The Ugly Side Of Politics

This article is based on two articles. One article is from Front Page Magazine on August 25th, and the other article is from The Washington Times yesterday.

The Front Page Magazine article reports:

Senator Markey has announced his support for the Iran deal that will let the terrorist regime inspect its own Parchin nuclear weapons research site, conduct uranium enrichment, build advanced centrifuges, buy ballistic missiles, fund terrorism and have a near zero breakout time to a nuclear bomb.

There was no surprise there.

Markey had topped the list of candidates supported by the Iran Lobby. And the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC) had maxed out its contributions to his campaign.

After more fake suspense, Al Franken, another IAPAC backed politician who also benefited from Iran Lobby money, came out for the nuke sellout.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the Iran Lobby’s third Dem senator, didn’t bother playing coy like her colleagues. She came out for the deal a while back even though she only got half the IAPAC cash that Franken and Markey received.

As did Senator Gillibrand, who had benefited from IAPAC money back when she first ran for senator and whose position on the deal should have come as no surprise.

The Iran Lobby had even tried, and failed, to turn Arizona Republican Jeff Flake. Iran Lobby cash had made the White House count on him as the Republican who would flip, but Flake came out against the deal. The Iran Lobby invested a good deal of time and money into Schumer, but that effort also failed.

I understand that lobbying is a legal part of American politics, but it bothers me to see lobbying done by a country whose leadership is shouting, “Death to America.” Iran has never claimed to be an ally of America and has been killing American soldiers since the 1980’s (Iran funds Hezbollah, who bombed the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983). If lobbying is legal (which it is, and I suspect will continue to be), I have no problem with our allies meeting with Congressmen. However, I do believe that donations from foreign countries are illegal. Despite the fact that IAPAC is probably based in America, they represent donations from a foreign government. That is illegal.

Fast forward to The Washington Times story from yesterday.

The Washington Times reports:

Democrats will try to mount a filibuster to block the Iran nuclear deal from even having to reach President Obama’s desk for a veto, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid signaled Saturday in a statement.

He and his party colleagues already have enough committed supporters that they would be able to sustain an Obama veto and allow the Iran deal to proceed, but a filibuster would be an even bigger coup, halting the issue earlier in the process and heading off a protracted — and potentially politically costly — veto fight.

What does this actually mean? It is very simple. The Democrats (many of whom have been given money by the Iranian lobby) do not want to go on the record as voting on the Iranian nuclear deal. It is common knowledge that the American people overwhelmingly oppose this agreement and that it is a bad deal. However, many Democratic politicians have been bought.

It is also disturbing to see how far-reaching the efforts of the Iranian lobby are. The Iran Lobby’s Hassan Nemazee was Hillary Clinton’s national campaign finance director before pleading guilty to fraud.

Front Page Magazine reports:

Bill Clinton had nominated Hassan Nemazee as the US ambassador to Argentina when he had only been a citizen for two years.  A spoilsport Senate didn’t allow Clinton to make a member of the Iran Lobby into a US ambassador, but Nemazee remained a steady presence on the Dem fundraising circuit.

Nemazee had donated to Gillibrand and had also kicked in money to help the Franken Recount Fund scour all the cemeteries for freshly dead votes, as well as to Barbara Boxer, who also came out for the Iran nuke deal. Boxer had also received money more directly from IAPAC.    

 In the House, the Democratic recipients of IAPAC money came out for the deal. Mike Honda, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Iran Lobby backed the nuke sellout. As did Andre Carson, Gerry Connolly, Donna Edwards and Jackie Speier. The Iran Lobby was certainly getting its money’s worth.

But the Iran Lobby’s biggest wins weren’t Markey or Shaheen. The real victory had come long before when two of their biggest politicians, Joe Biden and John Kerry, had moved into prime positions in the administration. Not only IAPAC, but key Iran Lobby figures had been major donors to both men.\

This is the kind of corruption we need to remove from our national government. Term limits might be a good first step.

