From the Associated Press:

A House investigative panel has charged California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters with violating ethics rules.

Waters, a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, would face a trial in the fall unless she negotiates a settlement.

If the case goes to trial, Democrats would have the political headache of two ethics trials—one for Waters and another for Rep. Charles Rangel of New York.

The specific charges against Waters were not made public in the announcement Monday from the House ethics committee.

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NOT the Census Totem. Feel better?

Earlier today, I wrote that the Census Bureau commissioned a totem pole to be constructed in Alaska and then hauled to DC. Steve Jost of the Census Bureau responded to my claims as follows:

The image you posted is not that of the 2010 Census Totem.  You can see the totem in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny0-29Ig-FY

Since you have prejudged the value of this important promotional effort before knowing anything about the cost, I’m doubtful the following will be of much solace to you.

In early 2010 while plans were being made for the first enumeration in Noorvik, Alaska, one of the oldest native organizations in the state made a significant gesture. The Alaska Native Brotherhood passed a resolution supporting the Census and forming the creation of a totem pole to mark this significant event.  Our Seattle Region put together a plan to commission the art, and have it travel Alaska and Washington State tribal events for several months  to promote participation in the 2010 Census.  The totem pole is a storytelling icon steeped in the culture and traditions of the Alaska Native and Northwest Pacific Coastal peoples. It is an immediately recognizable symbol to the native people throughout America’s largest state.

The art was commissioned at a cost of $20,000.  The cost to have it travel across the country for permanent display at Census is $3,111.   We believe strongly that this has been a very effective promotional investment that symbolizes the Census Bureau’s constitutional mandate to ensure a complete count of all tribal lands, especially the 564 Federally recognized tribes.

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Last week, we discussed the rigged game of three-card monte that the FDA is trying to run over unsuspecting patients.  The game is rigged.  If government is allowed to arbitrarily shift from objective data driven safety focused approval to subjective cost based standards for drug approvals — as the appears to be doing in the case of Avastin — patients will always lose.

As in any game of three-card monte — the shills come into play.  In the card game on the streets, the shills pose as actual participants who make the game look simple goading unsuspecting observers to bet money who always lose.  The shills work with the dealers.

In the case of the FDA — the shills were the Associated Press and TalkingPointsMemo.com.  The FDA changed the rules so that price would be a determining factor in the approval process of drugs and the shills stepped in to belittle and goad anyone who didn’t play the game the way the dealers wanted.

Sen. Vitter decided to blow the whistle on the game and yet other shill stepped in.  This time it is another liberal website ThinkProgress.com.

Jumping on the bias claim that Vitter had likened the FDA to a death panel, the group makes the false claim that “Avastin is more likely to harm cancer patients than to help them.”  Patently false.  If ThinkProgress didn’t have a Pavlovian response every time a Republican issued a press release, they would have seen that the article they linked to made no mention of any harm to cancer patients from taking the drug.

Quite the opposite is true.  Patients who take the drug extend their lives.  The only negative side effects motivating bureaucrats in this decision are the ones in their pockets. They are trying to make a subjective determination that the price of the drug outweighs its benefits.  In other words, the FDA is trying to factor in cost of the drugs in whether it should be “de-labeled.”

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“Governor Wrecking Ball” is showing it is possible to stand up to special interests and do what is best for taxpayers and schoolchildren.  When human cloning begins, can Michigan have a copy of Chris Christie?

Christie is cleaning up the mess of previous politicians who bought off special interest groups, such as the New Jersey Education Association, with lavish benefits, unsustainable pay increases and a retirement system that, like many other states is becoming a major black hole.

Unlike other American politicians, Christie doesn’t appear to care much about what people think of him.  He’s there to do a job and fix the problems, even if it means his elected life is short lived.

Others should follow Christie’s lead because taxpayers and voters will have their backs.

On a recent Today Show appearance, Christie responded to an exchange with a school employee.  What’s interesting from the clip is that most politicians would be tepid for fear of having the crowd turn on them.  Instead, Christie’s crowd, which was not hand-picked, went wild – for Christie’s answer.

Taxpayers are beginning to realize that it’s the politicians that have created this budgetary mess and it’s going to require leaders like Christie to stand up to the powerful special interests to fix it.

