It is the crime of the century that America, home to some of the world’s greatest reserves of coal, natural gas and oil, is being deliberately destroyed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior as they do everything in their power to restrict access and drive energy producers out ofbusiness.

It is common sense that a nation that cannot produce sufficient electricity to turn on its lights and power its manufacturing sector will be destroyed if current Obama administration regulations and actions continue. Our vital transportation sector and all others that utilize petroleum-based products will suffer, too.

While President Obama babbles about millionaires and billionaires, everyone will be impoverished by the loss of jobs and revenue our energy sector produces now and can produce in the future.

This isn’t an “energy policy.” It’s a “no-energy policy” and it is a guarantee of economic disaster.

Obama’s decision to reject a permit for Canada’s XL Keystone pipeline is just one example. It is a job-killer and a revenue-killer. There are thousands of pipelines serving America’s energy needs and the XL Keystone pipeline would ensure that Canada’s own vast energy reserves would flow to America. It is one of our key trade partners and Obama has slapped it in the face.

In early January, Ken Salazar, the Secretary of the Interior, announced a new 20-year, million-acre ban on uranium mining for federal lands in Arizona, despite the fact that these lands hold the highest-grade of known uranium deposits in the United States. It is an outrage that a new GOP-Congress will have to overturn if the nation is to be assured of sufficient uranium to power its nuclear plants and for weapons development. If the ban remains, these uranium resources would be inaccessible until 2023!

Tom Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research said that Salazar’s announcement “further compounds a man-made energy crisis that has been planned and executed in Washington, D.C.”

At the same time we are learning of enormous natural gas discoveries that can reduce our energy bills and turn sleeping little towns into boomtowns, environmental organizations have launched a vast propaganda campaign against “fracking”, a technology that has been safely used for more than fifty years. Their claims about dangers to the nation’s supply of fresh water are baseless. Their claims that fracking has caused earthquakes in Ohio are absurd.

Need it be said that the Environmental Protection Agency has turned its eyes on fracking and is working on a report due later this year that will likely call for harsh crackdowns on its use and more regulations to throttle the expansion of natural gas extraction?

The EPA has just released a report of those power plants that top the list of its regulation of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. There is no basis in science to justify the reduction of CO₂. Indeed, since it is a gas on which all vegetation depends, much as oxygen is vital to all animal life, reducing it would impair great crop yields and healthier forests.

These regulations are based on the global warming hoax that blamed CO₂ for warming the earth. That is utterly false. The Earth is currently in a perfectly natural cooling cycle and the climate of the Earth is almost entirely based on the Sun—solar radiation—along with the actions of oceans, clouds, and even volcanic activity that spews tons of particulates into the atmosphere.

Coal-fired power plants account for fifty percent of all the electricity generated in the United States. Fifty percent! And yet the EPA is determined to shut down dozens of them providing that vital factor in the lives of all Americans and the economy, nor does this take into account the billions that energy producers have spent to upgrade their technology to reduce emissions.

The Obama administration fuel economy agenda, a call for 54.5 miles per gallon ignores simple physics. There is a finite amount of energy a gallon of gas can generate. If you dilute it with ethanol as is currently required, you get even lessmileage. The administration is trying to circumvent Congress by issuing standards based on regulating “greenhouse gas emissions”, but there is no need for this. It is a false argument. The Center for Automotive Research says that the proposed new standards would cause the retail price of average motor vehicles to increase by more than $11,000.

Americans and the nation’s future are being victimized by Obama administration policies. The 18th annual Index of Economic Freedom, was released on January 12th by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, measures the many factors that contribute to the economic health of a nation—things like property rights, regulatory efficiency, open markets, free trade and labor policies.

Economic freedom is declining worldwide as governments try to spend their way out of the global recession. The United States fell to 10th place. In 2009 it ranked 6th, in 2010 it was 8th, and in 2011, it was 9th.

We are witnessing the deliberate murder of a superpower.

