Heartland Special Correspondent Paul Chesser, expert commentator/blogger on global warming issues, will be part of a live webcast panel produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 from 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m. EST.

Joining Paul on the panel will be Shikha Dalmia, senior analyst, Reason Foundation; Henry Payne, editorial writer and cartoonist, The Detroit News; and moderator Russ Harding, senior environmental policy analyst, Mackinac Center.

Don’t forget to tune in! You can listen live at: http://www.michiganliveevents.com/2010/03/11/mppi-the-changing-debate-on-climate-change-live-webcast/

CODE RED Rally to…Kill The Bill!

What: CODE RED Health Care Rally to…Kill The Bill!

When: March 16, 2010 at 10 a.m. ET

Where: Capitol Hill, Taft Park, Washington D.C.

The American Grassroots Coalition and The Tea Party Express welcome the American People to bring their LOUD VOICES, Thoughts and Letters to their elected Representatives.

Speakers Include:

• Congressman Mike Pence
• Congresswoman Michele Bachmann
• Congressman Tom Price
• Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn
• Congressman Joe Wilson
• Congressman Phil Gingrey
• Amy Kremer of Tea Party Express
• Tim Phillips of American for Prosperity
• Jim Martin of 60 Plus
• Matt Patterson of the National Center for Policy Analysis

Paul Chesser, special correspondent for the Heartland Instiute, reports at American Spectator, “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a state legislator go toe-to-toe on the climate change issue with an alarmist, but the Fox News affiliate in Salt Lake City caught that very thing on camera.  On Wednesday after a student-led global warming rally at the legislature, State Rep. Mike Noel, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, found himself in the same room with former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson.”

Paul’s report here contains a link to the video,which is edgy, and the debate is more than a bit uncomfortable, but the good guy wins.

Nancy Thorner made mention of  The Heartland Institute’s Fourth Climate Change Conference in her letter to the editor published by The Record.

To the editor:

I read with interest the Chicago Tribune’s editorial of Wednesday, Feb. 17, “Global doubting.” Although the editorial admitted that “the U.N. panel’s credibility is heavily damaged,” it later left open for debate the critical question of “what can and should be done to slow global warming.”

The Tribune based its editorial on the 3,000-page U.N. issued report which was found to contain false claims after the U.N report had stated unequivocally that long-term global warming could not be disputed and that if left unheeded it would result in catastrophic civilization-destroying events.

Unmentioned in the Tribune’s 2/17 editorial is the admission by Professor Phil Jones, Director of the prestigious Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, that there has been no statistically significant warming in the past 15 years. Jones further conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now, which suggest that global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon. This sounds like fraud to me and what appears to be a hoax on the American people.

More and more evidence is surfacing against global warming claims. Even so, those dedicated to the cause are not about to let it go. Global warming has become like a religion to them and a means through which to implement their ideology of socialism. This ideology calls for government control over the American people through regulation and taxes, directed toward the replacement of free enterprise and capitalism with government-owned entities.

Cap and trade, if enacted, would speed this nation along a pathway already advancing toward socialism and away from the principles of our Constitution.

For those individuals who are on the fence or just wish to learn the facts from experts about global warming, it would be wise to visit the Heartland Institute website at heartland.org. Chicago’s Heartland Institute, a leader in exploring the issue of climate change, will be hosting its fourth international conference on climate change from May 16-19 in Chicago. This conference is open to the public and will feature 70 of the world’s leading experts on climate change as speakers and panelists.

It is telling that on Feb. 17 there was news that ConocoPhillips, BP, and Caterpillar had dropped out of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. These prominent companies were part of a coalition of corporations and environmental groups that were pushing Congress to pass cap-and-trade legislation.

With this important defection from the USCAP, may other companies soon follow suit. Cap-and-trade legislation would unfairly penalize industry, impose huge taxes upon the American people, and result in the loss of jobs at a time when both jobs and the economy are foremost on the minds of the American people.

Nancy Thorner
Lake Bluff

It is the Winter of the Living Dead as the Zombies stalk Washington. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are rampaging with glassy eyes, rotting flesh, and arms outstretched. They don’t know they are dead so they keep pushing for health care because it is the only thing they know how to do. It is what they did in life, so it is what they will continue to do until they are stopped.

I don’t remember how zombies can be stopped. Let’s see, a stake in the heart was for vampires, right? It was a silver bullet for werewolves, I think. But what stops a zombie? Maybe another election, though the elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts haven’t done the job. Wikipedia wasn’t any help, though it did have a pretty accurate description of the phenomenon — “zombies are depicted as mindless, unthinking henchmen under the spell of an evil magician.”

This past weekend was my annual Health Policy Poker Retreat in West Virginia. These guys are mostly former Kennedy staffers and Obama supporters. I’ve been playing poker and arguing politics with them for 25 years. Speaking of zombies, the buzz this year was how long will Bobby Byrd survive. Or perhaps he’s already dead and embalmed. They just roll him in when they need a vote. There are some pretty good taxidermists in West Virginia.

