The Anti-Economic Freedom Party

The Club for Growth rates each member of Congress annually for their commitment to economic freedom and growth.  The 2022 ratings are not available, since the 2022 sessions are still underway.  The 2021 session ratings for the House of Representatives, controlled by a Democratic Party majority, are available here.  There are some very important lessons to keep in mind for the 2022 mid-term election coming up.

First, lets get the Big Picture View:

Republican Rating Breakdown:

28 earned 100% rating

79 earned 90-99% ratings

74 earned 80 - 89% ratings

19 earned 70 - 79% ratings

7 earned 60 - 69% ratings

3 earned 50 - 59% ratings

1 earned 40 - 49% rating

Democrat Rating Breakdown:

7 earned 10 - 19% ratings

3 earned 1 - 9% ratings

210 earned 0% rating

First Observation:  It is most remarkable that all but 10 Democrats had a 0% rating on economic freedom and growth, making the median Democrat rating 0%.

Second Observation:  The entire range of Democrat ratings was between 0 and 17%.  Democrats are extremely united in their opposition to economic freedom and growth.

Third Observation:  Republicans range from 48% to 100%.  There are Republicans who are not highly committed to economic freedom and growth.

Fourth Observation:  Democrats universally move in lock-step with Nancy Pelosi and her 0% rating, with a very few symbolic instances of rebellion, often because Nancy Pelosi was not thought to be as strongly anti-economic freedom as the Democrat wanted her to be.  Examples -- Ilhan Omar 13%, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 10%, and Rashida Tlaib 10%.

Many of these 0% Democrats will tell you they favor capitalism over socialism, but that is a lie.  They are adamantly anti-economic freedom.  They are universally in agreement that we should be driven into energy poverty.  They are universally in agreement that we should be hounded by IRS agents armed to the teeth and wasting many tens of hours of our time, with horrible economic costs.  They are universally in favor of ever more regulations weighing down small businesses.  They are universally in favor of mandating our subservience to corrupt union bosses.  They are universally determined to force our children to go to government-run schools where they are besieged with propaganda in favor big government as a supposed protection against immoral businessmen, never mind the immorality of politicians and bureaucrats.  Many of these Democrats believe the Earth cannot sustain its 8 billion people and are so anti-human as to suggest that we need to reduce the human population!  How can they make that happen?  

Simple -- destroy the capitalist private sector that provides us a high standard of living by putting it completely under the control of politicians, bureaucrats, experts in universities, and union bosses.  With the exception of a good fraction of the Republican politicians, these groups are in it only so they can exercise their own power lust.  They long for the control of the old Medieval aristocracy and clergy over the impoverished serfs.  But now with the establishment of huge databases of information on each of us, they can classify us as being in their camp as fellow elitists, in their camp as deceived dependents, or as their opposition -- that is as The Deplorables.  It is The Deplorables who want freedom and in the context of an increasingly authoritarian government, we are the Rebels.  Biden just called us near Nazis, revealing his total ignorance and transferring to us his own behavior and motivations.  Biden and the Democrats in the House of Representatives see eye to eye.  Economic freedoms must be suppressed in order that they can micromanage our lives and make us their serf slaves.

Of course our freedom of speech, freedom to write and read, freedom of assembly, freedom of conscience, and freedom of association are all also being ever more restricted too.  The Elite aristocracy cannot allow these freedoms either, because they can be used by the rebellious freedom-lovers to deny them power.

Census Bureau Admitted it Over-Counted Democrat States and Under-Counted Republican States

 I knew that the Census Bureau had been engaged in trying to over-count Democrat strongholds and to under-count Republican strongholds prior to the release of the 2020 Census results.  Those results increased the number of Representatives in the House of Representatives for Texas and Florida by one less than independent population experts expected.  Other states, such as Arizona, did not gain at all, contrary to the expectation of some.  But, I missed the announcement by the Census Bureau in late May that they had errored by over- or under-counting in the following states:

Over-counted:  Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New York

Under-counted:  Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas

True to the nature of the federal bureaucracy, all of the over-counting occurred in the Democratic states and five of the six under-counted states were Republican states.  It makes me wonder if the under-counting in Illinois was predominantly in the larger area of the state represented by the five of the 18 members of the House from that state who are Republicans.  Sure enough, the new congressional district map for Illinois now has only four districts that favor Republicans.  The one competitive district before, which was held by a Republican, now leans Democrat.  One might have expected that the death toll due to killings in Chicago might have led to the loss of more than one Congressional seat in the Chicago area.

Minnesota had been projected by many to lose a seat, which it did not, perhaps due to the over-counting in Minnesota.  New York had been widely expected to lose two seats, but it lost only one, perhaps due to over-counting.  Of course, the Census Bureau announced its major errors too late to allow for corrections.  We may be stuck with these errors now until the 2032 election.

We have learned that the old media, academia, and federal bureaucrats are all functionaries of the power-lusting Democrat Party elite.  The intelligence agencies, the FBI, and the Justice Department were all in the tank to falsely accuse Trump of Russian election collusion and of improprieties with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.  Then they accused him of inciting a riot that they claimed killed five policemen.  He did not incite a riot and no policemen were killed.  One later died of natural causes and four later committed suicide.  It is mighty depressing to be a policeman in a Democrat run city these days.  As for the IRS, we have the example of them running a tyrannical syndicate ungoverned by the rule of law and clearly willing to use their power to go after Tea Party and pro-Constitution organizations.  Now, it is about to have 87,000 more agents to attack small businesses and manufacturing firms, who the Democrats count as their enemies.  Then there will be all those additional bureaucrats in charge of the alternative energy economy with its expensive, unreliable energy mandates.

The federal government consists mostly of people who are not your friends.  At least not if you are an American who thinks independently, believes in productive work, has earned some property, and does not want to force his fellow man to do his will.  The Democrats love using the power of government to make you do their will, however.

The Economist: Should political parties let just anyone run for president?

In an article deploring the fact that there are 25 candidates for the Democratic nomination to run for the presidency of the United States of America, The Economist wants American political party establishments to play a much bigger role in choosing a small number of candidates who will be allowed to run in party primaries.

They even advise increasing the number of superdelegates, who played a big role in selecting Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Party nominee for President in the 2016 election.  Superdelegates are not required to vote in accordance with the primary vote outcome in their states and they are usually chosen from the ranks of the Deep Party Apparatchiks.  This is a most undemocratic method for choosing a party nominee for President or any other elected office, but democracy is another of many words robbed of meaning by those elitists who hunger for power and have long grown accustomed to exercising it without challenge.  There was a backlash among Democrat voters to the role of superdelegates in the Clinton nomination that led to a cutback in the present power of superdelegates in the party.  An alternative suggested in the article is having a convention to choose a small number of candidates to put before the primary voters.  Still another is to have the party's Congress members put out a recommended slate of candidates, rather as the teachers unions do in public school board elections.

Why does The Economist think that many candidates are a problem?  Because:

"the system has thrown up too many candidates for voters to evaluate.  It rewards name recognition and social-media prowess, and asks activists to make decisions about people about whom they know little."

