It’s been a little over a month since my last installment but that e-mail box keeps being stuffed with interesting tidbits which merit a paragraph or two, so we’ll start the week off with those and see where they take us.
A lot of people have made the case that the Republican Party needs to move to the center politically. I don’t happen to agree with them as I think the GOP principles truly inhabit the political center and what’s ran the party into trouble was abandoning those principles – regardless, Patriot Post editor Mark Alexander harkens back to a very successful Republican in his most recent essay, one well worth reading.
While Alexander dosen’t mince too many words in his piece, he has nothing on writer Andrew Breitbart, who throws down the gauntlet against Democrats in an op-ed featured recently in the Washington Times. The opening sentences say it all:
The Democratic Party’s attitude to elections is admirable: Win. And recent history has shown it will do anything to do so.
When, if not now, will Republicans develop such a fighting spirit?
I like the attitude because I have little tolerance for a number of left-wing views (or stealing elections). I’ll host this forum for discussion but we all know in the end I’m right and I’ll be proven so sooner or later.
Speaking of electoral fraud, the people at NetRightNation sent this video on ACORN to 17,000 bloggers. Guess I’m number 17,001 – but the point remains: why is this group getting federal money?
There are folks who do appreciate what’s going on in the halls of Congress, even if the measures they support may not have much of a chance of passage. For example, a group called the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (as they claim, “a non-profit, non-partisan policy institute dedicated exclusively to promoting pluralism, defending democratic values, and fighting the ideologies that drive terrorism”) was pleased about a bipartisan bill attempting to restore missile defense cuts unwisely proposed by the Obama Admistration in the wake of saber rattling by North Korea and electoral unrest in Iran. I happen to agree so the group gets a few pixels.
Perhaps a more successful outcome awaits a bill to audit the Federal Reserve. The conservative watchdog group Americans for Limited Government was pleased about the bill getting to 222 co-sponsors, but wanted more action:
Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today called upon Congressman Ron Paul (TX-CD14) to circulate a discharge petition for HR 1207 at the end of the month if the House Financial Services Committee does not put the legislation on the floor.
“Barney Frank must allow this to come up for a vote. Of the 71 members of the House Financial Services Committee, 36 are cosponsors of the Fed Audit bill, including 7 Democrats, and 35 are not,” Wilson said. “That’s a majority.”
A discharge petition would allow the bill to come directly to the House floor, bypassing the normal committee assignment. Wilson added that not bringing the bill forward would, “thwart the express will of the American people.” My question is what the Fed has to hide? No one else in government is doing much better at managing the economy.
They just like to shift the blame, as this cartoon by William Warren points out.
Another neat little group doth protest loudly about nationalized health care. You know it’s coming.
They called the plan the “largest middle-class tax hike ever,” during the last campaign. They said they were against it, they said it would hurt hard working Americans. Now, President Barack Obama and his allies in Congress, like Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid, are looking to a new payroll tax on your health care benefits, taking hundreds or thousands of dollars out of your pocket each and every year to pay for their Health Care “fix”.
Americans for Job Security has created a Health Insurance Tax Calculator so you can see just how much more you would owe to the federal government each year. Check out the calculator and forward it along to your friends and co-workers.
AJS also has a petition at the site…of course, I’m not sure what good it will do since big government isn’t generally known for listening to what the people want. Why do you think I like small government? It will grow their mailing list but what’s the harm in that?
Sort of lost in the news swamp is the impact Big Labor is having on our economy, particularly with “card check” legislation being debated. Obviously unions are all for the passage of the measure, but last month writer Isaac MacMillen pointed out what the Service Employees International Union seems to be best known for: corruption. Meanwhile, the Center for Individual Freedom points out that unions aren’t big on merit raises, but one Congressman is trying to change that:
(California Congressman Tom) McClintock is introducing legislation appropriately entitled the “Rewarding Achievement and Incentivizing Successful Employees” (RAISE) Act, which will amend the National Labor Relations Act and eliminate the de facto pay cap imposed on working Americans through stifling collective-bargaining agreements. Very simply, the RAISE Act would allow employers to reward high-achieving employees with raises, bonuses or other compensation regardless of limitations contained within a collective bargaining agreement.
The bill is H.R. 2732, which of course was assigned to a committee to die.
I’m going to close the post out with a calendar note. Tomorrow night (June 16th) will be another meeting of the local Americans for Prosperity chapter. They’ll meet at 7:00 p.m. at Adam’s Ribs in Fruitland; hopefully they’ll be able to build on some of their recent progress in Somerset County.
All those little items add up to long posts but I have fun putting these together, so I’ll just keep letting my e-mail box fill up and see what nuggets lie within.
