Progressive Education Circus Goes to Washington

-By Larry Sand

The folks who have resisted real education reform will attempt to sell their broken ideas, tax-the-rich schemes and radical socialism in D.C. next month.

Sorry to be the bearer of unpleasant news, but the SOS (Save Our Schools) March on Washington — an attempt to con the public by diverting the debate away from real education reform issues like failing schools, irresponsible spending, retaining bad teachers, etc. – will be setting up their Big Top in Washington D.C. from July 28th to July 31st.

The annoying whiny voice in the SOS promotional video is probably an indication as to what the tone of the event will be. Its endorsers are the usual motley collection of progressive educators, socialist organizations and teachers unions that one would expect – Diane Ravitch, Jonathan Kozol, Students for a Democratic Society, the Freedom Socialist Party and the National Educational Association are just a few of the individuals and organizations lending their name to this circus. I will be reporting more on the event in the weeks to come.
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Progressive Education Circus Goes to Washington”


Conn. Unions Have Trouble Reading Hand Writing on Wall

-By Warner Todd Huston

Cities, counties and states (not to mention the federal gov’t) all across the country are overspent, out of cash, and deeply in the red. One reality that has been hitting all these government entities has been a series of tough negotiations with government employee unions. Unions are loathe to take cuts, certainly, but the reality is that in many cases it’s either cuts or layoffs. More and more unions are realizing this and taking the cuts to avoid losing jobs. The foolish government employees in Connecticut seem to be insensible to reality, though.

Strangely enough, even the government union bosses in Connecticut understood the pickle they were in. Union bigwigs negotiated cuts with the Democrat controlled state legislature and Democrat Governor Daniel Malloy. They did this with the understanding that none of their rank and file would lose their job.

Unfortunately for the unions, many of the members seem too foolish to “get” it. They voted the concessions down. Now Governor Malloy is saying he has little choice but to get rid of thousands of workers.

Nice move, fellows.
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Conn. Unions Have Trouble Reading Hand Writing on Wall”


Wisc. Teachers Protest Working an 8-Hour Work Day

-By Warner Todd Huston

Green Bay TV reported on June 21 that the teachers union in Green Bay, Wisconsin is incensed that the school district is demanding that teachers work an extra half hour a day, making their hours a set 8-hour day, or a 40-hour work week. In turn, this absurd ire displayed by teachers is incensing local Green Bay residents.

“They need to be the professionals that they are supposed to be. They sound like a bunch of idiots and they look like a bunch of idiots, they make the rest of us look bad,” said a listener to the Vicki McKenna Show.

Naturally the teachers union president assumes all you Green Bayers are stupid, that you don’t understand the issues, and says that she won’t listen to her critics, anyway.
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Wisc. Teachers Protest Working an 8-Hour Work Day”


Roskam: The Dems Are Out of Touch‏

From the office of Rep. Peter Roskam (R, IL)…

We’re at a crossroads in America. The Obama economy continues to underperform: 9.1% national unemployment, 14 trillion in debt, and a potential double-dip recession on the horizon. Even with all of America’s assets, endless potential, and the unrelenting American spirit, this Administration has led our country astray with one failed policy after another.

Americans are tired of the Obama Administration’s continual underperformance and seemingly never-met expectations: an $800-billion failed “stimulus” and the promise that summer 2010 would be “recovery summer.” Yet, even in the face of proven failure and a weak economy, the Democrats that run Washington continue to cheerlead for their failed policies.

Just weeks ago, Democrat National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz actually told NBC’s Meet the Press that Democrats have “turned this economy around.”
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Roskam: The Dems Are Out of Touch‏”


Sarah Palin: America’s Real Frontrunner; Still on the Back Burner?

-By Rev Michael Bresciani‏

I have heard of starting an article with a disclaimer but never with an apology. It isn’t so much about breaking new ground in journalism but it is about respect for all our candidates that causes me to say that they all seem like a group of the very best gentlemen and ladies and all deserve to be heard out and considered.

