Her Biggest Fan

Rep. Kaptur is appearing in a Michael Moore movie about the evils of capitalism Another Poster that illustrates the need for term limits if we’re ever to get back to enjoying the benefits of a Constitutional Republic. First, we must stop the headlong rush into the welfare state with its unsustainable promises and spending inevitably resulting in reduced freedoms, opportunities and prosperity. Entrenched politicians like 15-term Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) carry the blame for the massive $16+ trillion debt we’re passing on to our children.


Kaptur’s main claim to fame is that she is currently the longest-tenured woman in the House; she ranks 25th out of 435 members in seniority and serves on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. At a House committee hearing her questions about the sub-prime mortgage crisis were intended for the then Secretary of Treasury, Henry Paulson, but she was actually questioning Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman. She said, “Seeing as how you were the former CEO of Goldman Sachs…” Bernanke corrected her but it was clear that she had no clue. Long seniority puts people like her in positions for which they have had no relevant experience, no real life experiences outside of government jobs and politics.
The experience she did have after college was with the Lucas County Plan Commissions from 1969 to 1975 and as director of planning for the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs from 1975 to 1977. She later was a domestic policy advisor during the Carter Administration. Kaptur earned a Master’s Degree in urban planning from the University of Michigan in 1974 and did post-graduate study in urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981.

After introducing the World War II Memorial Act to the House of Representatives in 1987, 1989, 1991, it finally was passed in 1993. The legislation authorized the American Battle Monuments Commission to establish a World War II memorial. And a fine memorial it is.

Another area where she has an intense interest is on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights issues. Her votes for gay marriage, for adoption by homosexual couples and virtually all GLBT bills got her a 75% rating by The Human Rights Campaign indicating a strong pro-gay rights stance. On the other side of that coin is the Family Research Council’s lowly 6% rating on pro-family issues.
In a Youtube piece, Kaptur urged Americans facing foreclosure to “be squatters in your own homes. Don’t you leave -- Possession is nine-tenths of the law.” Foreclosures in her district skyrocketed 94% last year. Is that responsible adult behavior?

Under some pressure from the tea parties -- “Joe the Plumber” is a constituent and soon to be challenger for her seat in Congress-- Marcy Kaptur expressed strong opposition to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s tactyics in:
•Forcing Congress to rush the stimulus spendidng decision.
•Disarming the public through fear. Controlling the media enough to ensure that the public will not notice that this bailout will indebt them for generations taking from them trillions of dollars they earned and deserved to keep.
•Controlling the playing field (hiding info from the public, holding private hearings, and private teleconferencing calls).
•Diverting attention and keeping people confused.
•Having the goal to privatize gains and socialize losses.
After all that rhetoric she voted for the bailouts and stimulus bills and she laid all of the blame on Wall Street executives for their greed and held them responsible for the crisis saying, “You have perpetrated the greatest financial crimes ever on this American Republic. You think you can get by with it because you are extraordinarily wealthy, and the largest contributors to both presidential and congressional campaigns in both major parties.” [See Posters for Chris Dodd and Barney Frank to begin to determine blame for the financial crisis.] She went on to suggest that the Federal Regional Reserve Banks should have a new job to help renegotiate mortgages and any refinancing gains should return a major share of any profits to a new Social Security and Medicare lock box. Brilliant!

She backed The American Clean Energy and Security Act inserting an amendment that would authorize the Secretary of Energy to create power marketing authorities in regions where none currently exist. One such area would be in her district, the Great Lakes region. Kaptur said the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation could serve as the vehicle for administering up to $3.5 billion in loans from taxpayers (more debt!) to stimulate economic development through creation of green energy such as solar power and wind power. We know how well that worked out --think Solyndra for starters. Kaptur said the $3.5 billion would promote "regional equity" and serve as a powerful engine for job creation in a region that has suffered from high energy costs --as if solar and wind would reduce those costs.

In 1996, Kaptur was asked by Ross Perot to be his vice presidential running mate because, like him, she was an anti-free trade protectionist. They both opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement –remember Perot’s “giant sucking sound" of American jobs heading to Mexico if NAFTA passed? She wasn’t quite that stupid and turned him down. She consistently voted against job-creating trade bills most recently with Singapore, Peru, Columbia, Panama and Korea despite the high unemployment in her district in order satisfy the unions. Union $upport insures reelection which is Job#1 for career pols, so they take priority over constituents.