These are valid concerns.  However, there are so many loony birds among the candidates in this case that it is really easy to winnow out almost all of the candidates.  No, I can make a much stronger statement than that.  It is really easy to eliminate all of the Democrat candidates from any extensive evaluation because they are all nuts, power-hungry, and suffer from a huge delusion that they have the intellectual power to evaluate the needs of all Americans in their lives and to make decisions about people whom they know little.

If the people of the United States are unable to properly evaluate 25 candidates for the presidency, then how can one entertain a faith that any one of those candidates even has the capability of evaluating the real needs of 329 million individual Americans?  How can anyone maintain the delusion that any candidate can know enough about 329 million Americans to then micromanage their lives as the federal government already largely tries to do and the Democrat Party is united in wanting to do on a much grander scale?

We have a federal government that is four times the size it ought to be.  It is constantly violating the many and broad rights of the individual to life and self-ownership, liberty, to earn a living, property, and the pursuit of happiness.  It is constantly deciding who will be given a benefit and who will be deprived under force in order that the politicians can steal what they need to give that benefit.  Republicans have no business exercising these powers and Democrats have even less business doing so because they are even more blind to their unrealistic assumptions about their mental capabilities.

Is There a Climate Science Consensus?

Is there any level on which a climate consensus can be said to exist?  Only at the most obvious level, which is that everyone agrees that the climate changes.  The realists know that the climate has always changed, drastically over millions of years of alternating Ice Ages and Warm Periods and within a narrower range over the warm last 12,000 years, with such periods as the Minoan Warm Period, the Roman Warming, the Medieval Warm Period, and the present warm period.  The catastrophic man-made global warming alarmists claim that the climate was very stable prior to the Industrial Age, which just happens to have had its start at the end of the Little Ice Age according to the Climate Realists.  But, since man became powerful and plentiful as a result of the Industrial Age, the alarmists say that climate change now occurs mostly due to man, specifically due to his emissions of some infra-red active gases, primarily carbon dioxide.

Obama and legions of those who argue that mankind faces its greatest challenge in trying to prevent the catastrophe of man-made or anthropogenic global warming, like to claim that 97% of scientists agree with them.  This claim is based on a completely bogus survey of published papers, with papers simply stating that there may be some human influence on climate being counted as part of a scientific consensus.

It is not noted that almost all climate research or other research with any implications about the climate at all is funded by governments, almost all of which will not fund research that is unfavorable to the thesis that man has warmed the planet badly since the start of the Industrial Age.  If you are a scientist and you want further government funding for your research, you are likely to be rewarded if you find some way in which your results support the government-favored thesis of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.  If your results are contrary to that thesis, it will be fatal to further funding support to take note of that.  You had best put another interpretation on your results.

One of the most interesting observations is that retirement brings on a major change of viewpoint for many scientists.  Those who supported the alarmist claims before retirement often oppose it afterwards. Those who were silent on the subject often come out against the alarmist thesis after retirement.  This applies to many scientists who are not climate scientists, but are experts in radiation such as infra-red, visible light, and ultra-violet light radiation.  Just like climate scientists, it is harmful to their careers if they speak out against the so-called consensus the governments have tried so hard to create.  NASA, Navy, Air Force, Army, EPA, NOAA, Department of Energy with its 17 energy research laboratories, Department of the Interior, Agriculture Department, and university researchers in the sciences in the USA are all given good reason to be fearful about their careers if they speak up against the alarmist crusade.  The government has worked ruthlessly hard to try to produce a "scientific consensus", but has massively violated both foundational epistemologic principles and the scientific method in the process.  Both depend critically on a commitment to reason, independent thinking, and on freedom of speech and press.  The tendency of all but the most legitimate and principled of governments to wish to limit independent thinking and the free trade in ideas is one of the great dangers of putting the government in charge of basic research funding.

Most of the scientists said to be supporters of the catastrophic man-made global warming thesis can not provide a decent explanation of the physics which is supposed to cause the emission of the so-called greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to cause a catastrophic level of warming.  They should most definitely not be counted as scientists who are the basis for a scientific consensus, despite that fact that some of them may have an unscientific belief in that alarmist thesis. What would a true scientific consensus be?  It would consist of those scientists who had a coherent, carefully laid out and reasonably complete single theory of how man's emissions of infra-red active molecules such as carbon dioxide and methane caused such a large warming of the globe that a catastrophe for mankind must certainly occur.  Those holding the scientific viewpoint could all articulate this theory and explain how it agreed with observations of reality and how it could make predictions of the climate's characteristics of the future.  They would agree on all of these things.  This is what a scientific consensus would be.

Most of those who attempt an explanation today will initially try it by using an argument similar to that used in the IPCC reports from 2001 through 2014. This explanation of the science is based on a viewpoint provided in the following Earth energy budget:

Fig. 1. Kiehl-Trenberth energy budget for the Earth of 1997.  This represents a common viewpoint of the physics that is used to justify the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis.  It is apparently the settled science. It will be demonstrated to be very wrongheaded.  I have added the percentage power flux values with 342 W/m² equal to 100% and approximately equal to one-quarter of the solar power incident upon the Earth most directly facing the Sun.  More recent energy budgets have slightly different numbers, but the viewpoint is the same and the claim of a scientific consensus has not changed.

The IPCC reports claim that solar radiation absorbed at the surface of the Earth causes the Earth's surface to emit about 2.3 times as much energy in the form of infra-red radiation as it absorbed from the sun.  This seems plausible to them because they believe that a body will emit infra-red radiation at the bottom of the atmosphere and with water all over the surface just as the body would if it were isolated in space.  This is not the case.  Infra-red radiation is emitted from oscillating dipoles and they cannot emit all of their energy in the form of radiation when those same oscillating dipoles are dumping energy into the evaporation of water and losing energy via collisions with air molecules.

But having started off by neglecting the conservation of energy, the IPCC has to balance out the flow of energies, so they posit a huge back-radiation flow of energy from the so-called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  Let us take note of what the 324 W/m² of back-radiation implies.  A black body radiator emitting this power would be at a temperature T, such that

P = 324 W/m² = σ T⁴ = (5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m²K⁴) T⁴,

implying that T = 274.95K.  This is the temperature of the air in the U.S. Standard Atmosphere of just barely more than 2000 meters.  The altitude would be higher in the tropics.  A back-radiation of this magnitude implies a long mean free path at the bottom of the atmosphere where there is usually much water vapor.

However, we can also examine the implied mean free path of the infra-red radiation emitted from the surface and absorbed by the atmosphere.  The power difference between the surface emission and the atmospheric absorption (390 - 350) W/m² = 40 W/m² has the property that 

P = 40 W/m² = σ [ (288K)⁴ -  T⁴ ] = (5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m²K⁴) [ (288K)⁴ - T⁴ ],

where T is the effective temperature of the atmosphere where the surface radiation emission is absorbed by the atmosphere.  This temperature is 280.3K, which is not equal to the 274.95K temperature of the atmosphere that radiates back to the surface as back-radiation according to the UN IPCC report physics.  The implied effective altitude of the surface radiation absorption in the atmosphere is much shorter in this case than that for the 2000 meters altitude from which the atmosphere radiates the surface in the UN IPCC energy budget.  The energy spectrum from the higher temperature Earth surface has more higher energy infra-red radiation in it than does that emitted by the cooler atmosphere, so the mean free path of surface radiation should be greater, not less.

