The Sierra Club says it agrees with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson who recently said the environmentalist movement is overly Caucasian.

President Obama’s new “green jobs” czar Van Jones, an avowed militant communist, had been on the board of the pressure group Apollo Alliance, which aspires to flatten the U.S. economy by having government fund “green jobs” scams, according to the “Glenn Beck Program” earlier this week.

Even worse, the green gangster group, which has ties to ACORN, SEIU, and Center for American Progress president John Podesta, has significant pull in Congress and helped to write the stimulus bill.

The Apollo Alliance “is designed to bring together the elements of organized labor with the community organizers with the green groups, the environmental groups, and to access all of the big foundation money that’s been supportive of those causes in the past,” explained Phil Kerpen, director of policy for Americans for Prosperity.

Jones described the group’s “mission as sort of a grand unified field theory for progressive left causes; it ties all these things together,” Kerpen said. He added

They really admire the Apollo mission, the moon-shot mission, and they think that we need a similar centrally-planned, organized massive mobilization to reorder society and take control of energy and their various other objectives. They admire that and they want it like a moon shot.

Beck asked if Wade Rathke, the disgraced founder of ACORN who was expelled by the radical left-wing group last year for covering up his brother’s embezzlement of nearly $1 million in ACORN funds, had been a member of the Apollo Alliance’s board.

Kerpen responded, “Yes. He’s on — he was until this year on the board of the Tides Foundation and the Tides Center, which are the parent organizations that host the Apollo Alliance.”

Democratic leaders dumped a ton of cash on Democratic backbenchers in the days leading up to the critical cap-and-trade vote that would effectively impose a massive energy tax on Americans, the Politico reports:

Three House Democratic leaders who were whipping members on the climate change bill gave tens of thousands in campaign cash to party moderates around the time of the 219-212 vote on June 26, according to Federal Election Commission records.

It’s impossible to tell if that torrent of cash was an attempt to schmear wavering Democrats — or just part of the usual cash dump made by leaders on the eve of the June 30 quarterly fundraising deadline.

Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) doled out $28,000 to reps who eventually voted yes on June 24, two days before the big vote — on a day when House leaders were doing some heavy-duty arm-twisting.

Clyburn recipients who voted for the bill included a who’s-who of battleground district Dems: Steve Driehaus, D-OH ($2,000); Martin Heinrich, D-NM ($2,000); Suzanne Kosmas, D-Fla. ($4,000); Betsy Markey, D-Colo. ($2,000); Carol Shea-Porter, D-NH ($2,000), Baron Hill, D-Ind. ($2,000); Alan Grayson, D-Fla. ($2,000); Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa ($2,000); Jim Himes, D-Conn. ($2,000);  Mary Jo Kilroy, D-OH ($2,000); Kurt Schrader, D-Ore. ($2,000); Jerry McNerney, D-Calif. ($2,000) and Tom Perriello, D-Va. ($2,000). [...]

Democrats respond by saying the Republicans did the same. The Politico article notes that Democratic leaders also gave money to lawmakers who voted against the bill.

Yes, President Obama’s green jobs “czar” Van Jones is an admitted “rowdy black nationalist,” and a “communist.”

Wow.

(Hat tip: Sam Theodosopoulos at NewsBusters)

Al Gore shill Joseph Romm of John Podesta’s Center for American Progress tries to distance himself from NASA’s reigning climate kook, James Hansen, in a revealing Huffington Post op-ed.

Too late.

Billionaire T. Boone Pickens, who has supported many worthy free-market causes in his life, explained on the “Glenn Beck Program” Tuesday his curious support for the Democrats’ totalitarian cap-and-trade legislation.

“We haven’t had the leadership in Washington in 40 years to have an energy plan,” Pickens complained to substitute host (retired) Judge Andrew Napolitano. Pickens has spent millions of dollars to date promoting the “Pickens Plan” that is aimed at reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

Pickens hailed the bill, sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), as “the most encompassing ” energy legislation ever. The legislation, which is also backed by global warming alarmist Al Gore who compares the struggle against climate change to the war against the Nazis, would kill jobs and regulate every aspect of Americans’ behavior.

