Serrano: End Term Limits on Presidency

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Of the 535 members of Congress, at least 400 are there too long as measured by non-partisan researchers on the fiscal responsibility and Constitutional integrity side. On the single issue special interest side they love longevity in their “honest” politicians which they define as those who, once bought, stay bought.

So, when selecting who is next I have lots of choices. I ran with Byrd and Kennedy recently because they were such egregious examples for term limits and they will soon both be gone simply because they can’t live forever. I picked Waxman and Markey because of their disastrous Cap & Tax Bill that was current. Now, I select Jose Enrique Serrano because of recent developments in Latin America with ramifications for the US.

Born in Puerto Rico and raised since age 7 in the Bronx, Serrano is one of the most liberal members of congress getting the lowest (F) rating from the non-partisan National Taxpayers Union (NTU) and single-digits score out of 100 from the Club for Growth. He says he’s a Roman Catholic but he’s a divorced father of four who votes consistently pro-abortion. He was in the NY State Assembly from 1974 until he was elected to Congress in 1990. He gets reelected with over 90% of the vote in one of the poorest and most densely populated districts in the country, the South Bronx. Like the others he has had no practical business or professional experience to bring to the Congress –it is all politics with him as with our other poster children. And his record shows that it is not American Constitutional Republic politics, either.

Poster Child John Murtha in November 2005 proposed a bill in congress for immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq – there were only three votes in favor of it: Serrano and two other extreme leftists, Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and Robert Wexler who represents a district in Florida, but who lives in Maryland. Even Murtha didn’t vote for it. Go figure.
Serrano calls Puerto Rico a US “colony” to make it sound like a bad thing. Actually, it is a benign protectorate if you can call it anything; it is such a unique situation. Puerto Rico has three times voted against becoming a U.S. state despite the Democrats spending millions to promote Statehood that would give them two additional U.S. Senators and 6 to 8 additional Members of the House. That’s more Reps than half of our states. H.Con.Res.11, introduced by Serrano, includes in it an attack on English as our national language and demands that the federal government "oppose" our many state laws and bills that designate English as our official language. Serrano's statehood bill, H.R.900, would have set up two plebiscites that rig the process to deceive Puerto Ricans into voting for statehood.
The Puerto Rican independence faction is tiny but they are militant and have been responsible for domestic terrorist incidents in the United States. In 1954 they shot up the House of Representatives injuring six congressmen. Altogether the FALN as they are known killed six and injured many more in 130 bombings from 1974 to 1983. Serrano was one of the most zealous advocates of clemency for the terrorists and President Clinton finally did grant them clemency at his urging. Some say he promised the Puerto Rican vote in NY for Hillary’s Senate run.
Serrano and fellow poster child Sen. Dodd offered legislation that would end restrictions on trade or financial transactions with Cuba. They also would end bans on travel and related transactions as well and their Bill would abolish limits on the amount any person can remit to Cuba. Both poster children have been Castro-friendly for a long time.
One of Serrano’s favorite people is Hugo Chavez: He told reporters, “When Hugo Chavez was scheduled to come to New York for the U.N., I, as you know, have been a strong supporter of his attempts at bringing social justice to Venezuela, and I have been a strong critic of our administration’s desire to undo his government and to try to overthrow and who knows what else. So I thought it was a great opportunity to invite him to the Bronx. And he wanted to meet with community organizations, and you all reported on that visit. It was a wonderful visit.” Those types are strong on community organizing.

One recent event in Latin America that brought Serrano to my attention was Chavez’ elimination of term limits on his office so that, like his friend Castro, he, too, could stay in office for life. Then, the president of Honduras, with help from Chavez, tried to force an unconstitutional referendum to give himself an unlimited term in office. The legislature and the Supreme Court have tried to keep President Manuel Zelaya from his illegal power-grab and the Army had to come in and deport him to prevent a Chavez-backed coup. This brings us to Serrano and term limits.

Rep. Serrano has submitted the following proposed Amendment that could conceivably end up giving Obama lifetime tenure in office. Is that why Obama supports would-be dictator Zelaya in Honduras rather than the Honduran Constitution, Supreme Court and their duly elected legislature?
Serrano’s Proposed Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President:
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:
‘Article–
‘The twenty-second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.’

It may get down to the 22nd amendment some day. An Obama regime, a one-party State supported by armies like ACORN, AmeriCorps and other supporters using the climate change scheme could succeed in turning our Constitutional Republic into just another version of the Soviet Union, if we are not vigilant. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.

