Yesterday, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article about some campaign statements by five freshmen Democrats seeking re-election.  All five claim to have voted against the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).  There is only one problem–they were not in Congress when it was passed.  By the time they were in Congress, the money had already been allocated.  There was a vote on a disapproval resolution (which they supported) which was purely symbolic –the money was already spent.

According to the article at Hot Air:

• Mary Jo Kilroy says she “voted against the bank bailout.”
• Kathy Dahlkemper says she voted “against a bailout that helped Wall Street.”
• Frank Kratovil claims to have cast his vote in opposition to “the big bank bailout.”
• Dina Titus’ ad maintains she “even voted against the bank bailout.”
• Glenn Nye’s ad tells viewers he went “against his own party” and “voted against the Wall Street bailout.”

This is garbage.  The thing to remember here is that as long as Democrats in the House of Representatives elect Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House, the runaway spending will continue.  As long as Democrats control the House of Representatives, the runaway spending will continue.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  If the voters continue to elect Democrats, runaway spending will continue.  Northing will change.  The Republicans do not completely have their act together on the subject of spending, but if enough Tea Party candidates are elected, the Republicans will get the message.  There is a reasonable hope that they will deal with the runaway spending.  There is almost no hope that the Democrats will address the issue of spending–their solution to the deficit will be to increase taxes on everyone and permanently cripple the economy.

As you watch the campaigns for the House of Representatives and Senate across the country during this election cycle, think about what the Democrat majorities in the House and Senate have done in the past two years.  Are you willing to see those policies continue?  What are the consequences of continuing in the direction we are now headed?  Don’t be fooled by claims that candidates voted against spending when the votes were strictly for show.  If you have doubts about a candidates voting record or his vote on a specific bill, please visit Thomas.gov.  All votes taken in the House and Senate are recorded there.

We need informed voters to keep America strong and free.  This election is very important–all of us need to stay informed.

The Washington Examiner posted an editorial yesterday detailing the decline in Labor Union membership (and the popularity of labor unions) as the influence of Labor Unions in the Obama Administration has grown to new levels. 

The article points out:

“First, with only 7 percent of the total, fewer employees in the private sector are union members today than ever before.  Even when numbers for both the private and public sectors are combined, only 12 percent of American workers are union members.  Fewer members mean less income from compulsory dues.  Less money coming into union treasuries ought to result in fewer partisan campaign contributions going out.

“But by borrowing millions from the same banks that labor leaders so often demonize as greedy enemies of the working man, union bosses in 2008 were able to spend record amounts on electing Democrats at all levels of government.”

What did the unions get for their money?  Let’s look at four examples of the Obama Administration showing partiality to unions:

1.  Ten days after becoming President, President Obama signed three executive orders limiting what federal contractors can say to employees during union organizing drives, made it more difficult for federal contractors to fire incompetent employees, and directed federal contractors to make sure their employees were aware of their organizing rights.

2.  The next executive order required federal agencies to use union-favored Project Labor Agreements on largely federally funded construction projects.

3.  The Landrum-Griffin Labor Management Reporting Disclosure Act of 1959, designed to increase union financial transparency on forms required to be filed with the government, was strengthened during the Bush Administration so that union members would know what was being done with their dues.  Hilda Solis, Obama’s secretary of labor, has nullified those disclosure rules.

4.  When the Obama Administration forced General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy, they imposed settlements on the companies that granted ownership stakes of 17.5 percent and 55 percent, respectively, to the United Auto Workers Union.  This was a total violation of standing bankruptcy laws.

If you would like to see this kind of political favoritism continue, re-elect your Democrat Congressman.  If you are sick of watching unions buy political favors, vote Republican.

Roger Hedgecock at Human Events posted an article today about the ‘culture wars.’  Mr. Hedgecock believes:

“Underlying all politics is the culture. It is changing. The dominant liberal culture has yielded division and decay in American society–and a government-directed economy destroying our standard of living. The rejection of liberal culture has begun; the rejection of liberal politics will follow.”

The examples Mr. Hedgecock cites of the progressive culture include driving Christianity from the public square, Planned Parenthood fighting for abortion rights, the ACLU fighting for the right to burn and desecrate the American flag, and civil rights morphed into race-based preferences.

