Late today, the House voted largely along party lines in a 236-189 vote to expand domestic offshore oil drilling.  You heard me right, along party lines, approving the measure…in a Democratic majority House of Representatives.  The Republicans did not support this pro-oil bill, so what’s not adding up here?

            As it turns out, the House bill does absolutely nothing to improve domestic oil production.  It’s merely a sham bill sponsored by Democrats so that they can say they voted to lower gas prices in an election year.  Think I’m being skeptical?  Let’s take a look.

            First, the bill permanently bans oil exploration and production within 50 miles of our coast line.  It then allows states to approve oil exploration and production within the 50 to 100 mile range, but the bill disallows those states from sharing in oil revenue generated off their own coasts.  Then, 100 miles and out, it’s fair game baby.  (Have fun, there are little if any proven reserves 100+ miles out.)

            Here’s why the devil is in the details: As the AP reported, Republicans did not vote for the bill largely because of “estimates that 88 percent of the 18 billion barrels of oil believed to be in waters now under drilling bans would remain off-limits because they are within the 50-mile protective coastal buffer.”  Well isn’t that great.

            Adding to the sham is the fact that all existing production infrastructure is also within that 50 mile off-limits area, meaning that we would need to install new pipelines and other necessities before drilling for the remaining fraction of known reserves outside of the 50 mile range.  For instance, we still would not be able to drill in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico or off the coast of California, where there are known large reserves close to existing pipeline infrastructure.  Using existing pipeline infrastructure is critical because it can shave years off getting domestic oil to the market.

            As I said earlier, under the bill even where drilling on known reserves within the 50 to 100 mile range is allowed, states won’t be able to share in the revenue that is generated.  Thus, states would have no incentive to allow drilling off their coasts.

Democrats are always talking about incentives.  Incentives for this, incentives for that.  Then why not here?  People don’t act without incentives, neither does government.  If states don’t stand to gain financially from their power to allow or deny offshore drilling, what’s the point?  Sorry, maybe that free market principle is above Obama’s pay grade too.

            It’s also worth noting that by not letting states share in off-shore oil revenues, the House has made a clean break from the on-shore practice of letting states share in oil revenue generated on Federal land within that state.  Not surprisingly, states like North Dakota that have huge oil reserves are encouraging oil production and it’s because they actually stand to benefit from it.

            House sponsors of the bill also included an end to the tax breaks given to oil companies back in 2004.  The new income produced by halting these tax breaks would then be spent on encouraging alternative sources of energy, though notably it would not create additional funding for nuclear power.

            Why are American liberals so afraid of nuclear power?  Notice I said American liberals?  Three Mile Island happened almost 30 years ago now and Chernobyl happened over 20 years ago.  We’ve learned from our mistakes, it’s time to move on.  Or is it because nuclear power has the taboo word “nuclear” in it?  Even the staunchly liberal French have gotten over whatever nuclear hesitation they may have had.  The majority of their energy (78%) is currently produced via nuclear power.

            The thing that’s frustrating about all this is that we hold the key to our energy problems.  Sure, we can’t drill our way out of this energy crisis.  Let’s move on from that talking point, you spoon-fed Obama supporter. 

Drilling for more oil will ease the energy crisis in the short term.  Oil is a speculative market.  Even if more domestic oil doesn’t reach the market for years, approving a real energy plan would see prices drop immediately.  Why else do gas prices go up before a hurricane dehabilitates the Gulf Coast?  Because the market runs on speculation!

            Then to add to all this oil frustration, liberals won’t let us build more nuclear power plants.  Rather, they believe we should keep trying to improve other alternative energy sources that are not nearly as efficient as nuclear power, and some of those other sources are not even viable at this point. 

Why waste time?  We know nuclear power is limitless and will get us right where we need to be.  We know that all the wind on the planet will not generate nearly as much electricity as a fusion reaction.  We also know that ethanol may lower fuel prices but raise food prices.

            But no.  Instead, Democrats are choosing to play games with the American public.  Rather than trying to bolster their campaign platform, how about they help the American people out for once?  I hate to admit it, but for the first time the French are actually kicking our butt at something - energy.

By John M. Rogitz

            You can read more of John's stuff at www.RogueReport.com

COPYRIGHT 2008 JOHN M. ROGITZ

            While it’s normally true that winners write the history, there are always exceptions.  As if it wasn’t bad enough that some Democrats are currently trying to break their own rules – think Hillary Clinton, Michigan and Florida delegates – the Hollywood left is now trying to rewrite the 2000 general election history in a further attempt to sway voters in another general election year.