This inconsistency in the infra-red absorption lengths implies that the numbers in the UN IPCC Earth energy budget are simply made up to balance the flow of energy in and out of the Earth's surface, without concern even for a consistent physical theory.  This is exactly what would happen if the 390 W/m² of surface emitted infra-red radiation were too large, as it is due to conservation of energy.

Examining Fig.1., one sees that 40 W/m² of radiation from the surface is emitted through the atmospheric window directly into space without absorption in the atmosphere.  Thus, of the total of about 235 W/m² of infra-red radiation that the Earth emits into space, about 195 W/m² is emitted from the atmosphere.  This is also the sum of the emission from the clouds and the atmosphere in the diagram.  We can calculate the effective temperature of this emission and from that find the effective altitude from which the emission from the atmosphere into space occurs.  We have

P = 195 W/m² = σ T⁴ = (5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m²K⁴) (T)<sup>4

and we find that T = 242K.  In the U.S. Standard Atmosphere Tables of 1976, this temperature is at an altitude just above 7000 meters.  It is a higher altitude in the tropics.

Now if the mean free path for water emitted and absorbed radiation where water is very prevalent in the bottom 2000 meters of the atmosphere is as great as is implied by Fig. 1, then one should expect that the emission of atmospheric radiation into space would occur from about the same altitude that water freezes into ice. There is much less water vapor above that altitude than below it.  Everyone agrees that the vast majority of infra-red radiation into space is from water vapor.  In the U.S. Standard atmosphere tables, the altitude at which water freezes is a bit below 3000 meters, which is much lower than 7000 meters.  There is a contradiction here in this IPCC theory of how the so-called greenhouse gases work.</sup>

The very large back-radiation does not happen for several reasons.

1)  It violates electric field theory by claiming that photons flow from a weaker field region up the electric field strength gradient.

2)  The infra-red active molecules are not black-body radiators or absorbers.  They are only able to absorb and emit radiation at wavelengths representing only a minority portion of the wavelength range of a black-body radiator.

3)  It fails because the mean free paths of the infra-red radiation that can be absorbed or emitted by water vapor and carbon dioxide are very short.  That means that these molecules absorb the infra-red energy they can absorb and emit over a very short distance.  While the mean free path length for wavelengths that water can absorb depends upon the humidity, this length is commonly less than 200 meters.  For carbon dioxide in a water vapor-free atmosphere at present concentrations, this distance in the lower atmosphere is only a few times greater than that for water vapor.  When water vapor is present, because most of the wavelengths at which carbon dioxide is active are also absorbed by water vapor, the effective mean free path length for carbon dioxide emitted infra-red radiation is much shorter than that due to only having the same concentration of carbon dioxide in a water vapor free atmosphere. In the lower half of the troposphere, the likelihood that the absorbed radiation in a greenhouse gas molecule will be re-emitted before it is transferred to non-radiating molecules in the infra-red range is very small.  There is just too high a collision rate between molecules, so that radiation energy absorbed in a so-called greenhouse gas is almost immediately changed into molecular kinetic energy in non-radiating molecules.  That energy is then very predominantly transported by the relatively slow mechanism of convection.

Thus, there is no way that the atmosphere as a whole can radiate a large quantity of infra-red radiation back to the Earth's surface in accordance with the IPCC viewpoint.  The supposed back-radiation in the energy budget above is 1.93 times the solar radiation energy absorbed by the surface! This back-radiation under the equilibrium conditions with a linearly decreasing temperature gradient with altitude cannot occur.  There are conditions when the atmosphere is warmer than the surface and then there is some radiation from the atmosphere to the surface, but the amount of such radiation is still severely restricted by the short mean free path of radiation from the main so-called greenhouse gas, water vapor and that of the very secondary carbon dioxide.

In reality, the Earth's surface is a very dense array of oscillating electric dipoles which create a comparatively strong electric field.  Upon entering the atmosphere, only a small fraction of the molecules are sufficiently strong oscillating electric dipoles to absorb or emit infra-red radiation. These are water vapor and carbon dioxide for the most part.  Consequently, the electric field in the lowest atmosphere virtually in contact with the surface has a rapidly decreasing strength and it then further slowly decreases as the density of water vapor and carbon dioxide decreases with altitude in the lower troposphere.  The strength of the electric field then decreases more rapidly as water vapor freezes at altitudes above its freezing temperature.   Above that altitude it continues to decrease at a slower rate as carbon dioxide continues to become less dense along with the main atmospheric gases of nitrogen, oxygen, and argon.  The actual emission of infra-red radiation follows the electric field from its stronger regions to its weaker regions, which means that infra-red photon emission is strongly biased in the upward direction.

The basic problem that greenhouse gas theory is trying to address is the fact that the surface temperature of the Earth is about 288K, while the effective radiative temperature with respect to space of the entire Earth including both surface and atmosphere is about 255K.  Much of the radiation of infra-red into space is from altitudes in the atmosphere which are considerably cooler than the surface temperature, though some of the radiation is from the surface through the atmospheric window.  Note that the temperature difference between 255K and 288K is 33K, which is attributed by the greenhouse gas hypothesis to warming of the Earth by greenhouse gases.  The viewpoint is one which is entirely dominated by a belief that by far the only significant transport of energy in the entire atmosphere is by means of radiation.


In fact, the transport of energy away from the surface of the Earth is dominated by the sum of the energy transport by water evaporation and condensation at altitude and by convection currents. As noted above, the transport by radiation in the lower troposphere is small, except for that transmitted through the atmospheric window and not absorbed by the atmosphere.  Transport by radiation that can be absorbed by infra-red active gases is so small due to the short mean free path for the absorption of radiation from water vapor molecules predominantly and very secondarily from carbon dioxide combined with the very high collision rate of air molecules. Infra-red active molecules radiate energy which is very quickly converted into kinetic energy in non-radiating nitrogen and oxygen molecules, and in argon atoms. Most of the air molecules can only transport heat energy by convection.

According to Fig. 1. above, the sun provides the Earth's surface with 168 W/m² of absorbed energy power. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation for the relationship between the power density of the emitting surface and the temperature of the surface, one can calculate the highest temperature the Earth's surface can attain from such solar radiative warming, when ignoring non-radiative cooling mechanisms:

P = 168 W/m² = σ T⁴ = (5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m²K⁴) T⁴, 

solving which we find that T = 233.3 K, which is nearly 55K cooler than our actual 288K surface temperature.  

