Blase says she was motivated to start Somos Republicans because “Obama sold Latinos down the river” by not tackling comprehensive immigration reform during his first year as president. Its website cites “humane immigration reform focusing on legalizing labor” as a “Republican value.” However, Somos Republicans ignores the fact that Arizona GOP leaders aren’t the only Republican politicians touting hardline immigration policies. In fact, the Republican National Committee’s 2008 party platform offered nothing but enforcement-only solutions to the country’s broken immigration system and outright opposed “amnesty.” Meanwhile, right-wing Republicans did everything in their power to block comprehensive immigration reform in 2006 and 2007, and they’re likely to spend most of the upcoming immigration battle kicking and screaming. One could also say they’re also at least partly to blame for the overall delay of President Obama’s legislative agenda given all the stunts Republican right-wingers have pulled to intentionally stall health care reform.

From Rep. Joe “You Lie” Wilson (R-NC) to former anti-immigrant hate group lobbyist Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA) , the Republican party has repeatedly legitimized — if not elevated — its anti-immigrant fringe. Many of the GOP’s immigrant-haters sit on the House Immigration Reform Caucus (HIRC), a group of (mostly Republican) representatives founded by former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) with the mission of stopping “the explosive growth in illegal immigration,” “reversing the growth in legal immigration,” and halting “amnesties.” Other notoriously anti-immigrant members of HIRC include Steve King (R-IA), who described immigration as a “slow-motion Holocaust,” and Lamar Smith (R-TX), who equates undocumented immigrants with “terrorist weapons.” Several HIRC members have publicly supported Arapio and have held his immigration enforcement tactics up as a model for their own communities.

Meanwhile, the GOP is quickly losing the few Latino leaders it once had. Ex-chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Hispanic Assembly Ivan Marte quit the GOP after Joe Wilson’s anti-immigrant outburst and advised Republicans to “reevaluate their position” on reaching out to minority groups. Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL), who recently resigned, expressed similar frustrations. Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Jim Nicholson has urged Republicans to “review” their position on immigration and Colin Powell has pointed out that the “policies with which we greet them [immigrants] are, in important ways, self-fulfilling.”

Of course not all Republicans are racist, and not everyone who opposes immigration is a nativist. However, misrepresenting the Party’s platform and presenting the GOP as something it’s not is shamefully disingenuous. It also fails to fundamentally address the xenophobia which plagues and divides the GOP and may one day render the Republican Party obsolete if left undenounced and untethered.

I think the planet is heating up. I think CO2 emissions are damaging the environment and this dependence on foreign oil is a natural disaster in the making. Let’s do something about it. I’d like to solve a problem, and if it’s on President Obama’s watch, it doesn’t bother me one bit if it makes the country better off.

Graham’s willingness to drop blind partisanship for the chance to shape corporate-friendly climate legislation is making him the latest target of the extremist right, who drove Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) out of the Republican Party and demonized Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE). Yesterday, Graham held a town hall meeting in Greenville, South Carolina in which local Tea Party activists accused him of “going to bed with John Kerry” and making a “pact with the devil,” accusations which generated tremendous applause by the assembled crowd.

Watch it:

This unhinged response is reflected in the conservative blogosphere, where Graham has been called a “fake Republican,” “RINO” (Republican in name only), a “traitor,” “disgrace,” “asshat,” “democrat in drag,” and a “wussypants, girly-man, half-a-sissy”:

Liberty Journal: Vote out the traitors who seek control of you with the use of your money paid in the form of taxes.

Mike Proto: Quite honestly, it is growing tiresome having to report on another fake Republican who is selling us out. In this case, it is the RINO senior senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham. . . . Now, the faux Republican is teaming up with none other than John ‘F’n’ Kerry on C(r)ap & Trade.

Michelle Malkin: God save us from bipartisanship.

Gateway Pundit: Senator Graham is a disgrace.

Ross Kaminsky: Lindsey Graham is little more than Barack Obama’s useful idiot, a man who clearly has no interest in the scientific data and who is so desirous of “doing something” that he barely cares what it is he gets done.

Dan Riehl: Why does SC continue to re-elect this doofus with a bad haircut?

Bruce Tyson: The RINO traitor to all that is right, just, and good, South Carolina’s own Lindesey Graham [sic] has done it again: this time siding with John Kerry on climate change fraud.

Pamela Gellar: Any Republican who signs off on the bankrupting of America vis a vis junk science climate change legislation is a traitor. Lindsey Graham is an asshat.

Founding Bloggers: They are selling us out to cover up for the fact that depression era entitlement programs, combined with greed and corruption, are wiping us out.

Angry White Dude: Graham is, in a word, a douchebag being used for his vote. . . . Just like his daddy Supreme Rat McCain, Graham is a Democrat. South Carolinians, you’re better than that…those of you who aren’t liberals. Do something about it the next that wussypants, girly-man, half-a-sissy comes asking for your vote! He is no friend of America!

Mark Harvey: Just like McCain, Lindsey Graham is actually a DIG, a democrat in drag.

Washington Post opinion page editor Fred Hiatt continued to disgrace his paper, publishing yet another column questioning climate science by George Will, the seventh this year. “Cooling Down the Cassandras” (alternatively titled “For Alarmists, Ugly Truths on Global Warming”) is a master class in cherrypicking words and misinterpreting science. Will’s thesis — that there has been no global warming since 1998 — is based on his reading of a poorly written article about temperature trends by New York Times climate reporter Andy Revkin:

By asserting that the absence of significant warming since 1998 is a mere “plateau,” not warming’s apogee, the Times assures readers who are alarmed about climate change that the paper knows the future and that warming will continue: Do not despair, bad news will resume.

