California's cap and trade program may be in collapse.

CA #capandtrade program may be in collapse https://t.co/QCEGYtUZxd #CAPolitics

— HJTA.org (@HJTA) June 15, 2016

The linchpin of California’s climate change agenda, a program known as cap and trade, has become mired in legal, financial and political troubles...

The program has been a symbol of the state’s leadership in the fight against global warming and a key source of funding, most notably for the high-speed rail project connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles.

But the legality of cap and trade is being challenged in court by a business group, and questions are growing about whether state law allows it to operate past 2020. With the end of the legislative session in August, Gov. Jerry Brown, lawmakers and interest groups of all stripes are laying the groundwork for what could become a battle royal over the future of California’s climate change programs.

Unless the state acts, “the whole system could fail,” said Senate leader Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles). “If that happens, we could lose an entire stream of revenue to make our communities more sustainable.”....

Victor Davis Hanson on the politicization of the English language

Victor Davis Hanson on the politicization of the #English #language https://t.co/5X0lK2POB7 pic.twitter.com/v4OB6Epd27

— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) April 7, 2016

America Now Has an Official Language: Newspeakhttps://t.co/B5B2mcVxs7

— All American Girl (@AIIAmericanGirI) April 5, 2016

Obamacare channels Orwell

◼ "If you want to get a sense of how Orwellian the law actually is, just look at the section cited by Verrilli — 1321. - Washington Examiner

Toward the end of Wednesday's oral arguments in the latest Obamacare case to make it to the Supreme Court, Donald Verrilli, U.S. Solicitor General, argued that the administration's interpretation of the healthcare law was the most deferential to states. The argument, apart from coming from an administration that has consistently asserted a robust role for the federal government, was a bid to win over Justice Anthony Kennedy, a key swing vote, who raised concerns about the federalism implications of the suit....

Verrilli argued that the law's text "is designed to afford state flexibility" and that the challengers' interpretation would contradict this. He added, "It would be an Orwellian sense of the word 'flexibility' to use it in the manner that petitioners say the statute uses it, because it's the polar opposite of flexibility." The implication was that this would be preposterous.

In truth, Orwellian semantics are a standard aspect of Obamacare, a law that's named the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" even though in reality it has triggered the cancellation of individual health insurance plans, narrowed choices of doctors and hospitals, and jacked up the sticker price of insurance.

If you want to get a sense of how Orwellian the law actually is, just look at the section cited by Verrilli — 1321. It promises "state flexibility," as he noted, but starts by instructing the secretary of Health and Human Services (a federal official) to "issue regulations setting the standards for meeting the requirements" for states creating exchanges, offering health insurance through the exchanges and managing risk in the insurance market. It also says the federal government can impose "such other requirements as the Secretary determines appropriate." So any state that sets up an exchange must abide by a mountain of federal regulations and that it can only offer insurance policies that meet the federal definition.... KEEP READING

IRS WARNS: OBAMACARE TAX MUST BE PAID

◼ IRS Warns: Obamacare Tax Must Be Paid with Tax Return - Americans For Tax Reform

President Obama’s Internal Revenue Service today quietly released a series of Obamacare “Health Care Tax Tips” warning Americans that they must obtain “qualifying” health insurance – as defined by the federal government – or face a “shared responsibility payment” when filing their tax returns in 2015. The term “shared responsibility payment” refers to the Obamacare individual mandate tax, one of at least seven tax hikes in the healthcare law that directly hit families making less than $250,000 per year.

◼ IRS' Friendly Reminder to Make Obamacare Payment (or Else) is Dripping in Leftist Language - Michael Hausam/IJReview

4. Your 2014 tax return will ask if you had insurance coverage or qualified for an exemption. If not, you may owe a shared responsibility payment when you file in 2015.

Core-speak is peculiarly riddled with such stunning Orwellian-inspired ditties like change agent, change maker, education pioneer, thought leader, thought merchant, groupwork, groupthink and mindshift.