She was listed by the Nation magazine, self-described as he "flagship of the left," in its “Most Valuable Progressives” awards as the “Most Valuable House Member” in 2008. But the congresswoman is often at odds with members of her own party over her position against free trade and abortion. As expected for a progressive Democrat, her voting record puts her at the bottom of the Citizens Against Government Waste ratings –at a lifetime 10%, she is determined to be “hostile” to taxpayers. She was CAGW's "Porker of the Month" in July 2010. Confirming her progressive credentials, the American Conservative Union rates her at a lowly 15% while the leftist Americans for Democratic Action rates her highly at 85%. The Club for Growth gives her a "7" lifetime of a possible 100 for her growth-stifling voting record and her numerous votes against efforts to curb earmarks. For a comprehensive record of her votes go to www.ontheissues.org/OH/Marcy_Kaptur.htm

Marcy Kaptur is a Big Spender of taxpayer’s money and that resulted in the huge national debt being passed on to our progeny --generational theft of colossal proportions! Would a term-limited representative succumb to such spending? Maybe, but far less likely than a professional politician whose reelection depends on appeasing the leadership of the party and giving lobbies what they want in exchange for campaign money. You can help promote Sen. Jim DeMint’s proposed constitutional amendment to term limit Congress by signing the petition at www.termlimits.org.

When Perfect Attendance is Costly

If our $14.7 trillion dollar debt is any indication, the majority of the 535 members of congress are qualified for these posters. Who else would spend so much more than they take in and for what reason?

Well, if you are a professional politician with no real talent or skills in the private sector, then being a politician offers great rewards; as long as you’re willing to do or say almost anything to get elected. And then to disregard your solemn oath of office in doing all that is necessary to get reelected. The career politicians we’ve exposed so far have spent all, or nearly all, of their working lives in politics. With no experience in the real world, they create legislation in areas they have no knowledge of or experience in, resulting in bills they seldom actually read. Then these bills go to a huge bureaucracy to administer by writing thousands of regulations that the working population has to follow--or be fined and maybe even go to jail. They, themselves are routinely unaffected by the laws they pass. Sometimes they even specifically exempt themselves from these laws.

Special interests have thousands of lobbyists offering big bucks to these elected officials to pass laws favorable to them. They need this money for reelection, and they pile up $millions for that purpose. Our laws end up with too many exceptions for favored industries, and as a result our tax code is extremely complicated; you can be sure that every loophole is bought and paid for by lobbyists.

Lobbyists are uniformly against any term limits on their “honest” politicians. They define “honest” as those who, once bought, stay bought. We need a law requiring members of Congress to wear logos like race car drivers and golfers wear to advertise who gives them money.

Typical of this kind of politician is Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). We mentioned Collins in our poster of Olympia Snowe, also a Senator from Maine. Both are considered “moderates” in the Republican Party and both vote with Democrats so often that many Republicans refer to them as RINOs –Republicans In Name Only. Recently, as taxes, regulation overreach and onerous executive orders have mired the economy in recession, Sen. Collins has taken note and written a mostly reasonable piece in the Wall Street Journal (9/26/2011).

However, in this op-ed she calls for a one-year “time out” on excessive FedGov regulations. What? A time out? Beam me up, Scottie! She writes, “A one-year moratorium on such regulations is a common-sense solution that would help create jobs.” That's preposterous. The common-sense solution is to tear up the regulations permanently. Businesses will not start hiring with only a one-year window of certainty regarding regulations. Uncertainty is one of the major problems, and with a one-year "timeout," uncertainty would not be eliminated. What we need is a permanent solution, not a short-term gimmick. This is just another glaring example of a career pol showing how out of touch with reality she is.

Who is Susan Collins?
Collins was born and raised in Caribou, Maine. Both parents served in elected positions and her uncle was a state Supreme Court justice. She met Sen. Margaret Chase Smith —whose Senate seat she now holds-- in 1971 while participating in the U.S. Senate Youth program in Washington D.C. In 1975 she graduated from St. Lawrence University with a degree in–what else?—government.

