According to Power Line Blog and the Washington Post, the Pentagon has completed its review of conditions at the Guantanamo Bay terrorist prison.  The report did criticize the force feeding of inmates on hunger strike and stated that high security prisoners should be allowed more interaction, but stated that generally the prison is operated within the guides of the Geneva Convention.  That’s nice–how many civilians have lost their heads while being in the custody of friends of the people held at Guantanamo?

The bottom line on this story is that Guantanamo is not a horrible place.  It is a prison that houses people who want to kill innocent civilians–terrorists–not prisoners of war.  Very few countries other than America would have kept these people alive–they would have been shot on the battlelfield.  I don’t approve of that, but the alternative is to keep them locked up for life.  When we have released the prisoners in the past, many of them have been killed on the battlefield after their release.  How many Americans did they kill in the interim? 

Guantanamo has become a political issue.  The facts are irrelevant, and unfortunately American lives will be put at risk because of the politics involved.

According to an article in today’s Washington Times, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has stated that  that she would not let thorny issues such as human rights and Tibet prevent the United States and China from making progress on climate change, security and economic matters.   She explained to the reporters with her that human-rights issues can’t interfere with the issues of global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and security crises.

I am so stunned by this statement, I am (almost) speechless.  Why was the United States of America founded?  Is freedom only for the people fortunate enough to be born here or to come here?  Why is there a segment of our population who is still talking about reparations for slavery (a common, although inexcusable, practice at the time), when we are happily making friends with a country that enslaves political prisoners?  To say that global warming and economics are more important than liberty is to lose any moral clarity we might still have.  Define security if it does not include human rights?  Are there only some rights that are secure?

Have we become so selfish as a nation that we have no intention of at least standing up for the concept of freedom–we have it, why should we care about anyone else?  How can we criticize the UN for not upholding human rights when we are not even willing to put those rights at the forefront in negotiations with China?

According to Yahoo news, President Obama will not ok a plan to charge people a tax on the mileage they drive rather than a gasoline tax.  Washington may decide that, but it sounds like some of the states have other ideas.  

Idaho, North Carolina, and Massachuchuetts are looking at the idea of a mileage tax.  Rhode Island’s governor is on the record as being opposed to the idea.  The premise of a mileage tax is that it would better support our crumbling infrastructure as Congress puts pressure on car manufacturers to make cars that get better gas mileage. 

OK, so as the consumer gets a product that theoretically costs less to operate, the state governments step in to eat up the savings.  Nevermind that many of the fuel efficient cars won’t hold your family, your luggage, and anything you choose to take on a trip.  Americans seem to like big cars, but as gasoline became more expensive, we downsized a little (or at least some of us did).  I predict that as Congress takes over the auto industry, they will pressure Detroit into making even more smaller cars that Americans will not buy.  At some point, as our cars wear out, we will buy them, consume less gas, and the government will be right there to take any savings we may see!

I have two further comments on this ridiculousness.  Number one, where in the Constitution does it allow the government to track my mileage (has anyone in government read the Constitution?)?  Number two, does this mean there is no point in selling my Mustang for something fuel efficient?

According to Michael Barone at U. S. News & World Report, the statistics on foreclosure rates from December 2007 to January 2009 are very revealing.  Only nine states have foreclosure rates above the national average, and only four states have extremely high foreclosure rates–number of foreclosures per 5,000 housing units–Nevada, 66, California, 29, Arizona, 27, and Florida 23.

According to the article:

“Just over half of national foreclosures were in the four Sand States. Another one-fifth were in the mixed bag of fast-growth/industrial-distress/high-Hispanic states which approximate the national average. The other 38 states, with 60 percent of the nations population, have only 25 percent of the nation’s foreclosures.”

It seems to me that all the fuss made over foreclosure is a little disingenuous.  Why do sixty percent of the nations population have to shoulder the burden of the 40 percent who were involved in speculation or bought houses they simply couldn’t afford?  The recession was caused to some extent by greed–but it was also caused by government pressure placed on banks to make loans that were risky.  We need to let the market stabilize itself, and pouring more money into the mortgage market and renegotiating mortgages will not do that.

