The federal government and mainstream media have been so successful in creating H1N1 (swine flu) hysteria that normal people who simply want a seasonal flu shot are out of luck: since mid-October I’ve tried doctors’ offices, retail pharmacies, and government health departments on both sides of the Mississippi – they’re all out of seasonal vaccine because the federal government has given priority to H1N1. Thanks in part to the government geniuses who can’t wait to take control of the entire American health-care system, there’s a shortage of both kinds of vaccine, and we face a bizarre prelude to ObamaCare in which the seasonal flu – which usually kills about 36,000 Americans each year – may kill twice that many (since few of us can obtain timely inoculation), and the comparatively benign H1N1 will kill a relative handful, instead of the double handful that would have died without the hysterical disruption to the regular seasonal flu vaccination. It’s reminiscent of a joke: “What would happen if the dessert were taken over by communists? Answer: nothing, for awhile; then there would be a sand shortage.” But when socialized medicine is about to happen to you, permanently, it becomes a sick joke (pardon the pun).

Summary: Leftist politicians and a wide variety of special interest groups are aggressively and desperately promoting “anthropogenic (i.e. human-caused) global warming” (“AGW”) propaganda to justify imposing a carbon tax (in the form of “cap-and-trade”) that would become a perpetual multi-billion dollar annual windfall for them at the expense of massive job losses and increased energy costs for all citizens; they viciously suppress massive amounts of data and expert opinion that contradict their unproven theory, and steadfastly refuse to participate in open debate on this highly controversial issue; this fraud must be exposed and stopped before it can become a permanent mechanism for transferring hard-earned money from US citizens to a wide variety of greedy and deceitful special interests.


The leftists are frantically scheming to use “global warming” as an excuse to create an enormous  new sin tax (“cap and trade”) that will give them well over 100 billion dollars annually with which to buy votes with socialized medicine, “Green Jobs”, and other “free” favors for the proletariat. It’s impossible to overstate the importance to them of this permanent tax bonanza as a continuing source for funding ever-bigger federal government: as a “sin” (emitting CO2) tax, its purported rationale is simply to suppress sinful behavior (e.g. burning fossil fuels), so politicians can always rationalize further increasing it to punish “sin” more vigorously without having to justify the need for additional revenue. Whenever there’s a budget shortfall, or need for additional revenue, “sin taxes” (alcohol, tobacco) are near the top of the hit list for upward ratcheting. The scheme to “cap” (carbon emissions) and “trade” (carbon “credits”) would vastly surpass all other sin taxes, as it would apply to everyone, not just smokers and drinkers.

Once established, the “cap-and-trade” carbon tax – based on the unproven theory that humans’ additions to atmospheric CO₂ is causing a catastrophic trend in global warming (more on that later) – would be nearly impossible to repeal, as multiple government programs become dependent on it for continuing revenue.

The  leftists have been cleverly co-opting a wide range of special interests into lobbying for their  carbon tax:

Environmental groups: when membership and donations waned (people eventually tired of saving one obscure creature after another from alleged extinction), the imaginary threat of catastrophic global warming was just what these non-profit do-gooders needed to breathe new life into their “green” (the color of money!) organizations.

Big Corn: with government mandates for progressively greater use of ethanol in motor fuels – despite its dubious environmental benefits – the whole country has turned green with envy at the corn belt’s astronomical windfall profits from growing ever-larger corn crops, selling at ever-increasing prices, to meet government-generated demand. Previously marginal farmers are getting rich and now constitute an energetic voting block for anyone who panders to the “Renewable Energy” gods.

Opportunistic corporations on welfare: Agribusiness giant ADM  has profited mightily from the government-subsidized ethanol campaign, and their prominent advertising on PBS helps assure no unfavorable news reporting about how much taxpayer money ADM is collecting from this (Tax subsidies for ADM). General Electric profits mightily from wind turbines, compact fluorescent bulbs, and other “green” products whose sales depend on government-generated demand.

Big Banks: The big Wall Street banks have been investing billions developing trading platforms to profit grotesquely from what they expect to be government-imposed trading in “carbon-credits” (Big Wall Street banks plan to make billions from cap-and-trade).

So, there are countless billions of dollars at stake for untold numbers of special-interest carbon entrepreneurs who have staked their reputations, careers, and enormous investments on the assumption that government will impose cap-and-trade regulations on the American economy. Bjorn Lomborg exposes some of these parasites nicely in "The Climate-Industrial Complex". They do not take kindly to skeptics, whom they viciously attack as “deniers”. Scientists who question the AGW religion have had their jobs, research funding, and lives threatened. This is not the spirited debate that goes with scientific zealotry – it’s vicious intimidation attempting to suppress dissent for government-controlled financial gain. At its core, AGW is not about saving the planet from overheating, it’s about commandeering government power to extort vast sums of money from taxpayers and consumers to serve politicians and a wide array of commercial interests. If you want to understand the AGW phenomenon, don’t bother studying climate science (there are already many thousands of scientists who have signed one petition or another challenging the dogma of AGW), just study politics and economics, then follow the money.

