-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”
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 — 
Recently, an 
I go after the left all the time for opposing free speech and for doing its best to shut down citizens, especially at townhall events. Well here is an example of a Republican doing the same thing. His actions are those I’d instantly condemn were it a left-wing Democrat (but I repeat myself) perpetrating it. And so, I similarly condemn Rep. Steve Chabot (R, OH 1st District) for acting the jackbooted authoritarian at his recent townhall.
The most well known is 
The Hill has an interesting, if not 
OK, what’s the deal, here? I thought all the rich folk was s’possed to be Republican? But in 
It has been a tough few decades for high-end military procurement, for sure. Promising projects, hardware, weapons systems, trains, planes, and automobiles — not to mention numerous boats — have been started, millions spent on them, only to be unceremoniously cancelled due to those pernicious political whirlwinds. Our nation has an aging military infrastructure and we are losing ground to other nations.
I was happy to have been invited to a presentation of the F-35 in Rockford, Illinois put on by Lockheed Martin. There I heard about the F-35 from its development team, I heard from two Illinois congressmen, and was fortunate enough to have had a chance to fly the cockpit simulator (very fun, by the way).
I usually live Tweet many events like this at my Twitter account: