House passes bill to sue OPEC over oil prices
It would seem that just when you thought arrogance and downright utter stupidity in Washington couldn’t get any worse our elected leaders in the Congress come along and do something to surprise and even stun us all. So when I read the headline I thought to myself, WOW! I mean here we are as a nation suffering from skyrocketing sticker price shock at the pump and even dreading the next time we need to fill up knowing well that the price will be even higher we now learn that these night crawlers in Washington have no idea that they are about to drop the rest of us directly into the fire.
It would seem that they have now come up with the brilliant and genius idea of suing OPEC for their very own failures and shortcomings in our nations miserably failed energy policy. The very Congress that refuses to allow exploitation of our own vast oil reserves, the failure to authorize any new oil refining capacity increase in over 30 years, no new nuclear plant construction in over 25 years and no meaningful increases in funding for alternative fossil fuel alternatives. Utterly mind boggling.
It never ceases to amaze me how dumb and stupid these miserable out of touch cretins in Washington seem to think we peasants are and just how much they hold us in contempt. Now they want to make sure that they show the rest of the world just how stupid they can get and make us the laughing stock of the world while absolutely pissing off those who sell us their oil. Just how stupid can they get?! Never mind, I know that question is merely a rhetorical one.
House passes bill to sue OPEC over oil prices
By Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.
The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow.
The measure passed in a 324-84 vote, a big enough margin to override a presidential veto.
The legislation also creates a Justice Department task force to aggressively investigate gasoline price gouging and energy market manipulation.
"This bill guarantees that oil prices will reflect supply and demand economic rules, instead of wildly speculative and perhaps illegal activities," said Democratic Rep. Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, who sponsored the legislation.
The lawmaker said Americans "are at the mercy" of OPEC for how much they pay for gasoline, which this week hit a record average of $3.79 a gallon.
The White House opposes the bill, saying that targeting OPEC investment in the United States as a source for damage awards "would likely spur retaliatory action against American interests in those countries and lead to a reduction in oil available to U.S. refiners."
The administration said less oil going to refineries would limit available gasoline supplies and raise fuel prices.
Foreign investment in U.S. oil infrastructure has declined in the last decade. But the state-owned oil companies of several OPEC nations are owners of U.S. refineries, and those investments could be affected if the legislation becomes law, said Arlington, Virginia-based FBR Capital Markets Corp.
The bill also requires the Government Accountability Office to carryout a study on the effects of prior oil company mergers on energy prices.
The Senate would still have to approve the House measure.
The Senate previously approved similar legislation as part of a broad energy bill. However, the OPEC-suing provision was removed after White House opposition in order to get the underlying energy legislation signed into law.
They're at it once again or It just won't die!
Seems Dr. Frankenstein's monster just won't quite die and is trying to rise once again to wreak havoc on Americans and their families. Democrats and many Republican RINO's in Congress are trying to bring back amnesty once again but do it in a most hideous way as to get their monster slave wage labor for their big business donor-partners but also do it in such a way as to make sure meddling American citizens are forever locked out of any decision making process. Read on to see for yourself.
Will Congress Outlaw Local Laws?
Posted 05/14/2008 ET
Updated 05/14/2008 ET.One has to admire the Sisyphean tenacity of the Congress as it starts to roll another boulder up the mountain of public opposition to the federal encouragement of illegal immigration. The latest attempt, HR 5515, masquerading under the euphemistic label “New Employee Verification Act” (NEVA) is another unworthy successor to the recently demised “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act” and “Dream Act” in its insolent attempt to procure cheap labor and voting constituencies for the political ruling classes, Democrat and Republican alike.
Pushed as replacement for the current E-Verify system (formerly Basic Pilot) by which employers can use the Internet to verify the legal work status of workers, this bill would create yet another massive computer database requiring seven million US employers to query for all newly-hired employees. E-Verify has been successful for its relatively few users, but it does suffer from faults due to poor and incomplete data. The new NEVA system would presumably, but not convincingly, fix some of these faults, so at first glance it sounds like a good deal. But then one must consider the recent experience with government computer projects like the new, and now abandoned, “virtual fence” on the Arizona border, which sucked up $20 million only to provide high-tech nesting towers for Arizona vultures.