Long ago the standard line for cap-and-trade entrepreneurs became “the debate is over”, intended to suggest that serious, sustained, intellectual, scientific debate has produced a clear conclusion to the controversy about humans’ contribution to climate oscillations. Well, if the debate’s really over, why won’t Al Gore graciously concede defeat and stop his theatrical fulminating about human activity dooming the planet? The only real debate on the subject I know about was held in New York City on March 14, 2007, hosted by Intelligence Squared U.S., an organization that sponsors formal Oxford-style debates on a wide range of topics. The “deniers” won decisively: an audience of urbane NYC sophisticates that was strongly biased in favor of the AGW position before the debate was moved to slightly favor the “deniers” after the debate (The debate is over -- AGW alarmists lost). Since the results violated their pro-government bias, the MSM (Marxist-Socialist Media) ignored it; had the alarmist side won, no doubt it would have been front page news in the New York Times.

Fortunately, the Internet makes it easy to find lots of data and authoritative expert opinion to contradict the alarmists. A few of the many good sites, which contain links to many other good sites, include: Climate Depot, the Petition Project, the Science & Public Policy Institute, Global Warming Skeptics, Dr. Roy Spencer (climatologist), GlobalWarming.org, the Heartland Institute, the Cato Institute, and Global Warming Hoax. Or, you can type “global warming  [hoax, fraud, or scam]” into your favorite search engine and collect a cornucopia of contrary data and arguments.

Because of the enormous amount of strong expert opinion against AGW alarmism, it’s quite clear that the subject if far from settled. The existence of such strong contrary opinion, despite vicious attempts to suppress it, is all the more reason to have serious doubts about the credibility of the AGW alarmists.

Don’t be fooled by the shysters who promise “We’re going to give away 85% of the carbon permits (selling the other 15%) – we’re not in this to make money, just to save the planet.” This is simply a ruse to get their foot in the door – once cap-and-trade is established, the giveaways will vanish before the ink is dry, giving the government the never-ending revenue bonanza it’s been scheming to get from the beginning. Likewise, don’t fall for the risible, “It’s going to be revenue-neutral – we’re going to use the profits to reduce the payroll tax [wink-wink, nudge-nudge].” Surely that revenue will end up going exactly where it will buy the most votes from special-interest groups, the first being socialized medicine.

Carbon taxes such as cap-and-trade would have a devastating impact on US economy and individual citizens:  studies estimate an annual loss of 1.1 million jobs, 90% increase in electricity prices, 74% increase in gasoline prices, and a $1,500 - $3,000 increase in annual household energy costs.

With the party of Always-bigger Government in control of the White House and both houses of Congress it won’t be easy to stop this juggernaut, but the long-term stakes are enormous so it’s worth making every possible effort to halt this monstrosity before it becomes a permanent drag on the economy and source of funding to continuously and dramatically expand the already gargantuan federal government.

The most logical, honest, and hopefully effective way to stop the frenzied push for a cap-and-trade carbon tax is to insist that the Congress sponsor a series of formal debates between opposing views on the subject. These must not be the kind of silly pseudo-debate TV spectacles typical of presidential election seasons, where a general question evokes a candidate’s free-association recitation of vague, emotionally-laden, focus-group-tested sound-bite talking points, with no opportunity for serious rebuttal; they must be structured, formal, scientifically-based debates that are published in written form, with scientific reference citations, and ample opportunity for the opposing sides to critique the evidence and rebut the conclusions, orally and in writing, at length and in detail. The diligence and seriousness of such debates must be proportional to the astronomical, perpetual costs at stake.

Jimmy Carter and Maureen Dowd have accused opponents of socialized medicine of being motivated by racial animosity toward Barack Obama. It’s unclear if this was just another case of intellectually challenged leftists hurling vacuous insults when frustrated by their inability to win an honest debate, or if it’s a crude tactic to suppress dissent by intimidating their opponents, but either way they’ve forfeited the health-care debate, in my opinion.

Under leftists’ rules of debate, whenever they’re losing an argument they can instantly halt the debate and declare victory by feigning outrage, pointing to their opponent and shrieking, “Racist”. Their rules require the accused to freeze like a deer in headlights, cower, and tearfully grovel, begging forgiveness for anything he said that might have been “racially insensitive”. The accuser then rebuffs the desperate pleas for mercy, and all who witness this charade are required to declare victory for the morally preening accuser and forevermore exclude the accused from polite society. In the preposterous world of left wing politics, being labeled a “Racist” – an infinitely malleable and capacious epithet – is the ultimate indictment, worse than being called a Nazi, fascist, traitor, homophobe, misogynist, redneck, child-molester, and all of those combined.

In a world of sane and intelligent grownups, the rules are different: anyone shrieking “Racist” is immediately declared guilty of an ad hominem fallacy and loses the debate. We suspect that the accuser is not only guilty of logical fallacy, but also lacking valid evidence for his position.

The  increasing tendency to regard Race as the paramount issue in our society is highly corrupting to our culture and politics. It’s easy to see how this could account for Obama’s presidency: the very narrow margin by which he won the democratic nomination over Hillary might easily be attributable to legions of insecure voters flaunting Obama pins, bumper stickers, yard signs, etc. as ostentatious declaration of their own moral purity (if not superiority), and certainly ironclad immunity against any charge of racial transgression.

We need a concerted effort to restore matters of race to their proper and very limited place in society, and firm and consistent rebuke for those who engage in illegitimate efforts to manipulate us with racial distractions. I hope that opponents of socialized medicine will not only vigorously resist these contemptible attempts at intimidation, but will intensify their efforts to resist socialism, thereby demonstrating that the “race card” is no longer a trump.