Cause and Effect

-By Dan Scott

Have you ever listened to an argument made plausible by the clever rhetoric of a person skilled in public speaking? How about attending one of those time share sales meetings where you know something is not quite right but you just can’t put your finger on it? In the end, you reject the sales pitch not because of their failure to be persuasive or factual but because deep down inside you know intuitively that somehow what they are pitching can’t possibly be correct and more importantly will separate you from your money. Intuition, which many call the sniff test is an important part of a healthy self- defense mechanism that protects many of us from being conned by fast-talking hucksters even though we can’t articulate exactly what our objection is. We don’t know where the faulty logic begins but we sure know what a faulty conclusion looks like by life experience or effect.

Most confidence men (women) base their persuasive arguments on a plausible false assumption that they get their mark to buy into by condoning the concept. When I speak of condoning, I speak of the failure to assert an objection whereby we demand proof of the assumption being presented to us. The failure to object in essence implies your acceptance of the assertion as fact without proof or truth. A clever lawyer can insert many an unsubstantiated fact via an unchallenged assertion without the need of proof. Much like the false proof in geometry, the failure to question the assumptions whether spoken or unspoken is the basis of many a false conclusion. Using the logic of geometry or even math we can using flawless logic reach the false conclusion by using a false assumption as a starting point. I call this the process of condoning the assumption.
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Cause and Effect”


The Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Guilty

-By Michael M. Bates

These days, Barack Obama would rather talk about his birth certificate than use the word “stimulus.” At the press conference that wouldn’t end last week, Obama was asked if his latest and greatest spending proposal amounted to a second stimulus. He answered, “There is no doubt that everything we’ve been trying to do is designed to stimulate growth and additional jobs in the economy,” but adamantly avoided the dreaded s-word.

That’s understandable. The roughly trillion-dollar stimulus enacted by Obama and his large Democratic majority in Congress has become nearly as big a national joke as Obama himself.

It was an ACORN-sized scam from the beginning. When success is to be substantially measured in “jobs saved,” a criterion that’s unprovable, you know that they know how preposterous their scheme is.
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The Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Guilty”


$20 Mil Wasted on Obama Propaganda Signs

All hail the Obammessiah, the savior of our jobs… well, at least $20 million went to a few sign makers so that Obama could pretend that he saved folk’s jobs, anyway.

You can help shine a light on this wasteful federal spending by taking a photo of an Obama propaganda sign on the side of the road telling us all of Obama’s benevolence and sending it to the House Republicans via this address: stimulussigns@mail.house.gov.


Roskam Responds to Obama’s New Stimulus Plan‏

From the office of Congressman Peter Roskam…

Recently President Obama presented his latest plan to “stimulate” our economy. Although he’s not calling it a stimulus package, the American people are seeing it for what it is – $50 billion of additional government spending. Unfortunately for the President, we’ve already seen the failure of one stimulus, and this new plan is no different.


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Roskam Responds to Obama’s New Stimulus Plan‏”


Report: Pollak for Congress Luncheon raises $150,000 for Campaign (Ill, 9th District)

-By Warner Todd Huston

400 supporters packed the Four Seasons Hotel in beautiful downtown Chicago, Illinois to attend a luncheon for Joel Pollak who is running for Congress from the 9th Congressional District. Pollak’s special guest was Representative Paul Ryan (R, Wis), he of the famous “Roadmap for America’s Future.”

It is encouraging to see so many come out for a Republican candidate in so blue an area as Obama’s home town, Chicago. A wide range of supporters showed from all walks of life.
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Report: Pollak for Congress Luncheon raises $150,000 for Campaign (Ill, 9th District)”


That Stimulating Stimulus Paid for Homemade Porno?

-By Warner Todd Huston


Well if this isn’t a fitting addition to the story of the stimulus what is? The University of Notre Dame in Indiana recently fired an electrical engineering professor over allegations that the prof used $190,000 in federal grant money and matching university funds to buy cameras and other equipment to make homemade porno.

Like a true hair-splitting academic, professor Oliver M. Collins is fighting his firing claiming that the university has no proof that he was the one that made the pornographic images that the university found stored on his university-owned computer. That’s right, he is clueless on how all those porn images got on his computer. Just clueless! And all those cameras he bought with the school’s money? Um… well… he’s going to take up bird watching… maybe?

