Tim Russert - Democrat Shill

Russert passes for a “tough” interviewer by adopting a confrontational pose rather than asking genuinely challenging questions. As much as any politician, Russert has constructed a persona for the benefit of the public, an identity meant to give him the authority that his actual work might not. Like most well-designed personas, it has a basis in truth but has been polished and honed to a fine sheen.

Tim Russert - Democrat Shill
| November 14, 2004 |

Posted on Monday, November 14, 2005 7:29:25 AM by Peach

Tim Russert, Democrat Shill

We realize Tim Russert only got his job at NBC because of Russert’s then boss Senator Patrick Moynihan’s friendship with the then head of NBC News. But Russert regularly goes beyond the call of duty to his DNC overlords.

Behold this lead into a question for GOP head, Ken Mehlman on today’s (November 13th) installment of Meet The Press:

MR. RUSSERT: "On solid intelligence." And then 15 months later, the secretary of state came on this program and said this.


SEC’Y POWELL: But it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong, and in some cases, deliberately misleading. And for that, I am disappointed, and I regret it.


MR. RUSSERT: "Deliberately misleading." That’s the secretary of state. So why can’t Democrats now say that the administration deliberately misled the American people?

Because, Mr. Russert, you are a liar.

The actual context of Powell’s remarks from the cited May 16, 2004 Meet The Press broadcast gives his words an entirely different meaning:

RUSSERT: Thank you very much, sir. In February of 2003, you put your enormous personal reputation on the line before the United Nations and said that you had solid sources for the case against Saddam Hussein. It now appears that an agent called Curveball had misled the CIA by suggesting that Saddam had trucks and trains that were delivering biological and chemical weapons. How concerned are you that some of the information you shared with the world is now inaccurate and discredited?

POWELL: I’m very concerned. When I made that presentation in February 2003, it was based on the best information that the Central Intelligence Agency made available to me. We studied it carefully; we looked at the sourcing in the case of the mobile trucks and trains. There was multiple sourcing for that. Unfortunately, that multiple sourcing over time has turned out to be not accurate. And so I’m deeply disappointed. But I’m also comfortable that at the time that I made the presentation, it reflected the collective judgment, the sound judgment of the intelligence community. But it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases, deliberately misleading. And for that, I am disappointed and I regret it.

It is clear that in his May 16th remarks Powell was referring to the CIA asset called "Curveball," who had been deliberately misleading. — Not the administration.

In fact in his original answer Powell insisted the administration honestly believed the information the CIA had made available to them and had acted in good faith. But Russert edited Powell’s response to make it sound exactly the opposite.

Doing so, Tim Russert has once again exposed himself to the world as the Democrat hack that he is. Of course this is not news to anyone who has ever watched him.

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The Pardon of Scooter Libby
Lets not forget the Scooter Libby case and what MR Russert told the FBI.

This is crucial. For the record, I note two items. First, I note the FBI report of its original interview with Mr. Russert. To quote from that report, Mr. Russert told the FBI that "he could not completely rule out the possibility that he had such an exchange [as described by Mr. Libby]. Russert acknowledged that he speaks to many people on a daily basis and it is difficult to reconstruct some specific conversations, particularly ones which occurred several months ago."

Note that on the stand in the Scooter Libby trial, Mr Russert was able to reconstruct specific conversations he had with Scooter Libby after initially telling the FBI the opposite. [It seems he Mr Russert lied about Scooter Libby] The facts are obvious.

In the "Today" interview, Russert reiterated what he had said on the stand: he did not discuss the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson with Libby in a conversation they had in July 2003 and he said he did not at that time know about Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife, who was outed subsequently as a CIA operative.

"I did not know she worked at the CIA. I did not know any of that until the following Monday when I saw all in (newspaper columnist) Robert Novak's column. ... We simply did not know it. I wish we had."

Russert did say he was "stunned" when he heard that Libby said he had learned Plame's identity from him, saying, "I said that just can't be. It's impossible." Russert held to that line during cross-examination. He also disclosed -- in a well-publicized statement -- that he considered his chats with sources all off-the-record unless put on the record, the opposite of the usual journalistic approach.


I then quote from the instructions provided by the judge to the jury: "A person who makes a statement based on a belief or opinion which he honestly held when the statement was made has not violated the statutes the defendant is charged with violating in this case merely because the statement turns out to be inaccurate, incorrect, or wrong. Making an honest statement that turns out to be inaccurate, incorrect or wrong because of mistake, confusion, or faulty memory, or even carelessness in one's recollection, does not rise to the level of criminal conduct."


I will only remember Mr Russert as a person who twisted the truth and one who interviwed by adopting a confrontational pose rather than asking genuinely challenging questions. Just another barking dog for the liberals promoting himself and them.

My condolesas to the family.

How To Lobby Your Members Of Congress

A Revolving Door

You've heard it before—it's not what you know, it's who you know. In our nation's capital, success comes with a combination of knowledge and personal connections.
Lobbyists make big bucks to lobby members of Congress and government officials on the issues their clients care about. But the money that industries, companies, unions and issue groups spend on lobbying is often just a drop in the bucket compared to what they can reap in return if their lobbyists are successful.

With this in mind you can see how important it is that the American citizen lobby congress. If we make our thoughts known to the elected they can be influenced more than the hired guns of corporations and special interests. If we don't lobby congress
they will. The results are evident. The green waco environmentalists have made congress cave into not drilling for oil and driving corn prices through the roof because of ethanol. We the people have not been lobbying congress but let corporations and the wacos take over. Just voting isn't enough. Granted some crazed liberals will not listen to anyone but the big money. Currenly the wacos are in control.

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How To Lobby Your Members Of Congress:

Members of Congress rarely hear from their constituents on
most issues. Sometimes hearing from a handful of concerned citizens
will cause a Senator or Representative to pay attention to a
particular issue and encourage him or her to vote the right way.

In general the more personal your lobbying contact is, the
more effective it will be. While a personal discussion with a
Member of Congress is most effective, a meeting or telephone
conversation with one of his or her assistants is almost as good.
A personal letter is much more effective than a form letter or
postcard.

You do not need to be an expert on the issue to call or write
your Member of Congress' office. All you need to communicate is
that you want the Member to support or oppose a particular measure.
When you call a Member's office give your name and address and ask
whomever takes your call to let the Member of Congress know that
you favor or oppose something.

It is very important that you lobby both Members of Congress
who may support your views and those who may not. Lobbying can
change votes so it is critically important that you lobby those who
disagree with you. Lobbying supporters provides them with evidence
of support for their position and allows them to be more active in
support of that position.

If you don't know your Members of Congress, your county
courthouse voter registration office can give you their names and
addresses. You can contact Members of Congress in either their
local offices or in Washington. In Washington write or call:


The Honorable________________
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
202/225-3121

The Honorable_____________
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510
202/224-3121

Fuel Conservation No Idle Matter at UPS

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An idea that works for UPS. I mapped my new route to work with right turns only. It
would take 15 minutes longer. Maybe this could also work for the USPS? Lets make intersections with only right turns. This would go along with "global warming" and other green crazy stuff. Just think, we would turn right, then turn right, then turn right eventually we would get where we were going but only after going many miles out of the way. It all makes sense doesn't it? An idea for obama and mccain to ponder and pontificate about.

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Fuel Conservation No Idle Matter at UPS


You wouldn't think of something as benign as avoiding a left-hand turn could conserve fuel, but Atlanta-based United Parcel Service (UPS) swears by it. In fact, the parcel carrier has technology in its systems that help map this out routes that minimize the number of left turns the driver has to make. According to spokesperson Steve Holmes, avoiding left turns at intersections reduces idling which in turn lowers fuel consumption. "It seems small, but when you multiply it across 88,0000 vehicles making nearly 15 million deliveries every day during the course of a year, it adds up."

And at stop lights, making a right turn at an intersection tends to be faster than at a left turn, since you have only to wait for an opportunity to turn in one lane of traffic. You also have the option of "right on red" in most jurisdictions, unless otherwise indicated by traffic signs. "So even if you didn't save fuel, you're going to move more quickly through a route."

"Because 98% of our packages are processed electronically by shippers, we know what's entering our system each day, what's still in our system each day, when each package is going to arrive at a center, when the package is scheduled for delivery -- including time of day -- and where it will be delivered," Holmes says.

What's more, Holmes says, UPS drivers are trained to always turn off their package cars when they stop for a delivery, never idling at the curb or in a driveway. "Even if the driver is out of the truck for a few seconds, the vehicle is always turned off."

Black..White Guilt is Obama's Forte

Black America's central conflict: Booker T. Washington vs. Dr. W.E.B. DuBois.

