Obama Now Trying to Intimidate Consultants and PR Firms of Businesses

-By Warner Todd Huston

True to form, even as he says he wants to cut regulations, Obama’s regulatory army is marching hard against business and this week the president’s Labor Dept. has unleashed yet another salvo in order to hurt the business sector. Before I start this explanation of yet another Obama powergrab through his powers to regulate, may I remember you all that this president has made a big, fake show out of claiming that he wants to cut unnecessary regulations? While he says it a lot, he’s made few attempt to live up to the claim.

Now, in two weeks — Sept. 24 to be exact — the public comment period on Obama’s newest powergrab will be over and the Dept. of Labor will undertake to implement a new scheme to make it uncomfortable for PR firms. law firms, polling firms, and communications companies of all sorts to do business with companies that have employees, workers that might in the future be unionized or currently are unionized.

The new regulation by Obama’s Labor Dept. would force all “persuaders” to register with the government and disclose all their financial info to the DOL.
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Obama Now Trying to Intimidate Consultants and PR Firms of Businesses”


Great New Ap That Will be Destroyed By Government

-By Warner Todd Huston

There is a new smart phone ap out there that is a pretty good idea. It’s called “CLOO’.” Unfortunately, no matter how good it is there is an absolute certainty that the government — whether local, state, or federal, or even all of them — will destroy this great idea with regulatory red tape.

The CLOO’ smartphone ap will help folks in metro areas make a few extra dollars while helping others find a place to go… literally. The idea is that folks that live in a downtown section of any big city can add their name to a database so that other people visiting that metro area can find a clean and safe place to go to the bathroom. Seriously.

Anyone that has ever been out and about in a busy downtown area will soon come to find that toilets open to the general public are far and few between. To cut down on vandalism and the ever-present threat of an infestation of homeless people scaring away customers, most businesses in the city do not have public washrooms. Even many fast food joints and some restaurants don’t have restrooms that are open to the public.
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Great New Ap That Will be Destroyed By Government”


Kirk, Lipinski, Hultgren Call for Extension of Surface Transportation Legislation

From the office of Rep. Randy Hultgren (14th District)…

Longer-term bipartisan bill could mobilize $100 billion in new public-private partnerships

Chicago, IL – In a show of bipartisan, bi-cameral unity United States Senator Mark Kirk, Congressman Dan Lipinski (IL-3), and Congressman Randy Hultgren (IL-14) joined representatives from the Illinois Road Builders Association, Operating Engineers Local 150 and other transportation advocates in calling for Congress to extend the expiring Surface Transportation Act. This legislation authorizes federal transportation projects across the nation, and allows the collection of revenues that fund infrastructure improvements. It was introduced in the House late Friday that would extend aviation programs through January and highway and transit programs through March. If Congress does not adopt this act by September 30th, federal reimbursement of highway and transit projects will stop, with $100 million in funding lost each day.

“Congress should quickly approve this extension legislation to avoid a shutdown of the Highway Trust Fund,” said Kirk. “We also support a longer-term solution by lifting federal barriers that could mobilize up to $100 billion for transportation private-public partnerships.”
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Kirk, Lipinski, Hultgren Call for Extension of Surface Transportation Legislation”


Schilling appointed to House Small Business Committee

From Congressman Bobby Schilling’s (IL-17) office…

House Small Business Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO) today announced that Rep. Bobby Schilling (R-IL) will join the House Small Business Committee in the 112th Congress. Congressman Schilling will be the 15th Republican Member on the Committee.

“As a small business owner, Congressman Schilling knows how government policies can help or harm job creation and entrepreneurship,” said Chairman Graves. “His commitment to creating jobs and helping other small companies thrive will make him a forceful advocate in Washington for small business owners and I’m looking forward to working with him.”