As tens of thousands of Americans stage a “March for Life ^[1]” against abortion in Washington, D.C., new Fox News Channel paid contributor Sally Kohn will be singing the praises of the abortion industry. Kohn, a lesbian feminist, is an alumnus of the Women’s Media Center, which celebrates the 39th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that struck down all laws against abortion.

Kohn, the latest addition to the “Fox News Family,” has argued ^[2] that the Republican Party is trying to “kill women” by cutting funding for Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the U.S. The Women’s Media Center was founded in 2005 as a “progressive women’s media organization” by writers/activists Jane “Hanoi Jane” Fonda, Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem.

The goal of the Women’s Media Center in “making women visible and powerful in the media” has achieved a noticeable objective in the hiring of Sally Kohn by the Fox News Channel. But it’s not the only feminist breakthrough with Fox. Jehmu Greene ^[3], who became a Fox News contributor in 2010, is a former president of the Women’s Media Center. She is also a Democratic Party operative who was the national director of Project Vote, a group with close ties to the corrupt ACORN organization.

ACORN whistleblower Anita Moncrief, a former Project Vote/ACORN employee, says Project Vote acquired funds to run voter registration drives through ACORN. But the ACORN connection has been curiously omitted in Jehmu Greene’s bios, and she gets extremely upset when it is mentioned, Moncrief told Accuracy in Media.

Moncrief wrote about Greene’s previously unknown relationship to ACORN through Project Vote in a column, “Former ACORN insider infiltrates Fox News,” which appeared on the website Hot Air ^[4] and other sites on September 7. “In 2006 ACORN was running a massive campaign across the country to raise the minimum wage,” she said. “Their efforts were tied in with Project Vote’s voter registration drive and the subsequent takeover of the House of Representatives by Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats.”

Moncrief goes on, “As a tax exempt nonprofit, Project Vote acquired funds to run ‘non-partisan’ voter registration drives but ‘contracted’ with partisan ACORN.” She reproduced a2004 “Joint Effort Agreement” ^[5] that provided legal cover for the two organizations “that, during my tenure, operated seamlessly as one.”

The Jehmu Greene connection to the corrupt entity is upsetting to Moncrief, who is trying to hold the organization and its operatives accountable. It is also upsetting, she said, because of Greene’s current employment at Fox News Channel, at a time when some conservative contributors to the channel have been writing and speaking critically about ACORN.

Moncrief wrote, “Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck and other Fox News personalities have been vilified in the mainstream media and threatened in their personal lives for exposing ACORN. It is an insult to them and average Americans to have a former ACORN insider using Fox News to espouse her liberal bias. From attacking Tim Tebow to smugly ‘representing’ blacks during segments called ‘Has Obama Abandoned the African-American Community?’ one has to question the judgment of Fox when folks like Walter Williams, Star Parker, Alfonzo Rachel and a host of others like them exist in the Conservative movement.”

Beck, of course, was fired from the channel last year after he did numerous exposés of the “progressive” community, including ACORN, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Soros-funded entities and Soros himself.

While Greene’s ACORN connection is just starting to attract media attention, Sally Kohn’s involvement in one of the leading Soros-funded groups, the Center for Community Change, is causing concern among long-time viewers of the popular cable channel. Many see her hiring as evidence of Soros acquiring control of, or influence over, the channel. Some believe Fox News is being blackmailed to accommodate the far-left.

The reaction to my January 19 column ^[6] on this topic has been one of shock and surprise at Fox News hiring far-left personnel. Under the headline, “Fox News Hires Soros Subversive ^[7],” a reference to Kohn, Atlas Shrugs blogger Pamela Geller wrote, “Unbelievable. Rational voices are continually given the shaft, prohibited from the airwaves, and these agitators and subversives are given respect, salaries and the imprimatur of legitimacy. The right does not have ONE network. Not one.”

Described by one of her fans as “totally the next Rachel Maddow—only funnier,” Kohn once recorded a video ^[8] mocking Glenn Beck for his political views, during which she claimed that Hitler and Mussolini were “conservative political heroes” and implying that Beck was a fascist. Kohn is now appearing regularly on the channel and writes for the channel’s popular website. Beck, on the other hand, now hosts an Internet TV program, GBTV ^[9].

