IBD Editorial: Palin was a fresh breeze in Wisconsin

She reached out beyond Madison to the entire nation
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In its reporting on Gov. Palin's Tea Party appearance in Wisconsin, the media has focused on the feisty aspects of her speech, and indeed it was a stemwinder. But few have commented upon that part of her speech where she reached out to rank and file union members, as the editors of Investor's Business Daily did at IBD Editorials today:

Sarah Palin hit it out of the park in a speech this past weekend in Wisconsin. She dazzled because, of all things, she reached out to her opponents. When was the last time we saw that coming out of the White House?

Amazingly, Palin's words offered common ground between Tea Party taxpayers and public employee union members, who've until now been at odds with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's attempt to balance the state budget.

"What I have to say today I say it to our good patriotic brothers and sisters who are in unions ... a pension is a promise that must be kept. Now, your Governor Scott Walker understands this. He understands that states must be solvent in order to keep their promise. And that's what he's trying to do. He's not trying to hurt union members. Hey, folks, he's trying to save your jobs and your pensions!"

In short, she came to save, not to cut, and in the finest example of bipartisan bridge-building since President Reagan made allies of blue-collar workers, she reached out to the very people whose hirelings tried to drown her speech out with obscenities.

Palin paid no attention to the thugs and kept her eye on the common ground. She put her finger on the two things that matter most to workers across the country — saving their jobs and their pensions — and decisively linked it with the reduction in the size of government sought by the Tea Party taxpayers.

As philosopher Eric Hoffer once noted: The elegant way to solve a problem is to take one and use it to solve the other.

Palin didn't rest there, though. She put her finger on the real problem: union bosses, who, like AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, brag about their daily contact with the White House as if to say they have President Obama in their back pocket.

And what a coincidence: That's where this sorry spectacle of rank partisanship is emanating from.

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As the editors noted, the union's ill-mannered "rent-a-thugs" tried to drown out Gov. Palin's words, but they failed. That's because, the editors conclude, her speech "ultimately wasn't for Wisconsin. It was for YouTube and the nation watching it."

- JP

IBD Editors: Sarah Palin vs the '$4-A-Gallon President'

"Obama's claim that the U.S. has only 2% of the world's oil is blatantly false"
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The editors of Investors Business Daily agree with Gov. Palin that the Obama Administration's dreams of European-style gasoline prices in the U.S. is stifling our economy, killing jobs, and keeping us dependent on unstable foreign sources of crude oil:

The former governor of an energy-rich state notes that our president as a candidate did not object to higher gasoline prices but would have preferred "a gradual adjustment." Like a 67% increase?

We recently asked if President Obama actually wanted $8-a-gallon gas, a level reached by Europeans when Steven Chu, now his secretary of energy, said in a September 2008 interview: "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."

Notice he said "boost" and not "allow to rise, or fall, in accordance with the law of supply and demand." Of course, restricting supply is one way to "boost" gas prices, whether by designating oil-rich areas off Alaska as "critical" habitat for an abundant and growing polar bear population or by imposing a de facto moratorium on offshore drilling because one well exploded.

Sharing this view is former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. On her Facebook page Tuesday, she said the rise in gasoline prices by 67% in Obama's first two years in office was "no accident." Rather, she said, it was "accomplished through a process of what candidate Obama once called 'gradual adjustment.'"

In a 2008 interview, then-Sen. Obama complained that "we've been consuming energy as if it's infinite." When asked if gas prices, which had briefly spiked under President Bush, would help reduce demand, Obama replied: "I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment." He didn't object to higher prices, only to the fact that we use too much energy.

Indeed, candidate Obama, while campaigning in Oregon, said: "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK." He added: "That's not leadership. That's not going to happen."

Neither is drilling for more domestic energy...

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- JP

IBD Editors: Palin's Vindication

The lesson: When Mama Grizzly roars, maybe the Beltway know-it-alls should listen.
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The editors at Investor's Business Daily recall how the GOP establishment and some conservatives among the punditocracy ridiculed Gov. Palin for endorsing and supporting such Tea Party challengers as Christine O'Donnell, Joe Miller and Sharron Angle. Yes, all three were less polished than their establishment opponents. A look at some recent voting on the hill, however, vindicates the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate and her 2010 choices:

Well, guess who just voted with the House of Representatives' lame-duck Democratic majority to ignore military concerns and repeal "don't ask, don't tell"? "Republican" Mike Castle did.

Guess who just voted for the Dream Act, which would have granted amnesty and instant eligibility for welfare and government education benefits to millions of illegal aliens, costing the taxpayers tens of billions of dollars? "Republican" Mike Castle did.