As always when dealing with the political class growing ever more distant from the populace it rules, the NEVA devil is in the details. For all of its noble goals, hidden in the voluminous wording of this legislation is the true agenda of its sponsors, to wit, the section on preemption, Section 101(b)(2)(A), which reduced to simple language* would preempt and ban any and all state or local law for immigration-related issues enacted to impose employer fines or sanctions, or would forbid any laws requiring employers to verify work status or identity for work authorization. It would also prevent any unit of government from verifying status of renters, determining eligibility for receipt of benefits, enrollment in school, obtaining a business or other license, or conducting a background check.
This preemption, buried deep in the text of the bill, would kill all the laws recently enacted by long-suffering states and localities in response to the federal government’s unwillingness to enforce its own federal laws on immigration. Gone would be the recent highly effective and highly successful enforcement legislation of Arizona and Oklahoma, the local laws and ordinances of towns like Hazleton, PA, Costa Mesa, CA, Herndon and Prince William, Virginia, and over a hundred other localities, and of hundreds more in process of enactment.
For one example, the control of business licenses is now one of the few areas not preempted. It is one of the few tools still left to states and local governments to fight the presence and hiring of illegal workers, and the award of benefits and welfare. NEVA would take even those tools away. Having abdicated its own responsibilities on immigration enforcement, the Congress is apparently on a search-and-destroy mission for any lower elected body that might actually want to follow the rule of law and provide the protection for its citizens that the federal government seems incapable and unwilling to provide.
The oxen now being gored by these successful local initiatives have been given a considerable role in crafting this debilitating legislation. The whining exploiters and profiteers of illegal labor in Arizona would love to see that state’s tough yet effective laws removed, and the Chamber of Commerce, a leading advocate for open borders and unlimited cheap labor, has contributed via testimony and a revolving door for some of its alumni in Congressional staff positions. They have not been hesitant to push for total preemption of all state actions in their Congressional testimony and policy papers.
While the preemption clause is the most fatal of the flaws in this legislation, there are others embodied within. For example, it only applies to new workers applying for positions after the date of enactment. It ignores the tens of millions of illegal workers already in the country. There is no requirement to “re-verify” workers already employed, even if they are not entitled to work, or even to be, in the United States. Once enacted, no further inquiry would be made of those here illegally unless they apply for a new job.
As long as a currently-positioned illegal does not apply for a new job, he is home free from further inspection. You can bet there will be a massive surge of “hiring” to get workers on the roles before the legislation takes effect, even if they don’t do much work for a while. This intentional omission guarantees a continuing cheap labor pool of millions which should satisfy the exploiters’ needs for quite some time, say until amnesty and a path to undeserved citizenship make them permanent.
Also lurking in the text is a safe harbor position that holds employers accountable only for the hiring decisions related to their own employees, not those of their subcontractors. Many if not most current illegal workers are employed through subcontractors, many of whom are unlicensed and working “off the books”. In the mid-Atlantic area it’s called the “Verizon Exemption”, based on that company’s penchant for hiring numerous subcontractors for its billion dollar cable-laying operations who almost exclusively employ illegal workers. Of course, the practice allows Verizon to say, probably with great accuracy and greater duplicity, that it does not hire illegals. But it sure pays for a lot of them, if indirectly and at a rate that is far below union wage scales and benefits it used to pay its now laid-off American employees.
It should be said that there are some good components to the NEVA Act. Theoretically, it could improve on the E-Verify system, assuming that a government program which spans three massive bureaucracies (Social Security, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services) can create and administer a massive new and secure data system. It could also eliminate some of the paper record-keeping requirements of the current system, like I-9 Forms. Another positive provision would be the use of the data as a tool for denying benefits (Social Security entitlements, welfare and education benefits) to those not legally entitled to them.
But beside the legal issues, there are other deficiencies in the proposed NEVA system of an administrative or technical nature. The proposed database is not a new creation, but an expansion of the system now used to track “deadbeat dads” (a rather sexist statement itself). NEVA is assumed by its proponents to be an improvement over what it claims is the error-prone E-Verify system, a statement not backed up by the statistics. But the “deadbeat dad” system has its own catalogue of errors and wrong identities, so it is debatable that in its expanded design it will be any better. NEVA also relies on source documents which themselves may be as compromised as the current false document plague inflicting other systems. For example, a driver’s license would be adequate for anyone who claims they are a US national (and who won’t). For the uninformed, driver’s licenses are those little cards you get down at the DMV, or from the guy at the day labor site, or some basement print shop which can also get you a matching Social Security card.