Pickens said that cap-and-trade “isn’t my issue” but that the measure has “some good things in it” such as its treatment of wind energy, solar energy, and provisions for electric grid modernization.

Those “good things” are government subsidies for T. Boone Pickens.

“Pickens wants to hard-wire the market to consume the things he’s investing in and have the government lavish him with subsidies in the course of doing so,” according to Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute.

Somehow I missed this in March.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a longtime admirer of community organizing guru Saul Alinsky, visited the European Parliament in Brussels on March 6, 2009. She told the assembled Eurocrats:

I’m actually excited by this opportunity. I’m very well aware that we are not yet through this economic crisis but the chief of staff for President Obama is an old friend of mine and my husband’s and was in the White House when Bill was there. And he said, you know, never waste a good crisis, and when it comes to the economic crisis don’t waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security. And that’s what we’re trying to do.

This makes it even more clear that the Obama administration’s highest priority is the radical transformation of American society. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s statement after Election Day (“Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things.”) wasn’t just an offhanded remark. 

The economic crisis is simply an excuse to transmogrify American into a sclerotic European-style socialist state. The economically suicidal cap-and-trade legislation, which would have the effect of a huge national energy tax, is a primary vehicle to impose the left’s vision of “social justice” on America.

Who knew the Obama administration was being so blatant about it? They’re not even trying to hide it and the media, for the most part, isn’t even bothering to ask questions.

Here is a video of Secretary Clinton’s remarks in Brussels:

(Hat tip: Berit Kjos of Right Side News)

There’s a nasty hail storm over Washington, D.C. right now.

Could it be a sign from above that the cap and trade bill that just barely passed the House (219 to 212) is a terrible idea?

Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity suggests the fact that the vote was so close is significant given the Democrats’ overwhelming majority in the House:

While cap-and-trade passed the House, it’s a testament to the power of free market activists that it was a difficult, down-to-the-wire, tough fight. This bill, Speaker Pelosi’s top priority, was supposed to sail through. Instead it crawled through and barely made it past the finish line in the House—and it took all the efforts of the White House to do it when the bill stalled a couple of days ago.

The bipartisan opposition to this bill shows just how broadly it will negatively impact the country. While some members’ votes were won with backroom deals and special interest carve outs it is instructive to see that some commonsense Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with most Republicans, and they deserve our thanks. On the other hand, we are committed to holding the members of Congress who sided with Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi instead off hard-working taxpayers accountable.

Cap-and-trade is a massive new tax on American families and American businesses. It’s especially crazy to pass such a huge new tax burden at a time when many families already face economic hardship.

Fortunately, we have always believed the place to kill this bill is the U.S. Senate. We will do everything we can to educate the public about the danger that this legislation poses for their family budgets and their economic freedom to help the voices of millions of grassroots activists be heard on this issue.

If the American people understand what this bill does, it will die in the Senate.

The economy-destroying cap-and-trade bill, which would impose a massive, regressive energy tax on Americans, is going to be voted on by the House of Representatives soon.

Visions of dollar signs are dancing in the heads of Al Gore, Goldman Sachs, and General Electric right now as they prepare to enrich themselves at the expense of the public interest.

It is a travesty. It is insanity. It will kill countless American jobs and help the federal government run every aspect of Americans’ lives. Anyone who sells carbon permits (assuming those provisions are still in the bill) under it should be sued for fraud.

God help us if it passes.

Now the ACORN crime family is jumping on the global warming alarmism bandwagon, according to (the left-leaning) Worldwatch Institute.

The radical community group, which is now facing voter registration fraud charges in Nevada, has joined forces with Al Gore and other groups for the ultimate taxpayer shakedown: carbon emission controls.

