Fighting to Preserve Liberty in America
On a report that his challenger from last fall, Randy Altschuler, may be looking at a rematch, Tim Bishop’s team wasted no time throwing away all pretense of what they preach to get back in the gutter to revel in the politics of personal attack.
What Bishop Says
In a speech on the floor of the House during consideration of a vote to repeal ObamaCare, Congressman Bishop had this to say:
“Mr. Speaker, I believe it is time this Congress does what President Obama called on Americans to do last week: approach our debates and our differences with civility and honesty. We appear to be doing reasonably well with regard to civility, but less so with honesty.”
What Bishop Does
Jon Schneider, Tim Bishop’s spokesman responded to the report of a rematch with juvenile name calling:
“Randy Outsourcer couldn’t win in a once-in-a-generation year for Republicans,” writes Jon Schneider, the spokesman, using the campaign’s negative nickname for Altschuler. “While Tim Bishop will be able to run in 2012 on his record of fighting House Republican efforts to cut 1,000 jobs at Brookhaven National Lab, Randy will remain a fatally flawed outsourcer with a track record of getting rich by shipping American jobs overseas.”
“Randy Outsourcer”? That is hardly civil nor honest. It is the kind of discourse you would expect in a grammar school lunchroom or schoolyard.
The Facts
Congressman Bishop’s main argument for reelecting him was that his opponent created a successful company that provided services to businesses and some of those services were provided from offshore locations. We live in a global economy, but don’t let facts get in the way. Will Mr. Bishop tell Canon, USA, to close their North and South American headquarters in Melville, which employs 1,200 Long Islanders, because everyone knows outsourcing is bad? Let’s send those jobs back to Japan where they belong! How about SRI, a German manufacturing and engineering giant looking at Long Island; or WiseCon and Surikat, two Chilean companies? Let us not forget all the foreign based auto companies that employ tens of thousands of Americans here in America. Go home foreigners!
But don’t look too closely at Bishop’s record. After all, he voted for the bailout with taxpayer money of GM and Chrysler. After getting our money Chrysler announced the construction of a $570 million engine plant in Mexico. GM for their part quickly announced that they were increasing their offshore production by 53%. These are high paying manufacturing jobs. So what does Congressman Bishop have to say about his proclivity to outsource using not his own money and taking risks on his own, but with our money? I’m still waiting on a response to the letter I sent to him nearly two months ago asking that very question.
Perhaps it is just a lack of understanding of economics. A study by Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck school of business found that for every job outsourced overseas, two new jobs were create here. In a global economy it is foolhardy to try pick and choose among products based on their country of origin. In 1989, I bought a Ford Probe GT. It was built by Mazda, in Canada, but Ford owned 25% of Mazda. So what was it? Who cares? Pursuing this line of thinking will take us back to the days of Smoot-Hawley tariffs that plunged us deeper into the Great Depression, but that shouldn’t be surprising. The progressives, like Tim Bishop, are doing everything else to mimic the Great Depression.
Time for a New Strategy
It is interesting that Mr. Schneider picked Tim Bishop’s current efforts to save the jobs of 1000 workers at the Brookhaven National Labs. He doesn’t mention his votes for ObamaCare, the Stimulus, the auto bailouts. While saving 1000 jobs is admirable, what about the rest of the 700,000 citizens in his district. He just wants to hand them the bill. Since government has no money except that which it gets from its citizens through taxes, every big government program has an invoice that has to be paid. Take, for example, the stimulus. His constituents share of that bill is about $3 billion. He “successfully” brought home $679 million according to www.recovery.gov. That would be like getting a $679,000 house for “free” with a $3 million mortgage attached to it. Are there any takers out there for that deal?
Next time around Mr. Bishop may actually have to run on his record, but let’s leave the taunts and childish names behind and have an adult debate on the issues. The people of the district deserve as much.
That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.
Congressman Ron Paul, a perennial favorite of CPAC, the annual convention of the American Conservative Union, packed the house and then lit it up with his speech of liberty and libertarianism.
Ah, the romance of rail travel. From Murder on the Orient Express to From Russia with Love to White Christmas to Some Like It Hot there is something alluring about a train. But for all those warm feelings it’s time to recognize that we are in the 21st century and to leave trains to the movies.
President Obama is in Japan today and plans to issue a joint statement on nuclear disarmament. It’s not yet clear how far he will go towards apologizing for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but one can never tell with his worldwide apology tour.
Let’s Ban All Nuclear Weapons
With the same idiocy that is used in gun control here in America where criminals with illegal guns are given a government issued guarantee that their prey will be defenseless, the Obama Administration wants to extend this to the world of nuclear weapons.