It’s Not Only A War On Coal

On Sunday, Stephen Moore posted and article at the Washington Times about President Obama’s war on coal. Oddly enough, it’s not really about coal. Somehow in recent years, the environmental movement has been taken over by an extreme element more closely related to communism than environmentalism. These are the people who want total government control of even the puddles that form on your lawn in the Spring.

The article at the Washington Times noted some very interesting facts about the war on coal:

In fact, almost all of the states that are politically liberal and vote unfailingly Democratic are low coal use states. Washington, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are also in the top 10 states least reliant on coal. Only conservative Idaho is a red state with low coal consumption.

Meanwhile, the heavy coal using states bleed red. West Virginia, Kentucky and Wyoming are all states that get about 90 percent of their electric power from coal. Missouri, Utah, Indiana and North Dakota also get 75 percent of their electricity from coal.

Here is the information in chart form:

So what is the war on coal about?

The article reports:

But the pain from the new EPA rules won’t be evenly distributed across America. Far from it. The coal producing states like West Virginia and Wyoming will see massive job losses and increases in electric utility costs. The nationwide costs will be about $100 billion a year eventually or a reduction in GDP by about one-half percentage point, the Heritage Foundation finds. But for heavily impacted states — Republican areas in the Midwest, South and mountain states — the costs will reach about $1,200 a year to average families. Mr. Obama’s policies that have had such a crushing effect on middle-income family finances are about to get a whole lot worse.

The liberal coastal states will feel only modest effects because they don’t use much coal.

Would Barbara Boxer of California and Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island, two of the biggest cheerleaders for the new regulations, be so euphoric if their voters were paying these massive costs for their green agenda? But the east and west coast green snobs can live with raising costs and unemployment in “fly over country.”

It’s time to label the Obama green policies what they truly are: steep taxes on red state America. By the way, many purple states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia also get hammered by Mr. Obama’s climate change agenda.

The article concludes:

I did the rough calculations. For every reduction in BTUs burned from coal in the United States, China and India alone will burn 10 to 12 more BTUs. Even if the United States cut coal use to zero over the next 20 years, global emissions from coal will rise sharply. So the Obama plan is all pain no gain. It would be like trying to reduce unwanted pregnancies in the Third World by having Americans use more birth control. Stupid.

But back to the Obama assault on red and purple states. Let’s hope the voters get the message that Mr. Obama’s green energy policies are directed at their jobs and their paychecks. Most people in blue states and the workers around the rest of the world won’t feel a thing. This is fair?

It’s time to get back to a time when Congress passed the laws and our elected officials took responsibility for the laws they passed.

Quote Of The Week

Taken from a Power Line article posted today by Steven Hayward:

I have a good conservative friend who has lived in Washington, DC most of his adult life, where he is a registered Democrat, so that he could vote for Marion Barry in Democratic primaries, on the theory that “if you can’t have effective government, at least you can have entertaining government.”

The article is about the Democrat race in California to replace Barbara Boxer. The author of the article feels that the above quote defines the race.

The article also mentions another aspect of the race:

Former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is said to be interested in running, and also Rep. Loretta Sanchez. Mixed-race (and therefore a two-fer) Attorney General Kamala Harris has indicated she may make the race. Lt. Governor Gavin Newsome, perhaps the leading white guy Dem in the state, will probably take a pass and run for governor in 2018 instead. So is there another white guy anywhere who might make a serious candidate? Ah yes, Tom Steyer is thinking about it. I think he’s going to be surprised when he finds out he doesn’t have the proper melanin privilege for today’s Democratic Party.

But he will deliver lots of comedy gold in any case, such as his comment to the Puffington Host a few days ago that “People rail that democracy has been subverted to powerful economic interests, that ‘we the people’ have been overlooked. Based on what I have seen over the last several years, I fear there’s some truth in that charge, and that scares me—badly.” “Powerful economic interests”?—from a billionaire who spent $100 million trying to influence the last election? I’d say “that’s rich,” but the irony would be too obvious, even for a liberal.