Schilling and his family own and operate Saint Giuseppe’s Heavenly Pizzeria in Moline, Illinois. His experience as a small business owner shapes his understanding of government and its purpose. Members of the House Small Business Committee will play an integral role in shaping key policies that will help encourage new hiring and promote entrepreneurship in America.
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Schilling appointed to House Small Business Committee”


California Loses Another Business Over Tax Hikes

-By Warner Todd Huston

Savings.com has just given California the big kiss off. They are closing their doors, moving to another state, and taking their 100+ jobs with them. Savings.com isn’t the only California-based company that has pulled up roots and moved to another state, either.

So, what is going on? It’s all about California’s confiscatory taxes, the newest of which is the Affiliate-Nexus Tax bill — a tax that hits all Internet companies that have brink and mortar facilities of any kind, office or warehouse, in the state…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Hultgren Statement On President Obama’s Address To Congress

From the office of Rep. Randy Hultgren (14th District)…

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren (IL-14) tonight released the following statement regarding President Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress.

Tonight, I attended President Obama’s address to Congress because, although I expected partisan rhetoric but little in the way of new ideas, I felt that it was my constitutional responsibility to do so. Unfortunately, despite his premise of bipartisanship, the President’s prescriptions for our economy were political and wholly inadequate. Once again he urged more scattershot ‘stimulus’ spending, at a time when we should be husbanding our constituents’ hard-earned tax dollars and ensuring that they are spent as wisely as possible.

I agree with President Obama that investing in our nation’s infrastructure is needed and will create jobs. But we cannot do so blindly. We must ensure that our investments are targeted and timely, and we must work hard to cut red tape and limit the permitting delays that currently plague our investments in infrastructure improvement.

While I also believe that tax reform is long overdue, I was disappointed to hear him resurrect his calls on increasing taxes. It is absolutely the wrong time to be raising taxes on Americans that Main Street often calls small business owners, entrepreneurs, or job creators.
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Hultgren Statement On President Obama’s Address To Congress”


Irrelevant Jobs Speech: The Presidential Speech No One Attended

-By Warner Todd Huston

President Obama gave his much delayed “jobs” speech on Thursday, one he’s been promising since 2008. Unfortunately for this president, few people much cared. In fact, the most damning indictment about how irrelevant this speech and this president is was seen during the speech in the House gallery, a space that was, unlike any other presidential address, nearly empty.

So, what if a president gave a speech and no one came?

Dana Milbank reveals the most damning indictment of how unimportant this president has become by reporting the sparse attendance for Obama’s speech.
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Irrelevant Jobs Speech: The Presidential Speech No One Attended”


Lefty Protesters: Here’s a Poll to Help Us Find Out What We are REALLY Mad About

-By Warner Todd Huston

I had to laugh when I found out about the left’s newest protest du jour. They are hopin’ mad, don’t cha know? So mad that they are busy organizing marches, protests, civil disobedience, and all sorts of activities to protest it all. But amusingly they aren’t even sure what it is they are mad about.

So, like all good citizens in the age of technology, they’ve created a Facebook poll to find out what they should protest!

Now, let me say this: if you are being oppressed by someone, if your life is so bad that you need to organize protests, usually “the problem” is pretty obvious in its seriousness. I mean, if things are so bad that you need mass resistance, you shouldn’t need any Facebook polls to discover what the problem is. It just should be pretty darn obvious.

Other folks in our modern age don’t need polls to find out what to protest. The so-called Arab Spring has its dictators to oppose. The Chinese Falun Gong have that whole being tortured and murdered by Chinese authorities thing going on — a pretty good thing to protest, I’d say. Heck, even though I don’t agree with them, many in the Eurotrash set have something to protest in that their governments are finally wising up and cutting entitlements. It’s all some pretty obvious stuff to oppose, murder, oppression, and entitlement cuts is.
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Lefty Protesters: Here’s a Poll to Help Us Find Out What We are REALLY Mad About”


Hultgren Statement On President Obama’s Address To Congress

From the office of Rep. Randy Hultgren (14th District)…

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren (IL-14) tonight released the following statement regarding President Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress.

