced global warming over the last 5 decades” has reduced the snow pack out west, which makes river flow faster in the spring and dry up faster. Two problems; it leaves no room for natural sources (example; the Kettle Morraine came about before humans were in Wisconsin), and it hasn’t been 5 decades (remember the global cooling of the 1970s?; it’s been a warm decade or so).

Environmentalism should mean stuff like clean air and clean water, not nobody around to enjoy the environment. The extremists have found something the LeftStreamMedia has grasped onto, and they will destroy anybody who tries to point out the fallacies in their arguments.

CO₂ has gone up 35% over the last 200 years. 1934 was the warmest year in US history, not 1998. The 1930s had as many of the top 10 warmest years as the last 10.

Correlation is not causation. In the 1980s, even as CO₂ amounts were as high as it is now, it was cooling. There are other factors.

Let’s assume humans have a role in Gorebal Warming. The ‘Rats have something called the “Safe Climate Act” (SB81/AB157). Though its poised to make it out of the Senate, Ott will stop it as long as the Pubbies control the Assembly because he is on the committee that will hear it.

How do companies get CO₂ levels in Wisconsin down to 1990 levels by 2020? Pay a tax (which doesn’t reduce carbon), put in controls that don’t exist (and which isn’t exactly effective; CO₂ is one of the two products of proper hydrocarbon combustion), reduce production, or leave the state.

The lie of the day was repeated by Lawton when it was before the appropriate Senate committee. We’re not going to be a leader.

One last problem; if Wisconsin were to drop its CO₂ to zero, there will be no impact on global CO₂ levels. If there’s no impact on temperatures, what good is it? It wouldn’t; the most-conservative economic model of the legislation says electric rates would go up 18%, the average 40%. Gas prices; average 50%. Additional cost per family per year – $2,000 to $5,000. That reduces CO₂ emissions 16%

Ott has ideas:

– More nuclear energy (a doubling to it producing 40% of electricity would cut CO₂ 15% with no real negative effects, except the waste).
– Personal conservation
– Federal tax incentives for hybrids and electric cars if the energy is from sources like nuclear.

If Gorebal Warming isn’t real, that plan would at least not kill the economy.

Closes with a tale of a couple of envirowhackos who stopped in his office. After giving them a 10-minute version of this, one of them said that Ott made him think.

On to Paul Chesser, director of Climate Strategies Watch and a investigative reporter for the John Locke Foundation (say, don’t I have a link to one of their blogs? :-) They are the ones that exposed John Edwards’ mansion.

Paul asks, what if the governor would create a process for deregulating business absolutely, positively controlled by those advocating the deregulation of business? The media and the opposition party would go absolutely ape-<expletive deleted>.

Guess what, what’s the exact situation that is the Wisconsin task force on Gorebal “Warming”, and worse. They’re focused solely on CO₂, and assumes that it is absolutely settled when it’s anything but, ignoring anything that so much as suggests that it’s not man-made CO₂. Indeed, the co-chairs admit they don’t know jack <expletive deleted>, and the data is faulty. They also admit they don’t know if their “fixes” will work.

The same can be said for their parent organization, the World Resources Institute. Golly, one of their goals looks familiar; 25% of every source of energy be “renewable”. The rest suck as well (55 mph limit). They have no clue how to get there.

Plan of the day to expose this:
– Expose methodology, funding sources through Open Records requests
– Point out there is no analysis of impact, no feasibility studies, no cost-benefit analysis.
– Take ownership

Phil Kerpen, AFP National Policy Director, begins the discussion by noting that there is a lot of political and indeed pseudo-religious fervor behind Global “Warming”, calling it the biggest threat to freedom. He delivers a long laundry list of the intrusive policy initiatives that sounds suspiciously like a former policy followed by the likes of Cuba and North Korea.

On to the “moderate” cap and trade program (note; McCain has taken his name off this). Even Joe Lieberman, the lead sponsor, says that it will cost hundreds of billions a year to comply with. Electricity prices go up by 65% by 2015, job losses are 2.5 million. Even if the targets are met for a trillion dollars, if the Gorebal Warming “scientists” are 100% right, it will drop the temp 0.029 degrees (if its Fahrenheit or Celcius) in 50 years. If every country were to do this, it would be 0.07 degrees.