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Its easy to feel bad for Britain’s Prince Charles, after all the guy’s main purpose in life is to wait for his mum to die so he can take over her Job. Charlie has spend his life looking for his “special purpose.” The man has been pampered in royalty all his life so he doesn’t even have an idea of how the real world works.  Charles has been searching for a reason to exist all of his life, sometimes publicly.

Remember the revelation in 1993 that he was so lost, looking so hard for a purpose in life that he offered to work as his girlfriend’s trousers, or even her tampon. If that doesn’t show a lost soul looking for a purpose, what does?

Unfortunately for the Prince, things haven’t gotten any better.  He now believes he is some sort of Messiah figure put on earth to save the earth from industry.  Buy fighting the spread of industrialization the prince believes, the earth’s environment will be saved.

It all  started last month when he suggested that through Islam the environment will be saved.

His speech, merging religion with his other favourite subject, the environment, marked the 25th anniversary of the organisation, of which he is patron.

He added: ‘The inconvenient truth is that we share this planet with the rest of creation for a very good reason – and that is, we cannot exist on our own without the intricately balanced web of life around us.

‘Islam has always taught this and to ignore that lesson is to default on our contract with creation.’

Unfortunately for the Prince and the British People,  things have actually gotten much worse, Charles now believes that HE is a Messiah. The UK Newspaper, The Daily Mail provided highlights of a TV special to be aired on NBC in November  revealing that the future King of England has a bit of a Messiah complex.

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Now, this must be one of the most flagrant instances of waste that I have ever read about. A “totem pole” that has been created to celebrate the 2010 Census is traveling thousands of miles from Juneau, Alaska to Washington D.C. I’ve already e-mailed Steve Jost at the Census Bureau to find out some more info about the cost of this commission and the transportation of this object. Here’s the report from the Juneau Empire:

JUNEAU – For the first time in history, the 2010 Census commissioned Sitka carver Tommy Joseph to design and carve a totem pole specifically for the Census. Since its completion this spring, the totem pole has traveled throughout many communities in Southeast Alaska during the census data collection process. The totem is currently on display at Goldbelt’s Mt. Roberts Tramway in Juneau.

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You’ve probably heard about eminent domain abuse.  That’s where the government takes your land and hands it over to another private party….one that is more politically connected.

But you may not have heard about civil forfeiture.  And yet, today, it could very well be the most egregious abuse of private property rights in America.

We all know that one of the many beautiful things about the United States is that citizens are innocent until proven guilty.  But civil forfeiture turns that fundamental principle on its head.

This sounds bizarre, but with civil forfeiture, your property is guilty until you prove it innocent.

Consider the case of Margaret Davis.

As a 77-year-old woman living alone with multiple medical problems, Margaret left her Pennsylvania home unlocked so her neighbors could regularly check on her.  One day while the police were chasing alleged drug dealers through her neighborhood, they all ran through Margaret’s house.  The dealers dropped some of their stash on Margaret’s floor, in plain sight.

Instead of apologizing to Margaret for the traumatic experience, the government seized her house.

Under civil forfeiture laws, Margaret’s property—her house—was guilty until she could prove it innocent to get it back.  And that’s not all.  As it turns out, most state and federal laws allow the government to keep the property they take through civil forfeiture.  So authorities have a big incentive to pursue property over justice.

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Now. Maxine Waters is facing an investigation by the House Ethics Committee. More to come…

With private sector jobs disappearing at an alarming rate, Assembly Republican Leader Martin Garrick, of Carlsbad, says in his weekly address that California must reduce the size of government to balance the budget. Here is the Assembly Republicans’ compilation of job statistics titled Real Facts: California Private Sector Job Loss vs. State Employee Job Cost.

California Unemployment Rate – 12.3%
Source: California Employment Development Department

Californians Currently Listed as Unemployed- 2.24 Million
Source: California Employment Development Department

Private Sector Jobs Lost in California Since 2005- 1,298,700
Source: California Employment Development Department

State Government Jobs Added Since 2005-  38,100
Source: California Employment Development Department

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The latest attack perpetrated by progressive-statists strikes at the republican nature of our constitutional system through the destruction of the electoral college.

No doubt Project Vote, the ACORN spawn and the Secretary of State Project are behind this tyrranical endeavor.  We already know how these groups sought to dilute the vote throught the NVRA and HAVA.  Opposition to Voter ID and a push for Election-Day Registration furthers the agendas of these groups by hijacking the popular vote, especially when the voter-rolls are not purged of fraudulent voters.

We can see the connection between all of these endeavors through the actions of Missouri’s own Secretary of State, Robin Carnahan.  While the current Missouri legislature would never pass the electoral college law being pushed by these groups, Carnahan’s meddling with the state elective process aims at diminishing the conservative vote within the state.  And the DOJ appears complicit in this attack through its failure to prosecute Carnahan for failing to clean the voter rolls, the same rolls she will rely on for her Senate run. (more…)

Fresh from the recess appointment of former SEIU lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, President Obama has nominated another controversial figure to a key post in his administration. In May, Obama nominated Paul Tiao for Inspector General (IG) of the Department of Labor (DOL.) The nomination is troublesome.

While presidents generally take nominees’ political views into account when making appointments, a nominee’s views should not be so far outside the political mainstream as to bring his judgment into question. And, while most executive appointments go to political allies of the president who will carry out his policies, some powerful positions like Inspector General require a much greater degree of impartiality. Tiao fails on both counts:

Tiao has advocated allowing non-citizens—including illegal aliens—to vote in U.S. elections.

In a 1993 Columbia Human Right Law Review article, “Non-Citizen Suffrage: An Argument Based on the Voting Rights Act and Related Law,” Tiao argued that all lawful permanent residents—non-citizens—should be given the right to vote in federal, state, and local elections. But that’s not all. In a footnote, Tiao makes the case for illegal aliens being given the vote, arguing that, “suffrage should be extended to other non-citizen groups as well. Tiao notes “Takoma Park [Maryland]’s Charter amendment …. technically extended suffrage to all non-citizens, including undocumented aliens.” He uses this example to argue illegal aliens should be allowed to vote.

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The two top teachers unions and Senate Democrats are proving the old adage that dead bodies float to the surface.  Just when we thought the wrong-headed “Education Jobs Fund” was dead, it comes back to life.

The U.S. Senate is poised to vote Monday on the “public school bailout,” the brainchild of teachers unions to stave off tens of thousands of school employee layoffs.  Progressive blogs say it will come at 5pm.

When Democrats realized the bailout wasn’t going to pass attached to the Afghanistan war spending.  It’s now riding on a Federal Aviation Administration bill.

The American Federation of Teachers claims the $10 billion in ”debt-financed” spending (ie. spending the money of the children unions’ purport to care about) will prevent the firing of 300,000 school employees – the vast majority of which are union members.

House Democrats and the Obama administration claim the public school bailout will save 140,000 jobs.  It would be nice if they’d use the same talking points and give us a somewhat accurate number – assuming one actually exists.

But using the union’s number, the school bailout would also result in a major dues windfall for teachers unions: an estimated $36 million for the NEA and roughly $14 million for the smaller American Federation of Teachers.

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Individuals for whom government buildings, highways and bridges are named usually fall into one of four categories.  They are:

1. Politicians;

2. Wealthy benefactors;

3. War heroes who died on battlefields far from home; or

4. War heroes who lived to tell about their experiences.

As a small token of appreciation, the folks at the Quad Cities Chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America held a ceremony Saturday morning in Rock Island, Ill., to dedicate the I-280 bridge in honor of one of those individuals — John F. Baker Jr., a man who, without a shadow of a doubt, falls into the fourth category above.

Baker, a retired Army sergeant and Vietnam veteran, earned his nation’s highest honor — the Medal of Honor — for service above and beyond the call of duty on Nov. 5, 1966. The award citation read by President Lyndon B. Johnson in the East Room of the White House included the following language:

“Sgt. Baker’s selfless heroism, indomitable fighting spirit, and extraordinary gallantry were directly responsible for saving the lives of several of his comrades, and inflicting serious damage on the enemy. His acts were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Army and reflect great credit upon himself and the Armed Forces of his country.”

Ironically, a man who falls into the first category above was invited to join in honoring Baker but did not. That man was U.S. Rep. Phil Hare, the stumbling, bumbling incumbent Democrat from Illinois’ 17th Congressional District.

Take a look at this video, and you’ll understand why Sergeant Baker used the words below in a letter endorsing Hare’s challenger, Republican Bobby Schilling:

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Last year, citizens across the country rallied and protested at Town Hall events across the country in opposition to ObamaCare. Months of maneuvering later, the Democrat Majority in Congress answered by enacting ObamaCare. It is August again and another Congressional recess is beginning. Following this August, however, is an election.