Census Bureau Admitted it Over-Counted Democrat States and Under-Counted Republican States

 I knew that the Census Bureau had been engaged in trying to over-count Democrat strongholds and to under-count Republican strongholds prior to the release of the 2020 Census results.  Those results increased the number of Representatives in the House of Representatives for Texas and Florida by one less than independent population experts expected.  Other states, such as Arizona, did not gain at all, contrary to the expectation of some.  But, I missed the announcement by the Census Bureau in late May that they had errored by over- or under-counting in the following states:

Over-counted:  Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New York

Under-counted:  Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas

True to the nature of the federal bureaucracy, all of the over-counting occurred in the Democratic states and five of the six under-counted states were Republican states.  It makes me wonder if the under-counting in Illinois was predominantly in the larger area of the state represented by the five of the 18 members of the House from that state who are Republicans.  Sure enough, the new congressional district map for Illinois now has only four districts that favor Republicans.  The one competitive district before, which was held by a Republican, now leans Democrat.  One might have expected that the death toll due to killings in Chicago might have led to the loss of more than one Congressional seat in the Chicago area.

Minnesota had been projected by many to lose a seat, which it did not, perhaps due to the over-counting in Minnesota.  New York had been widely expected to lose two seats, but it lost only one, perhaps due to over-counting.  Of course, the Census Bureau announced its major errors too late to allow for corrections.  We may be stuck with these errors now until the 2032 election.

We have learned that the old media, academia, and federal bureaucrats are all functionaries of the power-lusting Democrat Party elite.  The intelligence agencies, the FBI, and the Justice Department were all in the tank to falsely accuse Trump of Russian election collusion and of improprieties with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.  Then they accused him of inciting a riot that they claimed killed five policemen.  He did not incite a riot and no policemen were killed.  One later died of natural causes and four later committed suicide.  It is mighty depressing to be a policeman in a Democrat run city these days.  As for the IRS, we have the example of them running a tyrannical syndicate ungoverned by the rule of law and clearly willing to use their power to go after Tea Party and pro-Constitution organizations.  Now, it is about to have 87,000 more agents to attack small businesses and manufacturing firms, who the Democrats count as their enemies.  Then there will be all those additional bureaucrats in charge of the alternative energy economy with its expensive, unreliable energy mandates.

The federal government consists mostly of people who are not your friends.  At least not if you are an American who thinks independently, believes in productive work, has earned some property, and does not want to force his fellow man to do his will.  The Democrats love using the power of government to make you do their will, however.

UN agency to Congress: Drop Dead by Paul Driessen

IARC takes US money, manipulates studies, colludes with activists – and snubs Congress

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in France has received over $48 million from America’s National Institutes of Health (NIH), to determine whether various chemicals cause cancer in humans. Of more than 900 chemicals it has reviewed, only one was ever found non-carcinogenic. The latest substance to face IARC scrutiny is glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide RoundUp.

Not surprisingly, the agency branded glyphosate carcinogenic. But this time evidence is surfacing of collusion with anti-chemical activist groups and class action lawyers, serious conflicts of interest involving a key IARC glyphosate reviewer, and IARC manipulation of scientific reports along with deliberate withholding of studies that concluded the chemical is safe, so that the agency could get a guilty verdict.

Despite this disturbing evidence, and demonstrable proof of the chemical’s safety, the European Union barely extended its authorization for glyphosate use, and then by just five years, instead of the usual 15.

The House of Representatives Science Committee is deeply concerned about this corruption of science, its potential impacts on US regulatory decisions, and the use of IARC rulings by predatory lawyers who are suing glyphosate manufacturers. It sent letters to Health and Human Services Secretary Eric Hargan (who oversees the NIH and its agencies) and IARC director Chris Wild. The letters “request” all relevant documents and the names of IARC-affiliated people who could testify at Committee oversight hearings.

Dr. Wild’s artful and legalistic response emphasized “scientific consensus” among all review panel members; said “deliberative” documents would not be made available; claimed there were no conflicts of interest among any IARC reviewers; said he and his staff would not be “pressured” by “vested interests,” the media or Congress; and said congressmen can come to France if they want answers to their questions.

In other words: Drop dead. Members of Congress who authorize taxpayer funding for IARC have no right to scrutinize its deliberations and decisions, to ensure sound science, transparency and accountability. 

Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world. It is vital to modern agriculture – and one of the most extensively tested chemicals in history: some 3,300 studies over four decades attest to its safety. Indeed, virtually every reputable regulatory agency and scientific body in the world has determined that it does not cause cancer – including the European Food Safety Authority, European Chemicals Agency, German Institute for Risk Assessment and US Environmental Protection Agency.

Only IARC says glyphosate causes cancer. To help it reach that conclusion, the agency employed the services of Italy’s Ramazzini Institute, which also concocted studies claiming cell phones and artificial sweeteners cause cancer. It relies on Ramazzini even though regulatory bodies in Europe, the United States and New Zealand have investigated and criticized Ramazzini’s sloppy, suspect pseudo-science.

Dr. Wild’s agency has also worked closely with Dr. Linda Birnbaum, director of the $690-million-a-year National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences or NIEHS (an NIH agency in the HHS). Birnbaum is also a member of the Collegium Ramazzini and has directed over $90 million of US taxpayer funds to her Ramazzini colleagues, many of whom serve on numerous IARC “expert panels.”

Evidence is accumulating that Brinbaum has worked closely with anti-chemical pressure groups and even trial lawyers, thereby undermining the US regulatory and chemical review process and perhaps ultimately forcing glyphosate off the market. She has helped to coordinate and direct these activities, and has turned the United States into IARC’s biggest donor, earmarking $4.2 million to support IARC’s current effort to list more agricultural and industrial chemicals as carcinogens – including artificial sweeteners. Even GMO foods are on the agency’s hit list.

The well-funded, carefully coordinated effort to eradicate weed-eradicating glyphosate has also involved a number of devious, secretive, deceptive actions.

 

The 2014 advisory group that decided IARC would review glyphosate was led by activist statistician Dr. Christopher Portier, who worked for years for NIEHS and Birnbaum. In fact, investigative journalists David Zaruk (Risk-Monger) and Kate Kelland (Reuters) discovered, Portier drove the glyphosate review, while also working for the anti-pesticide Environmental Defense Fund and serving as the only “invited specialist” on the working group that labeled glyphosate carcinogenic.

At the same time, Portier was also advising trial lawyers suing over other chemicals that IARC had found carcinogenic – and shortly after serving on the advisory group signed with the same lawyers to work on their glyphsate suits, a gig for which he has so far been paid $160,000. No conflicts of interest?

Even more outrageous, as Ms. Kelland explained in another article, IARC repeatedly ignored or altered studies that exonerated glyphosate. One report clearly said the researchers “unanimously” agreed that glyphosate had not caused abnormal growths in mice they had studied. IARC deleted the sentence.

In other cases IARC panelists inserted new statistical analyses that reversed a study’s original finding; quietly changed critical language exonerating the chemical; and claimed they were “not able to evaluate” a study because it included insufficient experimental data, while excluding another study because “the amount of data in the tables was overwhelming.” These machinations helped to ensure a “consensus.” 

Equally questionable, NIH Cancer Research Institute scientist Aaron Blair conducted a years-long study that also found glyphosate was not carcinogenic. But he held off on publishing his results, and did not divulge his findings, knowing IARC would leave “unpublished” work out of its analysis.

This is not science. It is manipulation and deception – supported by our tax dollars, and used to drive safe, widely used chemicals off the market.

Other activists repeatedly claim “endocrine disrupting” chemicals which don’t cause cancer or other harm in high doses somehow do so at barely detectable levels. Another clever ploy claims no actual exposure is needed; kids get cancer because their parents or grandparents were exposed to something, perhaps years ago. It’s ridiculous. But convincing a jury there’s no cause-effect relationship is a Sisyphean task.