Congratulations, the government is now going to officially subsidize bad behavior!  I thought the ‘nanny state’ was at least supposed to be a good nanny!

According to Larry Kudlow at National Review Online, President Obama’s mortgage bailout program is exactly what we don’t need.  The program only effects Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Only their products are eligible for mortgage relief. Jumbo mortgages and private-label mortgages created by various non-bank lenders are not eligible for relief.  Fannnie Mae and Freddie Mac already run 48 percent of the mortgage market. Obama’s proposal would greatly enlarge that and move the mortgage system toward government nationalization.

The program will allow the courts to renegotiate interest rates and loan principal. This would overturn private contracts and throw out the rule of law. Do we think future investors will put up mortgage capital if they fear judges will overturn the terms of contracts? Home-loan supplies will fall and mortgage rates will rise.

The free market is already helping to take care of the mortgage crisis–the unsold-inventory index for existing single-family detached homes in December 2008 was 5.6 months, compared with 13.4 months for the year-ago period. And the median number of days it took to sell a single-family home dropped to 46.1 in December 2008, compared with 66.7 in December 2007. So inventories are dropping, the number of days to sell a home are falling, and sales are rising in the wake of lower prices.

According to the article:

“President Obama’s massive mortgage-bailout plan is nothing more than a thinly disguised entitlement program that redistributes income from the responsible 92 percent of home-owning mortgage holders who pay their bills on time to the irresponsible defaulters who bought more than they could ever afford. This is Obama’s spread-the-wealth program in action.

Team Obama is rewarding bad behavior. It is enlarging moral hazard. It is expanding its welfarist approach to economic policy. And with a huge expansion of government-owned zombie lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Team Obama is taking a giant step toward nationalizing the mortgage market.”

This program does not move in a direction that is good for our country.

Randall Hoven at the American Thinker has written a very informative article on government spending over the past two presidential administrations.  Please read the article, as it has charts and visuals that make it very easy to understand what he is saying.  According to the article:

If we weight the price tags of the two packages by party vote, the Democrats are responsible for $1,315B and the Republicans are responsible for $322B, or a bit more than what actually went to rescue troubled financial assets.

Today’s New York Post has a commentary by John Crudele concerning the coming President Obama housing industry bailout.  I have a question.  If the mortgage problems in the housing industry are what caused this recession, why didn’t we start with a housing industry bailout?  If we had given every family in America the approximately $7000 the stimulus bill is going to add to their debt, wouldn’t we have solved the mortgage program?

The problem with the housing industry bailout is that there is no way it can be done in a truly fair way.  It will end up with the same topsy-turviness that has occurred in the college grant programs.  The people who have mortgaged their homes to the hilt and taken on large debt will get grants, the people who actually scrimp and save to put their children through college will get loans they have to pay back!

The article reminds us:

“Obama’s plan will create a fund – paid for by you and me – that will reduce the monthly payments of 4 million to 5 million so-called “responsible homeowners” to no more than 31 percent of their income.

First off, who gets to decide who is “responsible”? The definition certainly shouldn’t be written by a government that has for decades proven itself to be fiscally irresponsible and is getting more so by the day.”

We are not in the process of creating a healthy society.  We are rewarding irresponsibility, and Congress is setting an example of fiscal irresponsibility that is totally destructive. 

Just a few notes on global warming–nationally and internationally.  Internationally, according to wattsupwiththat.com, in an article by  Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch, it was noted that less than 20 per cent of the people at the UN working on issues that involve global warming have any training in climate science or related fields.  Most of the members of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are not scientists at all–the president of the group is an economist.

During a recent global warming debate, William Schlesinger was asked about the credentials of the IPCC members.  According to the article at wattsupwiththat, this was his answer:

“First he broadened it to include not just climate scientists but also those who have had “some dealing with the climate.” His complete answer was that he thought, “something on the order of 20 percent have had some dealing with climate.” In other words, even IPCC worshiper Schlesinger now acknowledges that 80 percent of the IPCC membership had absolutely no dealing with the climate as part of their academic studies.”