            This week, the HBO special “Recount” aired with Kevin Spacey starring as Al Gore’s Chief Counsel Ron Klain during the 2000 Florida election debacle.  This film is just about as objective as a Michael Moore “documentary” on steroids.  Ignoring the more subtle bias issues such as how all Republicans in the movie were portrayed as uptight, conniving little weasels, there’s still plenty of substantive issues on which the film fell dramatically short.

            But before really diving in, there is one line taken from the beginning of the movie I found particularly ironic.  In an obvious attempt by Recount’s writers to expose what they see as an irony with the Bush presidency, Chief Counsel Ben Ginsberg of the Bush campaign states in the film, “The stains of Bill Clinton will be washed away, and honor and dignity will finally be restored to the White House.”  Ignoring the factual inaccuracies underlying this alleged irony, I think the directors provided an additional, yet unintended, irony about their “rockstar” president.

            Say what you will about Bush, he never actually lied to the public as some Democrats contend, nor did he ever commit any high crimes or misdemeanors while in office.  I find the statement above ironic on another level because Bill Clinton did in fact commit a felony when he perjured himself in the case brought on by the Monica Lewinsky affair. 

Indeed, “The stains of Bill Clinton” were not washed away, and he was impeached because of it.  Just because he was not tried by the Senate does not mean he did not still commit a felony.  He just didn’t have to face the music because he was President at the time.  Yet the fact remains that he did perjure himself and the Supreme Court disbarred him as a result.

            But I digress.  Moving on to more significant issues with the film, Spacey’s character Ron Klain really hits it home throughout the film that “we” owe it to the country to find out the truth.  However, within a minute of making this proclamation for the first time, the film shows Klain requesting that recounts be conducted in only the four most liberal counties in the state of Florida!

            Even when attempting to appear virtuous and having the time to write a consistent script, biased as it may be, the left still cannot help but contradict themselves.  Only recounting votes in liberal counties isn’t exactly finding the truth now, is it? 

So why juxtapose the two scenes in such a way as to expose the weakness in the position they advocate?  As you’ll see below, Recount’s writers were obviously not making an effort to be objective.  This little inconsistency can best be chalked up to generic, absent minded liberal thought typical of the Hollywood left.

            Later in the film, it is brought to both parties’ attention that military ballots from overseas where also not counted.  Naturally, if one truly wished to discern the truth of who won an election, the votes of our service men and women should be counted.  Yet Klain is portrayed as being fuming mad when Florida decided that those military votes should be counted. 

Later, Klain eloquently proclaims, “You know what I’d like to know?  Who actually won this election?  Who won this f@#$ing election?  Who won it?”  But even when scripting their own version of the Florida events, liberals cannot help but be intellectually dishonest.  Klain never wanted to know who won the election, he wanted to know who would win if more Gore votes were counted from liberal counties.

Then comes Recount’s objection to Supreme Court intervention in Florida, making it abundantly clear through Klain and other characters that the Supreme Court should mind its own business.  The film unmercifully portrays the voter issue as a state issue.  While mentioning the Equal Protection Clause issue that arose because different counties in Florida were using different standards for discerning voter intent, the film’s content makes it evident that its writers felt the Federal Equal Protection issue was bogus. 

However, unlike Hollywood writers trying to make Spacey’s character seem like a viable, real life lawyer, actual lawyers sitting on the Supreme Court did in fact see a Constitutional issue as it related to the Equal Protection Clause.  Not only that, the 7-2 Supreme Court vote that there was a Constitutional issue fell outside the ideological lines of liberals versus conservatives. 

In 2000, liberal Justices Stevens and Ginsberg joined the conservatives and Justice O’Conner (typically an unpredictable swing vote) in deciding there was in fact an Equal Protection issue because ballots that were cast in different counties were being held to different voter intent standards.

            In a recent and rare interview with 60 Minutes, Justice Scalia was entirely unapologetic for the Supreme Court’s interference with the Florida recount.  At one point he proclaimed, “What were we supposed to do?” 

That’s because there actually was a Federal Equal Protection issue that could not be avoided, despite what a few Hollywood writers who never actually read the Bush v. Gore decision would have you believe.  Scalia was unapologetic in the interview because under Constitution law, there was one manifestly correct choice to be made in the matter – halt a recount that afforded American citizens unequal voting rights depending on the location of their residence. 

As an amusing side note, the film also portrayed Federalists of the court who constantly advocate judicial restraint such as Thomas and Scalia as being judicial activists, further exposing the uneducated disposition of Recount’s writers.  The real judicial activism would have been to allow a wildly inconsistent statewide recount to proceed so that Gore had another shot at the presidency. 

When reading the Court’s decision, Gore’s team noted that one part of the opinion indicated that the decision was to be confined to the present circumstances only.  Maybe I was wrong…some one working on Recount actually did read the Bush v. Gore opinion!  But immediately thereafter the writers gave us this little gem of an exchange between Gore staffers:

Staffer 1:  “Limited to the present circumstances only?”

