Category: Congress

‘Alabama Deserves Better’

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A congressman under investigation for insider trading? Suspected of enriching himself in office? Say it ain’t so, Spencer Bachus!

The New York Times reports:

In Alabama, Representative Spencer Bachus, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is squaring off against State Senator Scott Beason, an architect of Alabama’s tough illegal immigration bill, who is running as the “true conservative” in the race. But two other challengers are also in the race, and Mr. Beason has to hold Mr. Bachus, a much better-funded House veteran, to below 50 percent of the vote to force a runoff April 24.

Florida Republican’s Ad Depicts Children Enslaved by Obama and Alan Grayson

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Children are shown as slaves forced to pay for deficit spending in a new advertisement for a Republican congressional candidate in Florida.

“Turn This Ship Around” is the title of the 30-second video for Mark Oxner, a businessman seeking a House seat in Florida’s new 27th District, where former Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson is hoping to get back in Congress after being defeated in his 2010 re-election bid.

The Oxner ad depicts Grayson as the pet parrot of Obama, who captains a ship aboard which the beneficiaries of federal bailouts and subsidies enjoy a luxury cruise. But the video then shows miserable children below deck, chained to oars as if on a slave galley. The ship is finally revealed to be the U.S.S. Constitution, renamed the “ObamaBoat” and sailing off the end of the Earth. Watch the video:

AD SCRIPT:

Progressive Woman 1: I just love this ship. I got corporate subsidies just last week!Progressive Woman 2: I got free healthcare for life!
Progressive Man 1: My bank was bailed out by this ship.
Progressive Woman 3: This ship stimulated my husband’s solar company.
Old Woman: How did this boat pay for all this stuff?
Captain Obama: Ahhhh, no questions on this ship!
Progressive Parrot Alan Grayson: Bawk!
Progressive Slave Driver: Earn, earn, earn! Don’t you care about the banks? Don’t you care about the ninety-nine percent? Earn, earn, earn!
Mark Oxner: Let’s not enslave our children with debt. It’s time to turn this ship around. I’m Mark Oxner and I’m running for Congress. Go to my website and get involved. I’m Mark Oxner and I approve this message.
Progressive Parrot Alan Grayson: Bawk!

Learn more at Mark Oxner’s campaign Web site.

House Calls Obama’s Bluff, Passes Payroll Tax Cut Extension He Promised to Veto

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However it turns out, score this a win for Boehner:

Defying a veto threat from President Obama, the House on Tuesday passed a bill extending a cut in Social Security payroll taxes for 160 million Americans for another year. But the Democratic majority in the Senate vowed to reject the measure because of objections to other provisions, including one to speed construction of an oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

Obama has demagogued the hell out of this issue, so now the House has passed it — with a tasty poison pill the enviros will hate — and pitches it over to the Senate, where Harry Reid’s Democrat majority can’t even manage to pass a budget. Let Harry deal with it, and if Harry can’t get a bill to Obama’s desk, the expiration of the tax cut is Harry’s fault. And if something does manage to get out of a bicameral reconciliation process, double-dog dare Obama to veto it.

INTERVIEW: Sean Bielat Says He’ll Make 2012 Campaign Decision ‘Next Week’

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In 2010, Republican Sean Bielat gave Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank the toughest re-election challenge the Democrat had ever experienced. Although Bielat’s insurgent Tea Party-backed campaign fell short of unseating Frank, it was obviously a factor in the 16-term congressman’s decision this week to retire at the end of his current term, rather than seek re-election in a newly redrawn district. Thursday night, Bielat spoke to me in a brief telephone interview.

Robert Stacy McCain: So, this is the week of ‘Bye Bye Barney.’ How are you feeling right now?
Sean Bielat: [Laughs.] Well, you know, if you would have asked me a year ago at this time, I would have said that this was exactly what was going to happen. And then, you know, when he came out February and said, ‘I’m definitely running . . . definitely going to be back in this thing,’ I took it with a grain of salt, but I believed it. So he definitely caught me off-guard [by announcing his retirement Monday].