She was a legislative assistant to Congressman and later U.S. Senator William Cohen until 1987 when she returned to Maine to join the governor’s cabinet and other political jobs in the State capitol until 1992. President George Bush appointed her to the Small Business Administration for a few months after which she went to Massachusetts to become Deputy State Treasurer for another few months. Back to Maine she won an eight-way primary race in the 1994 gubernatorial election but didn’t get support from conservative Republicans and came in third behind an independent and the Democrat. After a short job at Hussen College she ran for the Senate with Sen. Cohen’s help when he went on to join President Clinton’s cabinet. She won a four-way primary and beat the Democrat 49% to 44%. She’s been a fixture there ever since.

Notice once again the typical route to Congress--no practical experience in the free market, no position in the private sector much less ever having to meet a payroll or create a job. Yet these are the people who tell us how to run our businesses and make decisions that affect every aspect of our lives!

Collins is aggressively pro-abortion. She is a member of Republicans for Choice and was one of only three Republicans to vote against the Partial Birth Abortion Act. A major LGBT organization, the Human Rights Campaign, endorsed her campaigns. Collins voted in favor of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. Both Collins and Snowe voted to acquit Clinton in his impeachment trial admitting he broke the law by committing perjury, but they didn’t think that was serious enough to remove him from office. She voted against restrictions on travel to Cuba, harsher punishments for drug users, and amending the U.S. Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriages. She was the recipient of the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Award (10/5/2011); curiously, her co-recipient was Rep. Ellison (D-MN), a Muslim.

A protectionist, she regularly votes against free-trade, including the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). In 1999 she and Snowe were two of the four Republicans (with Jeffords and Specter) to vote for an amendment to the Trade and Development Act of 2000 which would have conditioned trade benefits for Caribbean countries on "compliance with internationally recognized labor rights." This vote for what is in effect world governance put her to the left of many Democratic senators including Edwards, Dodd and Biden. Just last week she was the only Republican to vote against the trade agreement with Columbia that is expected to create thousands of jobs in the US.

She wrote in that WSJ article, “…the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new rule on fossil-fuel emissions from boilers that—by the EPA's own admission—would cost the private sector billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. The owner of a small business in Maine told me the proposed rule would require him to scrap a new, $300,000 wood waste boiler he recently installed.” She’s just finding this out after sponsoring such bills herself like the Cantwell-Collins bill (S. 2877), also called the Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal (CLEAR) Act, that creates a program to regulate fossil fuels. How many thousands of regulations in those bills?

She voted for the confirmation of two U.S. Supreme Court nominees, Alito and Roberts but she also voted for President Obama's nominees, Sotomayor and Kagan.

Collins was one of just three Republican lawmakers to vote for the so-called stimulus, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and in mid-December 2009, Collins was again one of just three Republican senators to back a $1.1 trillion appropriations bill for the fiscal year beginning in 2010. You can see how the $14.7 trillion deficits happen.

In January 2009 Collins voted in favor of the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act. But she voted against ObamaCare in December 2009 and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

Currently, she is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Feel safer now?

Collins has an unbroken voting record in the Senate, never missing a single vote since becoming a senator in 1997. Too bad.

We really need term limits www.termlimits.org

President Obama's Favorite Republican

Richard Lugar, 78, Republican of Indiana was first elected to the US Senate in 1976. His political career started when he was elected Mayor of Indianapolis in 1968. President Richard Nixon called him his favorite mayor. Lugar no doubt started out in politics with best intentions to serve the people by keeping his oath to them and to the Constitution. But whatever good he did in Congress is long forgotten after 43 years of doing what he considered necessary in getting reelected as each term came to an end. And therein lays the problem.

His early good efforts are now overshadowed by his votes in recent years such as on behalf of the ethanol scam, for instance –see how that worked so well for his fellow Poster Child, Sen. Grassley (R-IA).As you read ask yourself would a Sen. who goes to Washington to serve the people sign on to such expensive, counter-productive scams? This issue is a perfect example of how career pols milk their positions of power. Ethanol is the one product that is not only subsidized by US taxpayers, but mandated that 10% of US gasoline contain it (Lugar has pushed for 15% mandate even though it hurts engines and increases pollution –many green groups oppose its use). Oh, and in case competitive ethanol pops up in the global marketplace, as it has from Brazil, then the career pols put a tariff on it. Brazilian ethanol is made from sugar and actually works cleaner than corn ethanol and costs less than gasoline to produce unlike the corn product. So, Lugar and Grassley and a majority of the Senate voted a 54 cent per gallon tariff to prevent the cheaper, more efficient ethanol from competing with their tax-supported inferior product. To make matters worse, their corn ethanol mandates, subsidies and protection have caused the cost to rise as corn is used to run cars instead of food. The one reason our duly elected representatives force this great inefficiency and expense on the people is to gain contributions and votes from their farmers and others like Archer-Daniels-Midland who reap huge profits from this boondoggle. [Boondoggle: a wasteful or impractical project or activity often involving graft.] Did I mention the 45 cents per gallon tax credit? Big bucks for beneficiaries and politicians; high taxes and debt for current and future taxpayers.