Algore Goracle said that Kyoto is step 1 of 30. Meanwhile, in Europe, which signed onto Kyoto, their “greenhouse gas” emissions went up in 2006 (by contrast, they went down in the US).

Hillary Clinton will take away your cheap energy and your car for the common good (that sounds familiar; that’s her plan on everything) as she pushes a 55 mpg mandate. Bill said that we just have to slow down the economy.

Back to Algore; let’s tax carbon, even though it helped bring about the 104th Congress last time around. We just need to hide it.

Cap-and-trade is 4 to 5 times less efficient than an actual tax, and it costs more. The Congressional Budget Office has scored cap-and-trade as a tax increase, and it’s a doozy (100%).

There is another danger; the EPA calling CO₂ a “dangerous substance” and regulate it under the Clean Air Act. The courts are trying to get that to happen. It would trigger draconian measures against every source that puts out more than 250 tons a year. Most commercial buildings, and even larger homes, would fall under this, and it would require EPA permits and environmental impact studies.

Quote from Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the 1992 Conference on Environment and Development – “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t our responsibility to bring that about?” That sums up the goals of the Gorebal Warming acolytes.

Question time. Usual rules apply; questions in italics, answers in plain text, my comments in parentheses

First Q – Why hasn’t anybody overlaid the current SocSecurity fund surplus (that has been spent on everything but SocSecurity) onto the programs? Steve – Funny you should ask that. Part of the Power Point presentation has just that. In 2017, those surpluses go away permanently. SocSecurity return is much worse than even bonds. More people believe in UFOs (the Kookcinich crowd) than in SocSecurity.

Q 2 – Is David Walker right in saying the total federal unfunded liabilities $70 trillion through 2052? Steve – Roughly. However, unlike Walker, I believe we can grow our way out. Many countries are headed toward private retirement systems.

Q 3 – Doesn’t Congress get it on earmarks yet? Steve – It’s like a drug. The Senate Pubbies were the ones that killed the Bush plan to ignore the earmarks that weren’t actually written in the bill. It might take another election. Rich – We know the Bridge to Nowhere leads to the minority. Robin – Nobody thanks you for saying No (an audience member does thanks them). Make that almost nobody.

Q 4 – Is Bernake doing the right thing regarding inflation? Steve – The biggest problem is the devaluation of the dollar. The only question Bernake wouldn’t answer in depth is the “Is the dollar too weak?” question, though he said, “The dollar should be strong, next question.” The reason oil is expensive is the dollar is weak and oil’s a commodity. If the dollar were strong, we’d be at $30/bbl instead of $90/bbl.

Q 5 – “I want my SocSecurity money back!” Steve – (missed the longer answer; will have to review the tape). One term term limits.

Q 6 – Back when certain classes of employees could opt out of SocSecurity, I helped my clients become millionaires. Steve – Sounds familiar. I’ve got a story about a UPS employee who earned no more than $40,000/year, but took 15% of every paycheck and bought UPS stock. When he died, he had a $64 million estate. Morever, SocSecurity is guaranteed for nobody. (Another member of the audience) How would the private accounts be protected? Steve – They’ll have to work on that.

Q 7 – What’s going on with the Frankenstein veto? Robin – Its death is coming to a ballot near you on April 1 because e somehow got the Senate Dems to agree to kill it in its second consideration. Follow-up; is it going to be clear? Rich – Yes.

Now up, Jill Didier. It’s even worse at the local level; the aldermen are not even given the breakouts on how the money is spent (I’m sure Mark Verhalen knows all about this), even when they ask for the breakouts. Cripes!

Another shocker; 45 minutes before a vote on Tosa’s budget, the aldermen were told that one of the hospitals was freshly placed on tax-exempt land, so they had to fill a $1 million hole. That’s no way to run a railroad.

Next, Robin Vos. The cold hard truth; just because someone is a Pubbie, he or she is not conservative. Morever, most to all of those who contact their legislators want more spending.

