No, this is not an article about President Obama.  It is an article in response to the ruckus about Peter King’s Congressional Hearings on the radicalization of American Muslims.

Marc Thiessen at the Washington Post posted an article today about three of the most powerful leaders in Al Qaeda–all of whom were at least partially raised in America. 

Anwar al-Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and lived there until he was seven, moving to Yemen.  He returned to America to go to college, studying at Colorado State University and San Diego State.  Mr. al-Awlaki is the spiritual leader of Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).  He consulted with two of the September 11 hijackers and was in contact with the Fort Hood shooter. 

Omar Hammami, aka Abu Mansoor al-Amriki (“the American”), grew up in Daphne, Alabama, just outside of Mobile.  He is the military commander of Al-Shabab/al-Qaeda in East Africa.  He converted to Muslim in high school, left for Somalia, and rose through the ranks of jihad.  He is thought to have recruited more than 20 Americans as suicide bombers.

Adnan Shukrijuman is the current operational commander of al-Qaeda (replacing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed).  He is a Saudi-born naturalized American who lived in Brooklyn for part of his youth and attended college in Florida. 

According to the article:

“Shukrijuma left the country before the Sept. 11 attacks, and trained at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan alongside Jose Padilla for a KSM plot to blow up apartment buildings in a major American city using natural gas. In 2002, the CIA began asking al-Qaeda detainees, “Who will be picked to lead the next big attack on America?” Abu Zubaydah, KSM and other detainees all pointed to Shukrijumah. Press reports at the time described Shukrijumah as the “next Mohammed Atta,” was believed to have been “anointed the head of a new cell with orders to attack targets inside the United States.””

Mr. Thiessen concludes:

“Bottom line: When three top leaders of the three most virulent al-Qaeda networks are American citizens, it is ridiculous to suggest that the chairman of the House committee responsible for homeland security is out of line to investigate the subject of radicalization in the American Muslim community. Rep. King is not “stoking irrational fears” or “providing fuel for bigots.” He is doing his job.”

We can either stick our heads in the sand and ignore the facts or we can deal with the problem.  It’s better to deal with the problem.

Yesterday the U K Telegraph reported that British Special forces have seized a convoy of Iranian rockets headed for Taliban fighters. 

The article reports:

“Foreign Secretary William Hague said the British ambassador has raised the matter with officials in Tehran.

“”I am extremely concerned by the latest evidence that Iran continues to supply the Taliban with weaponry – weapons clearly intended to provide the Taleban with the capability to kill Afghan and ISAF soldiers from significant range,” he said.

“”It is not the behaviour of a responsible neighbour. It is at odds with Iran’s claim to the international community and to its own people that it supports stability and security in Afghanistan.””

I love the British, but I think I prefer the Ronald Reagan approach (think Libya in the 1980’s). 

The rockets were manufactured in Iran.  The article also pointed out that the Iranians are Shia and would not like to see the Sunni Taliban take over Afghanistan, but they are providing just enough aid to harass NATO troops.  I suspect part of the logic is to keep the world wrapped up enough in Afghanistan that it will not notice Iran’s nuclear program.  Afghanistan is a great distraction while Iran forges ahead with nuclear weapons.

Fox News has reported that Wednesday night Wisconsin Senate Republicans voted to remove collective bargaining rights for state workers. 

According to the article:

“All 14 Senate Democrats fled to Illinois nearly three weeks ago, preventing the chamber from having enough members present to consider Gov. Scott Walker’s so-called “budget repair bill” — a proposal introduced to plug a $137 million budget shortfall.. 

“The Senate requires a quorum to take up any measures that spend money. But Republicans on Wednesday split from the legislation the proposal to curtail union rights, and a special conference committee of state lawmakers approved that bill a short time later

Unfortunately, the three-week vacation of the Senate Democrats showed no signs of ending, so this was the action the Republicans took. 

According to the article:

“State Senate Democratic Minority Leader Mark Miller issued a statement saying, “Tomorrow we will join the people of Wisconsin in taking back their government.”

