Carly Fiorina Slams Boxer in New, Outrageous Video

Today, at the California Republican Party Convention in Santa Clara, California, Carly Fiorina is debuting yet another outrageous web video—this time slamming Sen. Barbara Boxer, who Fiorina seeks to replace this November. The web video—actually a lengthier “movie”—is featured at a new microsite, www.failedsenator.com.

Fiorina grabbed headlines—good, bad and ugly—with her infamous “Demon Sheep” video earlier this year. Following the release of that video, her campaign pledged that more would be on the way. This latest offering, which is already being dubbed the “Boxer Blimp,” takes Boxer to task for her record in the Senate. California Republicans say that is something that has been little examined in the course of previous campaigns, but which is essential to highlight in a year where the three-term Senator’s approval ratings are lagging while California’s economy remains on proverbial life support.

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Tags: Barbara Boxer, boxer blimp, California GOP Convention, california senate race, carly fiorina
Posted Mar 13th 2010 at 12:45 pm in Congress, Politics, State Politics | 88526173 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/capitolconfidential/2010/03/13/carly-fiorina-slams-boxer-in-new-outrageous-video/Carly+Fiorina+Slams+Boxer+in+New%2C+Outrageous+Video2010-03-13+20%3A45%3A22Capitol++Confidential

Bully Boys Waxman and Markey Promote ‘Endangerment’ of Economy, Democracy

This week (March 3, 2010) was the deadline Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) set for Mark Crisson, President and CEO of the American Public Power Association (APPA), to explain why APPA is urging Senators to support Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s Congressional Review Act resolution to veto the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. The Senate may vote on the Murkowski resolution as soon as next week.

Now, aside from the merits of the issue, which I’ll get into in a moment, Waxman and Markey’s behavior is out of line. Waxman and Markey (W/M) are Members of the House of Representatives. What business is it of theirs if the APPA lobbies Senators about a bill pending in the Senate? Senators can conduct their own inquiries without any assistance from W/M. And why didn’t W/M copy Sen. Murkowski or at least Senate Energy Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) on their Feb. 25 letter to Mr. Crisson? Failure to “cc” any of the principals in the Senate flouts one of the most basic rules of legislative courtesy.

Besides being busybodies, Waxman and Markey are bullies.

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Tags: american public power association, appa, Barbara Boxer, cap-and-tax, cap-and-trade
Posted Mar 5th 2010 at 9:51 am in Congress, Environment, News, Politics | 84922144 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mlewis/2010/03/05/bully-boys-waxman-and-markey-promote-endangerment-of-economy-democracy/Bully+Boys+Waxman+and+Markey+Promote+%27Endangerment%27+of+Economy%2C+Democracy+2010-03-05+17%3A51%3A02Marlo+Lewis%2C+Jr.

New Questions Surface About Bernanke’s Role In AIG Bailout

Sources on the Hill tell Big Government that the nomination of Ben Bernanke to remain Chairman of the Federal Reserve is in deep trouble.  A Senior Capitol Hill Staffer said to Big Government, “if [Senate Majority Leader] Reid does not file for cloture tonight, I don’t think they have the votes to confirm him.”  The Wall Street Journal thinks the vote will be “tight,” yet the White House is spinning that they have the votes.  Hill sources say that this nomination is trending in the wrong direction for the Obama Administration and many on the Hill are stunned by the news that, according to CNBC, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has announced her opposition to the nomination.  There is growing opposition to this nominee remaining in charge of the Federal Reserve for a second term.

Senators have made public statements indicating that there may be non-public information that is hurting this nominee.  Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) said that “the Fed continues to stonewall Congress and the public.”  Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) referenced “ongoing examinations by Congress and the GAO of the Fed’s AIG bailout” and that there are “unpleasant facts for the Fed and Chairman Bernanke” that will come out after “full public disclosure of all information about the AIG bailout” that has only been shared with “select Congressional Committees and the GAO.”  Senator David Vitter (R-LA) said, “it is vitally important that Congress has the ability and time to adequately review the Federal Reserve’s bailout of AIG.  Although some of our offices have had time to review some of the documents, not all are available at this time and Congress should wait until GAO’s review before proceeding with his nomination vote.” (more…)

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Tags: AIG, AIG bailout, Barbara Boxer, Ben Bernanke, David Vitter
Posted Jan 22nd 2010 at 3:52 pm in Economics, Featured Story, Politics, federal spending | 6420661 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/capitolconfidential/2010/01/22/new-questions-surface-about-bernankes-role-in-aig-bailout/New+Questions+Surface+About+Bernanke%E2%80%99s+Role+In+AIG+Bailout+2010-01-22+23%3A52%3A25Capitol++Confidential

Rise of the Nanny State: Is There a Political Answer to Every Problem?