Every Black American is either Washington or Dr. DuBois. He either aspires to self-reliance, or feeds off false white guilt. He either proactively affirms himself, or he perpetually reacts against his imagined white master. If Washington's disciples must show restraint, lest self-reliance corrupt into pride, then Dr. DuBois's followers are consumed by the deadly sin of envy.

Washington's philosophy of self-reliance and Dr. DuBois' sophisticated resentment are contradictions, not contraries. One is true and the other is false. For the modes of existence available to Black America -- self-help or protest -- are not mutually inclusive, like yin or yang. Black existential choice comes down to Washington or Dr. DuBois. Lately, that dilemma has manifested itself in the "twins" Sen. Obama and Rev. Wright.

By founding Tuskegee Normal & Industrial Institute in 1881, Booker T. Washington established the prototype for modern Black civilization. His school encouraged enterprise and industry. Washington founded the National Negro Business League, in 1900, to comprehend the socio-economic organization that had Tuskegee for its base of operations. He understood that property rights, to wit "life, liberty and property," are the soul of citizenship; that protection of property is the US government's basic purpose. He designed his educational system and economic policy to build a nation within a nation of property-owners.

Dr. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk (1903) dismissed Washington's emphasis on property rights as a sellout. He libeled the Black capitalist as an "Uncle Tom." Capital formation drove Washington's "Tuskegee machine," but Dr. DuBois discarded it in favor of protest. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded by white liberals in 1909, and has presided over the civil rights movement ever since. Dr. DuBois's followers, the Black bourgeoisie vanguard, the so-called "Talented Tenth," do resent their liberal white masters. But they most passionately hate the Black who would master the universe. They exemplify the crabs that Washington once described, jealously combining to pull back into the barrel the one crab that would climb out.

But climb out Washington did. He picked up where the great freedom fighter, Frederick Douglass, had left off. Douglass, a former slave, had demanded "equality." Washington commanded "equity." Douglass had justly fought for "freedom and equality." Washington encouraged responsible citizenship via acquiring property. He taught self-help and self-reliance. He instilled discipline.

Sen. Obama's politics evoke none of those values. It therefore comes as no surprise that Sen. Obama is trying to pull blacks back into the crab-barrel, just as Dr. DuBois had tried to pull Washington a hundred years ago.

What is this crab-barrel today? It is the slave mentality that resents the white man and envies the Black upstart. It is the netherworld wherein the Talented Tenth, for their role as middleman between white mastery and Black unrest, earn honorary white status and token privileges. It is where the Talented Tenth feed as parasites off white guilt. It is the limbo between white bourgeois heaven and Black proletarian hell.

White guilt is the crab-barrel's necessary condition. Thus do the Talented Tenth's civil rights activists eagerly await proofs of white guilt, such as last Fall's "Jena Six" case and the recent police shooting death of Sean Bell. Thus do the Talented Tenth's pseudo-militants use conspiracy theories to allege white guilt, for example Rev. Wright's claim that the US government invented AIDS to destroy the Black race. Thus does Rev. Wright's resentment of white guilt, masquerading as "Black liberation theology," perpetrate slave religion. For resentment defines the slave mentality.

But Sen. Obama, like Dr Dubois before him, embodies resentment as apposed to self help. He denies responsibility as Black uplift's necessary condition. His presidential ambition denies Black identity. He has no record of accomplishments that can point to any permanent change for the better as relates to blacks in Chicago.

Sen. Obama or Rev. Wright? Black America must choose but in choosing they are picking one an the same. Both are just alike. Twenty years listening to the rev wright's rants means Sen Obama must be cut from the same cloth. These twins were not seperated at birth. Radicals who are just the same. A vote for Sen Obama is just pulling the crab back in the barrel. When I speak of white guilt it also pertains to the white guilt some whites feel toward blacks and are supporting Obama because of this. Obama wants you to continue to be a victim. Until you realize this and don't support him nothing will change. Obama is a king crab.

'He is an amazing man' , no not anyone in politics or entertainment

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This man has courage and his story is worth reading. It is a real story as opposed to the mass media controlled stories about politics and entertainment. Donate to help his surgeries if possible. Friends of James O'Neal Fundraising
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Story Published: May 28, 2008 at 6:23 PM PDT

Story Updated: May 30, 2008 at 11:02 AM PDT
By Michelle Esteban

Watch Story

KIRKLAND, Wash. -- It will take thousands of dollars and several surgeries to reconstruct a local man's face.

James O'Neal compares himself to the Elephant Man. A genetic disease left his face horribly disfigured, but that could soon change.

O'Neal knows his deformity shocks people. He knows others with the same genetic disorder would rather hide than work, but for 7 years James has proudly worked the registers at the Kingsgate Safeway on 124th Avenue NE in Kirkland.

"I just tell people this is who I am, it's the way I am. If you don't like me, you don't like me," he said.

His customers don't like him -- they love him.

"He is an amazing man and we love him. He's the kind of person that makes your day," said customer Aubrey Richins.

"I really love James," said shopper Katie Knopf.

All of them say they were stunned at first when they saw his disfigured face.

"I have to admit I was a little taken back, but when I walked through his line I felt this spirit come over me, this man is out here, not hiding," said long-time customer Cindy Peay.

Every shopper said the same thing: O'Neal is an inspiration. If that wasn't enough, he's lightning-fast on the register.

Knopf has put her money where her mouth is.

"We want to change his life," she said.

She knows O'Neal's insurance likely won't cover all of the costs of difficult and extensive surgeries. So she's launched a Web site asking for donations for reconstructive surgery.

Knopf also got Kinkos to donate a thousand fliers and plans to distribute them to local schools and the registers at the Kingsgate Safeway.

Her generous heart tugged on Safeway's heartstrings. The grocer decided to kick in the first $10,000.

"James is our employee, he is one of us and we absolutely think the world of him," said Cherie Myers, Safeway's director of public and government affairs. "This is just a bonus, this our bonus to him. He never asked for it, he's never said 'woe is me.' He's proud to be who he is."

That's why customers flock to him. Knopf says she'll stand in line just to have him ring her up.

"James will always be the person he is inside. I'm hoping with this he'll have a new lease on life," said Knopf. She hopes to raise $50,000, but guesses the costs could add up to be much more.

"It makes me feel honored and proud," said O'Neal, who was stunned to learn his employer is not only kicking in $10,000, but is committed to helping him navigate through all the insurance paperwork.

O'Neal has lived with his disability since birth. Like the Elephant Man he has neurofibromatosis, not elephantiasis. The tumors stopped growing when he stopped growing. Surgery would rid him of the deformity for good.

"I think it's amazing what they want to do for me," he said. And it's clear they're doing it because of what O'Neal has done for them.

In July, Safeway stores in four states will kick off a three-week Canister Campaign, collecting donations to help O'Neal. Those who want to contribute can also donate online through KOMO News.

KOMO will continue to follow O'Neal's progress with updated reports.

For More Information about neurofibromatosis

www.ctf.org

www.nfinc.org

McCain Defends 'Enron Loophole'

John Mccain wants the price of gas to increase and this proves it. It seems he trades
in enery futures also.
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Sen. John McCain says he opposes the $307 billion farm bill because it would dole out wasteful subsidies, but his chief economic adviser Phil Gramm also wants to stop its proposed regulation of energy futures trading, a market that was famously abused when Enron Corp. manipulated California’s electricity prices in 2001.
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Clearing the way for that California price gouging, Gramm, as a powerful Texas senator in 2000, slipped an Enron-backed provision into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that exempted from regulation energy trading on electronic platforms.

Then, over the next year, Enron – with Gramm’s wife Wendy serving on its board of directors – worked to create false electricity shortages in California, bilking consumers out of an estimated $40 billion.

Gramm left the Senate in 2002 but now has emerged as what Fortune magazine calls “McCain’s econ brain,” not only filling the Arizona senator’s acknowledged void on economic expertise (“I don’t know as much about the economy as I should”) but recognized as one of McCain’s closest friends in politics. The two men talk daily.

A McCain aide told me that the Arizona senator opposes the farm bill because it “rewards lobbyists” by granting rich farmers lucrative subsidies, although he would support “a reasonable level of assistance and risk management to farmers when they need America's help.”

But the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee also opposes the farm bill because Gramm advised McCain that he should resist its regulatory language on the energy futures market.

Democrats have dubbed that gap in energy futures regulation the “Enron loophole,” but it played a part, too, in the more recent attempt by the Amaranth Advisers hedge fund to corner the national gas market by shifting trades to the unregulated “dark markets” of the Intercontinental Exchange.

