Low Approval of Congress

After you read the linked article it will make you wonder why voters don’t simply impose term limits when in the voting booth. When will the voters stop saying one thing and then doing the opposite when they enter the voting booth? Yes, I know everyone hates my congressman, but loves theirs. However, most must realize they are being bribed by a little pork to perpetuate a failing system of career politicians.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/141827/Low-Approval-Congress-Not-Budging.aspx

Monkey See Monkey Do

Sometimes humor is the best way to get a point across. Larry, a friend of mine forwarded the following information in a recent email. Today I received it again from another friend, Mike, so it must be going around. I hope you will read it and allow the message to sink in.

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana.

As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all the other monkeys with cold water. After a while another monkey makes the attempt with same result, all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon when another Monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put the cold water away. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs.

To his shock, all of the other monkeys beat the snot out of him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one.

The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.

Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs he is attacked.

Most of the monkeys that are beating him up have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs OR even why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. Finally, after replacing all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana.

Why not?

Because as far as they know, that is the way it has always been done around here.And that, my fellow monkeys, is how Congress operates – And precisely why we need to REPLACE all the original monkeys this November.

Lindsey Graham Still for Amnesty, Trying to Placate S.C. Conservatives with “Birthright” Stance

In a National Review interview today, Senator Lindsey Graham made it clear he is still an adamant supporter of amnesty for the 12 million illegal aliens currently in the United States despite his earlier call to end “birthright citizenship” via the 14th amendment. When questioned whether his new stance on ending birthright citizenship was a tactic to entice conservatives to accept amnesty, Graham replied, “Yeah, I think it’s fair to say that I need to go home to South Carolina and say: listen, I know we’re all upset that we have 12-14 million people illegally.”

Graham makes one off-hand reference to securing the border without further detail. He makes no mention of  encouraging self-deportation of illegals although one president, Eisenhower, did so with great success.

In 2008, Hispanic voters comprised a record 9% of the electorate and voted for Barack Obama over John McCain 67% to 31%.

Obama Helicopters Six Miles across Washington to Deliver Remarks on the Economy

CBS News reports President Obama today took Marine One from the White House to a destination fewer than six miles across Washington, D.C., to deliver remarks on the economy and employment numbers.  When asked why Obama flew when Google Maps shows the trip by car would take about 20 minutes, a spokesman replied, “Probably because it’s easier than a motorcade through the city in the middle of the day.”

News of the president’s disregard for cost comes on the heels of strong international criticism of First Lady Michelle Obama for her trip to a luxurious resort in Spain with her daughter and forty “close friends.” Yesterday, Democrat pundit Susan Estrich added to the mounting criticism of the Obamas’ profligacy with a column titled, “Does He Get It?”

Explosive: ICE Agents Says Leadership Lies to Public About Illegal Crime Statistics, Obama “Reforms” Create Virtual Amnesty

The Center for Immigration Studies reports it has obtained an internal letter from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement union to ICE leadership titled, “VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE IN ICE DIRECTOR JOHN MORTON AND ODPP ASSISTANT DIRECTOR PHYLLIS COVEN.” The letter states the no-confidence vote was unanimous. It goes on to accuse the leadership of lying about the criminality of illegal aliens to support the Obama administration’s position on amnesty and of failure to abide by their oath to uphold the law. The CIS report quotes these charges from the strongly-worded letter:

•    While ICE reports internally that more than 90 percent of ICE detainees are first encountered in jails after they are arrested by local police for criminal charges, ICE senior leadership misrepresents this information publicly in order to portray ICE detainees as being non-criminal in nature to support the Administration’s position on amnesty and relaxed security at ICE detention facilities.

•    The majority of ICE ERO Officers are prohibited from making street arrests or enforcing United States immigration laws outside of the institutional (jail) setting. This has effectively created “amnesty through policy” for anyone illegally in the United States who has not been arrested by another agency for a criminal violation.

Further, the ICE union says “reforms” have resulted in “resort-like living conditions” for illegal criminals. Such conditions include bingo nights, dance lessons, and hanging plants as priorities. The officers are forbidden from searching the illegal criminals, allowing for weapons and contraband in the detention facilities.

Obama’s or Bush’s deficit?

HERE’S A SHORT CIVICS LESSON FOR YOU!

The Washington Post babbled again today about Obama inheriting a huge deficit from Bush. Amazingly enough, a lot of people swallow this nonsense. So once more, a short civics lesson.

Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress, and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party. They controlled the budget process for FY 2008 and FY 2009, as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011. In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.

For FY 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the FY 2009 budgets.

And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete FY 2009. Let’s remember what the deficits looked like during that period: (below)

If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets. If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.

In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is, “I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.”

There is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on! This is your chance to make a difference.

Do it for the sake of yourself plus your Children, grandchildren and your great Grandchildren!

Obama Administration Trying to Pass Amnesty without Congress

The Obama administration continues its quest for ever-greater power with a National Review report today. The conservative magazine says it has obtained a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services internal memo that reveals the agency is exploring the ways it could grant amnesty to illegal aliens.

This would allow the administration to bypass Congress, which so far has refused to pass amnesty legislation. Capitol Hill has been hearing rumors to that effect for weeks; some senators, including Republican Chuck Grassley, demanded the administration deny the rumors but it remained silent on the question.