RSM: He’s saying that it’s mainly about the re-districting. Have you taken a good look at that map?
BIELAT: Yeah, I have. It is a much better district.
RSM: You mean, for a Republican?
BIELAT: Yeah. It’s still overwhelmingly Democrat, but it’s a much better district than before. But implicit in that comment – ‘it’s because of re-districting’ – is the fact that he thinks he’s going to have a competitive opponent, right? Because he’s been re-districted before and not retired. The difference is, he had a challenge last time. Now it’s a new district and I think he just wasn’t sure he’d make it through and it wasn’t worth the effort.

RSM: OK. And are you taking a victory lap? I mean, do you believe that your challenge last year convinced him that it was time to pack it in?
BIELAT: I’m also taking that with a grain of salt. I don’t think he would have retired if I hadn’t run against him, but I also don’t think he’s retiring because I did.
He, on Election Day [in 2010], thought he was going to lose. We were told that by a number of the reporters who were following him and who were in his van – they thought they were going to lose. And you saw he put a couple hundred thousand dollars of his own money it, you know. I don’t think he enjoyed this experience. He hadn’t really done this since 1982. I don’t think he enjoyed the eight debates. I think he was worn out. And I think he didn’t want to do it again, particularly if the district was going to be more favorable to his opponent.

RSM: And is there a chance that that opponent might be you?
BIELAT: [Laughs.] Well, there’s no chance it will be me against Barney, but there’s definitely a chance that it will be me against whatever Democrat they’re going to put up in the Fourth [District]. I’m looking very hard at it. Poltically, I think it makes a lot of sense. We’re just trying to figure out personally if it’s what we want right now, with the new baby and the other 15-month-old and, you know, the sacrifices involved in running. But I’m definitely very interested in it.

RSM: You’ve got two children?
BIELAT: Yeah, we just had the second one about two-and-a-half weeks ago.
RSM: Wow. And I understand that you were spending some time in Pennsylvania and some people were trying to lay the ‘carpetbagger’ thing on you.
BIELAT: Yeah, I think it’s tough to do when we only came [to Pennysylvania] in September and the reason I came was because we had family in the area and we had some difficulties the last time around, with the last pregnancy. So we wanted to be here in case that happened again. We’re planning to go back [to Massachusetts] after the holidays. Hope is still a student at Boston University. She took the semester off. She’ll be back in the spring semester. . . . It’s just the circumstance – we wanted to be near family because of the baby.

RSM: OK, and last time around, the Internet fundraising and the support of New Media seemed to really kick your campaign into high gear.
BIELAT: Oh, without a doubt. I mean, one of the most important people for me to get back on the team is [New Media consultant] John La Rosa. I mean, our money came from online. Fox News was huge, too. Every time we went on Fox News, the money would come in, too. But it was because the groundwork was there, because went on the blogs. It was all over the Internet – the Tweets were out there, and Facebook was useful as well.
So it was huge, and then there was the ‘Dancing Barney’ video [by filmmaker Ladd Ehlinger Jr.] and the incident with [Barney Frank’s] significant other, where he was heckling me – that was huge. I can’t tell you how many people came up to me about that, or said, ‘I sent you a contribution after I saw that.’ That wouldn’t have gotten out there without the New Media channels.

RSM: So that really made a difference. What would be the timetable, if you did decide to run? When would you be thinking about putting something together again?
BIELAT: I want to make a decision next week. You know there’s a number of other Republicans who are calling me to find out my plans, because if I’m not getting in, they may want to get in. So I certainly don’t want to slow them down and, you know, I don’t want to be in limbo myself. If I end up not doing this, I’m going to be working on the [political action committee] – I’d like to kick that off and start doing some good there.  So I want to make this decision fairly soon.

RSM: OK, so you say, within a week?
BIELAT: Yeah. That’s the plan.

RSM: Wow. OK, then. So if we’re going to be scrambling the jets, we’re going to be scrambling the jets in a pretty quick hurry here.
BIELAT: Yeah. I mean, if I’m going to get in, I want to raise money this quarter. And if I’m going to raise money in December, when the holidays are coming up, I’ve got to do it right at the beginning. So that means making my decision right away.

