RUTHFULLY YOURS

EPA’S $160 MILLION SPIN MACHINE
Last night, Special Report with Bret Baier showcased our OpenTheBooks Oversight Report – U.S. Environmental Agency. Why does a major federal agency have nearly 200 PR staff employees?

Recently, the New York Times exposed the EPA for PR excess which was covered last night on Special Report…

Using a Thunderclap social media product to generate nearly one million online “grassroots comments” on new regulations regarding the Clean Water Act. 90% of the comments were positive. But, the Anti-Lobbying Act prohibits the use of tax dollars to advocate for a public position.

Our story first broke on Monday at Washington Free Beacon by reporter Elizabeth Harrington – click here to read the article.

“The EPA wasting $160 million on public relations dwarfs our recent exposure of their high-end furniture purchases ($92 million), Nothing is emblematic of government excess like an army of highly compensated PR agents sitting in their easy chairs. It’s simply waste.” OpenTheBooks

The Obama Administration’s crusade against carbon returned to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, as the Justices heard an important federalism challenge to an energy scheme that usurps state powers to promote the green agenda. The oral arguments suggested they may be queueing up another judicial rebuke.

The culprit this time is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, which regulates most of the electric grid. In 2011 FERC ordered transmission operators to pay retail energy users to reduce their power consumption during peak periods, a program known as “demand response.” The idea is to send a price signal to encourage large consumers to use power when the most capacity is available—instead of, say, on a hot summer afternoon when everybody’s air conditioners are running.

In FERC v. Electric Power Supply Association, the problem is that Congress explicitly limited the commission’s mandate to the interstate power markets—i.e., to the wholesale power supply. Under a 2005 law, the “exclusive jurisdiction” of retail pricing and patterns of energy consumption belongs to the states.

How does Islam understand the concept of non-Muslims or “different” Muslims? Do Sunnis believe non-Sunni Muslims have rights equal to Sunnis? Is there one central authority that can decide today who speaks for all Muslims?

Sadly, the Muslim world is in total turmoil. We could discuss the traditional Muslim legal code regarding non-Muslims, but, given the political upheaval now going on in the Muslim world, none of the historic answers seem relevant.

Why is this so? Though we in the West tend to view Islam as a religion and understand it in that context, Islam has always had another side—the political side—that throughout Islamic history has often been the dominant factor in Islamic politics. This is true both when the Muslim world is stable, and most definitely so when that Muslim world is filled with instability, as it is today.

Those who know their place

The notion of an Islamic economy or of “Islamic economics,” is rife with fallacies. An Islamic economy is a contradiction in terms. Why?

As the term economy is understood to be a system of trade – a barter system, or laissez-faire, or a mixed economy with the freedom to trade and produce hampered, saddled and skewed by government controls and regulations – on the other hand, the notion of an Islamic economy or of “Islamic economics,” is rife with fallacies.

An Islamic economy is a contradiction in terms. Why?

Islam is a looter’s system of wealth seizure and expropriation. It produces nothing, it does not encourage the production of values to trade, and it is essentially anti-capitalist and anti-life. Overall, it is a system for the maintenance by force of a class of parasites. Islamic “economics” prescribes, as its essential and inherent goals, the sustained activity of wealth, social, and – need we remind anyone – sexual plunder. Its Economics in One Lesson is the Koran. Instead of a genuine economist such as Henry Hazlitt, Islam has as its primary “economist” the delusional, “voice-hearing” cave-dweller Mohammad.

Islam has been a looters’ system from the very beginning of the Islamic calendar, when Mohammad left Medina in 630 A.D. with his 10,000 converts/warriors and marched on Mecca, which he had fled eight years before because his “peaceful” proselytizing for his own moon-worshipping religion netted him few converts but many enemies. Or so the legend goes. Robert Spencer casts serious and well documented doubts on whether or not the Prophet of Plunder even existed in his excellent, eye-opening book, Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry into Islam’s Obscure Origins.

Campus groups press anti-Israel message with seemingly little money, but gain leverage with allies.

The arts district along Mamaroneck Avenue in downtown White Plains is something of a cultural hub in Westchester County. Special blue street signs — Arts Ave., they read — and colorful flags give the area the feel of a historic district, anchored by ArtsWestchester’s handsome brick headquarters.

There, on the fourth floor of 31 Mamaroneck Ave., is the office of a group that is far more interested in politics than arts. And controversial politics, at that.

Suite 403 houses the nonprofit group WESPAC Foundation, and its location in an arts-rich area belies its role as one of the key conduits in a mysterious network that helps to fuel the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement.