Friends,
One of my readers has sent the following for posting. I am doing so without comment except to say that it is well thought out and expressed.
Dan
Why I must vote for John McCain
I want to start this off from the beginning. I had never planned on voting for John McCain. Matter of fact I told many friends that if John McCain won the nomination I would switch to the Independent party. Now that was quite shock for my friends considering one of my favorite sayings is, “An Independent is someone who can’t make a decision.”
I started with supporting Mike Huckabee. Later I realized that his views and mine weren’t quite inline, but I was willing to overlook it since there was no other candidate that came as close. I ended my Primary journey supporting Alan Keyes. To this day I believe he is the best candidate for America.
Then the bad news struck. John McCain won the Primary. I was extremely disappointed and decided I was going to vote for Alan Keyes anyway.
However, I decided I would pull a Benjamin Franklin and get a piece of paper and write down the pros and cons for voting for John McCain. The cons filled up fast, but there was one glaring pro that caught my eye and made me think. Supreme Court Judges!
Most likely, over the next four years, a handful of liberal judges will be retiring. Who will take their place? Well, if Obama gets elected I have a pretty good idea, liberal judges. If John McCain wins, at least there is would be a chance for more constructionist judges.
Most people today think that the war on terror is the main issue.
Perhaps that issue is neck-and-neck with the economy. Some people believe that gay marriage is at the top of the list. But I believe that Supreme Court Judges are the main issue. Why? Since the start of our country, but even more in the last 40 years, Supreme Court Judges have been writing law with their decisions. Over the next four years (and most likely even longer) a judge will determine whether we even fight the war on terror, how we will fight the war on terror and to some degree when we fight. A judge will determine whether the states are separate governments or simply a map point made available so google maps will work easier. Now don’t get me wrong, I do not think judges should have that kind of power, but since the American people have allowed them to have it, I want judges who will use that power sparingly.
For those who plan on sitting out this election out or who just can’t seem to bring themselves to vote for McCain I completely understand, but I would like to plea with you to think about this. Can we really afford 30 more years of liberal Supreme Court Judges?
--
Shawn Mullen
Dan Lanotte
- The Carpenter's Mate
- Falcon, Colorado
- I am a 31 year Navy veteran, 15 years as a SONAR Technician and 16 years as an Intelligence Officer. I am a Goldwater-Reagan Conservative with a deep love for this wonderful country of opportunity and am concerned about the continued abrogation of our freedoms. In addition to putting my thoughts and political philosophy in these pages I enjoy teaching firearms and personal protection in keeping with the spirit of the Second Amendment. My courses are listed at www.carpmateconsulting.com.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Friends,
Since I started these postings, I have never hidden the fact that I am a strong supporter of Congressman Lamborn. His campaign has asked me to forward the following. The only comment I will make regarding the blog contained within is that I have met Mr. Crater and am familiar with the Wilberforce Center. I have found Mr. Crater to be a highly intelligent individual who fully understands and espouses Conservative Values. You are invited to consider this posting.
Dan
Subject: The Transparency of Congressman Doug Lamborn
In the Interest of Full Transparency...
In the interest of full transparency Congressman Doug Lamborn has released his funding requests. http://lamborn.house.gov/issues click on FY2009 Funding Requests
"There are only 110 lawmakers in the House and Senate who either don't request any earmarks or disclose their earmark requests." - Steve Ellis, Vice President of Taxpayers for Common Sense
Taxpayers for Common Sense is a nonpartisan group that demands and promotes fiscal responsibility and government accountability. They vigorously watch for and report on earmarks.
Congressman Lamborn's funding requests simply divert existing funds in the defense budget to areas with higher priority and away from failing or stagnant projects. This does not raise overall spending.
The Congressman has repeatedly been acknowledged and praised for his fiscally responsible and conservative actions.
Among these acknowledgments are:
- The "Taxpayers' Friend Award" from the National Taxpayers Union.
- A 100% anti-pork rating from the Club for Growth.
- A 100% rating from the American Conservative Union.
- A 100% pro-growth rating from the Club for Growth.
In fact, National Journal has ranked Congressman Lamborn as one of the top eight most conservative members of Congress.
______________________________________________________________________________
Here is a blog entry we found interesting and informative.
We thought you might want to read it.
Defend Doug
By Dave CraterJune 8th, 2008
http://backboneamerica.net/2008/06/08/1017/
“If You Care About Taxes, Spending, and Earmarks, Defend Doug”
It’s Republican primary time, when ambitions, conservative promises, and Reagan invocations are in full flower. And the only way to tell real conservative defenders from perennial conservative pretenders is to examine their records..
Let’s start with the record of incumbent congressman Doug Lamborn of Colorado’s Fifth Congressional District. Mr. Lamborn is finishing his first term in Congress and in that time, according to Congressional Quarterly, he voted against the Democrat agenda in Congress more than any other Republican (“CQPolitics.com Candidate Watch,” Congressional Quarterly, Aug. 10, 2007). This includes social, economic, and fiscal votes.
Mr. Lamborn was also one of five members of Congress – that’s five out of 535, and only three of the 435 members of the U.S. House – that the nation’s leading fiscal conservative group, Club for Growth, has given a rating of 100% for 2007. Club for Growth tracked votes on a range of tax, fiscal, and regulatory issues in the last Congress and determined that Mr. Lamborn voted correctly every time. See the entire 2007 Club for Growth scorecard here:
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2008/05/the_2007_congressional_scoreca.php
This is no new pattern. Over the twelve years he was a member of the Colorado legislature, Mr. Lamborn consistently led both the Colorado House and the Colorado Senate with his record of opposition to big-government spending, pork projects (these days fashionably referred to as “earmarks”), and tax increases.