The “Enron loophole” also has become part of the debate over the soaring price of oil. Last week, a study sponsored by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, concluded that speculative futures markets were partly to blame for the surge in oil prices that have pushed gas at the pump toward $4 a gallon.

At a May 15 news conference, Levin said the skyrocketing price of oil is “not the result of supply and demand. Speculators have taken over most of the futures market."

However, the 673-page farm bill, containing the regulatory provisions on electronic energy trading, still faces obstacles amid overall concerns about the bill’s largesse to farmers at a time of rising food prices.

President George W. Bush has vowed to veto the bill, although it cleared the House and Senate by margins wide enough for an override, assuming Republicans don’t rally behind Bush and McCain, their current and future standard bearers.

Gramm and Enron

The battle over the “Enron loophole” also could draw attention to McCain’s dependence on Gramm as his chief economic adviser and Gramm’s key role in passing legislation that let Enron trade commodities on electronic platforms without federal oversight.

In 2000, with the Republicans in charge of Congress and Gramm chairing the Senate Banking Committee, the exemption on electronic trading was approved without a Senate hearing.

Internal Enron documents, which were released in 2002, revealed that the Houston-based company helped write the legislation, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in December 2000.

Freed from regulatory interference, Enron then used manipulative trading practices to game the California electricity market and drive up electricity prices across the state.

While California consumers were getting fleeced, the new Bush administration shielded Enron from early accusations of market manipulation. President Bush personally joined the fight against imposing caps on the soaring price of electricity, buying additional time for Enron although the company’s house of cards collapsed anyway in fall 2001. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush’s Enron Lies.”]

In 2006, the “Enron loophole” allowed Amaranth Advisers hedge fund to shift its trades from the regulated New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) to the unregulated Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in Atlanta.

That let Amaranth corner the natural gas market, betting that futures prices would rise. The hedge fund lost about $6 billion and imploded as natural gas prices fell to a two-year low in September 2006.

Last July, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged that Amaranth manipulated prices paid in the physical natural gas markets. FERC has proposed $291 million in penalties and the forfeiture of “unjust profits.”

“Unregulated markets are known as ‘dark markets’ because there is very little oversight of the trades,” said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Michigan, chairman of the subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, during a hearing on energy speculation last December.

By trading on the “dark” ICE market, traders can avoid the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s rules which are in place to prevent price distortions or supply squeezes.

Stupak said trading volumes on ICE “have skyrocketed in the past three years and are now as large or even larger in some months, than the volumes traded on the regulated futures market.”

The lack of oversight “makes it difficult for regulators to detect excessively large positions which could lead to price manipulation,” Stupak said.

Advising McCain

Gramm, who is now a vice chairman of financial services company UBS, began advising McCain in 2005 when the Arizona senator indicated he planned to run for President.

Since then, McCain has adopted much of Gramm’s anti-tax, anti-regulatory agenda. Most strikingly, McCain shifted to support Bush’s tax cuts, which McCain had voted against in 2001 and 2003. He now vows that, if elected President, he would make them permanent.

Yet Gramm’s influence over McCain’s economic agenda – and the checkered political-business history of Gramm and his wife Wendy – have largely escaped media scrutiny.

Gramm received more than $34,000 in campaign contributions from Enron and served as one of the company’s key legislative allies in Washington, including his help in 2000 removing federal oversight from energy trades on electronic platforms.

At the height of the Enron scandal in January 2002, Gramm’s press secretary Larry Neal told The New York Times that Gramm did not “recall a conversation” he apparently had with Enron’s chairman Ken Lay in 2000 to discuss that Enron legislative priority.

An internal Enron e-mail dated Aug. 10, 2000, under the subject “CFTC Reauthorization” – sent by Enron’s top lobbyist Richard Shapiro to Steve Kean, Enron’s executive vice president – said the company needed to get Lay on the phone with Gramm so the bill could be passed.

“The bill is not moving quickly in the Senate due to Senator Phil Gramm's desire to see significant changes made to the legislation (not directly related to our energy language),” Shapiro said.

“Last week at the [2000] Republican Convention, I asked the Senator about the bill and he said they were working on it, but much needs to be changed for his support. More telling perhaps, were Wendy Gramm's comments that she would rather the current bill die if a better bill can be passed next year.

“What this means is that we must, at the least, remove Senator Gramm's opposition to the bill to move the process and more importantly seek to gain his support of the legislation.”

Shapiro added: “However, with less than 20 or so legislative days left, we need Senator Gramm to engage.

“A call from Ken Lay in the next two weeks to Senator Gramm could be an impetus for Gramm to move his staff to resolve the differences. Gramm needs to fully understand how helpful the bill is to Enron.

“Let me know your thoughts on this approach. I am prepared to assist in coordinating the call and drafting the talking points for a Ken Lay/Sen. Gramm call.”

Several other internal Enron e-mails briefed company staffers on the status of Gramm’s position and Enron’s lobbying of the senator. Gramm finally removed a “hold” on the bill in December 2000, reintroduced the bill under a different number, and forced a vote on it without floor debate.

It was then attached to an appropriations bill that was signed by President Clinton on Dec. 21, 2000.

California Crisis

Less than a month later, California began to experience rolling blackouts due to artificial electricity shortages which, according to documents later released by federal energy regulators, were the result of manipulative trading practices employed by Enron.

The California crisis centered on Enron’s energy trades through a new platform called EnronOnline, which had been freed from regulatory oversight by the legislation pushed by Gramm.

In April 2002, Gramm blocked an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, that would have closed the loophole that Gramm had helped open.

Gramm’s wife, Wendy, also had played a role in the anti-regulatory policies that contributed to the Enron scandal.

On Jan. 14, 1993, in the final days of the first Bush administration, Wendy Gramm – as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – pushed through a key regulatory exemption removing energy derivatives contracts and interest-rate swaps from federal oversight.

That was a major financial boon to Enron, where Wendy Gramm landed five weeks later as a member of the board of directors. She also became a member of the audit committee that signed off on another one of Enron’s fraudulent schemes, partnerships that hid the company’s growing debt.

Even after Enron had collapsed in fall 2001, Sen. Gramm continued to resist congressional efforts at tightening up the rules.

In 2002, despite the accounting scandals at Enron, WorldCom and other major companies, Sen. Gramm objected to the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform bill designed to hold executives accountable for inaccuracies in financial reports.

Now, the Gramm family’s anti-regulatory agenda is returning via McCain’s presidential campaign.

As Fortune’s editor-at-large Shawn Tully wrote, “economic conservatives should take heart. McCain’s chief economic adviser – and perhaps his closest political friend – is the ultimate pure play in free market faith, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm. … Most of [McCain’s] current positions are vintage Gramm indeed.” [Fortune, Feb. 19. 2008]

The first test of McCain’s commitment to Gramm’s anti-regulatory purity may come in the looming battle over the “Enron loophole” that the farm bill seeks to close.

Covering Their Losses?

Commodities have often been the refuge for investors who have lost money on equities or fixed-income investments. Moreover, the commodities rush today is not limited to oil; now we also have runaway food and feed prices. Could it be that all the financial losses on subprime mortgages, plus the anticipation that the option ARM mortgages about to reset could be an even bigger problem, combined with the huge losses in securities last year, are why investment money today is flooding into often unregulated commodities, where the demand pricing of the final goods is inelastic?

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Want to join the frey and hedge your bet: Energy Futures Etc


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Hedge Fund Managers etc trade energy futures on the Intercontinental exchange (ICE) which is not regulated. These people are taking money right out of our pockets for their own greed. (My question is who are these people who are trading the energy futures?)[large financial institutions, hedge funds, pension funds, and other investors , the answer.] Why does the mass media blame India and China etc for the increase in the price of oil when in reality it is the greed of the people who are buying the energy futures in the unregulated energy futures market. (Story Reports) Lets not forget the
people who also control the oil refineries and how they cut back on production to also drive up the price of gas. Also lets add the government who is about to let the 30 different blends of gas begin again because the law is about to expire that halted this crap after Katrina hit. There is a gaping loophole in US Government regulation of oil derivatives trading . The Commodity Futures Trading Trading Commission, a financial futures regulator, had been mandated by Congress to ensure that prices on the futures market reflect the laws of supply and demand rather than manipulative practices or excessive speculation. The US Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) states, “Excessive speculation in any commodity under contracts of sale of such commodity for future delivery . . . causing sudden or unreasonable fluctuations or unwarranted changes in the price of such commodity, is an undue and unnecessary burden on interstate commerce in such commodity.”