◼ ORWELLIAN ‘NEWSPEAK’ COMING TO COMMON CORE CLASSROOMS EVERYWHERE - Merrill Hope/Breitbart

In fact, the whole precise words movement is creepy and it's attributed to David Coleman, the Common Core's English Language Arts (ELA) chief architect, who also is president of the College Board. Coleman was appointed to the post by President Obama. It is has been reported that he has never taught an elementary school class in his life, yet he is redesigning a century's worth of college entrance exams. He is aligning the ACT, PSAT, SAT and AP to the Common Core State Standards. He's even got the high school equivalency test, the GED, covered. In his spare time, apparently, he's rewriting the English language.

◼ Common Core expert Dr. Sandra Stotsky told Connecticut grassroots activists against the Common Core standards that the latest “tactic” of their state legislature was to suppress debate about the standards by refusing to hear any bills whatsoever on Common Core. - Dr. Susan Berry/Breitbart

...Stotsky told about 200 Stop Common Core in Connecticut activists on Saturday that Connecticut, Colorado, and Massachusetts are among the states in which lawmakers are stifling any discussion or debate on the standards.

For example, on Wednesday, Connecticut state House Republican Leader Larry Cafero issued a news release calling for a public hearing on the Common Core standards.

“We have heard from thousands of educators and parents outside the legislature on these matters,” Cafero said. “As lawmakers and their elected officials, we owe the public the chance to address these issues in a formal setting within the General Assembly.’’

Cafero went on to question why, despite being deluged from the public, not a single bill regarding Common Core or teacher evaluations was raised by the legislature’s Education Committee. Cafero criticized the plan to hold an “informal hearing’’ in which only invited speakers will be allowed to speak.

House Democratic Chairman Andrew Fleischmann confirmed on Wednesday that no bills will be raised regarding Common Core.

“This is exactly why teachers, administrators, parents and their children find themselves in the situation they are in now: Common Core was adopted outside of the legislative process which meant that too many voices were left out of the debate,’’ Cafero wrote....

An Orwellian nation of Obamathink

Illustration by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times

The nightmare societies portrayed in novelist George Orwell's “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “Animal Farm” gave us the word “Orwellian” -- describing a too-powerful government’s efforts to deceive, control, rewrite history and reinvent ...

◼ Today’s liberal vanguard recrafts words to mean their opposites - Victor Davis Hanson/Washington Times

The nightmare societies portrayed in the George Orwell novels “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “Animal Farm” gave us the word “Orwellian.” That adjective reflects a vast government’s efforts not just to deceive and control the people, but also to do so by reinventing the meaning of ordinary words while rewriting the past itself.

America, of all places, is becoming Orwellian. The president repeatedly reminds the American people that under his leadership, the United States has produced a record level of new oil and natural gas. However, didn’t President Obama radically curtail leases for just such new energy production on federal lands?

Have the edicts on the barn wall of “Animal Farm” been changed again, with the production of new oil and gas going from bad to suddenly good?

Does anyone remember that the “Affordable Care Act” was sold on the premise that it would guarantee retention of existing health plans and doctors, create 4 million new jobs and save families $2,500 a year in premiums, all while extending expanded coverage to more people at a lower cost?

Only in Orwell’s world of doublespeak could raising taxes while the costs of millions of health plans soars be called “affordable.” Is losing your existing plan and doctor a way of retaining them?

The Congressional Budget Office recently warned that Obamacare would “keep hours worked and potential output during the next 10 years lower than they would be otherwise.” That nonpartisan verdict should be bad news for workers.

Not in our brave new world. The Obama administration says it is pleased that workers will now be freed from “job lock.”

What is job lock — a made-up Newspeak word right out “Nineteen Eighty-Four”? Work fewer hours, make less money and create fewer outputs — and be happy....

In politics, of course, the left and right, conservative and liberal, make up stuff. But Orwell, who also blasted the rise of European fascism, focused more on the mind games of the statist left.

Why? He apparently feared that the left suffered an additional wage of hypocrisy in more openly proclaiming the noble interests of “the people.”

Because of those supposedly exalted ends of equality and fairness, statists were more likely to get a pass from the media and public for the scary means they employed to achieve them.