House GOP: ‘Instead of Raising Taxes, Why Don’t We Stop Funding Abortion?’

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An excellent suggestion!

A Congressional committee has taken the first steps in investigating the Planned Parenthood abortion business over abuses ranging from financial disparities to its compliance with federal regulations on taxpayer funding to concerns that it is covering up cases of sex trafficking.
In a September 15 letter LifeNews.com obtained, Rep. Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican who is the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Investigations, writes to Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood.
“Pursuant to Rules X and XI of the United States House of Representatives, the Committee on Energy and Commerce is examining the institutional practices and policies of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and its affiliates, and its handing of federal funding,” Stearns writes. “That Committee has questions about the policies in place and actions undertaken by PPFA and its affiliates relating to its use of federal funding and its compliance with federal restrictions on the funding of abortion.”
The letter asks Richards to comply with current federal regulations and legal obligations by providing Congress with a wide range of documents within two weeks of the date of the letter.
“Please provide all internal audit reports conducted by PPFA and its affiliates from 1998 to 2010. If not clearly indicated in the audit reports, please detail how much PPFA and each affiliate expended and received in Title XIX Medicaid funding, Title X family planning, and any other federal funding,” the letter says.

In other words: “Just askin’ questions,” IYKWIMAITYD. Planned Parenthood has never been forced to account for their expenditures of federal money, and pro-lifers have a hunch that once taxpayers find out what they’ve been paying for, they won’t want to pay it any more. But the people who sold their souls to the Abortion, Inc. stay bought:

Reps. Henry Waxman (Calif.), senior Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), the ranking member of the panel’s Oversight subcommittee, claim Republicans have “singled out” the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) “as part of a Republican vendetta against an organization that provides family planning and other medical care to low-income women and men generous campaign contributions to Democrats.”

Fixed that for you, Henry. And here’s a statement from Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life:

“AUL welcomes the news that Congress is investigating the abortion mega-provider Planned Parenthood for financial improprieties and its poor handling of the public trust. AUL’s groundbreaking report on Planned Parenthood released this summer outlines a template for investigators and provides extensive information on the abortion giant. The American taxpayer does not want to be in the business of abortion, and this investigation is an important first step toward ending public funding of the nation’s largest abortion provider.
“We also want to congratulate Rep. Cliff Stearns, chairman of the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, for his leadership on this issue and for his willingness to look more closely at Planned Parenthood and its affiliates for their fraudulent use of taxpayer dollars, as outlined in AUL’s report.”

UPDATE: This goes to show, BTW, why fiscal conservatives should pay attention to social conservatives. Many of the government policies that social conservatives find objectionable have a fiscal component that generate the instinctive taxpayer response, “They’re spending my money on what?”

And if you think deeply about these issues, you have to ask yourself why it makes sense to spend taxpayer money to kill future taxpayers, which is what Planned Parenthood has been doing for decades.

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RUN, STEVE, RUN!

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Longtime conservative New Media activist Steve Foley has formed an exploratory committee to run for Congress as a Republican in California’s newly redrawn 47th District. His policy focus is on three main areas:

Economy and Jobs: Getting our fiscal house in order by supporting a Balanced Budget Amendment, Cutting Spending, Replacing our antiquated Tax Code, Removing overburdening Restrictions & Red Tape, and becoming Energy Independent.

Repealing ObamaCare:ObamaCare will devastate our already weak economy to a point of no return and will burden future generations of Americans to pay for a bill that has little to no chance of success. The best solution would to get the federal government as far away from Health Care as possible but while we work to achieve that goal here are some immediate fixes we can accomplish in a relatively short amount of time:

  • Medical liability & tort reform.
  • Small business buying pools.
  • Allow insurance to be sold across state lines.

