The election of a president of mixed race was supposed to mark an end to discrimination in America. Instead it has ushered in a new era of blatant discrimination.

The very first piece of legislation enacted by the Obama administration was supposed to create or save 4 million jobs and prevent unemployment from going above 8% if enacted. Instead, the Stimulus Bill provided funding for existing government programs and many state programs for two years.

The real intent of this bill was to prevent the loss of unionized public sector jobs that make up 50% of all union workers and virtually all of SEIU’s workers. Even the 10% of the bill that was supposed to repair roads and bridges contained provisions to limit the jobs to only union workers.

Consequently, the unemployment rate has risen above 10%, despite the passage of the 787 billion Stimulus Bill.

The next action taken by the Obama administration was the government bailout of General Motors and Chrysler. This bailout violated bankruptcy laws which provide secured creditors with the first right to the company’s assets. Instead the secured creditors got 29% of their investment while the United Auto Workers (UAW) got 78% of their investment and partial ownership of the company.

Chrysler  Discrimination  General Motors  Labor Unions  Stimulus Bill  UAW 

Rarely do candidates for public office weigh in on these types of nominations, but Jane Norton, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Colorado, released a press statement earlier today on the nomination of Craig Becker for the National Labor Relations Board.

In her statement, Norton says:

"Senator Michael Bennet has been in office for more than a year now, and not once has he told Colorado voters where he stands on card check legislation. President Obama is now seeking to circumvent the legislative process by pushing through a union insider who would undo decades of progress in labor relations."

Becker, who works as a lawyer for the AFL-CIO, previously published an opinion stating that union-election rules, such as those addressed by card check, should be rewritten by the National Labor Relations Board to favor labor, without the consent of Congress

There is no question that a vote for Becker is a vote for card check,” continued Norton. “At a time when it’s absolutely vital that Congress turn its attention to the economy and jobs, the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats are once again bowing to union special interests. The Senate needs to end this sideshow with a ‘no’ vote and start listening to Americans."

Hopefully politicians in D.C. are paying attention to this. It looks like such nominations could be issues in November when the voters are heading to the ballot boxes.

Update 8:30 PM:  Senator Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) has announced he will back a GOP filibuster of Becker in the Senate according to Politico:

“Mr. Becker’s previous statements strongly indicate that he would take an aggressive personal agenda to the NLRB, and that he would pursue a personal agenda there, rather than that of the administration,” Nelson said in a statement. “This is of great concern, considering that the board’s main responsibility is to resolve labor disputes with an even and impartial hand."

Ben Nelson  Colorado  Craig Becker  Jane Norton  Labor Unions  Michael Bennet  National Labor Relations Board  U.S. Senate 

The Democrats’ future in the U.S. Senate looks even gloomier following Delaware Attorney General Joseph R. “Beau” Biden’s announcement on January 25 that he would not run for the seat vacated by his father, Vice President Joseph R. “Joe” Biden, Jr. Democrats at the national level, unnerved by a recent series of Republican victories in special elections, had looked to the younger Biden as their best hope for keeping both of the First State’s Senate seats in Democratic hands. The refusal of the vice president’s son to run for Senate in the nation’s second-smallest state says a lot about the current political climate.

Delawareans have been voting for (or against) Bidens since 1969, when 26-year-old Joe Biden ran for county council and won, only to run for U.S. Senate two years later, bypassing the usual political ladder of state offices and scoring a tremendous upset victory over Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs. In 2006, his son ran for state attorney general, successfully relying on family name recognition to defeat an opponent that was significantly better qualified. Of course, most followers of national-level politics probably have one question about the goings-on of Delaware: Who the heck cares?

The Obama administration cares. So does the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and Democrats across the country who see their Senate majority slipping away, one seat at a time. The fact is, Biden was their only hope to defeat Delaware’s Republican candidate, current U.S. Representative Michael Castle, a former two-term governor whose moderate status has earned him nine House terms in a strongly Democratic state. Barring a miracle for Democrats, Castle will occupy a seat held by their party since 1972.

2010 Elections  Beau Biden  Delaware  Joe Biden  U.S. Senate 

It is one thing to forget, ignore or misinterpret our nation’s history, but a group of uber-liberal educrats in North Carolina is taking the radical revisionism of America one step further. These politically-correct, taxpayer-funded “thought police” are actually trying to erase American history from our children’s textbooks.

What do they want to replace it with? Radical environmental propaganda from left-wing extremists who view American liberties as obstacles to overcome, not safeguards to be defended.

In perhaps the most glaring example to date of our government’s descent into socialist madness, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction is attempting to remove all American history prior to 1877 from its textbooks, replacing it with a “global studies” curriculum.