By Will’s logic, we’d have to conclude that the Toronto Blue Jays just clinched the A.L. East division title — after all, they’ve won six games in a row and are 9-1 in their last ten games, while the New York Yankees lost their last game and are only 7-3. However, when the Wonk Room contacted Mr. Will to confirm this theory, he responded:

You don’t seem to understand baseball. The Blue Jays are not even in contention.

Will’s persistent assertion that global warming has stopped during the hottest decade in recorded history is just as nonsensical as the idea that a team that is nine games below .500 is beating one that is 45 games above .500. Unfortunately, Will hung up before we could ask who he believed was the hottest team in baseball.

Essentially, Will’s “global cooling” argument is pinned on an ambiguity of the English language. Just as the Yankees are a winning team but did not win their last game, global warming is terribly real even if 2008, one of the hottest years in recorded history, was cooler than 2007. “Global warming” is popular shorthand for the well-understood phenomenon that the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is amplifying the natural radiative forcing of the troposphere’s temperature — and as the greenhouse pollution continues to rise, the forcing continues to rise, given the natural variability in solar radiation and heat transfer between the ocean and atmosphere. It is not shorthand for “every day will be hotter than the next everywhere on the planet.” As the U.K. Met Office, whose temperature record Will cites in his scientifically illiterate column, explains, it is a “fact” that “temperatures are continuing to rise“:

The rise in global surface temperature has averaged more than 0.15 °C per decade since the mid-1970s. Warming has been unprecedented in at least the last 50 years, and the 17 warmest years have all occurred in the last 20 years. This does not mean that next year will necessarily be warmer than last year, but the long-term trend is for rising temperatures.

In fact, the tremendous rise in greenhouse gases — now 396 ppm CO2-equivalents, 115 ppm higher than in pre-industrial times — is having an obvious and accelerating effect on decadal global temperatures, not withstanding the significant natural interannual variability:

The former claim is demonstrably false, and the latter claim is laughable. The Chamber’s “support” for federal legislation is “conditional on an international agreement that requires full international participation.” Since such an international treaty is profoundly unlikely unless the United States passes federal legislation, the Chamber’s “sensible” policy is a recipe for inaction. Paradoxically, the Chamber even opposes tariffs on imports from countries that don’t limit greenhouse gases, claiming that would “set off a trade war.”

Furthermore, the state-level chambers of commerce, affiliated with and supported financially by the U.S. Chamber, continue to promote extremist global warming denial, paying climate skeptics Roy Spencer, Glenn Beck, Steven Milloy, and Steven Hayward to speak before their members.

Kansas Chamber of Commerce, September 21:

Global warming? So what. That was the message Monday from research scientist and best-selling author Roy Spencer to legislative leaders, lobbyists and leading business officials at the Kansas Chamber of Commerce business and energy summit. Spencer is a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and author of “Climate Confusion.” Spencer doesn’t deny that Earth is warming, but he attributes that to natural climate cycles and not to the increase in greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

Michigan Chamber of Commerce, September 15:

Although Glenn Beck’s race-baiting and McCarthyism have led a massive advertiser boycott of his Fox News program, the largest business lobby in the United States has chosen to embrace him as the “dinner keynote speaker” for the 2009 “Future Forum” at Michigan State University’s Kellog Forum on September 15th.

West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, September 4:

The Chamber announced last Wednesday that it was giving a major platform at the Business Summit to Steven J. Milloy, the founder of the Web site JunkScience.com. Milloy is expected to talk about his book, Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them,” as an introduction to the “save coal” session. Steve Roberts, the Chamber president, said: “Steve Milloy’s remarks will be timely and interesting, given the current controversies that are being driven by the debate over environmental issues such as global warming, energy use and the economic impacts of all of this. West Virginia is one of the states that could be affected significantly depending on how things go with the scientific and political debate over current environmental issues.”

Indiana Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Club, April 29:

More recently, environmental experts such as April 29 Economic Club of Indiana speaker Steven Hayward, have publicly disagreed with Gore and company. Hayward, an environmental researcher holding numerous prestigious fellowships and an adjunct professorship at Georgetown University, starred in a film rebutting Gore’s claims of pending disaster as a result of climate change. Hayward is of the belief that the planet goes through natural periods of warming and cooling and is not tremendously influenced by the activity of human beings.

Energy companies are abandoning the sinking ship of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in droves over its opposition to climate change action. The Chamber is aggressively opposing efforts by President Obama and the Congress to fight global warming pollution, saying federal regulation would “strangle the economy” and cap-and-trade legislation would be “economically disruptive of business and industry activities.” However, responding to the criticism of the companies who have left the Chamber, spokesman Eric Wohlschlegel claimed his organization respects the science of climate change:

We’ve never questioned the science behind global warming.

This is a blatant falsehood, by any definition. The Chamber has a long history of questioning the science of climate change. The Chamber’s present campaign against regulation of greenhouse gases by the Environmental Protection Agency questions the existence of global warming as well as the scientific evidence of its impacts on the public health and welfare. The Chamber promotes global warming denier books “to advance our thinking about issues of significance,” and has promoted the work of global warming denier Pat Michaels since at least 1992:

2009: Chamber SVP Kovacs Calls For ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ On The ‘Science Of Climate Change.’ “It would be evolution versus creationism. It would be the science of climate change on trial.” Chamber of Commerce Senior Vice President William Kovacs explained that the Chamber was seeking a “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” on global warming to prevent the EPA from declaring greenhouse gases a threat to the public welfare. [Los Angeles Times, 8/25/09]

2009: Chamber Claims No ‘Plausible Theory’ To Link ‘Climate Change With Extreme Weather Events And Disease In The United States,’ Disputes ‘Claims Of Ocean Acidification.’ In an official filing prepared by the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis for the comments on the EPA’s proposed endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce cited blog posts by global warming deniers such as Pat Michaels and Chip Knappenberger to challenge a broad range of climate change science, including sea level rise and the “UN/IPCC forecasted temperature increases.” [U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 8/25/09]

