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Federal Government Shutdowns Show People Which Government Workers They Don’t Need
Maybe Democrats and Republicans are cooperating to prevent a Federal Government shutdown so people don’t realize how little their lives change when the Government shuts down.
From Fox News:
The inadvertent byproduct of a government shutdown is that it lets Americans in on a secret — they can do without many federal employees, at least for a short period of time.
Though a shutdown is no longer imminent this week as lawmakers approve a temporary extension of the budget, they are squabbling over the reach of proposed cuts to the federal budget and its potential impact.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/01/dc-shutdowns-shed-light-employees-matter/#ixzz1FQ4PSDBb
Video: WI Dem. Rep. Gordon Hintz understands why he is the minority party
Simply priceless to watch WI Democrat Gordon Hintz have this meltdown on the Assembly floor. Take away his anger and you’d think he was talking about the Obamacare bill that was rammed down our throats this time last year. But, I guess that was different–government takeover of one-sixth of the US economy, increasing health insurance premiums, and stripping doctors and patients of their rights is good, whereas fixing a $3 billion budget deficit and clipping taxpayer-funded public unions is bad. And a life-threatening emergency if not passed–remember.
Hintz touches on so many topics in his 3-minute rant–from transparency, public debate, having to read a piddly 144-page bill, to the 35,000 people outside clammoring to have their voices heard.
Really?
Where was he when the more than one million Americans gathered at the Capitol and were ignored by the Democrats? Was Hintz outraged when Republicans said they needed time to read the 2,000+ page Obamacare bill? Where was his outrage when Harry Reid slipped in his manager’s amendment replacing the entire Obamacare bill and then voted on it? Was he outraged when Nancy Pelosi met with Obama and other Democrat leaders behind closed doors locking out Republicans during the so-called ‘conference’? Was he outraged when debate was cut off on Obamacare by the Democrats in Congress? I could go on and on (and wrote extensively about it) as this type “professionalism” was on display for two years with Pelosi and Reid at the helm.
But, at least Hintz gets why the Democrats are in the minority…and in Wisconsin.
For the record, this video was extremely difficult to find as it has continually been scrubbed by the compliant lefty media.
This column is also posted at The Green Room and Right Wing News.
Gas thieves drilling holes into tanks of parked vehicles
You know the economy is getting bad when fuel theft becomes rampant again.
From WBTV in South Carolina:
FORT MILL, SC (WBTV) – Police are looking for thieves who are stealing gasoline by drilling holes into gas tanks of parked vehicles.
The York County Sheriff’s Office says there have been five incidents reported in the Baxter Village and Bailiwyck areas of Fort Mill.
The thefts are taking place at night. Some of the victims did not realize that someone had drilled into their gas tanks until the vehicle was at a repair shop.
Andrew Ian Dodge
Also I wanted everyone to know that my friend Andrew Ian Dodge is running for the Senate in Maine. You can go by his website to check out the campaign, Elect the Dodge,
FYI, I designed the blog and I am helping his online activity for the campaign. If you want to help out , give me an email or leave a comment here or over at the his blog.
originally posted at Stix Blog
Media bias hides truth about Wisconsin
Governor Scot Walker (R-WI) is working hard to make sure that government schools can meet their budgets this year, but you’d have to be interested in more than the sound bite if you’re reading the Main Stream Media reports. From USA Today:
MADISON, Wis. — Republican Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday outlined a $59.3 billion, two-year budget plan that would cut $749 million in aid to public schools over that period and reduce county and municipal aid by $96 million in 2012.
It isn’t until the tenth paragraph that the bias–and the reason for Governor Walker’s stance against public-sector unions–becomes clear:
Walker’s move to end collective bargaining for most public employee unions, said Todd Berry, president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, a non-partisan research group, is his way of helping schools and local governments cut costs.
“If you’re going to really slam local government and you have no choice given the budget math,” he said, “then the only way to deliver them some … relief on the other side of the ledger” is to give them ways to cut labor costs.
In other words, the State of Wisconsin needs to cut $3.6billion from its budget over the next two years, and the Governor intends to do that is by slashing State funding for education (among dozens more programs and cost-cutting measures). To make sure that local school districts can afford to pay their bills, he and the Republicans in the state capitol are giving those school districts greater ability to control their labor costs.
Video: Herman Cain on CNN
Businessman Herman Cain, who won a Tea Party presidential straw poll on Sunday, wants to restructure entitlements.
Raising the Debt Ceiling: It Just Makes Sense. Not.
From ReasonTV
[Editor's Note: Go to http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/01/rai... for details, charts, and links]
Some say the world will end in fire and some say in ice.
But in Washington, a lot of people say it will end if we don’t continually raise the debt ceiling.
The statutory debt limit, or debt ceiling, represents the maximum amount of debt the federal government can carry at any given time. The limit was created in 1917 so that Congress wouldn’t have to vote every time the government wanted to increase the amount of debt (which was becoming a more and more frequent occasion). Since then, the Treasury Department has had the authority to issue new debt up to whatever the limit is to fund government needs. Last year, the limit was raised to $14.3 trillion, an amount that is about to reached.
The Rolling Stoned Media Who ‘Stare at Goats’ @AmSpec
Has there ever been a more absurd article than the one Rolling Stone has just published? The magazine alleges that at the behest of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, the Army initiated “psychological operations” against members of Congress in order to get these legislators to support the war in Afghanistan.
As the Washington Times observes in a superb editorial:
From the tone of the article, an unsuspecting reader could conclude that the U.S. military has secret teams of warriors employing Jedi mind tricks, or active units of “men who stare at goats.” Senior military leaders are portrayed as being out to use government resources and martial techniques to dupe U.S. lawmakers.
