Friday night videos episode 48

It’s back again, with something new at the end.

We are coming to an election where the most important number is in doubt: is the unemployment rate really 9.6% as the government says or 10.1% as Gallup postulates? Americans for Limited Government thinks they have an answer.

But the group Bankrupting America says neither figure tells the story.

Maybe one solution would be to stop regulating us to death? Ben Lieberman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute explains on FOX News.

Yet our elected leadership simply doesn’t get it. They create straw men to pass blame to, for one.

Yes, that was recorded at Obama’s Bowie State appearance. Do you think the man has that feeling about someone like moveon.org?

I don’t think Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gets it either. Ron Futrell of Liberty.org tells the story.

In the most recent Freedom Minute, Renee Giachino describes how liberals are running scared.The guy who should be running scared is Chris Coons; otherwise Delaware voters may be the ones frightened by their tax increases.

I’m still laughing about that one.

I think over the next two weeks I’m going to devote my FNV series to candidate videos – not necessarily the ones done by other media outlets who may or may not have their own agenda, but done by the candidates themselves. Here’s an example from County Executive hopeful Joe Ollinger.

Okay, time to shift gears. Last weekend I was at the Good Beer Festival and I brought my camera. This is an up-and-coming young local band called Naylor Mill. (With a name like that, they have to be local.)

The sound is just a touch overmodulated on the video (it sounded better on my computer before I uploaded it) but you get the idea. In a future FNV episode I’ll feature other stuff from the band.

But for the next couple weeks it’s going to be primarily candidates on themselves.

Friday night videos – episode 45

Call this the primary edition. It’s some of the interesting things which have come across my screen lately and I want to share with you.

First, I love the smell of hypocricy in the evening as much as I do in the morning.

Yep, let’s hire non-union people to protest on behalf of a union. Unless there’s full employment within the union (in which case they shouldn’t need the work anyway) why can’t they use their own members?

In the meantime, the administration they blindly support is killing other union and non-union jobs in the energy industry.

It’s interesting – 5,500 people came of their own accord to speak out on their jobs but providing a handful of jobs to the members of the union who instead paid scab labor to picket was out of the question.

The statewide races for Governor and Senate are quite interesting, with Jim Rutledge and Eric Wargotz fighting out the U.S. Senate nod and Brian Murphy closing the gap on Bob Ehrlich. Here’s a little something from each, beginning with Rutledge. Someone came up with a great video on Jim’s behalf.

I still like the bearded look on Jim. Meanwhile, his opponent Eric Wargotz hit the airwaves with this last week.

It’s a humorous ad, and certainly gets the point across. But is appearing in safari garb Eric’s ‘Dukakis moment’?

A more conventional message comes from Brian Murphy in his TV spot.

It sounds pretty Eastern Shore to me, since that’s where he grew up. Meanwhile, Bob Ehrlich vows to kill the expansion of the sales tax to 43 services.

Oh, I remember the bill – they’ve tried to sneak it through but didn’t have the cajones to do it back then. We fought it tooth and nail and won.

Finally, this week wouldn’t be complete without mentioning something about tomorrow. It’s this week’s Freedom Minute from the Center for Individual Freedom.I decided to skip the music video this week because I may just have fresh ones next week if I’m able. We’ll have to see on that; otherwise enjoy the rest of your night!

Friday night videos – episode 43

Once again it’s time to see what the world of politics has to offer in the video realm, with a dash of local music thrown in and a bit of news on the tail end to boot.

I’m going to wax philosophical on you to start. One of my favorite books is Atlas Shrugged because I immediately got the point about heavy-handed government involvement in society. So this video appealed to me as well, and even though it’s over two years old I hadn’t seen it until recently.

I didn’t even know there was an Ayn Rand Institute but I do now.

Earlier this week, a special person had a birthday. Yes, Kim turned 39 again – amazing how that works! Oh, and that same day some president did too, which is the subject of this Freedom Minute.But in the spirit of bipartisanship, even Harry Reid doesn’t think all Republican Senators are bad – he really likes two of them in particular. From Americans for Limited Government and their coverage of Netroots Nation came this.

I bet this guy would have fit in quite well at the Netroots Nation. As it was, Rep. Pete Stark of California seemed awful snarky at a recent townhall meeting in his district.

Maybe this is why Frank Kratovil won’t have a townhall meeting? Come on, we’re well-behaved people.

What if the internet was like the old Ma Bell? The Competitive Enterprise Institute has some thoughts.

The internet has gotten along just fine as it stands – if not I wouldn’t be here.

Nor would this music video from Lower Class Citizens, courtesy of “the Prince of the Wind.” Like a few weeks back, this was recorded in some underground bunker but turned out well.

So you got your rock, and I can roll until next time. However, depending on availablility, you may see more videos here on monoblogue.

I haven’t quite decided how best to present these, whether as a once- or twice-a-week separate feature or devote this particular weekly space to them, but I’ve reached agreement with Julie Brewington and Matt Trenka (the moderator) on sharing the videos they have done for Right Coast here on monoblogue. While I have plenty of questions for candidates myself, future efforts of theirs will begin to integrate them and voters will be more informed if these videos are seen on more outlets. It’s a win-win for all of us.

I think these will begin next week – you’ll just have to return often to see what I decide for a regular timeslot.