From the Worldwatch article:

Brian Kettenring,  ACORN’s deputy director of national operations, said his group – the largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate- income people in the United States – was inspired to join the Climate Equity Alliance and work with groups such as the Sierra Club after seeing the vulnerability of cities such as New Orleans to rising sea levels and more intense climatic events. The group, which lobbies for affordable housing and improved education in urban areas, is also encouraged by the hope of “green jobs,” environmentally sustainable employment opportunities.

“ACORN families understand that building a green economy that’s sustainable and builds jobs for working families is good for them, good for the environment, and good for communities,” Kettenring said.

ACORN’s contribution will include direct lobbying of Congress. In the long term, Kettenring expects more ACORN chapters to become involved in green jobs initiatives, such as efforts to collect federal funding for weatherizing urban buildings. [...]

Maybe the corrupt ACORN network needs more money to pay its back taxes and mounting legal bills.

The Virginian-Pilot reports that the third annual International Conference on Climate Change came and went here in Washington, DC, with nary a mention by Big Media.

Not surprising.

The Heartland Institute took the lead in organizing the event at which the report, Climate Change Reconsidered:The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, by Drs. S. Fred Singer and Craig Idso et al., was released.

I was on the Fox Business Network’s show “Happy Hour,” on June 2. The three co-hosts interviewed me about Michael Moore’s strange ideas about what to do with empty General Motors factories. Moore wrote on his blog that he wants to use the factories to build bullet train-related equipment and windmills.

Here is the video:

Capital Research Center’s Matthew Vadum will be on Fox Business today at about 5:40 p.m. Eastern time to discuss his thoughts on General Motors and Michael Moore’s awful ideas about what to do with GM’s idle factories.

Updated: The show, called “Happy Hour,” will replay at 11:00 Eastern tonight on Fox Business. Vadum’s segment starts some time after 11:40. If you don’t have cable, you can watch the show live online via BlinkoTV.

Fascism, or more precisely, Mussolini-style corporatism, continues to advance in America with nary an objection.

The planned government takeover of General Motors, which filed for bankruptcy protection today, is just the latest part of the corporatist assault on American values. Even left-wing careerist Ralph Nader denounced the bankruptcy petition, calling it “an avoidable, crude weapon of mass devastation for workers, dealers, auto suppliers, small businesses and their depleted communities. For GM’s voiceless owners — the common shareholders — it is a wipeout. ”

The Obama administration is handing over a big chunk of GM to its political allies, the United Autoworkers of America, thus giving the workers ownership of the means of production, the textbook definition of socialism. Supposedly to protect the public interest, the rule of law was set aside as the repayment priority of bondholders was taken away in order to help Big Labor.

Of course, this is no way to run a company. Subjecting it to political control guarantees it will fail again and again and need more government bailouts in perpetuity.

GM will continue faltering, producing expensive politically correct environmentalist cars that will crumple like tissue paper in a crash and that nobody will want to buy.

It would be far better to simply allow GM to die rather than continue as the Fascist abomination it is in the process of becoming.

Meanwhile, left-wing nutter Michael Moore is bursting with dumb ideas about what to do next.

One is to “have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years.” He says they’re a success in Japan but leaves out the fact that Japan is tiny (374,744 square kilometers) compared to the U.S. ( 9,161,923 square kilometers) which is half the size of Russia, and that bullet train systems are prohibitively expensive.

Moore also wants the government to “[i]nitiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.” Great. More white elephant mass transit that Americans hate and won’t use. Think of Amtrak multiplied say a hundred times.

Some of the other ideas to spout from Moore’s head include producing expensive “or all-electric cars (and batteries),” using empty GM factories to make “windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy,” and imposing “a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline.”

While the powers that be may not be listening to Moore specifically, they are definitely listening to special interests that support the same kinds of boondoggles he wants to force down Americans’ throats.

Danish enviro-skeptic Bjorn Lomborg had an excellent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.

He’s right to say that much of corporate America is pushing for draconian carbon emission controls because visions of dollar signs are dancing in their heads. They are more than happy to eat U.S. tax dollars in order to supposedly save the planet.