The Hero of Chappaquiddick

For many of us who lived during the time in 1969 when the drunken playboy Senator caused the drowning of a 20-something year old girl, we can’t help but recall that horrible night whenever Edward “Teddy” Kennedy’s name comes up. His drunken irresponsibility and his subsequent self-serving lies earned him the appellation “Hero of Chappaquiddick.”

So, let’s get that sordid event out first and then proceed to find out what redeeming accomplishments he may have had subsequently in his 47 years in the US Senate. His supporters call him “The Lion of the Senate” or ‘Conscience of the Democrat Party.” Most Americans under 40 have never even heard the story of how he drove off that bridge after a night of drinking at a party on Chappaquiddick Island and left Miss Mary Jo Kopechne behind to die trapped in the back seat of his Oldsmobile limousine gasping for air as he swam to safety. He then walked back to the party passing several houses and a fire station and got two friends to go back to the scene of the accident with him. He went on to try and formulate an alibi –even trying to get his cousin Joe Garghan to say that he was behind the wheel. He did not make a police report as his friends advised him to; instead Kennedy made his way to his hotel, called his lawyer, and went to sleep. When he did call the police the next morning they had already found the wreck and noted that Kopechne had scratched at the upholstered floor above her head in the upside-down car trying to get out.

The politically powerful Kennedy family called in favors, ensuring that any inquiry would be contained and that the inquest would be conducted in secret. Mary Jo’s corpse was whisked out-of-state to her family, before an autopsy could be conducted. He pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, and was given a SUSPENDED SENTENCE OF TWO MONTHS. There was later an effort to have her body exhumed and autopsied, but her family successfully fought against this in court, and Kennedy's family paid their attorney's bills... a "token of friendship?”

Before we go on to Teddy’s wonderful accomplishments in the Senate we should also note that that he had a few other socially embarrassing times like when at Harvard, he paid another student take a test for him causing him to expelled. He got back in but was caught cheating again and was expelled a second time. So he enlisted in the Army for four years but his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, former U.S. Ambassador to England, pulled the necessary strings to have his enlistment shortened to two years, and to ensure that he served in Europe, not Korea, where a war was raging. Kennedy was assigned to Paris, never advanced beyond the rank of Private having been refused a commission for cheating; he returned to Harvard upon being discharged. While attending law school at the University of Virginia, he was cited for reckless driving four times, including once when he was clocked driving 90 miles per hour in a residential neighborhood with his headlights off after dark. Yet his Virginia driver's license was never revoked. He passed the bar exam in 1959.

There were numerous other incidents of womanizing, drunkenness and other conduct unbecoming…. He often caroused with fellow Senator and fellow Poster Child for Term Limits Chris Dodd -- twice in 1985 they were in drunken incidents in Washington restaurants, with one involving unwelcome physical contact with a waitress. In ’91 he took his nephews out on the town in Palm Beach and that night one of the nephews was credibly accused of rape but he got off, eventually. Reading of this behavior of a US Senator wouldn’t you expect that he would have been replaced by someone who was more respectable? But no, he gets reelected eight times! Incumbency is almost impossible to overcome, especially with a politically connected and powerful family. In predominantly Roman Catholic Massachusetts Kennedy was a prominent Catholic having received his First Holy Communion from Pope Pius XII in the Vatican and married by Cardinal Spellman in 1958 to Virginia Joan Bennett, a beauty queen. It is said that his womanizing drove her to drink and they divorced. They had three children.

Now for the socially redeeming part: considering his longevity, his accomplishments seem scant. He authored or argued for legislation that ensured a variety of civil rights, increased the minimum wage in 1981, made access to health care easier for the indigent, and funded Meals on Wheels for fixed-income seniors and is widely held as the "standard-bearer for liberalism." Kennedy became a committed champion of so-called women's issues and of special rights for homosexuals.

In his very first Senate role, he was the floor manager for the bill that turned U.S. immigration policy upside down and opened the floodgate for immigrants from third world countries. Since that time, he has been an author of every expansion of and increase in immigration, up to and including the latest attempt to grant amnesty to illegal aliens. He has always been the unions’ man for socialized medicine and now the Obama regime is using his name on their bill to take over the health care system of the US. His brain tumor has kept him out of the Senate as this debate goes on.