Friday night videos – episode 35

Oh yeah, this one should be good. I’m liking the way this is shaping up already.

I’ll begin with a leftover from last weekend. You know how I celebrated Memorial Day weekend, but my blogging friend Bob McCarty found one man’s ultimate tribute to the veterans in his family and across the nation – a restored 1971 Mustang.

I found this fascinating as well. You know, we’ve all been transfixed by the Deepwater Horizon disaster, but, as former Virginia Governor George Allen explains, we have other energy resources which are being ignored.

But it’s government regulation which keeps us from accessing our resources, and the unpredictability of Washington is scaring some investors. Businessman Steve Wynn was on CNBC recently making his case.

So he’s going to reallocate his operations because China – a nominally Communist nation – is more predictable and friendly to business than our nation. Shameful.

Then again, in this video from CEI we see government run amok. While they bill the video as humorous, is this really all that far-fetched?

The cold hard reality of our economic future is detailed in this short piece.

Yes, we are basically making money out of thin air, tangling ourselves hopelessly in a web of debt.

I referred to this video earlier today in an Examiner piece, but financial crunches are affecting government all the way down to the local level. While I find there’s a little too much grandstanding in this example, the problem is real.

Maybe we all should just say screw it and rock. Ballyhoo! is an Aberdeen-based band soon to embark on another national tour of clubs and the occasional opening slot for other artists. They’re already popular on the college circuit as this video from a University of Delaware stop shows (some language NSFW).

A nice, summery groove. Can’t be dead serious all the time, can we? Until next time, enjoy the weekend.

Friday night videos – episode 31

Back to politics again after my foray into local music. Let’s see what I can dig up here, all right?

The other day it was Earth Day and needless to say I don’t go in for the hype – neither does Mario Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Three guys who were too much into Earth Day are Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman. They are a creative bunch, though, as they spin cap and tax. Again, from CEI:

Speaking of big government, the Environmental Protection Agency has a video contest going to explain why government regulations are a good thing. Needless to say, someone had to poke fun at it – why not the gang at Americans for Prosperity?

This spotlight is on a group which wants government regulation (in the form of higher taxes) to fatten their coffers.

Perhaps the Maryland GOP can borrow this from their California brethren?

Instead, our state is faced with too many voters like this group Bob McCarty found at an Illinois rally.

This is the same rally where TEA Partiers were greeted by a riot squad.

A protest of a different sort occurred right here in Maryland. Disaffected workers in the film industry aren’t too happy with our present governor – WBAL reports.

Newt Gingrich always has something to say as well. Here he talks about President Obama’s “secular socialist machine.”

I wrote about Daniel “The Whig Man” Vovak earlier this week as he proposed to legalize pot. Nick Gillespie of the Reason Foundation agrees.

But I didn’t forget local music! Here’s the hard-rocking Christian group Not My Own recorded live (not by me) at Circles in Milford, Delaware.

Until next time, that’s a wrap.

The coalition is fading fast

It hasn’t been well-publicized but over the last week three corporations withdrew their membership from the U.S. Climate Action Partnership – Conoco, BP America, and Caterpillar cut ties with the group in the wake of recent questions about the accuracy of the data used to support manmade global warming.

As Myron Ebell from the Competitive Enterprise Institute noted:

In dropping out of the U. S. Climate Action Partnership, BP America, Conoco Phillips, and Caterpillar are recognizing that cap-and-trade legislation is dead in the U. S. Congress and that global warming alarmism is collapsing rapidly.  We hope that other major corporations will soon see the light and drop their support for cap-and-trade and other energy-rationing legislation. 

These announcements are most welcome, but they do not mean that we can relax our efforts to defeat and roll back energy-rationing legislation and regulations.  Many policies and proposals that would raise energy prices through the roof for American consumers and destroy millions of jobs in energy-intensive industries still pose a huge threat.  These include the EPA’s decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act, environmental pressure group efforts to use the Endangered Species Act to stop energy production and new power plants, the higher fuel economy standards for new passenger vehicles enacted in 2007, presidential executive orders, and bills in Congress to require more renewable electricity, higher energy efficiency standards for buildings, and low carbon transportation fuel standards.

Worthy of note that the three dropouts are two energy companies and a heavy equipment manufacturer, companies which would likely be in favor of alternative energy if they felt it were a profitable way to go.

Frankly, I was a little surprised to see my friend Jane Van Ryan downplay the withdrawal of two energy companies given her closeness to the situation. Then again, she points out that the unraveling of the climate change hoax is happening on many levels – everything from record cold and snowfall across the country to “hiding the decline” to the legislative failures both she and Ebell point out.

Yet big corporations are keen about shifting sides in a debate when they sense they’re no longer on the winning side. Most Americans don’t mind the occasional recycling program and taking other steps to protect the environment – that is until they feel compliance switches from voluntary to mandatory, as it would for cap and tax and other government mandates. As you’ll see Sunday (can you say foreshadowing?) the Audi “green police” commercial hit close to home because it’s just believable enough to be discomforting.

In the meantime, this may be a good opportunity to reward these companies for their farsightedness and belief in capitalism. Certainly they’re still going to have their lobbyists bending the ears of federal and state legislators, but at least in this way they have determined that government won’t be the solution to the problem.