When Hillary Clinton was last in New Hampshire she said the vast right wing conspiracy is alive and well. She said the proof was in New Hampshire because of a phone jamming scandal in 2002 in New Hampsire.
The only problem is the convictions in this phone jamming scandal were just overturned.
Read about it here.
At the global warming hearings in the senate Al Gore was asked to take a pledge. He refused. So, what was the pledge? He was asked to pledge that he would not use more energy than the average American. It is totally unacceptable to Al Gore that he should not consume more energy than you or I.
This is a classic case of do as I say, not as I do. While he flies to all his events in private jets, drives SUV’s, and consumes 20 times the energy in one month than the average American, he tells you that you have to sacrifice.
Why do all of his supporters think this is okay? Isn’t his whole point that we have to conserve? Does he mean we have to conserve so that he can continue his lifestyle?Don’t they see the hypocrisy in the fact he owns the company he is buying his carbon credits from?
I don’t understand why congress is giving him the time of day, wasting time when they could be doing something important.
How can people not see the hypocrisy in this?
Read here about how Al Gore won’t take a pledge to conserve energy, how it’s up to us to save the planet, not him.
It’s Time For The President To Stand Up To The Democrats
It looks like president Bush is holding his ground on the Alberto Gonzalez un-controversy. I hope he continues to do so. For too long he has just stood back and let the Democrats attack him on every issue that came along. They have been attacking him for so long with no counter attack that they turned the people against him.
Looking back at the Clinton administration, it seems as though president Clinton was on television every day defending himself, turning the tables on the Republicans. He even wears his impeachment as a badge of honor. Clinton seems to have won the public relations battle.
President Bush doesn’t have the articulation skill that Clinton had, perhaps that is why he doesn’t get in front of the cameras every day and fight back at the Democrats. The war on terror is the one issue he hasn’t backed down on, I wish he had shown the same resolve on all the other issues. And I hope he shows the same resolve for Alberto Gonzalez. If the president gives them Gozalez’s scalp it will just embolden them to go after the next one. They will not be happy until they take down his whole presidency.
From nypost.com:
No More Mr Nice Prez
March 22, 2007 — President Bush tried to meet Congress halfway on that trumped-up federal prosecutor nonsense – and got his hand slapped away.
No surprise.
So why did he even bother?
On Tuesday, the president decided to let Congress look at executive-branch internal documents regarding personnel practice – an almost unheard of gesture.
All he asked was that lawmakers not issue subpoenas and create a media spectacle over the matter.
But less than 24 hours later, a House panel nonetheless authorized subpoenas for White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, ex-Counsel Harriet Miers and other key Bush aides.
So much for the nice-guy route.
If the subpoenas are actually issued, the White House needs to fight them tooth-and-nail – for the president surely holds the constitutional high ground.
It is now clear that the Democratic Congress intends to give Bush no peace for the remainder of his term.
No peace on the war.
No peace domestically.
No peace whatsoever.
Bush needn’t play along – not for a minute. And he shouldn’t.
He’s been offering olive branches left and right, and failing to defend what he believes is right.
He’d fallen down on this even before the latest flap over Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ handling of the ouster of eight federal prosecutors – a case where there’s never been a shred of evidence of a scandal.
Bush has full discretion to remove federal prosecutors for any reason. Indeed, his predecessor, President Bill Clinton, replaced all 93 U.S. attorneys with his own picks – as he had every right to do.
The president also has the right to keep internal White House discussions private. That frees aides to be fully candid with him. Bush’s offer to let Congress peek in on parts of those discussions was already a huge – and absolutely unwarranted – gesture toward political détente.
In other cases, he has agreed to bipartisan panels (like the 9/11 Commission) and a special prosecutor (in the probe of the Valerie Plame leak) that have only emboldened his enemies.
(Plame prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, for example, could not substantiate any crime in the commission of that leak, but nonetheless found an administration aide – Scooter Libby – to prosecute for “lying” about the non-crime.)
In making his offer Tuesday, Bush did show a modicum of resolve: “We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants,” he said. “It will be regrettable if they [Congress] choose to head down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials.”
And he stood by his embattled AG, Gonzales, whose scalp the Dems covet.
Good for Dubya.
Now he needs to show more moxie.
Why not go to war with Congress?
