The Stimulus is a great success or something.

Like I was sayin… you can put lipstick on a pig.

This week, the President trumpeted how successful the stimulus has been and that it is working exactly as planned.  The President was either untruthful to us then, or telling lies now.

We were told earlier this year that the stimulus would provide a jump start to the economy by funding shovel ready projects.  Now we are being told that the stimulus is being used to bailout the states preventing job losses and exend unemployment benefits.

The fact is that the government takes too much of our money now and wastes in on pet projects and programs that don’t work.

Remember what we are being told now and what we were told earlier this year.  This will help you decide if you should support the second stimulus that is being talked about now.

Defeat Cap and Trade? Yes We Can!

Like I was sayin… if you don’t act now, you are gonna be stuck with this thing.  The house passed the Waxman Markey bill that is intended to fight global warming by doubling your electricity bill and forcing you into ity bitty cars.  As bad as this bill is, it is even worse as its purpose is to protect us from the global warming hoax.

Here is a great post that gives information on how you can help stop this bill from passing the senate.  Please take the time to contact your senator and tell them that you are against this bill.

Cap and Tax Bill Nears Vote

Like I was sayin… Hold on you your wallets.  The house is moving toward passing the Waxman Markey bill to combat the global warming hoax.  You can read all about the latest on the bill here.

Some of the more vexing issues are that we are going to have a massive tax increase to fight a make believe crisis.  Energy prices are expected to almost double.  Gas will go up at least 77 cents a gallon according to some estimates.  Waxman just added another 300 pages to the bill prior to the vote and there are placeholders for more legislation.  This means that anybody who votes for it is voting for a bill that is missing language that will be inserted after the bill passes.  I didn’t even know this was legal.

This story has links to a list of congressmen that are on the fence.  You need to call them to put a stop to this.

More Bad News from the Most Ethical Congress Ever

Like I was sayin… if this is the most ethical congress ever, we are in trouble.

Not long ago, Nancy Pelosi promised the most ethical congress every.  Before and since then, there have been all sorts of issues some ignored by the MSM like this story commenting on Chris Dodd’s ethical lapses.

Interestingly enough, I haven’t heard much about this.  As the referenced post indicated, when Sen. Ted Stephens got some construction work for favors and didn’t disclose it, the story was front page news.

Thankfully, we all have blogs that we can follow to keep up with stuff like this.

Political Stories You Might have Missed – Week ending 6/12

Like I was sayin… you have to pay attention.  Conservative Patriot HQ has a weekly list of political stories that you might have missed and need to be aware of.  You can find them here.

This weeks column talks about more hate from Paul Krugman, Taxing your cell phone, the stimulus promise busted, more on the Pay Czar, and Miranda rights for terrorists.

Brown to Obama: “Did you get a gift receipt?”

Like I was sayin… what else was in the bargain bin?

As is the custom, when leaders from two nations visit for the first time, gifts are exchanged.  These gifts need not be extravagant, but often have some meaning behind them.  I was reading a recent story on-line about our current president.

During the recent visit by the British PM, Tony Brown, Obama and Brown exchanged gifts.  Brown presented Obama with some unique gifts including:

The first of which is a pen holder fashioned from the oak timber of HMS Gannet, a Navy vessel that served on anti-slavery missions off Africa.

Obviously, Brown understands the significance of America’s first African American president.

Another treasure given to Obama is a framed commissioning paper for the HMS Resolute, a Royal Navy ship that came to symbolize British-American goodwill when it was rescued by the U.S. from icebergs and given to Queen Victoria. It is the sister ship of the HMS Gannet.

Again, another well thoughout gift symbolizing the friendship between America and the UK.

Finally, Brown gave Obama a first edition of Martin Gilbert’s seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill, whose World War II partnership with President Franklin Roosevelt symbolized the U.S.-Anglo alliance.

All of these gifts were very well thought out. 

However, I would have loved to see Brown’s face when Obama presented his gift to Brown…

President Obama on Thursday gave British Prime Minister Gordon Brown a set of 25 classic American movies to mark his historic visit to the White House.

Let’s just hope that there weren’t any Revolutionary War movies included in the set…

Dems Fail to Place Cap on Profits

Like I was sayin… you can’t put a ceiling on success.  Today, the Dem run congress failed to get enough votes to push forward a tax on oil company profits that go above a certain level.

According to Dick Durbin the No. 2 Dem in the Senate, “The oil companies need to know that there is a limit on how much profit they can take in this economy”.  My question is, who sets that limit?  The government?  Aside from the obvious issues, there are several things that need to be considered with this effort.

First, the cost of taxes are passed on to the consumer.  The tax would not take away from the oil companies, but take away from the gas buying public.  Do we really need to pay more for gas?