I would go farther than that. I would say that they are recklessly indifferent to whether the new energy taxes they support –whether they be direct (carbon taxes) or hidden (cap and trade)– will harm America.

We’ve been following the destructive lobbying of U.S. big businesses on this issue for some time.

Timothy P. Carney profiled the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) for us in the June 2008 edition of Organization Trends. Fred Lucas detailed the efforts by Al Gore to feed the global warming hysteria in the August 2008 Foundation Watch and also looked at the efforts by Goldman Sachs to cash in on that hysteria in the October Foundation Watch. In the August 2007 Foundation Watch Deborah Corey Barnes spotlighted Al Gore’s environmental scaremongering business.

Was this photo taken at Shining Path headquarters? (just kidding) Disgraced ACORN founder Wade Rathke (left) and ACORN enabler Drummond Pike (right) in an undated photo taken in Peru. On the wall is a large poster of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. (photo: Pike’s blog)

* * * * *

John Podesta’s left-wing Center for American Progress Action Fund has invited many liberal and radical groups to a meeting Thursday morning to discuss how to use rhetorical misdirection to take the focus off ACORN’s increasingly well publicized corruption. One of the groups, Alliance for Justice, is advertising the crisis management meeting called “Reframing the Attack on Voter Registration” on its website.

The intrepid investigative journalist Kevin Mooney of the Washington Examiner reports

Nearly a dozen left-wing advocacy groups are meeting Thursday at the Center for American Progress (CAP)  to discuss how to respond to a growing barrage of damaging news reports and editorial criticism of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform (NOW). [sic]

The strategy meeting at the liberal think tank is being described as a “briefing and discussion” on how to respond to the negative coverage. ACORN is currently under investigation for voter registration fraud and related allegations in at least 14 states.

Among the organizations expected to attend the strategy session are: Advancement Project, Alliance for Justice, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Center for Community Change, Common Cause, Fair Elections Legal Network, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and People for the American Way.

Bertha Lewis, billed as “ACORN’s new chief organizer and CEO,” is a featured speaker. [...]

Lewis is the ACORN executive who lied to Lou Dobbs on CNN last month. Lewis can’t stand controversial Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and she said he claimed to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan. As Newsmax reported:

What Arpaio actually said was that whenever he tried to enforce U.S. immigration laws, activists on the left accused him of being a racist, like a member of the Klu Klux Klan. He then went on to say he didn’t let the insults bother him.

Lewis refused to back down from her malicious lie, which is not surprising because when confronted, ACORN officials routinely lie, lie, and lie some more.

I suspect that ACORN and its allies will play the race card. Useful idiot Adam Serwer of the American Prospect summed up last fall what they’re likely to say in coming days:

The allegations against ACORN are part of a tangle of misinformation and insinuation that is being played out across the media, and within the Justice Department. ACORN, because of its advocacy on behalf of low-income and minority families, and its efforts to register voters in poor and minority districts, has become a focus for the right’s racial anxieties.

They’ll say conservatives and Republicans are sinister, racist scum who don’t want minorities to vote, and all the negative publicity is the result of a vast conspiracy that originated among scab health care workers on the planet Klendathu who all belong to country clubs that frown on same-sex marriage unless it’s solemnized by a non-union pastor who dines on endangered species and who enjoys maximizing his carbon footprint, yada yada yada, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

We’ve heard this fanciful narrative before but the difference is now a surprisingly large segment of the population is paying attention to ACORN’s illicit activities.

General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, a left-wing panderer who has presided over his company’s decline in recent years, says the economy-killing cap-and-trade system of trading emission permits is the best way to crack down on carbon emissions, Jeff Poor of NewsBusters writes.

And Immelt seems to be using his company’s media conglomerate NBC Universal, which owns media outlets NBC, MSNBC and CNBC, to promote GE’s financial interest in regulating carbon.

GE is also a major player in the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), which Timothy P. Carney profiled for Capital Research Center last year in the June 2008 Organization Trends. USCAP is also pushing for cap-and-trade.