On WorldNetDaily, which posted my column on Kohn’s official hiring as a member of the “Fox News Family,” the reaction included comments like this:

• Looks like Fox News had fallen into the same black hole as the rest of the mass media. I wonder how much it cost Soros to buy Fox.
• FOX has sold out to Soros, I am saddened by this.
• Most likely Fox knuckled under to blackmail. Soros went after Murdoch’s Empire with the hacking investigation against News of the World using the left-wing Guardian newspaper.
• Let’s see, they hired Juan Williams, kept Colmes and are hiring Kohn. Add them to Beckel, along with firing Beck, and it seems like Fox wants the liberal viewers more than they want to be “fair and balanced.”

Readers of my column at GOPUSA.com said:

• We have been seeing a left turn by Fox News. I recommend GBTV, Glenn’s new network is looking good, and Glenn is back in great form. GBTV is more than worth the small subscription fee.
• I have noticed this for a while. Every time I turn on Fox News there seems to be a new liberal guest commentator. If I wanted liberal I’d turn on MSNBC, so I rarely watch Fox anymore.
• I think it’s fine to have reasonable liberals like Juan Williams and even Beckel on Fox News, but this woman has been bothering me and actually turning me off to Bill’s shows.
• What a shame! We are so disappointed in Fox News…I wonder if Soros got to them as he did with Glenn Beck!  What else is there to watch???  Maybe someone needs to start a new conservative cable news channel????

The popular Moonbattery blog, whose slogan is, “Driving a stake through the heart of the lunatic left,” commented ^[10], “Even with Geraldo Rivera, Shep Smith, Alan Colmes, Juan Williams, et al., the suits at Fox News apparently feel they don’t provide soapboxes to enough flaming moonbats to qualify as Fair and Balanced. Now they are importing George Soros-financed ultra-radical Rachel Maddow types. If we wanted to listen to leftists shriek, we would turn the channel to MSNBC. At least if Fox News goes full moonbat, we can save the money spent on cable bills by putting our TV sets out with the trash.”

Fox News Insider, the official blog of the Fox News Channel, hailed her addition to the line-up. It said ^[11], “Congratulations to the newest member of the Fox News Channel team, Sally Kohn. Today she joined Alisyn Camerota on America Live for the first time as a contributor. Kohn is the founder and chief education officer of the Movement Vision Lab.”

She has already written 20 columns ^[12] for the Fox News website.

But the “Movement Vision Lab” appears not to exist. Clicking on the group’s ^[13] website takes you to Kohn’s personal website.

The Movement Vision Lab was once a special project of the Center for Community Change, one of the major Soros-funded groups in the country. It was described ^[14] as an effort “To create a space in which grassroots organizers and social justice activists can share, rate, and debate progressive, visionary ideas for the future.”

An old press release says the group’s blog would “include podcast interviews with prominent progressive leaders like Service Employees International Union head Andy Stern, who will discuss their ideas for the future.”

Stern has since left his leadership post at the SEIU to travel to Communist China on a junket paid for by the Soros-funded Center for American Progress. He wrote a column ^[15]for the Wall Street Journal after the trip headlined, “China’s Superior Economic Model.” He praised China’s system of central government planning of the economy.

 

Most students no longer are taught their nation’s triumphs that would equip them to be knowledgeable citizens.

Major universities have turned from instruction in the significance of Western Civilization to the “profound” influence of Lady Gaga, (real name: Stephanie Germanotta), the bizarre recording artist whose commercial success has somehow topped charts around the world. In some colleges today even history majors don’t have to delve into our nation’s influences and beginings.

The national Association of Scholars, in a new analysis, “The Vanishing West: 1964-2010,” describes the tragic near disappearance of the study of Western Civilization from the American undergraduate curriculum.