Collins has filed a lawsuit claiming that the university owes him more than $75,000 in damages. But Collins was later heard telling university officials, “Hey, nice economic package you have there.” But I jest.
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That Stimulating Stimulus Paid for Homemade Porno?”


Cash For Clunkers Hurting Lower Class Car Buyers

-By Warner Todd Huston

In yet another see-I-told-you-so moment, Obama’s cash for clunkers program is now hurting lower income folks who wish to buy used cars by driving costs up an average of $1,800 above what used car prices were at this time last year.

In August of 2009 I wrote that Obama’s cash for clunkers program would “soon be materially hurting the lower middle classes” that aren’t rich enough to buy new cars. With the rule that the cars turned in under the clunkers program had to be destroyed many thousands of good, serviceable used cars were summarily removed from the used market. Fewer cars on the used market means the ones that are left will see higher prices. It’s a simple supply and demand principle here. Apparently Obama was blissfully unaware of such a simple truth.

Now a report on Edmunds Daily, a car shopping advice service website, is saying that used car buyers are seeing an average of $1,800 more on their purchases. On larger-sized autos it’s even higher.

So middle and lower class Americans are almost $2,000 behind before they even decide to try and buy a used car.
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Cash For Clunkers Hurting Lower Class Car Buyers”


Obama Scrubs White House Website of Climate Change Promises, Media Mum

-By Warner Todd Huston

Despite that President Obama made Cap and Trade and other green policy plans a focal point of his early days in office — not to mention his campaign for president — the White House has quietly scrubbed from its official website many of Obama’s promises and green initiatives. I guess the era of Obama really is “change you can believe in”?

Especially interesting it the sudden disappearance of Obama’s plan to commit $150 billion on clean energy research and development.

In 2008 as Obama was preparing to take office he featured on his “Office of the President Elect” website a pledge to spend $150 billion on energy R & D. As of today, that pledge is still there.
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Obama Scrubs White House Website of Climate Change Promises, Media Mum”


State Senator Noland Misleads With Untrue Campaign Mailings

-By Warner Todd Huston

The 22nd State Senate District is being badly served by its incumbent Democrat Mike Noland. Several of the campaign fliers that Noland has sent out to his constituents are filled with half truths and untruths and one of his emailed campaign solicitations was listed as being sent from his taxpayer-funded offices in Springfield and Elgin, a violation of campaign finance laws.

In one flier, Noland claimed he “affected change” in three major areas – creating jobs, achieving ethics reform and fighting for tax relief.

Noland claimed he created jobs by being the chief sponsor of a microloan program for small businesses. But that fact is the bill he sponsored, while it did pass, had all the microloan language stripped from it before passage. As it happens Noland didn’t create a single opportunity as he claimed. His bill was materially altered making his flier claim an outright lie.

The same flier also claims that Noland got “$40 million and 500 jobs for Harper College.” But this is a half truth. While the state did include the $40 million in its future projects, the fact is no $40 has been allocated and the “future projects” plans are not assured to ever be funded. This project may never be funded at all so Noland’s claims are premature at the very least.
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State Senator Noland Misleads With Untrue Campaign Mailings”


Obama’s Union Bailout: A Good Crisis Going to Waste

-By Warner Todd Huston

Even the New York Times can’t ignore the fact that Obama’s latest union bailout cash isn’t going to help anyone keep their jobs, and The New York Times is really good at ignoring things that make Democrats look bad.

A few weeks ago Nancy Pelosi called the House of Representatives back into a special session because there was a crisis in education, don’t you know. It was a crisis that she didn’t want to go to waste, naturally. As Speaker of the House she had the power — one likely to evaporate with the 2010 elections — to help Barack Obama give his union pals another $26.1 billion of the taxpayer’s money and she couldn’t resist the urge to fill pockets with other’s people’s money at least one more time.

Early in August, Pelosi triumphantly announced on her Twitter feed, “I will be calling the House back into session early next week to save teachers’ jobs and help seniors & children.”

We’re helping old people, it’s for the children, we are saving teacher’s jobs. It’s a crisis that we can’t ignore, darn it! Yes, Rahm, it’s also a crisis that we can’t let go to waste.
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Obama’s Union Bailout: A Good Crisis Going to Waste”


Who is ‘Extreme’ Again, Mr. Obama?