Secondly, the taxes wouldn’t lower oil company profits (which the government doesn’t have the right to do), but rather would most likely lower production which would also increase prices.  A basic tenet of economics is that when demand goes up and supply goes down, price goes up.

The other scary thing about this thinking is who is the next target?  Do I make too much profit?  Can my excess money somehow help the economy if they take it away from me?  The congress does have the right to levee taxes, but does not have the right to determine how much profit a company can make.

The Dems do have one thing right in this fight.  Durbin indicated that if something isn’t done to bring down prices, “we’re going to find ourselves in a deep recession.”  Perhaps he should consider increasing supply by allowing domestic drilling and expanding processing capacity.  Going back to economics 101, if supply goes up, the price goes down. 

With all the push to bring down prices, you would think that they would stop blocking efforts to increase supply.  We haven’t substantially expanded a refinery or built a new one in decades due to government interference.  It has gotten to the point that foreign countries have started drilling off of our coasts since we won’t.

America does need to have a long term strategy to move away from oil and other fossil fuels.  But taxing oil companies doesn’t move us in this direction. 

Recession? What Recession?

Like I was sayin… it’s all in the numbers.  The results for first quarter GDP growth came out today indicating that the economy is not in a recession.

Although the results were weak, the 1st quarter posted a 0.6% gain in GDP  which is the same results for the 4th quarter of 2007.

For several months, the media has been proclaiming that we are in a recession.  This is echoed by those politicians that would benefit from the U.S. economy being in a recession.  Several weeks ago, presidential hopeful Barack Obama accused Bush of being oblivious to the fact that we are in a recession and that he was pushing policies that would do nothing or make it worse.  Seems now that his statement that everybody knows we are in a recession was somewhat inaccurate.

The economy is far away from some of the stellar results between 2003 and 2006 and could very well move into a recessionary period in the 2nd and 3rd quarters.  I for one am hopeful that this doesn’t happen or at least hope for it to be a quick and shallow one. 

Supreme Court Upholds Voter ID Law

Like I was sayin… sometimes common sense wins out.  Today the supreme court ruled that states can require voters to produce a photo id in order to properly identify themselves before voting.

In a 6-3 ruling, the court upheld the Indiana law requiring voters to identify themselves with a photo id before voting.  Breyer, Ginsburg, and Souter were the dissenting judges joining Indiana democrats and the ACLU opposing the law.  The opposition claims that the law deprives citizens of their constitutional right to vote.

In issuing an opinion, Justice Scalia said the following:

“The universally applicable requirements of Indiana’s voter-identification law are eminently reasonable. The burden of acquiring, possessing and showing a free photo identification is simply not severe, because it does not “even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting.’”

In the dissenting opinion, Justice Souter claimed that the Indiana law:

“threatens to impose nontrivial burdens on the voting rights of tens of thousands of the state’s citizens.”

The ACLU claimed that requiring IDs would put an undo burden on poor and minority voters as they would have to acquire IDs.  They further stated that it was an attempt to stop the poor, the elderly, and minorities from voting.  However, Indiana provides free state photo ids to those that can not afford them.

20 states already require voters to provide identification before voting.

 

 

Rockefeller Apologizes to McCain

(April 8, 2008) – Like I was sayin… some people will say anything.  Sen. Rockefeller (D, WV)  apologized to Sen. McCain for saying that he doesn’t care about the lives of people caught in the wars he champions.

Sen. Rockefeller made his remarks in the Charleston Gazette.

“McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit.

“What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues.”

There is so much wrong with these statements, you have to wonder what is wrong with Sen. Rockefeller.

First off, in Vietnam, the fighter pilots didn’t drop bombs from 35,000 feet nor did they have laser guided bombs.  The fact that Sen. Rockefeller doesn’t even know what he is talking about should cause anybody to wonder why they should vote for him in the next election.

Secondly, and even more troubling, what message does this send to the men and women who are currently or have served our country in the military.  Are they not fit to be the president because they launched missiles or dropped bombs?  If that is his opinion, then he should come out and say it and not just take cheap shots and McCain.

So not only is Rockefeller clueless as to how wars are fought, but his character comes into question if he doesn’t believe that pilots don’t care about people and therefore can’t be the president.  If that isn’t his opinion, then he is just another politician that is willing to say anything to get elected.

Being the man of conviction that he is, on Tuesday Rockefeller issued an apology:

“I have deep respect for John McCain’s honorable and noble service to our country. I made an inaccurate and wrong analogy and I have extended my sincere apology to him.

“While we differ a great deal on policy issues, I profoundly respect and appreciate his dedication to our country, and I regret my very poor choice of words,” he said.

Notice that he didn’t say that McCain does indeed care for people caught in war, but that he merely used a bad analogy and a poor choice of words.

I can’t imagine that anybody in the military would even think of voting for Rockefeller.