The progressive agenda in 2010 has reached a point where much of the general public thinks it has gone too far.  Mr. Hedgecock cites the examples of the Ground Zero Mosque being touted as an example of America’s religious freedom at the same time the liberals sued to remove a cross in a remote area of California’s Mojave Desert and sponsored hate crime legislation that would put Christian pastors in jail for reading Biblical passages condemning homosexuality.

There was further hypocrisy in the healthcare debate regarding federal funding of abortion.  In 2008 liberals promised federally-funded abortion.  When the healthcare bill was being debated, Representative Bart Stupak and some other Democrats demanded that the ban on federal funding of abortion continue.  Promises were made, an executive order issued, and the issue was supposedly put to rest.  Later it was discovered that:

“Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was given the power to write regulations governing required coverage in all health insurance plans under the Obamacare bill. A notorious pro-abortion advocate, Sebelius prepared to require abortion as a covered procedure, with federal funding for those who could not afford it.”

This was another example of liberal culture moving forward over the objections of many Americans.  Mr. Hedgecock points out:

“Americans by 60-70% want this “reform” repealed. Obama and Co. won the legislative battle, but lost the culture. Now they are losing the politics as well.”

Culturally, America tends to be center right.  The northeast leans left, as does the west coast, but the Americans who live in the rest of the country tend to be center right.  That is why President Obama is losing the support of the majority of Americans–he is governing from the extreme left.  As Americans, we do not seem to be very good at finding middle ground.  Hopefully after seeing the disaster the policies of the left have been we will move right.

This article is based on an article that was posted yesterday at Yahoo News and an article at the Washington Examiner yesterday.

Yahoo News reports that the Justice Department is filing a lawsuit against Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Arizona’s Maricopa County.  The lawsuit charges that Sheriff Arpaio is refusing to cooperate with a federal investigation into allegations of discrimination and illegal searches and seizures by the department.

According to Yahoo News:

“Arpaio told the Arizona Republic that he thought the lawsuit was “camouflage” for a federal attempt to curtail his anti-illegal immigration sweeps in mostly Latino communities. He also said he had begun cooperating with federal authorities and thought they were making headway toward a solution.”

Well, all may not be what it appears to be.  The Washington Examiner article reveals:

“…in September 2008, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE, did its own investigation of Arpaio’s office– and gave it a clean bill of health.  Arpaio’s lawyers recently got a copy of the ICE report through the Freedom of Information Act.”

It seems as if the Obama Justice Department has very strange ideas of what legal cases need to be follow up on and what legal cases need to be ignored.  I would be a whole lot more convinced that this was not a political lawsuit if the Justice Department had been willing to follow up on the voter intimidation suit against the Black Panters.  I believe that the Obama Administration uses the Justice Department for political reasons.  As long as the Democrats control Congress, this will continue.  Please vote Republican in November and bring justice back to the Justice Department.

Last week, South Coast Today posted an article about the protest by commercial fishermen staged off Martha’s Vineyard. 

The article deals with the protest and the people who have been hurt by the overly strict regulations on fishing, but at the heart of the story is a runaway government agency.

According to the article:

Bob Vanasse, the executive director of the industry advocacy group Saving Seafood, put the issue in the best perspective.

It’s not environmentalists versus fishermen, he said. It’s both the environmentalists and fishermen versus a rogue bureaucratic agency.

Think Jane Lubchenco, the new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration administrator who promised reform but delivered another round of weak-science regulation.

Think Dale Jones, the never-fired NOAA law enforcement director who shredded documents showing stricter enforcement of Northeast fishermen than all others. The man who refused to tell Congress whether his junket trips were funded by those same fishermen’s fines.

Think of an agency that used decades worth of faulty data gathered on the Albatross, and that even now refuses to give up that faulty data.

Think of an agency that, based on a loophole, adopted the most Draconian regulations possible, even though the Magnuson Act forbid such extreme measures.

(The Magnuson Act that governs fisheries requires that regulations be the ones that have the least impact on the commercial fishing effort, and that’s being ignored.)

Fourth District Congressman Barney Frank has proposed an amendment to Magnuson that would require a referendum among fishermen when the agency uses regulations that involve a fishing quota system.