Right now in America, the words and deeds of both past and present become reality only when the leaders put them in the correct service of the people.

Community has become the opposite of individualism. It has come to mean the conformity of identity groups and unelected activists who mandate the behavior of entire identity groups. The virtual community is not a legal entity. It holds no elections or referendums. Its leadership is chosen for it from outside.

◼ Liberal Newspeak - Sultan Knish

Liberal Newspeak is the hybrid product of advertising, academia and bureaucracy. It takes ideas from creative leftists, rinses them in conformity, uses techniques from the ad world to make them as safe as possible and then shoves them down everyone's throat....

Liberal Newspeak is concerned with making people safe while telling them absolutely nothing. It's a new language that conveys reassurance rather than meaning. Its totem words are almost pre-verbal in that they mean nothing except "You are safe" and "We are taking care of you."

That is what gibberish like, "We are improving access options for all community interest groups" or "We are striving to innovate while listening to everyone's concerns" means. Daily life has become filled with meaningless pats on the head like that, which dedicated liberal newspeakers spew up like newborns. This empty babble says nothing. It's the hum of the beehive. The signal that keeps all the drones headed in the same direction....

While the implications of Liberal Newspeak are ominous, its tones aren't. It deliberately embraces the feminine side of language. It strives to be comforting, nurturing and soothing. It never tells you anything directly. Instead it makes you read everything between the lines. It rarely answers questions. Instead its answers indirectly explain to you why you shouldn't even be asking the questions.

Top Democrat says those aren't 'cancellation notices,' they're 'transitions' into Obamacare

◼ Insurance companies aren't sending out cancellation letters, they're helping people "transition" into Obamacare, according to a top Democrat. - Joel Gehrke/Washington Examiner @joelmentum

They're not "death panels," they're "lifestage transition navigators." http://t.co/VYDUVPwjCn

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) October 29, 2013

◼ Sources: White House told insurance execs to keep quiet on Obamacare - CNN

...Multiple sources declined to speak publicly about the push back because they fear retribution.

But Bob Laszewski, who heads a consulting firm for big insurance companies, did talk on the record.

"The White House is exerting massive pressure on the industry, including the trade associations, to keep quiet," he said....

Beware of Beautifully Misnamed Laws

◼ Who would oppose “affordable care” and “farm security”? - Victor Davis Hanson/National Review

Washington has a bad habit of naming laws by what they are not.

These euphemisms usually win temporary public support. After all, who wants to be against anything “affordable”? But on examination, such idealistically named legislation usually turns out to be aimed at special interests and the opposite of what voters were promised....

Then, three years later and with two elections out of the way, the tab for all the perks suddenly came due. The law turns out neither to protect patients from rate hikes nor to make health care affordable. In fact, the administration promises of 2009–10 are becoming the nightmare of 2013....

Beware of Congress bearing the gifts of beautifully misnamed laws.

In a move out of Orwell or the Soviet Union, television shows are being asked to include propaganda about ObamaCare

◼ Thanks to a new propaganda initiative to promote the health-care policies of the Obama administration, there’s now a board of entertainment-industry creative types (including “Bad” creator Vince Gilligan) whose stated mission is to push the great news about ObamaCare. - NY Post

...An industry that loves to trumpet its fierce devotion to the First Amendment is putting itself at risk when it willingly becomes another tool of the DC power elite.

Once you’re taking dictation from Washington, it becomes harder to say no when the politicians start telling you what not to say.

Obama’s only interest is in demonizing Republicans. In this action he shows he has no regard for our troops or their sacrifice.

◼ Obama Crosses the Fairness Line - Larry Johnson/No Quarter

...The essence of America is our belief in fair play. We do not like someone being given unfair advantage. We expect everyone, rich and poor, to have the same opportunity. In that regard, Obama is demonstrating the exact opposite of fairness. He cuts special deals with big Business to avoid a mandate on health care while making individuals pay the freight. He closes war memorials to veterans, shutters National Parks to American citizens but allows illegal immigrants to hold a rally on public land.