Kennedy backed the IRA terrorists in Ireland against the British; opposed Nixon’s “vietnamization” of the war after having supported his brother, President John F. Kennedy’s instigation of the Viet Nam war. He fought Ronald Reagan on almost everything –taking the side of the leftists in Nicaragua and El Salvador and in opposing Reagan-supported weapons systems, including the B-1 bomber, the MX missile, and the Strategic Defense Initiative which helped win the Cold War. Kennedy became the Senate's leading advocate for a nuclear freeze. He opposed President Bush on Iraq but worked with him on other issues, including immigration reform and the further intrusion of FedGov into education, the No Child Left Behind Act.

The ACLU, the gun control advocates and the pro-abortion groups rated Kennedy highly while the pro-life groups and the NRA had him at or near zero. His respect for the US Constitution as written was also around zero as his opposition to Supreme Court nominees Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas for their “originalist” interpretation proved. It was Kennedy’s staff that turned Anita Hill against her former boss and Kennedy’s libelous “Robert Bork’s America: speech reached a new low for incendiary rhetoric:
"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens ..."

We featured the two oldest Senators with the longest tenures –Kennedy and Byrd-- as they are on their way out and we thought there were lessons to be learned by our lack of term limits on Congress. Much is left out -- nearly fifty years takes a book or more to tell the whole story. The points I make here tell of self-serving rather than public service and all because these men were permitted to stay in office forever –they’ll probably both die in office. Power does corrupt. Tenure corrupts.

How Do West Virginians Spell Pork? It's B-Y-R-D

Robert C. Byrd was born in 1917 and has been in the US Congress since 1952. He worked as a gas station attendant and grocery store clerk before being elected to the W. Virginia House of Delegates in 1946 and to the W. Va. Senate in 1951. Sometime after he was elected to the US Senate he obtained a law degree. He did have some extra-curricular activities, if not any real job experience, to inform his law-making career. F’instance, he joined the Klu Klux Klan in 1942 and was elected Grand Cyclops and then Kleagle (recruiter). It wasn’t until 1947 that he dropped out as the KKK affiliation was apparently beginning to affect his political life. During that period he made racist remarks, so vicious, that I wouldn’t print them here. Since leaving the Klan he has disavowed them and apologized over and over again.

But when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 came up for a vote, Byrd filibustered against the bill for 14 straight hours! Of course, it passed with 80% Repubs and 63% Dems voting Aye. Byrd is the only Senator to have voted against the nominations of both Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, the only two African Americans to have been nominated to the court. The Dems still call Byrd “the conscience of the Senate.”

He loves animals, though. As proof he was honored by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) as their 2007 Person of the Year. Then he was honored by the Humane Society as a defender of animal rights and the headline was "The Prince of Pork Now Tries to Save the Hog."
Citizens Against Government Waste has an entire page called Byrd Droppings dedicated to Sen. Byrd in honor of his “fiscal incontinence.” CAGW quotes him there, "They call me 'The Pork King,' they don't know how much I enjoy it." (Sounds like our Poster Boy John Murtha.) http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news_byrddroppings “After he secured $97 million in fiscal 1999, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) became the first person in CAGW's Congressional Pig Book history to obtain more than $1 billion in pork for his voters and contributors. So entrenched is he as a result of his enormous earmarks that he has never really had any serious opposition. He explained how career politicians think: "One man's pork is another man's job. Pork has been a good investment in West Virginia. You can look around and see what I've done." If you look around in W. VA you’ll find no less than 40 buildings and projects of all kinds named after him. He set a new standard for taxpayer-funded narcissism by convincing the West Virginia Legislature to erect a statue of himself in the state Capitol. The statue violates state law prohibiting statues of government officials until they have been dead for half a century. Rule of law? Not for entrenched career pols. [Byrd's statue is currently housed in the Capitol Rotunda, as shown in the picture, and it is said if you stand under the statue the senator's hand points directly at your pockets.]
Some other positions: He opposed the Iraq war saying that of the more than 18,000 votes he has cast as a Senator, he is proudest of his vote against the Iraq war resolution. Byrd has also voted for funding the Iraq war with a timetable for troop withdrawal. He voted against the ban on partial birth abortion, then subsequently voted for it. In February 2009 he was one of only two Democrats to vote against the District of Columbia Voting Rights Act of 2009 which provided a voting seat in the House of Representatives. These are just to fill in a quick sketch of the man.
Our point is that when a politician is in congressional politics as a career he does what he has to to stay in office –that is his goal. It is not to “serve” the country by adhering to his oath of office. He “serves” by extracting taxes from one group to serve up to another group who will contribute to his campaign or vote for him. This is vote-buying, not serving. It has been like this for so long that it is hard to remember the citizen-legislator who goes to Washington to perform a civic duty and then goes home and lives under the laws he helped to pass. (There have been a few lately, generally self term-limiters.)
When we had citizen-legislators from The Founders on until 20th century they were men of accomplishment successful at a business or profession and they applied that experience to the benefit of the country. Our Poster Children have not had real-life experience, only political experience, which means that they have no successful insights to apply to those problems that they attempt to solve through legislation. Is it any wonder that our career pols invariably exacerbate virtually every problem they address? Usually, I must add, they are trying to solve problems that they themselves have caused by their taxing and regulating. This current financial crisis is a case in point –see the posters on Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, below.

