Jonah Goldberg's Recto-Cranial Inversion is more serious than previously thought

And he needs to see someone about it, soon. Because it'll only get worse if he keeps spouting off this kind of bullshit.

The EPA is choking democracy

by Jonah Goldberg, syndicated columnist
Wednesday April 22, 2009, 5:30
AM

One of the most important events of our lifetimes may have just transpired. A federal agency has decided that it has the power to regulate everything, including the air you breathe.

Nominally, the Environmental Protection Agency's announcement last Friday only applies to new-car emissions. But pretty much everyone agrees that the ruling opens the door to regulating, well, everything.

According to the EPA, greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide -- the gas you exhale -- as well as methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. It is literally impossible to imagine a significant economic or human activity that does not involve the production of one of these gases. Don't think just of the gas and electricity bills. Cow flatulence is a serious concern of the EPA's already. What next? Perhaps an EPA mandarin will pick up a copy of "The Greenpeace Guide to Environmentally Friendly Sex" and go after the root causes of global warming.

Now, don't think this it the end of ol' Jonah's hyperbole and mouth breathing. But it is a good representative sample. Other things he's bloviated upon in this article include his odd belief that the Supreme Court is anti-democratic ("Two years ago, the Supreme Court -- the least democratic branch of our formal government -- "), that the EPA is exercising new powers not previously granted to the President ("So the government bureaucracy is on its way to strong-arming the economy in ways Congress never imagined when it passed the Clean Air Act in 1970. Or the president has suddenly gained sweeping new powers over American life, in ways never imagined by Congress or the founders, and despite the fact that these new powers were never put before the voters. ") and that, by doing what the law permits, the EPA is being used as a threat ('California's Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has said as much: "EPA, through its scientists, has given us a warning that global warming pollution is a clear, present and future danger to America's families. If Congress does not act to pass legislation, then I will call on the EPA to take all steps authorized by law to protect our families."
Translation: Either you vote our way or we'll render voting meaningless. ') And then he concludes that all this provides evidence that no one in DC, at least no Democrats in DC, take their oaths of office seriously. (Almost but not quite a direct quote.)

Jonah Goldberg's influence isn't nearly as profound as he'd like to think but it's still real. And something is very, very wrong with the man. He may not need a strait-jacket and padded cell a la Glen Beck, but he needs something. Pills, maybe. A few sessions of heavy therapy. Something.

And he really doesn't belong in the Oregonian. Not that anything like common sense has ever stopped the Big O before...