The fact that this maximum solar radiative surface heating temperature is so low informs us that the surface temperature is not entirely due to the absorbed radiation from the sun.  168 W/m² cannot produce a surface with a temperature of 288K. There has to be another major contributor to that high temperature. Of course, the greenhouse gas hypothesis advocates say this is due to a large back radiation of energy from the atmosphere, which is not so because photons do not flow up the electric field gradient and because their mean free path lengths are too short.

Now if we had no infra-red active gases in our atmosphere, we would have no water vapor and hence no clouds.  So 77 W/m² would not be reflected from the clouds back into space, as seen in Fig.1.  In addition, most of the 67 W/m² of incident solar radiation absorbed by the atmosphere would not be absorbed if there were no water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so being conservative, let us estimate that about 35 W/m² additional solar radiation would be absorbed by the Earth's surface due to having a much less absorbing atmosphere.  The total solar power absorbed by the Earth's surface is then about 280 W/m² .   In this case, the maximum surface temperature can be calculated from: 

P = 280 W/m² = σ T⁴ = (5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m²K⁴) (T)⁴

^{and T = 265.1K, which is a 31.8K higher temperature than the maximum temperature of 233.3K with infra-red active gases absent another warming mechanism than the present solar insolation at the surface.  Thus, one concludes that the presence of the so-called greenhouse gases in our atmosphere causes the Earth's surface temperature to be almost 32K cooler than it otherwise would be.  Using such a radiation dominant model used, the Earth's surface temperature without greenhouse gases is only about 23K cooler than the Earth's radiative temperature as seen from space. Instead of searching for a means to warm the surface by 33K as in the quest of the IPCC, one only needs another warming mechanism to raise the surface temperature by 23K.  Removing the greenhouse gases has proved a 10K warming effect from this viewpoint.}

^{This proposed greenhouse gas-free atmosphere and the above calculation ignore the air convection that results from non-infra-red active molecules striking the surface, but because radiated surface energy is not absorbed by the atmosphere in the infra-red active gas free hypothetical atmosphere, surface radiation is not quickly transformed into more convection transport of energy.  Also, there is no formation of water vapor, hence no evaporation of water.  Consequently, this calculation is much closer to reality than is the usual UN IPCC radiation-dominated calculation with greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  So, it is by no means clear that there is any kind of greenhouse gas warming of the Earth.  One can make at least as good a case for a cooling effect if one has a radiation dominance mindset.}

Interestingly enough, when the problems with the usual greenhouse gas viewpoint of man-made global warming featured in the IPCC reports and vaguely taught in the schools are pointed out, many of the scientists who hold that viewpoint will then begin arguing a second and very different theory of man-made global warming based on the effects of infra-red active gases.  It seems not to register on them that one cannot claim a scientific consensus if there is no general agreement on the actual mechanism upon which an infra-red active molecule can catastrophically warm the Earth.  They have turned to a second and incompatible mechanism, yet they do not stop making the claim that they have a scientific consensus.  Some of those who argue from the start for this second greenhouse gas theory are lukewarmers, who maintain that the warming effect is less than would be catastrophic, but still significant.

Let us recall that the atmosphere emits infra-red radiation into space at a temperature of about 242K and that this corresponds in the U.S. Standard Atmosphere tables to an altitude of a bit less than 7000 meters.The catastrophic man-made global warmers like to examine the case of a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Imaging such a doubling.  The added carbon dioxide would absorb somewhat more of the radiation now emitted by water vapor into space, though water vapor emission would still be the main source of radiation into space.  Water vapor absorbs and emits infra-red radiation over a greater range of wavelengths and its half-life in the excited state is much less than that for carbon dioxide.  This makes water vapor a more efficient transporter of energy.  Water vapor concentration is actually very low at altitudes of 7000 m and above because the temperature there is way below the freezing point of water at 273.15K or 0C. Despite this, water vapor radiation emission will be greater than that from a doubled carbon dioxide concentration.

The warming argument goes that radiation from lower altitude water vapor will be absorbed by carbon dioxide molecules and emitted by them into space at cooler temperatures since they are at higher altitudes.  The cooler temperature of emission will mean that less energy is radiated into space, which results in warming the entire atmosphere.  This ignores the fact that at these altitudes, some re-emission of absorbed radiation will occur without being distributed to non-radiating molecules since the gas molecule collision rate is now much lower than in the lower troposphere.  More of the absorbing molecules are not in equilibrium with the surrounding air molecules.  The argument makes a much greater mistake, as we will see.

^{Let us suppose for an estimate of the maximum carbon dioxide effect that all of the emission from altitudes near 7000 m and all of the emission from water vapor molecules is captured by higher altitude carbon dioxide molecules. In fact, it is not and would not be with a doubling of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but we want to establish an upper limit on the effect claimed.  Let us suppose that instead of an emission temperature of about 242K, the carbon dioxide emission occurs at the lowest emission temperature from the tropopause beginning at about 11000 m in the U.S. Standard Atmosphere of 1976 or a higher altitude in the tropics.  The tropopause temperature is about 217K.  The stratosphere is above the tropopause and the temperature increases with altitude in the stratosphere.  Again we are maximizing the size of the supposed effect in favor of the warming claim.  Let us calculate the power of emission possible by twice as many carbon dioxide molecules at the temperature of 217K:}

P = 2σ T⁴ = 2 (5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m²K⁴)(217)⁴ = 251  W/m² 

It is clear that twice as many emitters at the lowest available temperature of 217K can emit more power than they can absorb despite the lower temperature.  In fact, these cooler carbon dioxide emitters are not going to emit more power than is transmitted to them by the predominantly warmer and lower altitude water vapor molecules, but they are not going to have any problem transmitting the 195 W/m² into space that is presently transmitted.  Therefore, they will not cause the lower atmosphere to warm up.

One of the keys to understanding the basic physics of the lower atmosphere and its effects on the temperature at the Earth's surface where we live is that surface cooling mechanisms transporting energy in the lower troposphere are very much dominated not by rapid radiation, but by the slow mechanisms of water evaporation and condensation at altitude and by convection.  Any argument that minimizes this fact is in serious error. Another critical understanding is that the temperature gradient in the troposphere is mostly due to gravity, which causes molecules which are at lower altitudes to have a higher kinetic energy and a lower potential energy than do those at higher altitude.  The increased kinetic energy at lower altitude is directly proportional to temperature, with the proportionality constant being the inverse of the heat capacity of the air molecule.  The fact that most of the radiant energy into space is from the upper troposphere means that the surface temperature will of course be much higher due to the action of gravity on air molecules.  Yes, the radiant heating of the Earth's surface also matters, but in fact it raises the surface temperature less than does the effect of gravity acting on air molecules.