And now, in a move that highlights his political incompetence, Obama has singled out dead servicemen as a pawn for trying to pressure Republicans. That kind of petty vindictiveness is the exact opposite of playing fair. Turns out, Barack Obama has the hunting instincts of Wylie Coyote.

George Orwell - "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Signs say National Mall closed, but immigration reform rally is a go

◼ Rally for Illegal Aliens ALLOWED on 'Closed' National Mall... - Charlie Spiering/Washington Examiner @charlesspiering

Even though isolated barricades with "closed" signs remained on the National Mall on Tuesday, the setup for the immigration reform rally said otherwise.

A giant stage with lights and an "Immigration Reform Now" banner was set up in the center of the mall, along with three large portable screens.

On one side of the mall, more than 100 porta potties were set up for protesters who will attend the rally today.

As several groups of musicians performed sound checks, a lone National Park Service employee arrived to survey the scene, but referred me to the Park Service communications office and left when I asked her why she was called into work today.

◼ Pro-Amnesty Forces Rally on National Mall - BREITBART

Scores of Democratic House members also began arriving shortly after 12:30 PM on golf carts. House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is scheduled to speak as well, as are many different labor union officials. Washington, D.C. mayor Vince Gray is slated to address the group too.

MEANWHILE:
◼ SHUTDOWN THEATER: TAKE A HIKE, WAR HEROES, WE’VE GOT AN IMMIGRATION RALLY TO HOLD - John Hayward/Human Events @Doc_o
◼ Video: Veterans arrested at Vietnam War memorial in NYC - HotAir
◼ Runner Fined $100 At Valley Forge Amid Government Shutdown - CBS Philadelphia

“From a safety standpoint, I like running down there, along with the scenery,” he says.

But on Sunday, Bells says there were two rangers waiting with their car lights flashing when he returned. They slapped him with the $100 citation.

◼ Examiner Editorial: Obama manipulated vets, seniors, children in shutdown - Washington Examiner

Somebody, starting in the Oval Office, should be ashamed.

BIG BROTHER IS SPEAKING

◼ President Obama is taking a page out of George Orwell’s “1984″. Just like Big Brother in Orwell’s famous novel 1984, Obama uses words to mean the opposite. - Betsy McCaughey/Human Events

On Monday, when House Speaker John Boehner proposed a conference to bring the parties together, both Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused.

Worse, they called the House Republicans “anarchists” and “extremists.” These insults from a president who, four days earlier, pledged “mutual respect” in his ongoing talks with Iran’s president, the world’s leading exporter of terror.

The difference between Reagan and Obama is this: Reagan knew who the enemy was. He told the Russian president, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” But he dealt reasonably with fellow American Tip O’Neil. Sadly, Obama cowtows to the world’s villains, including Vladimir Putin and Rouhani, but refuses to sit down with Boehner.

Already Obama is spinning another Orwellian tale about the coming need to hike the debt ceiling. He claims that attaching conditions to raising the debt ceiling “has not been done in the past,” and “is not how our constitutional system is designed to work”. Untrue. In fact, that is so blatantly false that The Washington Post slapped the president with four Pinocchios for his debt-ceiling tale. But say it often enough, and maybe the public will believe it.

In truth, the House has the constitutional authority to delay any debt-ceiling hike or attach conditions to it. A president able to borrow freely, the framers understood, would have too much power. “An elective despotism is not what we fought for,” wrote Madison in Federalist 62.

Coming Next, an Obama-Corps for America’s Youth

◼ The elitists meeting in Aspen are concocting their latest effort at social engineering. - Bruce Chapman/American Spectator

...In the midst of rising public distrust of government and, especially, distrust of the Obama Administration, Administration backers and their allies are launching yet another plan for major expansion of government and Washington’s control over people’s lives....

Compulsion is not very popular in peacetime, so the obligation to “volunteer,” according to Aspen leader Gen. Stanley McChrystal (Ret.), only will be “socially mandatory,” the way many high schools and colleges these days require performance of “service” in order to graduate.