Typical of the career pol, Lugar felt entitled to "his" seat and now after being defeated in the primary, he refuses to endorse or help the Republican candidate.  'It is all about ME' for this RINO.

Close friends with VP Joe Biden and friendly with President Obama, Lugar was named an honorary co-chairman of their inauguration. President Obama calls him his favorite Republican. Photos of Lugar even appeared in campaign ads that helped Obama carry Indiana. Just some of the reasons he is regarded so highly by the Obama administration:
• Lugar declined to sign a brief supporting state lawsuits against President ObamaCare;
• Voted in favor of the Matthew Shepard Act, which expanded the federal hate crime statutes to include sexual orientation and gender identity;
• The first Republican senator to support for President Obama's first Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor and also voted in favor of his second Supreme Court nominee Solicitor General Elena Kagan. (Two more liberal judges could not be found –they both follow Obama’s view of the Constitution that it is flawed. Look for more emanations from penumbras from them over time.);
• Supported ratification of the START Treaty (Obama called Lugar to thank him for his help on it);
• Voted for the Dream Act, which was defeated but would have allowed the children of illegal immigrants to gain citizenship if they attend college or join the military.

Yet, he has a mostly pro-life record and recently voted against the “Employee Free Choice Act of 2007” (a/k/a Card Check) to eliminate the secret ballot for union members. Plus he voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment, limiting the definition of marriage to one man and one woman. In October 2010, he voted against repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy—which prevents homosexuals from serving openly in the armed forces. Just weeks later, Sen. Joe Lieberman announced that Lugar promised to vote to repeal the policy the next time it comes up for a vote. But then in December, Lugar voted against DADT again. Career pols have to be flexible. This vote came as a surprise to some, including Sen. Lieberman, but not to Indiana conservatives who are actively recruiting a primary challenger for 2012. It is called “pivoting” in the political trade.

When Lugar voted against an earmark ban that was championed by conservatives and tea party activists and even supported by Indiana's other senator, Democrat Evan Bayh, he lost any remaining support he had from that quarter.

These posters are limited by space-- there is a lot more that can be written both from the right and left view of this politician and not all of our examples are given as reasons for term limits. But, it cannot be denied that long-tenured professional politicians are largely responsible for the overgrown federal government and the huge debt we now carry and are putting on the shoulders of future generations. Lugar voted for many of the entitlements that now strangle the economy and, not incidentally, have no authority in the US Constitution. Limiting terms of congress is one reform that will prevent the corruption that invariably follows unlimited tenure. Help Sen. Jim DeMint by going to www.termlimits.org and sign on to support his proposed term limit amendment. Please comment on this article pro or con or to add information --check comments for updates. Thanks.

A Classic Scammer

updated 3/3/2015
AFT!  She's finally retiring but way too late --a couple $trillion too late

“To compel a person to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” --Thomas Jefferson


(updated with term limit vote on 2/5/12*)
So when politicians pass bills that give taxpayer money to individuals and organizations that I disapprove of I call that tyrannical per Mr. Jefferson. I don’t approve of my tax money going to government radio and TV (NPR and PBS) or ACORN or Planned Parenthood or any other group –and there thousands of them—that live off hard-working American taxpayers. Not only do I personally disapprove but so did the Founders as there is no place in the Constitution that approves of these appropriations. But Barbara A. Mikulski approves of them, all right –they are her lifeblood. Her system, learned during 40 years in politics, is the classic scam of robbing Peter to pay Paul who then contributes to her campaign.