Why spend large sums to modify the “deadbeat dad” system with its own deficiencies rather than improve the E-Verify system specifically designed for the work eligibility task? Perhaps we should follow the money and see which government contractor has a vested interest in this new procurement.
The Act also requires that an employer actually hire the worker before he checks the NEVA system on eligibility. Trial lawyers and the ACLU will love this provision, as it will open the door for subsequent legal mischief if the employer finds out things that would have prevented that individual from being hired in the first place. It also provides for private entities to set up a parallel “Secure Employment Eligibility Verification System” (SEEVS) which can be used in lieu of the federal government system. There are no specified constraints on who can set up these external systems. It could be IBM, but it could also be La Raza or the ACLU. They would have access to normally secure and privacy restricted personal information in immigration and Social Security databases – and a lot of opportunity for mischief. But to be fair, La Raza opposes NEVA because it does not also include amnesty and a path to citizenship.
Although labeled “bipartisan”, this bill submitted by Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Tex.) is overwhelmingly Republican in its sponsorship (28 out of 31). It appears to be a counter to Democrat Heath Shuler’s SAVE Act legislation, a much better, if not perfect, alternative now blocked by fellow Democrat Speaker Pelosi’s pro-illegal obstinacy.
Apparently the Republican leadership in Congress, not having been slapped around enough by the voters in the disastrous 2006 elections for its disconnect with those voters, is hell-bent on continuing to fight the overwhelming majority of Americans who want the illegal immigration problem fixed, not facilitated. Rather than listen to the people, they seem to be more attuned to the special interests whose siren call on Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2006 led Republicans into the minority.
It would also be informative to hear what the Presidential candidates think about this legislation. Has John McCain still gotten the message -- “secure the borders first” -- or would he support this usurpation of local and state governments, including his own Arizona, by a federal authority with a history of apathy and indifference?
Candidates for the coming election are now a monotone chorus chanting “change”. Well, a welcome change for them and the rest of the inside-the-Beltway crowd would be to start enforcing the ample and adequate immigration laws we already have. A welcome change would also be to get off the open-border cheap-labor bandwagon and start paying attention to what the people want. If not, then let’s kick that boulder back down the mountain, and see if they want to try it again..
Lessons Learned? Hardly!
I would like to think that Republicans have started to pay attention to the winds of political change across the nation as they see their numbers steadily dwindling in the House and likely losses in the Senate but alas, they either haven’t been paying attention or just don’t care. It seems that they still just don’t get it.
I’ve been hearing conservative sounding voices starting to shout that Republicans need a plan, a total remake and start acting and sounding like they get it at last. I’ve heard Sean Hannity call for this on his radio and television show. I’ve heard Rush say it as well as several other national recognized conservative voices yet the leadership in the House and Senate just keep trudging full steam ahead into the coming train wreck.
I found this article at The UnionLeader.com that does a very good job of articulating just this very message in a piece titled: Dunces: Republicans learn nothing. Read on
Dunces: Republicans learn nothing
TWO DAYS after former Republican Rep. Bob Barr announced his candidacy for President as a Libertarian, and one day after a Republican lost a special election to a Democrat in a strongly GOP Mississippi district, more than half of House Republicans voted for the pork-saturated, $300 billion farm bill.
Idiots.
Three weeks ago, a Rasmussen Reports poll found that 48 percent of Americans trusted Democrats more than Republicans on the economy. Only 40 percent trusted Republicans more. That is the legacy of big-spending Republican policies pushed by leaders like Tom DeLay and President Bush and continued by the current GOP minority in the House.
For anyone with even weak Republican tendencies, voting against the farm bill was a no-brainer. The bill is full of subsidies, big-government economic meddling and wasteful pork projects. And yet, only 91 of 199 House Republicans voted against it.
New Hampshire Reps. Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter, continuing their lock-step support for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's big-government agenda, voted for the bill. And 91 House Republicans voted right along with them.
Sen. Judd Gregg, before voting against the bill Thursday morning, had a good summary of its ridiculous economics.
"Some may ask, and I may have wondered, what happened to all the economists who worked for the Soviet Union when it failed, who were sitting at their desks and they didn't have a job anymore? Folks who believed in a commissar economy, who believed in top-down management of the economy, who believed in five-year plans, who believed that supply and demand had no relationship to markets -- where did those people go?