Border Security: The way to tackle the illegal immigration problem we’re facing is to make federal government do their job! I would advocate for:

  1. Securing our borders
  2. Enforcing the laws that are already on the books
  3. Promoting a path to citizenship for those who come in the front door
  4. Removing the magnets that draw illegal immigrants here in the first place

Steve is best-known in the blogosphere as founder of the Minority Report blog. The first time I met him was in October 2009 in Lake Placid, N.Y., where he helped lead Liberty Wire’s team supporting Doug Hoffman in the historic NY-23 special election. Steve was also front-and-center in Massachusetts during the Scott Brown campaign, he worked hard to help elect conservatives during the 2010 mid-terms, and for the past nine months he has led the online grassroots army at Citizens for Cain.

Re-districting has created an open seat in the 47th District, which includes Steve’s hometown of Cypress, Calif., and as he says in a post at his blog, “I’m putting my money where my mouth is.” This is a chance to really make a difference. Steve’s campaign could shake things up in California, where the state GOP is dominated by a tired and timid Establishment.

Steve Foley has been a key part of the conservative uprising for the past two years and I hope you’ll give him your generous support.

STEVE FOLEY for U.S. CONGRESS
California 47th District

Obama’s Down. Can GOP Put Him Out?

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“There is only so much disaster-control you can do. When you’re in a disaster, you can spin it as ‘not that bad’ or ‘not my fault’ . . . but you cannot actually spin or speechify a horrific state of affairs into a positive one.”
— Ace of Spades, “Obama on the Ropes? Two GOP Polls Say He’s At His Lowest Point (So Far…)”

Nevertheless, Obama must try the impossible:

Having spent two decades in the pews of Reverend Wright’s church listening to the Hate America Gospel, President Zero is perhaps not familiar with the actual Bible. He therefore may not catch the near-sacrilegious resemblance between his sermon in Raleigh and Christ’s charge to His disciples: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”

Everyone raised as a Christian will, however, recognize the hint of blasphemy in this spontaneous expression of Obama’s fundmental narcissism, and the cultic implications in the shouted adoration from his liberal flock. It’s a wonder they didn’t cover his path to Raleigh with palm fronds, or bring the blind and deaf to the rally, hoping to be healed by touching his garments. And I don’t doubt many talk-radio hosts will make the most of all that, as well they should.

Nevertheless, talk is just talk and what we need now is action to maximize the strategic momentum gained by Tuesday’s triumph. Continue reading Obama’s Down. Can GOP Put Him Out? →

NY-9: Turner Time?
UPDATE: ‘I See Dead Voters!’
UPDATE: GOP’S TURNER WINS!

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UPDATE 12:08 a.m. ET: ASSOCIATED PRESS DECLARES REPUBLICAN BOB TURNER THE WINNER IN NEW YORK’S 9TH DISTRICT!

UPDATE 12:13 a.m. ET: While AP has called it for Turner, Democrat Dave Weprin has not yet conceded:

Businessman Bob Turner (R) defeated state Assemblyman David Weprin (D) in the special election for the House seat held by former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner (D).
Turner’s victory is regarded as an upset given the Democratic history of the 9th district, which takes in portions of Brooklyn and Queens, as well as the fact that President Obama carried the seat by 11 points in 2008.
Weprin has yet to concede, but the Associated Press has called the race for Turner.

Turner becomes the first Republican elected in this district since 1923.

UPDATE 12:25 a.m. ET: How big is this win?

This is the same congressional seat that was held by pervert Anthony Weiner, before he tweeted his meat. This is also the some congressional seat that was once held by far left Marxist Chuck Schumer, and even 1984 VP nominee Geraldine Ferraro. Now it’s held by Republican Bob Turner, thanks to the epic failure of Obama, and his anti Israel policies!

In other words, SCOAMF.