Can’t you just see the grinning Ahmadinejad, with a secret stash of nuclear weapons, as President Obama ceremoniously destroys our last nuclear weapon? Or how about Kim Jung Il? Do you think he will feel a little taller that day? Can’t Obama just do something innocuous like Gerry Ford and hand out WIN buttons? Does each of his programs have to do damage to our country on such a massive scale?
When democracies having nuclear weapons are demonized, only demons will have nuclear weapons. God help us all.
Democrats Lining Up to Vote for Cap and Trade
The tide is turning against the case for man-made global warming. An article in today’s Wall Street Journal has the following:
“Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.” — The Climate Change Climate Change, WSJ, June 26, 2009
So if the case for controlling CO2 emissions is gaining skeptics, what would a reasonable person do? They would probably pause and listen to see if they should alter their position based on this new information. What do the statists do? Double their efforts to jam this gargantuan tax bill through Congress, again without reading it because it’s too big, before the American people find out just how monumentally stupid it is.
Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and Ed Markey are the lead lemmings jumping into the sea and expecting all of us to follow. You see, if they can slam this thing in they will have enormously increased their power and make it very difficult to unwind this monstrosity. Their disdain for what is right for this country and what is best for the American people is truly astounding. Their arrogance and sense of empowerment knows no limits.
Scientists Speak Out
Far from Al Gore’s pejorative and dismissive label of “deniers”, some real scientists weigh in:
“The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)” — The Climate Change Climate Change, WSJ, June 26, 2009
Can you feel your liberties slipping away as those in power do what they want rather than representing us. Sounds like it’s about time for a tea party.
How much time do we have left before Joe Biden’s prophesy comes true that within six months of taking office Obama, and by extension we, will face an international crisis? Well, unless you haven’t been paying attention, I think he will hit his mark before his 100 days are up.
Obama and Biden and the rest of their supporters have confused the difference between being liked and being respected. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, while ambassador to the UN called the world, “A Dangerous Place.” When trying to be a leader in a world that is dangerous, it is far better to be respected than liked.
The Obama Feel Good Tour
As President Obama tours the world and grovels at the feet of the Europeans, the Saudis, and Latin American dictators, trying to “repair the damage,” done by President Bush, our enemies are licking their chops. The Europeans flocked to see him, touch him, kiss him, but when he asked for a commitment of more troops for Afghanistan, how did they respond? Awkward silence and an offer of 5,000 troops to train police while at the same time an insistence that the “world” should have some say in the regulation of the U.S. economy.
While President Obama achieved his goal of improving the U.S.’s likability quotient, pirates were taking ships on the high seas, North Korea sent an ICBM over Japan, Iran celebrated Nuclear Technology Day, and the Taliban made inroads in Pakistan. How did the popular leader respond? To North Korea, he scolded that actions have consequences and words have meaning and proposed more words from the UN to be piled on top of the words the North Koreans are already ignoring.
Disarmament
To continue with the feel good groove, we have stopped calling terrorists terrorists. Their acts are now to be called Man Caused Disasters and I guess the terrorists themselves are to be called Man Caused Disaster Causing Men (or Women). After all, we don’t want them to be offended by being called terrorists. Isn’t that was caused 9/11? It was merely a response to our bad behavior, no? Our lack of likability?
There is no longer a War on Terror. It’s an Overseas Contingency Operation. We don’t want to raise Osama bin Laden’s sensibilities thinking we might be at war with him, but we do need contingency planning in case something happens. As a further show of good faith, let’s start re-writing the Al Qaeda training manual for them by telling them exactly what kind of interrogation techniques we use so that they can best prepare the training of their members to resist them. Of course, we already swore we would never use them again anyway, but we have to make sure they are prepared for the infidel’s trickery. Repeat after me: “I am not going to drown. I am not going to drown. I am not going to drown.” There, it’s simple, now they can resist even our most diabolical torture. But we shouldn’t forget to tell them that if an interrogator so much as raises his voice they should do the following:
If that doesn’t get them to lay down their arms, what will?
Respect Not Likability
The only time the United States is both respected and liked is when the bullets are flying and the United States is saving the hides of our new friends. When the shooting stops or it is confined to a theater far away from the talkers, the United States will be disliked but, however begrudgingly, respected.
Ronald W. Reagan may have been liked personally in private but when the klieg lights were on, he was “an amiable dunce,” and “a cowboy.” But Reagan stood firm and put Pershing II missiles in Europe against all protests. Such steadfastness led to the eventual arms negotiations and winning the cold war. At the moment President Reagan took the oath of office, the Ayatollahs in Iran released the American hostages they held for 444 days. They respected that Reagan would act, not just talk.
George W. Bush was not liked. He was another cowboy, one who was inarticulate to boot. But he was respected. After 9/11 the world respected that he would hunt down and kill America’s enemies. After the Iraq invasion, Libya publicly shut down their nuclear program. Quadaffi didn’t want to be next. President Bush kept America safe for seven years after 9/11. Now, this Congress and this President want set aside over 200 years of precedent and to put them on trial for doing that.