2009: National Chamber Foundation Promotes Global Warming Denier Book As ‘#1′ Top Book Of The Year. Promoting “Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s National Chamber Foundation writes: “Climatologists Patrick J. Michaels and Robert Balling Jr. explain that climate science is hardly unbiased,” and that the “pop-culture icons of climate change turns out to be short on facts and long on exaggeration.” On Twitter, the National Chamber Foundation ranked the book “#1″ in its “Top Books of ‘09.” [National Chamber Foundation, 8/20/09]

2008: National Chamber Foundation Promotes Global Warming ‘Deniers’ Book Against ‘Global Warming Hysteria.’ The National Chamber Foundation selected “The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution and Fraud; And those who are too fearful to do so” by Lawrence Solomon to “help shape the debate on issues important to the business community.” [National Chamber Foundation, 2008]

2008: Chamber President Tom Donohue Says ‘Scientific Inquiry’ Into Climate Change ‘Should Continue’ Because Of ‘Cooling Trend.’ On March 4, 2008, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue revealed his true thoughts to the Chamber’s board, questioning the science of global warming: “As the scientific inquiry continues (and given the recent reports indicating a cooling trend over the last year, such inquiry should continue) the Chamber supports public and private sector action to control the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.” [U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 3/4/08]

2003: Chamber Says ‘We Need To Have Better Science’ To Justify Climate Action. Following the defeat of the McCain-Lieberman cap-and-trade climate legislation in 2003, William Kovacs, the Chamber’s vice president for environment, technology, and regulatory affairs, told the Heartland Institute, “We need to have better science to support any efforts to restrict energy use before Americans can justify sacrificing their jobs, quality of life, and paying almost double for their utility bills.” [Heartland Institute, 11/21/03]

2003: Chamber Claims ‘Every Aspect Of The Environment’ Is ‘Getting Cleaner.’ Praising George W. Bush’s environmental record, William Kovacs dismissed the concept of global warming pollution. “The air, along with every other aspect of the environment, is getting cleaner. I think that has been a true statement for the last 30 years, and it will continue to be. I think Bush has been continuing along that path.” [New York Times, 2/23/2003]

2001: Chamber Claims Global Warming ‘About One Percent From Human Activity,’ Says ‘Things Just Change.’ Appearing on CNNFN, William Kovacs challenged the “link” between human activity and global warming and called for more research. “Let me address two issues. One is, the link. You know, let’s be realistic, 95 percent of all greenhouse gases, you know, really come from water vapor; and another 3 or 4 percent from natural causes, and we’re down to about one percent from human activity. So the Bush plan is really twofold. One is, we’re going to spend another 120-$130 million to see if we can get some of the tough issues, and make the links. Even EPA agrees. You know, yes, there is global warming, but you know, 20 years ago, we were worried about global cooling. Things just change, and before we sink the economy, we need to make sure we’ve got the right research done.” [CNNFN, 7/16/2001]

1992: Chamber Sponsors Global Warming Denier Pat Michaels To ‘Refute The Global Warming Warnings.’ “Bankrolled partly by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Global Climate Coalition, a group of manufacturers fearful of new environmental regulations, Patrick Michaels and Washington, D.C., attorney Eugene M. Trisko have been traveling cross-country to refute the global warming warnings from environmentalists.” [Chicago Sun-Times, 5/13/1992]

Last night, Glenn Beck accused President Obama of “outright lies,” engaging in a “coverup” of the cost of his green economic agenda. Beck claimed that “buried” Treasury documents from March show that the cost of a cap-and-trade carbon market to regulate global warming pollution is $1,761 per household per year, despite the president’s assurance to the American public in June that “the price to the average American will be about the same as a postage stamp per day“:

I have a question. Did the President of the United States tell the people in Congress about this? Facts are stubborn. Don’t they suck? It is always the coverup that gets you. March 9. June 25. Mr. President, did you tell Congress about prior estimates? That, you know, that you knew about? Or did you just kind of keep it secret and hide it away from them and those pesky American people? I want to show you something that I said a few weeks ago. I was talking directly to the Democrats. I was telling them wake up. “Democrats in Congress, wake up! You are being played and you’re being bypassed.”

Watch it:

In reality, Beck’s figure of $1,761 per household for the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) is not actually based on secret Treasury documents, but on the confabulation of a right-wing blogger at CBSNews.com. Although the Treasury Department has called this story “flat out wrong,” conservatives and the oil industry have heavily promoted this inflated number, much in the same way they wildly overestimated the number of Tea Party activists who attended the Glenn Beck rally in Washington, D.C. last weekend.

On June 19th, the Congressional Budget Office analyzed the ACES Act — legislation crafted by Congress, not by “czars” in the White House — and determined “that the net annual economywide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion—or about $175 per household.” Yesterday, the CBO — a Congressional research arm independent of the “spooky” executive branch — released an updated analysis that lowered its previous cost projection to “$160 per household.” In other words:

The average household would spend 44 cents per day – the price of a postage stamp.

The revised analysis also determined that the least well off Americans would receive a greater net benefit than its previous projections. “CBO estimates that households in the lowest income quintile in 2020 would see an average gain… [of] about $125” per household. By 2050, this net gain would increase to “$355 measured at 2010 income levels.”

A clean energy economy would enjoy massive growth, according the the CBO:

CBO projects that real (inflation-adjusted) GDP [Gross Domestic Product] will be roughly two and a half times as large in 2050 as it is today.

Investing in efforts to prevent catastrophic climate change, the CBO concluded, would reduce this GDP by as little as one cent per dollar. CBO concluded that the impact of the ACES Act on the overall economy would be “modest.” However, the CBO did not analyze elements of the legislation that would increase our energy independence and household savings further:

The analysis does not include the effects of other aspects of the bill, such as federal efforts to speed the development of new technologies and to increase energy efficiency by specifying standards or subsidizing energy-saving investments.