Pelosi Lies...

Nancy Pelosi is in her 12th term in Congress but, like our other poster children, her experience prior has been all politics –no real life business or professional experience. Her father was a congressman from Maryland; her brother was mayor of Baltimore. She interned for Senator Dan Brewster (D-Maryland) along with Steny Hoyer who is now House Majority Leader as she is now Speaker of the House. After moving to San Francisco in 1969 where her husband’s brother was on the Board of Supervisors, she worked in politics and got to be the Dem party chairman. Then she joined with Congressman Phillip Burton, a vociferous anti-anti-communist at the time. When Burton died his wife took the seat until she died and then Pelosi succeed Mrs. Burton and she’s been there ever since. All of her political experience has been within the radical left or liberal wing of the Dem party.

As one of the richest members of Congress –net worth in excess of $20 million --at age 69 she is not in it for the money at this time, if she ever was. Her motivation seems to be perks and power. She is third in line of presidential succession. Heady stuff.

Investors Business Daily (Apr 27 2009) remembers how outraged Pelosi was when President Bush commuted Scooter Libby’s sentence. “The President's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence does not serve justice, condones criminal conduct and is a betrayal of trust of the American people," she said. "Scooter" Libby went to prison because his memory of events and who said what to whom regarding Valerie Pflame differed from the recollections of others, particularly news reporters. Alleged contradictory statements were portrayed as a deliberate and malicious obstruction of justice. So what about Pelosi? She flat out lied on national TV about CIA briefings she received. On April 23, Pelosi told reporters "we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used." Rather, she said, she recalled being told by the CIA that the techniques "could be used, but not that they would." However, according to a CIA document compiled by Obama’s CIA Director, Leon Panetta, Pelosi was one of the first lawmakers briefed on the interrogations in 2002. In fact, the document lists 40 briefings provided to lawmakers on intelligence, judiciary and other panels, the first of which was provided to then-House intelligence committee chairman Porter Goss and Ms. Pelosi, the ranking Dem on on the committee, Sept. 4, 2002. That briefing is described as covering "enhanced interrogation techniques." It included the use of the techniques on detainee Abu Zubaydah, background on legal authority, and "a description of the particular [enhanced interrogation techniques] that had been employed." Libby differs with a reporter on a time line for inconsequential matters and gets prison; Pelosi lies about national security matters and gets a pass. Mr. Goss (btw, a self term-limiter when in Congress) complained about her and others who “… crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage.”

Once she requested a military plane to fly her to a Democratic Party retreat in Williamsburg, Va. - just a two-hour drive from the nation's capitol. The Defense Department said no. Her ally, Poster Boy John Murtha who chairs the subcommittee that controls the Pentagon’s money, according to a Washington Times report, called Bush officials demanding that they give her the plane. The implied threat that Murtha made: You want money for the Iraq war? You better give the speaker her plane. It was in the same week that Pelosi endorsed a resolution that the president's troop surge is "not in the national interest of the United States," she asked that military resources be diverted to her personal travel. What's her concept of national interest? She is soft on national defense-- on January 5, 2007, reacting to suggestions from President Bush that he would increase troop levels in Iraq, Pelosi joined with Poster Boy Harry “the war is lost” Reid to condemn the plan.

She really enjoys the perks of office at great expense to taxpayers. She insists on commuting to San Francisco using military aircraft to shuttle her, friends and family around the country. Judicial Watch, which obtained e-mails and other documents from a Freedom of Information request, said the correspondence shows Pelosi has abused the system in place to accommodate congressional leaders and treated the Air Force as her "personal airline." Richard Miniter writing in the New York Post says that “She wants to travel in luxury. The Air Force jet is the same size and airframe as the Boeing 757-200, which carries about 300 passengers. The C-32 boasts 42 business-class seats plus a wood-paneled state room, big-screen TV, full-size bed and crew of 16, including uniformed stewards who bring drinks and meals on request. Cost to taxpayers? A round-trip to Rep. Pelosi's home in San Francisco could easily run $300,000. Meanwhile, the same flight on a commercial jet can run less than $300.”