Charles Krauthammer, a national treasure among syndicated columnists and IBD regular, seriously questioned Palin's judgment in backing O'Donnell. "Castle voted against ObamaCare and the stimulus," Krauthammer noted in September. "Yes, he voted for cap-and-trade. That's batting .667."

But having lost both the Senate nomination and his House seat — won in November by Democratic former Lt. Gov. John Carney — the lame-duck session is lowering Castle's batting average.

It's clear that whatever eccentricities O'Donnell exhibited, none would have compelled her to vote for either of these appalling bills. Or for the half-baked New START nuclear disarmament treaty that the Obama administration is demanding the Senate blindly ratify without fully knowing what it would do, absurdly claiming that our national security lies in the balance.

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- JP

Quote of the Day (December 17, 2009)

Investors Business Daily:

"Well, if we close our eyes, click our heels and follow Schwarzenegger's lead, we just might find ourselves back in a preindustrial Kansas. Just pay no attention to the climate research hoaxers behind the curtain at the University of East Anglia. Along the yellow brick road from Hollywood to Copenhagen, Schwarzenegger took time to question Palin's stance on global warming... Palin opposes cap-and-trade... as an unnecessary and ineffective solution to a non-problem that will transfer our wealth to the Hugo Chavezes and Robert Mugabes of the world."

- JP

IBD Editors weigh in on Palin v. Gore

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The editors of Investors Business Daily on the matter of Palin v. Gore:

The Alaskan governor who knew polar bears weren't endangered says the planet isn't either and challenges the oracle of climate change. Al Gore says despite the CRU e-mails, the situation is of the utmost gravity.

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So fact-challenged is Gore on the subject that when he criticized Palin's position on global warming, he claimed: "I haven't read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old. These private exchanges between these scientists do not in any way cause any question about the scientific consensus." Oh, yes they do, Al, and the word is "conspiracy," not "consensus."

As Anthony Watts' Web site Watts Up With That shows, one Climate-gate e-mail was from just two months ago. The most recent was sent on Nov. 12 — just a month ago. East Anglia Climate Research Unit director Phil Jones' infamous e-mail urging other Climate-gate scientists to delete e-mails is from last year.

As for the disappearing polar ice cap, according to the National Snow And Ice Data Center, second-year ice — the ice that survives the annual and normal summer melt — this summer made up 32% of the total ice cover on the Arctic Ocean compared with 21% in 2007 and 9% in 2008. Clearly, Arctic sea ice is not following the consensus touted by Gore and the warm mongers.

Despite pictures of floating polar bears taken in summer, data reported by the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center show global sea-ice levels the same as they were in 1979, when satellite observations began.

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In this fight, we'll side with Gov. Palin, who says: "Saying no to Copenhagen and cap-and-tax are first steps in 'restoring science to its rightful place.'"

A growing number of Americans are becoming skeptical of what Gore says on the subject, and it's not simply because some data was cooked. Gore doesn't help his own cause when he says stupid things such as his recent claim that the temperature deep within the interior of the planet is "millions of degrees." we wonder how much longer can Gore get away with with his climate scam. Granted, there's no controlling legal authority to regulate his hot air emissions, but it's long past time that this charlatan was shut up, if not shut down.

Read the full IBD editorial here.

- JP

IBD: Palin's Pipeline No Pipe Dream

Investors' Business Daily's editors say that the agreement (see here and here) between ExxonMobil and TransCanada to cooperate on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's signature energy project to build a pipeline to transport natural gas to the lower 48 states is a "big home run" and "must be sweet vindication for Alaska's governor." Her critics on both the left and the right have said that the major pipeline project would never go anywhere, and several have said in recent days that no progress was being made on the endeavor, known as AGIA.

Calling ExxonMobil the "big gorilla" of American energy, the editors say that the oil giant coming on board is a "big vote of confidence" in the governor's project:

This is another in a series of successful steps to build the world's largest commercial construction project. For this, credit Palin. Despite the too-hip ridicule of comedians like David Letterman, she was the one who got the pipeline past Alaska's legislature, something governors had tried — and failed — to do for 30 years.

Other partners are sure to join, and the near-impossible task of bringing Alaskan energy to the continental U.S. is that much closer.

If there are any doubts left, note that it's Alaska's officials giving Palin the most credit. As Deputy Natural Resources Commissioner Marty Rutherford told IBD, Palin relentlessly drove this project, walking the process through the bureaucracy, asking questions, even going to Texas on Thursday to hear from Exxon itself.

As the editors point out, it's about time Governor Palin received due credit for her efforts on behalf of American energy security and less attention for "having to defend herself from the dirty jibes of over-the-hill comics."

- JP