Glenn Beck is spinning a paranoid fantasy in which Democratic members of Congress are either puppets of — or conspirators with — an out-of-control, “racist” and “spooky” President. In the real world, the Congressional Budget Office has repeatedly found that a clean energy future can be ours for less than a (real) postage stamp a day.

Transcript:

BECK: You have what came out today, the outright lies coming out of the White House. I hate to call anybody a liar. You tell me. It’s the cap and trade energy bill. We want to thank our friend Chris Horner at CEI for pointing this out to us. Chris, watchdog, thank you very much. This is a document behind me. This is something that the Department of the Treasury did for the White House and the government, so, you know, they could be informed. I want you to take a look at the date. It’s March 9th, 2009. You remember that date. This is when the White House got this, and then it just lkinda was buried, lost. We had to get it through a Freedom of Information Act.

Look at the document, because in the document, it says “a cap and trade program could generate receipts on the order of $100 to $200 billion annually.” Wow, that’s a lot. In fact, it’s so much it’s the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15%. Huh. Bigger is always better. That’s $1,761 a year, per household, all of us, every one. Okay. That’s in March. March 9th, 2009, The Department of Treasury issues a report and says, “Here, Mr. President, boy, that looks like it is going to suck. It is going to cost $1,761.” Got it?

Now let’s fast forward to April 20th, 2009. March — April — I’m not very good with numbers and calendar stuff, because that’s complicated, because there are 12 whole months out of the year, but I think April comes after the report came out! Here is Henry Waxman, you know, from the Waxman-Markley [sic] energy bill. he said this —

“The cost of the bill that Mr. Markey and I proposed, this analysis says the bill will cost the average family less than 40 cents per day.”

You know, I’m not very good with numbers but I think $1,761 is more than 40 cents. I’m not a congressman. If you look at the Treasury estimates, Waxman is only underestimating the cost by 1200%. Now, let’s fast forward a little further. Listen to President Obama. Remember, March 9th, 2009, Department of the Treasury. Here’s their confidential analysis. “Dear Mr. President, it’s going to cost a lot of money.”

Let’s listen carefully to what President Obama estimated on June, June 25th.

“In a decade, the price to the average American will be about the same as a postage stamp per day.”

Wow. I think he just did it, too, 1200%, but he was a little more careful, you know. He did actually say, “in a decade from now.” He didn’t mention that today that stamp would cost $1,671! I’m just saying. He’s very accurate, because that’s the new stamp.

I have a question. Did the President of the United States tell the people in Congress about this? Facts are stubborn. Don’t they suck? It is always the coverup that gets you. Hah. March 9th. June 25th. Mr. President, did you tell Congress about the higher estimates? That, you know, that you knew about? Or did you just kind of keep it secret and hide it away from them and those, ha, pesky American people? I want to show you something that I said a few weeks ago. I was talking directly to the Democrats. I was telling them wake up. Democrats in Congress, wake up! You are being played and you’re being bypassed.

Look at all of the czars. I mean, what do you think they’re for? Look, they don’t answer to anybody. Look, the presidents have had czars for a long time. Woodrow Wilson, he was spooky. FDR, spooky with the czars! Some of the people, you know, they had a bunch of drinking buddies, you know like, oh, would you just make this guy go away? Fine. You want to put them in as special advisors and they don’t have any power, they don’t have any muscle. Wasn’t it Carol Browner who said that? Hey, I don’t ever want to see this in writing as she’s talking to the car dealers or the car companies, yeah, that kind of spooky power. If they have real power, it’s a problem. This guy, Woodrow Wilson, he was a progressive just like this president. He talked about, you know, ways to get things done by going around Congress.

Guess what? This is a progressive in the White House. That’s what he’s doing. He’s going right around Congress. When are you going to wake up, Congress?

Anyway, Jones: He has, in recent years, done some valuable work trying to steer green jobs into poor communities…but there is a bright line in American political life: Self-proclaimed “communists” need not apply. Communism is too odious and foolish a philosophy for anyone reasonable to believe in, or even to use as red-flag hyperbole, as Jones did after the Rodney King riots of the early 1990s, when he said that he’d been a [black] nationalist, but was now a communist. It’s sort of like a Republican President appointing someone who had said, “I used to be a white supremacist, but now I’m a Nazi.” So, good riddance. The work of this presidency is too important to be side-tracked by a too-angry blowhard spouting foolish radicalism.

In the past decade, Van Jones has been at the vanguard of a green capitalism that combines progressive and conservative ideals, “focusing on job, wealth and health creation” in poor and minority communities while healing the planet. His work has helped establish the Oakland Green Jobs Corps, the Green Jobs Act, and community partnerships for job training and retrofit programs in cities across the nation.

Before becoming a leading green capitalist, Jones was a progressive leader in the Bay Area. The “communist” smear hinges on a 2005 interview with the East Bay Express, in which Jones described how he had “renounced” his radicalist politics of the 1990s, when he participated in STORM, a utopian, anti-racist peace collective in Berkeley, CA that drew from Marxist teachings. Jones was radicalized by the 1992 Rodney King trial, in which four LAPD officers were acquitted of police brutality although their beating of Rodney King was caught on videotape. While acting as a legal observer for a non-violent rally in San Francisco protesting the trial and its aftermath, Jones was caught in a mass arrest for which the city later apologized.

Klein’s comparison of Jones to a “Nazi” “white supremacist” is both repugnant and ironic, considering Jones’s record of fighting racism and embracing compassion for all people. Following the Rodney King verdict, Jones worked effectively against police brutality, establishing first the Bay Area PoliceWatch and then the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. The Ella Baker Center successfully campaigned against San Francisco police officer Marc Andaya, who led a team of cops in beating Aaron Williams, “emptying three cans of pepper spray into his face, and hogtying him in an unventilated police van where he died.” With its “Books Not Bars” campaign, the Center also stopped the construction of the Alameda County “Super Jail for Kids” in 2001.