I have enough trouble trying to get Americans to see that while the economy and jobs may be on the top of the list as a campaign war cry that is not all there is to the restoration of America. We must return to the rule of law and stop trying to quash every inference to God from our schools, public discourse and everyday life. Need I mention the abortion scourge and our plunge into unbridled immorality yet once again?

Our moral strength is inextricably entwined with our economic well being. This is a fact I have been pounding away at for years even as I have watched our nation teeter and scramble like so many blind men stumbling and falling just trying to find the door.
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Sarah Palin: America’s Real Frontrunner; Still on the Back Burner?”


Greece Is the Word

-By Frank Salvato

Greece, the cradle of democracy, is experiencing chaotic violence at the hands of Socialists and anarchists. That country’s Socialist government has come to a moment in time – like most Socialist and Marxist enterprises – when the system has failed. The promises of the Nanny State and prefectorial centralized government have come up empty and “the people” are angry as a result. Of course, “the people,” the ones who, today, are refusing to realize that you can’t bleed a turnip, are exactly the ones who are to blame for the situation they are in. If the citizenry of the United States of America isn’t careful and willing to make some painful adjustments, economically, we may be starring this future directly in the eye.

Today, We the People – we Americans, stand at a moment in time when a very hard decision needs to be made; honestly, the fate of the nation rides upon it. We can either follow the path of the Socialist Greeks; the path that has led them to national bankruptcy, debt and that nation’s unenviable position as the fuse for a global economic chain reaction that would send the world into the depths of an economic abyss the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Great Depression, or we can feel a good deal of pain in the form of sacrifice so that our country might continue to exist for future generations.

At this crossroads, We the People find ourselves confronted by some very uncomfortable questions. Are we willing to push ourselves back from the “feed trough” of government dependence? Are we willing to embrace self-imposed personal responsibility, charity and self-reliance? Or are we too uncaring of our nation’s well-being that greed is somehow justified; too narcissistic to abstain from the too easy to attain government entitlement; too self-absorbed and addicted to the “I’ve got mine, to Hell with you” machinations of the Progressive “Me Generation”?
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Greece Is the Word”


More Obama Ignorance on Jobs, Economy: One Week Automation is Bad, the Next its Good

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember last week how President Obama was railing about how evil ATMs were because they somehow took away people’s jobs. This evil, evil automation was bad on June 14, right? Well today, only eleven days later, suddenly Barack Obama is all about automation and how wonderful it is…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Sen. Johnson: Obama and his Administration Have ‘Little Experience in Manufacturing or Business’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Senator Ron Johnson (R, Wis.) commented in advance of the President’s speech on manufacturing and is here to tell President Obama, “the government doesn’t create jobs, it creates debt and it is the private sector that creates long-term, self-sustaining jobs.”

Today the President is traveling to Pittsburgh to talk about manufacturing. As a person who spent 31 years building a successful manufacturing company, I am curious what President Obama might say about manufacturing. He has little personal experience in manufacturing or business. He has very few members within his administration with success in manufacturing or the private sector.

President Obama needs to change his way of thinking. He needs to realize that government doesn’t create jobs, it creates debt. It is the private sector that creates long term, self-sustaining jobs.
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Sen. Johnson: Obama and his Administration Have ‘Little Experience in Manufacturing or Business’”


Contrary to Claim, White House Did Control GM’s Daily Business And Cut Workers Pay?

-By Warner Todd Huston

When Barack Obama threw millions of our tax dollars at General Motors to “save it,” the administration claimed that it would not involve itself in the “day-to-day management” of the venerable car company. New emails obtained by The Daily Caller, however, casts doubt on this claim.

In fact, as Matthew Boyle reports, the emails “reveal that Treasury officials were involved in decision-making that led to more than 20,000 non-union workers losing their pensions.”

It turns out that Treasurer Secretary Timothy Geithner pressured GM, widely derided as Government Motors, to cut the pensions for the salaried, non-union employees at Delphi, a company owned by GM.
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Contrary to Claim, White House Did Control GM’s Daily Business And Cut Workers Pay?”