The end result, if not the goal, is to undermine public confidence in science-based risk assessments, lend credibility to agitator claims that countless chemicals contaminate our foods and imperil our health, endlessly frighten consumers, and set the stage for billion-dollar lawsuits to enrich class-action lawyers and organic food interests.

More than 1,000 US lawsuits already claim glyphosate causes cancer, and law firms are running ads saying anyone who has cancer and was ever exposed to glyphosate in any form or amount may be entitled to millions in compensation. Other lawyers are playing the same games with “manmade climate change.”

Ending legal predation will require major state and federal reforms. However, the American people elected this President and Congress to bring transparency and accountability back to Washington and international regulatory agencies. They need to use their oversight and funding powers to do so.

Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith told me he is reviewing Mr. Wild’s response. “Given the serious nature of our concerns related to IARC’s expenditures of taxpayer dollars, IARC should exercise due diligence and provide a complete response to my November 1 letter. The Science Committee will use all tools at our disposal to ensure the stewards of our taxpayers’ dollars are held accountable,” Smith said.

That is good news. Too many regulators and “scientific” panels have the attitude, “We are accountable only to ourselves. We will not have any member of Congress or the Trump Administration presume to tell us how to run our business, do science or be transparent.” That arrogance is intolerable.

Even if Dr. Wild is beyond the reach of US law, Drs. Birnbaum, Portier, Blair, et al. are not. They should be compelled to testify under oath, and funding for their agencies and work should be made contingent on their cooperation in rooting out the apparent secrecy, corruption, conflicts of interest and junk science.

   

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of books and articles on energy and environmental policy. 

One Person, One Vote?

The Supreme Court just heard a case on Tuesday, Evenwel v. Abbott, over whether state legislative districts must equalize the number of voters or the number of people.  The particular state in this case is Texas, where districts are apportioned by number of people and where the number of voters per district then differs greatly in some cases.

One person, one vote sounds nice -- until you give it some thought.  Of course children are persons, but we exclude them from voting.  Non-citizens are also not supposed to vote, though many do in some districts, especially those controlled by the Democratic Party.  Many people though eligible to become voters do not register to vote.  Many people who are registered to vote skip many or some elections.  There simply is no sense in which one person gets one vote and one share of representation.  There is no feasible way to achieve any such outcome in the future.

The Constitution originally handled the problem this way:

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and Excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

Consequently, districts for the House of Representatives were equalized for the total number of people, excluding untaxed Indians and two-fifths of slaves.  The free Persons included non-citizens.  The idea at the time was that those men eligible to vote would represent all men with insufficient property to vote, children, women, non-citizens, those bound to service for a term of years, and all slaves.

The 14th Amendment changed the apportionment for the House Districts by only excluding Indians not taxed.  It went on to punish states that denied the right to vote to male citizens of 21 years of age or older by reducing the House representation in proportion to their numbers in ratio to the total number of male citizens 21 years of age and older.  The idea was still clearly that male citizens of 21 years or older would represent all women and all non-citizens.

But how should the House Districts properly be set up?  By extension, how should state legislative districts be set up?  Is it reasonable to assume that those who vote are trying and able to represent the good of those who cannot or will not vote when they cast their vote?  These are substantive questions.  It is not unreasonable for fairly reasonable people to disagree on the answers.

At the time the 14th Amendment was written, it was considered that House Districts should be apportioned in accordance with the number of voters or eligible voters.  That idea was shot down immediately when Representative James Blaine, Republican of Maine, examined the census data and found that since the ratio of men to women was much higher in Western states than in the Eastern states, the Eastern states would lose massive representation if it were based on the number of voters or eligible voters.  Women could not vote, but they were valuable for inflating the numbers of persons for representation, much as slaves had been in the South in the past.

It is now easy for all citizens of age to vote.  Despite this, in many areas very low fractions of the citizens chose to vote.  They are either not sufficiently interested or they are so infused with a sense of futility that they see no point in voting.  Should uninterested people or those so infused with a sense of doom and futility be given representation that they will not use? 

In most cases, such uninterested or futility-bound voters especially occupy highly Democrat districts.  So many Progressive Elitist Democrats believe such non-participating voters or potential voters should be represented because they, the Progressive Elitists, will cast their votes in the interest of the apathetic or doomed-in-futility persons.  Yet these same Progressive Elitists have long claimed to be doing this, especially to minimize economic inequality.  Nonetheless, the Congressional Districts with the worst economic inequality are almost exclusively Democratic and have been for decades.  Clearly, the Progressive Elitist voters, who do vote in high percentages, either do not actually vote to reduce economic inequality or they do so with a complete misunderstanding of the consequences of their votes.  They are clearly horrible at representing the interests of the less educated and less inclined to vote people in their districts.

In general, people who vote either vote their own interest or they vote for the interests of others without actually understanding their interests.  Let us be realists and recognize the facts and human nature.  People barely able to motivate themselves to vote rarely have any understanding of the legitimate role of government, the important political issues of the time, the principles of the candidates, and the manner in which new laws and regulations will affect our futures.  In the era of
Big Government these issues are often much more complex than they were in the past in America.

We should also note that it is clear that people are not good at representing the interests of children.  We see this in the miserable public education system we have, in the huge national debt, in the terrible future liabilities of Social Security and Medicare, and the complete disregard for the effect of compounded economic growth rates on the standard of living of Americans 30 or 40 years from now.  Few voters weigh the future enough to look to future outcomes.  Consequently, they are nearly worthless as representatives of the interests of today's children.

House districts, both federal and state, should simply be apportioned on the basis of the number of voters in the last several elections, assuming they do not exceed the number of eligible voters as they do in some Democrat districts.  This apportions representation according to the numbers of citizens of age to vote who actually have an interest in government.  Yes, many of them will not understand the issues and the consequences of their votes either, but this is the one form in which One Person, One Vote is actually achievable in the form of One Voter, One Vote.

Adding to the weight on political outcomes of those districts with higher voter turn-out is likely to raise the quality of the People's Voice about as high as one can accomplish by any means except an improved education system or other educational efforts.  If the reward in political outcomes is greater for those who already care enough to vote, perhaps they will make a greater effort in the future to think about their votes.  These more thoughtful voters then may even realize a bit greater responsibility not to do harm to others, including those others who do not care to vote.  But realistically, one will be giving a greater voting weight to those who are voting for the interests of those they know best, themselves and perhaps their immediate family and friends.  That is not a bad thing.  Most great wrongs are done when people vote or act for others they do not even know, or when they pretend to do so.

How might one determine the number of voters for these district apportionment purposes?  How about the last four elections in the previous decade with re-apportionment occurring once a decade?  It would be nice if one could just make this the last four elections, but the re-districting effort and battles would be too much.  As for why four elections, the fluctuations in voter turn-out are great, especially the differences between Presidential elections and those when voting on the President does not occur.  The last four elections will include two presidential and two non-presidential elections.  It will include elections when no vote was up in the state for Senator in Congress.  It is a good number to average out, though it may slightly lag overall population shifts.  I would gladly live with that population shift lag for the many benefits of One Voter, One Vote, One Share of Representation.

As for state legislative districts, a variety of formulas are fairly reasonable and determining what formula to use should be left up to the states.  Only very unreasonable state decisions should be corrected by the Supreme Court.  Among the unreasonable apportionments would be those that count non-citizens.  Perhaps counting citizen children should also be considered unreasonable, though I am less adamant about this than about the non-citizen count.

Which brings up the need to also tackle the problem of ineligible voters casting ballots as another aspect of the voter representation problem.