Is there a political answer to every problem? Most of my colleagues feel this is the case. I disagree.

In the past day, there was a spate of news articles about California’s trans-fat ban due to go into effect on New Year’s Day. I voted against this new law.

California has the 4th-highest unemployment rate, a $21 billion budget deficit, and a severe water shortage, so, what do lawmakers do?  Pass a law that will fine restaurants $1,000 for using margarine in their foods.

One of the articles said:

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, criticized the new law as an example of nanny government with little beneficial impact.
“Not every human problem deserves a political solution,” he said. “That’s the fallacy my colleagues engage in.”

I’ve been criticized for voting against all sorts of nanny state bills that expand the police power of government in the name of making us safe from ourselves. I’ve often argued that we might as well pass a blanket bill outlawing stupidity and rudeness in California.

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Tags: Barbara Boxer, Big Government, california government, Forbes, Forbes Magazine
Posted Dec 31st 2009 at 10:31 am in Culture, Politics, State Politics | 53834109 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/cdevore/2009/12/31/rise-of-the-nanny-state-is-there-a-political-answer-to-every-problem/Rise+of+the+Nanny+State%3A+Is+There+a+Political+Answer+to+Every+Problem%3F2009-12-31+18%3A31%3A29Chuck+DeVore

Our National Debt is Growing to Immoral and Unsafe Proportions

If you are under 30, you really need to read this column and pass it on to your friends.  Your elected officials are dooming you to a new sort of bondage, a form of 21^st Century slavery, if you will.

First, some background.

On October 16, 1854, Abraham Lincoln, then a former one-term Congressman, gave a three hour speech in Peoria, Illinois in which he decried the extension of slavery into the territories.  The Republican Party was barely three months old.  Lincoln warned that slavery was a “monstrous injustice” based on the raw principle of “self-interest” at odds with the “fundamental principles of civil liberty.”

Lincoln was moved to action by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, widely seen as a check on the growth of slavery in the territories.

At Peoria, Lincoln presented the economic, legal and moral case against slavery.

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Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Barbara Boxer, currency devaluation, deficit spending, federal deficit
Posted Dec 21st 2009 at 7:21 am in Congress, Economics, Obama, Politics, State Politics, federal spending | 49858150 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/cdevore/2009/12/21/our-national-debt-is-growing-to-immoral-and-unsafe-proportions/Our+National+Debt+is+Growing+to+Immoral+and+Unsafe+Proportions2009-12-21+15%3A21%3A56Chuck+DeVore

ClimateGate: Facts Are Important Things

This week, diplomats from around the world are gathering in Copenhagen for the global climate change summit—an event that has been marked by controversy in the wake of the “climate-gate” scandal that has recently and rightly gained significant international media attention.

This scandal has provoked many questions that I believe deserve answers.  Among other things, it would seem that information relating to climate change research may have been held back from the public— and key decision-makers, too.  This could of course impact the appropriateness and effectiveness of policy that the US, and indeed world leaders, might pursue.  Before moving forward, given the potentially significant economic consequences associated with some of the steps under consideration, I personally think it is important to get a handle on all the facts, whether they be good, bad or ugly.

Unfortunately, Barbara Boxer and her colleagues in Congress who seek to pass major cap and trade legislation that analysis shows is a job killer take a different view—and have different questions they want answered.

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Tags: Barbara Boxer, cap-and-trade, carbon emissions, climate change, climate email
Posted Dec 9th 2009 at 9:32 pm in Environment, News, Politics | 43990107 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/cfiorina/2009/12/09/climategate-facts-are-important-things/ClimateGate%3A+Facts+Are+Important+Things2009-12-10+04%3A32%3A06Carly+Fiorina

Health-Care Harry Reid Does History; History Loses

The other day  I made the assertion that Barbara Boxer (D – Tiny Town) was the stupidest member of the United States Senate.  I may have spoken too soon.  Here’s a serious challenger:

Yesterday, in his desperate attempt to win friends, influence people and reach across the aisle as he tries to bring the senate’s version of a “health care” bill to a vote, Sen. Harry Reid (D – Las Vegas) decided to go for broke.  Speaking in his trademark tremulous, reedy voice that makes that of his predecessor, the homunculus from South Dakota, Sen. Tom Daschle (D – IRS), sound like Paul Robeson singing “Ol’ Man River,” the punch-drunk former boxer compared Republican opposition to the proponents of slavery and segregation.  “When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today…  History is repeating itself before our eyes.”