Let us make a ballpark estimate of the amount of power that the surface radiates into the atmosphere and which is absorbed by the atmosphere.  I will use values for the solar absorption, thermal or convection cooling, and water evaporation cooling from Fig. 1.  These values may not be highly accurate, but the idea here is get a sense of the scale of the greenhouse gas effect.  Recall from above that the atmosphere, due to water vapor and carbon dioxide mostly, radiates infra-red radiation into space from an altitude of about 7000 meters according to the temperatures provided in the US Standard Atmosphere.  A simple calculation I provided here estimates the temperature gradient in the dry atmosphere based on an approximation of atmospheric molecular mass, general rules for the heat capacity of an ideal gas molecule, the ideal gas law, and the variation of kinetic energy with altitude provided by the gravitational field.  This yields a static atmosphere temperature gradient of 5.93K/1000m.  This is not in perfect agreement with the US Standard Atmosphere temperature gradient of 6.49K/1000m, but I know the details of my calculation and do not know all the details of theirs.  Consequently, I will use my temperature gradient in this ballpark approximation, since I know it to only be based on the temperature gradient due to gravity.  The US Standard Atmosphere of 1976 was also primarily based on the effect of gravity, but may have some other minor adjustments that I do not know about.

Fig. 1. says the solar radiation absorbed by the surface is 168 W/m² .  The surface loses radiant infra-red energy at the rate of 40 W/m² through the atmospheric window straight into space.  This energy is at wavelengths not absorbed by the so-called greenhouse gases.  The surface loses energy at the rate of 78 W/m² due to water evaporation and it loses it at a rate of 24 W/m² due to thermals or convection. The effective altitude from which infra-red active gases radiate their energy into space is about 7000m in the US Standard Atmosphere, where the temperature is 242.7K in the US Standard Atmosphere.  With a temperature gradient of 5.93K/1000m due to gravity, the surface temperature is then 284.2K,  This is less than 4K less than the 288K surface temperature, greatly reducing the possible warming effect of greenhouse gases by virtue of absorbing radiative emissions from the Earth's surface.

Let us calculate the additional net power from solar heating required to increase the surface temperature from 284.2K to 288K.  This is

P  = σ [(288K)⁴  - (284.2K)⁴] = 20 W/m² 

But P is also equal to

P = [ 168 - 40 -78 - 24 - R] W/m² =  20 W/m² 

where R is the infra-red radiation from the surface which is absorbed by the atmosphere and the power fluxes due to absorbed solar insolation, infra-red emitted through the atmospheric window, water evaporation, and rising thermals are taken from Fig. 1.  I am assuming for reasons discussed above that there is no significant back-radiation from the atmosphere. Solving this, we find that

R = 6 W/m² .

Now this value of the atmospheric absorption of surface emitted infra-red radiation bears a much more reasonable relation to the 40 W/m² transmitted through the atmosphere than does the 350 W/m² atmospheric absorption shown in Fig. 1. We know this from many an infra-red sensor application.  Infra-red sensors, such as in military applications, would be much more limited if the atmospheric window were only barely more than 10% of the normal total Earth infra-red emission. Because the 6 W/m² is based on several powers which are approximate, it is only a ballpark value. Continuing in this spirit, we can calculate an effective altitude for this surface radiation absorption. We will calculate the temperature of the atmospheric layer absorbing the infra-red emission from the surface that can be absorbed by the so-called greenhouse gases, chiefly water vapor:

P  = 6 W/m²  = σ [(288K)⁴  - (T)⁴]  

T = 286.9K, which according to the US Standard Atmosphere temperature gradient is an altitude of about 170 meters, or about 12 times less than the 2000m implied by the IPCC Fig.1! This will be a surprise to those who believe the IPCC story, but in fact we know that the mean free path for the absorption of infra-red by water vapor near the surface is commonly only a few meters.  The absorption of the wavelengths that carbon dioxide can absorb has a longer mean free path, but that is still only a few tens of meters and water vapor absorption dominates near the surface.

This calculation shows that radiation from the surface absorbed by infra-red active gases is actually in total a small effect and that small effect is dominated by water vapor.  The IPCC hypothesis that water vapor and carbon dioxide and a smattering of other greenhouse gases contribute a warming effect causing a surface warming of about 33K is absolutely a huge exaggeration.  Gravity causes the surface to be at about 284K or a bit higher and solar radiation only has to supply another total temperature increase of about 4K.  It is not clear that there is any warming caused by greenhouse gases at all.  At most, it is a small fraction of 4K! Given that most of whatever small fraction that is is caused by water vapor, any effect by carbon dioxide is minuscule.  What is more, the carbon dioxide absorption effects are already largely saturated.  It is clear that there is simply no need for a large back-radiation warming of the surface to explain the 288K surface temperature. Indeed, if there were a large back-radiation of 324 W/m²  , the surface temperature would be much, much hotter than it is.

It is hardly a wonder that the size of any warming effect by CO2 has not been measured.  In fact, adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, causes a very small increase in the heat capacity of the atmosphere and that causes the temperature gradient due to gravity to decrease very slightly, causing a cooling of the surface.  There is also a very small transport of energy to higher altitudes aided by rapid infra-red transport of energy from one layer of the atmosphere to the next which will increase very slightly.  Carbon dioxide also has a small effect in absorbing solar insolation in the upper atmosphere, thereby cooling the surface as more CO2 is added to the atmosphere.  The net very small effect of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should therefore be an infinitesimal decrease in the surface temperature. What is certain is that carbon dioxide is not threatening a catastrophe and will never likely even have a measurable effect on temperatures.

It is my hope that this relatively short and simple description of aspects of the physics of the atmosphere will give the reader much to think about and open new avenues for the evaluation of the usual arguments made for catastrophic man-made warming.  Few of the scientists who might claim that this science is well-understood and agreed upon by most scientists actually understand the science.  There are many who cannot at all reasonably describe the science of the theory they claim is universally understood and agreed upon.  There are many vague and poorly examined versions of the above hypotheses for the cause of man-made warming.  To my knowledge, there is no theory that stands up to a critical examination of the physics and there is certainly none that is proven by evidence.

It is a terrible thing that many scientists have been so careless or so corrupted by government incentives and intimidation that there is no massive scientific rebellion against the catastrophic man-made global warming alarmism.  Their hypotheses are such flimsy houses of cards that they will fall apart in time. Opposition by many scientists has been growing, though most of that opposition is of the sort that the warming effects are less than catastrophic.  In the meantime, the damage has been horrible to the People in the form of less freedom and a lower standard of living due to an increased cost of energy and a loss of energy reliability.  They will also suffer from the waste of many tens of billions of their taxes on wasteful government spending in support of non-viable renewable energy projects and companies.

Those scientists who are fighting this scientific fraud are serving mankind and science. Those scientists who are perpetrating the fraud should be remembered for their infamy.  The reputation of science will suffer, but ultimately, science will prevail and the fraud will be known as such.  Many so-called scientists will be found to have failed in the practice of rational thinking and the use of the scientific method.  This will be a massive human failure, but not an actual failure of science.  After all, reality is what it is, whether fallible or corruptible humans are willing to acknowledge that reality or not.

Republicans now control the House, the Senate, the presidency, most governorships, and most state legislatures and they are not nearly as convinced about catastrophic man-made global warming as are the Democrats.  This will give the pretense of a scientific consensus about this climate alarmist theory more time to continue its collapse.  However, the Republicans will come under great fire for their reluctance to treat catastrophic man-made global warming as a real threat.  It is important that scientists who have feared to come forward and argue the truth should do so now.  We all know that politicians rarely have strong backbones.  Good scientists need to take some of the pressure off of them by putting forth good science and wrecking any appearance of a scientific consensus in favor of the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis.