You and I are as qualified to make judgments on climate change as the IPCC!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Environment Protection Agency is getting ready for the UN climate change talks schedules for December in Copenhagen.  According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times, the EPA is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet, according to top Obama administration officials.  The article goes on to state:

“Potentially, it’s a huge mess, not only for E.P.A. but for state regulatory agencies, because the Clean Air Act is second only to the Internal Revenue Code in terms of complexity,” said Mr. Holmstead, now director of environmental strategies at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani.

He said that under the clean air law any source emitting more than 250 tons of a declared pollutant would be subject to regulation, potentially including schools, hospitals, shopping centers, even bakeries, which has prompted some critics to call it the “Dunkin’ Donuts rule.”

This has the potential to totally destroy the American economy.  If carbon dioxide can be regulated (and eventually taxed–because the money part always shows up eventually), our economy can be totally crippled.  This move would assure that Barack Obama would be a one-term President–assuming a fair election in four years and assuming a country where people would actually be able to get to the polling places! 

Politico ran an article yesterday concerning the actions taken by the Barack Obama White House that have not been reported.  According to the article:

“In his first weeks in office, President Barack Obama shut down his predecessor’s system for reviewing regulations, realigned and expanded two key White House policymaking bodies and extended economic sanctions against parties to the conflict in the African nation of Cote D’Ivoire.”

The changes made were never announced by the White House press office or placed on the official website.  They only reason the changes were discovered is that they were sent to the Federal Register, a daily list of certain presidential activities prepared by the National Archives.  After Politico called the omission to the attention of the White House, the changes made were reported on the White House web site.

There is nothing sinister here, but we do need to pay attention to changes made by any President that impact the way our country is governed. 

According to CBS News, Governor Jindal of Louisiana is not in a hurry to take any of the stimulus money.  Governor Jindal is quoted as saying, “We’ll have to review each program, each new dollar to make sure that we understand what are the conditions, what are the strings and see whether it’s beneficial for Louisiana to use those dollars,”

Keeping in character, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has said he’ll take any money that Louisiana turns down.  Why doesn’t that surprise me?

We need to step back and take a look at what we are doing.  We have mortgaged our futures, our children’s futures, and our grandchildren’s futures, and now everyone feels justified in putting their hand out reaching for the money that really isn’t there.  There are so many better ways we could recovered from this recession.  I don’t think this one will actually work.

The most painless way to come out of this recession would have been to open up the energy sources inside our country and offshore.  This would have generated jobs, income, and tax revenue plus providing a long term solution.  Offshore drilling would have been a simple solution to the problems California is now having.  Their offshore wells could be up and running (and providing income for the state and its residents) within a year.  What we have done instead is mortgage our future and set the stage for major inflation in about two years.

According to The Voice Of Warriors website, a news report that has recently aired on CBS News about U. S. Military equipment supposedly looted in Afghanistan from our troops is factually inaccurate.  The Voice of Warriors is a website which suppports our troops and corrects errant reporting when it occurs.  The article at The Voice Of Warriors explains why the equipment is not what CBS claims it is.  According to the article:

Please read the entire article, it is fascinating.  All of us need to question anything we see on the news concerning our troops.

The New York Post ran a story yesterday about the confusion concerning the safety of childhood vaccinations.  According to the article:

“The Sunday Times in London reported last week on confidential medical documents and interviews establishing that British researcher Andrew Wakefield had manipulated his data linking vaccines to episodes of autism. His original research on this issue was already controversial – 10 of the 13 authors retracted some of the findings in 2004, but Wakefield, its lead author, has not. The Times reported that he allegedly altered clinical findings on eight of 12 children in the study – a charge he denies.

Why do concerns about vaccines persist despite so much scientific evidence to the contrary? We seem to harbor a cultural bent toward believing random theories on how science – and medicine – will somehow be the source of our own unraveling. Witness all the movies of recent years that blame science (and vaccines especially) for everything from ending the human race (“I Am Legend”) to curtailing our ability to reproduce (“Children of Men”).