Four top-tier universities now offer Lady Gaga’s influence in music, the arts, fashion and the LGBT lifestyle. At the same time, shockingly, none of the schools—University of Virginia, University of South Carolina, Wake Forest, and Arizona State require their students to study history to get their diploma.

Western civilization courses have been scratched from the general education requirements. They have been replaced in large part by courses that either undermine traditions in the West or “Balkanize” the curriculum. For example, black studies emphasize the plight of blacks. Women’s studies enthuse over the rising role of women. Yet American history, when it is available and required, emphasizes conflict, exploitation and imperial goals. Third World studies typically relate supposed abuse and unfair dominance by the West.

Polls indicate that students are alienated from their own culture.  Witness the Occupy Wall Street Movement., so warmly embraced by Obama forces. Young people who will vote this year and some of whom will eventually be the nation’s leaders are no longer learning about their civilization’s triumphs and its role in transforming the human condition.

“[F]or much of the twentieth century the Western history survey course was the standard means by which colleges and universities provided American undergraduates with a coherent nature of their civilization’s rise,” the National Association of Scholars (NAS) said. The studies told of the exceptionalism of the United States, a national characteristic which Barack Obama disparages.

“Western Civilization courses had deep symbolic importance for those who were seeking to refocus the undergraduate curriculum on multiculturalism and diversity,” the NAS declared. “When in 1987 Jesse Jackson led Stanford protestors in a chant of ‘Hey hey, ho ho, Western Culture’s got to go,’ the object was not to displace mathematics or English literature, but eliminate a course that focused on Western Civilization,” the analysis recalled. Getting rid of Western Civilization courses reflected an ideological hostility. “Western Civilization” had come to be seen by radicals as a form of apologetics for racism, imperialism, sexism, and colonialism.

The first, comprehensive, multi-year investigation of subjects being taught in colleges across the country was “One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America’s Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy,” by David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin in 2009. They cited more than 150 courses revealing the left-wing politics infused in liberal arts curriculum, including attempts to convince students that America is imperialistic and racist. An earlier book (2006) by Horowitz, “The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America,” exposed those with terrorist or non-democratic goals.

Lynne Cheney, former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, in 1994 launched an attack on the group then developing National History Guidelines for the schools. In an editorial page article in the Wall Street Journal, Cheney described the proposed history standards as a “grim and gloomy” portrayal of American history.

“Imagine an outline for teaching American history,” Cheney wrote, “in which George Washington makes only a fleeting appearance and is never described as our first president. Or in which the founding of the Sierra Club and the National Organization for Women are considered noteworthy events, but the first gathering of the U.S. Congress is not.”

Cheney continued to fight for truthful portrayals of the glorious events leading to the adoption of our Constitution, when she served on the Bicentennial Commission on the U.S. Constitution in the mid-1980s. I was proud to serve with her at the time.

In their new study, the National Association of Scholars found only one in 75 top universities required students to study western civilization. In 1964, more than half required students take a two-semester course covering the history of western civilization from Greece to the modern era. The other half of the universities had required courses guaranteeing that students understood the history of their society.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, asking “What Will They Learn,” found that only 20 percent of universities require students to take a U.S. government or history course. Only 5 percent make students take an economics class. The Council said schools should expect graduates to be competitive in the world.

When parents write checks for $20,000 or more a year for college, they expect a young person to be equipped for a job. But Obamanomics has slammed the door on that prospect for many. Most thinking parents also expect the schooling would yield not only an ability to read and write but also some knowledge of history and politics. The widespread political ignorance was shown in 2008 in the election of Obama.

The National Association of Scholars said young people “are no longer learning about their civilization’s great story, its triumphs, its vicissitudes, and its singular role in transforming the human condition. What is the future of a civilization whose heirs have largely become blinded to its history?” it asked rhetorically.

The widespread emphasis on ‘multiculturalism’ is no answer. Historical scholarship, including our knowledge of interactions with other civilizations and cultures would probably have to be included. “The Vanishing West offers 23 recommendations aimed at better studying the problem and rebuilding the curriculum.