With this kind of record, it is striking that Mr. Lamborn has a Republican primary opponent, Jeff Crank, attempting to criticize him on his fiscal record. It is well-known that, in justifying his own candidacy against a man who for a decade and a half has consistently defended all the things Mr. Crank claims to believe in, Mr. Crank has settled on one fundamental, earth-moving issue that gets the blood boiling of every principled Republican everywhere: franking expenditures.
That’s right, franking expenditures.
The franking privilege dates to the founding of the United States and covers expenses members of Congress incur in sending mail to their constituents. The purpose is obvious: communication between congresspeople and their constituents is a good thing. Clearly, this privilege like any legitimate privilege can be abused, so there are processes in place in Congress by which all franked mailings must be approved. Mr. Lamborn is a first-term congressman whose constituents need to get to know him and what he is doing on their behalf – again, this is not empty campaign-speak, but a rationale endorsed by the framers of American government – and all his mailings have been approved by congressional leadership. All such mail, moreover, is paid for out of a congressman’s official budget; what he does not spend on constituent communications he is fully authorized to spend on other things, and what he spends on constituent communications is not available for other things.
The use of this kind of issue against someone with the fiscal record of Mr. Lamborn says more about Mr. Crank than it does about the Congressman: from the standpoint of conservative policy, there simply is nothing more substantial on which Mr. Lamborn can be criticized.
Mr. Crank raised the franking issue most recently in a May 30 opinion column in the Colorado Springs Gazette, where he also offered glowing promises to, if elected, “rock the boat” of the Washington establishment, eliminate earmarks, eliminate the federal departments of Education, Commerce, and Energy, and cut federal spending by 20%.
Aside from the fact that even Ronald Reagan was not able to accomplish such heroic feats, if Mr. Crank were sincere in these convictions, he would be supporting Mr. Lamborn for Congress rather than running against him.
No Republican in the last two years, and very few Republicans in Colorado in the last half century, have more consistently, philosophically, and courageously opposed Washington (and Denver) excesses than has Doug Lamborn. It is the lack of people in Washington like Mr. Lamborn, and the interest of too many self-proclaimed conservatives in running against them, that is at the heart of the very Washington excess Mr. Crank now decries. It is also at the heart of the national Republican malaise that is quickly heading the GOP toward an electoral cataclysm in November.
Mr. Crank waxes poetic against earmarks. Again, if this conviction were superior to his personal ambition, Mr. Crank would be supporting Mr. Lamborn. Here are all Mr. Lamborn’s funding requests for fiscal year 2009, a list the Lamborn office has made public. All directly relate to defense spending, a core purpose of government, all Mr. Lamborn has offset in the budget by equivalent cuts in other programs so that there is no net increase in the federal budget, and all ironically recall Mr. Crank’s criticism of Mr. Lamborn during the 2006 campaign for allegedly not being as strong as Mr. Crank on defense:
Land Acquisition for Peterson Air Force Base
Missile Defense Integration and Operations Center
ACES 5 Ejection Seat
Expeditionary Alternative Power Generator
Radiation-Hardened Memory Technology
Digital Engine Technology
Military Information Management Software
Space and Electronic Warfare Analysis Tools
High Altitude, Long Endurance Communications and Surveillance System
Improved Ground Access to Peterson AFB
Improvements to Ft. Carson Gates 5 & 6
With requests like these, and with Mr. Lamborn now occupying a seat on the House Armed Services Committee, it is no wonder the defense criticisms have given way in Mr. Crank’s rhetoric to complaints about franking. As with his fiscal record, Mr. Lamborn’s history at the state level on issues of national security and defense was as impeccable as his federal record has now become.
As a side note, if Mr. Crank should criticize Mr. Lamborn for the above funding requests and call them “earmarks” as if they were pet pork projects, Mr. Crank should explain why as a lobbyist on behalf of a defense company in 2005 he requested, according to public lobbying records, “increased spending for the HH-6OL program” in defense authorization bills. The name of Mr. Crank’s lobbying company was Rocky Mountain Government Relations, and the HH-6OL is the Blackhawk medical evacuation helicopter now in use in the Army and National Guard. Earmark, or legitimate modernization of the armed forces that defend us and that are such central issues in the Fifth Congressional District?
In addition to franking, Mr. Crank can regularly be heard calling for better “leadership” in Washington, presumably implying that Mr. Lamborn’s leadership is somehow defective. For starters, here is a short summary of Mr. Lamborn’s legislative resume, a kind of resume of which Mr. Crank has not the beginning: Colorado House of Representatives, 1995; House Republican Whip, 1997; Colorado Senate, 1998; Senate President Pro-Tem, 1999; U.S. Congress, 2006; U.S. House Armed Services Committee, 2007. Mr. Lamborn is also a member of two other U.S. House committees.
Moreover, here is a quotation from a letter written to Mr. Lamborn last week by the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Crank’s former employer, concerning Mr. Lamborn’s funding requests. The letter is dated May 28, 2008 and is signed by the Chamber’s CEO.
“Your policy of only making requests that promote our nation’s defense, as well as providing full disclosure on these projects reflects not only their legitimacy, but also their important role in improving our nation’s defenses…It is with great pleasure that we offer our support, on behalf of the Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, for not only the appropriations you’ve requested, but also the manner in which you have done so. In a time where real transparency is lacking in Washington, your actions provide a refreshing change of pace.”
Sound suspiciously like leadership?
It should be noted clearly what many noted during the 2006 primary contest between Mr. Lamborn and Mr. Crank. Nobody doubts that Mr. Crank maintains a coherent conservative philosophy of government and a genuine desire to serve his country. Given Mr. Lamborn’s stellar record at both the state and federal levels, what is in doubt is Mr. Crank’s ability to subordinate his ambition to his desire to see the things he believes implemented in government. There simply is no improvement he could possibly make to the record of Mr. Lamborn, and plenty of ways he would not likely match Mr. Lamborn; indeed, at least according to the Club for Growth, there are only a handful even among current members of Congress who are in Mr. Lamborn’s league.
