RUTHFULLY YOURS

One of the agency’s own regional offices and a panel of EPA judges have ruled that the policy is too expensive.

With great fanfare, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule last fall that would require all newly built coal-fired power plants in the U.S. to install an expensive new technology called carbon capture and storage, or CCS. Although the technology has never been installed on a large-scale power plant anywhere in the world, it theoretically will separate the primary greenhouse gas—carbon dioxide—from the plant’s exhaust and pump it to underground reservoirs for storage.

The proposal instantly set off controversy. Many technical experts (including Burton Richter, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at Stanford) believe that CCS isn’t ready for prime time. EPA’s proposal claims it is adequately demonstrated and can be installed at a reasonable cost. The Clean Air Act requires the agency to establish both of these factors before forcing plants to install a particular technology.

That’s when things got weird.

Shortly after the proposal was released in September, EPA administrator Gina McCarthy defended carbon capture and storage in a highly publicized interview on PBS, describing it as a “technology that we believe is available today.” Then, on Nov. 25, the EPA regional office in Texas did an about-face when it decided that Exxon Mobil would not have to install the technology in its planned chemical plant (such plants emit carbon dioxide) in Harris County, because it would be prohibitively expensive.

Enter the Sierra Club, which challenged the EPA’s Exxon Mobil decision on Dec. 26. Last week, three administrative law judges on the agency’s Environmental Appeals Board upheld the Texas office’s decision not to require CCS. Why? Because the EPA regional office found, and the judges agreed, that the “addition of CCS would increase the total capital project costs by more than 25%.”

At this writing, the Veterans Administration scandal has engulfed 16 states and 26 hospitals. In Atlanta, widespread mismanagement caused the preventable deaths of at least three veterans. In Columbia, S.C., six vets died because of delayed colorectal-cancer screenings. And in Phoenix, some severely ill vets urinated blood and endured searing pain from cancer. At least 40 of them dropped dead before getting life-saving treatment.

But this single-payer savagery is not just a monumental tragedy; nor is it merely a cautionary tale of bureaucratic incompetence. If this outrage simply involved the fatal bumbling of the Keystone Klinicians, it would be awful enough.

Instead, hospital officials allegedly doctored appointment books to “comply” with VA scheduling rules, maintained secret wait lists that confirm this deception, and destroyed this evidence when the watchdogs barked. This ugly picture quickly devolves from lassitude into lawlessness. VA hospitals have become crime scenes.

VA “employees in Fort Collins, Colo., were directed to manipulate the books to conceal evidence of lengthy wait times for appointments,” according to an American Legion report on this disaster titled “Epidemic of VA Mismanagement.”

In Cheyenne, Wyo., a VA staffer’s e-mail “details specific instructions for ‘gaming the system’ to ‘get off the bad boys list.’”

A Chicago VA social worker said, “Scheduling wait times are manipulated in order to protect pay bonuses.”

In Phoenix, two VA employees secured documents “alleging that there was a systematic effort underway at the hospital to shred documents to eliminate evidence of the waiting list cover-up.”

The enthusiasm among Clinton loyalists doesn’t translate to the general electorate.

Hillary Clinton is in a pickle. She’s a shoe-in for her party’s presidential nomination because of Barack Obama’s failures. But those failures might keep her from getting the job. Her husband’s “law of politics” is that elections are always about the future, but she’s stuck in the past.

In 2008, Obama pandered to liberal hopes while Clinton appealed to their good sense. Obama promised miracles and magic. Clinton promised more homework.

“Cynicism” was Obama’s real opponent, he explained. And he used Clinton as a stand-in for it. She played her part, pointing out that the Civil Rights Act got through Congress because of LBJ’s hard work, not Martin Luther King’s speeches. She insisted that politics was toil, not performance art.

And, as we have learned from a president who so often thinks giving a speech is a substitute for solving a problem, she had the better argument. One need only look at the reaction from Democrats to President Obama’s handling of the VA scandal to see that even they would trade some inspirational claptrap for a bit more old-fashioned competence.

That attitude helps Clinton immensely. Burned by disappointment, many liberals want to vote with their heads, not their hearts, this time around.