As for Wakefield’s alleged fraud, the damage is already done. After the publication of his research, rates of inoculation in Britain fell from 92 percent to below 80 percent.”

The effectiveness of a vaccine is ralated to the percentage of the population that receives it–the more people who are vaccinated, the less chance a disease has to spread.  Even small numbers of people refusing a vaccine can have severe negative consequences.  For example, in 1998, there were 56 cases of measles in England and Wales.  Because of increased fear over the measles vaccines, last year there were 1,348 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales – and two deaths.  That’s two children we didn’t need to lose.

We need to get back to scientists doing science, politicians doing politics, and celebrities simply being celebrities. 

According to the Catholic News Agency, Nancy Pelosi will have an audience with the Pope.  I just don’t understand.  The Catholic Church and Nancy Pelosi have been on opposite sides of the abortion issue for a long time and both have been very vocal about it.  I suppose it’s good when people of opposing views meet, but I can’t even remotely imagine either side giving an inch in this case.

If you remember, in August of last year (as reported in the Catholic News Agency at the time), the archbishops of Denver, New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C., along with Bishop William Lori have all publicly criticized the Speaker of the House for her erroneous comments on the Church’s abortion teaching.  According to that article:

“In a Meet the Press interview on August 24, Pelosi responded to a question from Tom Brokaw about when human life begins, saying “as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time.  And what I know is over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition . . . St. Augustine said at three months.  We don’t know. The point is, is that it shouldn’t have an impact on the woman’s right to choose.”

Cardinal Edward Egan of New York became the latest prelate to denounce Ms. Pelosi’s comments when he said on Tuesday, “Like many other citizens of this nation, I was shocked to learn that the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America would make the kind of statements that were made to Mr. Tom Brokaw of NBC-TV on Sunday, August 24, 2008.”

Not only was Cardinal Egan shocked, but he went on to say that, “What the Speaker had to say about theologians and their positions regarding abortion was not only misinformed; it was also, and especially, utterly incredible in this day and age.”

The crystal-clear photographs and films that give people the ability to see babies in their pregnant mothers’ wombs make it impossible for anyone with “the slightest measure of integrity or honor” to fail to know what these “marvelous beings manifestly, clearly, and obviously are, as they smile and wave into the world outside the womb,” Cardinal Egan asserted.”

As you might guess from the name of this website, I am pro-life.  If a mother’s life is truly in danger, I would be comfortable with a doctor doing anything he needed to do to save it, but a baby is a human being and should be protected as such.  Under the Nancy Pelosi leadership as Speaker of the House, it is safer to be a terrorist than a baby in the womb.  That’s scary.

This is not a religious issue, despite the role the Catholic Church has played in fighting abortion.  It is a ‘value of life’ issue, and all our lives have less value when a baby’s life has no value at all.

According to the Boston Herald, former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, has stated that he doesn’t believe that humans are causing global warming.  Schmitt is scheduled to speak next month at the International Conference on Climate Change in New York. 

Schmitt has a science degree from the California Institute of Technology. He also studied geology at the University of Oslo in Norway and took a doctorate in geology from Harvard University in 1964.

According to the article:

“Dan Williams, publisher with the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, which is hosting the climate change conference, said he invited Schmitt after reading about his resignation from The Planetary Society, a nonprofit dedicated to space exploration.

Schmitt resigned after the group blamed global warming on human activity. In his resignation letter, the 74-year-old geologist argued that the “global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making.”

Schmitt said he’s heartened that the upcoming conference is made up of scientists who haven’t been manipulated by politics.”

It is encouraging to me that there are enough skeptics out there (70 scheduled to speak next month at the International Conference on Climate Change in New York) to have this conference.  I wish the media would give this conference the coverage that Al Gore always gets when he speaks on global warming (always on the coldest day of the year–the “Al Gore Effect”).

Remember the UN Conference in Durban, South Africa, in September of 2001?  The conference turned into such a malicious attack on Israel that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell ordered the U.S. delegation to walk out.

