According to Senators James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) and Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) prices at the pump could rise dramatically –perhaps as much as $5 a gallon– if the proposed “Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act” (S. 2191) becomes the land of the land, the Business & Media Institute reports. From that report:

“The studies show it would be directly affected, would be a $1.50 a gallon, in addition to what it is today,” Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said to (BMI).

Inhofe spoke at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on May 15 to introduce the “We Get It!” campaign - a program founded by evangelical Christians that question the merits of global warming alarmism. According to Inhofe, the bill will make it to the floor of the Senate on June 2.

“So now I think we need to concentrate on what it will cost the American people,” he said during the press conference. “To try to put it in a perspective people understand, if we had ratified, according to the Wharton School of Economics, the Kyoto Treaty, back five years ago, it would have cost about - between $300 and $330 billion - that was the range they had. This bill that’s up today is $471 billion - far more than that. And the question is, what do you get for it?”

Sessions, a member of the Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, went a step further. He cited sources that suggest the increase could be as much as $5 a gallon.

“[L]et me tell you what’s heading down the tracks,” Sessions said to BMI on May 14. “In a few weeks, we expect that the cap-and-trade legislation that’s been voted out of Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-Calif.) Environment and Public Works Committee will be on the floor and according to the Environmental Protection Agency it will increase gas prices by $1.50. The National Association of Manufacturers [links to PDF] says it will increase it as much as $5 per gallon.”

Inhofe said the full Senate will begin considering the bill on June 2.

(Note: Capital Research Center does not take positions on bills pending in Congress.)

Polar Bear Decision” is the title of a Heritage press release highlighting a strongly-worded statement issued by Heritage President Edwin Feulner:

“Today’s decision seems aimed at endangering another endeavor: New oil and natural gas production in Alaska and in its surrounding waters. By placing the polar bear on the endangered species list, the Bush Administration has made it extremely difficult - perhaps impossible - to open up even a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), an area estimated to contain 10 billion barrels of oil, no matter what administrative window dressings were put in place. That’s enough to replace what we’ll import from Saudi Arabia over the next 15 years….The listing of the polar bear as threatened is nothing more than a backdoor attempt to limit our country’s energy exploration and use. The Bush Administration should immediately reconsider and overturn today’s decision.”

The Phillips Foundation today announced that Cheryl K. Chumley has won one of its prestigious journalism fellowships. Specifically, Chumley, a staff writer at Potomac News, was awarded a $25,000 part-time fellowship to focus on a project called “National Heritage Areas: A Blot against Property Rights or a Boon for the Nation?”

Chumley has written two articles for Capital Research Center that garnered much attention. The first was on the newfound importance of the powerful fringe-left Congressional Progressive Caucus in light of the Democratic takeover of Congress, and the second discussed (among other things) the death-grip that the Piedmont Environmental Council holds over planning policy in Fauquier County, Virginia.

The award was presented at an awards dinner at the National Press Club here in Washington last night.

The other fellowship winners were David Donadio, Travis Kavulla, Emily Krone, Lygia Navarro, Matthew Continetti, J. Peter Freire, and Jonathan Last.

The Phillips Foundation, established in 1990, created its journalism fellowship program to advance the cause of objective journalism. The foundation ”has awarded 76 fellowships since 1994 for journalism projects supportive of American culture and a free society. The fellowship program is open to print and online journalists with less than 10 years of professional experience,” according to a foundation press release.

As previously blogged about here, Al Gore, who relentlessly promotes the economy-killing cap-and-trade system of controlling greenhouse gasses, does indeed have a financial stake in global warming alarmism, no matter how much he denies it. CNSNews.com’s Fred Lucas reported this fact today in an article called “Gore Financially Invested in Climate Cause.” The eminent financial analyst Bert Ely noted correctly therein that you might as well hit the craps table as make a bet on the ’green’ investments Gore is advocating:

…Bert Ely, a financial analyst with Ely & Associates of Alexandria, Va., is skeptical that the kind of green investment portfolio Gore is advocating can be profitable without government action. History has shown green companies to be risky ventures, he says

“Wind power, solar and bio-fuels all operate on tax subsidies or purchase requirements,” Ely told Cybercast News Service. “The government stimulates demand. The most notorious subsidy is the 51 cent gas credit for ethanol.”