Staffer 2:  “Have they ever done that before?”

Staffer 3:  “Never once in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Really?!  Never ONCE?  Except for all the other thousands of decisions the Supreme Court has handed down stating that their current decision is to be limited only to the current set of circumstances!  Anyone who has studied criminal procedure knows that.

Supreme Court decisions are often confined to present circumstances only.  That’s why the law is so notorious for its subtle intricacies – there is never a bright line rule.  What fools the Recount writers must think we are.

Last, Klain and the other Gore cronies constantly speak of respect for the legal process rather than allowing their challenge to come off as too political.  Yet at the end of the film, Klain is asked, “Do you think if W had asked for a recount, the Supreme Court would have stopped it?”  To which Klain’s response was, “Good question.”  The film shortly thereafter cuts to its last scene where an entire warehouse of presumably un-recounted ballots is shown stacked to the roof.

There are two points I’d like to make about this ending.  First, it exposes another liberal self-contradiction.  The people preaching respect for the legal process throughout the film question its integrity and independence at the end because the result didn’t go their way.  That’s supposed to be “respect” for the legal system? 

More importantly, the film willfully ignores the fact that although the recount was cut short, Bush still would have won the recount had it proceeded under the terms the Democrats prescribed!  While Recount tries to rewrite history, it cannot rewrite that now commonly accepted fact – Bush would have won anyway.  Instead, they chose to completely ignore that fact in the film because it did not support their liberal agenda. 

Much of this is analogous to the Democratic political scene today.  The National Democratic Party made rules on when Florida and Michigan should have their primaries.  The respective state Democratic organizations broke those rules and had their primaries earlier.  Then the national Democratic party did what they said they were going to do and ruled that each state’s delegates would not be seated at the convention. 

Yet because Hillary Clinton didn’t get her way in the primary season, she tried to retroactively change the rules.  Even more astonishingly, the Democrats caved and seated half the total delegates from each state!  Starting to see some similarities?

Modern Democrats do not stand on principal.  They stand on whatever high horse gives them a present advantage, end of story.

In 2000, they were able to extend and bend the rules of Florida’s election laws to give Gore an edge by speculating on voter intent.  Luckily that was properly cut short by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Now they’ve broken their own election rules in the 2008 primary season by seating some of the Florida and Michigan delegates they said they would not seat.  Is that they type of party you want running our government?

COPYRIGHT 2008 JOHN M. ROGITZ

Editor's Note:  The following is a guest piece by a fellow conservative commentator.

Like John McCain, I attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, but our similarities pretty much end there.

I am not the son of serial admirals. I am the son of a wartime sailor who raised a family with a single used car, a black and white TV, no air conditioner in the L.A. heat, not even a dishwasher or microwave - on an always precarious low paying job. I did not marry an heiress who could, with the stroke of a pen if she so chose, finance a Presidential campaign.

But I donated the maximum amount I could to the Senator's campaign because in my view he is the best candidate still standing, damnation by faint praise though this statement may be.

I also was never held captive in Viet Nam. Those of us lucky enough to share my fate will never know the depths of the pain and horror Senator McCain plumbed. The only thing we can know for sure is that the depth of his courage demonstrably proved to be the greater.

Our paths continued to diverge after service, with Senator McCain continuing to make a living at the federal trough and me in the private sector helping to pay for it.

Which, with a little background, leads me to my questions for John McCain.

I am self-employed. I write patents to protect inventors, the lifeblood of our innovative economy, and I'm the only lawyer in my firm, although I employ two people full time at generous salaries and five others part time. It's hard work and tricky, which is why I pay upwards of $10,000 per year in malpractice premiums even though I've never been sued in almost 20 years of practice. I work for large clients who dictate my fees. They have not dictated a raise in ten years. Maybe they should be put in charge of Congressional salaries. In any case, I've done more than my share to personally combat inflation.

Last year, I paid a total in income taxes and business taxes of around $150,000.  That's a lot of golden eggs from one middle aged goose who employs people to boot. I thank God for granting me the grace to live in a country where I can live this story, and for the opportunity to help pay for a government of that country. But as to this last blessing, I have a surfeit, courtesy of the colleagues of John McCain, who apparently believe that Providence requires more than their usual assistance in this particular matter.

Because the U.S. government appears intent on busting my butt as a way of currying favor with what they surely mistake to be an unduly socialist Almighty (who took two out of ten Commandments to forbid us from envying our neighbors' possessions and whose Son told the rich young man to give up his own possessions - not his neighbors').

I will not digress that the unelectable Obama would make matters even worse. Instead, I'd like to know what John McCain will do to ensure that I can continue to employ the people I do at the wages they receive and still keep something for my heirs.  Which will be taxed to the max unless I die before 2010 unless John McCain does something about that too.