Further, the CEA directs the CFTC to establish such trading limits “as the Commission finds are necessary to diminish, eliminate, or prevent such burden.” Where is the CFTC now that we need such limits?

They seem to have deliberately walked away from their mandated oversight responsibilities in the world’s most important traded commodity, oil. Notable is the fact that the US Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, is former Chairman of Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley today are the two leading energy trading firms in the United States. THIS IS THE FOX IN THE HEN HOUSE THAT BUSH HAS LET IN. BUSH IS THE OTHER FOX IN THE HEN HOUSE.
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"One of the things I think is very important to realize is that the growth in the world oil consumption is not that strong." —David Kelly, chief market strategist, J.P. Morgan Funds; The Washington Post, May 4, 2008

"...There is substantial evidence that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased [oil] prices." —U.S. Senate Staff Report, The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices, June 27, 2006

On May 13, the price of a barrel of oil briefly hit a record of $126.98 on the New York Mercantile Exchange The reason was ostensibly that Iran was cutting oil production. But there is no gas shortage. So why are prices still going up?

In late April the American Association of Petroleum Geologists held its annual invitation-only dinner in Dallas for, as my source put it, "the bigwigs" of the energy industry. During this meeting, influential and knowledgeable CEOs reached the consensus that "oil prices will likely soon drop dramatically and the long-term price increases will be in natural gas." Of course, despite the pedigrees of those in attendance, their forming a consensus on the direction of energy prices does not mean that it's written in stone or is even going to happen. The group is clearly bullish on natural gas. But petroleum keeps getting more expensive.

The energy executives' prediction about the future price for crude oil had sound backing. Just a few days earlier, Lehman Brothers (LEH) investment bank had said that this current oil pricing boom was quickly coming to an end. Michael Waldron, the bank's chief oil strategist, was quoted in Britain's Daily Telegraph on Apr. 24 as saying: "[Oil supply] is outpacing demand growth." Waldron added, "Inventories have been building since the beginning of the year. The Saudi Khursaniya field has just opened, with 500,000 barrels a day of production, and the new Khurais field will start next year with a further 1.2 million b/d [barrels a day]."

No Lines at the Pump

Waldron's assertion rang true. In the U.S. alone, stockpiles of oil climbed by 11.9 million barrels in the month preceding the Energy Information Agency's (EIA) May 7 inventory report; they were up by nearly 33 million barrels since Jan. 1. At the same time, MasterCard's (MA) May 7 gasoline report showed that gas demand has fallen by 5.8%, while the government suggested that gasoline consumption might have fallen by slightly over 6%.

We do know that refineries in the U.S. again cut back their utilization to 85%. That's down from 89% a year ago, in a season when production is normally 95%, only because they're trying to draw down gasoline inventories to bid gasoline prices up. Yet despite the reduced refinery runs, the EIA said, the U.S. managed to put another 800,000 barrels of gasoline in stock. The American Petroleum Institute put the gas gain at 1.4 million barrels. The point is that neither organization is in disagreement that gasoline was added into our active stocks; it's just a question of exactly how much.

Only the day before, the EIA had released its monthly Short Term Energy Outlook report, concluding that U.S. oil demand is expected to decline by 190,000 b/d in 2008. Chinese consumption is expected to rise this year by only 400,000 b/d—hardly the "surging oil demand" usually blamed on China in the media. Last year China imported 3.2 million barrels per day, and its estimated usage was around 7 million b/d total. The U.S., by contrast, consumes around 20.7 million b/d.

The May 8 report from Oil Movements, a British company that tracks oil shipments worldwide, shows that oil in transit on the high seas is quite strong; almost every category of shipment is running higher than it was a year ago. The one exception was oil shipments to the West during the previous 30 days. Even there, on page three of that report, comes the cryptic line, "In the West, a big share of any [oil] stock building done this year has happened offshore, out of sight." Oil Movements' Roy Mason qualified that line: "Oil in temporary floating storage offshore is hard to pin down, and we don't have useful info on that. Whenever this happens it generates market noise—and we don't hear any!"

Still, the consensus of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the energy executives may be right: No supply crisis justifies the way the world's oil is being priced today.
The Truth and Nothing but the (Partial) Truth

So how to explain the May 6 report from Reuters (TRI) that Goldman Sachs (GS) announced that oil could in fact be on the verge of another "super spike," possibly taking oil as high as $200 a barrel within the next six to 24 months? Forget the fact that few other oil analysts agreed with that position, "$200 a barrel!" was the major news story on oil for the next two days. Arjun Murti, Goldman Sachs' energy strategist, predictably laid the blame on "blistering" demand from China and the Middle East, combined with his belief that the Middle East is nearing its maximum ability to produce more oil. While the outside chance exists that Murti is right, his prediction certainly isn't backed up by the EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook, or by Lehman Brothers' report from 10 days earlier. As for the Middle East being tapped out on oil production, there might be one more thing to consider.

On May 2, the Friday before this prediction made news, Bloomberg had reported that Iran is again storing its heavy crude on tankers in the Persian Gulf because the country has run out of onshore storage tanks while awaiting buyers. Further, Saudi Arabia has extended discounts on its sour crudes to $7.45 for Arabian Heavy. Doesn't sound like there's any real supply problem with that grade of crude, does it?

It is an understatement to say that over the last five years the media have rained reports predicting an impending energy Armageddon. But those reports have tended not to disclose their sources—which often were individuals heavily invested in the oil futures market.

For example, Goldman Sachs was one of the founding partners of online commodities and futures marketplace Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). And ICE has been a primary focus of recent congressional investigations; it was named both in the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations' June 27, 2006, Staff Report and in the House Committee on Energy & Commerce's hearing last December. Those investigations looked into the unregulated trading in energy futures, and both concluded that energy prices' climb to stratospheric heights has been driven by the billions of dollars' worth of oil and natural gas futures contracts being placed on the ICE—which is not regulated by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.
Deceptive Practices

In case you've forgotten, it was only 2001 when BusinessWeekreported that some Wall Street firms were hard-selling to the public stocks that their companies were quietly divesting—and/or pushing questionable stocks for companies in which their affiliated banks had a financial interest. In a nutshell, some individuals with a specific vested interest in a certain financial outcome used the media to enrich themselves and their companies, leaving the public investor holding the bag.

Once that deception was uncovered (after the stock market collapsed), and after the congressional hearings in 2001 proved beyond any doubt that these things had happened, the national media swore that they would never again be taken in by this type of corporate deceit. Then came 2004 and oil.

As the second quote at the beginning of this column makes clear, the Senate pointed out in its 2006 report that oil reserves (not including the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) were at a 20-year high during the time that report was written; therefore, there was no shortage of oil whatsoever. This seemed to confirm a Jan. 10, 2007, article in Reuters that quoted Tony Nunan, a risk manager at Mitsubishi: "We've got a short-term [oil] oversupply problem." Yes, an oil oversupply problem in fall of 2006.

Then, as now, that certainly isn't what we were being told. Instead we were being bombarded daily in the media and analysts' reports with justifications for the high price of oil: The "terrorism premium" on each barrel of oil, the rising demand of China and India, troubles in the Nigerian oil patch, oil pipelines' being blown up in Iraq, wider war in the Middle East, T. Boone Pickens' warnings that the world was on the cusp of Peak Oil, "surging demand" for gasoline in the U.S., the weak dollar—and so on. (Peak oil is described as the world crossing the halfway mark for extracting its oil reserves. It is not maximum production.) However, the Senate took a dim view of those excuses, particularly the ones about Peak Oil or diminished capacity for oil production: "There's a few hedge fund managers out there who are masters at knowing how to exploit the peak [oil] theories and hot buttons of supply and demand, and by making bold predictions of shocking price advancements to come, they only add more fuel to the bullish fire in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy." (The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices, U.S. Senate, June 27, 2006).

Yes, this line suggests that persons invested in the oil futures market are purposely driving even more money into oil to raise the prices even higher, even though the market's actual supply and demand in no way justifies their claims. On a side note, Enron is named frequently in both investigations as exemplifying this type of energy market manipulation.

And, although both the Senate and the House have already investigated why oil is selling for more than supply and demand dictate, on May 12 we found out that the House Energy & Commerce Committee will look at this issue once again this month and into June.

Let's give Congress a little direction.
Covering Their Losses?

Commodities have often been the refuge for investors who have lost money on equities or fixed-income investments. Moreover, the commodities rush today is not limited to oil; now we also have runaway food and feed prices. Could it be that all the financial losses on subprime mortgages, plus the anticipation that the option ARM mortgages about to reset could be an even bigger problem, combined with the huge losses in securities last year, are why investment money today is flooding into often unregulated commodities, where the demand pricing of the final goods is inelastic?