Sure, Bush’s approval rating is just 35 percent in the latest Gallup poll. But Congress’ rating is even worse – 28 percent. Why shouldn’t Bush move to take advantage of that?
Even though the hostile, anti-Bush press is sure to go to town on him for doing so.
Indeed, he has little choice.
The press is already in full attack-dog mode, and long has been. That’s going to get worse, no matter what.
Apart from the survival of his own administration, Bush has a duty to fight to preserve the prerogatives of the executive as an institution for future presidents – Republican or Democrat.
He also has a duty to fellow GOPers, particularly those seeking federal offices in ’08, to show that Republicans aren’t partisan pushovers – and actually lead well.
But – most of all – he has an obligation to stand up and do the job he was elected to do as he sees fit.
He owes it to Americans to do the best job he can.
It’s long past time for Bush to step up.
There’s a war on, Mr. President – not just with terrorists, but Democrats, too.
Fight it that way.
New Hampshire, Welcome To The Nanny State 4
Since the Democrats in New Hampshire took over all branches of state government there have been many new tax proposals introduced, the latest one is a tax on candy. But I’m not going to talk about taxes right now. I am going to talk about the excessive bills being introduced to protect us from our own stupidity. In other words the nanny bills. See the Democratic legislature think they need to regulate bad behavior, we need to be protected from ourselves. They have introduced many bill you can read about on my blog here, here, and here.
They include cigarette bans, gun control, trans fats, and on and on it goes.
The newest bills introduced are mandatory seat belts in cars, and what this next article from the New Hampshire Union Leader talks about, cell phone bans in cars:
THERE IS no doubt that cell phones are a distraction to drivers. But House Bill 795, to ban the use of hand-held cell phones while driving, is a clumsy attempt to solve the problem of distracted driving.
Cell phones are not even close to being the primary driver distraction. According to the Highway Safety Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the No. 1 distraction is “things outside the car,” accounting for 29.4 percent of distractions. That is followed by adjusting the radio, other occupants, moving objects in the car, and other objects in the car. Cell phones accounting for only 1.5 percent of driver distractions.
Adjusting the radio is almost eight times more distracting than using a cell phone. Eating and drinking are more distracting than using a cell phone. And yet no one is proposing banning those activities. Cell phones are a politically popular target, but not a justified one.
Forbidding all adults from using cell phones while driving is overreaching and unenforceable. A cell phone ban for inexperienced teen drivers, however, does make sense. They need all eyes on the road. Legislators should amend the bill to apply it only to these drivers, provided an exception is made for emergency calls.
Summary Of Al Gore’s Global Warming Testimony
The first paragraph sums up what I have been saying, global warming is all about government control and regulations, and taxes.
From cnsnews.com:
Gore Outlines Grand Climate Change Plan
By Fred Lucas
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
(CNSNews.com) – If global warming activist Al Gore has his way, Americans will over the next several years face tougher vehicle emission standards, a freeze on carbon emissions, a moratorium on coal, a ban on incandescent light bulbs, a government requirement that corporations disclose carbon emissions to shareholders, ratification of an international treaty to reverse global warming – and a carbon tax.
This is the message the former vice president and Academy Award winner brought Wednesday to Capitol Hill, where his arrival caused quite a stir.
It wasn’t until after opening statements were made in a joint House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Science and Technology Committee hearing that Gore entered the room.
The audience packed into the chamber stood up, cameras clicked rapidly, and Gore shook the hands of House members before sitting down to deliver his statement and take questions.
Over nearly three hours of testimony he warned members of the dire consequences of climate change.
Speaking of America’s victories in World War II and fighting the Cold War – which took bipartisan cooperation – Gore said of global warming, “This crisis is more serious than any we have ever faced.”
Gore has championed the climate change cause since his time in Congress and more recently garnered attention with his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
The House hearing was his first Capitol Hill stop Wednesday, as he would later testify before a Senate panel.
Gore presented the committee with a petition signed by 516,000 Americans and put forward an ambitious package of legislative remedies, which he argued would curb the global warming problem.
He enjoyed highly respectful treatment from panel members, and at one point Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) told him that he had been right so often, “you really do look like a prophet.”
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) praised Gore for his passion on the issue but disagreed with him on policy and on science. Barton cited an article in the magazine Science that said temperature usually increases before carbon emissions increase, not afterward.