Frank has given the White House a temporary reprieve on firing Lubchenco so this protest was one last effort to get the president’s attention before Frank reopens the issue.

Besides the pleas of Frank and Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown, Gov. Deval Patrick has demanded changes from Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

And some 5,000 fishermen, back in February, went to the mall in Washington in an effort to get President Barack Obama’s attention on the rogue agency.

But they did not.

This is a situation that impacts not only unemployment for East Coast fishermen, but also plays a part in where we get our seafood as a nation.  The government bureaucracy in the fishing industry has gotten out of hand and needs to be pushed back.  There is no way that what is being done to the fishermen could be Constitutional.

This post is based on two articles, one from the New York Post today, and one from Yahoo News yesterday.

The New York Post article is about what has happened to the concept of science being unbiased in the debate about man-caused globall warming.  The InterAcademy Council, an independent association of “the best scientists and engineers worldwide” (according to their website), has recently finished a review of the practices of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and has found many problems in the claims in the United Nations documents. 

For example, the article states:

“For example, the IPCC’s much-vaunted Fourth Assessment Report claimed in 2007 that Himalayan glaciers were rapidly melting, and would possibly be gone by the year 2035.  The claim was actually false–yet the IPCC cited it as proof of man-made global warming.”

What are the results of bogus science?  The article at the Post cites one instance:

“…based in large part on the fraudulent glacier story, “[ICPP Chairman] Rajendra Pachauri’s Energy and Resources Institute, based in New Delhi, was awarded up to 3100,000 pounds by the Carnegie Corp…and the lion’s share of a 2.5 million pound EU grant funded by European taxpayers.”

“Thus, the Times concluded, “EU taxpayers are funding reasearch into a scientific claim about glaciers that any ice researcher should immediately recognize as bogus.””

Now to the story from Yahoo News.  According to the article:

“A bit of a propaganda war is heating up in California over Proposition 23, a citizen’s initiative which could suspend the state’s landmark greenhouse gas reduction law.

“Backed by manufacturers and Texas oil companies Valero and Tesoro, the ballot initiative would halt enforcement of the 2006 emissions law, AB32, until California unemployment, now over 12 percent, sinks to 5.5 percent for at least a year. Backers of the “California Jobs Initiative” say it is necessary to protect Californians from untimely financial hardship.”

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles is fighting Proposition 23, stating that “more Californians will get sick if Prop. 23 passes.” 

This is a very interesting battle.  I was in California last week and at one point someone living in San Jose told me that they had regulations on when they could use their fireplaces because at times the air quality was so bad.  I really hate to see that kind of government intrusion, but I also don’t like the idea of brown air.  It is also interesting that the Mayor’s campaign against the relaxation of the emissions law is aimed at the poor.

The article points out:

“The mayor surrounded himself with activists from Latino neighborhoods who released a statement saying that Prop. 23 “will hurt low-income communities and people of color first and worst,” and called for the mobilization of voters from low-income areas. They circulated a four-page report laying out the environmental violations and fines assessed against the two companies.”

I really don’t know what the answer is here.  I know that California is very unique because of the way the winds and climate act and that impacts pollution in the state.  It would be nice to think that a compromise between the health of the people and the unemployment numbers can be worked out.

The claim that the change in the emissions law would impact the poor more than the average citizen reminds me of an old Rush Limbaugh comment on a potential New York Times headline.  Mr. Limbaugh once commented that if the newspapers had advance notice on when the world would end, the New York Times headline would be “World To End Tomorrow–Women and Children Hardest Hit.”  I think we need to find a balance here.

Today’s Washington Times reported on the release of two Yemenese men who were detained at Amsterdam airport on Monday.  Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al-Soofi and Hezam al-Murisi were arrested at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport at the request of U.S. law enforcement officials.  The men were released today without being charged with anything. 

Initial tests of one of the men’s luggage had shown a trace of explosives.  Later, more accurate tests did not reveal explosive material.

In a story posted on Monday ABC News reported:

“In addition, officials said, al Soofi was found to be carrying $7,000 in cash and a check of his luggage found a cell phone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle, three cell phones taped together, several watches taped together, a box cutter and three large knives. Officials said there was no indication of explosives and he and his luggage were cleared for the flight from Birmingham to Chicago O’Hare.”