Consider this: You may not buy gasoline or even eat today, but by next Monday you'll probably have to do both, no matter what it costs. Basically, besides enabling the Fed to bail out Wall Street and our banks again, every time you gas up or eat you may be paying investors to cover other financial losses. We know that investors can't control their losses on mortgages, securities, or bad loans. But, demonstrably, if not restrained they can drive up the price of goods that we can't get out of buying. Odds are, that's what's really been going on.

Ed Wallace holds a Gerald R. Loeb Award for business journalism, bestowed by the Anderson School of Business at UCLA. His column heads the Sunday Drive section of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and he is a member of the American Historical Society. The automotive expert for KDFW Fox 4 in Dallas, Wallace hosts the top-rated talk show Wheels, Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on 570 KLIF AM in Dallas.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON FUTURES TRADING
PERHAPS 60% OF TODAY'S OIL PRICE IS PURE SPECULATION
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Hedge Funds and Banks driving oil prices

In the most recent sustained run-up in energy prices, large financial institutions, hedge funds, pension funds, and other investors have been pouring billions of dollars into the energy commodities markets to try to take advantage of price changes or hedge against them. Most of this additional investment has not come from producers or consumers of these commodities, but from speculators seeking to take advantage of these price changes. The CFTC defines a speculator as a person who “does not produce or use the commodity, but risks his or her own capital trading futures in that commodity in hopes of making a profit on price changes.”

The large purchases of crude oil futures contracts by speculators have, in effect, created an additional demand for oil, driving up the price of oil for future delivery in the same manner that additional demand for contracts for the delivery of a physical barrel today drives up the price for oil on the spot market. As far as the market is concerned, the demand for a barrel of oil that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a speculator is just as real as the demand for a barrel that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a refiner or other user of petroleum.
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PERHAPS 60% OF TODAY'S OIL
PRICE IS PURE SPECULATION
by F. William Engdahl
May 2, 2008

The price of crude oil today is not made according to any traditional relation of supply to demand. It’s controlled by an elaborate financial market system as well as by the four major Anglo-American oil companies. As much as 60% of today’s crude oil price is pure speculation driven by large trader banks and hedge funds. It has nothing to do with the convenient myths of Peak Oil. It has to do with control of oil and its price. How?

First, the crucial role of the international oil exchanges in London and New York is crucial to the game. Nymex in New York and the ICE Futures in London today control global benchmark oil prices which in turn set most of the freely traded oil cargo. They do so via oil futures contracts on two grades of crude oil—West Texas Intermediate and North Sea Brent.

A third rather new oil exchange, the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME), trading Dubai crude, is more or less a daughter of Nymex, with Nymex President, James Newsome, sitting on the board of DME and most key personnel British or American citizens.

Brent is used in spot and long-term contracts to value as much of crude oil produced in global oil markets each day. The Brent price is published by a private oil industry publication, Platt’s. Major oil producers including Russia and Nigeria use Brent as a benchmark for pricing the crude they produce. Brent is a key crude blend for the European market and, to some extent, for Asia.

WTI has historically been more of a US crude oil basket. Not only is it used as the basis for US-traded oil futures, but it's also a key benchmark for US production.

‘The tail that wags the dog’

All this is well and official. But how today’s oil prices are really determined is done by a process so opaque only a handful of major oil trading banks such as Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley have any idea who is buying and who selling oil futures or derivative contracts that set physical oil prices in this strange new world of “paper oil.”

With the development of unregulated international derivatives trading in oil futures over the past decade or more, the way has opened for the present speculative bubble in oil prices.

Since the advent of oil futures trading and the two major London and New York oil futures contracts, control of oil prices has left OPEC and gone to Wall Street. It is a classic case of the “tail that wags the dog.”

A June 2006 US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report on “The Role of Market Speculation in rising oil and gas prices,” noted, “…there is substantial evidence supporting the conclusion that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased prices.”

What the Senate committee staff documented in the report was a gaping loophole in US Government regulation of oil derivatives trading so huge a herd of elephants could walk through it. That seems precisely what they have been doing in ramping oil prices through the roof in recent months.

The Senate report was ignored in the media and in the Congress.

The report pointed out that the Commodity Futures Trading Trading Commission, a financial futures regulator, had been mandated by Congress to ensure that prices on the futures market reflect the laws of supply and demand rather than manipulative practices or excessive speculation. The US Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) states, “Excessive speculation in any commodity under contracts of sale of such commodity for future delivery . . . causing sudden or unreasonable fluctuations or unwarranted changes in the price of such commodity, is an undue and unnecessary burden on interstate commerce in such commodity.”

Further, the CEA directs the CFTC to establish such trading limits “as the Commission finds are necessary to diminish, eliminate, or prevent such burden.” Where is the CFTC now that we need such limits?

they seem to have deliberately walked away from their mandated oversight responsibilities in the world’s most important traded commodity, oil.

Enron has the last laugh…

As that US Senate report noted:

“Until recently, US energy futures were traded exclusively on regulated exchanges within the United States, like the NYMEX, which are subject to extensive oversight by the CFTC,including ongoing monitoring to detect and prevent price manipulation or fraud. In recent years, however, there has been a tremendous growth in the trading of contracts that look and are structured just like futures contracts, but which are traded on unregulated OTC electronic markets. Because of their similarity to futures contracts they are often called “futures look-alikes.”

The only practical difference between futures look-alike contracts and futures contracts is that the look-alikes are traded in unregulated markets whereas futures are traded on regulated exchanges. The trading of energy commodities by large firms on OTC electronic exchanges was exempted from CFTC oversight by a provision inserted at the behest of Enron and other large energy traders into the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 in the waning hours of the 106th Congress.

The impact on market oversight has been substantial. NYMEX traders, for example, are required to keep records of all trades and report large trades to the CFTC. These Large Trader Reports, together with daily trading data providing price and volume information, are the CFTC’s primary tools to gauge the extent of speculation in the markets and to detect, prevent, and prosecute price manipulation. CFTC Chairman Reuben Jeffrey recently stated:

“The Commission’s Large Trader information system is one of the cornerstones of our surveillance program and enables detection of concentrated and coordinated positions that might be used by one or more traders to attempt manipulation.”

In contrast to trades conducted on the NYMEX, traders on unregulated OTC electronic exchanges are not required to keep records or file Large Trader Reports with the CFTC, and these trades are exempt from routine CFTC oversight. In contrast to trades conducted on regulated futures exchanges, there is no limit on the number of contracts a speculator may hold on an unregulated OTC electronic exchange, no monitoring of trading by the exchange itself, and no reporting of the amount of outstanding contracts (“open interest”) at the end of each day.”

Then, apparently to make sure the way was opened really wide to potential market oil price manipulation, in January 2006, the Bush Administration’s CFTC permitted the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the leading operator of electronic energy exchanges, to use its trading terminals in the United States for the trading of US crude oil futures on the ICE futures exchange in London – called “ICE Futures.”

Previously, the ICE Futures exchange in London had traded only in European energy commodities – Brent crude oil and United Kingdom natural gas. As a United Kingdom futures market, the ICE Futures exchange is regulated solely by the UK Financial Services Authority. In 1999, the London exchange obtained the CFTC’s permission to install computer terminals in the United States to permit traders in New York and other US cities to trade European energy commodities through the ICE exchange.

The CFTC opens the door:

Then, in January 2006, ICE Futures in London began trading a futures contract for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil, a type of crude oil that is produced and delivered in the United States. ICE Futures also notified the CFTC that it would be permitting traders in the United States to use ICE terminals in the United States to trade its new WTI contract on the ICE Futures London exchange. ICE Futures as well allowed traders in the United States to trade US gasoline and heating oil futures on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

Despite the use by US traders of trading terminals within the United States to trade US oil, gasoline, and heating oil futures contracts, the CFTC has until today refused to assert any jurisdiction over the trading of these contracts.

Persons within the United States seeking to trade key US energy commodities – US crude oil, gasoline, and heating oil futures – are able to avoid all US market oversight or reporting requirements by routing their trades through the ICE Futures exchange in London instead of the NYMEX in New York.

Is that not elegant? The US Government energy futures regulator, CFTC opened the way to the present unregulated and highly opaque oil futures speculation. It may just be coincidence that the present CEO of NYMEX, James Newsome, who also sits on the Dubai Exchange, is a former chairman of the US CFTC. In Washington doors revolve quite smoothly between private and public posts.