And the Hillary-Industrial Complex is ready to exploit that sentiment. The HIC is the vast network of loyalists, retreads, activists, pols, hacks, fans (in and out of the press), Friends of Bill, and, of course, Friends of Hillary who want to see a Clinton restoration. They are waiting for her to run like 19th-century land speculators anticipating news that the railroad will go past their lots. Would you want to be left with 500,000 “Ready for Hillary” bumper stickers in your garage? (It’s a solid rule of business that you’ve made a poor investment if a Hillary Duff comeback is your Plan B.)

Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN, was very forthright about his media priorities at a Society of Professional Journalists dinner in New York City on Monday.

He told Bill Carter of the New York Times: “Climate change is one of those stories that deserves more attention, that we all talk about. But we haven’t figured out how to engage the audience in that story in a meaningful way. When we do do those stories, there does tend to be a tremendous amount of lack of interest on the audience’s part.”

Americans hold views on climate change that are encouraging to environmentalists: In a Pew poll last year, 69 percent believed the arth was warming. But only 33 percent said it was a “very” serious problem, and when Pew asked respondents what issues should be a “top priority” for the federal government, dealing with global warming came in dead last, with only 28 percent holding that view. There is a real basis for such a stance: Global temperatures haven’t risen appreciably in about 15 years.

More and more people in the middle of America — both geographically and culturally — have come to believe either that global warming is manageable or that extraordinary efforts to slow the economy to combat it aren’t worth the cost. But that “doesn’t faze the bicoastal urban media elite,” says Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. These elites, he adds, “have become more hysterical in their treatment of the issue, blaming everything from drought to wildfires to hurricanes on climate change.” It doesn’t matter that there is clear evidence such phenomena are cyclical, and that — for instance — while California is experiencing a severe drought, Florida residents have recently experienced some of the quietest hurricane seasons in decades.

So even as public concern about climate change declines, the media continue to give airtime and space to global-warming alarmists. Everyone from Al Gore to Joe Biden touts the “fact” that 97 percent of all scientists are part of a consensus on the serious nature of climate change.

But that number hides some important facts. Anyone who dissents from the climate-change orthodoxy is dealt with ruthlessly.

In 1938 Dorothy Thompson, known for being the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany, penned the following: “Write it down that the democratic world broke its promises and its oaths, and capitulated, not before strength, but before terrible weakness, armed only with ruthlessness and audacity.” Thompson’s words echo much of what is currently occurring in the world today.

In 1939 Thompson was recognized by Time magazine as the second most influential woman in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt. In Thompson’s Let the Record Speak, one is hard pressed not to see certain similarities today with what occurred a mere 76 years ago in the world. The players may be different but the fascist urge — be it Nazism, Marxism, Communism, or radical Islam — is still quite evident. Thus, Thompson wrote

The world has been treated to a display of brute force which is entirely in harmony with the Nazi Weltanschauung. Exactly what has happened has been predicted for years by independent students and reporters of National Socialism. The whole program could have been charted by any one of us. And that the procedure should be bolstered by egregious lies might also have been predicted. Still, the leaders of the Third Reich evidently believe that there is no limit to the credulity of the human race [emphasis mine].

Consequently, we have a President of these United States who impotently stands by as President Putin annexes the Crimea while the White House “repeatedly insists that Russia’s move is illegal and won’t be recognized.”

Paul Roderick Gregory reminds his readers that “[c]ivilized countries understand that wars over territories threaten the foundation of world peace. Apparently Putin does not.” Thus, …” [a]n agreement between nations, freely reached, can change a border. But no state may use force or threat to compel another to surrender any part of its territory. Territorial integrity thus takes territorial conflict off the table and removes what, in the long course of history, has been far and away the most frequent cause of war.”

Random and sporadic vandalism against mosques and churches in Israel is anathema; vandalism against the IDF is different.

The phenomenon of “pricetag” vandalism presents a challenge to Israeli society to look at itself. But there has been confusion about what it represents and why it persists. Clearly, there is enough information to prove that (1) Israeli authorities take the issue seriously; and (2) it is not condoned.

To understand the problem, however, a distinction must be made between two kinds of vandalism: one is anti-Muslim and anti-Christian; the other is a response to IDF-related destruction of Jewish homes and communities.

A third category generally ignored in discussing the controversy involves attacks by Arabs against Jews.