Why should the people of Wisconsin give it back to you when you abandoned it three weeks ago?

Governor Walker ran his campaign for governor stating exactly what he was planning to do in order to balance the budget.  The fleeing Democrats prevented the Republicans from passing the spending part of the bill, but the provisions that were passed last night are expected to help the state balance its budget through keeping pay raises more in line with the cost of living and the economy.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported today that protestors have attempted to shut down the capitol to prevent the State Assembly from voting on the measure the Senate passed last night. 

I am not sure what the public reaction to all this is.  I am a child of the sixties and am generally comfortable with the idea of protest, but this seems to me to be more like a bunch of spoiled children throwing a temper tantrum because they did not get their own way.  I might have a different point of view if the fleeing Democrats had stayed and negotiated or tried to find common ground.  The behavior of the unions has not won me to their cause.

Yesterday’s Weekly Standard Blog posted the chart below showing gas prices during the first 26 months of the Obama and Bush administrations.  Obviously, there are worldwide forces at work here, but there are also items that our government does control.

Some of the areas in which the government has impacted energy prices are pointed out in the article:

“This is the President whose administration secretly urged him to bypass needed Congressional approval to create as many at 17 national monuments throughout the west, effectively closing off all that land to energy exploration forever.

“This is the President who has illegally tried to illegally enforce an offshore drilling ban.”

Actions have consequences.  The Obama Administration is not an administration that is willing to develop America’s carbon energy resources.  Because of that policy, Americans will continue to pay more for their energy needs.  The technology of green energy is not sufficiently developed to replace carbon energy in a way that is either revenue neutral or cost effective.  Until that happens (or we have a new President), we can expect to pay more for all or our energy needs and to increase our energy dependence on countries that dislike us intensely.

These are a few of the slides from Paul Ryan’s Budget Presentation.  The pictures explain themselves.  These charts show why we desperately need to cut spending NOW!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Controlling the vocabulary used in the argument can often win the argument.  Newsbusters posted an article yesterday about charges made by MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts that the Republicans are planning to engage in ‘voter suppression’ in the 2012 election.  The list of things included in voter suppression:  “ID requirements, tightening up residency requirements that largely impact college kids, and/or repealing last-minute voter registration at the polls.”

This is not a move to suppress the vote–this is a move to prevent the fraud that has, unfortunately, found its way into our voting system.  On September 29,2010, rightwinggranny reported on an investigation into voter fraud in Houston, Texas. 

In that article, I reported:

“Most of the findings focused on a group called Houston Votes, a voter registration group headed by Sean Caddle, who formerly worked for the Service Employees International Union. Among the findings were that only 1,793 of the 25,000 registrations the group submitted appeared to be valid. The other registrations included one of a woman who registered six times in the same day; registrations of non-citizens; so many applications from one Houston Voters collector in one day that it was deemed to be beyond human capability; and 1,597 registrations that named the same person multiple times, often with different signatures.”

Asking for voter identification is not voter suppression–it is making sure that the idea of ‘one man, one vote’ is upheld in our elections.  No one is trying to suppress the vote–they are simply attempting to make sure everyone’s vote counts equally.

John Hinderaker at Power Line provided me with a statement that I consider yesterday’s quote of the day.

Harry Reid is quoted in the article:

“The mean-spirited bill, H.R. 1 … eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts,” said Reid. “These programs create jobs. The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist.”

As an inquiring mind, I would like to know what goes on at the Cowboy Poetry Festival so that without the Festival “the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist.”  Is this something that should be investigated?  How is one Cowboy Poetry Festival responsible for the existence of tens of thousands of people?  Is this the cure for the lack of growth in the American population?  How many cowboy poets does it take to create tens of thousands of people?  Wow.  Poetry must be much more popular (and interesting) than I had realized.

Today’s Daily Caller posted an article about the government’s outreach to Muslim groups.  It’s a really good idea to reach out to Muslim groups, but like anything else, you have to know which groups to reach out to. 