Klein — a compelling writer who has argued for legalizing marijuana, a war crimes tribunal for the Bush administration, and the same green-jobs vision as Van Jones — should be the last person to promote a McCarthyite purge of “left-extremists” from the Obama administration.

Our young white males are suffering in this society, profoundly. Profoundly. And no one is saying a word about it. We’ll criminalize the black student, black child, criminalize the Latino child, we have this whole discussion about whether they are animals or they not animals, should we abuse them should we help them, blah blah blah. You’ve never seen a Columbine done by a black child. Never. They always say, “We can’t believe it happened here. We can’t believe it’s these suburban white kids.” It’s only them! Now, a black kid might shoot another black kid. He’s not going to shoot up the whole school! “My cousin’s up in here, I’m not going to shoot the whole school then, I might hit my cousin! I’m gonna shoot you though!”

But these young white men will be in so much pain, and so isolated, so alienated they’ll shoot up the entire school. Where is the concern, where is the love, where is the compassion for these young men?

Watch it:

Van Jones “mocks Columbine,” RedState.com claims, even as they admit “his statement is true as far as it goes.” “Only ‘Suburban White Kids’ Shoot Up Schools,” blares the Drudge Report. But Van Jones’ speech is clearly a desperate plea for compassion and healing — to recognize that though our criminal justice system and society still treat youths differently based on race and class, we should do better no matter what color — black, brown or white.

Van Jones continues:

Where is concern, where is the love, where is the compassion for these young men? And it is doubly twisted, because if there’s anything that you’re doing that is wrong, we want to hurt you, we want to punish you, we’re not going to help you, we’re not going to love you. And so rather than punish you and attack you and jump on you like we do the black kids, we’ll just ignore you and we’ll just neglect you.

We have got to begin to look at this idea of criminality, of evil, of wrongdoing, of mistakes as being a universal condition, requiring a universally loving response and a universally embracing response — so that our society in trying to confront evil at any level does not in fact become evil.

It is just as evil, in my view — to attack these young black and brown men — it is just as evil to neglect and to ignore these young white men, who, as best I can tell, have very little now in the way of loving, affirmative male leadership, that can put an arm around, wipe away a tear, and show a kind of masculinity that is not brittle or mean-spirited. And that I think is the problem that gets masked over by calling any community evil.

Now, according to right-wing bloggers, it is Van Jones who is “evil.”

I know there are good decent people, left and right, Democrats and Republicans that watch this program! How much more evidence do you need that we have radicals in the White House? Oh, we haven’t even begun. If you think you need more — We need to at least start having the necessary conversation of: Do we really want Communists in the United States government as special advisors to the president? To be honest with ya, and maybe it’s just me, I don’t even want Communists having lunch with our president. When Putin was having an hour with the president, I know he had to do it, but I wasn’t comfortable with it! Barack Obama did not campaign on openly changing the whole system.

Watch it:

In fact, Obama did campaign openly on a message of change. And hope.

Evidently, Beck is attacking Van Jones to divert attention from his accusations that President Obama is a “racist” who “hates white people.” A successful boycott by Color of Change, an organization co-founded by Van Jones in 2005 but with which he has had no active involvement since 2007, has led to 57 advertisers abandoning Beck’s show.

The analysis by the authors from King Juan Carlos University represents a significant divergence from traditional methodologies used to estimate employment impacts from renewable energy. In fact, the methodology does not reflect an employment impact analysis. Accordingly, the primary conclusion made by the authors – policy support of renewable energy results in net jobs losses – is not supported by their work.

NREL reveals that what Republicans have called a “50-page empirical study” could have been written by ten-year-olds. All the study does is calculate two ratios of Spanish economic figures — renewable subsidies vs. private capital and subsidies vs. average productivity — and then draw extravagant conclusions not only about the Spanish economy, but project them onto the United States. Here are a few of the fundamental limitations, technical errors, and false assumptions drawn from NREL’s takedown of Calzada’s work of pseudo-economics:

The metrics used in the Spanish study are not jobs impact estimates. The primary conclusion of the report is that the Spanish economy has experienced job loss as a result of its RE installations. However, comparing the RE subsidy per job with the Spanish economy’s average capital per job and average productivity per job is not a measure of job loss.

The report lacks transparency and supporting statistics. It is striking that the authors’ calculations with two very different economic metrics generate the same result. The authors claim this increases their confidence in their result. However, because there is no statistical analysis, it does not seem reasonable to draw conclusions regarding confidence in either result. The authors also fail to justify their chosen methodology or cite others who have applied a similar methodology.

The authors assume that a dollar spent by the government is less efficient than a dollar spent by private industry and that it crowds out private investment. Government spending may be more or less efficient than private investment. To the extent that government spending is a correction for market failures (e.g., existing fossil fuel subsidies, environmental externalities), it is less likely to represent an inefficient allocation of resources. Furthermore, there is no justification given for the assumption that government spending (e.g., tax credits or subsidies) would force out private investment. This assumption is fundamental to the conclusion that Spain’s renewable energy policy has resulted in job loss.

Calzada also “fails to account for technology export potential,” “relies on jobs estimates that were developed in 2003 and do not reflect Spain’s RE industries in 2009,” and “relies on jobs as the sole metric to assess the value of renewable energy.” NREL’s Suzanne Tegen, a Ph.D. energy market analyst, and Eric Lantz conclude with a summary of what serious economic analysis of the impact of renewable energy investments has found:

In general, comprehensive analyses show that net employment impacts are sensitive to assumptions regarding future energy prices, strategies for addressing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, and the capacity to export technology. With increased awareness of potential energy price scenarios, recent research has found that it is only when conventional energy prices are forecast to be very low that net employment impacts from RE investments are negative.