So is Goldman Sachs , which along with Al Gore, will rake in incomprehensibly huge sums of money from carbon trading.

Looking up from their particular circle of Hell, Senator Reed Smoot (R-Utah) and Representative Willis C. Hawley (R-Oregon) must be laughing.

They must realize that President Obama and congressional Democrats are infinitely clever Alinsky students, saying one thing in front of the TV cameras and then doing the opposite behind the scenes. Together, the Obama administration and liberal lawmakers have in a sense revived by stealth the disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariff that exacerbated the Great Depression by encouraging other countries to erect trade barriers.

During the election campaign, after some policy fine-tuning and unexpected drama that took the campaign off-message, Obama begrudgingly conditionally endorsed free trade. Or so it seemed.

His statement came a few months after that bit of intrigue with economic advisor Austan Goolsbee, who now serves Obama in the White House. Goolsbee caused a furor on both sides of the 49th Parallel by telling the Canadian consul general in Chicago that Obama’s anti-free trade rhetoric was just the candidate playing up to his left-wing base. Goolsbee said Obama’s words were “more reflective of political maneuvering than policy,” Fortune reported.

Then, after blasting NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) as “devastating” and “a big mistake,” Obama backtracked. ”Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified,” he conceded to a Fortune reporter last summer. “Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don’t exempt myself,” he said.

Of course Obama also needed to genuflect before Big Labor and Big Green so he added the potentially critical proviso that he favors “opening up a dialogue” with trading partners Mexico and Canada ”and figuring out how we can make this work for all people.”

It was enough to get most of his trade policy critics to back off.

And it was all for show.

Now we learn, courtesy of the Washington Post no less, that buried deep in the must-pass-right-now-or-the-Apocalypse-will-come stimulus package from February there was a hidden trade bill. (The stimulus legislation also erased the Clinton era welfare reforms, but that’s another story.)

The stimulus package’s “buy American” provisions applying to funding recipients have been denounced even by the loathsome Toronto Star (known in Canadian conservative circles as the Red Star) as part of “a plague of protectionist measures in the U.S.”

Too bad, Toronto Star. Perhaps you shouldn’t have endorsed Obama. The November 2, 2008 editorial lauded Obama’s “fairer tax structure [that] helps working families and small business,” and his tax hikes in some areas ”to fund health care, education, infrastructure, green initiatives and the military.”

Meanwhile, protectionism has come to America, and only now have we begun to notice.

MoveOn.org wants its followers to help destroy the U.S. economy by asking them to pack an EPA hearing Monday on regulating carbon dioxide –the stuff that comes out of your lungs– as an alleged pollutant.

The latest email to members calls carbon dioxide “global warming pollution,” which is a bald-face lie:

Dear MoveOn member,

For the first time ever, the Environmental Protection Agency is considering a limit on global warming pollution.

On Monday in Arlington, the EPA will hold one of its only public hearings to weigh the support and opposition to this idea. Big oil and coal companies will be there in force to oppose it.

Can you be there to show the massive public support for climate action? Our friends at Sierra Club are holding a high-profile press conference outside the hearing.

Click here to RSVP:

[LINK REMOVED]

WHAT: Show your support for limits on global warming pollution
WHEN: Monday, May 18th, 12 noon
WHERE: Hyatt Regency Crystal City at National Airport (in the Potomac Room)
2799 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, Virginia 22202
Map: [LINK REMOVED] or free shuttle from Crystal City Metro Stop

We’re going to keep working to make sure Congress passes the strongest and boldest clean energy jobs plan possible, but EPA action will pressure Congress to pass the clean energy jobs bill quickly.

Under George W. Bush, the EPA decided not to limit global warming pollution. But now the EPA is considering a reversal of that decision. With powerful oil and coal companies fighting hard, this will only happen if we all show up.

Can you make it? Click here to RSVP:

[LINK REMOVED]

Thank you for all you do.