Rather than learning about George Washington crossing the Delaware or Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves (while studying from documents like the Declaration of Independence or the Emancipation Proclamation), high school students in North Carolina would instead be indoctrinated with more multicultural rhetoric and the fuzzy science of climate change (while studying form the Koran and the “Copenhagen Accord”).

This sort of raw indoctrination is worse than misguided – it’s treasonous.

If this new anti-American curriculum is adopted, American children would no longer learn about the principles on which this nation was established – and the blood that was shed in defense of those principles – they would instead be spoon-fed Obama administration talking points on how intolerant, imperialist America owes a huge financial debt to the rest of the world, one that we can start repaying immediately by helping developing nations “combat global warming.”

Bill Wilson  Education  North Carolina  North Carolina Department of Public Instruction 

With the seating of newly elected Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, Barack Obama has now agreed to hold televised meetings with Republicans and Democrats on health care reform. This feeble attempt by Obama and the Democrats to look bipartisan is nothing more than calculated damage control trying to prevent the inevitable losses in the coming 2010 mid-term elections.

According to Politico, Barack Obama stated that he wants to "look at the Republican ideas out there." But the real question is, where was this idea six months ago when Congressional Democrats were having backroom meetings while crafting a bill like a one-party aristocracy?

This shows once again that Barack Obama and his Democratic colleagues in Congress will only listen to the American people when they are forced to. And in this case, it took the special election in Massachusetts.

If this government was truly created “by the people, for the people,” then why was it that the Obama Administration and Congress refused to drop their push for socialized medicine even though the American people were vehemently opposed to it? (Final Health care poll showed 58% opposed the current bill according to Rasmussen Reports)

And before we get all excited about Obama’s newfound ways, let’s remember he has only promised to “look” at Republicans and not to start over with bipartisan input. In fact, at the Obama-GOP Baltimore confab some weeks back, Obama explicitly said that he had “read every Republican bill.” Apparently, that gem now enters the growing repository of Obama “misstatements.”

Democrats  Health Care  Obama  Republicans  Scott Brown 

In 2000, George W. Bush reclaimed the presidency for the GOP (albeit by a whisker) by co-opting such Democratic ‘kitchen table’ issues as education. Granted, in 2000, with relative peace and prosperity, such a softer message could far better resonate. But today, with a shaky world economy, the need for real education reform is as strong as ever, and conservatives, once again, can take the lead in addressing a problem that has, sadly, remained dormant for much of the last decade.

President Bush’s No Child Left Behind produced a mixed bag of results, but his remarks about the “soft bigotry of low expectations” highlighted the educational ghetto that has trapped so many poor, inner-city students in cycles of low test scores, high dropout rates and poverty. A post-9/11 world slowed the momentum toward greater reform, and the Obama Administration has, predictably, reversed some positive trends toward offering disadvantaged students the same choices enjoyed by wealthy liberals (President Obama, for the record, sends his daughters to an elite, private school).

The Democrats, by way of Senator Dick Durban of Illinois, cut funding for the District of Columbia’s voucher-based Opportunity Scholarship Program, an initiative that supporters claim raised student test scores. Voucher opponents, including President Obama, fear the effects of taking money out of the public system.

Education 

Newly seated Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown has triggered a firestorm by having the audacity to go on ABC's "This Week" and suggest: "We need to put a freeze on federal hires and federal raises because, as you know, federal employees are making twice as much as their private counterparts."

Public employee union bosses, of course, exploded in anger. Public employees swooned and reached for the smelling salts (as opposed to their usual fare of bon-bons and Sominex). And Barack Obama reportedly performed a seance in hopes of raising Ted Kennedy from the dead.

But, the fact is: Scott Brown was right -- as far as he went. And he should have gone much further. We don't simply need to put a freeze on federal hires and raises. We need to fire federal employees. The American people, themselves, are clearly prepared to do their part come November. But, it would be a chipper idea to get a head start now by firing about ten percent of the drones and dregs now feeding from the federal trough.

Everywhere else in America, workers are reporting to work each morning not knowing whether they will have a job by the end of the day. More than ten percent of American workers – if you believe Barack Obama’s Labor Department – are now unemployed. And if you add those who are working part time because they can’t find full time jobs, as well as those who have simply given up looking, the figure is nearly double that.