No words of mine can possibly do justice to the magisterial presentation of the Sage of Searchlight, so please have a look and listen before we continue:

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Tags: abolition movement, Al Gore Jr, Al Gore Sr, Armand Hammer, Barbara Boxer
Posted Dec 8th 2009 at 10:49 am in Congress, Culture, Healthcare, History, Media Criticism, News, Politics | 4287872 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mwalsh/2009/12/08/health-care-harry-reid-does-history-history-loses/Health-Care+Harry+Reid+Does+History%3B+History+Loses2009-12-08+17%3A49%3A58Michael+Walsh

Barbara Boxer’s Cap-and-Trade Energy Tax Won’t Work

What is Cap-and-Trade? Cap-and-Trade is a political scheme ostensibly aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions with the goal of reducing the global temperatures.

With a Cap-and-Trade law in place, the government would set a yearly greenhouse gas emission target (carbon dioxide is the most common man-made greenhouse gas, you are exhaling right it now) and would reduce that yearly ceiling over time.  This is the “Cap” of Cap-and-Trade.

The “Trade” part of this scheme comes in when the government (read: politicians) gives out greenhouse gas emission credits, valued at billions of dollars, to favored industries.  So, industries with greater credits than emissions would be able to sell their valuable credits (basically, a right to emit greenhouse gases) to those industries (such as the coal industry or the oil and gas industries) which would need the credits to stay in business.

Over time, the government makes money, commodities traders make money, such as those on the Chicago Climate Exchange (yes, it exists, they make money trading carbon dioxide credits), politically favored industries make money (such as those former Vice President Al Gore has invested over $100 million in), and the rest of us get hit with the bill – up to $2,000 per family per year of higher energy costs. Thus, Cap-and-Trade is actually a huge energy tax on working Americans.

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Tags: Al Gore, Barbara Boxer, cap-and-trade, carbon emissions, Chicago Climate Exchange
Posted Nov 25th 2009 at 10:37 am in Environment, Politics | 3687467 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/cdevore/2009/11/25/barbara-boxers-cap-and-trade-energy-tax-wont-work/Barbara+Boxer%E2%80%99s+Cap-and-Trade+Energy+Tax+Won%E2%80%99t+Work2009-11-25+17%3A37%3A08Chuck+DeVore

The Meaning of Veterans Day and the Case of the Chinese Prisoners of Faith

On February 22, 1983, I raised my right hand in the Los Angeles MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) and said, “I, Charles Stuart DeVore, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; That I will bear true faith And allegiance to the same…” With those words, I became United States Army Private First Class DeVore, joining the millions of others since 1789 who swore with their lives to “support and defend the Constitution.”

Unlike many veterans, I have been fortunate not to see combat. I was “officially” shot at only once; during the Los Angeles riots in 1992 (well, there was that time in Lebanon, but that wasn’t official; and I was carjacked in 1988 by Panamanian paramilitaries).

When the members of the armed forces of the United States of America fight, they do so not just for their colleagues in uniform next to them – virtually every soldier in history has done that – they do so not for king or country – they fight to preserve a document, the Constitution. In that, the United States Armed forces have become the greatest force for good, for freedom, that the world has ever seen because the Constitution exists to make a reality out of the promise of the Declaration of Independence to secure our “unalienable rights” of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

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Tags: Army reserves, Barbara Boxer, China Counsel General, china human rights, china prisoners of faith
Posted Nov 11th 2009 at 3:03 pm in Culture, Defense, Justice/Legal, News | 2913018 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/cdevore/2009/11/11/the-meaning-of-veterans-day-and-the-case-of-the-chinese-prisoners-of-faith/The+Meaning+of+Veterans+Day+and+the+Case+of+the+Chinese+Prisoners+of+Faith2009-11-11+22%3A03%3A51Chuck+DeVore

Climate News Network

This is pretty pathetic. CNN commissions a poll to assist with a week’s worth of Senate hearings and one in the House all designed to breathe life into the Senate’s counter to Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade energy rationing legislation. The express point of that scheme is to raise energy prices, which outcome our president has boasted as being to cause electricity (actually, all) energy prices to “necessarily skyrocket”, “bankrupt[ing]” many firms.