–Adam, Noah, Eli, Marika and the rest of the team

P.S. You can learn more about the EPA’s decision-making process from our friends at the Sierra Club:

[LINK REMOVED]

Want to support our work? We’re entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

Consumer advocate and frequent presidential candidate Ralph Nader said the Obama administration’s proposed cap-and-trade system, aimed at reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, won’t work.

“I mean, it’s not going to work,” the liberal Nader told the New York Times.

“It’s too complex. It’s too easily manipulated politically. Right now, they’re having a battle over whether they can even auction the credits off for money. The industry doesn’t want auctions for money. So, they’re already having a battle right from the takeoff.”

The New York Times reports that environmentalists inadvertently emailed a copy of a memo in which they argued their vocabulary needs a strategic overhaul:

The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is “global warming.”

The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.

Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”

EcoAmerica has been conducting research for the last several years to find new ways to frame environmental issues and so build public support for climate change legislation and other initiatives. A summary of the group’s latest findings and recommendations was accidentally sent by e-mail to a number of news organizations by someone who sat in this week on a briefing intended for government officials and environmental leaders. [...]

The Hill reports that the U.S. House of Representatives may not move forward with a vote on climate change legislation this year.

This will no doubt disappoint liberal funder George Soros who is investing in Powerspan, a company that makes coal-plant carbon dioxide capture technology. From the Business Insider report:

Powerspan says the technology should catch 90% of CO2 emissions, with the North Dakota plant resulting in 1 million tons of caputured CO2 annually. The captured CO2 will then be sold to companies that use it to extract oil from the ground.

With a bill that regulates carbon dioxide on its way from Congress, technology like this , if it works could prove to be very lucrative.

As my colleague Eric Heidenreich says, cap-and-trade is a tax.

Yes, one can’t say enough that it is a tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rep. John Dingell (D-Michigan) agrees. From the Americans for Prosperity website,

Remember what MoveOn said last week:

“If Republicans convince voters that clean energy legislation amounts to a new tax, Obama’s plan is toast.”

Looks like Republicans have some help from a heavy-weight Democrat, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Emeritus John Dingell (D-Mich.), who said today:

“Nobody, nobody in this country realizes that cap-and-trade is a tax and it’s a great big one. I want to get a bill that works. How do we choose the best course, cap-and-trade, carbon tax? At times, my dear friend, Albert, you have been an advocate of a carbon tax as the better way to go. How do we address this problem?” (U.S. House of Representatives Energy And Commerce Committee, Hearing, 4/24/09)

I’m shocked, shocked I tell you!  During a hearing on climate change and energy policy today, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) put the screws to former Vice President Al Gore, asking him about his involvement with companies who would benefit from cap and trade legislation.

Al Gore is, shall we say, not amused.

(h/t)

Visiting Iowa, President Barack Obama made a pitch for the economy-killing carbon tax that the enviro left wants to impose on America.

The president also talked up wind power and promoted the myth of “green jobs” that would magically be created by changing some federal policies.

Bill Croke at the American Spectator has a good article reminding us all that Earth Day just happens to be the birthday of the founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

Coincidence?

Croke writes

[...] I’m always reminded of this when yet another Earth Day approaches (always on April 22). Most people, especially school kids, participating in the annual green fetish don’t know that it only dates to 1970, the first one held on the centenary of Lenin’s birth (April 22, 1870). The Earth Day back-story is that the Lenin anniversary was purely coincidental, at least according to the occasion’s two founders, the late Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisc.) and environmental activist Denis Hayes. Fine, it’s a coincidence.

But if indeed there is even a subtle connection, I wonder how many of the millions worldwide participating in Earth Day festivities actually know who Lenin was? Do the ones who do have an inkling know that he was one of history’s great monsters, a cold-blooded nihilist whose minions and successors were responsible for the deaths of scores of millions, and the sufferings of many more? But Earth Day as a holy-day-of-obligation of the Left (like May Day) has its ironies even if you put aside lethal political expediencies. [...]

Green is, after all, the new red.

Inspiration for the new TV series?