Kinzinger Urges Passage of Jobs and Energy Permitting Act

From the Office of Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R, IL)…

Washington, D.C. – Today, Congressman Adam Kinzinger (IL-11), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, spoke out on the floor of the House in support of H.R. 2021, the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act of 2011. This bipartisan legislation would ease the permitting process in order to increase domestic energy production opportunities, reduce our addiction on foreign oil and create American jobs.

“The American people are beginning to understand that this Administration and its agencies are having real consequences and real impacts on the unemployment rate, on the joblessness and on the price we are paying on a barrel of oil and a gallon of gasoline,” said Kinzinger. “Every dollar that a gallon of gasoline increases, it is a regressive tax on Americans. Meanwhile, we sit around and argue while bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. have their way.”

Development in two of Alaska’s Arctic seas (the Beaufort and Chukchi), which contain up to 27.9 billion barrels of oil and 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, could deliver up to 1 million barrels of oil per day of domestic energy.

Congressman Kinzinger represents the Eleventh Congressional District which is home to three nuclear power plants, hydropower plants, ethanol and biodiesel plants, and an oil refinery. The district embodies the all-of-the-above approach to energy that Kinzinger stands for. Nuclear energy production alone employs more than 2,500 people through the Illinois Valley.

http://kinzinger.house.gov/


No Hiccups in State’s Construction Plan‏

From the Office of GOP Minority Leader Tom Cross…

After action by the General Assembly today — the state’s construction program will continue without interruption this summer keeping tens of thousands of people on the job repairing our state’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

This is another example of the General Assembly working together this session to achieve the common goal to put our state back on the right track.

We worked together to pass a budget that spends less money than we did last year—and made some tough choices to keep our spending down.

This has to be our new way of life.

We are not finished working on budgets that continue to bring our spending under control and reforming our government to make our state a place we can be proud of.

CLICK HERE to watch my comments on the House Floor today.


Dems Plan Proves Medicare Dead by 2024

-By Warner Todd Huston

Congressman Peter Roskam, House GOP Deputy Majority Whip, got on record the fact that as things stand right now Medicare is dead by 2024. No ifs, ands, or buts, unless a major overhaul of the system is undertaken, Medicare is done in a little more than a decade.

Before congress two officials testified that based on our current path in 2024 there would be “actual” cuts to Medicare at 17%. They also confirmed that Medicare would end itself by 2024 unless actions are taken to save the program.

Democrats have tried to claim that it is Republican cost cutting that dooms Medicare, but this is simply untrue. Bt the very rules under which it now works, it seems that Medicare is already headed for doomsday.
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Dems Plan Proves Medicare Dead by 2024″


A Spending Increase in Springfield‏

Following the passage of a record tax hike earlier this year, politicians from both parties promised fiscal austerity. As some would tell it, they’ve delivered on that promise by passing a budget containing cuts.

But the truth is they have not delivered on that promise. At least not yet.

Our analysis shows how – contrary to promises and reports of a leaner budget – the plan passed by the General Assembly amounts to a significant spending increase compared to last year. This budget will lead to billions in new deficit spending over the coming decade, while setting the stage for extending the tax increases. It cannot stand. To learn more about this, watch this video of highlights from our press conference yesterday:

Bottom line: Spending is still too high. The credibility of politicians who promised an end to tax-and-spend habits and gimmickry is on the line. Additional reductions must be made, and they must be made now.

Call your state legislator today, and let them know what you think about unchecked spending growth.

Kristina Rasmussen
Executive Vice President
Illinois Policy Institute
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A Spending Increase in Springfield‏”


The Strategic Debate We Need To Have

– By Jeff Lukens

The U.S. federal debt is our nation’s greatest strategic weakness. As the debt continues to grow, our military posture around the globe is threatened. Defense cuts are coming, and with that reduction must come a reduced mission. In this environment, what our nation’s strategic mission should be, and what the corresponding defense funding should be to meet that need, are open questions. They are questions that need to be openly explored by politicians and the American people alike.

In a recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “A smaller military, no matter how superb, will be able to go fewer places and do fewer things.” Ever the public servant, Gates seeks to kindle a debate the country seems reluctant, but needs, to have. It would be an invitation to disaster if we kept the same mission with reduced funding, or a reduced force. By bringing the issue to the public forum, Gates apparently seeks to avoid that calamity.