Hillary Clinton -- Lawless, Power-lusting, Opaque, and Now, Finally, Done

Hillary Clinton has hung around and hung around, despite her long record of lawlessness, secrecy to hide her power-lust, and disregard for others.  As an admirer of Saul Alinsky, she, like Obama, is a proponent of class and group warfare who sees oppressors and victims everywhere in American society.  That vision is most useful in justifying never-ending power grabs by government and the politicians who use that power to extort wealth and further power from the People and their private sector enterprises.  As does Obama, she turns a blind eye to the obvious conclusion that her government solution to all problems is flawed because there is no power in the private sector as great as that of government, which is controlled by people even more morally challenged for the most part.

Hillary has always been drawn into corrupt practices.  The Whitewater and Tyson's Chicken scandals while the First "Lady" of Arkansas set the expectations of rational observers before she moved into the White House.  Her unlawful practice of hiding documents and violating transparency laws was early in full evidence when she became First "Lady" of the United States.  She could not find subpenaed documents relating to Whitewater, until they or some subset of them turned up in plain sight quite mysteriously.  Then the HillaryCare fiasco she orchestrated with Ira Magaziner demonstrated a penchant for holding secret meetings that were required to be public meetings.  Hillary removed papers from Vince Foster's office after his mysterious death.  Hillary and Bill accused the operators of the White House Travel Office of wrongdoing, without any justification, in order to try to install their own friends in that job.  What kind of person would send someone to prison in order to gain a job for a friend?

So, it is hardly surprising that we are now hearing that Hillary used her position as Secretary of State to extort and/or to offer favors to nations if they granted money to her foundation.  Alright, it is true that I do not directly and certainly know that favors or harm were promised unless the donations were made.  But the appearance is very bad and what is worse, knowing Hillary's ethics and practice, the rational individual has to expect it to be most likely that promises or threats were made, which caused some nations not very friendly to America or to the equal rights of women to make contributions to her foundation.  Once again, one senses that transparency is greatly lacking on Hillary's relationship with these donator nations.  Her foundation is widely known to function as a sort of political slush fund, though it does also do some charitable work.  The foundation fits the pattern of being another tool to obscure her activities.

Now most recently we discovered that the reason that the House of Representatives and Judicial Watch could not get her e-mails relating to the Benghazi incident, is because she did not use the State Department e-mail account as she was required for conducting State Department business.  No, she used e-mail addresses operating off of a server in the basement of her home, as did some of her close assistants in the State Department.  Federal law requires that all government e-mails be maintained and preserved.  Hillary had her people examine her e-mails on one of the e-mail addresses operating out of her personal server and turn some set of them over to the State Department, many months after leaving the office.  This is a huge violation of the transparency requirement.  Those and who knows how many other e-mails she has not turned over should have long ago been examined by the State Department to find any that might be relevant to the Freedom of Information Act requests made by Judicial Watch and to the investigation of the House of Representatives.  This is a majority interference with the essential checks and balances We the People must maintain on our government to constrain its tendencies to tyranny and excess.

Hillary was well-aware that her actions were in violation of law and yet she did not step forward with her e-mails until she was caught.  I heard her friend Lanny Davis make the claim that she was not hiding her personal e-mail, because she had sent thousands of e-mails to thousands of people using it.  This does not mean that she was obeying the transparency requirements.  What it does imply is that the many people who were in government positions knew that she was violating the law by using her personal e-mail account for government business.  The extreme and total corruption of the Obama administration is evident in the fact that these people did not bring down an Inspector General investigation of her e-mail use while she was still serving as Secretary of State.  But while the Inspector General did not bother Hillary, nine investigations within the State Department did find that the law-violating use of private e-mails was widespread in the State Department and in many of our embassies around the world.  Such a violation was even used as a reason for sacking one ambassador during Hillary's tenure in the State Department.  But Hillary is always above the law!

As bad as Hillary Clinton's violation of transparency laws and court orders is, it may be even more disturbing that because she did not use the State Department e-mail, she had to have exposed many, many secrets to governments and groups unfriendly to the U.S. and opposed to individual rights.  It is already known that her home server system was not very secure with respect to hackers.  It was only a useful tool to deceive the American People, but not to hide classified State Department business from Qatar, North Korea, Iran, Russia, and China.  I expect many Americans do not understand how much State Department business is classified and do not understand how badly many other nations would want to see the Secretary of State's email and that of the people she corresponded with.  While there are many reasons that her tenure as Secretary of State was not a success, it may very well turn out that one of them was because many nations were hacking her insecure e-mail accounts.  [Ari Fleischer has also said that it is most likely the case that Russia, China, and Iran, among other nations, have read all of Hillary Clinton's e-mails, including everything about State Department business.  Update on 9 March 2015.]

Any thinking American should be horrified by the risk she put U.S. foreign policy and defense in with what for her was a political career convenience.  This was an extremely irresponsible act and one which surely violated the law.  She belongs in prison, not in a campaign to become the next President of the United States and the most powerful leader of the world's most powerful government.

But, who cares why Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died in Benghazi and who cares if court orders were violated?  Who cares if an essential check on government power and corruption was violated?  Who cares if Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea were reading Hillary's e-mail and that of her correspondents about our foreign and defense policies?  We are about to test the American voter once again.  I hope they will not prove as unthinking as they were when they twice voted for Obama.  If they only prove a wee bit better thinkers, then Hillary Clinton is now toast.

For those of you who do care about why Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans died in Benghazi, Judicial Watch did recently obtain enough e-mails from a number of Hillary Clinton's top State Department aides and advisers to discover that they had immediately recognized that the attack was by a terrorist group.  They did not speculate in those e-mails that it was a "random" mob that was incensed by an obscure Internet video.  Given the strident and angry "Who cares" attitude of their boss, perhaps it is at least possible that they did not inform Hillary that the attack was a terrorist attack.  So which of these are part of the real story?

• Hillary was unable to conclude from the evidence that the attack was a terrorist attack.
• Her aides knew she would not be interested in the cause of the attack.
• Her aides knew that she wanted plausible deniability for her ridiculous claim that a random mob was incensed by an obscure Internet video and spontaneously attacked the Consulate.
• Her aides, knowing her famous furies, were afraid to tell her the real reason for the attack.
• Hillary did know that the attack was by a terrorist group, but it was politically inconvenient to make that public with Obama's re-election campaign underway, so she lied about the cause.

Update on 11 March 2015:  Hillary Clinton destroyed 32,000 e-mails last year which she claimed were personal.  She refused to turn her home server over for any attempt to recover and check the disposed e-mails according to a report in the Washington Times.  We do not know how many other e-mails she has not turned over, but the timing of her destruction of e-mails would have allowed her to destroy the e-mails relating to the Benghazi incident.

Does a President Have the Constitutional Authority to Demand that Congress Pass a Bill of His Liking?

Tonight, Obama said he was issuing an Executive Order to change immigration law because Congress had not responded to his demand that it pass a comprehensive immigration bill to his liking.  He is posturing that this is within his constitutional authority.  In fact, he does not care whether he has such authority under the Constitution or not.  He has always regarded the Constitution as an impediment to his agenda, as he made very clear in a radio interview back when he served as a Senator in the Illinois state legislature.  Twice he took the presidential oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution when he was always determined to undermine it.  These were the most colossal of his many lies.

If a president were to have such a constitutional authority to demand bills from Congress that were to his liking, the federal government would be no more than a despotic regime.  There would be no check on the power of the president by the people short of impeachment.  In fact, it is not at all clear that a president with such powers would even feel any need to care whether he was impeached or not by a toothless Congress.  Yes, the People might so threaten rebellion that he would come to pay attention, but short of that, why would he care?  Neither would he care what the rulings of the federal courts might be.  The People would only have recourse by refusing to carry out his Executive Orders.

Obama has already shown dozens and dozens of times that he believes he has the power to unilaterally change laws passed by Congress.  ObamaCare, the PPACA, or more honestly the Patient Subjugation and Unaffordable Care Act, has already been changed unilaterally over and over by the health care insurance and tax Czar, namely Obama.  Obama, the Justice Department, the EPA, the IRS, the National Labor Relations Board, and many other Obama Regime agencies have already ignored court orders and violated numerous laws including the Freedom of Information Act.  He has long ignored his duties under the immigration laws.

Now he is making massive changes in the immigration laws simply because a bill he liked that was passed by a Democrat-controlled Senate was not taken up in a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.  He insists that if it had been taken up in the House, it would have been passed.  Maybe, maybe not. He is not making a similar argument that the 370 or so bills passed by the House and sent to the Senate should have all been acted on by the Senate.  There are problems in the way the parties work the rules of both the House and the Senate due to the majority party leadership having excessive control of each body.  Yet, those houses have control of their rules and it is entirely unwise to give that control to a president, especially one who does not believe in principles and general rules, but instead changes those rules in any way he needs to get what he wants.  Obama has no principles by which he governs his actions, except his single-minded devotion to collectivism and the total control of the individual by a state with a Great Socialist Leader at its head.

I make these comments on what I believe the essential issues are here despite the fact that I want our immigration laws to allow more lawful immigrants, most especially more who are well-educated and who have great skills and ability.  Obama's rule to increase the number of H1B Visas and not to count spouses against the quota is something I would favor, were it voted by Congress.  Unlike Obama and the courts, I believe it is wrong that the children of illegal immigrants who are born in the US are given citizenship.  To compound that wrong with a ruling that all of their parents illegally in the US will be freed of deportation and allowed to apply for citizenship is wrong.  I would allow children born in the US and their parents a path to citizenship, but they would have to prove themselves worthy.  But what I think Congress should do to change the law is just my opinion.  It is Congress' power under the Constitution to either do so, or not to do so.

Of course, this whole matter is one in which Obama has a very vested interest.  Because his father was illegally in the US when he was born, he should not himself have been considered a citizen and should have had to apply for citizenship.  This is especially so because he was abroad so long and became a citizen of Indonesia.  Had Obama applied for citizenship, he could have had his own Social Security number!  His Executive Order is designed to keep many of his citizenship problems from happening for the many illegal immigrants in the USA.

Because of the classical liberal viewpoint that infused the Founding Fathers, the Framers of the Constitution, and most of the nation's leaders until about 1912, the powers of the Executive Office in the federal government were tightly controlled by many checks and balances and by an ideology that tended to make individual freedom and the rights of the individual our highest political values.  Thus, our philosophy of government was guided by principles.  Then the Progressives came along, who had given up moral and political principles as they had adopted a philosophy of Pragmatism. 

Unfortunately, Pragmatism is highly impractical as a philosophy of life.  Without guiding principles for one's actions and one's value choices, excepting the choice of one's own life as one's highest value, it is entirely impractical to assess every choice one makes in a complex world.  This is like trying to do physics without ever using the general principle of the Conservation of Energy, or Newton's laws of motion, or the principles of thermodynamics.  Yes, with a huge effort one might do all the research needed to make one right decision, but this is the equivalent of placing oneself in time prior to Galileo and Newton and trying to figure out what the momentum, force, and kinetic energy of a stone dropped off a cliff will be when it falls on the head of an enemy below.  Rational decisions without principles are made so difficult that real people give up on trying to make rational decisions and they make their decisions based only on emotional grounds.  This is why the politics of Progressives is entirely based on passions and feelings.  Obama and his followers are such people.  They are stultified by the effort to reason, so they default to their feelings.

Our federal government was crafted as mandated by the Constitution with a great many checks and balances which were to check the power of the executive, each of the two houses of the Congress, the judiciary, the federal government versus the state governments, and the elected politicians generally with respect to the People.  There were also temporal checks, either against passing fads and the madness of crowds or against old men too long in power.  These checks and balances mean that there are built-in frictions against governmental actions.  Some rational policies may take considerable time to be chosen and then put in place.  Patience is usually needed.  But, the Framers of the Constitution had learned that democracy was unstable and unsustainable and strong executive leadership was despotic.  The American system of government was designed to prevent those extremes and because of that, it has proven unusually stable and sustainable.  Unfortunately, Obama and the Progressives have de-stabilized our federal government and created huge discord among the People as they diverted the purpose of government from protecting individual rights to providing favors for special interest constituencies.  To do this, they have found it increasingly expedient to claim greater and greater powers for the president, except when the president is not in alignment with their agenda.

Obama does not care about the welfare of illegal immigrants.  It is very clear that he only cares that they become voters for the Democratic Party.  The evidence is that he even wants them to vote before they become citizens.  But, if he really cared about them or his black supporters, he would not have pursued so many anti-business, anti-job, and anti-right-to-earn-a-living policies as he has.  Both groups have suffered terribly under the massive unemployment since he occupied the White House.  Actually, everyone has lost freedoms and their standard of living has decreased under his increasingly despotic regime.

The American People to an unusual degree rose up to oppose Obama's push for more and more despotic powers and controls in the election of 2014.  Obama is choosing to ignore this by and large.  Since he will not be able to control the actions of either the House or the Senate during the remainder of his administration, he has made it perfectly clear that he intends to by-pass their powers and ignore their constitutional authority.  He is ruling the USA with decrees and proclamations now.  This is a precedent which the American People must vociferously oppose, unless they wish a future as serfs without self-ownership or other individual rights.

Wall Street Journal Says Below Average White Rural Areas Are Becoming More Republican

The Friday Wall Street Journal had a front page story in which it said that the "GOP Tightens Its Grip on White Working Class."  It says that it tracks the House seats held by each party in House districts dominated by white, working-class voters.  In 1993, the Democrats held 36 such districts and the Republicans held 35.  By 2013, this division of such districts had changed drastically, with the Republicans holding 59 white, working-class districts and the Democrats holding only 11.

The article has the usual large number of stories about individuals and what they think and how their voting may have changed or not.  Among the stories it tells are those of people from Aitkin, Minnesota in the 8th Congressional District of Minnesota.  Aitkin is the county seat of rural Aitkin County, with a population of 2,597 people.  It is about 50 miles west southwest of Duluth, Minnesota.  The 8th Congressional District is almost 93% white.  We are told by the Wall Street Journal that the median household income is $49,860, compared to the national median of $53,000.  We are told that only a bit more than 22% of the people in the district have a Bachelor's degree or higher, compared to a national median of 28.5%.  So, we are supposed to conclude that these people are not quite as well-educated as they ought to be and not quite as successful as the average American.  So, maybe this is why they are becoming Republicans in larger numbers.

Let us consider the measure of their economic success given as their income.  Democrats obsess about materialistic measures such as comparative incomes.  But in fact, the people of Aitkin, Minnesota are a bit too sly for the median American.  There is a pretty good reason to believe the Wall Street Journal is underestimating them, both their income and their ability to recognize a perfectly fine way of living.

The median household income of $53,000 mentioned is that earned by households with a mean cost of living index of 100.  The good people of Aitkin, Minnesota have a local cost of living of 92.  Do the math,

$49,860 / 0.92 = $54,196 > $53,000.

So, it may not be the case that everyone in Aitkin, Minnesota is above average, but it is the case that their median income allows them to live a bit better than the median income in America allows the average American household.

So, being such sly folks, they are coming to realize that the Republican Party is better than the Democrat Party.  The story is that Millennials and Hispanics are beginning to learn the same lesson.  Mostly, those who are coming awake are coming to an increasing understanding that being productive is critical and that far too many people are making welfare a way of life.  The people called the white working class are learning this in larger numbers, but young people now a few years separated from the Progressive Elitist indoctrination of years of Progressive Elitist education and unable to find jobs at all or jobs anything like what they thought they would have are beginning to learn this as well.  Some are actually seeing that government actions have prevented any reasonable economic recovery.  More and more Hispanic Americans are at the least disgusted with the failed promises of the Democrats and in some cases are coming to resent others living off of their hard work also.

While some signs of understanding are beginning to show up, there is a long way to go.  A Wall Street Journal/ NBC News poll in June found out that 53% of white people said that the government was doing too much to meet the needs of people and more should be left to businesses and individuals.  Only 44% of Hispanics said the same.  Still fewer Black Americans agreed with this.  They were stuck at a mere 32%.  We still live in a largely entitlement society.

Representative John Sarbanes Would Restrict Freedom of Speech

Representative John Sarbanes, Democrat, Maryland, is polling his constituents on their desires to limit the influence of Big Business on Big Government.  I am in his most incredibly gerrymandered district.  Here is his letter to me:

Dear Friend,

Many Americans feel their priorities get left behind in Washington and the priorities of billionaires and big corporations receive undue attention. Many tell me their voices are being drowned out by the special interests. I'd like to know how you feel about the role of big money in politics. Please share your thoughts with me in the survey below.

Do you believe big money politics is corrupting our government?

Yes No

Do you think everyday Americans deserve a way to fight back against special interest spending?

Yes No

Would you support a proposal to amplify the voices of everyday Americans in our elections

Yes No

Earlier this year, I introduced the Government by the People Act (HR 20) - a bipartisan bill with more than 140 cosponsors that would empower millions of everyday Americans to take back their government from big money special interests. To read more about the proposal and become a citizen cosponsor, pleas visit http://ofby.us
Sincerely,

John P. Sarbanes

I listened to John Sarbanes address the House on the bill he is sponsoring, along with many another Democrat in the House, and he only railed against Big Business.  He never mentioned any other type of special interest.  His bias is anti-business.  Of course he especially hit oil companies and made the many times debunked claim that they are heavily subsidized by government simply because they take the tax deductions provided to most businesses.  He had no complaints directed at the big political campaign donations of labor unions, trial lawyers, government employees, so-called green energy companies, teachers, and accountants who love complex tax codes.

The Sarbanes bill would provide everyone a tax credit for making a political donation, provide taxpayer's money to candidates based on how many people made donations to them, and provide additional money in the last 60 days of a campaign if some bureaucrat decides that a super PAC is slamming a candidate too hard in that time period.  So, let us see what this means:

• It now will cost a person nothing to aid the campaign of a candidate.  If it costs him nothing, he has even less reason to understand the candidate's purpose and the consequences of his political viewpoint.
• Hard-working, more productive people and corporations will have to provide funding for candidates who wish to use government force to redistribute their money to the many who pay little or no taxes through the taxpayer campaign financing requirement.  This enables such politicians to better buy the votes of those who pay little in taxes.
• Some bureaucrat, perhaps in the thrall of the President and his political party, will decide which candidates are being unfairly attacked by a big PAC and provide that candidate with taxpayer money.  I wonder if that will work any better than having the IRS decide who can set up a non-profit organization based on whether the organizational name has Patriot or Tea Party in the name or its purpose includes teaching the provisions of the Constitution?

 My response to him:

John,

As usual, your questions belie a bias based on a naive view of the role of government.

When government becomes big and dictates values to the People and starts micromanaging their lives, we all suffer for these quite obvious reasons:

• Government is too big for the elected officials to manage it well.
• The People cannot understand what the government is doing and all of the consequences of its actions.
• The People can no longer choose their representatives adequately.
• As the People lose control and understanding, they lose confidence in their government.
• Special interests step in to fill the power vacuum, manipulating just those policies that benefit themselves with no regard for the individual rights and welfare of most of the People.

The special interests include:

• Labor Unions
• Some Big Businesses
• Welfare Recipients
• Environmental Extremists and Global Warming Alarmists
• Trial Lawyers
• Government Employees including Teachers
  
• University Employees deriving income from Government Grants
• Exporters using Government Loans
• Banks using money printed by the Federal Reserve
• Ethanol Manufacturers and corn growers
• Some Farmers
• Shipping Line Operators
• PPACA Website Programmers
• Health Care Insurance Providers
• Really Bad American Car Manufacturers
• Power-Hungry Politicians
• Campaign Contributors to Power-Hungry Politicians
• Accountants due to Unintelligible Tax Laws Forcing Americans to Buy their Services
• Regulatory Consultants due to Unintelligible Regulations

No, John, you are not addressing the real problem.  The real problem is the Size of Government.  The one and only way to end the control of government by special interests is to reduce it to its very limited constitutional role of providing for the national defense, the post roads, and handing foreign affairs issues.  Then the national government will do much, much less harm to the People, be much better understood by them, and be much more capably managed by our Representatives.

Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D.
Lab: (410) 740-8562
Mobile: (301) 830-1886
http://www.AndersonMaterials.com
http://AndersonMaterials.blogspot.com
http://ObjectivistIndividualist.blogspot.com/

I do not suppose I will get any special interest favors from John Sarbanes!  I am surprised he is up to so much mischief in Congress.  One would think he would be spending all of his time traveling between the far-flung isthmuses of his kingly domain, the 3rd Congressional District of Maryland, shown here in brown:

Only Big Government could create and love such a creature.

Why the Democrat Senate Will Not End the Slimdown of the Government

Why is the slight slimdown of the government, wrongly called a shutdown, continuing?

First the Republican House authorized all spending except that small part of the funding for ObamaCare which is in the so-called discretionary budget.

Then the Republican House authorized all spending, but required a one-year delay of the ObamaCare fiasco.

Then the Republican House authorized all spending including that for ObamaCare but with the proviso that the House and Senate and their staffs had be subject to ObamaCare just as everyone else was.

So, as Ann Coulter has pointed out, the only reason that the government slimdown, incorrectly called the government shutdown, continues is because the Democrat Senate recognizes ObamaCare to be so awful that they refuse to obey the law they passed over everyone else' objections.  Obama gave them an exemption, which is surely illegal anyway.  We are to be subjected to rationing, high expense requirements, and its capricious will and they are not.  After all, the Rulers of the People must have their special privileges.  They deserve them because they are the Progressive Elitists caring for we the mere sheep.

You can see why they hate the Constitution so much.  That document is the People's mandate to the government and makes it clear that government is to serve the People.  The People do not serve the Government or its politicians and bureaucrats.  But, this mandate of government service is inherently unsustainable with a big government model.  That model insists upon rulers with prerogatives and peons who do as they are told.

A Piecemeal Approach to Appropriations is Exactly the Way for Congress to Proceed

We are constantly hearing from most of the media and from Obama and his allies generally that the proper way to appropriate funding for government is to pass an omnibus authorization to continue the massive spending of the government and every current program.  They demand a "clean" continuing resolution that includes the very dirty ObamaCare program with full funding.

They choose to ignore many things in this assertion.  Among them:

• The debt due to this unsustainable spending has surpassed the GDP and will be harder and harder to roll-over.  The debt will saddle the People with much higher interest rates in the future.  Any attempt to increase taxes to pay the increased debt payments and the increases in Medicare, Social Security (retirement and disability), Medicaid, and ObamaCare spending, will slow the growth of the economy enough to result in a decrease in tax revenues.  In other words, only spending less is a possible sustainable solution.  This solution is to be avoided at all costs according to Democrats.

•  It is the job of Congress, especially the House of Representatives, to carefully review spending and only authorize that spending which is constitutional and necessary.  This constitutional responsibility is forfeited in the continuing resolution process.  Only in a piecemeal consideration of government program funding will irresponsible, unnecessary, and unconstitutional programs be ended as they ought to be.  Programs should be examined closely by Congress.  This takes time and effort, which it is all too clear Congress is not up to.  Neither is Obama up to it.  This is a great reason to demand huge reductions in government spending and in the number of programs all by itself.  Giving Congress so much money and so many programs is like giving a five-year-old a house, a gun, and a car of his own and filling the house to the ceiling with hundred dollar bills.

• The infamously named Affordable Care Act is very unpopular with the People.  It is a major source of increased government spending.  This spending will add greatly to the national debt.  Many will push for higher taxes to fund it in the future, despite the fact that higher taxes will result in less tax revenue over time, while lowering our standard of living.  Of course a past Congress passed ObamaCare without reading it and without regard to its many violations of individual rights and of the limited powers given the government by the Constitution.  This does not mean that the present or future Congresses are not obliged to stop the funding for this program if they assess it to be unworthy of funding, unconstitutional, or against the will of the People.  Indeed, if any is the case, then it is Congress' responsibility to stop the program.

So much for the nonsense that only a Continuing Resolution to fund all government programs at present levels is responsible.  Nothing could be more untrue.

13% Spending Reduction Is Called a Shutdown?

The media, even Fox News, is generally calling the 13% reduction in government spending a SHUTDOWN of the GOVERNMENT.  This is surely an exaggeration.  Perhaps in a society whose government-run and funded schools have long exaggerated student achievement with grade inflation, this is to be expected.  A society that has long inflated the ability of government to solve problems and do it much better than individuals can by managing their own lives, is bound to be terrified by a mere 13% reduction in government spending.

Of course life continues despite the Obama Regime paying federal employees to put up barriers and to wire those barriers together to keep veterans from approaching the WWII Memorial, which is not even attended by federal employees in routine times.  It is amazing to watch the pathetic efforts of this administration to convince the People that they should be terrified by a 13% reduction in government spending and the subsequent furloughs of some non-essential government employees.  Except, of course, those employees so essential for barricading the various facilities such as the WWII Memorial and the Grand Canyon which do not even require the attendance of federal employees.

It is even more pathetic that many people buy into these scare tactics by the power lusters who rule the USA.

The failure of the Senate to agree to a spending authorization coming from the House of Representatives to fund so-called discretionary funding, means only that the small part of government activities which are both discretionary and designated non-essential by the administration will not be available.  Discretionary spending is only 20% of actual government spending!  Weirdly, the constitutionally required provision of defense is classified by our insane government as discretionary spending, while all of the transfers of money from taxpayers to individuals is called mandatory spending.  Since defense spending and other security spending and Veterans Affairs spending are hardly being reduced despite the Democrat refusal to authorize it and the willingness of the House to so authorize it, the actual spending reduction is only about 13%.

Meanwhile, despite all of the scare mongering, the government continues to spend $2.5 trillion in the new fiscal year on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, disability payments, unemployment insurance, and the interest on the national debt.

The government is not shutdown.  The monster has not even been slimmed down.  This is like making the monster wait at most 45 minutes longer before dinner is served.  It is no big deal however angry the monster may get about not being able to fully indulge its all-devouring appetite.

It is the Job of the House of Representatives to Stop Excessive Spending and ObamaCare

The federal government is wholeheartedly engaged in excessive spending.  Most of its spending is for purposes that are not consistent with the powers of the federal government as enumerated in the Constitution.  It is the responsibility of the House of Representatives to stop such spending.  One of the most egregious examples of the government violating its enumerated power limits is ObamaCare.

The federal government has no enumerated power to either provide healthcare to Americans or to impose limits on the healthcare they are allowed to choose for themselves.  This is so clear that the the only way that it could survive review by the big government Supreme Court was by five Justices pretending it was justified as a tax, despite the claims at the time of passage by its supporters that it was not a tax.  As I have argued before, such passage of legislation on a fraudulent basis should be sufficient by itself to have a law nullified by the Court.

But most fundamentally, ObamaCare's primary premise is that the government owns every individual's body and mind.  If it did not, it would not be in a position to dictate how individuals care for their bodies and minds.  There are almost innumerable other grounds for rejecting ObamaCare as a tyrannical violation of individual rights as well.

The House of Representatives is required by the Constitution to originate tax or revenue bills.  The passage of ObamaCare itself made a mockery of this requirement since that bill really originated in the Senate.  This was a severe violation of the separation of powers.  The House was chosen as the critical point of revenue bill origination because the power to tax was much feared by the Framers of the Constitution and they knew it to be feared by the People.  They wanted the House which had the most rapid turn-over and could be most quickly punished for its misdeeds by the People to play the primary role in taxation.

Because the House must originate taxation bills, it should be especially concerned to limit spending.  This is the only way, aside from running up the nation's debts, that it can avoid taxing the People at levels which will harm them and slow the growth of the economy.  To avoid the onus of heavy taxation or irresponsible debt, the House must control spending.  ObamaCare is a huge spending bill and it is also a bill which is substantially reducing the strength of the economy and increasing the burden of spending on households, thereby reducing their ability to pay taxes.

Yet despite these natural functions and responsibilities of the House of Representatives, we are being told by people such as Bill O'Reilly, Karl Rove, and Obama supporters that should the House of Representatives defund the ObamaCare train-wreck and should the Senate and the President then refuse to approve the spending bill sent to them by the House, that it is the House that has shutdown the government.  According to them, it is the responsibility of the House to bow to the Senate and the President on spending and presumably on taxation no matter how irresponsible their spending is.  These opponents of defunding ObamaCare are actually depriving the House of Representatives of its constitutional mandate to be the close guardian of government taxation and spending in the interests of the People.

ObamaCare supporters imply that a bill passed by some previous Congress is binding on future Congresses and all of its spending is also binding on those future Congresses until such time as a future Congress may repeal the entire law.  This is nonsense.  The American Principle is that government should be minimal and devoted to the protection of individual rights.  If the house of Congress closest to the People, the House of Representatives, is taken out of the control of the Democrats and comes to be controlled by the Republicans in large part due to the People's anger over the passage of ObamaCare, it is the responsibility of that House to limit the damage of the rights-violating, spendthrift, and health care degrading bill.  This is the process intended by the Framers of the Constitution.  The natural and responsible way to do this is by reducing its funding or better yet by defunding it altogether.

The Senate and Obama are simply obstructionist when they require that every program they want be fully funded or they will shut down the entire government.  They are failing their responsibility to provide those few functions of the government which are actually constitutionally required of it.  ObamaCare is not actually even allowed by the Constitution, let alone required by it.  Yet the media will insist that the House must bow to the power of the Senate and Obama to spend as much as they wish, no matter what the cost is to the People.

It is time for the People to insist upon the responsible use of their hard-earned tax dollars and upon limits on future debt increases.  It is also time for them to insist in no uncertain terms that ObamaCare is damaging their ability to manage their own medical care and hence is a fundamental violation of the very right to live and of the right to pursue their own happiness.

Betrayal: Republican House Votes to Fund ObamaCare Again

Once again the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has betrayed our individual right to own our own bodies.  They have again sold our bodies to the government for momentary power for themselves.  On a vote of 267 - 151, a continuing resolution to fund the government for the remainder of the 2013 fiscal year was passed.

Only 14 Republicans voted against this monstrously tyrannical act.  Many, many representatives who had pledged they would defund ObamaCare voted in favor of funding ObamaCare.  What is more, the 2010 Pledge to America to post bills up for a vote online for 72 hours was violated.  The efforts of 14 Republicans to defund or to at least keep funding from infringing upon religious freedoms was beaten down by the Republican Establishment.

This Establishment has been re-asserting itself so it can maintain control of the party in the face of efforts of the Tea Party and libertarians to make the Republican Party a true party of limited government and a defender of individual rights.  This heinous act of betrayal by the great mass of the Republican Party representation in Congress must not be forgotten or forgiven.  These unprincipled men must be replaced.

The only principled Republican Representatives were:

Justin Amash (Mich.)
Jim Bridenstine (Okla.)
Paul Broun, M.D. (Ga.)
Ron DeSantis (Fla.)
Scott DesJarlais, M.D. (Tenn.)
John J. Duncan Jr. (Tenn.)
Phil Gingrey, M.D. (Ga.)
Louie Gohmert (Tex.)
Jack Kingston (Ga.)
Tom McClintock (Calif.)
Thomas Massie (Ky.)
Bill Posey (Fla.)
Matt Salmon (Ariz.)
Steve Stockman (Tex.)

These men are heroes.

The rest of the Republicans are villains.  It was in their power to prevent the funding of ObamaUncaringTax during this critical period of its implementation.  Instead, they calculated that it was politically expedient to lay their hands upon our throats and strangle the last vestige of self-ownership until it is dead.

If we do not own our very bodies, are we not slaves?  Yes.

Is the power held by any slave-master ever legitimate?  No.

Vote No on Maryland Question 5 to Oppose Super Gerrymandering

Question 5
Referendum Petition
Congressional Districting Plan (Ch. 1 of the 2011 Special Session)

Establishes the boundaries for the State’s eight United States Congressional Districts based on recent census figures, as required by the United States Constitution.

For the Referred Law
Against the Referred Law

Phrased this way, this seems like a reasonable Question to approve, but it is actually the approval of a Congressional districting plan which is so insanely incompatible with representative government that it is an embarrassment to the state once known as the Free State and also known as the Old Line State due to fielding the best unit of the Continental Army in the American Revolution.  Even the Washington Post recommends voting against this extreme instance of Democrat Party redistricting.  Here is the unbelievable gerrymandered map of districts set by the Democrats for Maryland:

I have the displeasure of being in Congressional District 3, which is shown in brown in this map.  Democrat John Sarbanes of the infamous Sarbanes-Oxley Act is to be the Representative elected by Democrat design in this district weaving its flimsy tendrils through Montgomery, Howard, Anne Arundel, and Baltimore Counties, as well as Baltimore City.  My long-time socialist Representative, Donna Edwards, is in the new District 4 in violet in Prince Georges and Anne Arundel Counties.

Any serious concern for good representative government would understand that such districts should be kept in a minimum number of counties and should have relatively small circumferences relative to the area to make as compact a region as is reasonable.  This means the people in the district will have more in common and that they can get to a relatively central townhall meeting with their Congressman as easily as possible.

Obama Cruelly Threatens to Withhold Social Security Payments

There is no cruelty to match that of a frustrated socialist yearning for control over the People.  Obama has told tens of millions of very frightened seniors on Social Security that if the Republicans do not cave-in and give him a blank check to continue spending massive amounts of taxpayer money and then add much more to the national debt, he may not send out Social Security checks in August.  This is probably an empty threat, but that does not diminish the brutality of it.

By any rational analysis, it is also an absurd threat.  In 2010, Social Security income was $677.1 billion according to the Social Security Fund Trustee's Report.  Social Security outgo was $584.9 billion, which means it had a surplus of income over outgo of $92.2 billion.  That surplus was used to help fund the massive deficit spending on all other government programs, as the Social Security surplus has been used for decades.  Because of this, of the $677.1 billion of income, $108.2 billion is interest on government bonds the Social Security Trust Fund bought to help the government finance its deficits in the general fund for decades.

The Obama administration wants to keep spending money it does not have on such things as

• the expenses of setting up the bureaucracy and rules for ObamaCare, 
• setting up the bureaucracy and rules for the Dodd-Frank finance "reform", 
• paying ethanol, windmill, electric vehicle, solar, and other "green" energy subsidies, 
• paying higher electric and gasoline bills because it is foolishly convinced by its own propaganda that man is causing a catastrophic global warming, 
• paying hordes of scientists to prove this false catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis,
• persecuting business with reinvigorated threats of anti-trust actions, 
• putting more people on Medicaid and Medicare,
• paying bloated union wages on federal contracts,
• using the Labor Department to provide site requirements to companies for their expansions while considering only Union Shop states,
• using the Justice Department to promulgate injustice against the states and the people and discrimination against those not in government-favored minorities,
• funding universities that long ago became bloated with government money and stopped educating students,
• promulgating tens of thousands of new regulations which serve no useful purpose but to increase the power of bureaucrats over the People who do not have the time to read the regulations,
• and providing funding to the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank and many other international institutions that do not like the U.S. and hate our Constitution and concept of individual rights.

Apparently, Obama is now telling us that he is so unwilling to stop such foolish spending that he is going to transfer more than the surplus in the Social Security Fund income out to cover these other expenses.  It is his decision to do this which will prevent him from sending out the August Social Security checks!  Actually, I do not think the law will even allow him to do this, but then he is accustomed to ignoring the law, so that does not mean he will not do it.

Let us suppose that he chooses not to use the federal income from income taxes, corporate taxes, capital gains taxes, tariffs, gasoline and cigarette taxes, and many other taxes to pay the $108 billion owed the Social Security Fund in current interest payments.  In other words, he might make payments on interest to the Chinese and to investors, but not to the Social Security Fund.  The Social Security surplus of $92.2 billion would then be turned into a small deficit of $16.0 billion.  If he then did not send out that $16.0 billion, but did send out the remaining $568.9 billion of checks, this would mean that 2.8% of Social Security payments would not go out.  But, there is no way that $16 billion shortfall due to the default on the interest payment would not be made up by any President not grasping at power as a lust-driven would-be dictator.

Obama's threat really has struck terror into the hearts of many Americans on Social Security.  This was a totally irresponsible and pernicious act on the part of this cruel and evil man.  It seems to take such people to be the strongest advocates of socialism.  Despite its pretenses of caring for the needs of some of the People, those who pursue this so-called ideal as a career are never actually caring people.

This entire fuss about the debt ceiling is due to the failure of the Senate to produce a budget for over two years.  The House would not produce one either until the Republicans took it over.  But, the Senate and the President have ignored their budget.  Since no agreement has been reached on what the government will spend in 2012, there is no basis for an agreement on what spending cuts will be made to reduce the deficit to some manageable proportion of our GDP.  All we know is that the record over the last three years was for the government to spend an average of more than 24% of GDP, while before 2008, the spending was below 20% of GDP.  Obama and the Democrats appear to want to continue spending much more than 20% of GDP even though that will mean huge on-going deficits.  Apparently, they intend that this funding will be the result of many more continuing resolutions on spending, so they will never have to recognize that the welfare and crony mercantilist government they want is not sustainable.  They can ignore the failure of big government socialism as long as they do not have to produce an actual budget.  Unless, of course, we collapse as Greece is and Italy may be on the verge of doing.

A 4% of GDP reduction in government spending is more than a $600 billion reduction per year.  It is clearly easy for the government to function at its 2007 spending levels, so there is no excuse for spending cuts that are not in the $600 to $700 billion per year range relative to the spending of this year and the two previous years.

Deficit Pushes Senate to End Ethanol Thieving of Taxpayers

The monumental deficit has pushed the Senate to repeal the $5 billion of tax credits and subsidies per year for corn growers, ethanol refiners, and gasoline blenders.  A tariff of $0.54 per gallon on imported ethanol would also be eliminated.  38 Democrats, 2 independents, and 33 Republicans voted to end these pointless subsidies which had wrongly been sold as a path to cleaner skies, energy independence, and a means to reduce CO2 emissions.  I have long pointed at these subsidies, along with the mandate for ethanol production still required by the insane Renewable Fuel Standard law, as a clear sign of Congressional and Presidential perfidy and a determination to rob the taxpayers blind for naked political power.  For more than 30 years, the attitude was clearly let the General Welfare be damned as the votes of special interest groups were bought. 

The repeal bill was sponsored by Senators Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Dianne Feinstein of California.  14 Republicans and 13 Democrats opposed the 73-27 vote repeal action.  Obama and his Sec. of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, still oppose the end of these deleterious subsidies, claiming they are needed to reach Obama's imagined plan to reduce oil imports by one-third by 2025. The House has not yet voted on ending these ethanol subsidies and will reject the Senate bill because tax bills are constitutionally required to be initiated in the House of Representatives.  Fortunately, the ethanol subsidies will expire at the end of this year unless the House and Senate renew them.  This Senate vote makes it unlikely that it will renew this special interest travesty.

