John Kerry invests millions in fossil fuels. Do as I say. Not as I do . . .

Climate Alarmist John Kerry Invests Massively In Fossil Fuel Stocks - Excerpt

Secretary Kerry personally owned an estimated three to six million dollars in stocks of more than 50 oil and gas-related companies. Records from 2004 show that he’s been constantly and deeply invested in fossil fuels for at least a decade, and is still injecting millions in working capital into the very industries he condemns. What is the public to think of a cabinet-level prophet of climate doom who says one thing and does such another?

The discovery of this stunning hypocrisy emerged from fact checking research by Heartland Institute, after Kerry’s apocalyptic Atlantic Council speech. The finding raised two immediate questions:

How did such a financially vested nominee for Secretary of State get past the conflict of interest tests of the Office of Government Ethics and Senate confirmation? . . . 

Perhaps Kerry steadily pumps capital into oil and gas companies because he knows his rhetoric is deceitful, that climate change is not a crisis, and that the future of global civilization and human survival depends on fossil fuels. Perhaps he knows full well that the outcome of Obama’s energy policy will be to drive humanity into chaos that wrecks the Earth itself. . . - Heartland Institute

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21st Century Socialism is So Much Better

Venezuela's Inflation Rate Is 200% and Credit Card Companies Are Cashing In - Excerpt

"Venezuela’s economic collapse is driving factories out of business, leaving store shelves barren and wiping out workers’ purchasing power.  MasterCard Inc. is doing just fine. Two powerful forces are pushing Venezuelans to rely increasingly on credit cards amid the chaos: runaway inflation and soaring crime." - Yahoo Finance  

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Venezuela Inflation Seen Pushing 200% as Rationing Deepens  - Excerpt

Venezuela, which already has the world’s fastest inflation rate at a reported 69 percent in December, could see that rate more than double this year as it struggles to respond to falling oil prices.
“We may end up this year with inflation at close to 200 percent,” Alberto Ades, co-head of global economics research at Bank of America, said in an interview on Bloomberg Surveillance Friday. He forecast the economy would shrink 4 percent. “Venezuela is in a dire crisis.” - Bloomberg Business

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Amazingly, Maduro Is Going To Make The Venezuelan Economy Even Worse. Yes, Worse  - Excerpt

There’s a useful point often made that when you’re at the bottom of a hole the sensible thing is to stop digging. That politics doesn’t work this way we know, almost every politician preferring to double down on their own prejudices rather than take note of reality and what the universe is trying to tell her. But it is rare to see true howling lunacy in action in politics, despite the sort of people who become politicians. Perhaps because we in the rich countries never do allow the true drooling incompetents to take power: or perhaps more realistically we never allow anyone to have enough power to destroy our economy.

I do not say that Maduro drools, nor howls, nor even that he’s a lunatic, but he is doubling down on a remarkably incompetent piece of public policy. . .

- Forbes

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Obamacare Exchanges collapse in seven states costing taxpayers millions more

This just in.  “Despite over $205 million in federal taxpayer funding, Hawaii’s Obamacare exchange website will soon shut down.  Since its implementation, the exchange has somehow failed to become financially viable because of lower than expected Obamacare enrollment figures. . . . Unfortunately, taxpayers will have to hand out an additional 30 million so that  Hawaii can migrate to the federal system.”  American’s for Tax Reform  I am shocked.  Shocked!

Hawaii is not the only state-wide Obamacare exchange to fail. The Oregon, Massachusetts, Maryland, Vermont, New Mexico, and Nevada Obamacare exchanges have already collapsed costing tax payers millions and millions more. Any way that you slice it the collapse of so many state exchanges is yet another major failure of the Obama Care law. I am shocked.  Shocked!  

But how could this be happening? The Affordable Health Care Act (aka Obamacare) was supposed to bend the cost curve and usher in a new era of, well affordable health care.  Obamacare should be working, we are told, because it puts the Federal Government squarely in control of a massive percentage of the health care system thus creating a giant, centrally planned, bureaucratically operated, politically motivated system that takes hard earned money from tax payers and gives it to politicians and their special interest cronies (e.g. insurance companies).  

