Amazingly, Congress is trying to Force Union Contract Rules like this onto States and Localities

The New York – New Jersey Port Authority (NYNJPA) union contract with the NYNJPA’s police union provides that officers suspended with and “without pay” will still be paid for unearned overtime during their suspension.

Amazingly, Harry Reid and congress are trying right now to force this type of workplace lunacy onto states and localities through the Police Fire Fighter Forced Unionism bills (S. 3194 & H.R. 413).  If passed this will bring union officials one step closer toward mandating forced unionism for every state and local government employee.  Take Action now and let congress know that you oppose this expansion of forced unionism through federal fiat.

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Left wing blogs have their dander up. They’re attacking me for saying the Elena Kagan favors cloning human beings. Once again, they are trying to confuse the public about what’s involved in cloning humans. Just because they favor killing the embryonic human being after they are done experimenting upon it, but before implanting it in a woman’s womb, they think they are against cloning humans. But they’re not. And neither is Kagan.

It’s almost the same thing as when semantic gymnasts in the pro-cloning camp say they’re not cloning humans, they’re just doing “somatic cell nuclear transfers (SCNT).” In fact, that’s the longer, more technical description of what cloning is.

The Clinton-appointed National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) recognized this simple fact in 1997—before political correctness overtook all these discussions:

The Commission began its discussions fully recognizing that any effort in humans to transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the creation of an embryo, with the apparent potential to be implanted in utero and developed to term.

This is not conservative doctrine. Not Christian dogma. This is simple, scientific fact. It used to be recognized by all until the left muddied the waters.

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Today, in 1916, the British launched their disastrous Battle of the Somme. So much wasted for so little, directed by those so underserving of respect.

Organizing for America (formerly known as Obama for America) is the new organized group that President Obama is using to push his agenda on America. This group is so well organized it makes you wonder if President Obama should have hired the people who run it to take care of the BP oil spill.

This group has two functions:  First is to push and promote Obama’s political agendas and bills from DC by delivering talking points through various mediums (My Barack Obama, Fight The Smears, and twitter.com/barackobama).  The second is to create a pool of volunteers for the DNC to use to influence local and national elections in November.

The latest string of emails sent out by OFA have been talking points about renewable energy and the BP oils pill. The latest of these solicitations had a video address embedded in an email from the President specifically asking for OFA’s support to “rebuild our nation’s economy on a new foundation” of renewable energy.  He tells OFA members that we must “seize this moment,” to pass comprehensive energy reform or we will “miss our chance.”  It appears that President Obama would never say something like this in a Presidential address from the oval office but when it’s “just us,” he has no problem divulging his true agenda.

OFA started this election season with a 2010 online livestream strategy session.  It was a 40-minute webcast hosted by young adults in front of a live audience talking about what the President expected from activists this election cycle.  During the live webcast, users watching were put in a forum that was specific to their state and, in real time, were able to discuss strategies for local elections. (more…)

Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will not take up the Senate’s “doc fix” bill, which passed through the Senate on Friday.  A letter from Pelosi reaffirms her position and scolds Republicans for blocking the jobs portion of the bill:

“What is it that Republicans in the Senate and House don’t understand about the need for jobs in America? I see no reason to pass this inadequate bill until we see jobs legislation coming out of the Senate. House Democrats are saying to Republicans in the Senate: Show us the jobs!”

It’s humorous to hear Pelosi whine on this–if my memory is correct the Democrats control both Chambers and passed the $787 billion stimulus bill to create ” jobs, jobs, jobs.”  More than one year later, we now know that the “stimulus failed,” and a second $17 billion stimlus/jobs bill was passed–which somehow still is not enough.

So, we have more than $800 billion in stimulus spending “designed” to create jobs and now Pelosi has the audacity to blame the GOP after the two previous massive, generational-theft stimulus bills failed.  Are you kidding, Nan?

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Reason.tv presents Citizens Against Government Waste’s Porker of the Month for June 2010. CAGW makes this award to a politician or special interest who takes pork-barrel spending to new heights.

This month’s winner is Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.)!

The Constellation Program was intended to modernize NASA and replace the aging Space Shuttle, but has been plagued by cost overruns and blown deadlines.  President Obama and NASA have proposed canceling the unsustainable program—turning instead to the emerging private space industry to oversee launches.

In response, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) co-sponsored a measure protecting Constellation, which was attached to an emergency war funding bill. Such a measure ensures millions of taxpayer dollars will continue being funneled to politically connected NASA contractors.

Contractors like Alabama’s own Radiance Technologies, which—wouldn’t you know it—just happens to be one of Shelby’s biggest campaign contributors.

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WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama ousted Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Wednesday, saying that his scathing published remarks about administration officials undermine civilian control of the military and erode the needed trust on the president’s war team.