“To the extent that you got some kind of government mandate here, whether it is cap-and-trade or a purchasing requirement, a taxpayer subsidy, to me that’s a dicey way to look for a return on a venture because what the government giveth it can taketh away — and often does,” Ely said. “You’re making a political bet, not an economic bet.”

Your humble narrator was on “The G. Gordon Liddy Show” today talking about liberal philanthropist George Soros’s odd economic theory called “reflexivity.” You can listen to the show here, but bear in mind my segment only begins at roughly the 46-minute mark. The talk was prompted by an article called “Soros sees ‘reflexivity’ theory of economics as life’s work,” that ran in the May 12 USA Today. An excerpt from the article:

WASHINGTON - For most people, being known as a fabulously wealthy investor, prominent global philanthropist and outspoken critic of the current occupant of the White House would constitute sufficient acclaim.

But George Soros, now in his eighth decade and enjoying a personal fortune estimated at $9 billion, yearns to be seen as something other than a financial oracle or Democratic Party sugar daddy. The Hungarian émigré, who built a worldwide reputation by out-thinking markets, desperately wants to be acknowledged as a philosopher.

His bid for such recognition - in a new book published last week - lies in a theory called “reflexivity,” which Soros argues should supplant conventional economic thought that’s based on coolly calculating rational actors. Soros, 77, who first read philosophy as a teenager during World War II, has promoted the concept for more than 20 years with little success.

But hailing reflexivity as his “life’s work,” Soros now says the current financial crisis offers an opportunity for him to garner wider acceptance. “I’m actually hopeful this time I’ll break through,” he says.

It’ll be an uphill fight. Critics of reflexivity, especially among the economists Soros disparages, have been brutal. A reviewer of one of his earlier books savaged his “windy amateur philosophy” and attacked him for being unfamiliar with basic economics……

Prediction: the fight will continue to be uphill.
       

More proof that Venezuela’s leftist strongman Hugo Chavez is aiding communist insurgents attempting to overthrow the democratically elected government of Colombia (from today’s Wall Street Journal):

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — A cache of controversial computer files closely tying Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez to communist rebels seeking to topple Colombia’s government appear to be authentic, U.S. intelligence officials say.

The trove — found on a dead guerrilla leader’s laptops during a military raid in March — is likely to ratchet up pressure for the U.S. to impose sanctions on one of its most important oil suppliers.

The files that have been made public so far have largely confirmed Mr. Chávez’s well-known sympathy for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. But a review by The Wall Street Journal of more than 100 new files from the computers suggests that Venezuela has broader and deeper ties to the FARC than previously known.

These documents indicate Venezuela appears to be making concrete offers to help arm the rebels, possibly with rocket-propelled grenades and ground-to-air missiles. The files suggest that Venezuela offered the FARC the use of one of its ports to receive arms shipments, and that Venezuela raised the prospect of drawing up a joint security plan with the FARC and sought basic training in guerrilla-warfare techniques.

“There is complete agreement in the intelligence community that these documents are what they purport to be,” a senior U.S. official said. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has been sharing its assessments with the White House, this official said.

Washington’s stance is likely to hurt Venezuela’s already deeply strained relationship with the U.S., its biggest trade partner. It could also add pressure for the U.S. to declare Venezuela a state sponsor of terrorism, alongside Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria, and impose sanctions……

Tune in this Tuesday afternoon to hear, May 6th, to CRC’s Internet radio program “Organization Watch,” which airs live from 3:05 to 4:00 p.m. Eastern time on http://www.rightalk.com/  Our guest is Brandon Millett, who will discuss his organization The G.I Film Festival. He will discuss with us his group’s upcoming Film Festival honoring America’s brave men and women in uniform being hosted at the Carnegie Institution at 1530 P Street, N.W. in Washington, DC from May 14^th- May 18^th.   in Washington, DC form May 14^th- May 18^th.  Brandon may even have a surprise guest or two joining him for today’s show. For ticketing information for the G.I Film Festival please click here.