“Tonight, I attended President Obama’s address to Congress because, although I expected partisan rhetoric but little in the way of new ideas, I felt that it was my constitutional responsibility to do so,” said Hultgren. “Unfortunately, despite his premise of bipartisanship, the President’s prescriptions for our economy were political and wholly inadequate. Once again he urged more scattershot ‘stimulus’ spending, at a time when we should be husbanding our constituents’ hard-earned tax dollars and ensuring that they are spent as wisely as possible.

“I agree with President Obama that investing in our nation’s infrastructure is needed and will create jobs. But we cannot do so blindly. We must ensure that our investments are targeted and timely, and we must work hard to cut red tape and limit the permitting delays that currently plague our investments in infrastructure improvement.
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Hultgren Statement On President Obama’s Address To Congress”


Live Tweeting Obama’s Jobs Speech: More Big Government Boondoggles

-By Warner Todd Huston

As I often do, I live Tweeted Obama’s address to the joint session of congress, but for sure this speech was little else but yet another plea from Obama for giant piles of government money to be thrown around in a bacchanalia of Keynesian spending. He may not have used the newly verboten word “stimulus,” but that is really all he was offering; another giant stimulus program.

His “jobs” program was nothing but a sop to government unions. Worse his claim that it is “aid for” by attacking the eeeevil rich is as absurd as can be. Even worse still, it’s the same failed ideas he’s been offering for seven years since he first began to run for president (you know when he was pretending to be the junior senator from Illinois).

As to the attacks on the rich — and who is going to make all those new jobs if the rich are destroyed — any sensible look at the stats of who is paying taxes will show the rich already do pay their fair share.
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Live Tweeting Obama’s Jobs Speech: More Big Government Boondoggles”


AP Editorializing in the ‘News’ Again

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a recent article on the dissatisfaction of Big Labor once again we see making its way into what is otherwise supposed to be a normal, everyday “news” story, the Associated Press indulging its penchant for using biased labels and left-wing “definitions” in order to push a left-wing agenda on its readers. Even while presenting straight “news” the AP can’t resist swinging all terms and discussions to the liberal side of the fence, a tactic that it employs to push every story to the left.

In an article headlined, “Labor Unions Adjust to New Reality Under Obama,” AP writer Sam Hannanel reports the dissatisfaction that Big Labor leaders are increasingly expressing about their Obammessiah. Even though he’s been the most union-friendly president in American history their grumbling is rising as they see Obama “failing” them.

The complaint is that Obama hasn’t done enough for unions — an astounding claim for what he has done for them in comparison to what past presidents have done.
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AP Editorializing in the ‘News’ Again”


Our Least Sustainable Energy Option

-By Paul Driessen

From a land use, economic, environmental or raw materials perspective, wind is unsustainable

President Obama and a chorus of environmentalists, politicians, corporate executives and bureaucrats are perennially bullish on wind power as the bellwether of our “clean energy economy of the future.”

In reality, wind energy may well be the least sustainable and least eco-friendly of all electricity options. Its shortcomings are legion, but the biggest ones can be grouped into eight categories.

Land. As American humorist and philosopher Will Rogers observed, “They ain’t making any more of it.” Wind turbine installations impact vast amounts of land, far more than traditional power plants.
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Our Least Sustainable Energy Option”


Hon. David M. Walker Joins the Institute for Truth in Accounting Advisory Board

From the Institute for Truth in Accounting…

Chicago, (September 6, 2011) — Today the Institute for Truth in Accounting and the Comeback America Initiative (CAI) announce that Hon. David M. Walker, CAI Founder and CEO, and former Comptroller General of the United States, has joined the Institute’s Advisory Board.

‘We are honored to have David Walker as our first Advisory Board member,’ said Sheila Weinberg, Founder and CEO of the Institute. ‘I have worked with David for years on bringing truth and transparency to the federal government.’

‘David’s wealth of knowledge and expertise in government finance and accounting will help the Institute take a leadership role in the national dialogue on government fiscal matters,’ stated Roger Nelson, chairman of the Institute and former vice chair of Ernst & Young. ‘We look forward to continuing to work with CAI to bring honest financial reporting and accountability to all levels of government.’
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Hon. David M. Walker Joins the Institute for Truth in Accounting Advisory Board”


Rockford Tea Party Calls for Resignation of Teamsters President

-By Warner Todd Huston

After Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa incited violence against Republicans as he introduced President Obama at Monday’s rally in Detroit, at least one organization called for Hoffa to resign over his intemperate and violent rhetoric. The Rockford Tea Party of northern Illinois made the call for Hoffa to resign.