Today, at too many colleges thematic fields can include “comparative colonialism,” “gender and sexuality,” “law and society,” “race and ethnicity,” “urban history,” “Africa and the Diaspora,” and “The Border/LaFrontera.” Often no requirements are specified within the concentration or the field of study, leaving student discretion in choosing such courses as “American Sexual Histories,” “Sex, Lies, and Diaries,” or “Elvis, Dylan and Postwar America.”

Certainly as disturbing as the disappearance of the study of the Western ascent toward liberty is the reality that 1960s terrorist Bill Ayers, leader of the Weather Underground, the communist revolutionary group, and former professor at the University of Illinois, was a mentor to Barack Obama.

One of the mistakes that the West makes is that it doesn’t listen to what the Islamists are saying. If only we listened, we could hear their strategy. On November 20, Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, the top Muslim Brotherhood theologian and arguably the most influential Sunni cleric in the world, called on ^[1] Muslims to embrace “gradualism.”

The doctrine of gradualism is successful because we fail to appreciate the ability of the Islamists to be skillful political strategists. Gradualism is an intelligent form of jihad based on pragmatism, patience, long-term planning and self-evaluation. The Islamists evaluate their performance and recalibrate their strategy accordingly. The West misinterprets this as being “moderate,” when in reality, not all Islamists are as reckless as Al-Qaeda.

“Gradualism in applying the Sharia is a wise requirement to follow,” Qaradawi declared, stating that Mohammed followed it.

The Islamists, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, have always worked in stages. In December, the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Mohamed Badi, outlined ^[2] six phases: Sharia over the individual; Sharia over the family; Sharia over the society; Sharia over the government; the resurrection of the Caliphate and finally, “mastership of the world.” The Muslim Brotherhood is in the process of completing the fourth phase in Egypt.

In this stage, the Islamists implement Sharia by describing it as their form of “democracy” and “freedom.” They will argue that each democracy is different and so we must be tolerant of their version. Sheikh Qaradawi explains ^[3], “What I am for is a genuine type of democracy, for a society driven by the laws of Sharia that is compatible with the values of freedom, human rights, justice and equity.”

Qaradawi admits that “our democracy is different.” Secular democracy like that in the West does not honor God and is immoral. “Democracy itself also can make what it wants as lawful, or prohibit anything it does not like. In comparison, the Sharia as a political system has limits. If we are to adopt democracy, we should adopt its best features.”

As far back as 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood had drawn up a 12-point strategy to “establish an Islamic government on earth.” It was discovered when the Swiss authorities raided the home of Yousef Nada in 2001 and is referred to as “The Project.” ^[4]

The document says to exercise “flexibility at the local level” and “to reconcile political engagement and the necessity of avoiding isolation on one hand, with permanent education and institutional action on the other.” It calls for “controlling the local centers of power through institutional action” and to build alliances with other Islamic groups even if there are disagreements. It supports “temporary cooperation” with non-Muslim groups that are anti-Israel and “struggle against colonialism.”

The strategy document says the worldwide Brotherhood must “support movements engaged in jihad across the Muslim world” but “should not look for confrontation with our adversaries, at the local or the global scale, which would be disproportionate and could lead to attacks.” It talks of constructive “self-criticism” and using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to further its strategy, “since it acts as the keystone of the renaissance of the Arab world today.” In other words, use the conflict to radicalize the masses.

Hamas, a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, also acts in accordance with gradualism. In December, the leader of Hamas stated ^[5] that it was working towards the “interim objective of liberation of Gaza, the West Bank, or Jerusalem.” The destruction of Israel, or in the Islamists’ words, the “liberation of all Palestine,” follows.

Wherever the Muslim Brotherhood and similar Islamists operate, there is a phased strategy—even in the United States. The Islamic Circle of North America, one of the most powerful Muslim-American groups in the U.S., explained ^[6] its five phases in its handbook published in 2010 and it very closely follows what Badie said in Egypt. The phases are: Educating yourself; Converting your family; Outreach into the community; “establish an Islamic society” on the state level and then a “united Islamic state, governed by an elected khalifah in accordance with the laws of Sharia.”