Preparing for Our Enemies
President Obama plans to keep America secure by cutting our defense budget by 25%. He plans on a staggering increase in our national debt and selling it to the Chinese. Picture the Chinese doing to the USA what Obama did to General Motors. Can you just see the head of the Chinese Communist Party saying to Obama, “Well, we own you now. You’re fired.”
Can this Juggernaut be Stopped?
On April 15th over 1 million people gathered at Tea Parties around the country to protest the growth of government, the taking of our liberty and out of control taxes. The Obama main stream media largely ignored the event, or willfully disparaged it.
A recent Rasmussen poll, “85% of mainstream Americans say the government has too much money and power, just 2% of the political class agree.” If they have no bread, let them eat cake! The poll went on to say, “51% of Americans have a favorable view of the Tea Parties but the political class strongly disagrees.” {emphasis added} How more out of touch with the people can they be? How more arrogant in their shameless grab for power can they be?
I will end this post, my friends, with a quotation from the Declaration of Independence.
“WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
July 4, 1776
I hope to see you at the Tea Party on July 4, 2009
If you earn less than $75,000 per year, you are in line to get a tax break of about $8 a week. Let me get out of your way as you grab the car keys to take your $8 and go on a spending binge that will have the economy humming in no time at all.
There are No Earmarks in this Bill
Do you long for the days of Bill Clinton when he waxed philosophical about the meaning of the word “is”? President Obama said:
“We are going to ban all earmarks, the process by which individual members insert projects without review,” he told reporters on the Hill Tuesday as he tried to build support for the measure.
So, if no Congressional member specifically inserts language about a specific spending request in a particular district, it doesn’t meet the definition of an “earmark.” So cut out some of the specifics and voila, an earmark is no longer an earmark! A pet project of Nancy Pelosi, preserving the habitat of the salt marsh harvest mouse, has $30 million, earmarked, er, included in the stimulus bill.
Republican lawmakers said they learned of the marsh money when asking about how various agencies plan to spend stimulus money. The vitality of the mouse has been an issue for Mrs. Pelosi and other California Democrats since the early 1990s.
While the Republicans are raising questions about how American’s tax dollars are being squandered in the name of stimulus, Democrats are responding by calling Republicans unpatriotic, obstructionists, against the will of the American people. When Speaker Pelosi’s office was asked about the $30 million a spokesman had this response:
“The speaker nor her staff have had any involvement in this initiative. This is yet another contrived partisan attack,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said. “Restoration is key to economic activity, including farming, fisheries, recreation and clean water.”
Does anyone with a room temperature IQ actually believe that statement? The spending is in San Francisco which is where Nancy Pelosi’s district it located. Are we supposed to believe she had nothing to do with $30 million of spending in her district? Was it a Valentine’s Day gift from Steny Hoyer? If she knows nothing about it, TAKE IT OUT! Those evil Republican partisans had the temerity to ask this question:
“This certainly doesn’t sound like it will create or save American jobs,” Mr. Steel said. “So can Speaker Pelosi explain exactly how we will improve the American economy by helping the adorable little” critter?
The American People Weigh In
Maybe Pelosi can explain it, but she’s not going to. Perhaps that is why a recent Rasmussen poll had that 67% of Americans think that they could do a better job on the economy than Congress. Do you think Nancy’s mouse is one of the reasons for that? Even more embarrassing:
Forty-four percent (44%) voters also think a group of people selected at random from the phone book would do a better job addressing the nation’s problems than the current Congress, but 37% disagree. Twenty percent (20%)are undecided.
Selected at random from the phone book! We pay these people $167,000 a year and we think names drawn at random from the phone book could do a better job! Is it only me, or does someone else see a problem here? These clowns are going to bankrupt us and our children and grandchildren, so they can push through this porka-palooza as fast as possible so no one gets a chance to look at it. Spending didn’t fix the Great Depression. Spending didn’t end the lost decade in Japan. Why do we think it will work now? Isn’t that the definition of insanity?
Tax cuts were proven by JFK, and Reagan, but let’s not try anything that has actually worked before. The Democrats say that the reason spending didn’t work in Japan is that the spending wasn’t high enough or fast enough! So, if this “stimulus” fails to work, as many are predicting, we can expect Congress to come back and say, well it’s those Republicans. They didn’t let us spend as much as we wanted, so now we have to go back and spend $2 trillion.
So while you ponder that, enjoy your $8. Don’t spend it all in one place. But when you put your head on the pillow tonight, rest easy, the salt marsh harvest mouse got $30 mill. But remember, the Democrats are looking out for you. And don’t forget to start saving $2,500 for each member of your family, because that’s the size of the tax bill the Democrats will be leaving you and your children.