Obama named McChrystal’s direct boss—Gen. David Petraeus—to take over the troubled 9-year-old war in Afghanistan. He asked the Senate to confirm Petraeus for the new post “as swiftly as possible.”

The president said he did not make the decision to accept McChrystal’s resignation over any disagreement in policy or “out of any sense of personal insult.” Flanked by Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the Rose Garden, he said: “I believe it is the right decision for our national security.”

Obama hit several gracious notes about McChrystal and his service, saying that he made the decision to sack him “with considerable regret.” And yet, said he said that the job in Afghanistan cannot be done now under McChrystal’s leadership, asserting that the critical remarks from the general and his inner circle in the Rolling Stone magazine article displayed conduct that doesn’t live up to the necessary standards for a command-level officer. (more…)

Texas Democrat Kesha Rogers campaigned for for Congress with Obama-Hitler signs.

The signs even have the tag- “Paid For By Kesha Rogers for Congress” – on the bottom.

But, the state-run media won’t run this photo.

They won’t publish this photo because it doesn’t fit their narrative. Remember last year when the Democratic-Media Complex reported that the tea party protesters were waving Obama-Hitler signs? What the media purposely omitted from their stories was the fact that the protesters waving these astroturfed Obama-Hitler signs were radical left-wing extremists. They were radical activists from the LaRouche organization. But, this didn’t fit the state-run media’s narrative that tea party activists were radicals and racists so they omitted this from their reports. (more…)

The extraction of shale natural gas is set to become a major growth industry in the United States.  Recently, Amy Myers Jaffa wrote in the Wall Street Journal that natural gas could become “the game-changing resource of the decade.” Already Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Louisiana, and other states are beginning to reap the economic benefits of a natural gas boom.  A study by Penn State University predicted that the natural gas industry in Pennsylvania alone will be responsible for the creation of 111,000 jobs and for bringing in an additional $987 million in tax revenue to the state by 2011. Natural gas extraction has been one of few industries growing (without government subsidies) during this recession.

However, this promising “game-changer” is under attack.  Some assert that the extraction of shale gas is harmful to the environment.  Josh Fox’s documentary “Gasland,” airing on HBO this week, is full of misleading allegations, inaccuracies, and occasionally outright lies.   Fox, for instance, alleges that Dunkard Creek fish were killed from natural gas drilling (the EPA and West Virginia Department of Environment Protection cite other causes), that residents of Dish Texas grew ill from gas drilling (the state Department of Health disagrees), that no one knows what goes into fracking fluid (though a complete list is available online), and numerous other myths.

When fracking is carried out responsibly under current regulations, the process poses no threat to humans or to the environment.  Fracking has been well documented, with no confirmed cases of groundwater contamination in 1 million applications over 60 years. Further, over 98% of the fracturing fluid is composed of water and sand, with most of the remaining 2% presenting low to very low risks to human health and to the environment.  An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study determined that fracking posed no danger to water quality.  In Pennsylvania, eight federal and eleven state laws regulate drilling, and hundreds of inspectors routinely inspect each drilling site.

These environmental scare tactics are often used by those who simply want to tax the emerging industry to fund ever-growing government spending.  In Pennsylvania, Gov. Ed Rendell has pushed a severance tax on natural gas, under the aegis of environment protection, though 90% of the funding would go directly to fill a budget deficit.  In fact, natural gas would be taxed to subsidize the energy providers Gov. Rendell favors. While many states do have severances taxes on natural resources, those that have been successful in letting these industries flourish have delayed taxes until firms became profitable, lowered tax rates in hard-to-drill areas, and used severance taxes to lower other state taxes.

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Presidents from the last half of the nineteenth century don’t get a lot of attention. Most people would have a hard time coming up with the names of even one or two. Yet there were some good men who served during that era, men who are now largely forgotten. I’d like to mention two of them and pass on a few words of wisdom from them that might benefit our nation today.

James Garfield might be familiar in a vague way to Americans, but don’t ask what they know about him specifically—you won’t get much of a response.

Garfield was a minister with the Disciples of Christ early in his life, served as an officer in the Civil War, then was elected to Congress, where he served from 1864 to 1881. He became a Republican leader respected by his colleagues. The Republican convention in 1880 was deadlocked on its presidential nominee after 35 ballots. On the 36th ballot, they turned to Garfield as the standard-bearer even though he wasn’t seeking the nomination. His name has since become synonymous with the term “dark horse candidate.”

As president in 1881, Garfield began to tackle some of the corruption issues within his own party. At the centennial of the Declaration of Independence five years earlier, he had warned the country,

Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature. …

If the next centennial does not find us a great nation … it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.

Those are words that are not confined to Garfield’s time period. They are just as applicable today.