The article reports:

“”We don’t have any contacts in the administration,” said Avi Zonneveld, founder of Muslims for Progressive Values, based in Los Angeles.  “The Canadian governmnet is much more accessible,” she said.”

Meanwhile, one of the groups the government has reached out to is the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which practices orthodox Islam and believes Islamic rules (read Sharia Law) should take precedence over the rules of whatever democracy they may currently be living in.  This doesn’t sound like an ideology I want working closely with my government!

“On March 6, for example, Denis McDonough, a White House deputy national security advisor, delivered a speech in Northern Virginia at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS), where he said that “when it comes to preventing violent extremism and terrorism in the United States, Muslim Americans are not part of the problem, you’re part of the solution.”

“Yet the head cleric at the mosque, Mohamed Magid, is also president of the ISNA, which was founded by Muslim Brotherhood supporters in the United States, and which has cooperated with other brotherhood-affiliated groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations. A federal judge in July 2009 concluded that CAIR has associations with Hamas, which is both an Islamist terror group and an affiliate of the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood.”

As I have pointed out before, CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Case. 

The Middle East Forum posted an article in 2006 stating:

“But there is another side to CAIR that has alarmed many people in positions to know. The Department of Homeland Security refuses to deal with it. Senator Charles Schumer (Democrat, New York) describes it as an organization “which we know has ties to terrorism.”[3] Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat, Illinois) observes that CAIR is “unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect.”[4] Steven Pomerantz, the FBI’s former chief of counterterrorism, notes that “CAIR, its leaders, and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups.”[5] The family of John P. O’Neill, Sr., the former FBI counterterrorism chief who perished at the World Trade Center, named CAIR in a lawsuit as having “been part of the criminal conspiracy of radical Islamic terrorism”[6] responsible for the September 11 atrocities. Counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson calls it “a radical fundamentalist front group for Hamas.”[7]“

Please follow the link above the read the entire article and check out the footnotes.  Our government is either very naive or very stupid.  Both are dangerous in the current situation.

Representative Nancy Pelosi stated, “We have to pass the bill to see what’s in it.”

Well, every day we learn something new.  Maybe some day some of it will be good, but right now, it’s not.

Two of the sources for this article are a post at Representative  Michele Bachmann‘s website from Friday, and a post at Human Events on February 15th.

The issue is a whether or not the House of Representatives (which according to the Constitution initiates all legislation regarding spending) can defund Obamacare.

According to Human Events:

“Some don’t realize that last year’s Congress did appropriate money for ObamaCare, even though it failed to pass appropriations bills for anything else.  The billions appropriated for ObamaCare are outlined in Congressional Research Service Report R41301, “Appropriations and Fund Transfers in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA),” issued on Oct. 14.”

The third source, The Heritage Foundation, reports:

“One of Obamacare’s most egregious insults to the rule of law is its effort to take away the power of the current Congress, future Congresses, and future Presidents to decide what level of funding–if any–its programs should receive. The law does this by including billions of dollars in actual appropriations of funds for future years.

“As the CRS (Congressional Research Service)  notes, Obamacare “contains two types of budgetary provisions in relation to the new entities created by or through the legislation. Several of the provisions directly provide funding (referred to as “direct spending”), bypassing the annual appropriations process, through techniques such as multi-year or permanent appropriations. Some of these provisions also impose other requirements or conditions. (11). 

One example cited by the CRS in a related report (12) is an advance appropriation of $6 billion in Obamacare’s Section 1322, requiring the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish a “Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP),” better known as the insurance “exchange” program. The statute does not specify how much of the $6 billion is designated for each fiscal year, presumably giving a blank check to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to spend when and how she likes.”

Please follow the links above to read the entire articles at the Heritage Foundation and the other sources.  This bill was passed in a way that was a slap in the face to the voters and now we are finding out that the way it is to be implemented is a slap in the face to the U. S. Constitution.

On Sunday, Milwaukee radio station 620 WTMJ‘s website analyzed the new WPRI poll showing Governor Walker with a 43 percent approval rating.  The first thing that the story points out about the poll is that it oversamples Democrats and union households. 

The article points out some of the findings of the poll that were not immediately obvious:

“The poll says voters oppose Walker’s budget plan by a 46% to 51% margin. But: An overwhelmingly majority — 81% said that public employees should be required to contribute to their own pensions.”

The article also points out that how you ask the question determines the answer:

“When asked whether they favored “limiting” public employees ability to negotiate over non-wage issues: the poll splits 47% in favor, 50% opposed. (That is within the margin of error.)

 

“When that question is changed to whether employees should be “stripped of their rights to collective bargaining,” along with other loaded language, support drops to 32%.”

I would love to live in a world of nonpolluting renewable energy, but I don’t think we are there yet.  Spain had to abandon its green energy policy because of the jobs lost and the economic hardship the policy caused.  In June 2010 the Motor City Times reported the details of Spain’s failed green energy policy. 

The article reports:

“Unsurprisingly for a governmental take on a flagship program, the report takes pains to minimize the extent of the economic harm. Yet despite the soft-pedaling, the document reveals exactly why electricity rates “necessarily skyrocketed” in Spain, as did the public debt needed to underwrite the disaster. This internal assessment preceded the Zapatero administration’s recent acknowledgment that the “green economy” stunt must be abandoned, lest the experiment risk Spain becoming Greece.

“The government report does not expressly confirm the highest-profile finding of the non-governmental report: that Spain’s “green economy” program cost the country 2.2 jobs for every job “created” by the state. However, the figures published in the government document indicate they arrived at a job-loss number even worse than the 2.2 figure from the independent study.

“This document is not a public report. Spanish media has referred to its existence in recent weeks though, while Bloomberg and the Washington Examiner have noted the impact: Spain is now forced to jettison its plans — Obama’s model — for a “green economy.” (emphasis added)”

On Sunday, Power Line reported on how California’s green energy programs have impacted the community college system in Southern California.

The article at Power Line reports:

“Given the cost of alternative energy technology, it would be more expensive for the district to generate all its own electricity than to continue paying utilities for power. . . One thing was for sure: No matter how it was financed, the bill for all those solar panels and wind turbines would be huge. Eisenberg’s cost estimates for taking the nine campuses off the grid ranged as high as $975 million — this for a college system that in 2010 spent less than $8 million on power bills. An engineering consultant put the cost far higher: $1.9 billion. . . Plans for large-scale wind power collided with the reality that prevailing winds at nearly all the campuses are too weak to generate much electricity. To date, a single wind turbine has been installed, as a demonstration project. It spins too slowly in average winds to power a 60-watt light bulb.”

Yesterday a website called Climatide reported on the progress of a wind project in Falmouth, Massachusetts.  Wind One is Falmouth’s first wind turbine.  Neil Anderson lives about a quarter mile from Wind One.  Mr Anderson is a believer in alternate energy sources and has operated a passive solar energy company on Cape Cod.  However, he is not a fan of Wind One. 

The article reports:

“But now, as many as 50 people are complaining about the turbine and the noise it makes at different speeds. A dozen families are retaining a lawyer for that reason.

“”It is dangerous. Headaches. Loss of sleep. And the ringing in my ears never goes away. I could look at it all day, and it does not bother me. It’s quite majestic — but it’s way too close,” Anderson said.”

I don’t know what the effects of the wind farm offshore will be–whether or not the wind farm will be close enough for residents of the area will be impacted by the noise.

The bottom line here is simple–the devil you know versus the devil you don’t know.  We need to take a really good look at alternative energy before we abandon our sources of conventional energy.

Admittedly it has been a long learning curve, but President Obama has made a very wise decision–both for the American people and for the safety of the world.

The Hill reported today that the Obama Administration has announced that trials by military commission will resume at Guantánamo Bay. 

The article reports:

“In a fact sheet, the White House said Obama “remains committed” to closing the facility, but the president’s decision to lift the ban on military commissions signals the unlikelihood that Obama will successfully transfer all of the prisoners in Cuba.”

Guantanamo Bay represents a unique legal problem.  Because it is not on United States soil, the prisoners cannot claim all the rights that they would receive in a civilian court in America.  One of the things that makes these trials nearly impossible in civil courts in America are the disclosure of evidence rules.  In trying terrorists in American civilian courts with full American citizen’s rights, we would have to show where and how we got the information to convict them.  In some cases it would mean disclosing wiretap information or other classified information gathering tools.  Because we are still engaged in a war on terror, this is not a wise move.

Military tribunals are equipped to handle the problems that arise with imprisoned terrorists.  These terrorists themselves are a problem.  The New York Times reported in May of 2009 that one in seven freed Guantanamo detainees have returned to terrorism.  Many have returned to terrorism after having completed the Saudi rehabilitation program.

I have no idea what the answer is.  I don’t like the idea of the death penalty, but what else do you do with the man who planned the September 11th attack?  I don’t like the idea of keeping people away from their homeland and whatever families they may have for the rest of their lives, but I don’t want to release someone who is simply going home to fight Americans or kill civilians.

There really isn’t a nice, clear-cut answer to what to do with terrorists, and Guantanamo and military tribunals seems to be the most practical.  I am glad that the President has chosen that path.

On Saturday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line about how the Obama Administration is handling recent events in the Middle East. 

In a speech to a group of Jewish donors in Miami on Friday, President Obama stated:

“All the forces that we see building in Egypt are the forces that should be naturally aligned with the US, [and] should be aligned with Israel.”

Wow.  That is an amazing statement when you consider the recent events in Egypt.  Let’s look at two of those events:

Egyptian protesters shouted “Jew, Jew” as they stripped Lara Logan naked and beat her with poles.

Sheikh Yusuf al-Qardawi returned to Egypt after having been exiled for almost 30 years.  Al-Qardawi supports suicide bombings and has stated, “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the (Jews) people who would punish them for their corruption.  The last punishment was carried out by Hitler.”  On February 18th al-Qardawi addressed the crowd at Tahrir Square.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see these statements or actions as an indication of friendship toward Israel.

The article at Power Line points out:

“Paul Pillar, a longtime CIA analyst who now teaches at Georgetown University, said, “Most of the people in the intelligence community would see things on this topic very similarly to the president – that is, political Islam as a very diverse series of ideologies, all of which use a similar vocabulary, but all quite different.””

John Hinderaker draws a very logical conclusion from that comment:

“One is left speechless. Turmoil in the Middle East promises a set of new regimes; the optimistic scenario, apparently, is that they will be dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood rather than al Qaeda. And the main problem this will pose for the President will come from the Republicans! And, of course–but why?–those pesky Israelis. We can describe this charitably as a remarkably Washington-centric view.

“All of this reinforces the sense that the Obama administration and the foreign policy establishment are without a clue and without a plan as they watch events unfold.”

Unfortunately, the events will not wait for the Obama Administration to ‘get a clue.’  We may be in for a very rough ride.

The website The Economic Populist posted a story on March 4th explaining how the unemployment numbers have gone down even through more people are unemployed.  It has to do with changes made in the way the numbers are calculated, and with a number called the ‘labor force participation rate.’  Please follow the link above–there are a number of graphs that illustrate what is happening.

The key paragraphs from the article:

“How can the unemployment rate decrease so dramatically when not enough jobs were added to even cover population growth? Because the people the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) counts dramatically decreased, they didn’t disappear, but are re-categorized as not in the labor force.

“The civilian labor force increased by +147,000. Of those still in the civilian labor force, employed, increased by 250,000 in February, yet those unemployed dropped by -190,000. Those not in the labor force increased by +87,000 in a month. What we see here are people simply dropping out of the count and less people entered the labor force…looking for work, officially.

“The civilian non-institutional population are those 16 years or older not locked up somewhere or not in the military or so sick and disabled they are in a nursing home and so on.