A most recent example as described by Isaac MacMillen of ALG News Bureau: Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) has come under heavy left-wing fire for her attempts to keep ACORN and others from using taxpayer money for political purposes. House Resolution 1388, the “Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act” (more commonly called the “GIVE Act”), was designed to help President Obama fulfill his campaign pledge to multiply the number of (paid!) volunteers, at taxpayer expense. But when the House voted to expand AmeriCorps from 75,000 to 250,000 (at a cost of billions of additional tax dollars), they also passed the Foxx amendment, limiting the ability for groups receiving federal funds to engage in lobbying activities. The amendment would also preclude certain political front groups from even receiving government funds. And that is good news for the American taxpayer.

Under Rep. Foxx's amendment, organizations simply cannot receive tax funds if they fall under, among others, one of the following categories:
• Lobbyist
• Political Party
• For-profit
• Labor organization

And the organizations that are eligible may not use the funds to engage in the following highly political activities:
• Lobbying
• Endorsing or opposing legislation
• Sponsoring events that oppose or endorse legislation
• Petitioning for political causes
• Staging protests, boycotts, or strikes
• Engaging in or interfering with union organizing

Reading the list, one is left nodding his or her head, and simply saying, “Well, of course.” Unless that one, it turns out, happens to be Sen. Barbara Mikulski, her fellow Senate Democrats or ACORN, and its cronies. …. Ms. Mikulski, in what may be a new world's record in transparent duplicity, substituted her own amendment for the Foxx Amendment. Senator Mikulski removed the prohibitions on lobbyists, political parties, union organizations, and for-profits from accepting funding. Which means that, under the Mikulski Amendment, ACORN, et al, may have all of the taxpayer funds they wish…” For an update on ACORN click here One Bite at a Time.

If she stays in office until March 17, 2012, she will become the longest-serving female member in the history of the US Congress yet she has never held a chairmanship of any full standing committee in the Senate. She has a master’s degree in social work which she applied to her first job after college: community organizing against construction of a highway. Mikulski was elected to the Baltimore city council in 1971 and to the US Congress in 1976 where she stayed until being elected to the Senate in 1987 where she has been ever since.

With a lifetime rating of near zero from both Citizens Against Government Waste http://ccagwratings.org/?s=Sen.+Mikulski and the Club for Growth www.clubforgrowth.org one can logically deduce that she is one of those lawmakers that have voted to create the current $16+ trillion dollar debt and also voted to stunt the growth of the economy. A bad combination but understandable from a lifetime politician who, like our other Posters, have had no real life experience.

Her history is one of following the Party Line upholding the traditional Tax-Spend-Elect philosophy of careerists in politics. It works –for them, not for taxpayers. She voted on 2/2/12 AGAINST the proposed amendment to limit the terms of congress and it was defeated* but we'll have another vote in the next session and so we're trying to get a million signatures on a petiton to help in that cause; please sign up at www.termlimits.org thanks.

*to see how your Senator voted:
http://senateconservatives.com/site/votes/112/2/11?c=5R4F2B4F9B3A137 hint: All Democrats but Joe Manchin of WV voted AGAINST the reform even though they know full well that a super-majority of their constituents are in favor of term limits.

At Home in the Beltway's Backrooms

Michael N. Castle (R-Del)’s opponent in the special election to be held in September to replace Joe Biden in the senate calls him Washington’s “invisible man,” a career politician, a true “Lord of the Backroom.” In political office since 1966 and Congress since 1992, Mike Castle is a Congressman no one knows, but whose votes affect us all. Christine O’Donnell, also a Republican, continues, “Until he came out solidly against repealing ObamaCare, Castle received almost no media attention. But in the Beltway’s Backrooms, he continually reinforces his credentials as a charter member of the Washington Establishment.” She does have a point in that Castle votes with Obama 60% of the time. In some years, he votes with the liberals half the time. In some years, it’s 75% of the time. He voted for the huge Cap & Trade Tax and against the surge in Iraq.

Rep. Castle’s latest move that got my attention and moved him up as a Poster Boy was his sponsorship of the Puerto Rico Statehood Bill that just narrowly passed the House April 29th. The bill is an attempt by Obama and the Dems to add to their one-party rule majority by adding three more votes –two in the Senate and one in the House. Why a nominally Republican Rep. would sponsor such a bill is a mystery. If Christine O’Donnell is right about her “Lord of the Backroom” description there was backroom deal of some sort. Like our other Poster Children he has been in politics all his life so that makes sense to us. And he is a lawyer.