 How could it fail?  I’m just shocked. Shocked! Really I am (not).

 – Mark Van Schuyver

Privitize Amtrak!

"Amtrak has consumed almost $40 billion in federal subsidies since 1971, but has never earned a profit, and most of its routes lose money running empty trains. In addition, federal reports reveal that Amtrak regularly loses tens of millions of dollars on food sales and improper payments." - Washington Times

Amtrak wastes millions of dollars in taxpayer dollars annually and judging by the number of people killed and injured this week I am guessing that it has safety issues.  Why should this be a surprise?  Amtrak is a government controlled entity. It has no competition. It operates in a politicized, subsidized, government bubble. Amtrak is ObamaCare on rails. No matter how much waste, corruption, and death Amtrak delivers no taxpayer will be left behind when it comes to pouring good money after bad into this poster child of government bureaucratic waste.

I say, privatize Amtrak. Eliminate all the government subsidies, handouts, oversight, price controls, intervention, and barriers to competition. Allow Amtrak to succeed or fail based on the value it can create for society rather than on the profit it currently creates for politicians and special interests. Take Amtrak away from self-serving bureaucrats and let it compete with other forms of transportation on a level playing field.  Private sector competition will force Amtrak to lead the way to safer, more efficient, and innovative transportation in the service of society or or else get out of the way for someone who will.

Mark Van Schuyver

Climate change propaganda is simply a ruse for a socialist agenda

Walter Williams on Global Warming. An excerpt . . .

"Climate change propaganda is simply a ruse for a socialist agenda. Consider the statements of some environmentalist leaders. Christiana Figueres, the U.N.'s chief climate change official, said that her unelected bureaucrats are undertaking "probably the most difficult task" they have ever given themselves, "which is to intentionally transform the (global) economic development model." 

In 2010, German economist and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change official Ottmar Edenhofer said, "One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy." The article in which that interview appeared summarized Edenhofer's views this way: "Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection. ... The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world's resources will be negotiated."

The most disgusting aspect of the climate change debate is the statements by many that it's settled science. There is nothing more anti-scientific than the idea that any science is settled. Very often we find that the half-life of many scientific ideas is about 50 years. For academics to not criticize their colleagues and politicians for suggesting that scientific ideas are not subject to challenge is the height of academic dishonesty. . ." - Walter Williams

No surprise, Kansas benefits from tax cuts

Unemployment has dropped to 4.2% from 5.5% in 2013, and wages and job growth are steadily climbing. Wall Street Journal

Excerpt, 

• In March 2013, unemployment in Kansas stood at 5.5%. It has since dropped to 4.2%, tied for 14th lowest in the country.

• From 1998-2012, Kansas ranked 38th in private-sector job growth, according Bureau of Labor Statistics data crunched by the Kansas Policy Institute. In 2013—the first year after the tax reform—the state climbed to 27th place, and in 2014 it moved to 21st, placing it in the top half of states.

• In the second half of 2014, hourly wages in Kansas grew 3.5%, according to BLS data, far faster than the national average of 1.9%. . .

“I just think Kansas City is a great study,” the governor says. “This is an unusual place, where you’ve got a city virtually equally divided between two states.” The results? Over the past two calendar years, private-sector jobs increased by 5.6% on the Kansas side and only 2.2% on the Missouri. In the same period hourly wages grew $1.22 on the Kansas side, compared with $0.61 on the Missouri side.

Wall Street Journal

Restore the Fourth

Reason.com

"What's wrong with bulk collection? The warrant issued by the FISA court that authorizes bulk collection is known as a general warrant. A general warrant does not name a person or place, but authorizes the bearer to search wherever he wishes and seize whatever he finds. General warrants were a tool of colonial repression used by the king prior to the American Revolution. They were issued by secret courts in London. They were so loathed by the Framers that they are expressly forbidden by the Fourth Amendment. . . "  Full article