Last night, Senator Lindsey Graham, long a staunch advocate and Democratic ally on the amnesty issue, told Greta Van Susteren on her Fox News show that he plans to introduce a Constitutional amendment to end “birthright citizenship.” If passed, it would end the practice of foreign pregnant women crossing the border illegally to give birth on American soil, thus obtaining for their babies American citizenship.

Senator DeMint’s Position on Term Limits

I contacted Jim DeMint’s office to get his response to our movement for term limits. They supplied me with the following comment and links to demonstrate his position:

“Below, please find the information we talked about – let me know if you have any questions. The first link directs you to the legislation Senator DeMint introduced regarding term limits. The other two links direct you to articles about this effort. As we discussed, you are welcome to post the Senator’s support for the issue of term limits.”

Legislation

CNN Article 1

Related Article 2

The Senator states: “Americans know real change in Washington will never happen until we end the era of permanent politicians,” DeMint said in a statement released by his office. “As long as members have the chance to spend their lives in Washington, their interests will always skew toward spending taxpayer dollars to buyoff special interests, covering over corruption in the bureaucracy, fundraising, relationship building among lobbyists, and trading favors for pork — in short, amassing their own power.”

“The power of incumbency has created an almost insurmountable advantage for Washington politicians. Incumbency allows politicians to raise millions of dollars in campaign funds in exchange for earmarks. Incumbency gives Congress the power to raise money for itself – Congress just approved itself an increase of nearly $250 million from the U.S. Treasury that members will spend to promote themselves.”

Can anyone now doubt Senators DeMint’s position on term limits?

Are Candidate Term Limit Pledges to be Believed?

Some people believe the best way to get term limits are to have Congress self impose term limits. When you stop laughing at this silly notion read a little history about efforts to get Congress to pass a term limit amendment.

The last time the talk about term limits was at current levels was during the 1994 Congressional election. During that election many candidates signed onto the “Contract with America” pledging to support a constitutional amendment limiting the number of terms a member of Congress could serve. The movement was gaining traction and by the end of that year, 22 states had passed term limitations on their own congressional delegations.

But things fell apart in 1995 when the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for states to impose term limits. Also in 1995 the Term Limit amendment in the House was defeated because Congress could not get the two thirds majority an amendment requires. The vote was 227 ayes to 204 noes. Many believed the Contract was nothing more than a big show of political demagoguery. Most of us were already skeptical of the legislators who claim they are for term limits but have been in office for 15 to 20 years or some much longer. The best test of any politician’s credibility on term limits is whether they are willing to keep their promise. Can we trust them to keep a promise they make to the American people?

Let’s see, here are the names of the Representatives who made this promise:

• Charles Bass, NH-02
• Steve Chabot, OH-01
• Tom Davis, VA-11
• Mark Foley, FL-16
• Rodney Frelinghuysen, NJ-11
• Gil Gutknecht, MN-01
• Doc Hastings, WA-04
• J.D. Hayworth, AZ-08
• John Hostettler, IN-09
• Walter Jones, NC-03
• Sue Kelly, NY-19
• Ray LaHood, IL-18
• Tom Latham, IA-04
• Steven LaTourette, OH-14
• Sue Myrick, NC-09
• Robert Ney, OH-18
• Charlie Norwood, GA-09
• George Radanovich, CA-19
• John Shadegg, AZ-03
• Mac Thornberry, TX-13
• Todd Tiahrt, KS-04
• Dave Weldon, FL-15
• Jerry Weller, IL-11
• Ed Whitfield, KY-01
• Roger Wicker, MS-01

Here are the senators elected that year who made the same pledge:

• Mike DeWine, OH
• Jon Kyl, AZ
• Rick Santorum, PA
• Olympia Snowe, ME
• Craig Thomas, WY

Does it surprise you that all of these Republican Contract With America candidates were still seeking re-election twelve years later in 2006? Many are still in office! So much for their pledge! Political promises are truly made to be broken. We have to awaken the voters and insist on electing candidates that will keep a promise. The voters must promise them we will not vote for them if they exceed the term limits we establish. And unlike them we must keep our promise.

Climate Geek Moment

I stumbled across an interesting paper published in the online version of CO2 Science called “Moisture changes over the last millennium in arid central Asia: A review, synthesis and comparison with monsoon region”, cross-published from Quaternary Science Reviews. Please stay with me, yes it is dry, but important to understand where this is going.

The authors (Chen et al.) wanted to measure moisture and temperature variations via proxy records in an area that is considered arid. Using temperature, moisture, humidity, and known CO2 levels they found that 20th century increases have little, or nothing, to do with 20th century increases in temperature.

The question is what do we tell those groups and individuals that have built an entire industry around green technologies; attempt to coerce local, state, and federal government into creating carbon-less footprints, and have filled our children with fear that we have killed our planet through the use of petroleum based products? Is this the real reason that the EPA jumped the shark and named CO2 as a pollutant, because they already had the science to know it was not causing warming? If the EPA did not make this move, they could not regulate it. They would have no legal leg to stand on.

Summary http://www.co2science.org/articles/V13/N30/C2.php

Entire Document: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-4YCGKYV-1&_user=10&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F2010&_rdoc=18&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%235923%232010%23999709992%231798689%23FLA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=5923&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=18&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=47aae50de0919d4b08ccb174d657c957

http://charlestonteaparty.org

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