The National Republican Senatorial Committee put out a good one…

It seems beyond question that President Obama and his Party are not in good stead with the American public these three months ahead of the election. A majority of Americans even feel that the Democrats are too extreme. Can the GOP make hay on this fact? This ad sure does a good job of trying anyway.


Congress’ Spending FAIL Map

-By Warner Todd Huston

Want to know a few of the outrageous wastes of the taxpayer’s money as funded by Obama’s so-called stimulus that happened in your state?

Check out the Bankrupting America Spending FAIL map to see if your state got and wasted some of this “free” cash.

Not every state is yet represented on the map, but you can click around and see some of the vast waste of money across the country that the Obama stimulus went to fund.

The map is sponsored by BankruptingAmerica.org.

And here is their hilarious video showing the sort of waste we are getting out of the “stimulus.”


New GOP Video: Deficit of Hope

“The American people have seen who is benefiting from Obama’s economy and it isn’t them. Barack Obama’s looming tax hikes on small businesses, job-killing regulations, and big government takeovers have created an economic climate saturated with uncertainty that is keeping employers from hiring. As a result, unemployment remains near 10 percent, nearly one in five Americans cannot find adequate work, and more people are losing their homes. In the meantime, President Obama has insisted upon leaving behind a mountain of debt and record deficits for future generations to pay. If Obama’s economy is all Democrats have to offer, the American people will vote to fire Nancy Pelosi and put this Democratic Congress out of business.”
– RNC Chairman Michael Steele

Not bad. The only thing I can say is that the lettering on the chryon should have been a tad larger to fill up the screen better. They get a little lost when you have to downsize the video to 400 pixels. Still, it’ll work.

Of course, there is one more aspect to this campaign season that is amazing if you think about it. Did you ever think that the GOP would be able to campaign against Obama himself? When he won that great election victory in 2008 and as he campaigned how the Old Media destroyed anyone that spoke against him as a “racist,” I’d have thought then that the GOP would never be able to run against Obama himself. But with the socialist direction he’s taken, with his tone deaf left-wingism, with his utter failure on the economic front — nearly a constant 10% unemployment rate — with his massive failures overseas with foreign policy, with his failure to even satisfy his extremist left-wing voting base by putting all their pet policies into place… the guy is a major disaster.

So, after one of the biggest electoral victories in decades, now he’s done so poorly in just a year and a half that the GOP has no fear at all of actually running against the president himself. Instead of merely alluding to him, they can level a finger directly in his face.

If nothing else, this fact alone shows what a failure Obama’s been. He’s utterly squandered his near total authority as the right man for the job. He’s fallen so far that his opponents no longer fear invoking his name as an example of failure.


‘Tax Extenders’ Bill: Another Democrat Bailout of Special Interests

-By Warner Todd Huston

The so-called “tax extenders” bill that was initially part of the unemployment package that Congress passed last month is still on the table. It was separated from the unemployment bill because the GOP opposed its inclusion and for good reason. It is little else but a sop to special interests and big corporations.

The Democrats claim that this bill will provide “broad-based” tax relief for “average American businesses.” But snuggly hidden inside this bill are a regalia of “earmarked” tax loopholes for some of the Democrats biggest donors, corporations that hardly need any tax relief.

The Democrats have been trying to get this sop to special interests passed in one form or another all year but so far no luck. This time the Democrats are trying to graft another version of tax extenders to legislation that would give the states $26 billion to pay for state health and education programs.
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‘Tax Extenders’ Bill: Another Democrat Bailout of Special Interests”


Ohio’s Dem. Gov. Gave Stimulus $$ to Co. That Exported Jobs to El Salvador

-By Warner Todd Huston

What was it that Democrat President Barack Obama told us about the stimulus? Oh, yeah that it would “save or create” American jobs. Seems like a good idea, right? So what happened in Ohio when Democrat Governor Ted Strickland got his mitts on some of Obama’s stimulus cash? Why he gave it to a company to fund a call center that is operating out of El Salvador, Central America, of course.

Jobs for Americans? Heck no, jobs for El Salvadorans! And why? Because it was a good deal, you see?

Earlier this year Governor Strickland’s Department of Development awarded a $171,300 contract to a company named Parago. This company was hired by the state to operate a call center that Ohio residents can call to take advantage of a rebate program that the state set up so that Buckeyes could buy new household appliances and get a little sumpthin’ back.