There is only one wise route for Fifth Congressional District Republicans on the ground to follow this August: ignore empty criticisms and empty promises, and say a prayer of thanks that in this age of messianic Democrats and the empty-headed crowds who love them, Colorado and Colorado Springs have a congressman with the kind of real wisdom, real mettle, and real leadership that will far outlast the latest political fad and the latest self-promoting Republican challenger.
The author can be reached at crater@wilberforcecenter.org
Since I started these postings, I have never hidden the fact that I am a strong supporter of Congressman Lamborn. His campaign has asked me to forward the following. The only comment I will make regarding the blog contained within is that I have met Mr. Crater and am familiar with the Wilberforce Center. I have found Mr. Crater to be a highly intelligent individual who fully understands and espouses Conservative Values. You are invited to consider this posting.
Dan
Subject: The Transparency of Congressman Doug Lamborn
In the Interest of Full Transparency...
In the interest of full transparency Congressman Doug Lamborn has released his funding requests. http://lamborn.house.gov/issues click on FY2009 Funding Requests
"There are only 110 lawmakers in the House and Senate who either don't request any earmarks or disclose their earmark requests." - Steve Ellis, Vice President of Taxpayers for Common Sense
Taxpayers for Common Sense is a nonpartisan group that demands and promotes fiscal responsibility and government accountability. They vigorously watch for and report on earmarks.
Congressman Lamborn's funding requests simply divert existing funds in the defense budget to areas with higher priority and away from failing or stagnant projects. This does not raise overall spending.
The Congressman has repeatedly been acknowledged and praised for his fiscally responsible and conservative actions.
Among these acknowledgments are:
- The "Taxpayers' Friend Award" from the National Taxpayers Union.
- A 100% anti-pork rating from the Club for Growth.
- A 100% rating from the American Conservative Union.
- A 100% pro-growth rating from the Club for Growth.
In fact, National Journal has ranked Congressman Lamborn as one of the top eight most conservative members of Congress.
______________________________________________________________________________
Here is a blog entry we found interesting and informative.
We thought you might want to read it.
Defend Doug
By Dave CraterJune 8th, 2008
http://backboneamerica.net/2008/06/08/1017/
“If You Care About Taxes, Spending, and Earmarks, Defend Doug”
It’s Republican primary time, when ambitions, conservative promises, and Reagan invocations are in full flower. And the only way to tell real conservative defenders from perennial conservative pretenders is to examine their records..
Let’s start with the record of incumbent congressman Doug Lamborn of Colorado’s Fifth Congressional District. Mr. Lamborn is finishing his first term in Congress and in that time, according to Congressional Quarterly, he voted against the Democrat agenda in Congress more than any other Republican (“CQPolitics.com Candidate Watch,” Congressional Quarterly, Aug. 10, 2007). This includes social, economic, and fiscal votes.
Mr. Lamborn was also one of five members of Congress – that’s five out of 535, and only three of the 435 members of the U.S. House – that the nation’s leading fiscal conservative group, Club for Growth, has given a rating of 100% for 2007. Club for Growth tracked votes on a range of tax, fiscal, and regulatory issues in the last Congress and determined that Mr. Lamborn voted correctly every time. See the entire 2007 Club for Growth scorecard here:
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2008/05/the_2007_congressional_scoreca.php
This is no new pattern. Over the twelve years he was a member of the Colorado legislature, Mr. Lamborn consistently led both the Colorado House and the Colorado Senate with his record of opposition to big-government spending, pork projects (these days fashionably referred to as “earmarks”), and tax increases.
With this kind of record, it is striking that Mr. Lamborn has a Republican primary opponent, Jeff Crank, attempting to criticize him on his fiscal record. It is well-known that, in justifying his own candidacy against a man who for a decade and a half has consistently defended all the things Mr. Crank claims to believe in, Mr. Crank has settled on one fundamental, earth-moving issue that gets the blood boiling of every principled Republican everywhere: franking expenditures.
That’s right, franking expenditures.
The franking privilege dates to the founding of the United States and covers expenses members of Congress incur in sending mail to their constituents. The purpose is obvious: communication between congresspeople and their constituents is a good thing. Clearly, this privilege like any legitimate privilege can be abused, so there are processes in place in Congress by which all franked mailings must be approved. Mr. Lamborn is a first-term congressman whose constituents need to get to know him and what he is doing on their behalf – again, this is not empty campaign-speak, but a rationale endorsed by the framers of American government – and all his mailings have been approved by congressional leadership. All such mail, moreover, is paid for out of a congressman’s official budget; what he does not spend on constituent communications he is fully authorized to spend on other things, and what he spends on constituent communications is not available for other things.
The use of this kind of issue against someone with the fiscal record of Mr. Lamborn says more about Mr. Crank than it does about the Congressman: from the standpoint of conservative policy, there simply is nothing more substantial on which Mr. Lamborn can be criticized.
Mr. Crank raised the franking issue most recently in a May 30 opinion column in the Colorado Springs Gazette, where he also offered glowing promises to, if elected, “rock the boat” of the Washington establishment, eliminate earmarks, eliminate the federal departments of Education, Commerce, and Energy, and cut federal spending by 20%.
Aside from the fact that even Ronald Reagan was not able to accomplish such heroic feats, if Mr. Crank were sincere in these convictions, he would be supporting Mr. Lamborn for Congress rather than running against him.
No Republican in the last two years, and very few Republicans in Colorado in the last half century, have more consistently, philosophically, and courageously opposed Washington (and Denver) excesses than has Doug Lamborn. It is the lack of people in Washington like Mr. Lamborn, and the interest of too many self-proclaimed conservatives in running against them, that is at the heart of the very Washington excess Mr. Crank now decries. It is also at the heart of the national Republican malaise that is quickly heading the GOP toward an electoral cataclysm in November.
