Dakota Beacon

While the nation’s press and talk show hosts are having a field day devouring news of tabloid celebrities like Anthony Weiner and covering the bus tour of Sarah Palin, another – and far more important – story goes on which will wreak havoc on the American economy:  

”The new EPA pollution regulations will slam the coal industry so hard that hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost and electric rates will skyrocket 11 percent to over 23 percent, according to a new study based on government data.” (Paul Bedard, US News, 06-08-2011)

Every dollar the EPA costs our utilities will be passed directly to consumers.  When you take this into consideration, with the leap in gasoline prices, which we can expect will begin to rise from $4/gallon to who knows where, and compute what this means to the cost of living – raising of food crops and livestock, processing and transportation, the cost of clothing which is subject to the same cost-of-production factors, it is easy to see how the EPA can bring our economy to its knees.  These government regulations are like the boulder that chased Indiana Jones through the cave.

Who will be able, given these inescapable increases, to spend “discretionary” income?  Who will have this?  Surely, the family that will be paying ever greater bills for simply maintaining its existence, heating its home, putting food on the table, using the automobile to get to work, will not be buying new furniture or dining out.  First to go will be the dispensable pleasures – entertainment, travel.  Now we see how profoundly destructive this federal over-regulation becomes as manufacturing and industry scale back accordingly, and satellite businesses – transportation, retail, services - lose ground and they, in turn, scale back – unemployment.

This is not a recipe for the recovery we must have if America is not to lose her sovereignty through insolvency.  Right now we have only ourselves to borrow from; we can only print worthless currency.  We cannot exist as a nation in this plight.  We have become “isolationist” not through military or diplomatic policy, but through default.  We can’t support a position in the world community.  America can no longer lead because we have lost our economic viability.  America can’t afford Barack Obama nor the programs he and his adherents support.

Against this somber backdrop, we survey the range of presidential hopefuls who expect to challenge him.  The impetus for the EPA regulations grows from the environmentalist panic instigated by cynical, self-serving politicians and their dupes.  Without the “green” movement the EPA might never have been born or if it had, would have been confined to cleanup of oil or chemical spills or monitoring our interstate lakes and streams.  Instead, thanks to champions like Al Gore, we have them investigating and regulating every enterprise that rears its head and all but shutting down our coal industry.  Thus every one of these dupes or villains bears responsibility for the situation in which we find ourselves today.  Who are these people?

We have plenty of them on the Left, but they don’t need our attention.  Their team is headed by Barack Obama.  What must concern us is who should be leading the opposition.  Here is where talk show conservatives need to stop mindless wallowing in tabloid stories about wayward congressmen and focus on the real threat: a leaderless Republican Party.  No conservative should be willing to entertain the candidacy of those who have ever been a part of the environmentalist movement or “global warming/climate change” lobby.   

Mitt Romney:  He has signed on to the “global warming” team.  Why?  The most damning, and most plausible, reason is blatant cynicism.  He might have chosen this method of winning primaries.  By enticing Democrats to vote in Republican primaries (always a factor when a Democrat is a one-term incumbent), he offers them a position not substantially different from their own.  Why would a Democrat not vote this way?  By doing so he accomplishes three things – he 1) helps to offset and neutralize the Tea Party influence in the Republican primary; 2) if by chance Obama is turned out of office, the person challenging him will not change policy and 3) such a candidate will not bring conservatives into Congress on his coattails.  Absent this theory, it is difficult to see why Romney would have come on board the “global warming” cruise.

Newt Gingrich:  No need to expatiate.  Gingrich has been a solid “global warming” team player all along, to the extent that he mugged with Nancy Pelosi for public service messages.  Clearly he is a true believer.  Nothing new.

Chris Christie:  It is difficult to imagine where this man’s support among conservatives derives.  Aside from burnishing a “tough on spending” image he has many, many liabilities which should be red flags to any conservative or libertarian, including the label of “gun grabber” second to none.  With regard to the EPA, however, he, too, is a member of the “global warming” team.  Which negates any meaningful “budget cutting”. 

Tim Pawlenty:  Here’s a fellow with an eye for the political expediency of the day.  A former cap and trade advocate, he has repudiated that position because the wind seems to be blowing in another direction.  This rootlessness begs the question, what will he do next?  What will happen if he is faced with an implacable bureaucracy, an errant congress or a determined, energetic lobby and the liberal press?  Will his adherence to a conservative stand survive after he no longer needs the conservative vote? 

This is not a comprehensive list, of course, but some of the major players.  The ravages of the EPA pogrom against the American economy could not survive without the “global warming” team.  Remember that.  Knowing this, it is incumbent upon conservatives, especially those with a microphone or ink, that they denounce “global warming” candidates.  It should not be hard to do.  Science does not support them.  They’ve been exposed as fraud.  Conservatives need to reject them.  Instead, we have Mark Levin, who, criticizing Romney and asking listeners to support someone else, ends his segment with a white flag - the defeatist determination that if Romney is the candidate he will have to (reluctantly) support him!  What?  Did Levin not excoriate Republicans in the House for not playing the government shutdown card and calling the bluff of spendaholic Democrats?  Should they show more grit than he?  The correct view is to say to Republicans and  rest of the world:  If you do this we will not support you, we will support your defeat.  In the case of Romney, look at the chessboard.  He has pandered to the environmentalist movement.  Should this help him win the primaries through support of liberals/Democrats, he risked nothing. He will always have the “crawl back” Republicans. 

Others, too, are guilty.  Ann Coulter supports Chris Christie.  Rush Limbaugh has not condemned these “green movement” Republicans.  He has not said that they are “unacceptable”.  They are unacceptable.  We cannot accept them because they will accelerate our nation’s demise.  They are part of the problem.  Anyone who supports them, however reluctantly, is also a part of the problem.  The Republican elites need to hear it from conservatives:  if the nominee supports the “green” agenda, it will tear the party apart.  That conservatives will not come back.  Only in this way can the Republican Party - and America – be saved.
 
 - Sally Morris is a member of Americans for Constitutional Government and the Executive Committee of the Valley Tea Party Conservative Coalition.