Recent Articles
Is Inouye Unethical?
by Big Dog on Jul 2, 2009 at 06:16 Posted in Political 6 Comments
Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii owns shares of Central Pacific bank worth between $350,000 and $700,000 which is about two thirds of his reported assets. The bank was in trouble and had applied for government assistance. The bank was not a likely candidate for assistance.
Inouye had an aide make a phone call to inquire about the bank’s application and bam, it is now set to receive $135 million dollars.
It is not uncommon for politicians to try to help the banks in their states. Even though there are rules they routinely break them or make exceptions in order to assist banks from their states. Hell, it isn’t their money.
It is also true that even if Inouye asked for the application to be approved that he did not break ethics laws the Senate establishes for itself. Of course, the rules they have are designed to allow them to be unethical.
But the fact that he has money invested in the bank gives the appearance that he used his political position and influence in order to personally benefit from an action that would not be available to the average citizen. Even if he only inquired, the fact that he personally benefits from the action is suspect.
It gives the appearance of impropriety and appearance is often the truth.
Is The Honeymoon Ending?
by Big Dog on Jul 2, 2009 at 03:01 Posted in Political 46 Comments
The press has been easy on Obama since he decided to run for the White House. They treated him like royalty and protected him. They, in effect, became the media wing of his campaign and they remained his media after he was elected. Last week during his press conference he was grilled pretty good and he was on the defense. He was taken to task more than he had ever been. The thought at that time was that his numbers were dropping and the public is awakening to the fiasco that is his policies.
Today Press Secretary Gibbs was grilled over the Obama Town Hall meeting where the questions and the people are preselected or screened. Helen Thomas, of all people, was like a shark in the water. She stated:
“The point is the control from here. We have never had that in the White House. And we have had some control but not this control. I mean I’m amazed, I’m amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency and you have controlled…” veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas said Wednesday.
I am amazed that she would even say that the Obama White House is more controlling than the Bush White House. She said it when she said “…NEVER had that in the White House.”
It seems the media are beginning to go after him and are finally starting to do their jobs rather than be toadies who follow their master at the lectern. It is about time.
It was inevitable because the media eventually get around to being tough. They finally did it with Bill Clinton and they will do it with Obama. It seems that his failed policies and the lack of progress in the economy are beginning to take their toll.
It seems that maybe the media are also waking up to the idea that they helped elect a rookie who know not what he is doing.
Watch the video at Breitbart
Tags: Gibbs ♦ helen thomas ♦ media ♦ press ♦ white house
Rep Waxman Taken To The Hospital
by Big Dog on Jul 1, 2009 at 20:30 Posted in Political 26 Comments
Representative Henry Waxman was taken to the hospital after he fainted in his office. The nearly 70 year old California politician is at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for testing. One can bet the farm that he will be receiving the best care around and that taxpayers will foot the part of the bill not covered by his government provided insurance. They will spare no expense to take care of him.
If he were under Obama care he might be told that fainting 70 year old men do not warrant a battery of tests to figure out what is wrong.
I think someone told him he forgot to make sure he got rich off the cap and tax bill he authored and he fainted from the shock.
Tags: cap and trade ♦ fainting ♦ government health care ♦ henry waxman
Just An Old Fashioned SNAFU
by Blake on Jul 1, 2009 at 09:40 Posted in Political 55 Comments
Here, for your perusal, is another in a long list of “What were they thinking?” As a part of the climate bill- you know, the one that costs money and does nothing? Oh wait- that is EVERY BILL we see nowadays- I see I must be more specific.
This is the bill where there is 3.4 million dollars for the “turtle tunnel” on a less than one mile stretch of hiway 27 in Florida. Well, it turns out that this is not the only brain- dead piece of pork that was inserted into this Obamanation of a bill.
The latest is an attempt to revive the marshland that was lost during Hurricane Ike, on Galveston Island. Look- I know their heart is in the right place, but one has to ask- where are their brains? Allow me to explain my logic- In 1883, there was the town of Indianola, on the Texas coast, near Matagorda Bay. There was a rail line that ran through the town, and because of its position on the Bay, was poised to become a freight depot for stores and goods that had been transshipped from overseas. Then came the Hurricane, and it wiped everything out except the rail tracks. People clung in trees for 20 hours to avoid the flood surge.
When the storm diminished, the survivors climbed down, surveyed the damage, and decided to rebuild, based on the idea that this was a once in a lifetime storm- which was a possible scenario. Unfortunately, it was not the correct one.
They rebuilt, and got life back to normal, but the very next year, another, even deadlier Hurricane came along and completely wiped out the town, even the rail tracks were washed away this time.
My point is that this Wetlands restoration will not succeed- oh, it might be around for a couple of years, but sooner or later, there will come along another hurricane, and there goes all the work and money that went into this project.
More than $5 million in federal stimulus money will help in the restoration of West Galveston Bay’s rapidly dying marshes, officials said Tuesday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration selected the project as part of a $167 million effort to create jobs by rebuilding damaged wetlands, shellfish beds and coral reefs along the nation’s coasts and the Great Lakes.
The money for West Galveston Bay will be used to rebuild 328 acres of marshes with dredged sand. It will be the largest in a series of restoration projects for an area that has lost more than 5,200 acres of marsh since the 1950s because of erosion, sea-level rise and subsidence — the sinking of soft soils.