After his reelection President Bush made a valiant attempt to tackle one of the most urgent looming financial problems facing the country: Social Security will be broke in a few years time. He wanted to look at the alternatives and find a solution, including possible privatization. Pelosi strongly opposed the privatization of Social Security, and as minority leader imposed intense party discipline on her caucus, leading them to near-unanimous opposition of Bush's proposal and defeating any efforts to get at the problem.

Pelosi campaigned on the promise that she would clean up the GOP's waste and abuse of taxpayer's dollars. So why doesn't she use the little commuter jet that the Air Force lent to Dennis Hastert, the previous speaker? She said it was "not big enough" to accommodate her staff, supporters and other members of the California delegation. Pelosi doesn't understand why the vice president and first lady rate a bigger plane than she does, when she is two heartbeats away from the presidency. As bad as the Repubs were the Dem speaker has them beat on both wasteful spending and elitism. Then there are the speaker’s concerns about global warming. In flight, the C-32 pumps out 10,000-plus pounds of carbon an hour. How can she have her plane and complain about global warming too?

Her National Taxpayers Union rating going back to 1992 gives her the lowest grade for profligate spending, “F.” In January 2007, a Democratic congressional majority was sworn in that was elected in part by promising fiscal responsibility. The Democrats specifically pledged to limit spending increases and employ pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) budgeting to keep the budget deficit in check. It was a constant refrain from the Speaker. Listening to her one strains to find a grain of truth --she failed to deliver on anything she promised. Pelosi, one of the recipients of largesse from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, helped cause the financial crises agreeing and cooperating with Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, et al. (See those Posters below.) Immediately upon taking over she rewrote House rules to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. On it goes, we could find no socially redeeming value to her political career. What an enormous savings to the republic had she been term-limited at, say, eight years. As we say in Florida, 8 is Enough!

Dingy Harry

In his 4th 6-year term in the US Senate, he is like our previous poster boys –never had a real job in the real world. He was elected to the Nevada Assembly in 1967 at age 27 and he has been at the public trough ever since, including two terms in the U.S. House. He was chairman of the Nevada gaming commission for five years, a government job but not an elected political position. Here we have the Majority leader of the U.S. Senate making decisions that affect virtually every business and profession in the country yet he has little personal experience to guide him. Virtually every person reading this has had much more real life experience than this powerful career pol. He has not lived under the rules he makes for the rest of us.

He had a tough early life. His mother did laundry for a bordello; his father, a miner, killed himself. They didn’t have indoor plumbing in the hot desert where they lived. Maybe that is why he is so bitter and hateful in using his power.

He is a most hateful partisan who is disrespectful and doesn’t hesitate to use personal insults often calling President Bush a “liar, a “loser” or “King George.” He has insulted Clarence Thomas, Alan Greenspan and many others with whom he had disagreements. His vitriol for supporters of the war on terror was never more on display than when he told the world that “I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and — you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows — that this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq.” He voted for the war but then did all he could to hinder the effort. Imagine how the troops in the field felt when they heard the Dem leader tell them they lost the war.

We try to say something positive about each poster boy and with Harry Reid, a Mormon, we found that he does evidence some moral conviction saying “abortions should be legal only when the pregnancy resulted from incest, rape, or when the life of the mother is endangered.” He has voted to ban the partial birth abortion procedure but voted for funding groups that perform abortions. Regarding same-sex marriage, Reid has stated he believes "...marriage should be between a man and a woman." However, he voted against the Federal marriage amendment. He has opposed some gun-control measures, to his credit.
On spending he’s a major-leaguer. The National Taxpayers Union gives him an “F” rating for every year, scoring a lowly 15%. http://www.ntu.org/ Of course, he supported the massive bailouts and with Nancy Pelosi delivered Obama the $800 billion Porkulus Bill. He voted against the bill to put a one-year moratorium on earmarks, a very modest attempt to control pork spending. Never having earned much money of his own, he has no problem spending ours. He spends money that has not been earned yet putting our children in multi-trillion dollar debt.
He opposed all attempts by the Bush administration to reform Social Security and when asked why on Meet the Press, he said, “President Bush is the worst president we’ve ever had,” as if that was a valid answer. David Gregory asked if he had any regrets about his persistent criticism of Bush, Reid responded, “I am who I am.” His adamant refusal to work with the Repubs on major fiscal reforms and his support of virtually all spending bills loaded with pork provided no offset to the big-spending Repubs, either. His constant public denigration of the president was especially damaging to the country because it was during wartime. Remember the old concept of “loyal opposition?” No more.