"We know, they went into the development of present farm policy."
And their harmful ideas were approved, again, by Republicans, alleged defenders of free markets and opponents of redistributionist economic schemes.
As a group, Republicans in Washington have failed to learn from their electoral losses, from their bad poll numbers, and even from the waves of angry letters, e-mails, blog postings and phone calls from their outraged former supporters who berate them daily over spending.
Either the majority of Republicans left in Washington aren't listening, or they are constitutionally incapable of learning. We're starting to think it's the latter.
To compound the very real problems facing the Republican party they select a candidate that most real conservatives and traditional Republican voters cannot stomach nor vote for or at least not support with their time or money. The few that will vote for him are finding that no one makes a big enough clothes pin or make strong enough Vick's. At least they won't be able to say that they weren't adequately warned far ahead in advance.
I rather suspect that Juan McCain may just win after all but it will be a defaulted and hollow victory for the RINO Republican party as Hussein Obama will likely take on so much political baggage that it ends up sinking him in November. It won't be because Americans really want him as their President. The real losers will be the American citizens.
To quit or not to quit..........
It sure seems the political talking heads in the liberal media (and I do include the WSJ talking head pundits at the FauxNews Channel in that group) and Osama’s overzealous supporters are really beating the drum hard lately for Hillary to just quit, to give up and pull out, just let the Marxist candidate B. Hussein Obama have the nomination before the primary process runs its course and just screw what the voters want. After all who do they think they are?! Damned miscreants!
First let me say that I am certainly not a Hillary supporter or fan and I’m most definitely not a Obama supporter or fan or friend but I think Hillary should stay in right up until either Obama (the Marxist) garners the necessary number of delegates to lock in the nomination or until the last primary is conducted and then take the nomination race to their convention floor and settle it once and for all there and only there. And count ALL of the votes.
After all look what happened to the Republicans and who they got ham strung with, a self-described self-absorbed social liberal (dictator wannabe) masquerading as a RINO Republican when all the other GOP candidates chose to quit long before the primary process was finished, before half the voters had any say at all. The Republicans allowed the political hacks of both party’s including the talking heads (including the vastly overpaid AND over rated fiscal yet socially devoid quasi-conservative WSJ associated FauxNews Channel) of the liberal media and many Democrats masquerading as Independents to select and coronate the Republican Party lackluster (loser inspired) liberal candidate for president.
Not unlike Obama, McCain is having much much difficulty in attempting to ‘close the deal’ with voters from his own party where he no longer has any competition and has as much FREE liberal-media coverage for their annointed darling and favorite liberal RINO as he wants. Social conservatives are fleeing him in droves which apparently suits him just fine.
So for those reasons and others not mentioned here I believe that Hillary (the self-avowed socialist) should hang in there and fight right up until the ‘fat lady sings’, so to speak.
McCain driving that wedge ever deeper…..
Is John McCain poised to take yet another foolish jaunt to the left in his campaign to win the Presidency of the United States? He has of late been heading by some accounts to the center and by other accounts to the left of center in order to capture some of the Democrats more socially liberal supporters and liberal Independents by sticking his finger in conservatives other eye. ABCNews.com is reporting that he may be contemplating moving the party in that direction by disregarding the party platform on abortion and softening the party years long stance to allow for abortions to account for exceptions such as rape, incest or risk to the mother's life, a position thought to be more acceptable to moderates and liberals but opposed by Christians and social conservatives alike.
Just the other day McCain was reported planning on attending the annual conference of the racist LaRaza (LaRaza translates into 'The Race') on July 14, 2008 and that he is intending to resurrect the failed “comprehensive immigration reform” (aka shamnesty) bill in some form when he is elected. He says he believes that America won’t survive without giving 20-40 million illegal aliens amnesty and opening up all of Americas social welfare programs and its residual benefits to these people. I can only roll my eyes and wonder just who is going to pay for all of that give away pork and what of the 60+ million baby boomers retirements.
I must ask, can we afford McCain and his socially liberal grandiose dreams of amnesty for 20-40 million welfare recipients and certain ruination for America and its legitimate citizenry?! And he is supposed to be a conservative according to the Republican Party apparatus. Seems to show just how out of touch with American reality they have become.