The intertidal wetlands are critical because they act as nature’s speed bumps against wind and waves. They also serve as a productive nursery for a variety of sea life, including white and brown shrimp, blue crab and red drum.
chron.com
Once again, I am reminded how illogical liberals can be- and inconsistent in their philosophies also. On the one hand, they rant that Darwin MUST be taught as “settled science” in our classrooms, but then they ignore his theories regarding survival of the fittest in their futile quests to “save” the snaildarter, or spotted owl, or animal du jour, rather than allowing nature to determine the species’ viability.
The hurricane destroyed these wetlands- and the next hurricane will destroy some other wetlands- look at Louisiana. There were plenty of wetlands destroyed there. This is what hurricanes do- they carve new shoreline out of old. To try and deny that is insanity at its worst, because this is insanity with our money, and it will, by the very definition of what hurricanes do, be wasted money.
Hurricanes carve out their own “wetlands”. and they do this naturally- it is the height of arrogance to think that we should even attempt to do this, especially in this time of no money. If we were flush with money, I would still feel this was a foolish project, but if we had the money to waste, (in other words, not tax money, but private money), then my objections would be less vocal.
Private money can do whatever it wants, however illogical it may appear to be.
Our money, however, should be targeted to what will immediately help us, not on “feel good” projects that will just get blown away with the next storm.
Idiocy of that scope is a province reserved for the liberals who feel they know best- an ingrained delusion they will probably never lose.
They should be playing in a rubber room, but certainly NOT with our money.
Tags: arrogance ♦ eco- nutjobs ♦ futility ♦ nature ♦ waste
Nancy Pelosi Rams Through Legislation
by Big Dog on Jul 1, 2009 at 05:17 Posted in Political 3 Comments
When the Democrats took control in 2006 Nancy Pelosi said they would be the most honest, open, and ethical Congress in history. The ethical part of that was shot from the start with sweetheart loans and tax evasion and a myriad of other ethical lapses. The American Spectator has a piece up entitled; ACES Up Her Sleeve.
In that article the authors, Jeremy Lott and William Yeatman, discuss that if there were any doubts about Pelosi breaking all those promises they were cleared up after her actions last week with regard to the Cap and Trade bill. Or as they put it; “Our refusal to accept her rhetoric was roundly vindicated last week.”
The Speaker chose to stifle the usual observances of deliberative democracy because open, honest debate would have attracted unwelcome scrutiny to her massive new energy tax.
Pelosi’s legislation, the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act, would raise the price of hydrocarbon energy sources like coal and oil thought to cause global warming, but which power 85 percent — 85 percent! — of the economic production in America.
A large energy tax during a deep recession is a political cyanide pill that 44 of Pelosi’s Democratic colleagues refused to swallow. That almost doomed the bill and in fact would have killed it outright Friday night if eight Republicans hadn’t voted with the majority of Democrats. (The final vote was 219 to 212.)
Likely there would have been many more Democratic “no” votes if Madame-Speaker and Energy & Commerce chairman Henry Waxman didn’t find creative ways to shorten or skip every step of that “How a Bill Becomes a Law” song.
The Democrats have been ramming things through at breakneck speed and they have been skirting the rules and procedures because if the legislation is given any time for public consumption then it will meet with the scorn of the people. The Democrats’ plan is to ram it through before we know what is in it and then have us accept the consequences because there is not much we can do.
This bill was nearly 1300 pages and NO ONE read it just like NO ONE read the stimulus. We keep seeing where things are popping up because of the stimulus and we keep finding waste as well as unintended consequences that cannot easily be overcome. For instance, the stimulus gave people a little more in paychecks. It was enough to disqualify some people for food stamps and other assistance because it pushed them over the income limit. If someone had taken the time to read it then maybe that could have been fixed by adding a line stating that the money was not to count toward welfare eligibility.
This is the kind of stuff that happens when they do not read the bills. They did not read the Cap and Trade bill and this one will be an economy and business killer. If this ever passes (and it has a better chance with Franken headed to DC, unless Kennedy’s term expires) then many businesses will move out of the country, our energy costs will skyrocket (Obama said they necessarily would), and many people will have to decide between eating and keeping warm.
It is an Obamanation and Nancy Pelosi ignored the rules in order to get what she and Obama wanted and of course, so they could take off for their WEEK long 4th of July holiday.
Obama said we needed to do these things this year (Cap and Trade, Health Care reform) and he says it is because it is urgent blah, blah. Nothing is ever so urgent that it cannot be read before it is voted on. Obama wants this rammed through and done because next year is an election year and he does not want bills that are unpopular among people in his own party hanging out there like an Al Gore chad. He does not want people to be reminded of the terrible things he is doing while he tries to keep all the seats he has. If they pass it soon they can enact it next year and the results will not be felt until after the election.
The transparent, open, honest, and ethical Democrats have been anything but and this is from Obama down. None of them have kept promises regarding posting bills for public review and none of them are following the procedures in order to do things.
They are doing what they want and they do not care about us, their concern is getting their agenda passed.
Perhaps the Hondurans have the right idea…
Tags: criminal ♦ ethics ♦ ineptitude ♦ Obama ♦ Pelosi
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