* * * * *

The History Channel’s new series “Life After People,” which premieres tonight, could become a new rallying point for today’s environmentalists.

Set in a world after the human race has become extinct, it details how the things that people built will gradually turn to dust. From the History Channel’s website:

In every episode, viewers will witness the epic destruction of iconic structures and buildings, from the Sears Tower, Astrodome, and Chrysler Building to the Sistine Chapel – - allowing viewers to learn how they were built and why they were so significant. Big Ben will stop ticking within days; the International Space Station will plummet to earth within a few short years, while historic objects, like the Declaration of Independence and the mummified remains of King Tutankhamen will remain for decades.

The series will also explore the creatures that might take our place. With humans gone, animals will inherit the places where we once lived. Elephants that escape from the LA zoo will thrive in a region once dominated by their ancestors, the wooly mammoth. Alligators will move into sub-tropical cities like Houston feeding off household pets. Tens of thousands of hogs, domesticated for food, will flourish. In a world without people, new stories of predators, survival and evolution will emerge.

Humans won’t be around forever, and now we can see in detail, for the very first time, the world that will be left behind in Life After People: The Series.

There’s no reason the green movement shouldn’t embrace this death-affirming TV series.

Humans, after all, are a blight on the pristine beauty of the Earth, according to plenty of environmentalists.

Perhaps Al Gore or his spiritual mentor Theodore Kaczynski should have been brought on as technical consultants.

Earlier this month Michael Barone wrote a good, short blog post on how useless the so-called cap-and-trade system in Europe is.

An increasing number of people believe that the effects of global warming are being exaggerated, according to global warming expert Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  According to Murray, 44% of people now believe that claims made by alarmists like Al Gore about the dangers and effects of global warming are overstated.

Murray is optimistic that skepticism about man-made global warming is on the rise and that the debate surrounding the issue will continue to increase.  This means that global warming alarmists will be less and less able to strong-arm economically devestating policies into law all in the name of stopping global warming.

This is pretty good news, which is refreshing because there hasn’t been much lately.

Or is useful idiot a better term? Britain’s clown prince is pontificating about the environment again, warning that we have 100 months to save the planet.

As the so-called consensus on anthropogenic global warming continues to collapse, fantasist Al Gore is afraid to debate those who dare to question his theories, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Here’s a video clip from a conference at which he browbeat questioner Bjorn Lomborg:

Maybe Gore doesn’t want to discuss the millions and millions of dollars he stands to make if the job-killing carbon emissions controls he wants are imposed.

Two courageous Irish filmmakers, Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer, are promoting their documentary that examines Al Gore’s outrageous and increasingly desperate global warming propaganda.

The movie, Not Evil Just Wrong, is worth a look. Their website describes the film as: “A feature length documentary which shows how extreme environmentalism is damaging the lives of vulnerable people from the ban on DDT to the campaigns on Global Warming.”

As policymakers here in America ponder adopting a disastrous so-called cap-and-trade system that will do little but fatten the wallets of Goldman Sachs, Hot Air reports that carbon trading markets in the European Union are in freefall.

There’s something sweetly surreal about it: an artificial market in a non-commodity is collapsing. It serves them right.

More bad news for the economy: the Carter Obama administration plans to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, the New York Times reports.

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and it is not contributing to global warming (in fact, there hasn’t been any global warming since the 1990s) but that won’t stop the government from saying it is.

Dow Jones 3000, here we come!

Meanwhile, Australians have created a new political party devoted to fighting the idea that humans are warming the planet. The party is called Climate Sceptics.

MoveOn.org is determined to mobilize its supporters to push for every dumb plank of the statist enviro-left agenda. Its latest email alert to members argues that the economy needs to be transformed. Transformed into what? Into whatever whim pops into Al Gore’s head on any given day.

The group is taking a poll of its members as to how it should proceed and laying out a political strategy. Here is the text of the email:

Dear MoveOn member,

When FDR became president, a group of progressive activists asked him to push for some really big changes. His response? “I agree with you. I want to do it. Now make me do it.”