What specifically, Senator, will you tell Congress when the Bush tax cuts expire? Do you have a cogent free market argument for allowing small business people like me to keep a little more of my inflation-eroded money, or at least a principled reluctance to allow the government to confiscate more than they already do? How does your argument dovetail with your continuing support of war funding PLUS your election year obeisance to reducing greenhouse gases that will have little environmental effect but will require enormous economic sacrifice, including higher taxes to pay for the new cult of "climate change"?

Your judgment, to the extent that it has been questioned in the past, is linked to temperamental self-righteousness. You took great offense at being one of the Keating Five, and in response hung the McCain-Feingold campaign finance rules around the neck of the First Amendment of, to borrow a phrase, the "so-called" Constitution. You took offense at the businessman Mitt Romney impertinently challenging you for the Republican nomination and in response painted an entire vibrant and vitally important part of the private sector - the pharmaceutical industry - as being the "bad guys".

You take offense at "obscene" oil company profits yet are an officer of a government that confiscates far more in taxes from every gallon than what the oil companies make from it in profit, the same government that has permitted the dollar to weaken to the extent that during the period oil has doubled in terms of the Euro it has quadrupled in terms of the dollar. Do these two facts not at least suggest to you that a chief reason for crippling gas prices is the U.S. government? Do you understand that a weak dollar and the inflation that it stokes is a matter of poor monetary policy and not necessarily poor fiscal policy? Do you know the difference between the two?

Can you not muster even a little anger on my behalf against this fecklessness that  I've been paying for and that you've been part of all of your adult life? Or is an economically oppressive government, a topic that has always been at the heart of our Republic (think Boston Tea Party) too dry to stir your emotions?

Or are you willing to master your emotions and allow your better judgment to emerge?

Either path would be salutary Senator, and I will deeply appreciate your following either one even as much as I, your comrade in arms, will always appreciate your brave service.

COPYRIGHT 2008 JOHN ROGITZ

            The Senate is currently considering a bill that would increase various taxes on gasoline by $1.50 according to minimalist estimates, and the increase could even top $5.00.  Note that does not mean that a gallon of gas will total $5.00, that means $5.00 in addition to the cost of gas as it stands right now!

            When people hear these sorts of things, I wonder if they contemplate just how much money the government receives in taxes on gas.  In 2006, more than $7.8 billion in specialized gas taxes were paid by oil companies to go along with the $90 billion that they already pay through traditional corporate income tax.  Isn’t that enough to fund about three Iraq wars simultaneously?

Currently, the Federal excise tax on gas is 18.3 cents per gallon and state excise taxes on gas average 26.8 cents per gallon.  That brings the state and Federal combined excise tax average to 45.1 cents per gallon. 

California has the highest state excise tax on gas with a 45.5 cent per gallon fee.  Only two other states even reach the 40 cent mark – New York and Connecticut.  I feel so privileged to be a Californian!

            However, that still does not account for all the taxes you indirectly pay at the pump.  According to the Americans for Tax Reform, 54 percent of the price we pay at the pump is in the form of taxes.  That large percentage is a result of direct and indirect taxes levied on every aspect of the oil industry, not just consumer-end purchases. 

The finders are taxed, the refiners are taxed, the transporters are taxed, etc.  Every middle man in the oil industry gets hit with oil taxes in addition to the income tax they already pay.  Naturally, all that cost is then passed on to the consumer.  The end result is that 54% of the total cost we pay at the pump goes to Federal and state governments. 

            Based on a $3.99 gallon of gas, if Federal and state governments were to repeal all taxes on the various levels of gasoline production and purchasing, the cost would be a manageable $1.84 per gallon!!!  Thus, out of that $3.99 gallon of gas, various governments collectively receive $2.15 of that.

            Don’t give me this business about how we need the government to maintain our roads.  I think even a fraction of the billions of tax dollars the oil industry generates every year would cover that, don’t you?

            So as if our gas prices were not outrageous enough, now Senate Democrats want to drag more money out of us at the pump.  The Democrats ramble on and on about how America is hurting right now because of the credit crunch and a slowing economy.  But at the same time, bills such as this one increase the average American’s financial burden even more.

            So what exactly does this bill, called the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, accomplish?  It cloaks higher gas taxes in a blanket of global warming guilt by creating offices and committees to report on greenhouse gas emissions, paternalistically monitor the greenhouse gas emissions of other countries, and sets up various government accounts holding money that is to be dispersed to worthy greenhouse gas related programs.  That is just a little sampling of the many provisions contained in the Lieberman-Warner Act.