The core Pentagon budget is now about $530 billion, and accounts for roughly 20 percent of federal spending, and roughly half of discretionary spending. Defense cuts are coming, that much we know for sure, and the easiest of them have already been made. Gates acknowledged that over the past two years, “more than 30 programs (weapon systems, etc.) were canceled, capped, or ended that, if pursued to completion, would have cost more than $300 billion.”
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The Strategic Debate We Need To Have”


Obama: Who Needs Victory When We Can Negotiate With The TahleeBahn?

-By Warner Todd Huston

President Barack Obama came before the American people tonight to unleash his latest campaign speech disguised as a foreign policy address. It was a presentation that even Politico calls “boring and predictable, balanced to please critics,” and one that “did not change the debate about the war.” But, one thing does seem like news. Obama never used the word victory and he also said we’d negotiate with the Taliban – an enemy he annoyingly insists on calling the Tahleebahn.

One singular theme emerged from this speech. Apparently, to President Obama, “victory” does not mean a win, but it only means a settling with negotiations with our enemies. Very Chamberlainesque, isn’t it?

But there were quite a few odd statements made by the president tonight. One was his claim that Usamma bin Laden was the “only leader al Qaeda has ever known.” This is absurd. There have been dozens of al Qaeda leaders and we killed many of them long before we finally got to bin Laden.
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Obama: Who Needs Victory When We Can Negotiate With The TahleeBahn?”


Are We Worse off Under Obama? More Say YES!

-By Warner Todd Huston

While I thought him a great president, I am not one of those conservatives that constantly invoke the name of Ronald Reagan. But one aspect of his 1979 race for president is looking eerily familiar to today’s upcoming 2012 race for the White House.

One of the phrases that helped Reagan win his bid for president in 1980 was his pointed jab of a question put to the American people: are you better off now than you were four years ago (when Jimmy Carter was elected)?…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Healthcare Delusion

-By Frank Hyland

The issue everywhere in the media, at the White House, on Capitol Hill, and around your supper table is healthcare, whether Medicaid, Medicare or the aptly labeled Obamacare. The burning part of the issue is whether “they” owe us healthcare; that is, are we “entitled” to it.

If I walk into a store expecting that I can have anything and everything on the shelves without paying for it, I’d be called a shoplifter, a thief. Gasoline pumps across the nation, including the ones you patronize, feature a photo of a State Trooper warning against filling up and driving off without paying. When the Plumber fixes your Bathroom leak and you pay him with a check that bounces, you have committed fraud and theft. In all these cases, you received something of value from a person (the Plumber) or a group of people (the gasoline station) and you took their product without paying for it.

Why in the world, then, would anyone think they can go to any other individual — a Doctor — or a group of people — a clinic or hospital — and believe that they can have their product without paying for it? Doctors, Nurses, and their staffs, in case some don’t realize it, have families, mortgages, car payments, tuition payments, and grocery bills just like everyone else, like all of us.
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Healthcare Delusion”


Video Interview: Eric O’Keefe and Getting Rid Of Obamacare With The Health Care Compact

-By Warner Todd Huston

Obamacare will sink this country if it is ever allowed to come into full operation. So says Eric O’Keefe, Chairman of Sam Adams Alliance, a Chicago-based, free market organization, and chief advocate for the Health Care Compact, an effort that can replace Obamacare and give us a truly American way to address our healthcare problems.

I met up with Mr. O’Keefe at the RightOnLine conference in beautiful downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota this year and in the following video we talk about a great new way to get rid of Obamacare and solve our healthcare problems at the same time.

Mr. O’Keefe is a principle advocate of the Health Care Compact (healthcarecompact.org), a great 10th Amendment effort to return the problems and solutions of healthcare to the states.