Reid is against drilling in ANWR, for imposing stricter emission standards, for adhering to the UN’s treaty regarding global climate change opening the political class further opportunities for control threw energy regulations and restrictions. As bad as these positions bode for our freedoms, our economy and therefore, our prosperity, Reid is also protectionist in his trade policies. He opposes Nafta, other regional trade agreements, GATT, WTO and fast-track authority for moving trade agreements through congress with an up-or-down vote which deprives our exporters of new markets. He is for more tariffs like the 54 cents a gallon on Brazilian sugar-ethanol so that it doesn’t compete with our highly subsidized and inefficient corn-ethanol. He’s for increasing the national minimum wage which deprives so many young students and low-skilled workers the opportunity to get a job. It deprives them of the opportunity to get on the first rung of the ladder.

When asked if he supported term limits on congress, he answered NO. But imagine if he was term-limited after, say, 6 or even 12 years –we may have had an experienced businessman or professional whose life experience included living under the ever increasingly restrictive federal laws and mandates. And maybe even less partisan, more open-minded Senators whose goals might not be primarily for power. It is not guaranteed but term limits of governors and state offices have proved effective in encouraging good, patriotic people to offer themselves for service to their country –the way it is supposed to be, but isn’t. Professional pols are self-serving –maybe not at first, but demonstrably so over time. Tenure corrupts.

With term limits we may not have this mind-numbingly ignorant person in a position of such power. Here’s Harry himself telling how dumb he really is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7mRSI8yWwg
as he explains that paying taxes in America is voluntary. He doesn’t even know about FedGov mandatory withholding taxes from paychecks in the USA! Forty years of being in the political class one loses track of how the people live. Career pols do not “serve,” they rule.

Waxman and Markey: Statists

Just when I was ready to start on the next scheduled Poster Child Henry Waxman (D-CA) jumped in front of the line with a 684-page “discussion draft” of a climate bill he is offering with Ed Markey (D-MA) that cries out for condemnation right now. Both of these extreme left-wing Dems are in their 18th terms at the FedGov trough. The damage they have wreaked upon our Republic over the past 35 years is inestimable but this bill would surely be the most destructive to our freedoms and prosperity for generations.

Both have earned the lowest ratings possible “F” from the National Taxpayers Union for their profligate spending for ever greater and more invasive government. These are statists who know of no area where you should not be governed in minute detail by FedGov. The climate bill they propose bears out this observation –read on lest you think I exaggerate.

The Wall Street Journal says, “Right off, the bill mandates that 25% of U.S. electricity come from wind, solar, geothermal or biomass by 2025. …nuclear doesn't count….Despite political favoritism and billions in subsidies, wind still only accounts for about 1% of U.S. net electric generation, and solar all of one-hundredth of 1%. So now the liberal solution is simply to force people to buy them, a la the ethanol mandate. Yet it will be difficult for renewables to ever reach 25%, given their inherent limitations (intermittency) and, ironically, green opposition (no new power lines). That won't stop Congress from punishing utilities that fail to meet an impossible goal…. “New homes ‘with slanted roofs,’ for instance, will be required to meet a ‘solar reflectance’ standard if they use ‘fiberglass asphalt-shingle roofing.’ …everything in homes will also face new efficiency regulations -- including furnaces, laundry machines, dishwashers, ‘showerheads, faucets, water closets, and urinals,’ even (or especially?) jacuzzis.” They will regulate and restrict all types of lighting: “… the bill says the feds can bring legal charges in U.S. district courts against "any person . . . distributing in commerce any covered product which does not comply." The Journal editorial concludes, “Americans should begin to understand the micromanagement over their daily lives that Congress has in store. All you have to do is read Mr. Waxman's plan.”

But these poster boys have a long record of wanting total control over your life while enriching themselves in what is now euphemistically called “public service.”

Waxman and Markey, like most of the poster children, have never worked in the real world at any productive job. They have law degrees, went into the state legislature for six and four years respectively and then into congress where they have been since 1976. Both represent extremely liberal districts –Waxman’s encompassing Hollywood, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills; Markey’s an affluent white collar district around Boston. Big liberal bucks.