Well, according to Pajamas Media, we are headed for round two.  This UN gathering is planned for April 20-24 in Geneva.  According to the article:

“Since 2007, the UN has been preparing for Durban II. Operating under the umbrella of the UN’s Human Rights Council (a deeply compromised body that spends most of its time condemning Israel), the 20-member preparatory committee has been stacked from the start: It is chaired by Libya, and includes Iran (which hosted one of the preparatory meetings for Durban I), Cuba, Russia and (speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference) Pakistan.”

The Obama administration has said that this week the State Department is sending a delegation to “engage” in preparatory negotiations from Feb. 16-19 for Durban II.  The State Department has released a statement saying that sending this delegation does not mean that we will participate in the conference–that decision will be made later depending on the results of the negotiating process this week.

It would be nice to see the Obama Administration stand up against the bigotry and hatred that was spewed out at the Durban Conference and refuse to attend this one.  Any human rights commission chaired by Libya and including Cuba and Russia is not about anything this country should accept as human rights.

Sweetness & Light has the following post:

7 Broken Promises in Record Time

1. Make government open and transparent.

2. Make it “impossible” for Congressmen to slip in pork barrel projects.

3. Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public. (Even Congressional Republicans shut out.)

4. No more secrecy.

5. Public will have 5 days to look at a bill.

6. You’ll know what’s in it.

7. We will put every pork barrel project online.

Funny, but not one of Mr. Obama’s promises were met with the most expensive spending bill in our nation’s history.

The website also has the video of the President making those promises.  We have put the politics of Chicago in the White House.  I hope we survive the next four years economically and as a democracy.

According to The Washington Times, the battle over the 2010 Census is just beginning.  According to the U. S. Constitution:

“Representation and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers … . The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.”

— Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States

Michael Barone points out in U. S. News & World Report that:

“Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution provides for an “actual enumeration” and a statute passed by Congress provides that the duties under this clause are to be performed by the secretary of commerce. Article I (as Joseph Biden didn’t know in debate) is about the legislative, not the executive branch. Hence, it is argued, the president can’t substitute a sampling for the enumeration required to be done by the secretary.”

According to the Washington Times article:

“The Obama administration is downplaying how closely the White House would oversee the Census Bureau. The White House on Wednesday said Mr. Obama is committed to a “complete and accurate count through a process that is free from politicization.” But Thursday, Mr. LaBolt added: “As they have in the past, White House senior management will work closely with the census director given the number of decisions that will need to reach the president’s desk.”

Rep. Lamar Smith, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said not so.

“We checked with the Congressional Research Service, and there is no precedent for this, despite what the administration might say,” he asserted.”

The Republicans are threatening to go to the Courts if President Obama moves the oversight of the 2010 Census to the White House.  The following is a statement from the U. S. Census Bureau on the importance of the Census:

“Still, apportionment of Congress is only half the process of distributing political power. Virtually all states rely on the census numbers for redistricting, the redrawing of political districts within the states after apportionment. However, innovations were needed to make sure every state that wanted to use census data had access to the information it needed. After the 1970 census, state officials complained that the results did not include summary data for local areas such as election precincts and wards. These areas are the essential building blocks for creating new districts and meeting the “one-person-one-vote” requirements of the Supreme Court.”

Manipulating the Census numbers would do serious harm to the principle of “one man, one vote”.  For the sake of the health of our democracy (actually we are a representative republic), the Census should be as accurate as possible. 

Last Thursday, according to the Buffalo News, Muzzammil Hassan reported the death of his wife to authorities.

His wife, Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37, is pictured above with her husband. Detectives have charged her husband, 44, with second-degree murder.

Muzzammil Hassan is the founder and chief executive officer of Bridges TV, which he launched in 2004, amid hopes that it would help portray Muslims in a more positive light.

Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz said that she had an order of protection that had him out of the home as of Friday, February 6th.

It usually makes the newspaper when a man murders his wife (Scott Peterson, etc.), but there are a few things the Buffalo News fails to mention–she was beheaded.