Story – there is somebody in state government whose job it is to go to the thrft stores and check the toys to make sure they weren’t recalled.

An unusual cooperation between Obama and Colburn; the federal Checkbook Transparency Act. That’s the plan here, and it can be done with little to no effort.

Shocka – $517 for a prime rib dinner at the governor’s mansion. Now, who was there?

Here’s how bad the Dems are in the State Senate; the analogs to Obama wouldn’t sign onto a state level. Paging Plale. Paging Jeff Plale; please sign on.

Praise for the Journal Sentinel for putting every teacher’s salary online.

Editor’s note; on some of the DAD-WI posts, I had used “AFP-WI”. Oh well; the dangers of live-blogging).

Next, Rich Zipperer. He’s hammering on a lot of earmarks in the last budget, inserted at the last second. His earmark transparency act (I’ve got some details somewhere in the archives; if I get the time, I’ll link back to it) isn’t to get rid of earmarks, though it would be a good thing; it’s to expose them to the light of day.

It’s too easy to slip earmarks past the watchdogs, both in old media and new media, right now.

Going through the budget process. Even in the first draft from the governor’s office, earmarks can be snuck in through the departments. The bill would make the gov put his name behind all of the earmarks.

The next step is the Joint Finance Committee. Now, it takes a majority to take out an earmark. The bill would make it a majority to keep it, and would create an earmark report naming names.

After that, it’s to each house. The bill will require any additional earmarks to be reported 48 hours before a vote.

Then, it’s the conference committee, and the real big earmarks, airdrops, sneak in. The bill would stop it dead.

I would have gone to the Old Media/New Media session, but since just about everybody else that’s blogging is there, I chose differently. No, it wasn’t because I met P-Mac; he is a great guy. It’s the earmarks issue that caught my eye. Since the Wisconsin Eye cameras aren’t here, I’ll try to walk the line between giving enough information and giving too much information. The panel consists of Steve Moore, Rep. Rich Zipperer, Rep. Robin Vos, and Alderwoman (and mayoral candidate) Jill Diddier from Wauwatosa.

First up, Steve. He believes John McCain will be the real deal on economics (Moore has beaten up McCain on stuff like Global Warming). He shows a chart showing the markets over the last 40 years, and points out that the markets crashed (7% loss per year in real terms) between the late 1960s and about 1980.

The economy has grown 94% of the time, which lulls people into thinking the economy will grow no matter what. The late 1970s prove different (14% inflation, 20% interest rates).

Note on how poorly the bipartisan stimulus package will do; the number of jobs continued to drop until the 2003 tax cuts despite the 2001 stimulus package. Worse will be an Obama or Clinton Presidency.

As for spending; the only time nondefense spending was held down was between the 104th and 106th Congresses. The Pubbies bought into bringing into the pork.

One thing I didn’t know about the Bridge to Nowhere; it would be longer than the Golden Gate. Another tidbit; we could have bought each of the 40 residents it would serve a Lear jet for less money.

The Dems claimed they would cut earmarks in half; only thing is, it only dropped from 15,000 to 12,000.

I HAVE to get a pic of that last chart.

I still don’t know which sessions I will be at, but it’s time to head out there. That’s one thing I forgot to do in DC.

Now up, Vicki McKenna, talk show host on both WIBA and WISN. She reveals a deep, dark secret; she was a liberal in college (don’t worry, Vicki; Winston Churchill said that if you weren’t a liberal at 18, you have no heart). We can even (almost) forgive you for campaigning for Bill in 1992; after all, you also proved the other half of Churchill’s quote right; you have a brain because you became a conservative before you turned 40 (no, I am not going to say which side of that she’s on; I don’t even know).

Another McKenna family secret; her dad thinks Rush is too liberal. Even so, it took a lot of explanation to get Vicki to the light.

The lesson is we have to do the explaining; the other side is actively indoctinating in even English classes.

Vicki on the taxpayer rally now; that brings back some good memories. This is definitely not covered by the “Fairness Doctrine”. No, you weren’t out of control, Vicki.

Hmm, where can we hold the next one if we get 25,000? I’ll be satisfied with 2,500.