In other words, unless you live in a world where global warming and oil spills don’t exist, and fossil fuels remain cheap forever, government investment in renewable energy creates jobs — just what our nation needs now.

(H/T Pete Altman)

After Beck called President Obama a “racist” with a “deep-seated hatred for white people,” Color of Change and its Co-Founder Van Jones convinced 46 companies to cancel their advertisements aired during Beck’s show. In response, Kreep then founded DefendGlenn.com. Kreep himself subscribes to the delusional notion that Obama “has been hiding the truth [about his birthplace] from the American people.” He has also expressed frustration about recent waves of immigration to the US, having told the Los Angeles Times:

“When the Italians came to America, they assimilated. When the Irish came to America, they assimilated…It isn’t the language barrier; it’s the willingness to assimilate. It’s not that hard to come here speaking only a little English and assimilate.”

In 1992, the gay community and the Anti-Defamation League expressed outrage when Kreep brought his “purportedly anti-homosexual views” to San Diego’s Human Relations Commission.

Those Kreep has chosen to defend as an attorney are even more telling of his radical right-wing agenda. Kreep’s professional biography reveals that he has served as General Counsel to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps — a militant “nativist extremist” group — and has been honored by the anti-choice extremist group Operation Rescue for “his services to the community.” Most recently, Kreep defended the San Diego Minutemen and help win them more than $150,000 in damages for a lawsuit filed against Caltrans for revoking their Adopt a Highway permit. He also defended “anti-immigration crusader” John Monti who was charged with battery, interfering with the civil rights of two day laborers, and filing a false police report. In 2007, Kreep defended anti-immigration activist Roy Warden, who was convicted of one count of assault and two counts of threats and intimidation after burning a Mexican flag outside a Mexican consulate. Warden was also videotaped “threatening to blow a child’s brains out,” and vowed “he would continue to exercise his right to free speech, burn Mexican flags and protect himself from others.”

Fundamentalist pastor Wiley Drake, who has publicly prayed for Obama’s death, has hired Kreep to pursue a lawsuit challenging Obama’s birthplace and presidency.

Wayne-White encourages concerned citizens to participate in the free bus trip and rally in Springfield. The co-op recently mailed out nearly 10,000 informational letters and signature forms to enable concerned citizens to help themselves by speaking out and opposing this issue. As of Monday, more than 4,000 postcards had been returned to the co-op office which will be hand-delivered to Burris and Durbin at their Springfield offices, the Wayne-White news release said.

Wayne-White’s CEO Daryl Donjon has claimed that the legislation, which would spur a clean-energy economy by capping pollution and supporting renewable energy and efficiency, “is an unfair tax to the Midwest and would raise electric rates by 80 percent.” In the letter sent to Wayne-White’s captive audience, the utility claims “Cap & Trade” will “lead to the transfer of wealth from the midwestern states to the coastal states” and is “scary.”

Donjon is repeating the fearmongering about clean energy reform promoted by conservatives from Newt Gingrich to Wayne-White representative John Shimkus (R-IL), who have been repeatedly debunked. In reality, the EPA has found that the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act would lower electricity bills, not raise them.

Scientific models project that Illinois is one of the top ten states most at risk of rising temperatures due to global warming in the coming decades — science that Daryl Donjon rejects.

Boortz, who regularly mocks Latinos, women and the poor — even calling Rep. Cynthia McKinney a “ghetto slut” — made an expansive case that the combined natural and human disaster of Hurricane Katrina actually helped the city of New Orleans on his June 24, 2009 radio show. Although Katrina’s devastation cost this nation $80 billion, killed thousands, and displaced a million people, Boortz believes “Katrina cleansed New Orleans“:

Katrina cleansed New Orleans. It just washed out a lot of debris, including human debris.

Boortz has also called the overwhelmingly black and poor victims of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans “human parasites” and “deadbeats,” even suggesting that a victim of Hurricane Katrina consider prostitution instead of “sucking off taxpayers.”

Boortz is nationally syndicated from Atlanta’s WSB, part of the Cox Enterprises empire, whose billionaire heiress Anne Cox Chambers is the richest person in Georgia and a million-dollar tax evader.

“Why do you think that an invading snail can be dropped in the bay from off a back of a ship. It comes — let’s say from China — in a back of a freighter and it swims off in a bay in America. And it wipes out all the local clams. It wipes out the oysters because it’s hardier and the local oysters don’t have an immunity to it. It’s the same with invading cultures. Put your moronic heads together. The illegal aliens, whether you love them or you don’t love them, are an invading organism in a certain way. On a biological level you know I’m right.”

Listen:

While Savage worries about invading snails, the British government is more concerned with keeping out people who foster extremism and hatred. That’s why Savage’s name was added to a list of people who would be detained and refused entry by British immigration authorities if he attempted to visit the country.

The American Energy Alliance (AEA), a new polluter front group, is touring the nation to smear President Barack Obama’s clean energy reform agenda. Employees riding the “American Energy Express” bus are spreading the conservative lies that the American Clean Energy and Security Act will “cripple our sluggish economy.” AEA is the 501 c(4) offshoot of the Institute for Energy Research, a right-wing oil-industry think tank run by Robert Bradley, a former speechwriter for Kenneth Lay. E&E News reports that AEA’s “Energy Town Hall” bus tour pictures workers in hard hats:

The American Energy Alliance, which is affiliated with the conservative Institute for Energy Research, has begun a four-week bus tour to county fairs, sporting events and public meetings in several coal-reliant states. Representatives of the group will travel in a large blue bus carrying the slogan “Stop the National Energy Tax, Save American Jobs” and a picture of workers in hard hats. They will cross Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Virginia. Yesterday, AEA officials participated in a rally with another group, Americans for Prosperity, in Zanesville, Ohio; a day earlier, they visited a county fair in western Pennsylvania.