Castle calls himself a Catholic but is a member of several pro-abortion groups including the Republican Majority For Choice, Republicans For Choice and Christine Todd Whitman's It’s My Party Too. Another contradiction?

Checking him out on our most reliable non-partisan taxpayer groups, we find that Castle is on both sides of the earmark debate as the Club for Growth RePork Card shows him voting for earmarks about half the time and against the other half. The National Taxpayers Union tabulations show that he started out in ‘93 favoring taxpayers 75% of the time but in the last several years he hovers around 50% with the last three years average at just over 40%. Citizens Against Government Waste rates Castle at 57% lifetime and the most recent year 31%. CCAGW rates members on a 0 to 100 percent scale. Our poster boy is rated “lukewarm” to taxpayers’ concerns.

When we see averages like this in the middle of the pack we conclude that the Rep. is trying to be all things to all people to enhance reelection prospects. In a liberal state like Delaware he tries to satisfy his party’s expressed opposition to spending and waste some of the time and then gives in to the spenders and puts in for earmarks to satisfy the liberal voters. Wishy-washy is the term that comes to mind. Others might label him "unprincipled."

Key votes http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/C000243/key-votes/

This is your typical career pol that starts out looking out for the taxpayers and then slipping into deficit spending to placate lobbyists and other special interest groups who help insure reelection. Reminds of Ronald Reagan’s description of the guy who goes to Washington to “drain the swamp” and after a bit he discovers it is really a hot tub –and he wants to stay there at all costs. Professional politicians Job #1 is to get reelected and since they are a majority what they do today is for their own benefit which must be paid for in future by our and their own children and grandchildren. Hence, the country’s multi-$trillion debt.

Disgusting!

Sorry, but I couldn’t resist this picture that gives the congressman’s reply to a constituent who, frustrated by the b.s. from his congressman, asked him “not to pee on my leg and call it rain.” Nice, huh? It gets worse.

Fortney Hillman "Pete" Stark, Jr. (D-CA #13) age 78, is the 6th most senior representative as well as 8th most senior member of Congress –he’s been there for nearly 40 years! When our other Poster Boy, Charlie Rangel, had to resign for ethics violations Pete Stark was given the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee purely on the basis of tenure. But Stark was quickly pushed aside in favor of Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., after many Democrats privately complained that Stark was too volatile to lead such an important committee.

Stark has had his own run-in with the ethics committee, exhibiting “…bizarre behavior during an investigation…” Officials found Stark was "extremely belligerent" toward investigators from the Office of Congressional Ethics looking into his application for a homestead tax exemption in Maryland even though his official residence is in California. Long-tenured pols tend to believe that laws apply to the little people and not themselves.

Unlike most of our other Poster Children he is not a lawyer –he actually has an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley and was a highly successful banker having founded in 1963 Security National Bank at Walnut Creek and built it to $100 million enterprise within 10 years. He first ran for Congress from Oakland in 1972 and has been there ever since. He even served a couple of years in the U.S. Air Force, 1955-57. Not the background –except for the Berkeley years, that one expects for an avowed socialist.

Others we’ve posted, so far, who are fellow members of the largest socialist association in the U.S., the Democrat Socialists of America, are Henry Waxman, Maxine Waters (charged today with ethics violations), Hank Johnson, Barney Frank, Ed Markey, John Conyers, Jose Serrano, Nancy Pelosi and probably many more –the membership list is hard to get. Many in congress the longest are statist inclined which explains the ease with which Obama has passed his programs of government takeovers. When asked what limitations does the Constitution put on the federal government, Stark said “the federal government, yes, can do anything…” See him say it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1-eBz8hyoE&feature=player_embedded People who spend the bulk of their lives in government tend to believe in big or even total government.

Stark recently mocked the idea that the borders are not secure when asked by a constituent at a town hall meeting about the federal government's lack of activity on border security. "If you knew anything about our borders, you would know …that our borders are quite secure, thank you," Stark said, drawing jeers. Then he resumed his hostile act by asking a constituent, "… I've got to know how high the wall is and I'll sell a whole lot of ladders…”

Since 95 % of incumbents regularly are reelected given advantages of incumbency he assumes reelection. The liberal San Francisco Chronicle editorialized on Stark, "Only a politician who assumes he has a job for life could behave so badly on a semi-regular basis by spewing personalized invective that might get him punched in certain East Bay taverns. Would-be challengers sometimes sense a whiff of opportunity, but the reality of taking on a 16-term (now 19-term) Democrat in solidly liberal terrain is nothing short of daunting. Surely there must be someone along the shoreline between Alameda and Fremont who could represent the good citizens of the district with class and dignity. It's not the case now.”

