Your host Richard Morrison teams up with collaborators Jeremy Lott and William Yeatman to bring you Episode 72 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We begin with UN climate hypocrisy in Copenhagen, presidential arm-twisting on health care and a cloudy look at government transparency. We conclude with the end of the tobacco road in Virginia and scandal of banking and nepotism in Venezuela.

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White House communications director Anita Dunn is in the news cycle for having said that Mao Zedong, the megalomaniacal Communist dictator of post-war China, is one of her “favorite political philosophers.”  Zedong’s ideas led to the death of scores of millions of human beings, so many people find it news worthy that he’s an inspiration for an important White House official.

I know that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue can be a catty work environment because I’ve seen NBC’s “The West Wing” on…

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What if we applied corporate standards to the “science” that is driving global warming policy?

Imagine the reaction if investment companies provided only rosy stock and economic data to prospective investors; manufacturers withheld chemical spill statistics from government regulators; or medical device and pharmaceutical companies doctored data on patients injured by their products.

Media frenzies, congressional hearings, regulatory investigations, fines and jail sentences would come faster than you can say Henry Waxman. If those same standards were applied to global warming alarmists,…

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Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) appeared on CSPAN’s Newsmakers this Sunday to talk about the Kerry-Boxer climate bill. The highlight of the interview was when Boxer said that recent behavioral changes led to a drop in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. She must have been referring to foreclosures and layoffs, because the ailing economy is the only reason that emissions have fallen.

Boxer inadvertently made a great point: Greenhouse gas emissions are causally correlated with economic growth. This is why her cap-and-tax energy-rationing bill…

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The Obama administration is sending mixed messages on energy policy.  On the one hand, Obama’s top budget guru Peter Orszag told Congress last year that a cap-and-trade is designed to raise the price of energy.  On the other, the President says a cap-and-trade would spur economic growth.

Taxes and economic growth are mutually exclusive, so it seems as if President Obama is trying to have his cake and eat it, too.

To understand what the Obama administration is really thinking about energy…

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Saluting Norman Borlaug’s scientific, agricultural and humanitarian legacy

“Since when did you become a global warming alarmist?” I kidded Norman midway into our telephone conversation a few weeks before this amazing scientist and humanitarian died.

“What are you talking about?” Dr. Borlaug retorted. “I’ve never believed that nonsense.”

I read a couple sentences from his July 29 Wall Street Journal article. “Within the next four decades, the world’s farmers will have to double production … on a shrinking land base and in the face of…

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CEI’s Chris Horner used the Freedom of Information Act to uncover internal documents from the Obama administration in which Treasury Department officials admit that a cap-and-trade would impose a steep energy tax on American families.

The Treasury Department’s admission contradicts claims by Democratic leadership that a cap-and-trade energy rationing scheme would boost the economy. In fact, a massive new energy tax (Department officials suggest that a cap-and-trade would cost consumers hundreds of billions of dollars) would depress economic growth by increasing…

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Rumors surfaced last week that President Barack Obama now considers financial sector reform to be his administration’s #2 priority after healthcare. Previously, climate change was thought to be the next big-ticket item on the President’s agenda.

The tea-leaves seem to indicate that this rumor is true.

For starters, Senator Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) decided to stay on as Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, rather than accept the gavel on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (a post…

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Obama’s global warming policies have few US followers - and fewer on the global stage

“Few challenges facing America - and the world - are more urgent than combating climate change,” President Obama has asserted. “We will make it clear that America is ready to lead.”

The President and Al Gore are certainly ready to lead. But how many will follow?

Even in America, and certainly on the world stage, the two increasingly look like Don Quixote and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza.…

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The White House revised its long term budget outlook yesterday, but not in a good way-President Barack Obama tacked another $2 trillion onto America’s tab (to China). Two days ago, the U.S. taxpayer was projected to owe “only” $7 trillion (to China) through 2020; now, it’s $9 trillion.

But wait! There’s more! America’s dismal deficit is even worse than Obama is willing to admit.

Yesterday Reuters reported that Obama’s budget predictions include more than $600 billion in revenues raised from a cap-and-trade energy…

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