President Obama gets that we need to transform our economy. He’s passionate about creating millions of green jobs and investing billions in renewable energy. And he’s appointed great leaders like Energy Secretary Chu to help him.

But unless we create a massive green-economy movement across America, Obama won’t have the mandate he needs to overcome the oil companies and make fundamental change. As president, Obama’s extraordinary power comes from the people outside Washington. And that’s us.

So we’ve worked up a big plan to build a green-economy groundswell. It’ll mean tripling our field organizing team, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of MoveOn members to take local action, and running ads targeting powerful interests that stand in the way. It’ll be MoveOn’s biggest long-term campaign ever.

If President Obama is going to transform our economy, he needs all of us standing behind him giving him strength. Are you in?

Yes, let’s launch a massive green-energy organizing campaign. [LINK OMITTED]

No, we shouldn’t do that. [LINK OMITTED]

This will be our biggest long-term organizing program ever. We’ll build on the lessons of the Obama campaign and our own work over the years to create a new approach to organizing—empowering MoveOn members to run powerful campaigns in their own communities. We’ll combine traditional community organizing with cutting-edge technology to make sure our voices are heard.

We’re talking about ramping up our current organizing capacity—sending talented organizers to train and mobilize MoveOn members from Maine to California to build a massive green economy movement.

Together, we’ll:

• Build diverse coalitions of small-business owners, green-collar workers, faith communities, and many more to show widespread support for a clean-energy economy.
• Organize creatively to make sure members of Congress hear our message everywhere they go.
• Combine innovative grassroots and paid advertising campaigns to grab the attention of local and national media.
• Hold a massive wave of house parties where MoveOn members will reach out to neighbors to involve them in the campaign.

As a country, we face a choice: Either we take dramatic steps and put this country on a new path—a clean-energy economy that shifts us from oil and coal to renewable energy while creating millions of green jobs and fighting the climate crisis. Or we take baby steps that could leave us right where we started.

This is the moment to go big and seize this opportunity—but it’ll take everyone’s help. Are you in? Click here to let us know:

Yes, let’s launch a massive green-energy organizing campaign. [LINK OMITTED]

No, we shouldn’t do that. [LINK OMITTED]

Thanks for all you do.

–Adam, Nita, Michael, Peter, and the rest of the team

Want to support our work? We’re entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here. [LINK OMITTED]

Well, not exactly, but Al Gore does want children to believe that the struggle to fight manmade climate change is somehow comparable to the struggle for civil rights. Gore reportedly told school children the following according to a report:

“But I’m thinking back a long way to when I was your age and the civil rights revolution was unfolding,” Gore said. “And we kids asked our parents and their generation, ‘Explain to me again why it’s OK for the law to officially discriminate against people because of their skin color?’ And parent’s try to tell their kids the right thing, you know? Usually, I do. And when our parent’s generation couldn’t answer that question, that’s when the law started to change.”

Could the fact that Gore is going for the hard sell now mean he realizes he is losing the argument?

Although former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s withdrawal as President Obama’s Health and Human Services secretary received much media attention today, less attention has been paid to Daschle’s nonprofit connections.

Daschle is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the leftist Center for American Progress, a co-founder of the Bipartisan Policy Center, which —in theory— runs the National Commission on Energy Policy (which support a government takeover of the energy industry), and took trips abroad related to the nonprofit student loan entity EduCap.

Here is a link to a useful Muckety relationship map showing Daschle’s connection to various groups and individuals.

Amidst freezing rain that forced closure of some local schools, Al Gore was on Capitol Hill today trying to bolster his global warming investment portfolio.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) blasted Gore, calling his sales call “desperate.”

“I’d say he has a real serious problem. But he’s already made his $100 million, so I don’t think he needs to worry too much about it. But the science and logic are on our side, and we are winning,” Inhofe said.

We examined Gore’s self-serving climate crusade in the August 2008 and August 2007 editions of Foundation Watch.