Waxman’s main issues besides FedGov control of energy are socialized medicine, abortion, tobacco, AIDS and gun control. On the latter, he says, "If someone is so fearful that they are going to start using their weapons to protect their rights, it makes me very nervous that these people have weapons at all." Because he is busy taking our rights?

Markey’s positions are similar to Waxman’s, right down the liberal-left line. An excellent listing of congressional votes by issue is available on http://www.ontheissues.org/ –check it out for detailed back-up of my summaries here.

Of course, they voted for the Iraq war but when the party line changed, they opposed it. Our poster boys hate George W. Bush and opposed his administration on virtually every issue including the war, Markey being especially solicitous of the enemy combatants. That is inline with his generally soft-on-crime record. They both voted against immunity for telecoms aiding in terrorist surveillance.

While Waxman often touts his Jewish faith, Markey is an ostensible Catholic who passionately embraced partial-birth abortion and other anti-Catholic issues. Both have 100% pro-abortion ratings from national Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) and 0% from National Right to Life Committee (NLRC). They are in favor of same-sex marriage, too.

They’re largely protectionist, they vote for farm and other subsidies, being statists they oppose free markets and free enterprise most of the time. Pro-union, both are rated 100% by the AFL-CIO and are in favor of “card-check” that would deprive workers of the secret ballot. We need to grow the economy to be able to pay for all of their spending but do they facilitate growth? The Club For Growth rates congress on their votes on taxes, spending, free trade, school vouchers, entitlement reform and regulations. Needless to say, these guys are in single digits on that scale.

On school reform, they get failing grades again as they oppose parental choice and vote for FedGov funding and control of schools. They voted NO to school vouchers in Washington D.C. where they have proved so effective but the NEA being one of the pillars of the Party dictates how Dems vote on their issues. They even voted to take non-denominational prayer out of the schools and “under god” out of the Pledge of Allegiance. Why, I ask? What harm was caused by simple prayers in school over the past 250 years or so that it has been the practice? Because the State is God to them.

They both have a pro illegal immigrant open border stance. Both voted: NO on building a fence along the Mexican border; NO on preventing tipping off Mexicans about Minuteman Project; NO on reporting illegal aliens who receive hospital treatment. They favor citizenship for illegals as they expect by so doing their Party will get the votes of ignorant people who have little or no understanding of freedom, responsibility and opportunity.

I try to find some vote or some redeeming value for our poster children but, alas, these two are hopeless. As career politicians, they have just one goal and that is to be reelected and enjoy the power and privileges of their status as entrenched rulers. If they have any personal beliefs or principles, they certainly are not favorable to our American Heritage of limited government, personal freedom and responsibility.

Without term limits on congress we are doomed to be ruled by professional politicians who have none of the Constitutional restraints of a time gone by when our representatives observed their oaths of office and actually “served” the people rather than themselves, their precious careers in FedGov. Please go to http://www.termlimits.org/ and sign the petition to limit terms of congress. Our Constitutional Republic cannot survive Waxmans and Markeys.

John Murtha's Culture of Corruption

It was the Abscam scandal around 1980 when was named an “un-indicted conspirator” that I first heard of John Murtha. I guess he wasn’t indicted because it appeared to me that he was still negotiating with the Arabs while the other congress crooks took the cash and got caught on film. It probably helped that he testified against two of his colleagues. Tip O’neal, the Speaker at the time, made the Ethics Committee drop the case. The prosecutor resigned in protest. See the FBI video of Murtha: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2131539854655700584&hl=en

A member of the Pennsylvania legislature from 1969 to 1974, Murtha has been in the US congress ever since. He actually started out in life very well -- became an Eagle Scout as a youth, then joined the Marines in 1952 at age 20 and stayed in the Reserves after leaving active duty in 1955. He went on to college on the G.I. Bill and ran a car wash for a while until he volunteered for duty in Vietnam 1966-67 where he received the Distinguished Service Medal. It has been downhill since then.