            As a more specific example, according to a summary by the library of Congress on the Lieberman-Warner Act, one of the things it does is “Establishes the Carbon Market Efficiency Board, which shall observe and report on the national GHG emission market and provide cost relief measures if it determines that the market poses significant harm to the U.S. economy.” 

That’s right people, when in doubt…more government!  More committees!  More oversight!  History proves government is sure to straighten things out.

            Amusingly enough, another aspect of the bill would allow the Federal government to disperse a derivation of those intangible little things called “carbon credits.”  It’s almost as if the Democrats are taking legislative advice from Bono now.

The carbon credits, which the bill calls “emission allowances,” would be auctioned off to the highest bidder by another new governmental agency called the Climate Change Credit Corporation.  The additional proceeds generated by the auction would then go to other global warming causes that the government deems worthy.

So the next obvious question becomes: Why?  Why do we need to raise taxes and establish all these nifty new programs?  The answer: Because Senate Democrats would rather appease the global warming cult than help their constituencies by increasing the financial burden they bear in these relatively difficult economic times.

The ultimate goal behind the bill is to further discourage gasoline consumption, thus explaining the dramatic increase in gasoline tax that has been forecasted and was indeed intended.  Some of these proposals amount to what is called “cap and trade” legislation, where a cap is set on the volume of harmful emissions and the rights to allowed emissions are distributed or traded.

I think we can all agree that we need to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, not to mention our dependence on oil in general.  Whether one believes in global warming or not, carbon dioxide does have some effect on our environment and it would also be valuable to keep oil revenues circulating within the United States.

Yet Democrats refuse to support drilling in ANWR or off the continental shelf.  Want to know what gas prices would be if we were self-sufficient in our oil production?  Right now Saudi Arabia pays $0.91 per gallon of gas and Venezuela pays a stunning $0.12 per gallon.

Even given those statistics, the Congressional majority will not allow companies to begin drilling in the most remote parts of our country.  Even polar bears rarely venture into the remote ANWR province!

So why not nuclear?  After all, France is almost completely self sufficient by generating 78% of its energy through nuclear power and Belgium satisfies 54% of its energy needs through nuclear power.

Not surprisingly, Democrats oppose the construction of more nuclear power plants in order to satisfy our energy demands, presumably because nuclear power has the word “nuclear” in it. 

The argument Democrats present to the media in order to maintain credibility is that we would be dumping harmful nuclear waste in a remote part of the Nevada desert.  After all, if they supported dumping nuclear waste in the desert, they’d lose half their campaign contributions – the contributions that come from the tree huggers and the far left wing of the Democratic party.  However, the Democrats fail to mention that the waste would be deposited deep within Yucca Mountain and that the desert above the storage area would remain pristine. 

Another weakness in the anti-nuclear argument is that no one lives in or enjoys that remote part of the Nevada desert, so no one would even be affected by where we would put the nuclear waste anyway.  Besides, that small amount of nuclear waste pales in comparison to the over 7 million tons of carbon dioxide the United States pumps into the air every year. 

Thus, our choices are either dumping a few tons of nuclear waste in a place where it will never affect anyone, or emitting millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the air for the world to breathe.  Yet Democrats still opt for the manifestly incorrect choice.  Even liberal countries like France and Belgium have enough common sense to see past the minimalistic effect that dumping a little nuclear waste would have. 

Barack Obama has made it abundantly clear that he will raise taxes if elected President.  Our current Senate majority is already trying to take more money out of our pockets in order to finance an unnecessary liberal agenda.  Imagine what would happen if we were to combine the two.

Earlier this week, MoveOn.org posted its “10 Things to Know About John McCain” list.  The list’s writer combines an interesting mix of inadvertent humor and slander.  Below, I have posted the list in bold, with my response to why each of the points is wrong.

I hope that this exercise does not seem futile.  I feel that it is important to spot the fallacies in statements such as these in an election year because we are sure to be confronted with them with increased frequency as we draw closer to November.

Attention to detail and making critical distinctions in debates will be vital leading up to this election.  We need to be able to spot these types of ill-informed statements and non sequiturs so that an honest, intellectual debate may ensue.  Otherwise, we will fall into the trap of playing liberal linguistic gymnastics by using broken logic and accusations of intolerance to put us conservatives back on our heels.

10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't):

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.

Response: 

So John McCain is racist for a position he took years ago based on valid reasoning, but the left says we're supposed to dismiss an Obama pastor who continues to make racist tirades?  Why should we excuse Obama's pastor as a product of his environment, but not excuse John McCain for being a product of his?  Race was not a big issue for an Arizona Congressman back in the 1980s, and John McCain opposed making it a national holiday not because of racism, but because of a loss of perspective.