The poll, splashed with a pretty clear headline, ran to one question.  Er, wait. They’re only pushing one question and its answer. No drilling down provided, though it may have been pursued. The poll actually appears to be at least 16 questions long, though when linking to the pdf for the “full results”, you get one question and answer.

How much editorializing/cheerleading does CNN do about this apparently selective snapshot? Well, the question-and-answer in their entirety total 68 words, which led to CNN providing, ah, context and texture to the public’s voice– to sell the question-and-answer to the public if not to add any meaning or context to the question itself for those responding to the poll — nearly six times as many (390 words plus headline).

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Tags: Barbara Boxer, cap-and-trade, climate change, CNN, Ed Markey
Posted Oct 27th 2009 at 1:15 pm in Environment, Media Criticism | 2147425 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/chorner/2009/10/27/climate-news-network/Climate+News+Network2009-10-27+20%3A15%3A42Christopher+C.+Horner

What’s It All About, Albert?

We know why new investment in auto assembly in recent decades has not gone to Michigan but to, say, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky. In short and making no effort to put too a fine point on it, this is to avoid the crushing weight of the collective bargaining agreements that killed American auto manufacturing.

We also know why the unions push “green jobs” so aggressively, despite the overwhelming evidence that the schemes harm employment (that is, reduce the overall work force): as effectively federally mandated (but certainly “federally”– that is, taxpayer) — funded) jobs, they are uniformly de facto or de jure Davis-Bacon or otherwise union jobs.

Read the following excerpt from Sen. James Inhofe’s opening statement in a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing today on that body’s version of cap-and-trade energy rationing, Kerry-Boxer:

“Let me recount a telling moment in [a recent] hearing. Sen. Sessions asked the government witnesses-and they were CBO, EPA, EIA, and CRS-whether anyone disagreed with the finding that the net effect of cap-and-trade would be a reduction in jobs. None did.”

But at least these schemes increase the union labor force. And that’s really what’s important.

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Tags: auto industry, Barbara Boxer, cap-and-trade, climate change, CO2 emissions
Posted Oct 27th 2009 at 10:41 am in Big Labor, Environment | 2142646 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/chorner/2009/10/27/whats-it-all-about-albert/What%27s+It+All+About%2C+Albert%3F2009-10-27+17%3A41%3A06Christopher+C.+Horner

A Name Americans Should Know – Jodie Evans and the Obama-Hollywood-Terrorist Connection

How much access can a possible agent of influence for state sponsors of terrorism buy from President Barack Obama? For Jodie Evans, a progressive Hollywood activist, the going rate appears to be $30,400 for dinner and a conversation.

Last week in San Francisco, Obama headlined a three million dollar fundraiser at the Westin St. Francis Hotel. The San Francisco Chronicle reports about 160 people paid $30,400 or more per couple for a private dinner with Obama followed by a reception costing $500 to $1000 that drew over 900 attendees. Among those at the dinner was the leftist, so-called antiwar group Code Pink co-founder, Jodie Evans.

The Chronicle reports Jodie Evans had a several minutes long conversation with Obama at the fundraiser.

Why does Jodie Evans merit such face time with the president even though she acts as an agent of influence for the anti-American governments of Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, as well as Middle Eastern terrorists?

Over the life of the campaign, Jodie Evans became one of Obama’s top donors, giving the maximum $2300 to his respective primary and general election funds and tens of thousands of dollars more to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint Obama-Democratic National Committee fund.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Barbara Boxer, Code Pink, Democrat National Committee, Fidel Castro
Posted Oct 23rd 2009 at 4:15 pm in Culture, Defense, Featured Story, Obama, Politics | 20358177 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/taylorking/2009/10/23/a-name-americans-should-know-jodie-evans-and-the-obama-hollywood-terrorist-connection/A+Name+Americans+Should+Know+-+Jodie+Evans+and+the+Obama-Hollywood-Terrorist+Connection2009-10-23+23%3A15%3A33Kristinn+Taylor+and++Andrea+Shea+King