Updated on 29 November 2016
Updated on 3 December 2016
Updated on 4 December 2016 with a calculations based on the gravity temperature gradient to estimate properties of the surface IR radiation absorption by the atmosphere
Updated on 12 December 2016
Updated on 13 December 2016
Updated on 15 December 2016

Freedom in the 50 States Evaluated by Cato Institute

The 2016 report on Freedom in the 50 States by the Cato Institute evaluating the state of freedom through 2014 is now available.  The results of their evaluation of freedom based on fiscal policy, personal freedom, and regulatory policy are summarized in this map:

Cato provides the weightings they used for the evaluation of freedom and one can change those weightings to one's personal preferences to see how the rankings change.  But by Cato's weightings, the top ten freest states are ranked and graded as, with the party of the governor, the senate, and the house of the state added in order either as a D or an R in the year 2014:

1) New Hampshire, 0.3319, D, R, D
2) Alaska, 0.3265, R, R, R
3) Oklahoma, 0.2791, R, R, R
4) Indiana, 0.2778, R, R, R
5) South Dakota, 0.2754, R, R, R
6) Tennessee, 0.2646, R, R, R
7) Idaho, 0.2608, R, R, R
8) Florida, 0.2133, R, R, R
9) Iowa, 0.2048, R, D, R
10) Arizona, 0.1834, R, R, R

The 10 most authoritarian states with their negative scores are:

50) New York, -0.9763, D, D, D
49) California, -0.5026, D, D, D
48) Hawaii, -0.4904, D, D, D
47) New Jersey, -0.4285, R, D, D
46) Maryland, -0.4039, D, D, D
45) Connecticut, -0.2612, D, D, D
44) Illinois, -0.2554, D, D, D
43) Rhode Island, -0.1735, I (really D), D, D
42) Maine, -0.1500, R, D, D
41) Kentucky, -0.1489, D, R, D

It is interesting that the five most authoritarian states, New York, California, Hawaii, New Jersey, and Maryland are all more greatly deviant from the norm of freedom than is the freest of the states, New Hampshire.  If you value your freedom, it is particularly important to avoid these most negatively rated states.  New York is about three times more negative than New Hampshire is positive.  In fact, New York is almost twice as bad as either of the next two worst states, California and Hawaii.

If one were to move from New York to New Hampshire, the freedom score would increase by 1.3082.  Or if I were to move from authoritarian Maryland to where much of my family lives in Oklahoma, my score would improve by 0.6830, which is a substantial increase in freedom.  Or if you live in the Washington, DC area, living in Virginia offers a big improvement over living in Maryland by 0.5080.  If you have to live near New York City, Connecticut is substantially more free than is either New York or New Jersey.

Of the 10 most free states, all are controlled by Republicans, except two which had divided government in 2014.  Of the 10 most authoritarian governments, all were entirely controlled by Democrats in the governorship and the legislature, except the two least repressive of that set of the 10 worst, who had one of the three legs of the state government in the hands of Republicans.  It is not uncommon for libertarians to claim that the Republicans are every bit as anti-freedom as the Democrats, but these rankings make it clear that the Republicans are significantly better than the Democrats in most cases.  Indeed, one of the main reasons that the mean state freedom rankings are so much better than those of the most repressive states is because far more states are controlled by Republicans than are controlled by the more adamant deniers of individual rights found in the Democrat Party.

Which Americans Disapprove of Despotic Presidential Actions?

As I frequently note, good government only results when Americans adhere to rational principles that define the purpose of legitimate, very limited government.  Those good American Principles are defined in the Declaration of Independence and mandated in the Constitution quite well, though those principles are no longer well-understood by most Americans.

Among the basic principles of good government is the principle that all Americans must obey legitimate laws.  This includes the President and the members of Congress.  Another very good principle is that the executive charged with executing the laws does not make the laws.  That function is very clearly and properly assigned to the legislature, our Congress.  The President's oath of office requires him to protect, preserve, and defend the Constitution and to faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress.

Obama repeatedly and habitually violates his oath of office, thumbs his nose at the Constitution and now at the Congress which is no longer entirely under his control.  He assures us that he can do anything he wishes to do and is entirely unconstrained by the Constitution.  As is the habit of convinced socialist leaders, he is sure the laws only apply to others and not to him.  He follows the path of many a socialist in assuming despotic powers over the people of his country.

What is the opinion of the People about this despot?  Well first off, the latest Rasmussen weekly poll says that 48% of the People overall approve of Obama's job as President.  Yet, when Fox News polled the People on what they thought of Obama's going around Congress and changing the laws by executive orders and with executive branch regulation changes based on exceedingly creative interpretations of laws in ways never imagined by the Congresses that passed those laws, 74% of the People disapproved of that very critical usurpation of powers.  Though 74% disapproved, many of them clearly fail to recognize how important it is to oppose such despotic acts, since 48% approve of his overall job performance.

Now it is popular among libertarians and Objectivists to claim that it does not matter a wit whether Republicans or Democrats control the government.  If this is true, then nearly equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats ought to be opposed to presidential usurpation of powers not assigned to the office in the Constitution.  Yes, when a Democrat is President, slightly more Republicans will oppose such despotic acts and when a Republican is President, slightly more Democrats will oppose despotic presidential actions.

The Fox News poll found that 93% of Republicans opposed Obama's despotic acts, 80% of Independents opposed them, and only 54% of Democrats opposed them.  Very interestingly, when asked to set aside their beliefs in how our American government was supposed to work, the People overall no longer opposed presidential despotism by 74%, but that opposition fell to a mere 60%.  Clearly many Americans would rather not have their government limited by the Constitution and do not mind having a despotic ruler.

So, removed of the constraint of how they think the American government works, those who disapprove of a despotic presidential model among Republicans falls from 93% to 90%.  Independents disapproval falls 14% from 80% to only 66% disapproval.  Democrats show their general contempt for the Constitution and their love for despotism by dropping their disapproval from only 54% to a mere 31%, a drop of 23%!  The majority of Democrats just want to be told by a Supreme Leader what to do and they will do it.

To rephrase the attitude of most Democrats, if they could have their druthers, they would happily be slaves.  Most Democrats would do away with the Constitution.  Most Democrats are less than half as much inclined to oppose despotic rule as most Independents and only about one-third as likely to oppose it as Republicans.

Like it or not libertarians, the Republicans are Patriots with respect to the American Principle of government limited to the protection of individual rights compared to the Democrat traitors.
Many Republicans are highly flawed, but they are not despot lovers.  This is why far more libertarian voters are more aligned with the Republicans than with the Democrats.  This is why I usually vote for a Republican and never for a Democrat.  I am very strongly opposed to being a slave to any despot.

There are some very significant differences between Republicans and Democrats.