This whole story really does not make any sense.  I strongly suspect this was a test to see if the baggage inspectors would pick up the image of a cell-phone-triggered bomb.  Also, the list of things in the luggage does not sound like the normal contents of the suitcase of your everyday traveler.  Added to the mix is the fact that Yemen is to terrorism what Afghanistan was to terrorism up until September 11, 2001.

To me, this is an indication that generally speaking we are not serious about stopping terrorism.  The taping together of watches or cell phones is not normal packing procedure.  I strongly suspect that this was a dry run for something horrible that we will see in the future.

The Hatch Act of 1939 is a United States federal law whose main provision is to prohibit federal employees (civil servants) from engaging in partisan political activity.  According to a story in the Washington Examiner on Monday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent a memo to more than 4,000 employees of the Department of Education on Wednesday inviting them to join Al Sharpton’s ‘Reclaim the Dream’ rally on Saturday.  Mr. Sharpton created the event in reponse to Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial.

Technically, the e-mail does not violate the Hatch Act, but it made at least one department employee uncomfortable.

The article reports:

“”It sends a signal that activity on behalf of one side of a political debate is expected within a department.  It’s highly inappropriate…even in the absence of a direct threat,” (David) Boaz (executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute) said.  “If we think of a Bush cabinet official sending an e-mail to civil servants asking them to attend a Glenn Beck rally, there would be a lot of outrage over that.””

Unfortunately, the conservative movement has been too polite too long.  We need to learn to apply the same standard of conduct to liberals that liberals apply to us.  If sending this e-mail is acceptable, then it is acceptable for someone on the right side of the political spectrum to do the same thing.  If sending this e-mail is unacceptable, then the people who sent it need to be reprimanded at least, and action taken against anyone who practices politics on government employees in the future.

The information in this article is from an e-mail I received from Representative John C. Fleming from Louisiana.  Representative Fleming is a Medical Doctor.  His website at fleming.house.gov has more detailed information and source information.

The Medicare cuts in the new healthcare reform act are approximately $500 billion.  This is a summary of the cuts that will be made in the next three years. 

In 2010, Medicare will cut reimbursements to inpatient psychiatric hospitals.

In 2011, these are the changes to Medicare:

• Medicare cuts to home health agencies begin.
• Wealthier seniors ($85K/$170K) begin paying higher Part D premiums.
• Medicare cuts begin to ambulance services, ambulatory surgery centers, diagnostic labs, and durable medical equipment.
• Seniors are prohibited from purchasing power wheelchairs unless they first rent for 13 months.
• New Medicare cuts to long term care hospitals begin.
• New Medicare cuts to hospitals and cuts to nursing homes begin (FY12)
• Medicare Advantage cuts begin. Participating seniors will face premium increases, benefit cuts, or both.

In 2012, the follow changes are made:

• Medicare reimbursements for dialysis treatments are cut.
• Medicare cuts to hospice begin.

In 2013 (after the Presidential election) Medicare reimbursements to hospitals that serve low-income seniors will be cut.

According to the email:

“WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU:  When providers get paid less by Medicare for services seniors depend on, many may be forced to decrease their services or close some of their locations just to make ends meet.   This means that seniors may experience a decrease in their access to essential care, which is already a problem for many in rural districts.  The cuts to Medicare Advantage may cause many of these insurance providers to stop offering plans to seniors, forcing seniors back into traditional Medicare.”

The bottom line here is that healthcare reform is being done at the expense of senior citizens.  As the baby boomers become eligible for Medicare, the money that Medicare receives from the government will be cut.  The people who have paid into Medicare almost all of their lives are the ones whose benefits are being cut.  Meanwhile, there is nothing in this bill to prevent illegal aliens who have paid nothing into Medicare from getting all the expensive medical treatment they need (assuming they are the right age). 

This is a bill that needs to be repealed and replaced with true healthcare reform–reform that will allow the private sector to make enough money to treat the poor and the senior citizens to get the healthcare they need.  Vote Republican in November to see “Repeal and Replace.”