A glance at the price for Brent and WTI futures prices since January 2006 indicates the remarkable correlation between skyrocketing oil prices and the unregulated trade in ICE oil futures in US markets. Keep in mind that ICE Futures in London is owned and controlled by a USA company based in Atlanta Georgia.

In January 2006 when the CFTC allowed the ICE Futures the gaping exception, oil prices were trading in the range of $59-60 a barrel. Today some two years later we see prices tapping $120 and trend upwards. This is not an OPEC problem, it is a US Government regulatory problem of malign neglect.

By not requiring the ICE to file daily reports of large trades of energy commodities, it is not able to detect and deter price manipulation. As the Senate report noted,

“The CFTC's ability to detect and deter energy price manipulation is suffering from critical information gaps, because traders on OTC electronic exchanges and the London ICE Futures are currently exempt from CFTC reporting requirements. Large trader reporting is also essential to analyzE the effect of speculation on energy prices.”

The report added,

“ICE's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other evidence indicate that its over-the-counter electronic exchange performs a price discovery function -- and thereby affects US energy prices -- in the cash market for the energy commodities traded on that exchange.”

Hedge Funds and Banks driving oil prices:

In the most recent sustained run-up in energy prices, large financial institutions, hedge funds, pension funds, and other investors have been pouring billions of dollars into the energy commodities markets to try to take advantage of price changes or hedge against them. Most of this additional investment has not come from producers or consumers of these commodities, but from speculators seeking to take advantage of these price changes. The CFTC defines a speculator as a person who “does not produce or use the commodity, but risks his or her own capital trading futures in that commodity in hopes of making a profit on price changes.”

The large purchases of crude oil futures contracts by speculators have, in effect, created an additional demand for oil, driving up the price of oil for future delivery in the same manner that additional demand for contracts for the delivery of a physical barrel today drives up the price for oil on the spot market. As far as the market is concerned, the demand for a barrel of oil that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a speculator is just as real as the demand for a barrel that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a refiner or other user of petroleum.

Perhaps 60% of oil prices today pure speculation:

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley today are the two leading energy trading firms in the United States. Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase are major players and fund numerous hedge funds as well who speculate.

In June 2006, oil traded in futures markets at some $60 a barrel and the Senate investigation estimated that some $25 of that was due to pure financial speculation. One analyst estimated in August 2005 that US oil inventory levels suggested WTI crude prices should be around $25 a barrel, and not $60.

That would mean today that at least $50 to $60 or more of today’s $115 a barrel price is due to pure hedge fund and financial institution speculation. However, given the unchanged equilibrium in global oil supply and demand over recent months amid the explosive rise in oil futures prices traded on Nymex and ICE exchanges in New York and London it is more likely that as much as 60% of the today oil price is pure speculation. No one knows officially except the tiny handful of energy trading banks in New York and London and they certainly aren’t talking.

By purchasing large numbers of futures contracts, and thereby pushing up futures prices to even higher levels than current prices, speculators have provided a financial incentive for oil companies to buy even more oil and place it in storage. A refiner will purchase extra oil today, even if it costs $115 per barrel, if the futures price is even higher.

As a result, over the past two years crude oil inventories have been steadily growing, resulting in US crude oil inventories that are now higher than at any time in the previous eight years. The large influx of speculative investment into oil futures has led to a situation where we have both high supplies of crude oil and high crude oil prices.

Compelling evidence also suggests that the oft-cited geopolitical, economic, and natural factors do not explain the recent rise in energy prices can be seen in the actual data on crude oil supply and demand. Although demand has significantly increased over the past few years, so have supplies.

Over the past couple of years global crude oil production has increased along with the increases in demand; in fact, during this period global supplies have exceeded demand, according to the US Department of Energy. The US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently forecast that in the next few years global surplus production capacity will continue to grow to between 3 and 5 million barrels per day by 2010, thereby “substantially thickening the surplus capacity cushion.”

Dollar and oil link

A common speculation strategy amid a declining USA economy and a falling US dollar is for speculators and ordinary investment funds desperate for more profitable investments amid the US securitization disaster, to take futures positions selling the dollar “short” and oil “long.”

For huge US or EU pension funds or banks desperate to get profits following the collapse in earnings since August 2007 and the US real estate crisis, oil is one of the best ways to get huge speculative gains. The backdrop that supports the current oil price bubble is continued unrest in the Middle East, in Sudan, in Venezuela and Pakistan and firm oil demand in China and most of the world outside the US. Speculators trade on rumor, not fact.

In turn, once major oil companies and refiners in North America and EU countries begin to hoard oil, supplies appear even tighter lending background support to present prices.

Because the over-the-counter (OTC) and London ICE Futures energy markets are unregulated, there are no precise or reliable figures as to the total dollar value of recent spending on investments in energy commodities, but the estimates are consistently in the range of tens of billions of dollars.

The increased speculative interest in commodities is also seen in the increasing popularity
of commodity index funds, which are funds whose price is tied to the price of a basket of various commodity futures. Goldman Sachs estimates that pension funds and mutual funds have invested a total of approximately $85 billion in commodity index funds, and that investments in its own index, the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI), has tripled over the past few years. Notable is the fact that the US Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, is former Chairman of Goldman Sachs.

31,000 scientists reject 'global warming'

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List Of Signers By Name,State and Qualifications

Here is proof positive that the concensus of scientists DO NOT AGREE THERE IS GLOBAL WARMING 31,000 do not
think there is global warming. Also they dispute al gore who is not a scientist but only a media buffoon.
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31,000 scientists reject 'global warming' agenda
'Mr. Gore's movie has claims no informed expert endorses'
Posted: May 19, 2008
8:51 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily


More than 31,000 scientists across the U.S. – including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s in fields such as atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, environment and dozens of other specialties – have signed a petition rejecting "global warming," the assumption that the human production of greenhouse gases is damaging Earth's climate.

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

The Petition Project actually was launched nearly 10 years ago, when the first few thousand signatures were assembled. Then, between 1999 and 2007, the list of signatures grew gradually without any special effort or campaign.

But now, a new effort has been conducted because of an "escalation of the claims of 'consensus,' release of the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' by Mr. Al Gore, and related events," according to officials with the project.

"Mr. Gore's movie, asserting a 'consensus' and 'settled science' in agreement about human-caused global warming, conveyed the claims about human-caused global warming to ordinary movie goers and to public school children, to whom the film was widely distributed. Unfortunately, Mr. Gore's movie contains many very serious incorrect claims which no informed, honest scientist could endorse," said project spokesman and founder Art Robinson.

WND submitted a request to Gore's office for comment but did not get a response.

Robinson said the dire warnings about "global warming" have gone far beyond semantics or scientific discussion now to the point they are actually endangering people.

"The campaign to severely ration hydrocarbon energy technology has now been markedly expanded," he said. "In the course of this campaign, many scientifically invalid claims about impending climate emergencies are being made. Simultaneously, proposed political actions to severely reduce hydrocarbon use now threaten the prosperity of Americans and the very existence of hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries," he said.

In just the past few weeks, there have been various allegations that both shark attacks and typhoons have been sparked by "global warming."

The late Professor Frederick Seitz, the past president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and winner of the National Medal of Science, wrote in a letter promoting the petition, "The United States is very close to adopting an international agreement that would ration the use of energy and of technologies that depend upon coal, oil, and natural gas and some other organic compounds."

"This treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful," he wrote.

Accompanying the letter sent to scientists was a 12-page summary and review of research on "global warming," officials said.

"The proposed agreement would have very negative effects upon the technology of nations throughout the world, especially those that are currently attempting to lift from poverty and provide opportunities to the over 4 billion people in technologically underdeveloped countries," Seitz wrote.

Robinson said the project targets scientists because, "It is especially important for America to hear from its citizens who have the training necessary to evaluate the relevant data and offer sound advice."

He said the "global warming agreement," written in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, and other plans "would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind."

"Yet," he said, "the United Nations and other vocal political interests say the U.S. must enact new laws that will sharply reduce domestic energy production and raise energy prices even higher.

"The inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness include the right of access to life-giving and life-enhancing technology. This is especially true of access to the most basic of all technologies: energy. These human rights have been extensively and wrongly abridged," he continued. "During the past two generations in the U.S., a system of high taxation, extensive regulation, and ubiquitous litigation has arisen that prevents the accumulation of sufficient capital and the exercise of sufficient freedom to build and preserve needed modern technology.

"These unfavorable political trends have severely damaged our energy production, where lack of industrial progress has left our country dependent upon foreign sources for 30 percent of the energy required to maintain our current level of prosperity," he said. "Moreover, the transfer of other U.S. industries abroad as a result of these same trends has left U.S. citizens with too few goods and services to trade for the energy that they do not produce. A huge and unsustainable trade deficit and rapidly rising energy prices have been the result.