From the Compact’s website:
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Video Interview: Eric O’Keefe and Getting Rid Of Obamacare With The Health Care Compact”


VIDEO: Herman Cain Raises Voice at Blogger, Holds His Ground

-By Warner Todd Huston

Herman Cain appeared at last weekend’s RightOnLine conference (June 18) to two standing ovations. His rousing campaign speech apparently hit all the right notes with the conservative audience in attendance. But afterward, in the blogger access room, there were a few sour notes, in one case Cain even angrily yelled at a blogger over a question hard pressed.

The RightOnLine conference is a get together held annually by Americans For Prosperity and aimed at helping citizens become more involved in their government both on and off the Internet. This year’s event was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota but Cain has spoken at this conference several times in the past.

This time, though, Cain is running for president and questions were a tad less fawning in the blogger access session. Several questions about his refusal to sign the abortion pledge, how his foreign policy ideas are perceived as weak, and his statements on Muslims in his administration got Cain passion flowing and his eyes flashing.

I was at this meeting and was able to get a full video of the session.
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VIDEO: Herman Cain Raises Voice at Blogger, Holds His Ground”


South Carolina Worker Sues Federal Gov’t Over Possible Loss of His Job

-By Warner Todd Huston

Barack Obama’s interference in the business operations of Boeing new Dreamliner manufacturing project will likely cause thousands of workers in South Carolina to lose their jobs. Because of this, one Palmetto State worker is suing the federal government for its part in his probable future job loss.

This is a story about Obama’s status as the top bought-and-paid-for union hack in the country and how he is attempting to use his powers to wield regulations as a tool to punish an American business for wanting to open a new manufacturing plant in South Carolina all because the president feels that a union will be hurt in the process of the creation of thousands of new jobs.

As it happens, airplane manufacturer Boeing wants to open a new manufacturing plant in South Carolina for its new Dreamliner plane because the manufacturer had been having so many union-caused troubles in its Washington State plant.
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South Carolina Worker Sues Federal Gov’t Over Possible Loss of His Job”


New Open Government and Spending Transparency Reforms Introduced

-By Warner Todd Huston

While the Obama administration plays its games with “czars,” more “boards,” and “committees” to implement government accountability policies, Representative Darrell Issa (R, Calif.) has introduced some measures that would do a far better job to meet those goals.

President Obama has touted a “Government Accountability and Transparency Board” (GATB) as well as the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (RATB) meant to bring more accountability to federal actions. But what real power will these “boards” and “committees” have? What real good will they do? Worse, how can we expect boards appointed by the president to shine the light of transparency on the Executive branch?

So, what will these new presidential projects be doing? The GATB “shall work with the RATB to apply the approaches developed by the RATB across Government spending.” Absurdly, these new boards won’t even be making a report for six more months.
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New Open Government and Spending Transparency Reforms Introduced”


Chicago Teachers Losing Their Raises

-By Warner Todd Huston

As the Daley years wound down, Chicago’s public schools teachers were handed an automatic 4 percent raise across the board that was supposed to take effect next year. However, that largess from the taxpayers has just been rescinded by a unanimous vote of the Chicago Public Schools board.

Citing the $712 million budget deficit, the CPS announced that the automatic, meritless raise was simply unjustifiable.

In a statement, schools chief Jean-Claude Brizard said, “I have the utmost respect and admiration for teachers and all that they do for our children. But today’s board action was taken in response to the massive financial crisis facing our system. My team is now tasked with developing a balanced budget and presenting it to the Board and the public in August and our promise remains to minimize any impacts on the classroom and our kids.”
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Chicago Teachers Losing Their Raises”


What Economic Turnaround?

Obama and his cohorts want to sell the American people a bill of goods. DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz is telling the country that Democrats “own” the “recovery.” Only one problem. There ain’t one.

Don’t buy the lies, folks. Don’t do it.


Illinois So Broke They Want to Sell Ads on License Plates

-By Warner Todd Huston

You know things are bad when governments start selling things they “own.” The latest is the state of Illinois so over spent and in a budgetary hole that authorities are floating the idea of selling advertising space on its auto license plates.