Mr. Crank waxes poetic against earmarks. Again, if this conviction were superior to his personal ambition, Mr. Crank would be supporting Mr. Lamborn. Here are all Mr. Lamborn’s funding requests for fiscal year 2009, a list the Lamborn office has made public. All directly relate to defense spending, a core purpose of government, all Mr. Lamborn has offset in the budget by equivalent cuts in other programs so that there is no net increase in the federal budget, and all ironically recall Mr. Crank’s criticism of Mr. Lamborn during the 2006 campaign for allegedly not being as strong as Mr. Crank on defense:
Land Acquisition for Peterson Air Force Base
Missile Defense Integration and Operations Center
ACES 5 Ejection Seat
Expeditionary Alternative Power Generator
Radiation-Hardened Memory Technology
Digital Engine Technology
Military Information Management Software
Space and Electronic Warfare Analysis Tools
High Altitude, Long Endurance Communications and Surveillance System
Improved Ground Access to Peterson AFB
Improvements to Ft. Carson Gates 5 & 6
With requests like these, and with Mr. Lamborn now occupying a seat on the House Armed Services Committee, it is no wonder the defense criticisms have given way in Mr. Crank’s rhetoric to complaints about franking. As with his fiscal record, Mr. Lamborn’s history at the state level on issues of national security and defense was as impeccable as his federal record has now become.
As a side note, if Mr. Crank should criticize Mr. Lamborn for the above funding requests and call them “earmarks” as if they were pet pork projects, Mr. Crank should explain why as a lobbyist on behalf of a defense company in 2005 he requested, according to public lobbying records, “increased spending for the HH-6OL program” in defense authorization bills. The name of Mr. Crank’s lobbying company was Rocky Mountain Government Relations, and the HH-6OL is the Blackhawk medical evacuation helicopter now in use in the Army and National Guard. Earmark, or legitimate modernization of the armed forces that defend us and that are such central issues in the Fifth Congressional District?
In addition to franking, Mr. Crank can regularly be heard calling for better “leadership” in Washington, presumably implying that Mr. Lamborn’s leadership is somehow defective. For starters, here is a short summary of Mr. Lamborn’s legislative resume, a kind of resume of which Mr. Crank has not the beginning: Colorado House of Representatives, 1995; House Republican Whip, 1997; Colorado Senate, 1998; Senate President Pro-Tem, 1999; U.S. Congress, 2006; U.S. House Armed Services Committee, 2007. Mr. Lamborn is also a member of two other U.S. House committees.
Moreover, here is a quotation from a letter written to Mr. Lamborn last week by the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Crank’s former employer, concerning Mr. Lamborn’s funding requests. The letter is dated May 28, 2008 and is signed by the Chamber’s CEO.
“Your policy of only making requests that promote our nation’s defense, as well as providing full disclosure on these projects reflects not only their legitimacy, but also their important role in improving our nation’s defenses…It is with great pleasure that we offer our support, on behalf of the Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, for not only the appropriations you’ve requested, but also the manner in which you have done so. In a time where real transparency is lacking in Washington, your actions provide a refreshing change of pace.”
Sound suspiciously like leadership?
It should be noted clearly what many noted during the 2006 primary contest between Mr. Lamborn and Mr. Crank. Nobody doubts that Mr. Crank maintains a coherent conservative philosophy of government and a genuine desire to serve his country. Given Mr. Lamborn’s stellar record at both the state and federal levels, what is in doubt is Mr. Crank’s ability to subordinate his ambition to his desire to see the things he believes implemented in government. There simply is no improvement he could possibly make to the record of Mr. Lamborn, and plenty of ways he would not likely match Mr. Lamborn; indeed, at least according to the Club for Growth, there are only a handful even among current members of Congress who are in Mr. Lamborn’s league.
There is only one wise route for Fifth Congressional District Republicans on the ground to follow this August: ignore empty criticisms and empty promises, and say a prayer of thanks that in this age of messianic Democrats and the empty-headed crowds who love them, Colorado and Colorado Springs have a congressman with the kind of real wisdom, real mettle, and real leadership that will far outlast the latest political fad and the latest self-promoting Republican challenger.
The author can be reached at crater@wilberforcecenter.org
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Farm Bill
Friends,
Yesterday, our Senator from Colorado, Ken Salazar, once again got it wrong. He said, “President Bush’s veto of the farm bill is an insult to rural America and would hurt all those who benefit from the food our farmers provide.”
To paraphrase Shakespeare, “Pork by any other name would smell just as foul.” America’s farmers can hardly get any more crops into the ground and they are reaping huge profits off those crops, and they deserve every penny. A farmer’s life is hard; they deserve the profit they earn.
However, I see no reason for the massive subsidies promised every year, in some cases, subsidies to NOT plant. According to the Associated Press, $40 billion is to go to farmers for subsidies, $30 billion is to also go to farmers to NOT plant, and the rest goes to nutrition programs such as food stamps, etc. As I understand it, this is the government’s way of regulating how much of what crop is made available. What happened to the governance of the marketplace, and the law of supply and demand? The federal government has been manipulating the agricultural market for decades. It is time they stop!
We are looking at a $290 BILLION tax on the American public. We are being taxed into the ground as it is and the concept of paying one segment of our workforce to do the job (or not do the job) they have chosen is ludicrous. The farmers are working for the consumer, just as the plumber or the carpenter. I have yet to see any subsidies for plumbers and carpenters to NOT go to work. That would be called welfare.
I fully understand that there is a segment of our society that needs a hand up. Some school children must have subsidized breakfasts and lunches or they will go hungry. The question is why parents are not held accountable for this lack of care? Where are the mandatory education and/or training programs for those who cannot care for their children? Do not misunderstand me; I know that there are some who are not physically or mentally able to accomplish this. These folks need whatever assistance they can get. But isn’t that a state concern? Where in the Constitution is this type of aid authorized?