Here is what Hoffa’s ignorant rhetoric sounded:

Rockford TEA PARTY calls for Labor Leader Jimmy Hoffa to Resign
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Rockford Tea Party Calls for Resignation of Teamsters President”


Families of 9/11 Victims Knocking on America’s Door

-By Rev Michael Bresciani

It is no secret that New York’s Mayor Bloomberg has decided not to ask clergy of any religion to be part in the tenth anniversary ceremonies at Ground Zero. A cross section of responses from both religious and secular sources shows that most people are shocked or at the least scratching their heads in wonderment at Bloomberg’s decision.

Bloomberg said that government “shouldn’t be in the business of picking” one minister or religion over another. That being true, it raises two simple but important questions. The first is, who asked him to pick, let’s be true to our so called rush toward keeping the state separated from religion, is Mr. Bloomberg the Mayor, or is he, New York’s pastor? The second question should be only whether he has considered asking the families of 9/11 victims if they want clergy to be present and to offer prayers. The ceremony is not about the government and it has never been.

In the gospel of Luke Christ gave a parable about a woman who comes to a judge to seek avengement in her cause. The judge ignores her because it is said that he “feared not God, neither regarded man.” (Lk 18: 2) In today’s twisted world who would have guessed we have come to a place where even this has been reversed and now it seems there are those who “fear man and don’t regard God” Has it come to this?

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Families of 9/11 Victims Knocking on America’s Door”


Dear American, You Owe the U.S. Gov’t $31,871

-By Warner Todd Huston

Thanks to the profligate spending in Washington D.C., each American citizen’s share of the debt is now up to $31, 871, as you can see by the chart below…

But that is nothing compared to where it will be in just a few short years. As the chart shows if things continue the way they are now, by 2032 each American’s share of the debt will soar to over $100,000. And by 2050 each American’s burden will be closing in on $300,000.

These are the result of Washington’s drunken spending sprees and the unfunded mandated spending that politicians continue to push. Without entitlement reform and a way to cut spending, the United States of America will default. There simply is no way to maintain these wild levels of spending.

This chart can be found in the Heritage Foundation’s 2011 Budget Book which features charts on federal spending, revenue, debt and deficits, and entitlement programs.
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Dear American, You Owe the U.S. Gov’t $31,871″


Illinois Policy Institute: That is SO Illinoying!‏

From the Illinois Policy Institute…

Many of you are familiar with FOIA requests: they allow engaged citizens to request public documents. State requirements ensure governments provide these documents in a timely manner.

But on Friday, Gov. Quinn signed a bill that weakened these rules. Now, governments will be allowed to characterize citizens as “recurrent requesters.” If a citizen requests more than 15 documents in a month or 50 in a year, government entities no longer need to respond promptly.

This law punishes citizens who pay close attention. Instead of creating new obstacles for the very people who are most engaged in holding our government accountable, we should be celebrating their efforts.
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Illinois Policy Institute: That is SO Illinoying!‏”


Local Ill. Library Board Wants ‘People Feeling Pain’ to Vote Tax Hikes for New Building

-By Warner Todd Huston

Even left-wing Morton Grove, Illinois is feeling the pinch of Tea Party principles as new town library board members begin revealing the perfidy of past board members that violated the state’s open meetings laws where they were found to be scheming to fool the taxpayers into hiking taxes for unnecessary new library building projects and other wasteful spending.

You might remember back in 2008 that Morton Grove was one of the first towns in American history to ban the Second Amendment within its jurisdiction, an action that went counter to the Supreme Court’s Heller decision. But despite the law city fathers tried to violate the Constitutional rights of their citizens until the threat of lawsuits forced the city to reverse course.