McCain Poised to Flip on GOP Abortion Platform
In '00 and '07, McCain Called for Exceptions in GOP's Platform on Abortion for Rape, Incest, Mother's Life
By TEDDY DAVIS
May 9, 2008Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., faces enormous pressure from social conservatives to ignore his repeated commitment to change the GOP's platform on abortion.
"If he were to change the party platform," to account for exceptions such as rape, incest or risk to the mother's life, "I think that would be political suicide," said Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative Family Research Council, to ABC News. "I think he would be aborting his own campaign because that is such a critical issue to so many Republican voters and the Republican brand is already in trouble."
A senior Republican close to McCain told ABC News that building a more inclusive GOP is a top priority for the Arizona senator.
But this adviser does not see changing the party platform to include exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother as necessary for achieving that vision.
I'll be backkkkkkkk........
RINO Presidential candidate John McCain appears to be feeling his oats lately about his poll ratings and has returned to his usual comfort zone this past Monday when after delivering a speech at a town hall meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. Afterwards during a Q&A with reporters McCain apparently felt comfortable enough bringing up and touting a couple of his past accomplishments and how he felt proud to be a part of his past participation in the infamous ‘Gang of 14’ saga back in 2005 and his nearly single handily ramming through his version of ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ aka as the shamnesty boondoggle back in 2006.
He went on to say that comprehensive immigration reform is the only way he could see solving America’s immigration problems. If elected he would make shamnesty once again a top agenda item of his administration. And that's just what he plans on telling the Mexican reconquista's at the annual conference of the racist LaRaza (LaRaza translates into 'The Race') on July 14, 2008 where he is an honored speaker. Hey, I thought Americans overwhelmingly defeated that budget busting piece of legislation and every reworked version of it over the past few years. I guess McCain will be taking his que's from lame duck President Bush and tell Americans he knows better than we do what is good for us no matter what we think.
McCain touts 'Gang of 14,' immigration reform
May 5, 2008 - CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (CNN) — John McCain the presidential candidate suddenly sounded like the John McCain of 2005 on Monday, touting two pet issues that have generated considerable heartache among grassroots conservatives: the “Gang of 14” compromise and comprehensive immigration reform.
McCain brought up the “Gang of 14” saga unprompted at a town hall here, in advance of a major speech on judicial appointments he is set to deliver tomorrow in Winston-Salem.
“I know what bipartisanship is,” McCain said. “I am going to talk tomorrow again about our Gang of 14: seven Republicans, seven Democrats that got together rather than blow up the Senate, and we confirmed so many federal judges.”
In the spring of 2005, McCain and 13 other senators from both parties agreed on a compromise to avoid the so-called “nuclear option,” which would have curtailed the right of the minority to filibuster. Democrats had been filibustering to prevent the confirmation of three conservative judicial nominees named by President Bush.
McCain said he took pride in his votes to confirm Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, a line that drew applause from assembled members of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce.
The Arizona senator also seemed to move past his usual “secure the borders first” mantra in favor of calling for, as he put it, “comprehensive immigration reform."
Last summer, McCain and Sen. Edward Kennedy led the charge on an immigration reform package that aroused the ire of conservatives and ultimately threatened to undermine McCain's then-frontrunning presidential bid. (McCain also supported immigration reform bills in 2005 and 2006.)
“Unless we enact comprehensive immigration reform I don’t think you can take it piecemeal,” he explained Monday, answering a question about providing visas for skilled workers.
“In other words,” he said, “because as soon you and I start to talk about the highly skilled workers, our agricultural interest people are going to say, ‘Look we need ag workers, too.’ And then somebody’s going say, 'We need the DREAM Act,' and then somebody’s going to say, 'We’ve got to enforce our border.'”
Throughout the Republican primary battle last fall, McCain faced relentless questions about his support for the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, the 2007 bill that would have allowed illegal immigrants to remain in the United States if they faced certain penalties. Opponents labeled it “amnesty.”
Since clinching the nomination, McCain has largely avoided speaking about wide-ranging immigration reform, arguing primarily that the government needs to focus on securing the border with Mexico before taking on other measures.
On Monday, he lobbied for a broader approach that includes a temporary guest worker program and tamper-proof ID cards.
“We get in this kind of a circular firing squad on immigration reform in the Congress of the United States," McCain said, "and the lesson I learned from it is we’ve got to have comprehensive immigration reform.”