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A federal judge has, for the moment, spared already-suffering Gulf state residents from the brunt of President Obama’s most recent anti-energy Power Grab. It has enjoined the administration from implementing its moratorium on deepwater drilling. The Order is here, and the Opinion here.

The administration has vowed to appeal. Regardless of the outcome, this victory is temporary. As I detail in Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America, Obama and his administration are committed to strangling domestic energy production. At the same time they promise to also clamp down on the cost of consumption, all in a way that makes our last energy-poverty president, Jimmy Carter, appear a free-market pioneer.

This was telegraphed immediately after Obama’s inauguration by his by administration revoking massive tracts of public land from possible lease for domestic energy production, even to the point of suspending lease agreements already struck.

None of this is either accident or coincidence, but affirmed as a deliberate plan by Obama’s concurrent clamp-down on families’ access to energy with a cap-and-trade scheme he vowed would cause energy prices to “necessarily skyrocket”. Though he dared not speak the scheme’s name, Obama renewed his support for it in his Oval Office speech last Tuesday by praising the House-passed bill.

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The longest days of summer are proving to be even longer days for Obama.  His approval ratings are mired in the mid 40s, primaries herald losses for Democrats and the Gulf Oil spill is turning out to be more slippery for Obama than BP.  All in all, Obama is failing both Alinsky and Michael Dukakis and the Democrats are headed toward losing the House.

In 2009, Obama chose confrontational politics.  He appointed Rahm Emanuel, known more for his hard ball tactics than his diplomacy, for his Chief of Staff.  Out of the gate, he pushed through a “stimulus” bill along partisan lines instead of seeking a bi-partisan solution, i.e. a mixture of tax cuts, regulatory relief and federal spending in lieu of pure deficit spending.  Obama then proceeded to push Cap and Trade and Health Care – again along strictly partisan lines.  In doing so, his administration spoke more than disparagingly of those opposing his policies.  To many, Obama was outright demonizing his opponents much like Saul Alinksy would advocate.

As the calendar turned onward, and the economy predictably failed to turn upward, the Democrats and the Obama Administration received the shock of a Kennedy lifetime when the otherwise barely known Scott Brown pulled off a stunning victory by taking the “Kennedy seat” away from the Democrats and giving it back to the people.  Unbowed by such political tea leaves, and warnings from prognosticators, Obama pushed the Health Care Bill through along partisan lines and with the promise that people will be able to keep their existing health care.  Now nearly 60% of Americans want that bill repealed and that is before the emerging stories about not being able to keep their existing health care, based on the regulations being written, have begun to take hold.

Then came the Gulf Oil spill.  At first, Obama nearly ignored the emerging problem.  Since then, he “sued” BP and alternatively claimed he was in control but that there was nothing he could really do.  It is rather known, at this point however, that he could have easily waived the Jones Act to allow non-union remediation efforts and he could have accepted foreign help that would have reduced to scope of the spill.  So bad is his performance that even his most staunch supporters on the far Left have questioned his ability to command.

All of which bring us back to Alinksy and Dukakis.

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Today, USA has its final match in the Group Stage of the World Cup. It needs a win over Algeria to advance to the next stage.

While the White House really, really wants you believe that they have their boot on the neck of BP, it turns out that a key Administration official had his head inserted somewhere else just three short years ago. Do you think NOBEL LAUREATE (and Secretary of Energy) Steven Chu still thinks BP is going to help save the world?

This is one of the ironies of the disaster in the Gulf. From all available evidence, BP is as committed as anyone to the “comprehensive energy reform” agenda of the White House. No doubt this reflects both political realism and market opportunism on their part, but BP’s 2009 “Road Map for America’s Energy Future” could have been written by John Kerry. Higher energy prices, cap and trade? Bring it on, says BP.

And this isn’t a recent shift on BP’s part. Here’s embattled BP Chairman Tony Hayward back in June 2007:

From BP’s perspective, the evidence that climate change is happening, and that it is manmade, is mounting all the time. As the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found, the evidence is almost overwhelming. We could wait until the science is 100% certain, but BP believes that, as an energy company, it has a duty to act pre-emptively. When you balance the likely impacts of not taking action against the real opportunities that exist to take action, it is difficult to believe that humanity will not move towards a solution to climate change…

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Shortly after President Obama assumed the Commander-in-Chief duties, he retired the existing commanding general in Afghanistan and hand-picked his successor: General Stanley McChrystal.  McChrystal was always known as a brash and outspoken military man, an expert in counterinsurgency, greatly respected by the troops under his command, and as having little patience for fools.

His requirement to have to answer to Obama, then, was a trainwreck waiting to happen.

Last year, McChrystal made no secret of his desire to have as many as 80,000 additional troops to press the fight in Afghanistan.  He went to the press to state that objective and to dismiss those, like VP Joe Biden, who opposed any kind of surge.