“The civilian non-institutional population rose by 147,000 last month. The civilian population now stands at 238,851,000. Not in the labor force are those of the civilian non-institutional population who are not counted as looking for work or having a job. Yet those not in the labor force stands as a horrifying 85,605,000, or 36% of the non-institutional civilian population. An equally horrific 13,673,000 people of the official tally are out looking for work.”

That is how you make the unemployment number go down while the same number (or more) of people are unemployed.

This is one of the charts in the article.  Notice that recent recessions were much longer under Democrat administrations.

Iranium, New Documentary on Nuclear Iran March 16 in Stoughton

Policy Expert is Featured Speaker

Stoughton, MA–(March 7, 2011)–Strategic policy and intelligence expert Claire M. Lopez will speak at a showing of the documentary Iranium Wednesday, March 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Ahavath Torah Congregation in Stoughton, MA.  Lopez, who is interviewed in the film, is an expert in Middle East, national defense, and counterterrorism issues. A senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and vice president of the Intelligence Summit, she has served with the CIA, as a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, and as Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee.  Admission is $10. 

Iranium was made by the Clarion Fund, a non-profit organization that produces documentaries on threats to national security.  The film premiered in various locations throughout the US in February.  With rarely seen footage, the film depicts the brutal reality of the regime in Tehran, and the threat it presents to its own people, to Israel, to the U.S. and to the rest of the world.  The filmmakers stress that while Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has never hesitated to declare his intentions to destroy the West and to spread Islam and Sharia law throughout the world, American and European leaders continue to misread his intentions.  Interviews with experts on the Middle East, terrorism, and nuclear politics give a clear explanation of the dangerous mix of the radical ideology and goals of the Iranian regime and its potential as a nuclear power.  For information go to www.atorah.org, call 781-344-8733 or e-mail office@atorah.org.

Thursday’s Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama Administration has stated that it may have to reject seven permits for offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico if a federal judge in New Orleans forces them to make a quick decision. 

The article reports:

“In court filings late Friday, the Interior Department said the permit applications are flawed or incomplete, and that Judge Martin Feldman’s order that it decide on them before the end of the month disrupts the normal back-and-forth negotiations between oil companies and federal regulators.”

This is garbage.  The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement has issued one drilling permit since the BP explosion in April of last year. 

The bottom line here is simple.  As the Middle East erupts in flames and there is a strong possiblity that the countries that supplied America with oil will no longer be friends of America, the Obama Administration is cutting back domestic production of oil.  If have said before that unless this Administration changes its domestic energy policy, we will be paying upwards of $5 a gallon at the gas pumps.  Unfortunately, that is rapidly becoming a reality.  The rapidly rising cost of gasoline has the potential to end any economic recovery we may now be experiencing.  The answer to America’s energy needs are within our own country if we would develop them.  Developing them would also lead us out of the current economic challenges we are experiencing.  It is unfortunate that the green special interest groups and the Obama Administration have prevented that from happening.

On Thursday, the Times Picayune in New Orleans posted a story about a report given to Mayor Mitch Landrieu by consultant David Osborne regarding dysfunction in the government of New Orleans.  The report also included a ten-point plan to correct the problems.

According to the Public Strategies Group website:

“David (Osborne) is a senior partner of The Public Strategies Group, a consulting firm that helps public organizations develop and implement strategies to improve their performance. He has worked with governments large and small, from cities and counties to states, federal agencies, and foreign governments.”

The article in the Times Picayune explains:

“Unlike the mayor’s top policy priorities — reducing crime, eliminating blight, improving education and creating jobs — the actions proposed by PSG are designed to overhaul the way City Hall manages its employees, provides public services and spends money, Kopplin said. Among the fixes, which Osborne predicted will take three to five years to implement, are improving customer service, developing performance measures, reforming the contracting process, implementing a sophisticated data-tracking system and boosting revenue collection.”

The report listed ten areas that could be corrected, and city officials have assigned a person to be in charge of dealing with each area.  Many of the areas mentioned are areas that all cities and towns could improve–they include such things as developing performance and accountability standards for employees, consolidating human resources and personnel functions, and reforming civil service rules.