I have written our Congressman and two Senators to urge them to vote against this pork.
As always, I welcome your comments/discussion.
Dan
Yesterday, our Senator from Colorado, Ken Salazar, once again got it wrong. He said, “President Bush’s veto of the farm bill is an insult to rural America and would hurt all those who benefit from the food our farmers provide.”
To paraphrase Shakespeare, “Pork by any other name would smell just as foul.” America’s farmers can hardly get any more crops into the ground and they are reaping huge profits off those crops, and they deserve every penny. A farmer’s life is hard; they deserve the profit they earn.
However, I see no reason for the massive subsidies promised every year, in some cases, subsidies to NOT plant. According to the Associated Press, $40 billion is to go to farmers for subsidies, $30 billion is to also go to farmers to NOT plant, and the rest goes to nutrition programs such as food stamps, etc. As I understand it, this is the government’s way of regulating how much of what crop is made available. What happened to the governance of the marketplace, and the law of supply and demand? The federal government has been manipulating the agricultural market for decades. It is time they stop!
We are looking at a $290 BILLION tax on the American public. We are being taxed into the ground as it is and the concept of paying one segment of our workforce to do the job (or not do the job) they have chosen is ludicrous. The farmers are working for the consumer, just as the plumber or the carpenter. I have yet to see any subsidies for plumbers and carpenters to NOT go to work. That would be called welfare.
I fully understand that there is a segment of our society that needs a hand up. Some school children must have subsidized breakfasts and lunches or they will go hungry. The question is why parents are not held accountable for this lack of care? Where are the mandatory education and/or training programs for those who cannot care for their children? Do not misunderstand me; I know that there are some who are not physically or mentally able to accomplish this. These folks need whatever assistance they can get. But isn’t that a state concern? Where in the Constitution is this type of aid authorized?
I have written our Congressman and two Senators to urge them to vote against this pork.
As always, I welcome your comments/discussion.
Dan
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Illegal Aliens and the War Supplemental Bill for 2008
Friends,
Below is a copy of a letter I have just sent to Senators Allard and Salazar:
Senator,
It has been brought to my attention that Senator Feinstein has successfully attached an amendment to the War Supplemental Bill for 2008 that would give legal status to an estimated 1.35 million illegal aliens working in agriculture. I have also been informed that this bill is to be voted upon in the Senate in the next few days.
I strongly urge you to vote against this bill and work for its defeat. Illegal aliens are, by definition, law-breakers who have proven that they have no respect for the laws of our country.
There is an alternative to having illegals working in agricultural jobs. That is to have an established “guest worker” program such as that proposed by Marsha Looper in the Colorado State House. Using this approach, we would know who is coming in to work, where they will be working, and when they will leave. If they come in on a permanent work visa, we will still know who they are, where they are working and their exact status.
Why should illegals be given preferential status over those who stand in line and have respect for our laws?
Sincerely
Daniel C. Lanotte
Falcon, Colorado
Below is a copy of a letter I have just sent to Senators Allard and Salazar:
Senator,
It has been brought to my attention that Senator Feinstein has successfully attached an amendment to the War Supplemental Bill for 2008 that would give legal status to an estimated 1.35 million illegal aliens working in agriculture. I have also been informed that this bill is to be voted upon in the Senate in the next few days.
I strongly urge you to vote against this bill and work for its defeat. Illegal aliens are, by definition, law-breakers who have proven that they have no respect for the laws of our country.
There is an alternative to having illegals working in agricultural jobs. That is to have an established “guest worker” program such as that proposed by Marsha Looper in the Colorado State House. Using this approach, we would know who is coming in to work, where they will be working, and when they will leave. If they come in on a permanent work visa, we will still know who they are, where they are working and their exact status.
Why should illegals be given preferential status over those who stand in line and have respect for our laws?
Sincerely
Daniel C. Lanotte
Falcon, Colorado
Thursday, May 15, 2008
S. 2433, the Global Poverty Act of 2007
Friends,
The US Senate is getting ready to vote on S.2433, the Global Poverty Act of 2007. This bill, introduced by Senator Obama, is just one more piece of legislation that the Liberals want to use to promote their “One World Order.” The wording of the bill as printed on Senator Obama’s website is:
"U.S. Senators Barack Obama (D-IL), Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) have introduced the Global Poverty Act (S.2433), which requires the President to develop and implement a comprehensive policy to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief, and coordination with the international community, businesses and NGOs. Representatives Adam Smith (D-WA) and Spencer Bachus (R-AL) sponsored the House version of the bill (H.R. 1302), which passed the House in September." http://obama.senate.gov/press/071211-obama_hagel_can/
As a further example of the intent of this bill, the following is also copied from the source above:
"America needs to do more to help the 1.1 billion men, women and children throughout the world living on less than $1 a day by helping promote sustainable economic growth and development," said Senator Cantwell. "We need to do more to save lives in the poorest countries. The U.S. needs to implement a real plan to combat poverty on a global scale while also addressing the national security risks extreme poverty creates."
The goal is to work toward the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ . If this legislation passes, it would obligate this country to billions of dollars for world welfare. This clearly goes against the principles of the Founding Fathers.
This has been, from its inception, a country based on the principle of each individual working for and achieving goals based on the sweat of the brow. For this country to take on the responsibility and financial burden of over 1 billion souls would drive us so far under the financial curve as to permanently bankrupt us. The Liberals of Congress have, for the past 75 years, worked to turn this country into a totally dependent entitlement society. The Soviets finally realized that type of society does not work and they collapsed for trying. Now, our Liberal-led Congress under the tutelage of House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid want to contribute to turning the rest of humanity into a completely dependent entitlement world.