McCain is on record stating that MLK should not have a national holiday while some of the greatest leaders in history – American Presidents such as Abraham Lincoln – do not have one.  Further, McCain stated that it would cost the country too much money to make an MLK holiday viable.  So because McCain believed we had lost perspective and because he was a hawk on finances even back then, he’s now being labeled as a racist.

      For further reference on what a truly racist perspective looks like, see Obama's two autobiographies - each exuding racist invective on every page.

2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."

Response:

            Well, I really have no complaint here. McCain said the surge was the proper solution before the Bush Administration suggested it.

A military guy being pro military?  Who would have thought. Conservatives are peaceful too.  The only difference between conservatives and liberals is that, while liberals refuse to discuss war, conservatives are at least realistic enough to not take war off the table as a last resort.

Merely insinuating that McCain is a war-mongerer without substantiating it with any evidence other than a quote from a conservative columnist who is breaking Reagan's 11th commandment is an ignorant and self-serving statement.

3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.

Response:

That bill sought to restrict much more than waterboarding, and afterwards McCain explained that he did not want to hamstring the CIA.  “None of those techniques would entail violating the Detainee Treatment Act, which said that cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment are prohibited.”

While McCain still opposes waterboarding, he will not take other interrogation tactics off the table.  This is the same logic as SCHIP (which I will get to in a minute).  Just because you oppose one means to an end does not mean you oppose the end. McCain still categorically refutes the use of torture, including waterboarding.

4. McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."

Response:

            So what?  I have no complaints with this statement.  As a matter of fact, not only do I have no complaints, but I whole-heartedly agree with it.  It merely seeks in evoke the emotions of liberals without providing any substantive debate.

From the second of conception, the fetus has a distinct genetic existence that is separate from that of it’s mother.  Thus, the fetus is not part of the mother's body, but a body separate and distinct from the moment of conception.

Now that little bit about the fetus’ distinct genetic code is a scientific fact - not just an opinion seeking to incite the emotions of like-minded individuals.

5. The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.

Response:

            Exactly.  McCain voted against SCHIP along with the rest of the Republican Senators.  For those that don’t know, SCHIP was a bill that would have provided universal, government sponsored health care for children.

This is manifest evidence of the left's inability to make distinctions that do not serve their perception of the world.  McCain does not support SCHIP does NOT = McCain hates babies.  What it equals is McCain favors the private sector over the government being everyone's daddy.  Enough said.

6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.

Response:

            Once again, McCain favors the private sector over the government.  People got themselves into this crisis by taking on mortgages they could not afford, and he believes people should work themselves out of the crisis and not run to the government for help like a 5 year girl child who just cut her finger.

What is this statistic regarding McCain's eight houses suppose to prove?  That McCain should start putting up the homeless in the houses he's not using?  This is the epitome of a non sequitur.

Though it’s not directly relevant to my present point, I felt it would be interesting to throw this in: The top 10 riches Senators are Democrats.  That's not a sweeping statement like, "The Senate is filled with millionaires."  That is a fact.  Don’t let liberals like MoveOn.org trick you with conclusory statements that are not supported by facts.

7. Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

Response:

            This is so blatant it does not even merit a substantive response.  Once again, there are no facts here.  MoveOn.org does not even identify the Senator who made this statement.

Wasn't this supposed to be 10 things I didn't know about John McCain, not 10 things other people have said about John McCain?

8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.

Response:

            Once again the left is unable to make critical distinctions.  McCain is against receiving money from special interest groups, which opens the door to an exertion of outside influence.

However, that does not mean McCain cannot hire lobbyists to further his OWN positions.  There is a difference between being coerced into positions by some one else and promoting your own positions through some one else.

When McCain speaks of his insusceptibility to special interests, he means that he will not be subject to undue influence from others seeking to promote their own agenda I instead of his.  That doesn’t mean McCain cannot hire lobbyists to further his own positions.

9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."

Response:

            Once again, we can't take pot-shots at Obama for a religion he's endorsed for years, but liberals can take pot-shots at McCain for speaking at churches where he is courting votes?

            So McCain called Parsley his spiritual guide and Parsley made a few statements against Islam.  That isn’t the same as Wright getting up on the pulpit spouting blatantly false conspiracy theories.  Parsley’s statements have some evidence of a rationale thought process.

Speaking of Obama's religion = not cool.
  Speaking of McCain's courting of religious votes in an election that will be close = describes McCain's personal views?  And "Do as I say, not as I do," screams the left!

10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.

Response:

            McCain opposes drilling in the ANWR Province in Alaska.  He also cosponsored the first bill in the Senate calling for mandatory reductions of greenhouse-gas emissions in 2003, and has also been a vocal critic of the Bush Administration’s inaction regarding the environment.

            One of the far right’s most significant criticisms of Senator McCain is that they believe he continues to pander to the global warming cult.  Whether he is pandering or not is up for debate.  But he has proposed significant legislative reform regarding the environment.