New Orleans is a wonderful city.  It is an amazing place to visit–the street art and street music are fantastic.  It is a city rich in culture and culturally unique in America because of its strong French roots.  It would be wonderful to see the government of the city function more efficiently and the people of the city prosper.

The following is a press release from Representative Tom Price of Georgia:

Washington, D.C. – House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Tom Price, M.D. (R-GA) issued the following statement after the Obama Administration announced that the Department of Justice would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court.

“Millions of Americans are still out of work and our economy is under considerable strain thanks to the burdens imposed by the Obama Administration’s debt-inducing agenda in Washington,” said Chairman Price. “Rather than focus its attention on working with Republicans to cut spending and get our economy moving again, the administration is diverting its attention and abandoning the government’s defense of marriage. This announcement by the Obama Administration is a political move at a time when the American people need leaders in Washington working together to solve our great challenges. Those who have fought to redefine marriage have often relied on the court to legislate from the bench rather than through their duly elected representatives in both Congress and state legislatures. Today’s action by the White House will only encourage others to use the courts as a springboard to enact an agenda outside the legislative branches of government. Once again, this demonstrates a woeful lack of leadership on the part of the president and his administration.”

As you may remember, the Defense of Marriage Act was passed by a vote of 85-14 in the United States Senate and a vote of 342-67 in the House of Representatives.  It was signed into law by a Democrat president, Bill Clinton.  President Obama has recently stated that he would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman.  Regardless of how you feel about DOMA, it is the duty of the President to encourage the enforcement of existing laws–not to pick and choose which laws he likes.  We have a President–not a king.  Although this may insure that the President gets the support of the people who oppose DOMA, refusing to defend a legally passed law is not good for the country.  I am glad to see someone in Congress speaking out about this.

Some people wonder all their lives if they’ve made a difference. The Marines don’t have that problem.

~Ronald Wilson Reagan

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of abortion, this is a sobering statistic.  According to the Guttmacher Institute about one-third of the women in the United States will have had an abortion by the time they are 45.  The Institute also reports that In New York, 468,900 of the 4,045,215 women of reproductive age became pregnant in 2008. 53% of these pregnancies resulted in live births and 33% in induced abortions.

These are sobering statistics.

On January 18th of this year, CNS News reported an a Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit that stated:

“nearly 41 percent of all federal purchase card transactions from July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006, failed basic control checks” and the presentation includes case studies where a “U.S. Postal Service employee spent $1,100 on Internet dating services over a 15-month period” and “$13,000 – Dinner and alcohol for 81 at Ruth’s Chris”.

If you follow the above link to the article, there is a link in the article to the powerpoint presentation about the fraud in government credit card use.  As we debate cutting government spending, it is interesting to note that the Federal Purchase Card Program went from less than $1 billion in 1994 to more than $19 billion in 2009.  Since there is a strong possibility that 41 percent of that money was not legitimately spent, that might be a really good place to start cutting the federal budget. 

The article at CNS News lists a few of the credit card abuses (totaling about $5,350):

–       Erotica Products (‘Condoms to Go’, ‘Pleasure Zone’)

–       Girls Gone Wild videos (‘GGW Videos’)

–       1- week Caribbean vacation (‘Vacation Express’)

–       Five season football tickets (‘New Orleans Saints’)”

I guess Saints tickets are cheap. I live in New England–Patriots tickets are not!

The article further lists some of the expenditures:

“The reports also reveal additional federal debit card use for $600 at a Texas gentlemen’s club, $3,700 worth of purchases at a jewelry store, $400 at a massage parlor and $450 dollars for an arm tattoo.”

This might be a really good place to begin cutting the federal budget–better control of the debit cards!