In an August 2008 videotaped interview with Jan Helfeld concerning the size of the national debt, Stark stated that the size of the national debt is a reflection of the nation's wealth. When pressed if the nation should take on more debt in order to have more wealth, Stark threatened Helfeld and said, “You get the f--k out of here or I’ll throw you out the window.”

Other controversies include singling out “Jewish colleagues" for blame for the Persian Gulf War. In 1995, in a meeting with Rep. Nancy Johnson (D-CT) he called her a "whore for the insurance industry" and suggested that her knowledge of health care came solely from “pillow talk” with her doctor-husband. In 1999, he said of former California Welfare Director Eloise Anderson, herself a former welfare mother, that she would "kill children if she had her way" because she advocated for welfare reform. At a hearing on abstinence promotion, he referred to Rep. JC Watts (R-OK) as the Republican Conference chairman, whose children were all born out of wedlock." He almost had his face rearranged someone commented of the incident which drew the police.

There are many other incidents of this type that could be recounted here but these should suffice to present a picture of unlimited abuse of his office. Just one more: In 2007, Stark accused President Bush of sending troops to Iraq "to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."

What has he accomplished in Congress since 1972, you ask? Statistically, he missed 20% of all votes during his tenure and when he did vote it was 94% with the Democrat Party. He missed the vote on the Homeland Security Act but voted against the amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which gives U.S. spy agencies expanded power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects. He voted to increase taxes on oil companies and for subsidies for various “alternative” energy subsidies. He voted for increases in the minimum wage and against any spending cuts for welfare or student loans. I could find no time when he voted against any spending reduction but he consistently votes for increased taxes, opposing the Bush tax cuts and extension of them in 2006 and now. The net result of his votes have been to increase the size and scope of FedGov which is consistent with his socialist commitment.

Socialist-statist nations like the former Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Venezuela, N. Korea, et al, are not known for their concerns about pollution, global warming, the environment or of " endangered species” but Stark is for all of that. Socialists use these programs to expand the State through regulations and taxes.

We must have term limits on congress if we are to survive as Constitutional Republic. Go to www.termlimits.org and vote for Jim DeMint’s proposed Amendment to end unlimited terms in Congress. And mark your calendar for Nov 2nd to: take out the trash.

Bringin’ Home the Bacon Turns Deadly

There are so many candidates for the next Poster Child one hardly knows which to choose next. Three-term Sen. Bob Bennett, our March Poster Boy, lost his Utah Republican primary last week. Our headline -- Thanks for Your Service. Good-Bye-- came true. It is our heartfelt wish that each Poster Child would be promptly retired. But, alas, the entrenched pols resist leaving their cushy positions even when at an advanced age.

We have several of the “worst of a bad lot” in a queue but when one is brought to our attention as this one was in a new documentary we had to move 18-term Minnesota Democrat, James Oberstar up to the front line. The movie has a funny premise --Greg Knapp calls on a career politician to get an earmark to build an earmark museum-- but it is dead serious as it illuminates the egregious practice of “earmarks.” The segment on Oberstar is titled “The Human Toll” because it shows how his earmarks have contributed to human tragedy. For more information on the documentary titled Bringin’ Home the Bacon, contact produces Jim and Ellen Hubbbard 571-721-8868 or americanfilmfest@aol.com . Every taxpayer should see this film. (I would like to say that every voter should see this film but the 50% or so who vote but do not pay taxes have little reason to be concerned.)

Oberstar, the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has jurisdiction over bridge maintenance. Instead of maintaining infrastructure and roads from the $500 billion Highway Bill which is really a huge collection of earmarks used by the career pols to spread around to insure their reelections. This gives the chairman enormous power which he clearly relishes and uses for his own purpose.