Apparently everything was going wonderfully for most of this year until one Ohio resident happened to ask one of the El Salvadoran phone jockeys where the call center was at which they were taking the calls. When the Buckeye was told Central America, said resident became incensed that federal “stimulus” money was going to fund jobs in El Salvador instead of in the United States — like Obama promised it would.
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Ohio’s Dem. Gov. Gave Stimulus $$ to Co. That Exported Jobs to El Salvador”


The People Versus the Government

-By Alan Caruba

These are truly extraordinary times. With every passing day, we are witnessing what can only be called the People versus the Government. The distrust and disdain Americans of all political persuasions feel toward the White House and Congress is extraordinary.

A June Gallup Poll revealed that just 12% of Americans expressed confidence in Congress, “the lowest of the 16 institutions tested this year, and the worst Gallup has measured for any institution in the 35-year history of the question.” A recent Rasmussen Reports survey found that 68% believe the nation’s Political Class doesn’t “care what most Americans think.”

The so-called Stimulus Act was widely seen as a “porkulous” act; over two thousand pages filled with Congressional pork projects passed off as “shovel ready.” It promised to reduce unemployed which since has risen—officially—from 8.5% to just under 10%.
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The People Versus the Government”


Want Economic Stimulus? Don’t Build a Sports Stadium!

-By Warner Todd Huston

For the last few decades sports teams across the country have nosed up to the public trough and demanded that states and cities chip in millions for the construction of new sports stadiums. To justify the public expense the claim has been made that these monstrous construction projects bring a wealth of jobs and spending on entertainment and are a boon to any city that will fund them. But are they? Do these multi-million dollar projects bring such lucrative benefits to the cities and states that pay through the nose for them?

For many years the “economic boom” idea of building stadiums seemed to make sense and city after state pumped billions of taxpayer’s dollars into such projects. But starting in the early 2000s, economists began to have enough data to show that the claims of beneficial end result of building stadiums was not as advertised.

In fact, these days economists that disagree amongst each other about so much have developed a wide consensus based on the belief that sports teams in and of themselves are not great economic engines for a city and that building giant new stadium complexes are not the automatic boon to the area such as they were sold.
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Want Economic Stimulus? Don’t Build a Sports Stadium!”


Wrong Again

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Senator Charles Schumer is either an economic ignoramus, or he is just performing the usual Democrat/Socialist Party obeisance to the welfare state and labor union extortion.

New York’s Senator Charles Schumer wants to impose a punitive tax on all American companies that employ overseas call centers for customer support.

“English speaking workers, whether they are in Indonesia, Canada, the Philippines, South Africa, are willing to work longer hours for lower wages and as a result Americans lose their jobs,” Schumer said.

How will job creation be improved in the United States by raising businesses’ costs? Will businesses be more able to compete in global markets and protect jobs in the United States? How will consumers be helped when businesses have to raise their prices to cover the new taxes and related costs?
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Wrong Again”


ShoreBank Rally on Wednesday at Noon‏

From Tea Party Patriots Chicago…

We’re holding a rally against the ShoreBank bailout on Wednesday, June 9 at noon outside the downtown location of ShoreBank at 134 N. LaSalle Street, across the street from City Hall. Joel Pollak, candidate for U.S. Congress (IL-9), and Isaac Hayes, candidate for U.S. Congress (IL-2), are scheduled to speak at the rally. We will be handing out fliers to educate the public on the corrupt, politically connected bailout of ShoreBank.

ShoreBank has received $35 million in stimulus funds, $75 million from companies that have received bailout money (Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, GE), and now they’re hoping to receive another $75 million in taxpayer money. ShoreBank provided Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Trinity United Church with a $10 million line of credit – now they need a bailout. We hope this rally can bring attention to this issue and help prevent this looting of our treasury. ShoreBank is attempting to cash-in on their connections with Barack Obama, Jan Schakowsky, Robert Creamer, Dick Durbin, Van Jones and more. At the very least, no taxpayer money should go to ShoreBank until there is a forensic audit of their finances.
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ShoreBank Rally on Wednesday at Noon‏”


Obama’s House of Cards

-By Alan Caruba

Ever since polls have been taken there have been presidents who encountered disapproval during their terms in office. Usually history exonerates them to some degree. This is not likely to happen with Barack Obama.

As this is written, a Politico.com polls puts Obama’s job disapproval rating at 46.4% and Congress has a disapproval rate of 72%, a figure matched by Rasmussen Reports. Obama’s disapproval rate according to Rasmussen was 44%.