In any case, it looks like the Dems are going to keep pushing health care even while the entire country begs for mercy. Maybe that is the strategy. If they keep talking about it, we’ll all decide to let it pass just to shut them up. It is a very peculiar political strategy, but who knows? Maybe it will work.

And you thought they had outlawed torture.

– Greg Scandlen

from Consumer Power Report #212

A friend of The Heartland Institute shares his letter to the president.
        
The President of the United States
Mr. Barack H. Obama
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500                 2/19/2010                                                                   

Dear Mr. President,

Last October, I received a letter from your office in response to a note of mine on the subject of “Global Warming”, alias “Climate Change”. Truthfully, I was disappointed with your reply because it told me that the highest level of  Government continues to propagate incorrect information about weather and climate which will keep the public confused and delay an economic recovery.

With all due respect, Mr. President, but during a speech in Nevada recently, you clearly confused “weather” with “climate”, claiming unusual weather phenomena in Vancouver and Dallas did not mean the planet as a whole was not still getting warmer. It just is not so, Mr. President! Even some of the most adamant global warming activists, such as Dr. Phil Jones of CRU (the Climate Research Unit in East Anglia, UK), stated just the other day, in an about-face, that there has been no Global Warming since 1998.

Because the whole Global Warming affair was supposed to be the result of increasing amounts of man-made carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere, your ongoing hubristic emphasis on carbon-dioxide reduction efforts has therefore become irrelevant, politically damaging to you and really damaging to the economy, if you persist in pushing this infamous Cap and Trade idea, etc.

Lately, you have made it clear that you want to do whatever it takes to get the economy off the ground again. Unfortunately, that is very unlikely to happen if you continue to try raising taxes in whatever form.

Some key things that are really likely to change the economic outlook are:

1) significant, permanent tax cuts, for business as well as individuals.               2) cancellation of spending any remaining Stimulus funds.                      3) sharp reductions in government spending and control.   
4) stating Global Warming to be a non-issue upon which you will act.

Adopting the above recommendations would be doing the right things for the country in many people’s view and surely be a great assist during your 2012 re-election campaign.

Sincerely and respectfully,

 Frederik Engel

Join The Heartland Institute’s Peter Fotos, Jon Caldara and Linda Gorman of the Independence Institute, and other speakers at a roundtable forum addressing health care reform in Colorado and at the federal level.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The Future of Health Care in America:
A Roundtable Discussion
Denver Public Library — Central Branch
10 West Fourteenth Avenue Parkway
Denver, CO 80204

How to defeat Obamacare 2.0

Brendan Steinhauser of Freedom Works — one of the key players in the success of the tea party movement earlier this year — posted this encouraging report at Freedom Works Web site:

Many activists are wondering how to fight the final battle against Obamacare 2.0. Now that the president has made it clear he wants to jam a bad bill down our throats through “reconciliation” we must renew our efforts to stop this from happening.

After a morning conference call with activists from around the country, I wanted to share a few of their ideas with you. Most of these activities should be organized immediately, but their should be a major focus on the townhall idea during the congressional Easter Recess, which begins March 27th.

You can read the whole 2.0 manual here.

“Today’s editorial in the Chicago Tribune highlights the potential benefits of allowing around 35,000 kids to get a better education.

The Heartland Institute believes it’s a good start along the road of funding children, not bureaucracies.”

‘A decent education’

When state Sen. James Meeks asks fellow Democrats to give education vouchers to kids who attend some of the worst schools in Chicago, the legislators often tell him they don’t want to divert dollars from public education.

Meeks’ response: “If the public schools are not doing their job, why do you want to continue to reward them with money?”

Good question.

We have yet to hear a good answer.

Meeks is trying valiantly to shake up the status quo in public education, and we stand with him in that effort. He is pushing a solid plan to create a voucher program for Chicago. The Senate’s executive subcommittee on education is set to discuss the bill on Wednesday.

A discussion about vouchers always gets the hackles up. It prompts charges that proponents want to abandon public schools.

So we think it’s time to frame the question a little differently.

The Chicago Public Schools system isn’t failing for lack of trying. The system is in the midst of an ambitious and controversial effort — Renaissance 2010 — to give new options to children in the worst schools. Sometimes, that means taking the dramatic step of closing schools and opening new ones. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s Chicago Tribune has the first in a series of articles the reporter says will “sort fact from fiction” on climate change. The full text of the article is here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-0228-climate-science-20100302,0,1094646,full.story.

Reporter Michael Hawthorne says he’s interviewed scores of scientists. We don’t know if future articles will quote any of those with whom The Heartland Institute has worked, or will do so in any way approaching fairness. This first article is not promising.

There’s no evidence here that Hawthorne has a copy of Climate Change Reconsidered, so we’re sending one over to him today, along with an invitation to the Fourth International Conference on Climate Change, taking place right across the street from the Tribune Tower.

Heartland staff and allies will be keeping an eye on future articles in this series. We’ll keep you posted.