This is a graph from The Tax Foundation:

When we listen to people complaining that the rich are not paying their fair share, we need to keep this graph in mind.  Generally speaking, the share of the tax burden paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers has dropped from almost 60 percent in 1967 to less than 40 percent in 2007.  Meanwhile, the share of the tax burden of the top 1 percent of taxpayers has gone from about 29 percent to over 40 percent.  This is not good news if we expect the economy to grow in the future.  What we are essentially doing is punishing success.  Just in case the thought has crossed your mind, I am not (and will probably never be) in the top 1 percent of taxpayers.  In that sense, I don’t have a horse in this race.  However, what has happened in America due to the expansive entitlement programs enacted in the late 1960’s is that the middle class taxpayer (that’s most of us) are the ones paying the bills. 

On April 7, 2010, Yahoo News posted an Associated Press story that stated:

“About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That’s according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization.”

In simple terms, that means there are too many people in the wagon and too few people pulling the wagon.  We need to find a way to change that.

Sometimes people simply tell the truth because that is their style.  That happened recently when NASCAR racer Dale Earnhardt Jr. commented on the Chevy Volt.  According to CNS News yesterday, Mr. Earnhardt said:

“I think that the Chevy Volt’s a good product. I think that the consumers need to understand how difficult it is to produce a car with the standards that they have, with the guidelines that they have today, that can actually do what the consumer wants and what the consumer expects.”

“The technology isn’t there yet really to provide the consumer with something that can go a little bit further than that [in mileage] and do a little bit better job with that,” said Earnhardt.  “But as the technology gets better, batteries and such things like that get safer to where they can be more heavily charged and the mileage can be a little bit longer.  That’s down the pike — but for where we are today, it’s a pretty good product in my mind,”

Somehow, I don’t think that was what the government wanted to hear, since they are responsible for the subsidies that make the Volt possible. 

The article further reports:

“Consumer Reports said the Volt it tested got 23 to 28 miles per charge and cost $48,700. “For now, it seems that owning a Volt is an expensive way to be green,” said the review.”

Mr. Earnhardt made his remarks at the National Guard Youth Foundation’s ChalleNGe Champions gala on Tuesday,

The Daily Caller posted a story yesterday about the ongoing court battle against Obamacare.  On January 31, Judge Roger Vinson ruled that Obamacare was unconstitutional.  Because the Obama Administration ignored his ruling and continued implementing the law, the Judge has issued another ruling.

The article reports:

“Now, Vinson has given the Obama administration an ultimatum to either stop implementing the law, or appeal it–presumably to the Supreme Court.  It is unclear what will happen if the administration ignores that order.”

Several states have stopped implementing the law since it was declared unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, the plot thickens…Today’s Daily Caller posted a report on the appearance of Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) before the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee.  In her testimony, Secretary Sebelius admitted that $500 billion was double counted in the Obamacare law. 

Republican Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois questioned Secretary Sebelius about whether the $500 billion in Medicare cuts were to preserve Medicare or pay for Obamacare.  Secretary Sebelius answered, “Both.”   

Wow.  Remind me never to give that lady access to my checkbook.  Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.”  I guess she was right.  If I ran my household budget that way, I would have been broke a long time ago.  Now the government is trying to help me get there.

Fox News reported today that today is the day that Iran officially takes its place on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.  Iran, you know, that country that will arrest and beat a woman for a fashion violation.  Not a single UN member (including the United States) has objected.  Meanwhile, on March 2, ibnlive.in.com reported that “The United Nations General Assembly has unanimously voted to suspend Libya from the UN Human Rights Council in the wake of continuing attacks on pro-democracy protesters there by Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.”  I guess I need someone to explain to me what the difference between the way Iran treats protestors and the way Libya treats protestors.  Admittedly, Iran doesn’t use planes, it shoots people down in the streets, but that seems a rather unimportant distinction.

The article at Fox also lists some of the more interesting countries that remain on some of the United Nations’ committees:

U.. N. Human Rights Council  –  Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba, Angola

U. N. Commission on the States of Women  –  The Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran

U. N. Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice  –  Libya, Russia, Sudan, Iran, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan

The article lists more, but you get the idea.  The UN needs to be moved out of New York and America needs to withdraw its membership.