A Democrat Wants to Know, Sort Of

A young Democrat of my acquaintance, who was educated as an engineer at Georgia Institute of Technology and has a Wharton School of Business MBA, sent me the following note:

Again the GOP strikes with the Govt shutdown. It all stinks of politics, and the unfortunately for the GOP, they are not very likeable right now, so the American people don't buy what they are selling. How childish was Cruz the other day?? If every politician threw a tantrum every time they didn't get what they wanted or believed in, where would we as a country be? 

Simple questions. Why is there no leadership in the GOP? Why is the Tea Party effectively blocking the everything? This GOP is frankly a shitshow (excuse my french), and there is no site in end. It is a shame, I am starting to think that an independent may have just as good a chance as the GOP in the next presidential elections, because almost everyone there is either useless, or has to flip flop numerous times just to get the party nomination (a la Romney - a good candidate). I know how you feel about the Affordable Care Act, but I don't think it is a bad idea to ask people to chip in when it is health related. America needs to go away from the "every man for himself" motto when it comes to basic fundamentals like health. The Affordable Care Act does not make America a socialist country.

Now despite this thinking, this young man is of considerable importance to me.  As a consequence, I have had several discussions with him, though as is usually the case when talking to a Democrat, there has been no change of his opinions despite my sterling reason!  There is always the sense that a Democrat simply lives in a different universe and all the laws of physics and economics are different there and they cannot imagine what those laws are on Earth.

Here is my reply:

When government spends 24 to 25% of the entire GDP and has a couple of hundred thousand pages of regulations that impose restrictions on the actions of individuals and many cost and time requirements on individuals in addition to its actual spending, then passions will run high on political issues.  And contrary to the pretense of those who believe wholeheartedly in Big Government, government is all about the use of force.  With our democratic pretense, we suppose that 50.1% of the voters have the right to use that force to make 49.9% do anything they please.  This is not the case.  It does make every government act of the legislature and of the President a matter of politics.

The purpose of legitimate government is to protect the rights of the individual.  These rights are very broad with respect to freedom of conscience, freedom of association, and the freedom to take all actions which support your own life and happiness without the use of force against others.  Those broad freedoms are only partially spelled out as a few particulars in the Bill of Rights.  The 9th Amendment which might protect the full scope of our individual rights is ignored and this is not surprising because too few people have thought out the complete scope of our individual rights.
 
The Constitution listed the few powers of the government and the list was short.  Had the government and many special interests not long fought to ignore the limits of that list, most individual rights would not be violated by the government.  In fact, many of the Framers of the Constitution made this very argument against a Bill of Rights, noting that a Bill of Rights would be too narrow a protection and just protect a portion of one's individual rights.  They argued that this would be taken as a reason to say the government can do anything to anyone which is not then denied by the Bill of Rights.  This is what has happened and then some.  Now even rights explicit in the Bill of Rights are violated, such as Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom to Assemble, Freedom to Petition the Government, and the right to own and bear arms.
 

Let us return to the problems of unfettered democracy with a big government.  This creates a society in which on issue after issue a slim majority (in the ideal case, in actuality, special interests very often control such a government and the beliefs of the people be damned) uses force to impose their will on a minority.  The minority is enraged both by having to do something they think is wrong and by the fact that they are forced to do it by force-wielding thugs, agents of the government.  There is the wrongness of the thing itself and there is the wrongness of the force itself.

Even if you are on the majority side in many cases, you will inevitably be on the minority side many times also.  This is an awful way to live life.  It is very stressful and very confrontational.  But, it is the nature of unfettered democracy and is a substantial part of the reason such democracies soon collapse.  They destroy the society and replace a natural tendency to cooperate with one another in the private sector with a mob or gang mentality striving to control the use of government force to their advantage.  They also make laws to cover many activities they simply do not understand.  This really gums up the works by removing the specialists in the private sector from the decision process.
 
If a minority and a number of special interests combine with a socialist President, they can even impose a monster system such as ObamaCare, despite most of the People opposing it.  Most of the things that big government does have some special interest group wanting it and most of the People are actually remarkably uninformed about it.  They are also generally victims of that action and do not understand that.

Big Government is all about every faction for itself.  It is not about the welfare of the People.  That is the pretense and it is very clear these days that it is a very hollow pretense.  Contrary to your statement, the private sector is not properly characterized as "every man for himself."  The private sector is characterized by people cooperating with one another for a multitude of purposes of their own choosing and helping one another to achieve the goals that each has chosen of his own free will.  The private sector, unlike the government sector, does not live by the use of force and does not allow some to impose their will on others.  It is the government sector that refuses to allow us to work out mutually agreeable contracts and associations with others in many, many ways.  The government limits our activities mostly in interactions with others and thereby forces us to go it alone in many cases where we would have sought out a mutually beneficial cooperative enterprise with others.

Such effects are very clear with such laws as the Minimum Wage Law.  If I wish to hire an under-educated and inexperienced young person and he wishes to take the job I may be able to give him, we are not allowed to negotiate any wage lower than the minimum wage.  I never get to evaluate his work ethic and ability to do productive work and he never gets to prove he can do the job and move on to a higher pay grade.  I have to go it without his potentially good production and he gets to turn to a life of crime.

Or take the fact that ObamaCare is forcing employers to stop hiring before they grow to 50 employees and it pushes them to reduce the hours worked in a week to fewer than 30 hours.  In effect, ObamaCare is forcing the employer to go it alone.  His ability to cooperate with others for their mutual benefit is restricted.  Then there are many, many medical providers who are now being laid off because their employers cannot make enough money to survive under ObamaCare.  Once again, Big Government is making people go it alone.

You say you do not think it is a bad idea to ask people to chip in to provide health care to others.  I do not much care whether you ask them to do so or not.  Go ahead and ask all you want, provided you are not being terribly dishonest and are not actually using force to make them contribute their hard-earned income to provide for the health of others.  But you are being dishonest here.  There is nothing that gives you the right to make others do this.  This is nothing but your particular wish.  Unfortunately, others wish that everyone had the same income.  Others wish that everyone has a nice home.  Others want everyone to eat well.  There is no end to what people wish with respect to others.  Imagine how awful a society would be if everyone got to use force to make everyone else live according to their wishes.

By and large, the Republican Party is for a slightly smaller government than is the Democrat Party.  To have a slightly smaller Big Government, such a party will often say no to the Party that is constantly proposing a new government program.  Some of the People actually want a substantially smaller government.  Many of these people are in the Tea Party movement, which I associate with myself.  They generally are Republicans, though not very happy Republicans.  Some are in the Libertarian Party.  But, naturally they are not going to join the party most enthusiastic about Big Government.  So, they have become a fractious element in the Republican Party.  They want that party to stand up for something closer to a constitutional government.  Naturally, they are opposed to most programs that would make the government still bigger and still more intrusive in our lives.

You bemoan the lack of Republican leaders holding the membership in an iron grip of control.  Well, what do you really expect of people who want to manage their own lives and choose their own values.  Those who want government to do this for them are naturally inclined to follow leaders.  Those who like to think independently and control their own decisions in life do not naturally turn to a leader to tell them what to do.  Traditionally, Americans never did, but after 100 years of growing Progressive Elitist effort and influence in the government-run or bribed schools, there are many people now well-conditioned to do as they are told.  I am of the old school and never allowed myself to be so conditioned.