So my question based on those facts is: Who gives a rat’s behind what the liberal League of Conservation Voters says?

__________

            MoveOn.org concludes their list with the following statement:  “John McCain is not who the Washington press corps make him out to be. Please help get the word out—forward this email to your personal network.”

            Ironically, John McCain is not who MoveOn.org make him out to be, either.

COPYRIGHT 2008 JOHN M. ROGITZ

            Well readers, Pelosi and co. are at it again.  As I said in my last post, 38 of the cosponsoring forty nine Democrats still have not signed the SAVE Act discharge petition, which would bring the SAVE Act to a vote.

            As if that wasn’t insulting enough to their constituencies, Pelosi’s cronies are devising even more ways to circumvent what should be both a compromise for them and an action mandated by the American people following the McCain-Kennedy debacle.

            On top of preventing the Act from ever coming to a vote, now Rep. Joe Barca (D – California) has proposed an amendment that would include amnesty!

            Not to worry reader, you are not the only one having flashbacks to that McCain-Kennedy debacle.  If this amendment were to be approved, we would be right back to square one – in other words, right where Democrats want us to be.  They want us to be back to square one because they know square one means no progress towards immigration reform. 

            Democrats won’t even discuss immigration reform until we conservatives concede amnesty.  That is absurd.  Amnesty has become the critical issue when it comes to immigration reform. 

After the Democrats took over both houses in 2006, didn’t they say they would put an end to partisan bickering and strive to accomplish things through bipartisanship?

            That campaign promise has turned out to be amusingly false.  Democrat Heath Shuler and Republican Brian Bilbray have come up with a bipartisan compromise on immigration.  The bill they wrote does not even deal with any of the illegal immigrants already here.  It merely strengthens border security and allots additional resources to enforce existing laws.

            To top it off, the bill was cosponsored by 157 members of the House, forty nine of which are Democrats.  That appears fairly bipartisan, right?

            But alas, thirty eight of those forty nine Democrats don’t want to vote on the bill they are endorsing.  Now Joe Barca has proposed the aforementioned amnesty amendment that would allow a 5 year temporary worker permit for illegal immigrants already here, rather than to allow our law enforcement officers to continue deporting people who break our laws. 

That buys the Democrats plenty of time to conspire on how to further circumvent immigration reform.  Five years is plenty of time to pacify the immigrants and their American cult following, and after those five years I’m sure the Democrats will have a way to keep the people who participated in the 5 year worker program here forever.

            As if that wasn’t enough, Barca’s amendment to the SAVE Act would also shield employers who have hired illegal immigrants in the past, irrespective of any statute of limitations.  That means we cannot prosecute anyone who has broken existing immigration employment laws, which is in direct contrast to what the SAVE Act sought to accomplish: enforcing existing immigration laws.

            So the Barca’s logic must be as follows:  I campaigned that we should compromise.  Ok, to do that we should at least enforce existing laws until we come up with a better solution.  But in the mean time, let’s not enforce existing laws.

            Barca’s Congressional website amusingly purports that, “The American people demanded a New Direction: to make America safer, to help restore the American dream, and to restore accountability and fiscal responsibility to the people's government.”

            That’s exactly right, Mr. Congressman.  The McCain-Kennedy backlash made it abundantly clear that Americans want to make American safer by securing our borders.  So in furtherance of Barca’s “New Direction,” I’m going to restore accountability by exposing his party’s manifest hypocrisies, particularly concerning the notion of bipartisan support when they are secretly scheming against it.

            It is also worth noting that although Barca’s website lists many of his proposals and accomplishments, the SAVE Act amendment is not among them.  I’m guessing that’s because the San Bernardino voters who put him in office would be pretty ticked off if they knew about his little amendment.  The southern California area has felt more of an impact because of illegal immigration than most other parts of the country.

            For those that don’t know much about the makeup of the California constituencies, if you go anywhere east of the beach then you’re in a conservative zone.  Barca is a Democrat that managed to get elected in hostile territory.  I’m sure his voters would not be too happy if his little Pinky-and-the-Brain plan was publicized.

            Once again Congressional Democrats are showing why they are undeserving of the political majority they have received in both Houses.  In 2006, they said the American people had spoken.  The only thing is, the American people continue to speak.  They spoke after 2006 when McCain-Kennedy was introduced, and they continue to speak today through Congressional approval polls.

            Congress had a very low approval rating prior to the 2006 Democratic takeover.  Those numbers have not moved an inch since the Democrats have controlled Congress.  Not only is the party torpedoing itself when it comes to the Executive branch, now they are self destructing in the Legislative branch as well.  I, for one, cannot wait for the pendulum to swing back in our favor come November.