As an ex-marine with honors, his shameful attack on fellow Marines regarding the Haditha incident in Iraq was shocking. Responding to a magazine article which reported that US Marines may be charged with killing civilians, Murtha said, “"It's much worse than reported in Time magazine. There was no fire fight. There was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood. And that's what the report is going to tell." That was not what the report told and the accused Maries were acquitted. At least one of the Marines that Murtha defamed tried to sue him but the members protect themselves with laws that don’t apply to their subjects. On March 5, 2009 Congressman John Murtha was awarded the Department of the Navy Distinguished Public Service Award by the Secretary of the Navy. He deserved no such award! There is a petition being circulated at http://www.petitiononline.com/usmc2009/petition.html to tell the Navy why they should rescind this insult to the truly loyal US Navy volunteers. Of course, it is highly doubtful that Murtha would have received any such award were he not a powerful politician with influence over military appropriations.

This is the military genius who said we could have taken out Zarqawi from Okinawa! Murtha actually said on June 11, 2006, Meet The Press, “We can go to Okinawa. We can redeploy there almost instantly." Yeah, 2400 nautical miles over China and Iran. Brilliant! No wonder he’s called, the Chairman of the Cowardice Committee by some Marines, et al.

"If I'm corrupt, it's because I take care of my district," Mr. Murtha said. "My job as a member of Congress is to make sure that we take care of what we see is necessary…” Necessary to get reelected, that is. As head of the Defense Spending Committee he has the power to steer hundreds of millions of tax dollars in earmarks to companies of his choice. The fact that those companies and heir employees contribute enormous amounts to his political campaigns is supposed to go unnoticed.

There is an ongoing FBI investigation of PMA, a huge lobbying group with close ties to Murtha but Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who's a close ally, has, so far, been successful in keeping Repubs and about 18 Dems from opening a congressional investigation. Rep. Jeff Flake, the Arizona Republican anti-pork crusader, is on the case. Flake has offered several resolutions to open an investigation into PMA that would focus on "the relationship between earmark requests already made by members and the source and timing of past campaign contributions." Flake says that this scandal could be bigger than the Abramoff scandal. “Much bigger.” Even the NY Times advised “…Pelosi should listen to the wise Democrats who are pushing for an ethics inquiry into the far-too-cozy relationship between lawmakers and the PMA Group of super-lobbyists.”

The NY Times reported that PMA was led by Paul Magliocchetti, a Murtha protégé and former staffer, who wined and dined his former bosses and comrades with raucous dinners and big expense-account tabs. PMA funneled more than $40 million in donations to members of Congress since 1998, including $2.4 million to Mr. Murtha and $7.8 million to members of his committee. Congress, in turn, rewarded PMA clients with rarely debated earmarks. Last year, the firm was able to marshal more than 100 lawmakers to earmark $300 million in contracts for the lobbyist’s clients.

The FBI also searched the offices and personal homes of executives of Kuchera Industries, a defense contractor based in Murtha’s district. Murtha helped steer tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts to the firm over the past decade, and he threw a $100,000 fundraiser at Bill Kuchera’s ranch last year. A federal grand jury has also subpoenaed records from Concurrent Technologies Corp., a Pennsylvania nonprofit organization created with a Murtha earmark. Federal agents are also looking into a Murtha-backed research firm "Electro Optic Center." According to a source interviewed by the FBI, in one year, the Center sought $120 million in earmarks directly through Murtha's office and managers urged employees to donate to Murtha so the Center would get favorable treatment.

With all this controversy swirling around him, Murtha has remained largely silent except he did flash a pocket-sized copy of the Constitution to a CBS reporter and spat out the words, “"That's the Constitution of the United States. What it says is the Congress of the United States appropriates the money. Got that?" I guess he figures that he is the guy who decides who gets what from the people’s taxes –that is the kind of arrogance and hubris that comes from being in office too long.

The National Taxpayers Union ranks all members equally –no partisanship, they let the numbers fall strictly according to the votes on spending. Murtha gets an ‘F” grade consistently as far back as their history shows at NTU which is to 1992. He’s no friend of the taxpayer.

Murtha has put down his own constituents as “racists” and “rednecks.” Obama said the same thing about the people in small towns in Pennsylvania who he said were, “… bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Yet the overwhelmingly Democrat district voted for Obama and reelected Murtha for the 19th time. How do they explain that?

Career pols often use their FedGov access by putting family members on the payroll(s) or using their influence to gain an advantage not available to regular citizens. In Murtha’s case, his brother Kit got lobbying jobs and his son John got off easy on a cocaine distribution charge. They –career pols—are like royalty today. No longer do they serve the public; now, they rule us. Only term limits can bring our representatives back to public service from what is now blatantly, self-service. Had John Murtha been term limited in 1980, would our country be better off today? You know my answer.