Sorry; I won’t have much of an interim writeup; I had to reboot the laptop to regain connectivity.

Mark Block gave her a Defending the Dream award for, among other things, helping to kill Healthy (and Depopulated) Wisconsin. She went on to praise a host of legislators for various ways they defending the dream.

She went on to answer my question (I guess she is one of those that do read this place).

Now up, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker. He wants Ryan as VP.

He’s up for re-election in less than 2 months. The first 2 times he ran, the Dems in Madison put up people who ran as conservatives (note; it is a nonpartisan office), now they have an unabashed liberal.

Scott listing a laundry list of differences between him and Lena Taylor. He’s a tax-freezer (6 straight no-levy-increase budgets submitted, 0 tax-increase budgets signed), she’s a tax-hiker. He’s for school choice, she worked to try to kill it.

Before Walker became exec in 2002, the tax levy went up an average of 6% a year. Even with the Board wanting to raise taxes, it’s been 2% since his election.

We need help to keep him in office; go to his campaign site.

He’s relating a story from one of his budget hearings about a woman who attended, braved all the organized labor who want more, more, more, and laid the simple case for not raising her taxes as they had already gone up well past her wages.

Now up, Rep. Paul Ryan. The crowd wants him to run for higher office (I agree), he says first, kill earmarks.

The reason America is great is because we have freedom and liberty. They are, however, under assault.

Ryan has brought back the spirit of the late Sen. Bill Proxmire’s Golden Fleece award with the Budget Boondoggle award. The first winner is Sen. Ted Stevens, who replaced the “Bridge to Nowhere” with the “Ferry to Nowhere” (still serves 40 people).

If you can’t clean up spending like this, how are you going to tackle entitlements.

When Ryan’s kids are his age (about 30 years from now), if they want a federal government that is exactly like today’s, they’re going to face a level of taxation that is double that is today’s (40% of GDP versus 20% now). The bad news is no new bills need to be passed. The worse is all the Dems have to do is stalemate.

The Bush tax cuts were permanent when they left the House; the Senate’s filibustering made them sunset.

The Alternative Minimum Tax is a big scourge, and the Dems, including Clinton and Obama, want to replace it in kind with a tax that has a top rate of 45%.

It can’t be an American Century if the biggest bill you pay is to government. Other countries that have gone into the hole the Dems want to go into are actually reducing taxes to get out of it.

The way to fight the Dems’ plans is to join the fight. We are at risk of severing the American legacy if we don’t take this country back. Thank you, AFP, thank you crowd.

This is a generational time; these are transformational times.

We’re back from lunch, and Tim Phillips is back at the mic. First, he thanked Mark Block and the rest of AFP-Wisconsin for being very active.

Next up, the next two big issues we have to fight; universal health care and global “warming”. Both will crash the economy.

The winner of the Defending the Dream Award is…Rep. Paul Ryan (my Congresscritter). Even though he (still) looks too young to serve, he has become a leader.

It is pretty much the same choices as in DC; naturally, I took the ham sandwich box (Fred wanted a Photoshop).

Owen showed up just in time for lunch, and I can finally get to the list of other luminaries from Brian:

– Sen. Glen Grothman
– Chris Kleismeth and Orv Seymer from CRG
– Rebecca Dallet, a candidate for Milwaukee Circuit judge
– Bill Gleisner, a candidate for District 2 Court of Appeals
– Georgia Maxwell, Scott Walker’s campaign manager (her son recited the Pledge)
– Mike Dean, conservative activist from Waukesha County

I almost (hell with almost, I did) forgot about Erik Telford, the AFP national blog man who got me the blogger credentials back in October.

Now up – Dinesh D’Souza. He made the trek from CPAC here. A bit of humor since he’s the last speaker before lunch, quoting Henry XIII – “I won’t keep you very long.”

The Reagan Revolution has been played out, but the general ideas live on and need a new direction.

He started off by being part of Dartmouth’s conservative paper.

What made Reagan Reagan? He had a euclidian confidence that he was right. He wasn’t “open-minded” in a liberal-arts sense because he knew where he wanted to go.

He was also indifferent to the power of the punditry.

When he was asked to reverse his early monetary policy because his popularity was plunging, he said “Maybe it’s time for me to be shot again.”

I’m just going to have to let the tape to the talking on the Reagan stories. Once again, I can’t do Dinesh justice.

Reagan realized that one can’t change the world in 45 ways; the most one can hope for is to change it in 2 or 3 ways.

Ultimately, Reagan believed in the vitality of the American dream. Sometimes, we activists get tired by fighting battle after battle. The good news is, if we keep the core of the American dream in front of us, then ultimately we will not only endure but prevail.

Tom McMahon’s in the house and found our little corner. Dunno the other guy with the laptop off-hand (haven’t had any time to ask him). Just had a short video with classic Reagan quotes.

Now up, Dan Schnur, president of Command Focus. He’s back home after living the last 20 years not just for Leon’s, but because the Presidential election is that important, and Wisconsin will likely decide it (Fred recognizes him as a McCain 2000 guy).

He started off working for Presidents Reagan and H.W. Bush (“Bush Classic”).

Question – “Who to people trust?” They don’t trust the media, but they trust each other.

Over the next several months, the parties will spend hundreds of millions on television ads, and because of TiVo, they will be wasted. Those who watch the ads are those that are already committed.

Where do people get reliable information about the campaigns? From each other and “you”. The reason we have a second term for W is because a few people in Ohio used technology to help volunteers to focus directly on swing voters.

This year’s Ohio/Florida is the upper Midwest; Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin.

Now up, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. He is contrasting the Founding Fathers’ view on government with that of government today. For 4 consecutive budgets, he returned money from the sheriff’s budget to the county, unfortunately, the Board didn’t return it to the taxpayers (damn them).

He’s not anti-union, he’s anti-waste, anti-fraud and anti-abuse.

He’s calling for a state paycheck protection act, which would require unions to get permission from their members before spending money on political purposes.

He proposed privatizing the prisoner transport, which would have saved $1.5 million. When the appropriate committee shot it down 7-0, two of the members said that they would not do anything to eliminate union jobs.

Now on the podium, former Lieutenant Governor Margaret Farrow, who is promoting Wisconsin Eye, which is actually a privately-funded vew of government (much like C-SPAN, but unlike CSPAN, it’s not government-controlled). In addition to the legislative sessions, they cover many committee hearings (they were at the FAN bill one I was at a few weeks back), and a bunch of speeches.

Next up, AFP-NJ director Steve Lonegan.

Begins by quoting the Founding Fathers on rights. The elites of the day said the Great American Experiment wouldn’t work; well, it worked.

Then, 50-60 years ago, things started to change. We’ve gone to moving toward the welfare state, and a crushing of the American spirit.

He’s relating a very good and inspiring personal story. I can’t do it justice by excerpting (he’s talking too fast, it’s not the Jersey accent), so the tape will have it.

The vision that created this country didn’t come overnight. It came from Aristotle, and John Locke, and the battle after the Dark Ages. The battle is not over.

We look to the founders for inspiration; George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine (“These are the times that try men’s souls”), Patrick Henry (“Give me liberty or give me death). We can’t look to them to leadership; we are the new leaders.

Quoting the end of the Declaration of the Independence to close.

I’ll continue with the paraphrasing (I missed the very beginning of his remarks, so when I get the audio up, I apologize for joining it in progress). Now up, Burnett County judge, and candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Mike Gableman (who I ran into on my way in; he has a very good memory as he remembered me).

Thanks Mark for taking him through the kitchen as he quoted Reagan.

The reason he’s running – he’s right and Justice Butler is wrong. Butler’s judicial liberalism makes Wisconsin less safe.

Contrasting his long history of working with prosecutors, police and victims of crime with Butler’s working as a defense attorney. Points out that while Butler has been a judge longer, 10 of those years has been as a municipal judge in Milwaukee.

It is the small-business owner that drives the economic security and safety of the state. Once again, he states he will not substitue his personal views for the rule of law, which will be a step up from the current members of the court.

Closes with a pledge to restore the Court to applying the law, not making it. Never give up, stand together.