"The necessary hydrocarbon and nuclear energy production technologies have been available to U.S. engineers for many decades. We can develop these resources without harm to people or the environment. There is absolutely no technical, resource, or environmental reason for the U.S. to be a net importer of energy. The U.S. should, in fact, be a net exporter of energy," he said.

He told WND he believes the issue has nothing to do with energy itself, but everything to do with power, control and money, which the United Nations is seeking. He accused the U.N. of violating human rights in its campaign to ban much energy research, exploration and development.

"In order to alleviate the current energy emergency and prevent future emergencies, we need to remove the governmental restrictions that have caused this problem. Fundamental human rights require that U.S. citizens and their industries be free to produce and use the low cost, abundant energy that they need. As the 31,000 signatories of this petition emphasize, environmental science supports this freedom," he said.

The Petition Project website today said there are 31,072 scientists who have signed up, and Robinson said more names continue to come in.

In terms of Ph.D. scientists alone, it already has 15 times more scientists than are seriously involved in the U.N.'s campaign to "vilify hydrocarbons," officials told WND.

"The very large number of petition signers demonstrates that, if there is a consensus among American scientists, it is in opposition to the human-caused global warming hypothesis rather than in favor of it," the organization noted.

The project was set up by a team of physicists and physical chemists who do research at several American institutions and collects signatures when donations provide the resources to mail out more letters.

"In a group of more than 30,000 people, there are many individuals with names similar or identical to other signatories, or to non-signatories – real or fictional. Opponents of the petition project sometimes use this statistical fact in efforts to discredit the project. For examples, Perry Mason and Michael Fox are scientists who have signed the petition – who happen also to have names identical to fictional or real non-scientists," the website said.

The petition is needed, supporters said, simply because Gore and others "have claimed that the 'science is settled' – that an overwhelming 'consensus' of scientists agrees with the hypothesis of human-caused global warming, with only a handful of skeptical scientists in disagreement."

The list of scientists includes 9,021 Ph.D.s, 6,961 at the master's level, 2,240 medical doctors and 12,850 carrying a bachelor of science or equivalent academic degree.

The Petition Project's website includes both a list of scientists by name as well as a list of scientists by state.

Ted Kennedy IS LIBERAL SCUM

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I agree with this article and believe teddy if a baby killer also, abortion on demand. People say pray for him, pray that he will be taken from the senate but not that he will die, and that his liberal laws will be repealed. Obama and Clinton are liberal scum also and will continue his legacy of liberal disgrace if elected. The danger now is he will become a living martyr for liberal scum causes. This is what will happen. He will be even more of a threat now! Pray that he will be removed from the senate soon because of this and just keep sailing away. (Story Reports)

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Article from: The Real Teddy

Poster boy for Drunk Driving murdering socialists.
CHAPPAQUIDDICK:Profile of Cowardice

What can we say about Teddy that hasn't already been said? Not much but it's always good to remind people what a murder and communist is up to these days. He's has a lot to say these days about the president to which he has hardly heard a rebuttal. Now we all know how Joseph P Kennedy, Ted's Father amassed a fortune through illegal activity (bootlegging) and unscrupulous stock market speculation; and how he used his money and connections with organized crime to influence both the media and the American political establishment. But what do we know about Ted? We know that he drove drunk in Chappaquiddick in July of 1969 and Killed a young woman. We all know of his corrupt womanizing brothers who meant an untimely end. We all know that he is a champion of big government and giving handouts to the un-deserving. We know that he is a delusional socialist who dreams of giving everyone else's money away, everybody's but his that is. He wants a world of weak foreign policy and illegal immigration. In short we know that Ted Kennedy is everything that is wrong with America.


Now besides the fact that you are from the hippie liberal state of Taxachusetts, you are also from the far left side of the political spectrum and live in a make believe world of hate and vile rhetoric. You have no desirable qualities as a human being and hopefully your hate filled kind are not long for this world. Just what makes a man like you say the things you say. You can't honestly believe them can you? What am I saying, asking a Kennedy about honesty is like asking a whore if she is a virgin. It does make it no less believable when you say the things you say about President Bush that you wouldn't have said against a corrupt hate monger like Ex-con Clinton. That fact that your state that you represent is going to the first to legalize Gay marriage speaks volumes. How can a Catholic even think of such a thing.

Teddy's Early record:

- Ted managed to graduate from prep school (Milton Academy) in 1950 with only a C average.
- Teddy was never a scholar, and his brother Jack once referred to him as "the gay illiterate".

- Despite his terrible grades, Teddy (like brother Robert) was admitted to Harvard as a "legacy", because his older brothers and father had graduated form there with such distinction.

- Yet even at Harvard, young Ted floundered.
- In his sophomore year he was expelled for cheating. He had been failing Spanish and feared it would keep him off the varsity football team.
- He paid a friend to take the exam for him.
- Ted's friend, however, was recognized when he turned in the exam book.

- Both lads were expelled, but were advised that they could apply for readmission in a year if they demonstrated responsible citizenship.
- It was a shame and disgrace, but the family would manage to keep it a secret until Teddy ran for the Senate.

- After his expulsion from Harvard, Teddy returned to Hyannis Port where he would sit brooding, sometimes for hours.
- Finally, he enlisted in the Army.
- Not surprisingly, he did not bother to read the enlistment papers and signed up for four years instead of two.
- Ted's father, the US Ambassador to England, was horrofied at the thought of his youngest son spending four years in the service, with a good chance of being sent into combat in Korea.
- "Don't you ever look at what you're signing?" he shouted.

- With one phone call Joe contacted a friend who managed to get hold of Teddy's enlistment papers.
- Ted's enlistment period was shortened to two years, a maneuver that was nearly impossible for the average enlistee.
- Furthermore, Ted would do his service in Europe, not Korea.

- Teddy never rose above the rank of private, and was discharged in 1952.
- He returned to Harvard in the fall of 1953, as did his test-taking friend, and they graduated together.

Once back at Harvard, Teddy made the rugby team.
- During one match in 1954, Ted got into three fistfights with opposing players and was finally thrown out of the game. According to referee Frederick Costick, Teddy was the only player he had ever expelled from a game in thirty years of officiating.
- "Rugby is a character-building sport," Costick said. "Players learn how to conduct themselves on the field with the idea that they will learn how to conduct themselves in life. When a player loses control of himself three times in a single afternoon, to my mind, that is a sign that, in a crisis, the man is not capable of thinking clearly and acting rationally. Such a man will panic under pressure."

- Of course, years later, in the crisis at Chappaquiddick, Teddy would do exactly that.

- In 1957, Ted entered the University of Virginia Law School.
- The warning signs of trouble would continue.
- While in law school, Ted would earn the nickname "Cadillac Eddie". He was cited four times for reckless driving (three times in 1958 and once in 1959). These violations included running red lights and driving with his lights off at ninety miles per hour in a suburban area.
- Teddy was convicted of three violations and fined, but for some reason his driver's license was never revoked.

Until Ted Kennedy is Dead, America as we know it is not safe.

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Teddy's First Senate Race

The following are excerpts from :
The Kennedy Men: Three Generations of Sex, Scandal, and Secrets
- by Nellie Bly

"Ted isn't very heavy mentally........nothing like his brothers. In many ways he's a fathead - a little bit conceited, a little bit cocky, the kind of guy who'd never finish a sentence when you asked him a question."
- Joe McCarthy - Journalist

- In 1960, Jack Kennedy became President of the United States, and vacated his Massachusetts Senate seat.
- Joe Kennedy told the President: "You boys have what you want now and everyone else helped you work to get it. Now it's Teds turn."
- Joe still wanted to collect on all he had invested in getting Jack the seat in the Senate.
"Look, I paid for it," Joe explained. "It belongs in the family."

- But Teddy would not be eligible to fill Jack's vacant Senate seat until February 22, 1962, when he would turn thirty.
- Joe therefore persuaded the Massachusetts governor to name a Kennedy family friend to fill out Jack's term, keeping the seat available for Teddy.
- 2 -

- On March 19, 1962 Teddy announced that he was a candidate for the US Senate.
- Almost immediately, the Boston Globe unearthed the dark secret in Teddy's past - that he had been expelled from Harvard for cheating.
- Robert L Healy, political editor of the Globe, found the story. In order to get it into the paper, however, he had to get some confirmation. He asked the White House to open up the Harvard record and was immediately summoned to the Oval Office.
- The President and his aides kept pressing Healy to play down the story, but he stood his ground. "So finally, Jack gave me access to the whole thing," Healy said.
- On March 30 the Globe ran the story. Ted immediately issued a statement accepting full blame:

"I made a mistake. What I did was wrong. I have regretted it ever since. The unhappiness I caused my family and friends, even though eleven years ago, has been a bitter experience for me, but it has also been a valuable lesson. That is the story."