After our live radio program ends at 4:00 p.m., it will be repeated at 5 minutes past the hour for the following 23 hours. Or download it from the http://www.capitalresearch.org/podcast/ section on our website.

As Capital Research Center’s GreenWatch project director, I was quoted in a New York Post article May 4 by Isabel Vincent, about the Rainforest Foundation, singer Sting’s extravagant, wasteful charity.

To clarify a bit I was discussing the groups extremely low fair market valuation of the concert tickets, raises suspitions upon the group, not the donors to the group, as the article implies. Donors do not have control or responsiblity of assessing and creating this “fair market valuation,” the charity however does.

Is this Hawaii’s future?

A real-life secessionist movement seizes a historic American landmark and major media outlets treat the uprising as a curiosity of mere passing interest. Meanwhile, that same media gives a thumbs-up to a seditious, balkanizing plan for Aloha State apartheid.

AP’s Mark Niesse reported yesterday, “Native Hawaiian sovereignty advocates” who are members of the group known as the Hawaiian Kingdom Government occupied the grounds of the palace of Hawaii’s final monarch, Queen Lili`uokalani. “Hawaiian activists have long used the palace as the site for protests of what they call the United States’ occupation of the islands, but never before had they physically taken control,” wrote Niesse.

Pacific Business News reported that the “protesters” surrounded the Iolani Palace in Honolulu, chained palace gates, posted no-trespassing signs, and told “palace officials that the palace is their rightful seat of government.” The PBN story noted that “Only those with Hawaiian blood, as well as news media, were initially allowed onto palace grounds.”

The Honolulu Advertiser reported that the “sovereignty group” claimed its actions were “not a protest or demonstration but a reoccupying of its legitimate seat of government.” CNN called the occupiers simply a “group of native Hawaiians.”

Are members of groups like the Hawaiian Kingdom Government serious insurgents or fringe-element kooks who are best ignored? Only time will tell, but one thing is for certain: a Hawaiian segregation bill will only make things worse, guaranteeing more such occupations and perhaps future violence.

Many mainstream media outlets have treated the pro-segregation, pro-secession bill, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), that would create a new government for “Native Hawaiians” in Hawaii, as just another bill. A sunny piece called “Freshman senators hold key to Native Hawaiian bill’s hopes,” appearing in The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper focused on Congress, noted cheerfully that “the bill has a fighting chance.”

Both Honolulu papers, the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin have editorialized in favor it.

Der Stürmer The New York Times salivated over the bill (which Akaka keeps reintroducing with each new Congress). In an editorial called “A Chance for Justice in Hawaii,” the NYT says fears about the bill are all hype:

The bill’s central aim is protecting money and resources - inoculating programs for Native Hawaiians from race-based legal challenges. It is based on the entirely defensible conviction that Native Hawaiians - who make up 20 percent of the state’s population but are disproportionately poor, sick, homeless and incarcerated - have a distinct identity and deserve the same rights as tribal governments on the mainland.

The Akaka bill does not supersede the Constitution or permit Zimbabwe-style land grabs. It explicitly forbids casinos, a touchy subject in Hawaii. Any changes a Hawaiian government seeks would have to be negotiated with state or federal authorities. As has always been the case on those eight little islands, everyone will have to find a way to get along.

Of course, to find out what’s really in the bill it’s necessary to read George Will. Will scathingly criticized the legislation and pointed out that Akaka doesn’t even deny the bill could set the stage for Hawaii to exit the Union. Will wrote:

Today, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, when accurately described, is opposed by a large majority of Hawaiians and supported by only a bare majority of the approximately 240,000 Native Hawaiians in the state. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Akaka, is a genuflection by “progressives,” mostly Democrats, to “diversity” and “multiculturalism.”