When I first found out about this bill, I contacted Senator Salazar (D-CO) to urge him to work to defeat this bad piece of legislation. He sent this response:
"As you know, S.2433 would direct the Secretary of State to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the U.S. foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal.S.2433 currently awaits action in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which I am not a member. However, please rest assured that I am fully committed to combating poverty, disease, and hunger around the world, and that I will consider S.2243 with that commitment in mind should it come to the full Senate for consideration."
Senator Salazar is playing very loose and free with your and my money, with the intent of sending it around the world. It was always obvious that Senator Salazar was sucking on Ted Kennedy’s Kool-Aid, but this time he has really gone too far. I urge all of my readers to contact their respective Senators to urge that they work to defeat this really bad piece of legislation.
As always, I welcome your comments/discussion.
Dan
The US Senate is getting ready to vote on S.2433, the Global Poverty Act of 2007. This bill, introduced by Senator Obama, is just one more piece of legislation that the Liberals want to use to promote their “One World Order.” The wording of the bill as printed on Senator Obama’s website is:
"U.S. Senators Barack Obama (D-IL), Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) have introduced the Global Poverty Act (S.2433), which requires the President to develop and implement a comprehensive policy to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief, and coordination with the international community, businesses and NGOs. Representatives Adam Smith (D-WA) and Spencer Bachus (R-AL) sponsored the House version of the bill (H.R. 1302), which passed the House in September." http://obama.senate.gov/press/071211-obama_hagel_can/
As a further example of the intent of this bill, the following is also copied from the source above:
"America needs to do more to help the 1.1 billion men, women and children throughout the world living on less than $1 a day by helping promote sustainable economic growth and development," said Senator Cantwell. "We need to do more to save lives in the poorest countries. The U.S. needs to implement a real plan to combat poverty on a global scale while also addressing the national security risks extreme poverty creates."
The goal is to work toward the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ . If this legislation passes, it would obligate this country to billions of dollars for world welfare. This clearly goes against the principles of the Founding Fathers.
This has been, from its inception, a country based on the principle of each individual working for and achieving goals based on the sweat of the brow. For this country to take on the responsibility and financial burden of over 1 billion souls would drive us so far under the financial curve as to permanently bankrupt us. The Liberals of Congress have, for the past 75 years, worked to turn this country into a totally dependent entitlement society. The Soviets finally realized that type of society does not work and they collapsed for trying. Now, our Liberal-led Congress under the tutelage of House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid want to contribute to turning the rest of humanity into a completely dependent entitlement world.
When I first found out about this bill, I contacted Senator Salazar (D-CO) to urge him to work to defeat this bad piece of legislation. He sent this response:
"As you know, S.2433 would direct the Secretary of State to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the U.S. foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal.S.2433 currently awaits action in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which I am not a member. However, please rest assured that I am fully committed to combating poverty, disease, and hunger around the world, and that I will consider S.2243 with that commitment in mind should it come to the full Senate for consideration."
Senator Salazar is playing very loose and free with your and my money, with the intent of sending it around the world. It was always obvious that Senator Salazar was sucking on Ted Kennedy’s Kool-Aid, but this time he has really gone too far. I urge all of my readers to contact their respective Senators to urge that they work to defeat this really bad piece of legislation.
As always, I welcome your comments/discussion.
Dan
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Energy (Part 2)
Friends,
As promised in my last posting, I am going to continue with my discussion on energy, even though I started the last one with Rocky’s shopping trip.
When I wrote the last posting about the grocery bill, ethanol, etc., I had no idea that it would find its way to ColoradoPols.com. WOW! I really generated some discussion. There were comments from both ends of the spectrum. One individual, who was extremely critical as well as rude, inadvertently provided me with some very good data. To that individual, I say “Thank You.” He showed a pie chart from DOE that shows only 1.6% of our electricity is generated by using petroleum. I stand corrected.
The chart also shows that only 19.4% is generated by nuclear power. I think that this is one place we could make major improvements. The Europeans have broken the code on nuclear power. One of the main concerns about nuclear power is what do you do with the used fuel rods? The Europeans do not have the bureaucratic problems we have. They reprocess the spent fuel rods to get more use out of them. We, by law, are not allowed to do that. Instead, we have a huge cavern in Nevada to take them to (of course, the citizens of Nevada are really happy with this concept). Instead of processing the real waste down into a pint can, we have to bury the entire rod. What a waste!
I have to assume that “Other Renewables” (2.4%) on the pie chart is referring to solar and wind. That is a pathetic number. When I was stationed in Alameda, CA, I can remember driving east out of the Bay area and going past a huge windmill farm. All of the wind mills were turning and making electricity. After I returned to the Springs I heard that the environmentalists made the power company shut them down because the birds were flying into the blades. OK, boys and girls, which way is it going to be? You cannot have it both ways. I think this example is sad in the extreme. The good part about wind and solar in today’s technology is that great strides are being made in solar collectors, storage capability, and wind mill technology. The price is coming down and the availability/choices are going up.
Now, getting back to the topic I started with last week; we are in love with our automobiles and use an appropriate amount of gas and diesel to feed that love. We are shocked at the pump when we fill up. It takes me almost $20 to fill my motorcycle and over $100 to fill my truck. Nobody will be able to convince me that the answer to the gas crisis is ethanol. Contrary to what some of the respondents on ColoradoPols.com think, I am not that stupid. I have read reports that say ethanol burns dirty, it takes an inordinate amount of fuel just to manufacture it, and it eats up arable land, driving up food prices. I do not see anything smart in this lineup.
There is an unlimited supply of hydrogen on this planet. Even if we tried, we could not use it up. With all the talk about conservation where is the effort to develop a reliable, cost effective method of producing, storing and using hydrogen for the internal combustion engine, or some other technology. There has been a lot of research done on the fuel cell that converts hydrogen into electricity as it passes through a membrane. This is one of the outgrowths of the space industry. For commercial use, the technology is still immature, but some very smart people got this far; who is to say they will not make the breakthrough necessary to make it commercially feasible?