An FBI memo written in 1988 likewise documented ^[7] that a source, apparently within the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S., described a six-phased plan. At the time, the Muslim Brotherhood, specifically the International Institute of Islamic Thought and the North American Islamic Trust, were working on the first phase. It included creating “political action front groups with no traceable ties” so that it can “peacefully get inside the United States government and also American universities.” The source told the FBI that Brotherhood operatives “claimed success infiltrating the United States government.”

In 2004, the FBI found seized another Brotherhood strategy document ^[8] that describes its “work in America as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization within.” It describes 5 phases:

• The “secret establishment of leadership”
• “…gradual appearance on the public scene.” This phase calls for “infiltrating various sectors of government,” “gaining religious institutions,” “gaining public support and sympathy,” and “establishing a shadow government.”
• “Escalation phase.” This focuses on “utilizing mass media” and the document says that this stage is “currently in progress.” Unfortunately, we do not know when this was written.
• “Open confrontation with the government through…political pressure.” It also calls for “training on the use of weapons domestically” and says that there are “noticeable activities in this regard.” Could this have something to do with the Jamaat ul-Fuqra training camps on American soil?
• The final phase: “Seizing power to establish their Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united.”

The Islamists have a comprehensive long-term strategy for victory that’s been around for decades. It’s about time that we made one of our own.

Keystone XL pipeline

The last federal budget kerfuffle involved extending the payroll tax break. Republicans didn’t see this tax break for middle-income workers as appropriate as it would reduce revenues and therefore increase the debt. The Democrats, on the other hand, felt it was necessary to continue supporting the struggling middle class. As the fight went on, the Republicans saw popular support on the side of the tax extension.

To extract their pound of flesh, the Republicans demanded an earlier decision on construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. This is a proposed pipeline that would move crude oil from Canadian tar sands in west central Canada to refineries near the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of more than 2,000 miles.

Contrary to the now famous quote of Rick Perry, “Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don’t have to buy from a foreign source,” Canada is a foreign country. Granted it is not Saudi Arabia or Venezuela, but foreign just the same.

Currently the No. 1 oil exporter to the United Sates is Canada, sending us close to 3 million barrels of oil per day which is about 15 percent of our total oil imports. Much of the oil comes from tar sand formations which contain a heavy crude oil called bitumen intermingled with sandy soil. The oil is produced by large scale strip mining of the tar sands which then must be heated with steam to lower the viscosity so that the oil can be separated from the sand.

Virtually all of the oil from this source is already making its way to refineries via a network of existing pipelines to in the Midwest so the construction of this pipeline will not decrease our dependance on foreign oil. What it will do is raise the cost of Midwest Refinery products such as gasoline and diesel fuel. This is because there currently is excess supply in the Midwest. If the Canadian oil is diverted to the refineries in the Gulf region, then the lower supply in the Midwest will cause an increase in price there.

So what if the oil goes to refineries in the Gulf region, won’t that mean lower price refined products there? Not necessarily. This heavy crude is destined for refineries which will produce refined products for export to European and Asian markets and on a tax free basis.

What about jobs? Estimates of the number of jobs created range from 20,000 to 100,000, at least from a Republican perspective. The State Department, however, suggested that only 5,000 temporary jobs will be created in the construction, and a pittance for maintenance and operation.

The pipeline will move environmentally destructive foreign oil across the Midwest with the attendant risk of oil spills, and in so doing raising the cost of oil in the Midwest The oil will flow to refineries which will convert it to products for export. Finally it will create a limited number of temporary jobs.

By building the pipeline we risk degrading the environment and increase the contribution to global warming with a negative economic impact to the United States.

Dr. Allen, a chemistry professor at Arkansas Tech University, has been interested in resource conservation and energy issues throughout his career. He has given numerous presentations on his research funded from a combination of private, state and federal grant agencies. The research has included recycling strategies, energy from biological sources such as biodiesel, and photovoltaic energy.