In fact, by attacking legislation that addresses climate change and our national dependence on fossil fuels, AEA is preventing a clean-energy economic boom. Laughably, AEA claims it has “no ties to any political party“:

AEA has no ties to any political party, and it has no interest in supporting the agenda of any particular political party.

AEA may be telling the truth that it has “no interest in supporting the agenda of any particular political party” — its only interest seems to be blocking progressive reform by spreading lies and distortions. However, AEA is tightly connected to the Republican Party and right-wing oil interests. In fact, all of its employees are former House Republican staffers:

Thomas J. Pyle, AEA President, Is A Oil Lobbyist And DeLay Operative. Before joining the Institute for Energy Research and the American Energy Alliance, Pyle worked as a lobbyist for the right-wing oil giant Koch Industries, first in-house starting in 2001, and then at the Rhoads Group. In 2008 Pyle became a lobbyist for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Previously, Pyle served as policy analyst for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Majority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives and as staff director for the GOP Congressional Western Caucus. Pyle started as a legislative assistant for radical anti-environmentalists Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) and Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA). [Institute for Energy Research, Center for Public Integrity]

Patrick Creighton, AEA Communications Director, Worked For Bush And Pennsylvania Republicans. Patrick Creighton was the special assistant to Samuel T. Mok, the chief financial officer at the Department of Labor from 2004 to 2006. He then worked as a spokesman for oil and natural gas advocate Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) from 2006 to 2009, worked to elect Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA), then joined Thompson’s office until May 2009. [Institute for Energy Research, Legistorm]

Kevin Kennedy, AEA Federal Affairs Director, Promoted Alaska Drilling Under Don Young. After graduating from Union College in 2004, Kevin Kennedy worked for the Astroturf organization Arctic Power, which advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In 2007, Kennedy became a legislative assistant for the corrupt Rep. Don Young (R-AK) and the House Committee on Natural Resources. He joined the Institute for Energy Research and American Energy Alliance in 2009. [Institute for Energy Research]

Laura Henderson, AEA Spokesperson, Served Shelby, Dole, And Tiberi. Laura Henderson was a former press secretary for offshore drilling advocate Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) from 2005-2009. Previously, she worked for former Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) and Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH). [Institute for Energy Research]

Daniel R. Simmons, AEA State Affairs Director, Is A Koch-Funded GOP Staffer. Simmons was the Director of the Natural Resources Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing network funded by Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, and other corporate and right-wing organizations. Previously, Simmons was a Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, also funded by Koch. From 2001 to 2005, Simmons served on the staff of Rep. George Nethercutt (R-WA) on the House Natural Resources Committee. Simmons holds a B.A. in Economics from Utah State University and a J.D. from George Mason University School of Law, also supported by Koch Industries. [Institute for Energy Research, Legistorm]

Furthermore, AEA’s EnergyTownHall.org website is run by yet another former GOP House staffer:

GOP.gov Webmaster Nathan Imperiale Runs EnergyTownHall.Org. AEA’s EnergyTownHall.org was designed by NJI Media Group, part of Endeavour Global Strategies. Endeavour’s head, Sean Spicer, is a long-time GOP operative, including communications work for the House Republican Conference and the Bush White House. NJI Media Group’s president, Nathan Imperiale, served as Director of New Media for the House Republican Conference, building its GOP.gov website. [Twitter, 2/13/09; Endeavour Global Strategies]

AEA’s “American Energy Express” joins a field crowded by conservative oil and coal propaganda — the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity’s “Factuality” bus tour, the American Petroleum Institute’s “Energy Citizens” oil rallies, and the Americans For Prosperity “Hot Air” balloon tour.

STEIN: Well, I’ve been working this issue for almost thirty years. The way H.R. 3200 is drafted, this is the way it’s drafted: illegal aliens can qualify for the public plan. And the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is pushing to retain that language. And for the affordability credits for the subsidy, if one member of the family is here legally, then the entire family can qualify. And most importantly, there’s no way to verify that eligibility standard. So, the bottom line is, based on all these years of watching and experience at FAIR, we know illegal aliens under this bill will get health care.

Watch it:

You’d think thirty years of experience would’ve taught Stein that undocumented and legal immigrants alike rarely qualify for public benefits and health care reform doesn’t look like it’s going to be any exception. If Stein had actually done his research and read the drafted health care reform legislation, he would’ve noticed that Sec. 242 and 246 explicitly state that only individuals who are lawfully present in US will receive any of the benefits provided in the bill. That language also applies to affordability credits, meaning that only family members who are “affordable credit eligible individuals” will receive government assistance and “affordable credit eligible individuals” are defined as someone who is lawfully present in the US. Even the Congressional Hispanic Caucus — which Stein cites as pressing for inclusion of the undocumented — has issued a statement supporting coverage only for “legal, law abiding” immigrants who pay their “fair share.” In fact, the bill “severely restricts” health care benefits even for legal immigrants.

Ultimately, Stein has his own agenda and it has little do with health care. Today, the Washington Independent reports:

“As the heat gets turned up on the health care reform debate, anti-immigrant activists are using the issue to whip up fear and anger toward immigrants, portraying them as a costly and burdensome drain on any taxpayer-supported U.S. health care system. Angry questions about illegal immigrants getting health care at town hall meetings across the country have put many lawmakers on the defensive…The protesters are spurred on in large part by immigration restrictionist groups who are using the health care debate to spread fears about immigrants.”

Anti-immigrant rhetoric aside, Executive Director of Voto Latino Maria Teresa Kumar — who appeared on the same segment opposite of Stein — also pointed out that the more people who are included in any health insurance plan, the more costs for everyone involved go down.