California is, after all, the home of the entertainment industry.

It Isn’t Legally Binding–But It Was A Good Vote

Yesterday Politico reported on a vote taken in the U. S. Senate to endorse the Keystone XL pipeline. The vote, 62-37, is symbolic, but it does put pressure on President Obama to approve the pipeline.

The article states:

Senators also resoundingly defeated, 33-66, an amendment from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) that called for “expeditiously analyzing and making decisions” on the pipeline project. Boxer’s proposal included a long list of criteria for the review, including whether the pipeline would increase oil prices, use materials not manufactured in the U.S., affect individual property rights and otherwise “adversely [affect] job creation” and national security.

“Both of these votes make it very clear that the Senate will approve this project if the president doesn’t,” Hoeven (R-N.D.) boasted to reporters afterward.

The vote is non-binding, but the article notes that the 62-37 vote is filibuster-proof.

The article also reminds us:

Republicans marked the anniversary (the one-year anniversary of Obama’s speech at a TransCanada pipe storage yard near Cushing, Okla., where he called for making it a “priority” to expedite approval of Keystone XL’s southern leg) by poking Obama for failing to approve Keystone’s northern portion, which would bring crude oil from Alberta’s oil sands into the U.S.

“If you recall, the president held a photo op last year to tout his support for the southern part of that pipeline,” House Speaker John Boehner said in a video his office released Friday morning. “The only problem was that section didn’t need his approval. He had nothing to do with it.”

At least some Democrats are willing to put jobs and the American economy above party politics.

It’s Getting Hard To Figure Out Who Is Playing Fair

Sometimes I get very frustrated when I look at news stories and try to figure out who is telling the truth. During the ‘silly season’ which we are currently in, it is sometimes difficult to sort out truth from fiction.

Today’s Daily Caller reported that Media Matters for America (MMFA), a supposedly non-partisan organization which is tax-exempt, is lobbying Congress for support in opposing the Keystone Pipeline.

The article reports:

In an email distributed to the offices of both Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and Republican Sen. James Inhofe on Wednesday — and obtained by The Daily Caller — Media Matters employee Emilee Pierce sought to “flag” a liberal study by the organization released Thursday in an effort to manipulate coverage of the Keystone pipeline.

The email, addressed to Boxer staffer Mary Kerr and Inhofe staffer Matt Dempsey, sought to “flag that MMFA will be putting out a major, quantitative report on media coverage of KXL tomorrow [Thursday] morning.”

“The study will be similar to our [Environmental Protection Agency] counting study (http://mediamatters.org/research/201106070010) — and will drill home the point the media bought right into Big Oil’s desired frame on KXL,” the email reads, “focusing largely on the (inflated) number of jobs that could be created, without paying due attention to the many other important issues at stake. (Ranchers’ land, spills, climate change, etc.)”

“We are hoping for a big media splash,  but — more importantly — we’re hoping that allies will be able to leverage it to gain favorable coverage,” Pierce continued.

Media Matters for America on its website describes itself as:

Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.

This is not correcting conservative misinformation–this is putting out their own misinformation in concert with members of Congress who should know better. Their tax-exempt status should be investigated.

 

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About That Common Sense In The Senate I Just Mentioned–Here Is The Other Side Of The Coin

Yesterday the Daily Caller reported on Senator Barbara Boxer’s reaction to the bill that the House of Representatives passed that cuts payroll taxes.

The article reports:

Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Boxer, the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, assailed a provision House Republicans attached to their payroll tax-cut bill that would delay boiler regulations the Environmental Protection Agency recently enacted.

“They have attached a poison pill — literally, colleagues — because it will kill 8,100 more people more than would have otherwise been killed from pollution,” Boxer said. “They attach that to the payroll tax cut. So have that for a Christmas gift.”

“We have asked for a lot from Santa in our day but we have never asked for lead, arsenic and mercury,” Boxer concluded.

This is the kind of rhetoric Senator McCaskill was speaking out against in the previous article. These words are not true, not constructive, and not consensus building.

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