The White House threatens Congress with the EPA

Fox news reported today that a top White House official "warned" Congress that, if it doesn't enact legislation to regulate "greenhouse" gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will assume a "command-and-control" role that could (read will) hurt business (i.e. the economy). This is bizarre.

The last I heard, the federal government only had three branches. The EPA clearly is not part of the judicial branch, so it must either be part of the executive branch or legislative branch (many federal agencies are actually arms of Congress). Yet the President's spokesman portrays the EPA as a rogue elephant threatening to trample the economy -- this may be accurate, but how did it come to pass?

The EPA is, in fact, part of the executive branch. Consequently, the President cannot credibly deny responsibility for its actions and their consequences. And he will have a hard time blaming regulations that haven't been enacted yet on his predecessor (although I wouldn't be surprised if he tried).

Ronald Reagan once famously declared that we are people who have a government and not the other way around. I am beginning to have my doubts.

Is Hamid Karzai more corrupt than Rod Blagojevich?

The President's new-found concern with corruption in the Karzai government is passing strange. The President, after all, is the product of Illinois and Cook County political machines, neither of which is celebrated for its moral rectitude. Those political organizations also produced Rod "pay to play" Blagojevich, who would be serving his second term as Illinois Governor, were it not for certain federal wiretaps. Given his own background, methinks the president doth protest too much.

Moreover, Hamid Karzai was the President of Afghanistan back in March 2009, when president Obama formulated his "comprehensive" strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, after extensive consultations with President Karzai's government, among others. Now he decides that the Karzai government may not be worthy of our support? Who did the president think he was partnering with back in March?

The president needs to wake up and smell the poppies.

Nuphedrine

The AGW debate continues

Richard S. Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at MIT, has an excellent article in today's Wall Street Journal in which he discusses the many unresolved issues and paradoxes in the AGW debate.

The science is anything but settled.