July 19, 2007

Murtha's $ 1million earmark

What is this $1 million earmark that Jack Murtha's after? Money for a "Center for Instrumented Critical Infrastructure" (note: I have an MA and a law degree and I'm not sure I can figure out what the hell that means), apparently. And why aren't Democrats like Melissa Bean and Jim Matheson, who I actually had a fair amount of time for last year after they supported the vast majority of Jeff Flake's anti-earmark amendments, voting to strip it out of the bill in question?

Only two Dems voted to get rid of this earmark when Jeff Flake raised a vote to do just that yesterday. That's a pretty poor show. Mind you, only 96 Republicans wanted to get rid of it. From the Library of Congress' database, here is the info on who voted against this waste of $1 million in bold, and below it, a list of everyone who was fine with it, in italics. If your representative is on the italics list, you might want to mention to them that their vote yesterday was lame, lame, lame.

Those who voted to strip out the $1 million earmark:

Akin
Bachmann
Barrett (SC)
Biggert
Bilbray
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Boehner
Brady (TX)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Carney
Carter
Castle
Chabot
Coble
Conaway
Cooper
Davis (KY)
Davis, David
Deal (GA)
Duncan
Ehlers
Fallin
Feeney
Flake
Fossella
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Garrett (NJ)
Gillmor
Gohmert
Graves
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Heller
Hensarling
Hulshof
Inglis (SC)
Issa
Jindal
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jordan
Keller
King (IA)
Kirk
Kline (MN)
Lamborn
Linder
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mack
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul (TX)
McHenry
McKeon
Miller ...

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July 19, 2007

Americans United For Change ad ignores group's top agenda item

Well, well. My good friends at Americans United for Communism-- oops, I mean Change are running an ad touting the Democratic Congress' achievements. It appears that while liberal interest groups are totally stoked about what the Dems have been up to, ordinary Americans aren't (Congress' approval rating is down to 14% right now-- that's right, that's lower than Nixon's approval rating on the day he left office).

So, AUC, which is determined to get Dems re-elected and sent back to Washington in 2008 so that they can force through their stupid Card Check Bill that eliminates democratic elections in the workplace because, you know, authoritarianism is just fine as long as it serves the goals of the likes of Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters' Union, is running ads to remind everyone that actually, the Democrats are awesome because they increased the minimum wage and did some fiddling with some children's health program that most people have never heard of.

What I find hilarious-- hilarious, I tell you-- is that AUC apparently isn't mentioning the Card Check legislation, which Democrats rabidly pushed as political payback for union support that helped propel them into office last year. Perhaps that's because the legislation was a dead-ender (the Senate put a stop to the lunacy of introducing Soviet-style decision-making in the workplace, fortunately). Or maybe it's because with only 12% of the workforce nationwide being part of a union, AUC is aware that no matter how important Card Check is to its founders and donors (i.e., big labor, since this is a group almost 100% funded and backed by big labor, and set up at its behest), it isn't actually popular in the least bit and, surprise, when people learn about what t...

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July 19, 2007

British elections are so much more interesting...

Today, elections are being held for the MPs to replace Tony Blair and the oldest MP in the House, who recently died. The candidate slate in each race proves that elections in Britain really are more interesting. Check it out:

The official list of candidates for Sedgefield is:

* Stephen Gash, English Democrats - "Putting England First"
* Paul Gittins, Independent
* Tim Grainger, Christian Party "Proclaiming Christ's Lordship"
* Chris Haine, Green Party
* Alan 'Howling Laud' Hope, The Official Monster Raving Loony Party
* Toby Horton, UK Independence Party
* Graham Robb, Conservative Party
* Norman Scarth, Anti-Crime Party
* Andrew Spence, British National Party
* Greg Stone, Liberal Democrat
* Phil Wilson, Labour Party

The list for Ealing Southall is:

* Nigel Bakhai, Liberal Democrats
* John Sydney Cartwright, The Official Monster Raving Loony Party
* Sati Chaggar, English Democrats - 'Putting England First!'
* Salvinder Singh Dhillon, Respect - Peace, Justice, Equality
* Sarah Janet Edwards, Green Party
* Kuldeep Singh Grewal, Independent
* Tony Lit, Conservative Party
* Yakub Masih, Christian Party 'Proclaiming Christ's Lordship'
* Jasdev Singh Rai, Independent
* KT Rajan, UK Independence Party
* Virendra Kumar Sharma, The Labour Party Candidate
* Gulbash Singh, Independent


I'm obviously a Tory, but if I were voting in Sedgefield, specifically, I'd be highly tempted to support Alan "Howling Laud" Hope. Just because it would be great to say "I voted for Howling Laud." Note that this is essentially why my husband voted for "Andy The Hat" a few years back when we were living in Islington, where Tories, at least then, had roughly the same chances of winning any election as I do of ins...

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