Random and sporadic vandalism against mosques and churches in Israel is anathema. It has been thoroughly repudiated by Israeli society; not a single Israeli political or religious leader supports it. Tolerance is a Jewish and Israeli value, and anyone who denies this is either ignorant, or a bigot. Yet, politicians, the police and media accuse “settlers” and “hilltop youths.”

After arresting many of them, however, the phenomenon continues.

In some cases, the perpetrators were found to be local Arabs and criminals seeking revenge and in one case, a secular Jewish youth whose mother is a judge. The reason it continues is the same for every other country in which it occurs.

Vandalism against the IDF is different.

The first hour of “The Immigrant” is stunning in its cinematography that’s both gritty and glowing, its set-up of the plot, its immediate insights into the main characters and its perfect rendition of the look and texture of the lower east side of New York in 1921. Marion Cotillard plays Ewa, a young Polish woman escaping to America with her consumptive sister and hoping to be met at the ship by her aunt and uncle. Instead, the sister is remanded to the Ellis Island infirmary for six months, no one shows up to greet them and Ewa is scheduled for a hearing prior to being deported for low moral behavior on the ship. Cotillard is an actress whose face, even in repose, conveys all sorts of emotional undertones and this is a part that gives her free rein to express the full range of human responses – disappointment, gratitude, fear, anger, shame, love and forgiveness. She manages to do all this with unusual restraint, considering the drama of her situation. Joaquin Phoenix plays Bruno Weiss, an oversized character who is both burlesque impressario and pimp, and though he isn’t averse to using his stable of women, he also genuinely cares for them and pays them a fair share of their earnings. He first appears at Ellis Island and rescues Ewa from the line for rejects, paying off the immigration agents to remand her to him and bringing her into the double-edged quagmire of protection at the price of degradation.

Ewa has the face of an angel but she has witnessed the murder of her parents and undoubtedly many other grotesque events in Poland and she is capable of making quick adjustments to the exigencies of her unexpected situation; she is smart enough to also make demands for greater compensation. A nightmarish rebuff by the family she was searching for tightens the vise around her, narrowing her options and leaving her hostage to the life of a prostitute, albeit one who is adored by her pimp. Even the bit parts are perfectly cast and Marion Cotillard’s Polish is a fluent and well-accented tour de force.

With the graceful, balletic entrance of Jeremy Renner as an incomparable magician, the movie ups the ante, creating a rival for Ewa’s attention and pushing Joaquin Phoenix down a too-familiar road of histrionic violence and impending explosive actions. He’s melted down in so many recent movies that it now ceases to frighten us and instead, turns the movie into melodrama with a predictable outcome. More back-stories are revealed regarding the relationship between Renner and Phoenix and the jealousy between the prostitutes until the ample frame of the original plot becomes overladen with too many sidebars that simply weigh it down.

Despite this cavil, this is a serious movie that reminds us of how difficult the adjustment was to the realities of emigrating, how very far it was from the dream of new beginnings in a country envisioned with gold-paved streets, and how much courage it took for millions of ordinary people whose stories often became as extraordinary as this one.

ttorney General Eric Holder said the Monday announcement of the indictment of five People’s Liberation Army officers was meant to tell China, “enough is enough” on its massive cyberespionage campaign against the United States.

China’s reaction – a diplomatic harrumph – didn’t indicate that the indictments were taken at all seriously.

Nor should they be. For at least a decade, China has been engaged in the most massive and far-reaching of all cyberespionage campaigns against the United States. From it, the Chinese have benefitted in a variety of ways, including bypassing expensive research on military systems for stealth aircraft and gaining intelligence on how many American assets – from financial markets to the power grid – work.

There is no more reason to expect China will repent and change its ways after these indictments than there was when President Obama imposed economic sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. The Russians shrugged the sanctions off as the diplomatic flatulence they were. The indictments announced by Holder will have an equal effect on China, namely none at all. They won’t stop or even reduce China’s cyberespionage program against the U.S. because it’s reaping too much benefit from it and because the indictments are another empty gesture by the nation it once labeled a paper tiger.

With thousands of attempts each day, China’s cyberespionage operations are trying to penetrate American defense, intelligence, financial and electric power networks, among other targets. And they are too often successful. Chinese cyberespionage has resulted in their theft of much of the secret design data for the F-35 fighter, which have already been observed in the newest version of China’s J-20 stealth fighter, which looks a whole lot like the F-35. (It now sports a new engine nozzle design, one of the many features evidently stolen from the American design.)