Morton Grove’s left leaning city officials, though, kept at their agenda in other ways after the change to their handgun ban in 2008. During 2010 library board meetings, for instance, it appears Morton Grove library board members violated Illinois open meetings laws by holding closed door meetings called executive sessions that they did not properly record and/or did not conduct approved business.
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Local Ill. Library Board Wants ‘People Feeling Pain’ to Vote Tax Hikes for New Building”


Teachers Unions Happy to Say Goodbye to August

-By Larry Sand

The Dog Days of summer are making teachers unions sweat as they get caught being, well, teachers unions

August has been a bad month for teachers unions. And looking at things objectively, it would appear that every one of their hot flashes has been well deserved. In no particular order:

The SOS March was a dud. It was supposed to be a teacher-led event, but the unions were really behind it. The small turnout had its share of angry, mostly leftist teachers whining and shouting about this and that. No one paid much attention. The speakers were just what you’d expect. Jonathan Kozol, forty years later, is still railing about poverty causing ignorance. (No, actually ignorance causes poverty.) Then the marchers were treated to former reformer and current union mouthpiece Diane Ravitch who chirped about how wonderful they all were. And then the big gun, Matt Damon, who if nothing else showed what a great actor he is. The guy who played a convincing genius in Good Will Hunting demonstrates that without a good script he’s about as sharp as a marble.

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Teachers Unions Happy to Say Goodbye to August”


Hultgren Statement on August Jobs Report

From the office of Rep. Randy Hultgren (Ill. 14th District)…

Geneva, IL – U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren (IL-14) today released the following statement regarding the August unemployment report released by the U.S. Department of Labor.

“August’s dismal jobs report is disappointing, but unsurprising, so long as this Administration continues to pursue its anti-jobs agenda of burdensome regulations, taxes, and out-of-control spending,” said Hultgren. “Despite his claims to be cutting red tape, the reality is that President Obama and his appointed bureaucrats are proposing even more regulations that threaten to do enormous damage to our fragile economy.”

“Before he comes to Congress next week, I urge President Obama to study the commonsense pro-growth agenda Republicans will be adopting this fall. More taxes and spending won’t get our economy moving and put Americans back to work; that requires fostering a pro-growth economic climate; lessening intrusions by unaccountable bureaucrats; and providing certainty about what Washington will do in the future.”

http://hultgren.house.gov/


Newt Gingrich’s Illinois Fundraiser

-By Warner Todd Huston

As I sit down to craft this report I just this moment returned from a fundraiser for former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich held in a small town called Lake Barrington in the western suburbs of Chicago.

It was a nice, congenial scene unfortunately held on one of Chicago’s hottest evenings with temperatures reaching the upper 90s. Despite the steamy weather, though, at least 150 guests paid $25 a head to come sit, socialize, eat dinner, and ultimately meet Newt and Callista Gingrich and hear him speak. An undisclosed number of higher donors met with the Gingrich’s inside the home of the hosts prior to Newt’s address to those gathered.

After a BBQ dinner, the Gingrich’s emerged from the home of Keith and Stephanie Hanson and began to mix with the crowd signing books, shaking hands, and posing for photos with the excited donors.
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Newt Gingrich’s Illinois Fundraiser”


Proof: Obama WAS Trying to Use Joint Speech One-Upmanship As Political Ploy

-By Warner Todd Huston

The American left and its handmaidens in the Old Media spent 24 hours desperately trying to spin Obama’s attempt to schedule a joint session of Congress on the same day as the GOP debate as an example of how the GOP is refusing to work with him. These leftists categorically deny that Obama was simply engaging in political brinkmanship, using his selection of Sept. 7 as a political ploy. But the very night that Obama was shot down by Speaker Boehner on the date he chose for his jobs address, Obama’s campaign sent out a fundraising letter that pretty much proves that Obama intended the whole episode to be the very political ploy his pals in the Old Media tried to deny was happening.