I put the word “volunteer” in quotes here because “mandatory” service, however it is constructed, is only considered voluntary by Orwellians. Real voluntary service is a touchstone of our culture, but this is something else and almost contradictory, a kind of social engineering by the federal government. One distinction is the incentive of money. The new corps — some greatly expanded combination of existing government agencies — will be “modestly paid.” As a reward for a year’s service, participants would receive something over $12,500 (the AmeriCorps rate today for 11 months) and $5,000, one understands, to help reduce college loans.

The taxpayers, who have so little else to do with their money anymore, will foot the bill.

Obama's Orwellian Legacy

◼ Is America moving toward the Big Brother dystopia envisioned by George Orwell in some of his most famous novels?

Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/06/11/obamas_orwellian_legacy_118759.html#.UbdoqXz3S2I.twitter#ixzz2VwzJNiRI
Follow us: @RCP_Articles on Twitter - Dustin Walker/Real Clear Politics

That question has been on many minds in the wake of revelations about the National Security Agency’s sweeping surveillance of phone records and Internet data. The ACLU, for one, called these programs “beyond Orwellian” in a statement released last week. The ACLU’s response is characteristically feverish, but in at least one respect, the organization is right: We are indeed approaching an Orwellian world....

The real effect of the NSA stories is to cement a narrative about Obama that will likely become part of his legacy: the liberal senator and constitutional law professor who, like the pigs in “Animal Farm,” metamorphosed into what he had so notoriously opposed. Guantanamo remains open. Drones still rain down on Pakistan, Yemen, and anywhere else the president sees fit. Leaks are prosecuted vigorously and reporters are investigated to uncover their sources. And now, the president is affirming the surveillance practices he once mused could be unconstitutional. In light of these actions alone, it seems that Barack Obama has learned that George W. Bush got a lot of things right....

It was an amazingly audacious lie

◼ A President without Shame - Clarice Feldman/American Thinker

Speaking at a photo op about the Sandy hurricane disaster, President Obama said:
"In times of crisis, "we pull together, we leave nobody behind, we make sure we respond as a nation," Obama said, reprising one of his 2012 campaign themes.

"Whenever an American is in need, all of us stand together in providing the help that is necessary," he added."

Not only "leave nobody behind", but "providing the help that is necessary."

It was an amazingly audacious lie, prompting Grady Gibbs to post on Facebook, "The Brazilians have the perfect expression for this. There's no exact translation for 'sim vergonha,' but it means 'having no shame or pride.'"

Maybe he thought no one had caught on to the way this administration had failed Ambassador Stevens and those trapped in Benghazi, but three women journalists, at least (Fox's Jennifer Griffin and Catherine Herridge and CBS's Sharyl Attkisson ), have not forgotten those acts of incompetence, treachery and mendacity. They are being helped by countless whistleblowers that share our outrage. And it is obvious even more are coming forward every day fueled by the anger we all share at this failure to "stand together, providing the help that is necessary".

This week's top honors go to Ms. Attkisson whose work deserves your attention. I can only summarize some of the highlights of her work, and I urge you to read it all. More, at the link.

Obama Administration To Grant Illegal Aliens 'Unlawful Presence Waivers'

◼ In its quest to implement stealth amnesty, the Obama Administration is working behind the scenes to halt the deportation of certain illegal immigrants by granting them “unlawful presence waivers.” - Judicial Watch

This appears to be part of the Obama Administration’s bigger plan to blow off Congress by using its executive powers to grant illegal immigrants backdoor amnesty. The plan has been in the works for years and in 2010 Texas’s largest newspaper published an exposé about a then-secret DHS initiative that systematically cancelled pending deportations. The remarkable program stunned the legal profession and baffled immigration attorneys who said the government bounced their clients’ deportation even when expulsion was virtually guaranteed.

In late 2011 a mainstream newspaper obtained internal Homeland Security documents outlining “sweeping changes” in immigration enforcement that halt the deportation of illegal aliens with no criminal records. This also includes a nationwide “training program” to assure that enforcement agents and prosecuting attorneys don’t remove illegal immigrants who haven’t been convicted of crimes.