From Judicial Watch:

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians." The list, in alphabetical order, includes:

 

1. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT): This marks two years in a row for Senator Dodd, who made the 2008 "Ten Most Corrupt" list for his corrupt relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for accepting preferential treatment and loan terms from Countrywide Financial, a scandal which still dogs him. In 2009, the scandals kept coming for the Connecticut Democrat. In 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Senate ethics complaint against Dodd for undervaluing a property he owns in Ireland on his Senate Financial Disclosure forms. Judicial Watch's complaint forced Dodd to amend the forms. However, press reports suggest the property to this day remains undervalued. Judicial Watch also alleges in the complaint that Dodd obtained a sweetheart deal for the property in exchange for his assistance in obtaining a presidential pardon (during the Clinton administration) and other favors for a long-time friend and business associate. The false financial disclosure forms were part of the cover-up. Dodd remains the head the Senate Banking Committee.

 

2. Senator John Ensign (R-NV): A number of scandals popped up in 2009 involving public officials who conducted illicit affairs, and then attempted to cover them up with hush payments and favors, an obvious abuse of power. The year's worst offender might just be Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign. Ensign admitted in June to an extramarital affair with the wife of one of his staff members, who then allegedly obtained special favors from the Nevada Republican in exchange for his silence. According to The New York Times: "The Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee are expected to conduct preliminary inquiries into whether Senator John Ensign violated federal law or ethics rules as part of an effort to conceal an affair with the wife of an aide…" The former staffer, Douglas Hampton, began to lobby Mr. Ensign's office immediately upon leaving his congressional job, despite the fact that he was subject to a one-year lobbying ban. Ensign seems to have ignored the law and allowed Hampton lobbying access to his office as a payment for his silence about the affair. (These are potentially criminal offenses.) It looks as if Ensign misused his public office (and taxpayer resources) to cover up his sexual shenanigans.

 

3. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): Judicial Watch is investigating a $12 million TARP cash injection provided to the Boston-based OneUnited Bank at the urging of Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank. As reported in the January 22, 2009, edition of the Wall Street Journal, the Treasury Department indicated it would only provide funds to healthy banks to jump-start lending. Not only was OneUnited Bank in massive financial turmoil, but it was also "under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives' use." Rep. Frank admitted he spoke to a "federal regulator," and Treasury granted the funds. (The bank continues to flounder despite Frank's intervention for federal dollars.) Moreover, Judicial Watch uncovered documents in 2009 that showed that members of Congress for years were aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were playing fast and loose with accounting issues, risk assessment issues and executive compensation issues, even as liberals led by Rep. Frank continued to block attempts to rein in the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs). For example, during a hearing on September 10, 2003, before the House Committee on Financial Services considering a Bush administration proposal to further regulate Fannie and Freddie, Rep. Frank stated: "I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two Government Sponsored Enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury." Frank received $42,350 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between 1989 and 2008. Frank also engaged in a relationship with a Fannie Mae Executive while serving on the House Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

 

4. Tags

   See All Tags Add New Tag...
   
   Please Enter New Tags Separated By Comma's
     Or Close
   
   
   Barney Frank  Charles Rangel  Chris Dodd  Corruption  Eric Holder  Jesse Jackson  John Ensign  John Murtha  Judicial Watch  Nancy Pelosi  Obama  Roland Burris  Timothy Geithner 
   Powered By Joomla Tags
   
   
   Read More

   Add Comment (1)

   Hits: 100

As most of Americans already know, Republican Scott Brown was elected to take over the “Kennedy seat” in the Senate, dispatching Democrat opponent Martha Coakley handily in Massachusetts’ recent special election. Thus ended Democrats’ filibuster-proof 60-vote majority in the Senate and prospects for ramming Obamacare through on a strictly party-line vote.

Yet had the House and Senate concurred earlier on a health care reform bill agreeable to both Brown’s election wouldn’t have mattered nearly as much. Instead, each body designed legislation to pass their own side and in the end the differences were irreconcilable.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally threw in the towel, saying the one chance Obamacare had – passing the Senate bill as it was in the House – couldn’t draw the required 218 votes. A main sticking point was that the Senate bill lacked the prohibition on the federal government paying directly for abortions. That provision allowed the House to pass their bill with just two votes to spare and gave it the barest bipartisan fig leaf as GOP Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana was the lone Republican in favor.

Undeniably, part of Brown’s appeal was the prospect of killing Obamacare by being the 41st Republican vote and denying Democrats their supermajority. In the election’s aftermath, petulant Democrats threw losing candidate Martha Coakley under the bus for running a terrible, gaffe-prone campaign and openly spoke about changing the filibuster rules to allow Democrats to maintain their hammerlock, perhaps needing just 55 votes instead of 60. Decades ago, a compromise measure lowered the limit from a 2/3 majority of 67 Senators to the current 3/5 majority.

Health Care  Joseph Cao  Martha Coakley  Nancy Pelosi  Obamacare  Scott Brown