We have been crying about energy shortages for the last 40 years (almost) and yet, comparatively little has been done. Now we are faced with $4+ gasoline, and food prices that are skyrocketing because it is more important to plant corn for ethanol. To me, that borders on stupid, or greedy, or both. I certainly do not blame the farmers. In our competitive free market system, they are doing what they have to do in order to maximize their profits. The ones I blame are the bureaucrats and, yes, the eco-terrorists who are more concerned with protecting their income or their “movement” than seeking real solutions for real problems. It is high time that the smart people step up to the plate and say “enough is enough.” The bureaucrats are not the ones to do it. It is the scientists and engineers and their bosses in industry that will see this thing through.
As always, I welcome your comments/discussions
Dan
As promised in my last posting, I am going to continue with my discussion on energy, even though I started the last one with Rocky’s shopping trip.
When I wrote the last posting about the grocery bill, ethanol, etc., I had no idea that it would find its way to ColoradoPols.com. WOW! I really generated some discussion. There were comments from both ends of the spectrum. One individual, who was extremely critical as well as rude, inadvertently provided me with some very good data. To that individual, I say “Thank You.” He showed a pie chart from DOE that shows only 1.6% of our electricity is generated by using petroleum. I stand corrected.
The chart also shows that only 19.4% is generated by nuclear power. I think that this is one place we could make major improvements. The Europeans have broken the code on nuclear power. One of the main concerns about nuclear power is what do you do with the used fuel rods? The Europeans do not have the bureaucratic problems we have. They reprocess the spent fuel rods to get more use out of them. We, by law, are not allowed to do that. Instead, we have a huge cavern in Nevada to take them to (of course, the citizens of Nevada are really happy with this concept). Instead of processing the real waste down into a pint can, we have to bury the entire rod. What a waste!
I have to assume that “Other Renewables” (2.4%) on the pie chart is referring to solar and wind. That is a pathetic number. When I was stationed in Alameda, CA, I can remember driving east out of the Bay area and going past a huge windmill farm. All of the wind mills were turning and making electricity. After I returned to the Springs I heard that the environmentalists made the power company shut them down because the birds were flying into the blades. OK, boys and girls, which way is it going to be? You cannot have it both ways. I think this example is sad in the extreme. The good part about wind and solar in today’s technology is that great strides are being made in solar collectors, storage capability, and wind mill technology. The price is coming down and the availability/choices are going up.
Now, getting back to the topic I started with last week; we are in love with our automobiles and use an appropriate amount of gas and diesel to feed that love. We are shocked at the pump when we fill up. It takes me almost $20 to fill my motorcycle and over $100 to fill my truck. Nobody will be able to convince me that the answer to the gas crisis is ethanol. Contrary to what some of the respondents on ColoradoPols.com think, I am not that stupid. I have read reports that say ethanol burns dirty, it takes an inordinate amount of fuel just to manufacture it, and it eats up arable land, driving up food prices. I do not see anything smart in this lineup.
There is an unlimited supply of hydrogen on this planet. Even if we tried, we could not use it up. With all the talk about conservation where is the effort to develop a reliable, cost effective method of producing, storing and using hydrogen for the internal combustion engine, or some other technology. There has been a lot of research done on the fuel cell that converts hydrogen into electricity as it passes through a membrane. This is one of the outgrowths of the space industry. For commercial use, the technology is still immature, but some very smart people got this far; who is to say they will not make the breakthrough necessary to make it commercially feasible?
We have been crying about energy shortages for the last 40 years (almost) and yet, comparatively little has been done. Now we are faced with $4+ gasoline, and food prices that are skyrocketing because it is more important to plant corn for ethanol. To me, that borders on stupid, or greedy, or both. I certainly do not blame the farmers. In our competitive free market system, they are doing what they have to do in order to maximize their profits. The ones I blame are the bureaucrats and, yes, the eco-terrorists who are more concerned with protecting their income or their “movement” than seeking real solutions for real problems. It is high time that the smart people step up to the plate and say “enough is enough.” The bureaucrats are not the ones to do it. It is the scientists and engineers and their bosses in industry that will see this thing through.
As always, I welcome your comments/discussions
Dan
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Rising Food Costs
Friends,
It is the first of the month and as is her habit, my wife, Rocky, went to the grocery to do her “stock-up” shopping. As the term implies, this is when we do the majority of our grocery and necessity shopping. We will do some shopping during the month for perishables and other necessities, so we normally keep fairly well abreast of the trends in food prices. The first thing my Rocky told me when I got home was that she was experiencing sticker shock. Our normal “stock-up” shopping trip is good for approximately $150. Today, she spent closer to $260. We are not folks who eat a lot of “snacky” stuff. Our snacks normally consist of a couple of bags of pretzel sticks. We do not eat prepared foods, Rocky is just too good of a cook. Therefore, we are talking about an exorbitant increase in the price of staples.
Even the least astute of my readers will understand that this is merely personal observation and not a scientific study, even though we have seen reports of this type of price increase on the news and the folks I work with have made the same observation.
Let’s look at a couple of possible causes for extreme inflation like this. My first thought is the eco-terrorists. But the harder I think about the situation, the less I am inclined to think of any other cause. You may ask, or not, what the eco-terrorists have to do with the price of groceries. Well, I’m glad you asked, because I am just chomping at the bit to tell you.
First, there is the eco-terrorist fight to keep us from drilling in ANWAR and in the coastal plains. We have enough petroleum within the borders and territorial waters of the United States to satisfy our needs for many decades. Additionally, with the new find in the North/South Dakota area we would be even more secure in our energy supplies. But that is only part of the problem. The eco-terrorists have prevented the building of new refineries in the United States for over 31 years. With the reduced refining capacity vs. demand, we have become increasingly dependent on foreign oil imports. Of course this is no surprise to anyone.