That outspokenness got him into trouble: Obama summoned him aboard Air Force One in Europe and dressed him down a bit.  And while McChrystal was right on policy (never commit militarily to an operation without committing overwhelming force and having a clear plan), he was wrong to go public with his troop level requests, and his concerns and reservations.

Today we’ve got another trainwreck smash-up.

McChrystal is being recalled to the White House to meet with Obama tomorrow to explain disrespectful comments he and his aides made to Rolling Stone magazine about Obama, Biden, other top national security officials, and the war strategy.  Once again, McChrystal is right on policy (Obama is a destructive, disengaged, uninterested fool whose withdrawal timetable and
ridiculous hamstringing rules of engaement are costing us lives and progress), but he was wrong to go public with that criticism.

Obama will decide if he’s Harry Truman and McChrystal is Douglas MacArthur.

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You may have missed President Obama’s euphemism for massive wealth transfers involved in his “green economy” — central planning rebranded — that he said last week he will seek to use the Gulf oil spill to impose. That euphemism was:

“When I was a candidate for this office, I laid out a set of principles that would move our country towards energy independence. Last year, the House of Representatives acted on these principles by passing a strong and comprehensive energy and climate bill –- a bill that finally makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy for America’s businesses.”

This is his fourth high-profile use of the phrase “finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy”, most recently his State of the Union speech. I addressed this in Chapter 6, “Green Eggs and Scam: The Wholesale Fraud of ‘Green Jobs’” from Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America:

That is the objective of various “green jobs” schemes: make everything else so expensive as to give life to the uneconomical. But that is incredibly economically harmful.

Also, note what President Obama said in his September 2009 UN “global warming” speech, a comment that should strike anyone who ever took an economics course or simply possessed the capacity for critical thought:

“Most importantly, the House of Representatives passed an energy and climate bill in June that would finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy for American businesses and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

The key word there is that lawmakers passed a scheme to make inefficient projects “profitable”, not “cost-effective”. That’s corporate welfare. These mandates and subsidies would , however, add value to the investment portfolios of many leading lights among Obama’s allies, such as George Soros who, by chance, soon revealed plans to sink one billion dollars into “green jobs” schemes. Lo and behold, another of his investments, the Center for American Progress, furiously pushes “green jobs” schemes.

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You knew this was coming. From the Associated Press:

The White House announcement comes as administration officials meet privately with state insurance commissioners, and CEOs of major insurance companies, amid concerns over continued premium hikes. Obama was expected to attend at least part of the session, and is scheduled to make a speech later.

Consumers who buy their policies directly faced increases averaging 20 percent this year, according to a survey released Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Although most Americans are covered on the job, about 14 million purchase insurance on the individual market and have the least bargaining power when it comes to costs.

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Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse…

Last week Barack Obama told Politico that the BP oil spill was like 9-11–
But, it’s been over 60 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and he’s only sent 20 of 2,000 US oil skimmer boats to the coast of Florida.

Senator George LeMieux of Florida told the Shark Tank that there are only 20 skimmer boats off the coast of Florida out of 2,000 available skimmer boats in the United States. Lemieux says that Obama is afraid to move them to Florida because there won’t be any in place in case there is an oil leak somewhere else.

…That sounds like Obama.

Via the Shark Tank:

Senator Lemieux is keeping a count on the number of skimmer boats the adminstration has working off the Florida coast on his website:

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I extend my sincerest apology for this profile. It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened. Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity. What is reflected in this article falls far short of that standard. I have enormous respect and admiration for President Obama and his national security team, and for the civilian leaders and troops fighting this war and I remain committed to ensuring its successful outcome.”
-General Stanley McChrystal, 6/22/2010

The interview of General McChrystal and his in Rolling Stone was not an accident, it’s a perfect  example of suicide by interview.  The General knew that every criticism would be “on the record.”  He also knew that the President will have no choice but to relieve the General of his command after their meeting tomorrow. The Military Code of Justice  provides that a General does not criticize the Commander-in-Chief publicly however,  the General criticized  Obama in a major way and even picked the perfect vehicle to do it in the most visible of ways.

McChrystal’s statements clearly point to the fact that he believes the war cannot be won under the President’s parameters, a tepid escalation to protect the president from his political supports. McChrystal  is clearly frustrated by  Barack Obama and his administration and finds it necessary to protect his men. He finds himself having to take radical steps to protect his troops in the face of an administration trying to fight a war on a half-assed basis.

According to Fox, Some of the highlights of the up-coming article include:

• Although McChrystal voted for Obama, the two failed to connect from the start. Obama called McChrystal on the carpet last fall for speaking too bluntly about his desire for more troops. The President did not want to hear his advice. “I found that time painful,” McChrystal said in the article, on newsstands Friday. “I was selling an unsellable position.”

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