COPYRIGHT 2008 JOHN M. ROGITZ

Currently, there is an immigration bill being stalled in the House of Representatives and news agencies refuse to report it.  I’m appreciative of the American Conservative Union for notifying me via email because Fox News simply cannot be the whistleblower on every story our liberal main stream media chooses not mention.

            The bill is called “The Secure America with Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act of 2007.”  In an apparent attempt at bipartisanship, it has been sponsored by 157 members of the House.  That number includes forty nine Democrats who are trying to prove to their constituency that they are worthy of reelection when immigration rises to the forefront of the 2008 general election.

            In essence, the SAVE Act is an “enforcement only” bill that focuses its attention on increased border security, employment enforcement, and further assistance enforcing current immigration laws.  For instance, one thing the bill would do is add 8,000 more Border Patrol Agents across the border states and increase the infrastructure they need to be effective.

            Another aspect of the SAVE Act is to make the E-Verify program mandatory for all employers.  Those news agencies that are reporting anything at all on the SAVE Act are labeling this as one of the more controversial provisions of the Act.  What’s so bad about making the E-Verify program mandatory?

            I’ve lifted this straight of the Department of Homeland Security website:  “E-Verify…is an Internet-based system operated by the Department of Homeland Security in partnership with the Social Security Administration that allows participating employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of their newly hired employees.”

            Controversial?  I don’t think so.  The E-Verify system is free to use and everyone has access to the internet these days.  Further, the mandatory program would be phased in over time, starting first with the Federal government and Federal contractors.  Private employers would have ample time to prepare for the change – up to four years.  Even if an employer were to not own a computer with internet access, he or she could just make sure they get their library card renewed in time and use one of those machines free of charge!

            In addition to the increase in Border Patrol Agents and mandatory use of the E-Verify system, the SAVE Act would provide necessary resources to enforce existing federal immigration laws and to penalize violators.  It would expand the investigative reach of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including the addition of more agents and more training.

            However, Speaker Pelosi and some of the other open-border Democrats are secretly trying to undermine this bill while publicly supporting it.  As the Washington Times observed, “The Democrats are putting together an elaborate con job: using tough-sounding rhetoric while working behind the scenes…to defeat a bipartisan bill that takes a no-amnesty, enforcement-oriented approach.”

            Do you think that commentary is a little skeptical?  Consider this:  Because Pelosi has buried the Act way down on the House agenda, Congressman Brian Bilbray (R-California) and Heath Shuler (D-North Carolina) had to initiate a discharge petition for the Act last week.  The signing of this discharge petition by a simple majority of House members would force the SAVE Act onto the House floor for a vote.

Currently, 181 members of the House have signed the discharge petition, leaving Bilbray and Shuler thirty seven votes short.  More astonishingly, of the 157 co-sponsors of the Act, thirty eight of the co-sponsoring forty nine Democrats have yet to sign this discharge petition!  This is political posturing at its finest.

One would think that a sponsor of a bill would be the first to sign a petition bringing it to a vote rather than to let it die without one.  Democrats can’t have it both ways.  They can’t act tough on immigration for their constituency by saying they support the SAVE Act and then also appease Pelosi and the rest of the amnesty/open-borders cult by not bringing the Act to a vote.

As Congressman Bilbray observed, "You've got Ms. Pelosi and the traditional Democrat groups basically wanting to see this population of 20 million illegals voting for Democrats.  They want to give them residency, citizenship, and register them to vote so they can use this illegal population as a political bloc that's behooving [sic] to them because they're the one who empowered them with the votes."

If Congress were to actually vote on the Act, it would pass with ease.  The only way the Democrats can win this battle is if they prevent it from ever being allowed to come to a vote. 

The American people spoke so loudly when the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill became a focal point last year that there is no way Republican or Democrat alike could vote down a bill that increases border security.  The people made it known that we want our borders secured first.  Further, this bill avoids the central issue that has been the point of heated contention regarding immigration – what to do with the millions of illegal immigrants already here! 

All that the SAVE Act does is prevent more illegal immigrants from coming, allows our immigration enforcers to do better jobs, and enforces existing immigration laws that include disallowing employers from hiring undocumented workers.  In essence, the Act accomplishes significant goals that Republicans and Democrats should, at a minimum, be able to agree on.

How could any Democrat in their right mind oppose such a minimal compromise in an election year?

So of course Pelosi has buried this bill way down on the House calendar.  It’s the only way to satiate her ultra-liberal open border advocates who would react with great distaste towards any positive step in immigration reform.  Our liberal Congressmen won’t discuss any immigration reform until conservatives concede amnesty.

I know they have professional athletes to question on the use of performance enhancing drugs, but don’t you think minimal immigration reform is a priority that should be a bit further up on the House totem pole?