It would foment racial disharmony by creating a permanent caste entitled to its own government — the Native Hawaiian Governing Entity — within the United States. The NHGE presumably would be exempt, as Indian tribes are, from the Constitution’s First, Fifth and 14th amendments. It would, Akaka says, negotiate with the state of Hawaii and the United States concerning “lands, natural resources, assets, criminal and civil jurisdiction, and historical grievances.”

Reparations? We shall see. Independence — secession? “That could be,” Akaka, 83, has said, depending on “my grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”

Predictably, Akaka himself denounced Will for writing the op-ed, calling the factually accurate column “disgusting.” Will had noted in the column that the racial purity panel the bill creates will determine who is a Native Hawaiian and therefore eligible to receive any entitlements or programs created by the new office.

My guess is Will got Akaka’s goat when at the top of the op-ed he inserted this entirely appropriate quotation that associates the bill with Nazism:

“I decide who is a Jew around here.” — Hermann Goering in 1934, when told that a favorite Munich art dealer was Jewish.

But I digress.

Just about anybody who’s anybody in the Hawaiian establishment supports this bill, including Hawaii’s Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, who has visited Washington, D.C., repeatedly to lobby federal lawmakers. The Republican In Name Only (RINO) governor has been pushing for the legislation for years.

Passed in the fall of 2007 by the U.S. House of Representatives, the proposed Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2007 (a companion bill to Akaka’s legislation), introduced by U.S. Representative Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), could be taken up by the Senate as soon as this month. According to http://www.nativehawaiians.com/, the measure is endorsed by: the Mexican American Legal Defense Education Fund (MALDEF); the National Council of La Raza; the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC); and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Congressional horse-trading has allowed Akaka-Abercrombie supporters to win the support of several Republican lawmakers. Four of the Senate bill’s nine cosponsors are Republicans: Norm Coleman (Minnesota), Gordon Smith (Oregon), and both Alaska senators, Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski. Among the House bill’s seven cosponsors are two Republicans: Tom Cole (Oklahoma), and Don Young (Alaska).

Senator John Kyl (R-Arizona) is the Senate’s foremost opponent of the legislation. He calls it a “recipe for permanent racial conflict … motivated by a desire to immunize government preferences for Native Hawaiians from constitutional scrutiny.” Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) said the legislation “is about sovereignty. It is about race. We are taking a step toward being a United Nations and not the United States.”

Contrary to an article in The Nation, the GOP presumptive presidential candidate, Senator John McCain of Arizona, does not support the bill (though in 2005 he did send out confusing signals about it). Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Honolulu-born Barack Obama both support it.

It should also surprise no one that Hawaii’s Kamehameha Schools, arguably the most powerful private entity in Hawaii, wants to safeguard its privileges and racially discriminatory admissions policy by supporting the measure the Akaka bill.

For more on the Akaka bill, the racial separatism of the Kamehameha Schools, and accusations of abuse of power that surround the Schools, read “Racial Separatism in the Aloha State: The Bishop Estate Trust and Hawaii’s Kamehameha Schools,” by Phil Brand, James Dellinger, and Karl Crow, which Capital Research Center (my employer) just published.

(crossposted at NewsBusters)

Rev. Jeremiah Wright 

Now this doesn’t happen every day…

A university has withdrawn the offer of an honorary doctorate to a member-in-good-standing of America’s multi-culti America-hating left-wing elite. Northwestern University has backed out of giving the one-man Obama campaign wrecking crew known as Rev. Jeremiah Wright this high honor after Barack Obama’s spiritual mentor made a fool of himself April 28. In case you’ve been on Mars the last few days, Wright gave a widely publicized speech at the National Press Club here in DC on Monday in which he –among other things– spewed anti-American hatred, accusing the U.S. government of committing genocide and inventing HIV.