There is now a movement to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by turning corn into ethanol and mixing with gasoline to make our gas supplies go farther. Of course the farmers know a cash cow when they see one. With more and more of our arable land being taken up for ethanol production, there is less available for food production. Never mind that it takes almost as much energy to produce one gallon of ethanol as you get out of it. But what do the eco-terrorists care, we are using a renewable source for fuel, even though it is almost a wash as to cost/benefit, from a fuel standpoint. However from a food standpoint, there is definite negative cost/benefit. There less food available and therefore the demand/price equation comes into play and we not only see sticker shock at the pump, we see it in the grocery line.
But eco-terrorists are not economists; they are, by definition, terrorists. They are holding the country, and actually the western hemisphere, hostage. There is such a shortage of corn, that the price of tortillas in Mexico has sky-rocketed. I am not saying this to be funny; this was reported on the news (as reliable as that is).
OK, the experts tell us that the way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil is to use less. That is kind of a “no-brainer.” Let’s explore some ways to reduce our usage of petroleum products, primarily gasoline, diesel, and natural gas.
One of the primary ways is to convert power plants to coal or nuclear power. The coal plants of today are not the same as those of our grandfathers’ day. There are chimney and stack scrubbers that clean up the emissions to the point of acceptability.
And then we can look at nuclear power. I was not able to find out how long it has been since we have built a nuclear power plant, but I know that it has been a long time. It is just easier not to bother with it than to fight the eco-terrorists. When you look at the success of the nuclear power industry in Europe, one can only wonder why we do not follow suit. The answer is simple. The eco-terrorists have beaten Congress and various administrations into submission.
We use a lot of petroleum to make electricity. Why; because the eco-terrorists would rather scream about the ecology than do something about it. With every court battle, they prove their disdain for America.
Of course, no terrorist can ply his trade without an enabler. The good news for the eco-terrorists is that they have a number of groups of enablers. They start with the Senate and House of Representatives and go all the way down to state legislatures. In my next posting, I will discuss the complicity of these groups.
As always I welcome your comments/discussions.
Dan Lanotte
It is the first of the month and as is her habit, my wife, Rocky, went to the grocery to do her “stock-up” shopping. As the term implies, this is when we do the majority of our grocery and necessity shopping. We will do some shopping during the month for perishables and other necessities, so we normally keep fairly well abreast of the trends in food prices. The first thing my Rocky told me when I got home was that she was experiencing sticker shock. Our normal “stock-up” shopping trip is good for approximately $150. Today, she spent closer to $260. We are not folks who eat a lot of “snacky” stuff. Our snacks normally consist of a couple of bags of pretzel sticks. We do not eat prepared foods, Rocky is just too good of a cook. Therefore, we are talking about an exorbitant increase in the price of staples.
Even the least astute of my readers will understand that this is merely personal observation and not a scientific study, even though we have seen reports of this type of price increase on the news and the folks I work with have made the same observation.
Let’s look at a couple of possible causes for extreme inflation like this. My first thought is the eco-terrorists. But the harder I think about the situation, the less I am inclined to think of any other cause. You may ask, or not, what the eco-terrorists have to do with the price of groceries. Well, I’m glad you asked, because I am just chomping at the bit to tell you.
First, there is the eco-terrorist fight to keep us from drilling in ANWAR and in the coastal plains. We have enough petroleum within the borders and territorial waters of the United States to satisfy our needs for many decades. Additionally, with the new find in the North/South Dakota area we would be even more secure in our energy supplies. But that is only part of the problem. The eco-terrorists have prevented the building of new refineries in the United States for over 31 years. With the reduced refining capacity vs. demand, we have become increasingly dependent on foreign oil imports. Of course this is no surprise to anyone.
There is now a movement to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by turning corn into ethanol and mixing with gasoline to make our gas supplies go farther. Of course the farmers know a cash cow when they see one. With more and more of our arable land being taken up for ethanol production, there is less available for food production. Never mind that it takes almost as much energy to produce one gallon of ethanol as you get out of it. But what do the eco-terrorists care, we are using a renewable source for fuel, even though it is almost a wash as to cost/benefit, from a fuel standpoint. However from a food standpoint, there is definite negative cost/benefit. There less food available and therefore the demand/price equation comes into play and we not only see sticker shock at the pump, we see it in the grocery line.
But eco-terrorists are not economists; they are, by definition, terrorists. They are holding the country, and actually the western hemisphere, hostage. There is such a shortage of corn, that the price of tortillas in Mexico has sky-rocketed. I am not saying this to be funny; this was reported on the news (as reliable as that is).
OK, the experts tell us that the way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil is to use less. That is kind of a “no-brainer.” Let’s explore some ways to reduce our usage of petroleum products, primarily gasoline, diesel, and natural gas.
One of the primary ways is to convert power plants to coal or nuclear power. The coal plants of today are not the same as those of our grandfathers’ day. There are chimney and stack scrubbers that clean up the emissions to the point of acceptability.
And then we can look at nuclear power. I was not able to find out how long it has been since we have built a nuclear power plant, but I know that it has been a long time. It is just easier not to bother with it than to fight the eco-terrorists. When you look at the success of the nuclear power industry in Europe, one can only wonder why we do not follow suit. The answer is simple. The eco-terrorists have beaten Congress and various administrations into submission.
We use a lot of petroleum to make electricity. Why; because the eco-terrorists would rather scream about the ecology than do something about it. With every court battle, they prove their disdain for America.
Of course, no terrorist can ply his trade without an enabler. The good news for the eco-terrorists is that they have a number of groups of enablers. They start with the Senate and House of Representatives and go all the way down to state legislatures. In my next posting, I will discuss the complicity of these groups.
As always I welcome your comments/discussions.
Dan Lanotte
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