The Democrat led general assembly has given the Secretary of State’s office a directive to begin researching the pros and cons of “corporate plates,” or sponsors for license plates (SB1360). The hope is that more money will be brought into the treasury and, perhaps, the state won’t have to raise taxes… as much.
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Illinois So Broke They Want to Sell Ads on License Plates”


Herman Cain: Obama’s NLRB ‘A Direct Assault on the Free Market System’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Presidential candidate Herman Cain (R) recently spoke with FOX Business Network’s (FBN) Neil Cavuto about the dispute between the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Boeing and its impact on the United States economy. Cain said what the NLRB is trying to do keeping Boeing out of Charleston is “a direct assault on the free market system” and he hopes Boeing will “fight it all the way to the Supreme Court if that’s what they have to do.” Cain went on to say it is “uncertainty” that is preventing the U.S. economy from adding jobs in the “private sector” which must be “the engine” for economic growth and it is issues like the NLRB/Boeing dispute that are “killing the engine.”

Cain says that the reason business aren’t hiring is because of the uncertainty that Obama’s policies have visited upon the nation. The “uncertainty about the impact of Obamacare” chief among them.

“We don’t know what the tax rates are going to be at the end of 2013. This economy is stalled. This economy is like a train stuck on the tracks. You have a boxcar full of 15 million people who don’t have jobs, you have a boxcar of businesses that are hanging on. You have a caboose and no engine. They keep feeding the caboose. The caboose can’t pull the train. The private sector has to be the engine. Everything that they are doing, including this National Labor Relations Board issue, is killing the engine.”
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Herman Cain: Obama’s NLRB ‘A Direct Assault on the Free Market System’”


Against The Odds, Right Leads Online

(Ed’s note – I will be flying to Minneapolis to attend the RightOnline.com conference this year. If you have the time or are in the Minneapolis area, do come on out)

-By Erik Telford

Arianna Huffington’s recent mega-payday from AOL was powerful evidence of the tight connection between the hard-left netroots and the online establishment. And AOL isn’t the only web giant to provide apparently favorable treatment to the left. Google has been accused of blocking certain right-wing websites or lowering their standing in search results, and its YouTube subsidiary seems to remove files uploaded by conservatives far more often than offensive content posted by liberals.

The love affair between the tech giants and the big-government left can be traced not only to Silicon Valley’s geographical proximity to San Francisco but also to the two groups’ shared agenda. President Obama’s stated goal of having the FCC regulate the Internet will ensure that bandwidth-heavy websites will not have to pay for the billions of dollars in investments that private broadband companies made. Of course, money from the technology industry flows freely into Democratic coffers.

Yet somehow the right is more than holding its own in the online activism arena.
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Against The Odds, Right Leads Online”


EPA’s Promise of Economic Growth a Sham

-By Warner Todd Huston

Lisa Jackson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is headed to The Hill to testify about the Obama Administration’s newest proposed environmental regulations. Obama’s EPA is claiming that the new rules will bring all sorts of economic growth, but a new report by the National Taxpayers Union puts the administration’s claims in question and shows that the EPA’s “benefits” have no basis in reality.

The new report features economist David Montgomery who reveals the very large net regulatory benefits touted by EPA rely on apples to orange comparisons, where the vast majority of the benefits have none of the financial reality that the costs do. (Click here for a .pdf of the report)…

Read the rest at RightPundit.com.


Illinois Congressmen Help Tip in Big Labor Amendment

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Monday I alerted you all to a jobs-killing, union-favoring amendment being considered in the House of Representatives in Washington, one that needed to be defeated. Unfortunately, the amendment was successful and now, in this dour economy, unions will be able to make matters worse just when we need a shot in the arm. (See previous post for particulars of the bill.)

Sadly, we lost this battle by one stinking vote and this example shows that even though we may have a GOP controlled House of Reps. they still don’t always support conservative measures — and they need to be carefully watched! Those supporting this jobs-killing amendment numbered 204 and those voting in favor of economic success only numbered 203. (25 representatives did not vote at all)

Now, seeing as how I am from Illinois — the most corrupt state in the union — I focused in my previous post on those of the Illinois Republican delegation that had in the past supported Big Labor bills similar to the one in question. So, this is a follow up to that report.
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Illinois Congressmen Help Tip in Big Labor Amendment”