Mark Steyn at the Corner in National Review Online notes that most of the mainline press has been very quiet about this incident.  The New York Post ran a short story and the hometown press (Buffalo News) ran it, but that’s about it.  Contrast that with what happened when Mr. Hassan launched his TV network.  According to Mark Steyn:

“When poor Mrs Hassan’s husband launched his TV network to counter negative stereotypes of Muslims, he had no difficulty generating column inches, as far afield as The Columbus Dispatch, The Detroit Free Press, The San Jose Mercury News, Variety, NBC News, the Voice of America and the Canadian Press. The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle put the couple on the front page under the headline “Infant TV Network Unveils The Face Of Muslim News”.”

“The media’s lack of curiosity is in marked contrast to their willingness to propagandize for the launch of Mr Hassan’s station. It also helps explain why the US newspaper business is dying.”

According to the National Review article:

“He was worried about the station’s future,” said Dr. Khalid Qazi, a friend of the couple and president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Western New York, who last spoke to the Hassans a week ago…

“Domestic violence is despicable, and Islam condones it in no way whatever,” he said.

“Murders are being committed in the US every day by people of all faiths.”

The silence is amazing.  The people who constantly talk about women’s rights should be screaming very loudly about this incident.  America does have a problem with domestic violence–that’s what restraining orders are for, but beheadings in America are not particularly common among our population. 

Our relationship with Pakistan is tenuous at best.  It is believed that the government of that country has large numbers of Al Qaeda people working in its military and government.  The current government is in an awkward posiiton if it wants to stay in power.  Pakistan has thus been very quiet about helping us in the war on terror.

According to a story in the Chicago Tribune, Diane Feinstein’s statement Thursday that unmanned CIA Predator Drones operating in Pakistan are flown from an airbase inside that country is likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counterterrorism collaboration with the United States.

According to the article:

“Phil LaVelle, a spokesman for Feinstein, said her comment was based solely on previous news reports that Predators were operated from bases near Islamabad.

“We strongly object to Sen. Feinstein’s remarks being characterized as anything other than a reference” to a article that appeared last March in the Washington Post, LaVelle said. Feinstein did not refer to newspaper accounts during the hearing.”

The Predator strikes have been very successful in dealing with Al Qaeda leadership, and I hope Senator Feinstein’s statements do not force us to tie our hands behind our backs in the fight with Al Qaeda.  All of our Senators need to realize that the war on terror is not a conventional war and it is very easy to give our enemies information that can be used against us either through propaganda or on the battlefield.

According to Hot Air, the Anti-Defamation League (an organization founded to stop the defamation of Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment to all) did a poll of Europe and found that nearly a third of Europeans blame the Jews for the global financial meltdown and that more Europeans than that think the Jews have too much power in the business world.

The survey concluded that in Spain, 74 percent of those asked say they feel it is “probably true” that Jews hold too much sway over the global financial markets. That is the highest percentage in the survey. 

According to the article:

“When Germany collapsed in World War I, no one wanted to take responsibility for conducting an utterly destructive war that bankrupted their nation and killed millions.  It was a lot easier to blame the Jews for their own failures — and it led to disastrous consequences.”

The worldwide financial crisis had its roots in America, with some very unJewish people.  Jimmy Carter expanded the Fair Housing Act in 1988 and Bill Clinton further strengthened it.  I am certainly not opposed to the end of descrimination in housing, but after Clinton strengthened the Law, groups like ACORN began to put pressure on banks to grant loans to people who couldn’t repay them in areas with little or no resale value.  At that point the writing was on the wall.  Add Chris Dodd (sweetheart mortgage deal with Countrywide) and Barney Frank (conflict of interest due to relationship) and Congress’ refusal to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddit Mac.  The banks found a way to sell bad paper (mixed in with good paper so noone could tell which was which) and we were heading for disaster.

Scapegoating Jews is stupid, unconstructive, and does not help solve the problem, but we need to remember that the Jewish race is ‘the canary in the coal mine’.  When the Jews are mistreated or maligned, bad things begin to happen.  We need to clean our own houses before we start labeling any one group of people as guilty of anything.