The iron grip of control of the Democrat Party line is actually very exposed as it forces them to maintain beliefs obviously contrary to reality.  They still maintain that Americans will have better healthcare under ObamaCare at a lower cost and that enough medical care providers will be available.  This is clearly not going to be the case.  Many employers are dropping health insurance plans, many people will find that their doctor is no longer available, most people will find their costs will go up and that much of the cost provides them with care they do not want.  Many young people especially will not be able to get jobs because they would cost the employer more under ObamaCare than they used to.  It used to be that if you hired a young person, the average age in your insurance pool dropped so your health insurance cost went down and gave you some incentive to train the young hire.  Now you add a young person and his affordable plan cost at 9.5% of his pay is likely to force the company to reduce the coverage offered to its longer time employees to keep the young hire's health insurance below 9.5% or cost you a $3000 penalty tax.  Or you do not hire the young person.  It is so simple.  More and more Americans are realizing how ridiculous the Democrat Party claims are and the lock-step adherence to the party line will be deadly to the Democrats.

Another clear example of the inability of the Democrats to think rationally and independently is the adherence to the claim that man's emissions of CO2 will cause catastrophic global warming.  After 17 years of no surface temperature increase and rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, this claim has become entirely laughable.  Yet Obama just recently made the claim that 97% of scientists support the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis, which is also a very untrue statement.  So his EPA is putting out a new regulation to keep anyone from building a coal-fired power plant and he still has not approved the Keystone XL Pipeline using this specious argument as the justification.  It is imposing many uneconomic mandates such as for the use of ethanol in gasoline, an increase in vehicle gasoline efficiency, electric vehicle programs, and programs pushing solar and wind energy generation that are very much hurting the economy and helping to raise the unemployment rate.  Despite these obvious deleterious effects, few Democrats have departed from the party line.

No X, I prefer to think for myself and be a member of the Republican Party that at least sometimes acts to slow down or stop the growth of society-destroying government.  I will remain in the libertarian and the Tea Party wing which is most determined to keep the iron hob-nailed boot of government off of our necks.  However many people want to be dependents of the government, I will not be one who wants that.  I want to be left alone by gangs of thugs to establish my own cooperative agreements with others to work toward our mutually chosen goals.  It really matters to me both that I am able to pursue my goals and that they are able to pursue theirs.

Please give what I am saying some real thought X.

Betrayal: Republican House Votes to Fund ObamaCare Again

Once again the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has betrayed our individual right to own our own bodies.  They have again sold our bodies to the government for momentary power for themselves.  On a vote of 267 - 151, a continuing resolution to fund the government for the remainder of the 2013 fiscal year was passed.

Only 14 Republicans voted against this monstrously tyrannical act.  Many, many representatives who had pledged they would defund ObamaCare voted in favor of funding ObamaCare.  What is more, the 2010 Pledge to America to post bills up for a vote online for 72 hours was violated.  The efforts of 14 Republicans to defund or to at least keep funding from infringing upon religious freedoms was beaten down by the Republican Establishment.

This Establishment has been re-asserting itself so it can maintain control of the party in the face of efforts of the Tea Party and libertarians to make the Republican Party a true party of limited government and a defender of individual rights.  This heinous act of betrayal by the great mass of the Republican Party representation in Congress must not be forgotten or forgiven.  These unprincipled men must be replaced.

The only principled Republican Representatives were:

Justin Amash (Mich.)
Jim Bridenstine (Okla.)
Paul Broun, M.D. (Ga.)
Ron DeSantis (Fla.)
Scott DesJarlais, M.D. (Tenn.)
John J. Duncan Jr. (Tenn.)
Phil Gingrey, M.D. (Ga.)
Louie Gohmert (Tex.)
Jack Kingston (Ga.)
Tom McClintock (Calif.)
Thomas Massie (Ky.)
Bill Posey (Fla.)
Matt Salmon (Ariz.)
Steve Stockman (Tex.)

These men are heroes.

The rest of the Republicans are villains.  It was in their power to prevent the funding of ObamaUncaringTax during this critical period of its implementation.  Instead, they calculated that it was politically expedient to lay their hands upon our throats and strangle the last vestige of self-ownership until it is dead.

If we do not own our very bodies, are we not slaves?  Yes.

Is the power held by any slave-master ever legitimate?  No.

Romney is Going to Win the Election

The outcome of the 2012 Presidential election will be decided in the six swing states in light gray in the electoral map below.  It is interesting that four of them are in the Midwest.

Romney only needs 8 more electoral votes to win, since a tie of 269 votes each will be decided by the Republican House of Representatives.  I believe that Romney will win at least four of these six swing states.  If so, Romney will add between 38 and 64 electoral votes depending on which combination of four states he wins.  But Romney needs to win only one of Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan or both Iowa and Nevada to win the election.  There is even a possibility that Minnesota is in play with its 10 electoral votes enough for Romney to win.

If Romney sweeps all of these swing states, which is not highly likely, but is also not out of reach, the situation would be:

This would be a most wonderful reassurance that the American People might occasionally lose their marbles, but they have a tendency to relocate them eventually.  The amount of red in the county by county results will then be startling.

As I have noted before, the polls have weighted their results much too heavily toward Democrats by assuming there are either many more of them than Republicans or by assuming they are more likely to go to the polls to vote.  I believe that the Rasmussen and more recent Gallup attempts to identify the relative numbers of Democrats, Republicans, and Independent voters are very close to the actual case and the 2008 breakdown of voter affiliations are not applicable.  There are more Republicans than Democrats now and they will go to the polls in larger numbers than the Democrats will.

Romney still has a large, typical Republican advantage with male voters and Obama's 2008 advantage with female voters has almost disappeared.  Romney has a large advantage with Independent voters.  Obama is hoping for more black and Hispanic voters in this election than in 2008.  This is not going to happen.  In fact, there will be fewer black and Hispanic voters in this election.  They have been hit much harder by unemployment and some are concerned with Obama's stances on issues of religious belief.  His percentage of black voters voting will be lower.  Also, more Democrats than last time and more than usual will crossover and vote for Romney.  Republicans have a tradition of less crossover voting for Democrats and fewer than usual will do so this time.  18 - 29 year olds still favor Obama heavily by 55% to 36% of likely voters, but 9% of likely voters in that group are undecided.  Only 48% of these young voters say they will definitely vote and those voting for Romney are more likely to vote.

While the economy, ObamaCare, energy policies, the level of government spending, and the deficit will all cost Obama most heavily, the last of the undecided voters are being well pushed toward Romney by the Obama disgrace in failing to protect the Ambassador and others in the Benghazi consulate and then lying about the situation.  Those still undecided will almost all vote for Romney.  Consequently, it now appears that Romney will win 4 to 6% more of the popular vote than Obama.  That will translate into a substantial win in the Electoral College vote.