When asked by the Star Tribune about a disastrous bridge collapse in his own State: Q You have an initiative in mind? A “Yes. We have 597,000 bridges in America, of which 154,000 are deficient, either structurally or functionally. This is an opportunity. Instead of making Minnesota as a poster child for bridge failure, we should make this tragedy a springboard for action and attack in a focused way those most-vulnerable bridges ... (I) propose a 5-cent increase of the user fee [gas tax] for three years, generating about $8.5 billion a year…”

The taxpayers’ watchdog, Citizens Against Government Waste, named Oberstar "Porker of the Month" for his proposal for a 5-cent gas tax increase to raise $25 billion within three years for a new bridge trust fund. CAGW said that Chairman Oberstar was part of the "earmark melee" where "nearly 6,500 pork barrel projects worth more than $24 billion" were added to the 2005 bill. Rather than send funds to repair and restore bridges in his state, he added five projects totaling $14.6 million for Duluth including $3.2 million for the Munger State Trail, the longest paved recreational trail in the nation. Bringin’ Home the Bacon shows a poignant interview with a young woman, 31, who was driving home from work on a day she got a promotion. She was recently engaged to be married, happy and thinking how good life was. Moments later she suffered a broken back and crushed legs. While she thanked god that she was alive and sympathized with the dead and their families, she wondered why the money went for a teapot museum and other earmarks instead of preventative maintenance. Why indeed!

One pundit remarked at that: “Oberstar has a solution for aging interstate bridges–a new program and new tax dollars. What else is new? He wants to create a Bridge Reconstruction Trust Fund separate from the Highway Trust Fund which was created in 1956 to fund highways and bridges. Why is a separate fund needed? Politicians will misuse a new fund just as they have misused the Highway Trust Fund.…We don’t need a new program and new money. We need new people in (Congress) … There will be plenty of money…once the waste and pork is eliminated.” Amen, brother.

What makes this so sickening is that Oberstar, an avid cyclist, took money from the Highway bill to build a $24 billion bike bridge just five miles from the I-35W bridge that collapsed over the Mississippi River in his own state killing 13 –about the same amount it would have cost to repair the bridge.
He is seen in the documentary riding on the bridge in full cyclist regalia. Regarding another Oberstar earmark, the Bikes Belong Foundation estimates Oberstar’s bill would increase funding for bicycling to more than $1 billion annually. “We think it is transformational, visionary,” said their executive director. Really, is that a proper function of the U.S. government?

This from a Wall Street Journal editorial in 2007: Minnesota's transportation auditors warned as long ago as 1990 that there was a "backlog of bridges that are classified as having structural deficiencies." In 1999 engineers declared that cracks found in the bridge that collapsed were "a major concern." Bike paths were deemed a higher priority by Congress, however, including its powerful Minnesota representatives….. Mr. Oberstar sent out a press release boasting that he had "secured more than $12 million in funding" for his state in a recent federal transportation and housing bill. But $10 million of that was dedicated to a commuter rail line, $250,000 for the "Isanti Bike/Walk Trail," $200,000 to bus services in Duluth, and $150,000 for the Mesabi Academy of Kidspeace in Buhl. None of it went for bridge repair...”

In its 2009 REPORK Card, the Club for Growth noted that 211 career pols voted against all 68 bills that would have curtailed some earmarks. No surprise, our Poster Boy James Oberstar was one of them. The Club also rates Congress on economic growth issues such as tax rates, limiting FedGov spending, expanding free trade, limiting lawsuit abuse, school choice, regulatory reform, and reforming social security. Our Poster boy ranked dead last, with others, 435 out of 435 reps.

The non-partisan National Taxpayers Union (NTU) rated U.S. Representatives on their actual votes--every vote that affects taxes, spending, and debt. On a scale of zero to 100, Oberstar is in single digits which earned a failing “F” grade and their “Big Spender” designation.

Bringin’ home the bacon has been Oberstar's bottom line since he arrived in Washington in 1975. Before being elected himself, he worked for his predecessor, Rep. Blatnick, for 12 years. So, he has been there for most of his life and never had to live under his laws, taxes and regulations and he clearly never intends to. So adamantly against any reduction in FedGov spending he and another Poster Boy, John Conyers, filed a lawsuit against President Bush in the passing of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. The case (Conyers v. Bush) was, of course, dismissed. Isn’t it time Oberstar was dismissed?

The above just begins to tell how bad these career politicians can get. You won’t believe this argument he makes in defending the indefensible: http://www.redcounty.com/congressman-oberstar-it%E2%80%99s-spending-stupid

Think about how much better off the country would be if we had six -or eight- year term limits on representatives. Better late than never –Minnesota, please term limit this disgrace to MN and the country.