“The temperature appears to drive CO2, not vice versa,” Barton said. “On this point, Mr. Vice President, you’re not just off a little. You’re totally wrong.”
Barton also took exception to Gore’s repeated references to becoming “carbon neutral.”
“If you take that literally, we can add no new industry, nor new cars and trucks on our streets and apparently no new people,” he said. “People are mobile source emitters. Every person emits 0.2 tons of CO2 a year.”
Barton said Gore’s idea of a carbon tax would cost jobs. European countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol – the treaty whose aim is to reduce CO2 emissions – were not meeting their goals but at the same time losing jobs.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said the free market could find innovative solutions to the climate problem but that it would need a nudge from government.
“We can unleash the ingenuity of the market place, but if government does nothing, there is no incentive for business to do anything, because they don’t want to be at a competitive disadvantage,” Waxman said. Government regulations would put all businesses on a level playing field, he added.
At times during his speech, Gore sounded emotional and somber about the condition of the planet. On a few occasions, he paused between the warnings for dramatic effect.
“The day will come when your children and your grandchildren will look back and ask, ‘what in God’s name were you doing? … What was wrong with them? Did they think it was perfectly alright to dump 10 million tons of pollution into the earth’s atmosphere? Did they think all the scientists were wrong?” he said.
In an apparent reference to Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear,” a novel skeptical of global warming, Gore said, “The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever you go to the doctor. If the doctor says ‘take action,’ you don’t say ‘I read a science fiction book that says it’s not a problem.’ ”
After his testimony, Gore was praised by members of the panel then left through the back door without taking questions from reporters.
Iraqi Children Used In Car Bombing
This is a great post by avoiceofreason. It shows us the type of people we are fighting in Iraq. People willing to kill their own children, yet they run away from the bomb and let their children die. There is nothing worse than hurting a child, yet they throw life away as if it is nothing. If they are willing to blow up children to defeat the west how are we supposed to negotiate with them?
America needs to stand strong and defeat this enemy. If we leave now this is the type of people who will run Iraq.
Democrats Are 0 For 6 In The ‘Do Nothing Congress’
This is something I touched upon in one of my previous posts. The Democrats were proud of their highly touted first 100 hours, but nothing they passed has actually made it to the president’s desk for signing. So while it looks like they passed this massive domestic agenda they have accomplished nothing. Why are we not hearing this is a do nothing congress like we did before the election? I think we all know the answer to this.
From washtimes.com:
Democrats 0 for 6 in Congress; agenda sidetracked by Iraq war
By Christina Bellantoni
None of the elements of the newly minted Democrats’ congressional agenda have made it to President Bush’s desk, and the prospects of signature bills such as federal funding for stem-cell research or homeland-security improvements becoming law any time soon are doubtful.
Much of the Democratic agenda — dubbed “Six for ’06” — sailed out of the House with bipartisan support, but all of it has stalled in the Senate as leaders scramble to deal with the Iraq war. Read more…
South Carolina is trying to pass a bill that would require women to see an ultrasound of their baby before they decide to abort it. The thinking here is, of course, that if the mother sees the baby she will have second thoughts about abortion.
From wltx.com:
Ultrasounds Before Abortions Bill Gets Key Approval
(Columbia) – The South Carolina house has given key approval to a bill that would require women seeking abortions to view an ultrasound first.
The bill passed a second reading Wednesday. A third, usually formality third reading will take place later.
If this bill is passed, it would be the first of its kind in the nation.
Rep. Greg Delleney (R-Chester and York Counties), is the bill’s key sponsor. “I’m just trying to save lives and protect people from regret and inform women with the most accurate non-judgemental information that can be provided,” he says.
Currently, there is already a South Carolina law requiring women to pass prerequisites before abortions, including reviewing abortion information and undergoing a waiting period. Still, Delleney says women need more information to make a final decision.
“From the calls I’ve gotten, I think some people wished there was an ultrasound requirement at the time they underwent the abortion procedure,” he said.
But Delleney’s ideas are meeting a lot of opposition from several organizations, as well as other lawmakers, such as Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter (D-Orangeburg County). She says it’s too extreme.
“I see it as some kind of emotional blackmail, and I think we’re putting an undue burden on our healthcare providers and on folk who are providing those services,” Cobb-Hunter said.
She also says it creates privacy issues and doesn’t give women credit that they can make their own reproductive decisions. “The supporters of this legislation seem to believe that women enter into this decision blindly or without a lot of thought.”