This is an absurd charge that defies credulity, and which, as I explain over at FrumForum, has absolutely no basis in fact.
Yet tellingly, this tall tale was swallowed hook, line and sinker by the legacy media. CNN, for instance, “flashed up a chyron graphic on the screen alleging a ‘Pentagon brainwashing campaign,’ the Times reports.
Less sensationally, the story was taken seriously, and treated respectfully, by virtually every big media outlet, as well as by influential lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Why, even Defense Secretary Robert Gates said it was “important to determine the facts before drawing any conclusions,” reports that other newspaper, the New York Times. And so Gen. Petraeus has called for an investigation of the matter.
Nonsense. We know the facts, and they are these: The Pentagon lacks any real ability or desire to conduct so-called psychological operations against U.S. lawmakers.
What Lt. Gen. Caldwell wanted was good public affairs work — this to better ascertain and address congressional concerns. And that is perfectly legitimate and not illegal. Next.
This post was originally published at the American Spectator blog, AmSpec.
John Guardiano is an Arlington, Virginia-based writer and analyst who blogs for a variety of publications, including: FrumForum, the Daily Caller and the American Spectator. You can follow him at Twitter (@JohnRGuardiano) and at his personal blog, ResoluteCon.
An Energy Freeze in the Gulf Is a Threat to U.S. National Security
With the Administration showing little indication it will allow drilling to resume in the Gulf of Mexico at any point in the near future, its lack of political will to drill is leading us straight into an energy crisis, which compromises our national security and jeopardizes our economic recovery. Continued instability in the Middle East, combined with unprecedented foreign demand for oil and an uncertain economic recovery at home, has left the United States at the mercy of foreign dictators and markets – issues that would be alleviated if the Administration lifted its self-imposed energy freeze and let domestic producers get back to work, particularly in the Gulf.
Reliance on foreign oil has left us totally susceptible to Middle East unrest
The United States today imports just over half of its oil and refined petroleum products, leaving it highly susceptible to foreign supply disruptions.
Instability among Middle Eastern energy suppliers along the region’s energy transportation corridors places a potential chokehold on America. The Suez Canal and its oil pipeline alone carry some 4 million barrels of oil and petroleum products each day. Libya has the largest proven oil reserves in Africa.
Inaction in the GOM threatens to force the United States to import an extra 88 million barrels of oil each year by 2016, at a cost of $8 billion. These are funds that should be spent here at home, supporting the U.S. economy, not sent abroad.
Demand for oil is at an all time high
Global demand for oil is rising, and the competition for foreign resources has intensified. By 2035, the United States, Japan, OECD Europe, China, and India are projected to need 25 percent more imported oil than in 2005, with China and India accounting for the major portion of that increase.
Instead of reaping the economic and social benefits of developing our domestic resources, the Gulf of Mexico remains closed for business. According to the Energy Information Agency, domestic offshore oil production will fall 13 percent in 2011, a loss of about 220,000 barrels/day, mainly due to the continued lack of permits for the GOM.
Threats to energy security are threats to economic security
Oil at a hundred dollars a barrel and rising could throw the U.S. economy into reverse at a time when it has just started moving forward. Any gains made by business or working families will soon be reversed.
Petroleum is used in virtually every sector of our economy, from computers to crayons and heart valves to hand lotion. Rising fuel prices hit Americans right in the wallet at a time when incomes are stretched and unemployment remains agonizingly high.
No one understands the need for safe drilling practices better than oil and gas producers, and it’s time to let them get back to work.
- Energy majors ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, and Shell pooled their resources to design a state-of-the-art Marine Well Containment System (MWCS) capable of controlling catastrophic spills like the Deepwater Horizon accident this past spring. The system is ready for immediate deployment and meets the requirements set by the Department of Interior itself.
- Shallow water drilling has also been affected by the permitorium on drilling in the Gulf, but its safety record speaks for itself – only 15 barrels of oil have been spilled in over 11,000 shallow water wells drilled in the past 15 years. That means that jet skis spill more petroleum into bodies of water a year than shallow water rig operations. Additionally, most of the drilling and production in shallow waters in the U.S. outer continental shelf are not by the large oil and gas companies, but rather the small independent producers, one of which has already been driven to bankruptcy by the permitorium. Surely more will follow.
- Despite industry compliance with safety regulations, BOEMRE still continues to ignore applications for permits to drill in the Gulf. As a result, Federal Judge Martin Feldman granted Ensco Offshore an injunction, ordering Secretary Salazar to act on five deepwater permits within thirty days. New, safer response plans and technologies to contain oil spills are in place but Obama Administration’s ‘energy’ agenda continues to kill jobs on the Gulf coast and around the country.
Related articles
- U.S. approves first deep-water well in Gulf (cbsnews.com)
- UPDATE 4-US OKs first deepwater drilling permit after spill (reuters.com)
- You: First deep-water drilling permit issued for Gulf since BP oil spill (latimes.com)
Boehner: “Where is Senator Reid’s Plan to Cut Spending?”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) released the following statement previewing today’s House vote on yet another measure to keep the government running while cutting spending to help create a better environment for private-sector job growth:
Image by Medill DC via Flickr
“In order to create a better environment for job creation, we must rein in out-of-control federal spending. Today, House Republicans will pass a responsible bill to keep the government open for two weeks while cutting $4 billion. After initially attacking this plan and opposing any spending cuts, Senator Reid and Senate Democrats have been forced to retreat. As Senator McConnell has said, there is now a clear path to finishing this short-term measure before Friday’s deadline.