So why these indictments and why now? The answer to that question must be political, because there is nothing the Obama administration does that isn’t. Among the victims of the Chinese operation are Westinghouse Electric, U.S. Steel, SolarWorld, United Steel Workers Union, Allegheny Technologies Inc. and Alcoa. Were the indictments issued because a campaign donor — perhaps a generous and friendly union — demanded them?

All too many Israeli politicians brazenly seek to star in compulsive remakes of Shimon Peres’s original London and Oslo escapades.

The Israeli penchant for dismissing official authority and embarking on freelance diplomatic endeavors could presumably be dismissed as an almost endearing eccentricity. The problem is that it’s anything but endearing. It triggers real disasters.

The hubris to flout the authority of any government – no matter who heads it – exclusively emboldens left-wing players. They range from relatively unknown individuals (though they’re always well-connected to the real clout-bearers) all the way to top-ranking ministers who, fired up by their own chutzpah, set out to hijack history-making prerogatives.

Soon-to-retire President Shimon Peres still does it in his ostensibly ceremonial role of president. But he already behaved badly as foreign minister to both prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin.

The latest to dabble in unauthorized diplomacy is Justice Minister Tzipi Livni. She recently conferred with Ramallah figurehead Mahmoud Abbas in London, despite the government’s decision (which she supported) to freeze contact with him for his kiss-and-make-up with Jihadist Hamas.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was reported to be displeased with this rendezvous (by way of significant understatement).

It cannot be easy for him (again, by way of significant understatement). His hold on the reins of Israeli diplomacy is continuously challenged by cliques of conceited self-appointed competitors. Livni’s controversial initiative came only days after Peres informed the nation straight-faced that he had single-handed all but achieved a comprehensive peace agreement (no less) with Abbas in 2011 and that said salvation from all of our existential woes was summarily scuttled by none other than Netanyahu.

More precisely, Peres claimed that Netanyahu asked him to wait “three or four days,” then “the days went by,” and the deal disappeared with them. Of course, one would assume that had there been any substance to whatever it was that Peres claims to have cleverly concocted – and had it been bolstered by any authentic Palestinian commitment – it would have survived for a few additional days.

However, Peres’s aim isn’t to make peace or to make a sense. It is, as per many a precedent on his part, to impart innuendo and garner glory for himself.

Both of these should be fundamental no-noes for anyone who accepts that it is the right of an elected government to determine its own diplomatic strategy. It’s one thing for the opposition or for overly ambitious coalition members to carp and take potshots domestically but quite another to launch their own foreign policy projects. So, anyway, it ought to be wherever the basics of the voters’ democratic verdict are minimally respected.

U.S. Navy admiral and University of Texas, Austin, alumnus William H. McRaven returned to his alma mater last week to give seniors 10 lessons from basic SEAL training when he spoke at the school’s commencement.

McRaven, the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command who organized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, stressed the importance of making your bed every morning, taking on obstacles headfirst, and realizing that it’s OK to be a “sugar cookie.”

All of his lessons were supported by personal stories from McRaven’s many years as a Navy SEAL.

“While these lessons were learned during my time in the military, I can assure you that it matters not whether you ever served a day in uniform,” McRaven told students. “It matters not your gender, your ethnic or religious background, your orientation, or your social status.”

Here are McRaven’s 10 lessons from his years of experience as a Navy SEAL, via University of Texas, Austin:

I have been a Navy SEAL for 36 years. But it all began when I left UT for Basic SEAL training in Coronado, California.

Basic SEAL training is six months of long torturous runs in the soft sand, midnight swims in the cold water off San Diego, obstacles courses, unending calisthenics, days without sleep and always being cold, wet and miserable.

It is six months of being constantly harassed by professionally trained warriors who seek to find the weak of mind and body and eliminate them from ever becoming a Navy SEAL.

But, the training also seeks to find those students who can lead in an environment of constant stress, chaos, failure and hardships.

To me basic SEAL training was a life time of challenges crammed into six months.

So, here are the ten lesson’s I learned from basic SEAL training that hopefully will be of value to you as you move forward in life.

Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Viet Nam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed.

If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack—rack—that’s Navy talk for bed.

It was a simple task—mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle hardened SEALs—but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over.

If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another.

By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.

If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.

And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made—that you made—and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.

If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.