On Aug 31, President Obama announced as if it were set the date of Sept. 7 for his jobs speech to a joint session of Congress. Of course, he and his staff knew that Sept. 7 was the date scheduled months ago for the next GOP presidential debate. It was clearly an attempt by Obama to overshadow the debate, the first one that Texas Gov. Rick Perry would be a part.

One problem here is that the protocol of scheduling a joint session of Congress was not observed by this White House. The fact is a president cannot schedule a joint session of Congress on his own hook. He simply does not have that power Constitutionally. He must ask the Senate majority leader and the speaker of the House of Representatives if the date he is requesting will work. Such a date has to be agreed upon by Congress before announcements are made. Obama did not do this. He simply tried to decree on what date the speech would be held and announced that date as if it were settled.

This was an unprecedented move.
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Proof: Obama WAS Trying to Use Joint Speech One-Upmanship As Political Ploy”


Spreading ‘Big Oil Subsidy’ Disinformation

-By Paul Driessen

Every American manufacturing company gets tax deductions that help it create jobs and strengthen our economy – whether it produces newspapers, furniture, cars or fuel. Eliminating those deductions would increase unemployment and further slow our nation’s desperately needed economic recovery.

Yet that is precisely what President Obama wants to do when oil companies want to use the deductions. It is one of many ways the Obama administration is undermining the oil industry and 9.2 million Americans whose jobs it supports. It is part of the administration’s strategy for replacing fossil fuels with heavily subsidized “alternatives” that taxpayers cannot afford, and consumers will not purchase on their own.

Newspapers that benefit from the same genre of tax deductions as oil companies nevertheless sometimes join attacking the oil industry, and the jobs and benefits it creates. This is rank hypocrisy.
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Spreading ‘Big Oil Subsidy’ Disinformation”


Electric Cars Not In The Least ‘Green’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Margaret Wente of Canada’s Globe And Mail has found out “the shocking truth about electric cars” finding that the whole idea of electric cars being “the future” is a laughable claim. The facts she relays are the sort of truths that should doom electric cars as the harbingers of greenism. After all, the true believers in the religion of green shall not be deterred.

The purpose of Wente’s column is to highlight the silly expenditure of Canada’s treasury on electric cars, but she also went on to point out the many failings of electric cars, failings that wild-eyed proponents of electric cars refuse to notice.

“The fantasy that electric cars are right around the corner doesn’t survive even the most cursory reality check,” Wente writes. “… consumers simply won’t pay a $20,000 premium for a vehicle that doesn’t go very far, isn’t very convenient, and runs out of juice as soon as you turn on the air conditioner.”

Too true….

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Rep. Peter Roskam Starts Ball Rolling On Regulation Scale Back

-By Warner Todd Huston

I spent most of the day on Aug 30 sort of embeded with Congressman Peter Roskam, Republican of the Illinois 6th District and Chief Deputy Whip in Washington, as he toured his district talking to local businesses. The whirlwind tour of businesses in Roskam’s district — topped with a presser in downtown Chicago — was the precursor of Roskam’s next focus. Roskam wants to begin an assessment of the regulatory edifice in Washington D.C. with any eye toward making Washington more business friendly in this moribund, recessionary economy.

My chauffeur was Roskam communication director, the genial Dan Conston. He told me he was born and bred in Philly, but I assured him that I would not hold that against him. No matter that he is an Eagles fan, he knew his way around the area. Still I promised not to tattle on his driving… but I guess even saying that much is saying something!

Our first stop was Federal Signal Corporation located in Oak Brook. The folks at Federal Signal told Congressman Roskam that they were worried that new EPA rules on the engines they use in their street sweeper machines were threatening to shut down production lines and put workers out of work. And not just for them but the engines of similar styles in every industry that uses them are facing the same jobs-killing requirements.

