Friday, November 23, 2012

The Appeal Democrat's Silly Conspiracy Theories


A beautiful day here in Northern California. Joni and I took the time to take a walk in the sunshine.

Reading the local editorials this morning, looking for the awful and the unusual, I ran across an editorial from the Appeal Democrat in Marysville that is titled: "Team Obama and secret e-mails". The just of the editorial is that Obama is hiding secret conversations to do such dastardly things as impose cap and trade or a tax on carbon. It also beats the Benghazi drum, that we could learn a whole lot about what happened in Benghazi if we read the secret e-mails of the Obama Administration.

Of course, they won't ask for the secret e-mails of Hilary Clinton's masterful negotiations of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.

The Appeal Democrat quotes a right wing think tank: the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which is leading a lawsuit to gather incriminating e-mails from several key cabinet officials, including Tim Geithner and Lisa Jackson (the head of the EPA). Somehow they think that Tim Geithner, the snot-nosed suck up to Wall Street, is leading a behind the scenes conspiracy to tax carbon. Huh?

The CEI's biggest claim to fame was trying to stop anti-smoking regulations back in the 80's and 90's by stating that the science behind secondhand smoke wasn't settled. Sound familiar? Well, they are also doing it again, looking to prevent the EPA from stating that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. The CEI's funding has come from all the usual sources: the Koch Brothers, Exxon and other major corporations. The CEI did  have to reduce some of their programs when part of their enterprise dashed off to become part of the climate denying Heartland Institute.

Right Wingers are always hoping to score big by reading private e-mails. And I bet General Petraeous wishes he had used a bit more discretion with his e-mail accounts. E-mails have become the new Watergate recording system. Witness the Climategate controversy over stolen e-mails from climate change researchers. Look through enough e-mails and you will find something compromising. Would you want other folks to be digging through your private e-mail accounts?

All of this is to establish some sort of secret Agenda 21ish type of  conspiracy on the part of the Obama Administration. I only wish that this was the case. As it is, we are going to have to push real hard to see any sort of legislation of decreasing the use of carbon. Obama has said as much that economic growth is more important than cutting carbon. Gone is the talk about all the jobs gained from a Green Economy. Nope. The Appeal Democrat is seeing a bogeyman where none exists at the current time. I mean, Tim Geithner conspiring to limit carbon? Are you kidding me?


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