Polls, we are always told, are “snapshots” of public opinion at a given time, but the polls consistently tell us that the vast majority of Americans disapprove of the President and Congress, and believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction.

In a recent Wall Street Journal column, Peggy Noonan, wrote “I don’t see how the president’s position and popularity can survive the oil spill. This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office. And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president’s judgment and instincts.”

Suffice it to say that, if elections were being held next Tuesday, voters would replace most of those in Congress and, if Obama’s ratings continue to fall—-and I think they will—-there would be an angry mob surrounding the White House carrying torches and pitchforks demanding his resignation.
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Obama’s House of Cards”


Energy Policy? What Energy Policy?

-By Alan Caruba

When the government controls the provision of energy, it controls the lives of all citizens and the growth or failure of the nation’s economy. Everything else, including national defense, runs second when it comes to this single factor.

Recently the fourth annual survey of more than a hundred executives in the U.S. and Canadian electric and natural gas industries was released by Platts and Capgemini. Platts is a global provider of energy and metals information and Capgemini is a leading provider of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The objective of the survey was to determine the opinion of energy industry executives regarding the first year and a half of the Obama administration’s energy policies.

The Obama administration’s energy policy is to have as little as possible.

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Energy Policy? What Energy Policy?”


Obama Forcing Gov’t Costs to Rise With Union Sop

-By Warner Todd Huston

Here we are in an economic downturn and Barack Obama is forcing government costs to rise. The Detroit News has noticed it, too, with a recent editorial on Obama’s absurd “responsible contractor” rule on vendors that contract with the federal government.

This new rule would force all vendors that contract with the government to exist under union rules, union pay scales, and union pensions, whether they belong to a union or not. Even entities that are not unionized will be forced to observe union rules if this plan is implemented.
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Obama Forcing Gov’t Costs to Rise With Union Sop”


Panic on Wall Street?

-By Don Boys, Ph.D.

One of the oldest French banks, Société Générale, tells clients how to prepare for potential global collapse within the next two years according to a headline in London’s Telegraph, Dec. 2, 2009! That was a “global” collapse! And some of my friends suggest that I am an extremist! Yes, I have said that panic (an out-of-control response to economic collapse) was coming to the U.S. and the world economy not because I am a prophet but because I can connect the dots. Moreover, I expect the panic to reach Main Street where chaos will reign.

For a few years, I have been warning that panic is coming to the market. When that happens, everyone will know because Main Street will feel it bad. When the stock market was over 10,000 and gold was under $300.00, I told a stockbroker friend that the market would fall to 5,000 and gold would go to $2000. Recently, I told him I was fearful that he might have jumped from his penthouse apartment because of market volatility and massive fluctuations. Not yet, but he’s sitting on the ledge! Most brokers say that now is a great buying opportunity, but if you keep dealing with a broker that’s what you will be–broke. Others say, “go with the flow,” but you will likely go down the drain!

I have been trying to get people to get out of the market (unless they have taken precautions) for almost ten years, but they heard talk of a 36,000 Dow (from people who benefited from such talk) and what do I know! Some friends and subscribers did cash out and have called or written to thank me. Others stayed in hoping to recoup their losses. I think every investor should take advantage of any temporary market surge to minimize their losses–cash out. After all, something is better than nothing. The panic hasn’t started yet! Wait until masses of people call their mutual fund and get a recording or a constant busy signal! If you can’t reach them, you can’t sell. When everyone runs for the exit at the same time, many people are trampled in the stampede. Don’t get caught.
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Panic on Wall Street?”


Americans for Prosperity: A Message to Governor Quinn‏

Americans for Prosperity applauds Governor Quinn for opening an online comment portal offering the general public an opportunity to view and comment on the states budget dilemma.

On March 10, 2010 Governor Quinn will be making his annual budget address. Governor Quinn has made it clear that he believes the only way out of the states financial mess is to raise our taxes.

Americans for Prosperity strongly disagrees!
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Americans for Prosperity: A Message to Governor Quinn‏”


Fiscal Responsibility Lasted Two Weeks In Senate

-By Warner Todd Huston

Two weeks ago the U.S. Senate passed new rules that would require new spending to be offset somewhere else in the budget, the so-called paygo rule. They did this because Democrats and Obama got tired of being called big spending socialists and wanted the veneer of fiscal responsibility with which to cloak themselves. It lasted two weeks before the Senate broke its own new Obama-sponsored rule and went headlong for just another big spending program with its supposed jobs bill.