The problem was all the “uncertainty” which is casting a pall over what Fed Sig’s Dennis Martin, President and CEO, was happy to say is a recent uptick in orders for their machines. Orders have been down for years, said Martin, but now older street sweepers are not only wearing out but are themselves long out of compliance with new EPA rules and new orders are now rolling in.
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Rep. Peter Roskam Starts Ball Rolling On Regulation Scale Back”


Infant Tyro: Obama’s One-Upmanship of GOP Debates Clearly a Power Play

-By Warner Todd Huston

President Obama wants to give us his jobs plan. Yeah, three years after he got elected saying he was all about jobs. It isn’t the speech that is important, here, though — he won’t say anything new or important in it. It is the fact that he’s trying to bury the GOP debate that is being held on the same night he suddenly wants to issue his speech. This is childish, one-upmanship of the highest order.

Worse, when his press mouth, White House Press Sec. Jay Carney, was asked about the date question, Carny haughtily told the GOP to go ahead and change the timing of the debate they had scheduled months ago.

Obama suddenly announced today that he wants to appear at a joint session of congress so that he can present his jobs plan. He then announced, without fully confirming the date with congress, that the date of the speech would be September. Sept. 7, of course, is the date that the next GOP debate had been scheduled for, a date that had been announced many months ago.
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Infant Tyro: Obama’s One-Upmanship of GOP Debates Clearly a Power Play”


Illinois Ranks Bottom of States With Worst Government Unions Accountability

-By Warner Todd Huston

A new study finds that Illinois ranks at the bottom of states with the worst climate of government union accountability in the nation. The Land of Lincoln ranks 47th in the nation of out of control, unaccountable government unions says the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s new “Big Labor vs. Taxpayers Index.”

The index ranks every state on “23 individual aspects to determine the degree to which states favor organized labor and which favor taxpayers.”

The Index provides a national narrative on labor policy. Analyzing 1,150 labor laws and regulations throughout the country, it allows state-level policy makers to learn from the successes and mistakes of their neighbors, and therefore adopt labor policies that are in the best interest of their citizens.

CEI ranks the top most taxpayer friendly states as Tennessee, Utah, Idaho, Texas and Florida. The worst states, areas where unions control the debate and constantly push legislators for ever more favorable laws and rules favoring government unions at the expense of taxpayers and good government are Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York.

The study looks at such things as the strength of collective bargaining, the lack of or strength of secret ballot protection laws, the adherence to open meetings laws, project labor agreement laws and the like to determine how the states measure up against each other.
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Illinois Ranks Bottom of States With Worst Government Unions Accountability”


GE Stabs the US in the Back

-By Alan Caruba

In 1876 Thomas Alva Edison opened a laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey for the purposes of exploring how to produce and distribute electricity. History records that he invented the incandescent electric light bulb there. By 1890, he had established the Edison General Electric Company, now know simply as GE.

In 2011, Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE and the chairman of President Obama’s “Jobs Council” is eliminating jobs for American employees of GE at a furious pace. To add insult to injury, in 2010 GE paid no federal taxes at all despite worldwide profits of $14.2 billion. GE claimed a tax benefit of $2.3 billion.

From an America corporate icon to an American disgrace, GE epitomizes how federal policies, cronyism, and rent seeking is destroying America from within by avoiding taxes and shipping jobs overseas. Keep in mind, none of this is illegal. It is, however, unconscionable.
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GE Stabs the US in the Back”


Warren Buffet Tax Shirker and Hypocrite

-By Warner Todd Huston

Why is it that every time we meet yet another socialist-loving, left-winger he ends up being an utter hypocrite? This time it’s tax-whiner — and now known tax shirker — Warren Buffet, the investment giant that has been telling anyone that will listen that “the rich” don’t pay enough in taxes.

Well, apparently, he’s right, the rich don’t pay enough in taxes. Well, not in general, just in his specific case, anyway. The New York Post has discovered that his famous company, Berkshire Hathaway, has unpaid back taxes going back to 2002 and have even more recent taxes left unpaid.

This cretin has been going around in his Obama-infused stupor insisting that “the rich” need to be destroyed because they don’t pay enough taxes, and he, himself hasn’t even paid what he owes?

That takes a lot of gall, doesn’t it? Whining for more of Obama’s onerous tax schemes when he hasn’t even paid what he owes in the first place!
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Warren Buffet Tax Shirker and Hypocrite”