UPDATE 1 a.m. ET: Matt Drudge’s headline:

From the Associated Press story Drudge linked:

Weprin, a 56-year-old Orthodox Jew and member of a prominent Queens political family, seemed a good fit for the largely white, working-class district, which is nearly 40 percent Jewish.
But voter frustration with Obama put Weprin in the unlikely spot of playing defense. A Siena Poll released Friday found just 43 percent of likely voters approved of the president’s job performance, while 54 percent said they disapproved. Among independents, just 29 percent said they approved of Obama’s job performance.
Turner, a 70-year-old Catholic, vowed to push back on Obama’s policies if elected. . . .
Weprin became embroiled in New York-centric disputes over Israel and gay marriage, which cost him some support among Jewish voters.
Orthodox Jews, who tend to be conservative on social issues, expressed anger over Weprin’s vote in the Assembly to legalize gay marriage. In July, New York became one of six states to recognize same-sex nuptials.
Former Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat, endorsed Turner in July as a way to “send a message” to Obama on his policies toward Israel. And Weprin was challenged on his support of a proposed Islamic center and mosque near the World Trade Center site, in lower Manhattan.

So: Obama, gay marriage, Israel and the Ground Zero Mosque. I’m sure Charles Johnson will blame this election on Pamela Geller.

UPDATE 11:55 p.m. ET: Republican Bob Turner is still leading — by a margin of about 2,400 votes, 53%-47% — but I just now saw this shocking story at ABC News:

Claiming a handful of deceased voters have been mailed absentee ballots for today’s special election, an attorney for Republican congressional candidate Bob Turner told ABC News that he has obtained a court order to seal all paper ballots in New York’s 9th Congressional District, pending judicial review.
“We found five dead people, confirmed, who were mailed absentee ballots,” said Turner’s attorney, Grant Lally. “Some of these people have been dead for years.”

Now Democrats will accuse Republicans of necrophobia.

PREVIOUSLY: It is very early — polls closed at 9 p.m. ET and we’ve only got 7 of 512 precincts reporting as of 10:15 p.m. — but Republican Bob Turner is leading 55%-44% in the New York district formerly represented by Anthony Weiner.

UPDATE: The White House is already spinning NY-9 as something other than a referendum on Obama, even though the Turner campaign has been nothing but all-Obama-bashing-all-the-time.

UPDATE 10:30 p.m. ET: OK, now a few more precincts reporting — we’re up to 13 of 512 — and it’s Turner 53%, Weprin 47%.

This might be a good time to mention a conversation I had in Tampa with someone who knows New York politics very well. My source mentioned Democrat Dov Hikind’s endorsement of Turner and said: “Dov Hikind doesn’t endorse losers.” FWIW.

UPDATE 10:40 p.m. ET: With 45 of 512 precincts reporting, it’s Turner 52%, Weprin 47%. There’s a good chance the Republican will win, but we certainly shouldn’t expect a GOP landslide in a district that Obama won with 55% three years ago.

UPDATE 10:45 p.m. ET: You’ve got to admire the way they’re holding back precincts in Brooklyn. That may be either (a) Democrats up to shenanigans on behalf of Weprin or (b) Democrats following Dov Hikind’s orders on behalf of Turner. Remember what my source said, eh?

Our upstate New York friend The Lonely Conservative is tracking the results.

UPDATE 10:55 p.m. ET: Tea Party people . . . in New York City? Raaaaacism!

And with 121 precincts reporting, Turner leads 51% to 49%. If Turner pulls this one out, tomorrow’s White House press conference with Jay Carney ought to be an all-time classic.

UPDATE 11:05 p.m. ET: Ace of Spades has an NY-9 open thread. With 149 precincts reporting, it’s Turner 52%, Weprin 48% — a margin of barely 700 votes, of course. Very low turnout, and those Brooklyn precincts are suspiciously slow with their reports.

UPDATE 11:15 p.m. ET: With 191 precincts reporting, Turner leads 51%-48%.

UPDATE 11:30 p.m. ET: Democrats have got to be sweating now: Turner leads 51%-49% with 218 of 512 precincts reporting.

The margin is just 524 votes out of more than 28,000 cast, but still . . . this is New York City!

Linked by Donald Douglas at American Power — thanks!

UPDATE 11:40 p.m. ET: Do we dare hope? Can Turner hold on to this lead? With 271 precincts reporting, it’s Turner 53%, Weprin 46%.

UPDATE 11:45 p.m. ET: How will Democrats spin a loss in NY-9? They’ll probably blame it all on Dave Weprin’s toupeé credibility gap. And at this hour, Turner’s still leading by some 1,500 votes.

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