The teabagger arguments mirrored those by elected conservative politicians and right-wing media. One interviewee accepted that global warming pollution should be limited, but believed a cap-and-trade system would be an economy-crippling energy tax. On the farthest extreme, some believed that President Obama is an “Anti-American Arab” who “is not a natural-born citizen.” Most people the Wonk Room interviewed, however, said that global warming is a hoax for Al Gore’s profit, that Obama is a man of divided loyalties and questionable associations, and that the country is headed toward socialist decline. Most of the protesters were motivated by a strong animus toward the president. Dozens of the teabaggers displayed the “Obama Joker” poster with the headline “Fascism.”

Meanwhile, inside the Cox Pavilion, America’s political and economic leaders made the case that economic recovery for the nation lies in clean energy. The second annual National Clean Energy Summit, organized by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, convened Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Obama cabinet secretaries Steven Chu and Hilda Solis, and numerous other influential politicians and energy executives. They agreed that the federal government needs to establish a regulatory framework for energy — including a mandatory limit on carbon pollution and standards for energy efficiency — to end our dependence on fossil fuels, tackle the threat of global warming, and unlock the potential of a green economy.

The conspiracy-minded protesters — organized by the Nevada Patriots activist group and promoted by the Clark County Republican Party — are understandably fearful of change in these harsh economic times. However, instead of joining most Americans in recognizing that our economic ills are tied to our dependence on polluting energy, they have found a home in the conspiracies pumped by the oil-backed right-wing machine.

The coalition also plans to deploy teams to question senators at town hall meetings, advertise at state fairs and other summer events and visit lawmakers’ offices back home.

ACCCE’s campaign, representing coal interests from General Electric to Peabody Energy, requires the efforts of multiple Astroturfing companies, including primary contractor Hawthorn Group, as well as known fraud shop Bonner & Associates, and marketing firm R & R Partners.

The “ACCCE Army” will be joining right-wing Astroturf efforts funded by the oil and gas industry to disrupt Congressional town hall meetings across the nation. Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, both bankrolled by oil and gas giant Koch Industries, are orchestrating the “tea party protests” and have hired dozens of field staff to spread misinformation about clean energy and health care reform. Yesterday, FreedomWorks released its “August Action Recess Packet” for disrupting town hall meetings:

It is essential that we don’t let the pressure up. While Senators and Representatives are home for their August recess they need to hear from you, regardless of party. Many hold town hall meetings that are open to the public, check our map to see if there is one nearby and take our questions to ask them on the record whether they can risk losing even more jobs under Cap and Trade or if they plan on raising taxes for government run health care. In addition to attending town hall meetings, please call and visit district offices asking the same questions.

As Media Matters Action explains, the FreedomWorks energy talking points are just as fraudulent as ACCCE’s “clean coal” campaign.

Last week, the Washington, DC consulting firm Bonner & Associates was exposed for forging letters in opposition to the American Clean Energy and Security Act. Bonner forged letters from the Virginia branch of the NAACP and local community organization Cruciendo Juntos to Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA), a freshman representative whom the GOP attacked with false ads after he voted in favor of the clean energy legislation. On Friday, Rep. Ed Markey announced his global warming committee would investigate Bonner’s fraud. Today, MoveOn.org began a petition to urge the Department of Justice to investigate this naked fraud in opposition to climate and energy reform:

A lobbying firm hired to fight clean energy was caught sending forged letters from the NAACP and a Hispanic nonprofit to a Democratic congressman. Please conduct a thorough investigation into whether the firm, Bonner & Associates, committed fraud, and how often they’ve done this.

The Sierra Club has sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice calling for an investigation, explaining how Bonner’s actions constitute wire fraud:

The Sierra Club will also be running a full-page advertisement in CQ, The Hill, Politico, Roll Call, and the National Journal’s Congress Daily AM tomorrow that mocks the “coalition to kill clean energy jobs” as “tall tales from Washington lobbyists.”

Bonner & Associates have blamed their forgeries on a “temporary employee,” have not admitted whether they sent fraudulent letters to any other members of Congress, and have yet to disclose their clients.

Unfortunately, as large as this direct lobbying figure is, it represents probably a fraction of the total amount of money the oil and gas industry is pouring into the debate. Some of the money flows straight to candidates and to political action committees. Another huge, largely undisclosed portion goes to what is known as “outside lobbying” efforts — public relations and advertising firms which coordinate a pro-polluter propaganda campaign to influence public opinion. And finally much of the money goes to financing “think-tanks” to produce reports outside the realm of scientific consensus to legitimize skepticism of global warming.

The outside lobbying campaign the industry has embraced this year is the most corrosive because it is based upon deception — and increasingly, hate. Koch Industries, the oil and gas behemoth, bankrolls the astroturf groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks. These groups were instrumental in orchestrating the anti-Obama tea party protests, where thousands gathered to display racist signs directed at the President, absurd calls for an impeachment, and more recently, protesters hanging Democratic leaders in effigy. In addition to the anti-Obama protests, these groups provide a useful front for industries as they hire dozens of field staff to spread misinformation about clean energy and bus people around the country to create the guise of public distrust of global warming. Koch has funneled its money not only to these astroturf efforts, but has been a prolific leader in all the aforementioned strategies that industries pursue (Charles Koch even founded the Cato Institute, a leader of global warming skepticism and has spent nearly $4 million in lobbying this year alone).

Although Koch has traditionally given mostly to Republicans, E&E notes that it is giving increasingly to Democrats. In 2009, Koch gave about 28 percent of its contributions to Democrats, compared to about 15 percent last year:

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT): $5,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR): $10,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR): $2,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]

Rep. Marion Berry (D-AR): $2,500 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK): $3,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Allen Boyd (D-FL): $6,500 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX): $3,500 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-TX): $4,500 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Gene Green (D-TX): $3,500 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA): $2,500 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-TX): $1,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN): $6,500 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR): $2,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. David Scott (D-GA): $1,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Henry Teague (D-NM): $1,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]

In accepting dirty energy Koch money, these lawmakers are legitimizing the financiers of the anti-Obama tea party effort.