- This was the first of what would become the three historic apologies of Ted's career.

- The cheating story eventually died, and Ted was elected to the Senate.

- The admiring journalist Joe McCarthy had no illusions about young Ted. "He isn't very very heavy mentally........nothing like his brothers. In many ways he's a fathead, a little bit conceited, a little bit cocky, the kind of guy who'd never finish a sentence when you asked him a question. He simply didn't think things through as Jack and Bobby did."

How Hillary will lead America into hell

The article below helps explain the current maze of liberal rats ever expanding their stench across America and if hillery is elected will turn this country into a cess pool just like the cess pool hillary and bill clinton were spawned from. This is strong language but it aptly describes the clintons. Obama is just another liberal rat who wants to infect America with his sick ideas also. Neither can produce in themselves the product of a president that can accomplish what America needs. They are just snake oil salesmen selling the public fluff and puff with no experience
to back them up. Socialists who will trade their soul for power.

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By David Kupelian:

As November's election nears, some otherwise right-thinking conservatives and Christians, unhappy with GOP presidential candidate John McCain, have concluded America would actually be better off in the long run with Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the White House for the next four years.

They recount all of McCain's personal and policy sins. They say, at least if Clinton or Obama is elected, Republicans will unite in opposition to the new president's wacko policies. But if McCain becomes president and champions bad policies, they argue, Republicans in Congress will be paralyzed, unable to oppose effectively any wrongheaded initiatives championed by a chief executive of their own party. With Obama or Clinton as president, the argument goes, the Democrat-controlled White House and Congress will get all the blame for the inevitable failure of their destructive policies, thus creating a comeback opportunity for a principled Republican in 2012. So it's better, they conclude, to give the ranch over to the enemy for four years – and then come back chastened, stronger, more energized than ever, and with a new Ronald Reagan as a standard-bearer.

There's just enough logic to this reasoning to beguile a lot of good people, especially those who have long harbored anger toward John McCain for his many obvious – and sometimes outrageous and even scary – flaws.

However, such analysis is dwarfed and annihilated by a far more devastating factor – something apparently overlooked by just about everyone weighing in on the relative merits of the candidates.

The damage that will occur to America if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is elected president will go far beyond what we can rationally anticipate on the policy level.

Don't get me wrong. Policy disasters like socialized medicine (radically expanding government and reducing freedom), an untimely retreat from Iraq (betraying our soldiers and the Iraqi people, and fanning the flames of worldwide jihad for another generation), the appointment of pro-abortion zealots to the Supreme Court (resulting in a pro-death high court for the rest of our lives, and no hope of overturning Roe v. Wade) are appalling enough – and more than ample reason to choose McCain over either of the Democrats.

But there's yet another consequence arguably worse than any of these. Allow me to explain, by harkening back to a previous presidency.

During Ronald Reagan's administration, he liked to say, "It's Morning in America." And I can remember, it did seem like the sun was shining more brightly than usual on this nation, but mostly because of who was in the White House.

Quick story here. I happened to be in K-Mart in the electronics department on March 23, 1983. I remember the date because, while I was strolling around, killing time by checking out a large display of TV sets all tuned to the same channel, President Reagan came on and delivered his historic speech introducing the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, in which he announced that America was going to change policy and actually defend itself against nuclear attack.

I was stunned. On that day, I discovered new hope for America. We were not going to rely forever on Mutual Assured Destruction and the "balance of terror" doctrine. We would actually protect our beloved nation from the Soviets or anyone else threatening us with annihilation. Clouds of cynicism and doubt about my country's future lifted from my mind, as it did for millions of others. After the national despondency that characterized the wretched, "malaise"-ridden Jimmy Carter era, it really was "Morning in America."

During Reagan's presidency, more people came to believe in peace through strength, because Reagan made the case persuasively – and proved it in his actions. More people came to believe America was a great and good nation, because Reagan believed it. More people came to disagree with abortion, because the president disagreed with abortion – even wrote a short book on the subject while in office. And so on.

What I'm saying is, the president is like the father of a big family, and who he is and what he is – his spirit – affects everyone, like the sun. It's a radiant energy that directly shines on people. Presidents invisibly shape the character and worldview of the country, with a particularly profound effect upon the young, since they are the most impressionable.

This radiant effect works in the negative, too. Bill Clinton's sexual addiction and utter lack of responsibility and self-control led to the entire world knowing what he was doing with a young intern in the Oval Office. Whereas Ronald Reagan had such respect for the Oval Office that he reportedly never entered it without wearing a coat and tie, Bill Clinton turned it into his private sex club. And the radiant effect of his monumental selfishness was that he infected an entire generation of young people, in high school and even middle school, influencing them to sexually mimic the national trauma of a president exploiting an intern barely older than his daughter.

Now, by virtually all accounts, Hillary Clinton is even less qualified to be president than Bill.

So ask yourself: If Hillary Clinton – widely recognized as a pathologically lying chameleon for whom nothing is sacred but her own aggrandizement – becomes the "father of our country," just what sort of "radiant" effect do you suppose she'll have on America?

For that matter, what about an equally dysfunctional "President Obama"? What would be the effect on young people of a leader so deeply and radically anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-military, pro-homosexual, pro-abortion and pro-socialist – and yet who hides his true identity behind a shimmering veneer of faith, hope and love?

Do you have any idea what having a father – or a "father" of the country – like this does to young people?

It drives them crazy.

In a thousand different ways – some obvious, some subtle – it confuses them, it corrupts them, it reinforces everything wrong with them. It literally draws up from deep within them contempt and hatred – and a desire for revenge – because the adults that preceded them in this world, who should have had their best interests at heart, were so clueless and shallow that they elected a lying phony as supreme national leader.

Like all of us, young people are constantly appealed to by both good and evil. The good in them really wants nothing more than genuine virtue and strength in adults – not the fake, sugarcoated variety, but the real thing. Good grown-ups tend to neutralize the appeal of the dark side on vulnerable young people.

Reagan had this quality in abundance. McCain seems to have at least a little of it. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama don't have a clue. Both would be toxic to America as president, and not just in the realm of public policy, but in the "culture" – the spiritual air we breathe and water we drink.

Just reflect, for a moment, on the bizarre and seemingly inexplicable behaviors of young people we see right now – youths Tasering each other for fun on YouTube. Ubiquitous sexual debauchery at younger and younger ages. The mainstreaming of transgenderism. Body piercing and tattooing at an ever-more pathological level – tongues, lips, eyebrows, deep body parts. Pandemic gang activity and drug abuse. Witchcraft. Satanism. Suicide. (I take readers on a guided tour of this bizarre underworld in the "Killer Culture" chapter of "The Marketing of Evil.")

Our colleges indoctrinate our kids with leftist poison while corrupting their morals; our news media are cynical, self-centered and cowardly; the entertainment industry is in the gutter; and even many of our Christian churches are shallow and plastic – not, as they should be, a genuine contrast to the corruption everywhere without. When kids grow up around confusion, corruption and hypocrisy, they are tempted either to conform – and become Stepford clones of the same hypocrisy – or rebel and engage in bizarre, destructive behaviors.

That's the insanity we've got now – despite having a basically decent, if very flawed, man in the White House.

But try to imagine Hillary Clinton as president – and Bill as first lady. The toxic cultural/governmental environment would be almost beyond imagination with the elevation of "the queen of darkness" as "father of our country."

You could expect a radical increase in shocking, self-destructive and criminal acting-out by lost souls lashing out blindly in a desperate expression of revenge toward the contemptible society that could dare elect such a person as president. Perhaps a huge upsurge in mass shootings, such as we've seen recently. Or maybe more "bug-chasing" – that's where people actively try to get infected with AIDS. Maybe homegrown suicide bombers committing horrific terrorist acts – not for Allah, but just for kicks, for non-specific revenge against the human race. No one can say what form it will take, but expect more and more weird, destructive behaviors designed for maximum shock.

Of course, nobody would be able to prove any cause and effect. But remember these words: Elevating a person like Hillary Clinton to the presidency of the United States will unleash hell in America in a way very few of us can even comprehend, let alone remedy.

The preceding article is excerpted from the current edition of Whistleblower magazine, "QUEEN OF DARKNESS."