Free Frank Warner

James O’Keefe is not charged with bugging Sen. Mary Landrieu’s phone

CBS is retracting its statements that James O’Keefe was arrested for attempting to "bug" Senator Mary Landrieu’s telephone.

Frank Warner

Obama changes mind: Terrorist trials won't be in New York City

The New York Times:

The reversal on where to try the alleged 9/11 terrorists blocks from the former World Trade Center site seemed to come suddenly this week, after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg abandoned his strong support for the plan and said the cost and disruption would be too great.

But behind the brave face that many New Yorkers had put on for weeks, resistance had been gathering steam.

After a dinner in New York on Dec. 14, Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, pulled aside David Axelrod, President Obama’s closest adviser, to convey an urgent plea: move the 9/11 trial out of Manhattan.

Alternative location? The mystery remains as to who recommended terrorist trials in New York in the first place, and why the president accepted it Nov. 13. Attorney General Eric Holder seems to be taking the blame.

In any case, I know a place they can put Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the other four other glory-seeking terrorists on trial cheaply and safely. It rhymes with wontonamo.

Frank Warner

Obama seeks $54 billion for nuclear plants

This $54 billion in federal loans is a good start. The U.S. nuclear plant construction program should be at least 10 times bigger. Perhaps our electric utilities can come up with the other 90 percent of the cash privately.

Of our existing 100 nuclear plants, the newest are about 30 years old, and they were expected to have a 20 to 40-year lifespan. Time is running out. Energy is running out. And we have 73 million more Americans than we had in 1980.

A reminder: CO2-free nuclear power accounts for 20 percent of U.S. electrical needs. In France, nuclear accounts for 80 percent.

Frank Warner

Bin Laden believes in global warming

That doesn't mean global warming doesn't exist. But he's never been a good representative of any faith.

Frank Warner

Alito: Obama’s court claim ‘not true’

I guess there’s a reason some Supreme Court justices never show up for a president’s State of the Union message.

This time, Justice Alito shook his head as if to rebut the president’s characterization of the Citizens United decision, and seemed to mouth the words “not true.” Indeed, Mr. Obama’s description of the holding of the case was imprecise. He said the court had “reversed a century of law.”

The law that Congress enacted in the populist days of the early 20th century prohibited direct corporate contributions to political campaigns. That law was not at issue in the Citizens United case, and is still on the books. Rather, the court struck down a more complicated statute that barred corporations and unions from spending money directly from their treasuries — as opposed to their political action committees — on television advertising to urge a vote for or against a federal candidate in the period immediately before the election. It is true, though, that the majority wrote so broadly about corporate free speech rights as to call into question other limitations as well — although not necessarily the existing ban on direct contributions.

Constructive approach. The Supreme Court did seem to go too far with its Citizens United ruling, but perhaps President Obama should have outlined a few specific steps that could be taken to guard political campaigns from excessive corporate influences. How about public financing of elections? Or something better?

In his speech, Obama said:

With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests –- including foreign corporations –- to spend without limit in our elections. I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people. And I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.

President Nixon did not mention Roe v. Wade in his 1973 or 1974 State of the Union messages. How often does a president challenge the justices to their faces and expect them to sit like statues?

Frank Warner

Mr. President, why a higher college loan subsidy for government workers?

President Obama’s first State of the Union address last night had lots of statements worth talking about, but one in particular struck me as odd. Maybe it reveals the difference between my liberalism and his:

He said:

And let’s tell another one million students that when they graduate, they will be required to pay only 10 percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after 20 years –- and forgiven after 10 years if they choose a career in public service, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college.

Why does he believe Americans who choose a career in public service deserve a bigger college subsidy than Americans who choose to work in private enterprise?

Class system? A good case can be made that Americans with government jobs already have many more protections and benefits, and fewer risks, than Americans in business and industry. I wonder what the case is for granting even more benefits to public workers.

Public service, when it truly serves the public, is a noble and admirable thing. But let’s not reduce to second class the private laborers, inventors and business leaders who are the backbone of the American economy.

Frank Warner

Words to look for in State of the Union address

You already know I'm looking for the words "freedom," "liberty" and "democracy" in President Obama's first State of the Union address tonight.

Even if your urgent priority in 2010 is creating jobs, you should be studying hard how freedom can make that happen -- how the power of 300 million Americans freely making billions of daily decisions can most efficiently get the economy in high gear.

Frank Warner

* * *

Update: The Freedom Count (No. of times these words were used):

Freedom: 1 time.
Liberty: 0 times.
Democracy: 2 times.

For a presidential speech, a Freedom Count of 3 is low. Double digits demonstrates a deep interest in freedom.

Global warming: IPCC and NASA have explaining to do

Every other day, it seems, we’re hearing bad things about parts of the famous 2007 report that won the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change its Nobel Peace Prize.

One news bulletin is that Murari Lal, the man responsible for the report’s “90 percent certain” finding that most Himalayan glaciers would be melted by 2035, now says he knew that claim was not based in science when he approved it.

The claim was one scientist’s idle speculation, dating to 1999. Nevermind a peer review or objectivity:

“It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in,” said Lal, coordinator of the IPCC report’s chapter on Asia.

Guesses for grants. Another surprise is that IPCC Chairman Rajendra K. Pachauri, even after knowing the Himalayan glacier story was no more than a guess, referred to it as fact in making a case for grants to his research institute.

And now we have a distantly related revelation that, after NASA climate scientist James Hansen heard he might have miscalculated the “hottest year” of the 20th century, a colleague told other NASA employees to hide something.

This Aug. 10, 2007, e-mail by Makiko Sato was about Hansen’s “Y2K error,” which allegedly concluded that 1998 the hottest year when 1934 really was.

At around 17:30, Sato sent a final version to [Robert] Schmunk, Hansen and [Darnell] Cain, telling Schmunk to move the essay to CU (Hansen’s “personal” site) and “hide” it at the NASA site and telling Darnell Cain that he had to send it out to Hansen’s email list:

”Jim, please check if everything is fine. Robert, please move to the CU site and hide this after Jim checks it. Darnell, please send it out to Jim’s email list. Jim said if I don’t want to, you should do, but it is not a matter of what I WANT TO or NOT WANT TO. I don’t know how to.”

Within a couple of minutes of Sato asking Schmunk to “hide” the Lights Out Upstairs editorial on the NASA website, Gavin Schmidt (at 17:33), in accordance with his agreement with Ruedy the previous day, used RealClimate [the global warming faithful’s Web site] as a vehicle to set “matters straight” about Hansen’s Y2K error.

Covered red faces. It appears NASA was hiding a post that made fun of global warming skeptic Stephen McIntyre, who had uncovered the “Y2K error.” It would have been bad timing to mock the man who just caught NASA in a big mistake.

Frank Warner

Campaign against prison rape

This isn’t a new problem, but this campaign against prison rape seems to make the point well. You wouldn’t wish rape on a free person. Would you wish rape on a prisoner?

The bigger point is that no convict is sentenced to be raped, and if he is sent to prison, he should not have to accept that fate.

Frank Warner

That teleprompters in the school photo

This photograph of President Obama with giant teleprompters set up in front of an average school classroom looks ridiculous. That’s because it looks as if he’s addressing the little children of this Falls Church, Virginia, school. But he’s not. He really was addressing the press at the school on Jan. 19, after he had seen the children.

That said, it does seem over the top to cram all that equipment into a tiny classroom. Advice for tight settings like this: Just invite the press in and talk. If you need notes, jot them down on a few index cards and refer to them. This is a photo-op that failed.

Frank Warner