The measure now goes to the Senate
Nancy Pelosi Can’t Unite Democrats On Iraq War Bill
I just find it very interesting that the Republicans seem to be banding together finally while the Democrats are falling apart. If only the Republicans had stayed together and stood up for themselves before the election they would still be in the majority.
Nancy Peloci is getting so frustrated now that they are offering pork to the Iraq War spending bill in order to gather votes. See here for details.
This is from politico.com:
After Honeymoon, the Fight
Nancy Pelosi’s honeymoon is over. Gone are the elegant celebrations of the first female House speaker, the popular bills that sailed through early with bipartisan support, the news conferences touting her victories for the middle class. Read more…
The Democrats know they don’t have the votes in the Iraq War funding bill so they are offering to add pork to the bill to gain support. In other words they are bribing members of congress for their vote. If a member of congress doesn’t think he/she should vote for the bill, then change their mind because of the pork they have no soul.
To think someone would put the bribe of pork ahead of the welfare of the troops is incomprehensible to me.
From cnsnews.com:
Dems Accused of Using Troops as ‘Bargaining Chip’ for Pork
By Nathan Burchfiel
(CNSNews.com) – As the House prepares to debate legislation Thursday that would authorize more funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan – and set a September 2008 end-date for funding – conservative analysts condemned what they said was excessive “pork spending” in the bill.
The U.S. Troop Readiness, Veteran’s Health, and Iraq Accountability Act would allocate $103 billion in additional funding for military operations, and to care for wounded troops. But it also contains $21 billion in so-called “pork spending.”
Several appropriations are under fire, including:
— $50 million for “asbestos abatement and other improvements” in the U.S. Capitol.
— $74 million for “storage, handling, and other associated costs for the 2007 crop of peanuts.”
— $120 million to fund the shrimp industry’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina
— $284 million for payments to dairy farmers
— $4.3 billion in increased Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief for areas affected by hurricanes
The bill allocates smaller amounts, such as $5.27 million for bird flu research and $165,200 for the widow of a late congressman.
Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) said in a statement Wednesday that Democrats are “trying to pressure reluctant members into voting for this by taking on billions of dollars in pork barrel projects. The money they want to spend on spinach subsidies and peanut storage would be better spent on body armor and Humvees.”
Brian Riedl, a federal budgetary affairs analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told Cybercast News Service that Congress is “effectively using the troops as a bargaining chip for their own pork” and called the domestic projects “extremely wasteful.”
“Congress is telling the president, you cannot fund body armor for our troops until you agree to give us $16 million for extra office space in the House of Representatives,” Riedl said. The $16 million allocation for “House office buildings” appeared in an earlier version of the bill but has since been removed.
Riedl said much of the pork has been added to the bill “to buy votes of wavering members” who otherwise wouldn’t have supported additional war funding. He added that the pork spending will likely only grow as the bill is debated, because “Congress will probably add more pork to ensure passage.”
Ellis Brachman, a spokesman for bill sponsor Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), told Cybercast News Service Wednesday that he wasn’t aware of any pork projects in the bill. “I don’t know of any pork added to it,” he said, referring further questions to the House Appropriations Committee.
Kirstin Brost, a spokeswoman for the Democrats on the Appropriations Committee, told Cybercast News Service that the bill includes non-military projects, because it is intended to fund “emergency situations facing the country.”
“All that this bill does is it funds things the Republicans neglected to take care of when they were in charge,” Brost said. “The agriculture assistance has been needed for a few years now. The money for veterans’ health care, defense health care is absolutely needed.”
But Republicans on the committee believe the bill named for troops and the war on Iraq should stick to that focus and not deviate to domestic spending projects.
“This legislation ought to focus on our troops. It ought to focus on providing those in harm’s way with the resources they need to complete their mission successfully,” California Rep. Jerry Lewis, the ranking Republican on the Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.
For its part, the White House has said President Bush will veto the appropriations bill unless it is changed. “Because of the excessive and extraneous non-emergency spending it contains,” the administration said in a statement, “if this legislation were presented to the President, he would veto the bill.”
“Congress should reject this legislation,” the White House statement continued, “and promptly send the President a responsible bill that provides the funding and flexibility our troops need, without holding funding for the troops hostage to unrelated spending.”