Power Line Blog has the following message from Congressman John Shadegg of Arizona, one of the leading conservatives in the House of Representatives:

“In a truly rare event, the House has passed its so-called stimulus in the face of bipartisan opposition and without a single Republican vote – for the second time. That is because Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat-led Congress put their interests before those of the American people.

This bill is nothing more than a sordid wish list of paybacks, kickbacks and pork spending for special interests. Bernie Madoff himself would blush at this scheme. But it is not too late to end this Friday the 13th horror. Still standing between the American people and passage of this monstrosity is a Senate vote scheduled for 7 or 8pm EST tonight – and three Republican Senators who have supported this package and who have the power to stop it.

I hope Power Line readers will make your voices heard at this crucial hour by contacting these three Senators and urging them to vote against the so-called stimulus bill.

Sen. Arlen Specter: 202-224-4254
Sen. Olympia Snowe: 202-224-5344
Sen. Susan Collins: 202-224-2523

Thank you!
Congressman John Shadegg”

This is our last chance to prevent a really bad bill from becoming law. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers’s has introduced a bill that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify home mortgages by reducing both the interest rate and principal amount on the loan.  This is a really bad idea.  A mortgage is a contract between the lender and the borrower.  The cost of the loan is based on the amount of risk and the value of the asset mortgaged.  If the risk increases (which it would if banks could not be sure the terms of the original mortgage would be met), the cost of borrowing money for any reason would increase.

This has proven to be the case historically.  According to the article:

“in 2005, Congress eliminated the power of bankruptcy judges to modify auto loans. A recent staff report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimated a 265 basis-point reduction on average in auto loan terms as a result of the reform.”

Part of the cause of the problem we now face with mortgage foreclosures is people buying homes they could not afford and banks making risky loans.  All of us need to step back and take a big breath and realize that we all need to be responsible for our spending.  Allowing people to stay in homes they can’t afford is not an answer.

According to U. S. News & World Report, there have been some real challenges for congressmen who actually wanted to read the stimulus bill before they voted on it.  The congressmen got their copies of the 999 page bill at eleven o’clock last night.  According to the article:

“What’s more, staffers are complaining about who does have a copy: K Street lobbyists. E-mails one key Democratic staffer: “K Street has the bill, or chunks of it, already, and the congressional offices don’t. So, the Hill is getting calls from the press (because it’s leaking out) asking us to confirm or talk about what we know–but we can’t do that because we haven’t seen the bill. Anyway, peeps up here are sort of a combo of confused and like, ‘Is this really happening?'” Reporters pressing for details, meanwhile, are getting different numbers from different offices, especially when seeking the details of specific programs.”

I guess my question is, “Why did the bill go to lobbyists before it went to Senate staffers?”  This bill is such a nightmare that I don’t think any of us have a clue as to how much damage it will do to America and the American economy.  Where is the transparency we were promised?  And where is a congressman’s sense of responsibility if he is willing to vote on a bill he hasn’t read?

Power Line Blog has a post explaining why it matters who controls the 2010 Census.  Their source is an article by John Fund published last week.  Former Census Director Bruce Chapman wonders if the politicizing of the census was really at the root of Senator Gregg’s stepping down from the position of Secretary of Commerce.  Mr Chapman feels that Senator Gregg was going to be named as Secretary of Commerce to provide cover for a political census that would ensure the Republicans would be out of power for years to come.  This issue of the census is one that should be carefully watched over the next two years.  We could be in the process of creating a country in which we would not want to live.

According to Power Line Blog (and various other internet sources), Senator Judd Gregg has withdrawn his name from consideration as Secretary of Commerce.  He explained that he had irrecononcilable philosophical differences on many critical policies of the Obama administration–including the stimulus and the relocation of the 2010 Census to the executive branch. 

Senator Judd is much more valuable for the Republicans in the Senate than he would have been as Secretary of Commerce.  He is a principled fiscal conservative who did not feel that he could totally support the spending habits of this administration. 

There will be a problem with the 2010 Census–the White House controlling it is important because of the methods that will be used to tabulate population.  This is something to keep an eye on because the U. S. Constitution is involved.