On February 13 President Obama celebrated the paygo rule as a “common sense” rule that would “rein in spending.” Obama then said that the new rule would assure that Congress would be forced to “pay for what it spends, just like everybody else.”

It all sounds so grand. But it wasn’t to last. Maybe that’s why the Senate couldn’t abide by the rule, it was too much “common sense” for them to put up with?
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Fiscal Responsibility Lasted Two Weeks In Senate”


Our Kids Will Pay For It

-By Vince Johnson

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
The Speaker
U.S. House of Representatives
H-232 U.S. Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Madam Speaker:

This will convey the suggestion that you stand before a high school student body in the state of Oregon and explain how it is constitutional and ethical to borrow several trillion dollars from their future without their knowledge or consent. The phrase “without their knowledge” is defined as: “Without any serious effort to explain how this huge amount of debt will create a tax burden far greater than any previous generation in our nation’s history has ever faced.”
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Our Kids Will Pay For It”


Union Admits Buying Politician, Wants $ Back

-By Warner Todd Huston

When an average citizen donates money to a politician it is usually because that citizen believes in the politician and wants to help him have the war chest to conduct a campaign. Unions like to pretend that they donate to politicians out of the goodness of their hearts, just like common citizens do. Everyone knows, though, that they are merely making an attempt to buy them. A union in Alabama has as much as admitted that they were trying to buy a politician, but when he didn’t dance to their tune, these union folks demanded their contributions back.

Al Henley, secretary-treasurer of the Alabama AFL-CIO, seems to be a mite miffed with Alabama Representative Parker Griffith. You’ll recall that Griffith was the one-time Democrat who jumped the sinking Donkey ship and became a Republican late last year.

Apparently while he was a Democrat the AFL-CIO had no problem giving him campaign money. Now that he’s a Republican, though, the union has taken sudden umbrage at Griffith’s voting record. “Parker Griffith, we feel you have swindled us,” Henley said at a recent rally in Hunstville, Alabama.
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Union Admits Buying Politician, Wants $ Back”


Liberal Virus Alert! Reprogramming the Language of Job Creation

-By Norvell S. Rose

I thought I would take the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the Obama stimulus package to issue an urgent warning: Don’t let your thinking be infected by the left’s insidious attack on the language of job creation in the United States. We must not allow the destructive virus of big government to reprogram our discourse – how we seek to understand and deal with issues surrounding labor and employment in the American free market.

If we don’t guard against this incessant viral attack, the operating system of our cherished free enterprise will become totally corrupted. And our drive for self-determination will inevitably crash.

Make no mistake – President Obama and his conniving crew are engaged in a purposeful, methodical campaign of thought-bending. Every policy they propose, every discussion they promote, every media move they make – all are designed to establish and implant in our language and culture a new framework for discussing and developing jobs.

That new socialist structure: government = jobs.
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Liberal Virus Alert! Reprogramming the Language of Job Creation”


$135 Million of Your Money Wasted on ‘Green Wall’ In Oregon

-By Warner Todd Huston

About $135 million of our tax dollars in federal stimulus is being wasted on an upgrade for the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in Portland, Oregon, one aspect of which is the so-called “green wall.” Why wasted? Because no one even knows if this “green wall” will even work and no engineering solutions have been found to make it work. Many say the whole thing is impracticable.

The Associated Press starts its report on this project with a skeptical tone and if Obama’s stimulus project has lost the AP, he’s in deep trouble. “They haven’t figured out yet how to get the pruning done,” the AP begins, “but architects and federal officials plan one of the world’s most extensive vertical gardens in downtown Portland — what amounts to a series of 250-foot-tall trellises designed to shade the west side of an 18-story office building.”

The idea is to have the entire western wall of this building affixed with a trellis that will have planters for greenery in them. These “vegetated fins” are supposed to help the building better regulate its internal environment and use less energy to heat and cool.

The big problem is, though, no one has any idea if the concept will actually work as advertised. Not only that, but no one knows if all this vegetation will even stay alive. On top of it all, there is no real certainty that building operators will be able to even water all these thousands of yards of plants.
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$135 Million of Your Money Wasted on ‘Green Wall’ In Oregon”