The ethanol subsidy is a $0.45/gallon of ethanol tax credit given against the excise tax of $0.184 per gallon of gasoline paid by gasoline blenders such as Valero and Marathon Oil.  This allows the blenders to pay more for corn ethanol made by such companies as Archer-Daniels-Midland and to compete for corn used as food or as livestock feed. 

The overall effect of a repeal of the subsidies upon food and feed prices will be minimal, since the mandate for ethanol use in fuel by the Renewable Fuel Standard law passed by the last Democrat Congress requires 12.6 billion gallons of ethanol use in fuel this year and up to 15 billion gallons in 2015.  By 2022, 36 billion gallons of so-called renewable fuel must be blended into gasoline, though only 15 billion gallons of that can be conventional corn-derived ethanol.  The remainder is somehow magically supposed to come from other low-carbon biofuels, such as switchgrass, which as yet produce a negligible 3 to 4 million gallons a year of ethanol or fuel in expensive pilot plants.

This mandate and the subsidies have caused the price of corn to be over $7/bushel all spring, which is twice the price of a year ago.  The subsidy and the high price of oil has caused blenders to use a billion gallons more corn ethanol than they were required to use.  This put still more pressure on corn, corn products, and meat products.  On Friday, buyers bought corn in the Toledo, Ohio grain trading hub at $7.35 per bushel.  A desperate turkey grower even offered $8.37/bushel of corn and got few offers of corn at that price.  Corn supplies are expected to be at a 15-year low in late August.  This may force some makers of corn-derived ethanol to shut down their plants.

The impact of ethanol from corn on the market and on some states can be judged from the graphic below from the 17 June Wall Street Journal:

Note that the food, seed, and industrial use of corn has grown very little since 2000 and the use in feed and residual use has shrunk since 2005 due to the increased cost of corn brought on by the huge increase in ethanol production since about 1998.  Iowa, the first major event for presidential candidates produces 21% of all U.S. ethanol, which is more than twice the production of any other state.  It is no accident that so much of the Iowa corn production is bought for the purpose of ethanol production.  The subsidy takers know how to put the political pressure on.  About 5 billion bushels of corn, or 40% of all corn production, is used to produce ethanol.  The great growth in corn production that has resulted has displaced other food crops and led to price increases severe enough that the World Bank and other international institutions have called for an end to corn ethanol subsidies.

The end effect due to the continuing ethanol in fuel mandate will be continued very high corn prices.  The income tax taxpayer will be relieved of a burden, but that burden will be shifted to the consumer.  It is better that the burden be on the consumer, which is a much broader base of people than the minority who pay federal income taxes.  It would be better yet if we removed the renewable fuel mandate and simply allowed the free market to figure out which fuel resources will be used.  Obama's centrally-planned economy will be a disaster just as all prior central planning has historically led to catastrophe.  The last place a catastrophe will come from will be man-made global warming due to CO2 emissions.

Updated Close House Races and ObamaCare Repeal

I have updated my list of closely contested House of Representatives races.  You can see that the movement since the original post is clearly in favor of the Republicans, despite liberal media claims that they see a closing of the gap in the favor of the Democrats.  I have also added the names of the Republican candidate who opposes those Democrats who voted for ObamaCare.  I repeat my suggestion that you send campaign contributions to the Republican opponents of those Democrats who voted for ObamaCare and are in close election races.  Since those Democrats who voted against ObamaCare cannot be trusted to vigorously oppose it in the future, please contribute to their Republican opponents as well.

The Myth of the Fiscally Conservative Blue Dog Democrats

The Club for Growth has done an excellent review of the actual voting record of the Blue Dog Democrats and has found it to be a myth that they are fiscally conservative or responsible.  Among the major findings in their report are these:

• In 1995, when the Blue Dog Coalition was started, the National Taxpayer's Union rated the Blue Dogs aggregate score as 52%, but that score has fallen greatly since then.  By 2007, the year the Democrats took control of the House, the Blue Dog aggregate score was a mere 10%.  In that year, the number of Blue Dogs greatly exceeded the 15-vote majority held by the Democrats, so the Blue Dogs could have stopped much fiscally irresponsible nonsense.  Even in the 2009 Congress, the Blue Dogs outnumbered the 40 seat Democrat majority.
• Blue Dog support for Fannie & Freddie Bailout, 100%
• Blue Dog support for TARP, 63%
• Blue Dog support for 2009 Stimulus Package, 91%
• Blue Dog support for Cash for Clunkers, 85%
• Blue Dog support for 2009 Obama Budget, 74%
• Blue Dog support for Car Company Bailout, 73%
• Blue Dog support for ObamaCare, 54%
• The Blue Dogs voted with Nancy Pelosi 80% of the time in the present 111th Congress.
• PAYGO was the signature Blue Dog commitment.  It promised that new programs would be paid for.  Only entitlement spending is covered, however, while annual discretionary appropriations bills and emergency spending bills are not.
• The PAYGO rule can be waived by a mere majority vote.  Since 2007, the Democrats have waived or ignored it 31 times.  Blue Dogs agreed to this 86% of the time.
• 52 of the current 54 Blue Dogs love earmarks.

The Blue Dogs are simply pretenders or poseurs.  They talk like middle-of-the-roaders when talking to the bulk of their constituents, but they vote like socialists whenever they think the voters are not paying much attention.  Apparently, they have come to believe that the voters are not paying attention most of the time.

ObamaCare and the Close Races for Seats in the House

1 Nov 2010 Update: DEM Seats: 2 Safe DEM became Likely DEM, 3 Likely DEM became Leans DEM, 9 Leans DEM became Toss-up, 1 Leans DEM became Leans GOP, 4 Toss-ups became Leans GOP, 2 Leans GOP became Likely GOP, 3 Leans GOP became Toss-ups, 2 Toss-ups became Leans DEM;  GOP Seats: 1 Likely GOP became Leans GOP.  The change is the DEM Seats moved 17 categories toward the GOP advantage, while GOP Seats moved 1 category to the DEM advantage.  The shift remains continuous toward the Republicans.  I now expect the GOP to pick up 68 seats in the House.


25 Oct 2010 Update: DEM Seats: 2 Likely DEM became Leans DEM, 3 Leans DEM became Toss-ups, 10 Toss-ups become Leans GOP, 1 Leans GOP becomes Likely GOP, 1 Leans GOP becomes Toss-up, 2 Toss-ups become Leans DEM, 1 Leans DEM becomes Likely DEM, GOP Seats:  No Changes.  The sum of the Safe GOP, Likely GOP, and Leans GOP seats would give the GOP 222 seats, or 4 more than the majority.  I expect the GOP to win about 20 of the 34 Toss-up seats given the momentum of more and more DEM seats becoming more and more at risk.  The GOP should gain about 64 seats and have 242 seats in the next session of the House of Representatives!


19 Oct 2010 Update:  DEM Seats: 2 Likely DEM became Leans DEM, 4 Leans DEM became Toss-ups, 1 Toss-up became Leans GOP; GOP Seats: 1 Leans DEM became Toss-up, 1 Likely GOP became Leans GOP.  Mostly Democrat seats continue to move toward being more contested.  The situation for GOP seats is more static and it remains true that they are not moving seats into Likely GOP or into Safe GOP. 

16 Oct 2010 Update:  DEM Seats: 9 Safe DEM became Likely DEM, 3 Likely DEM became Leans DEM, 3 Leans DEM became Toss-ups, 2 Toss-ups became Leans GOP,  1 Toss-up became Leans DEM, 1 Leans GOP became a Toss-up, GOP Seats: 1 Toss-up became a Leans DEM.  The change is that fewer and fewer Democrat seats are safe, but that the Republicans cannot lock additional seats as safe.  Apparently the People are sending the message they are unhappy with the DEMS but not so sure about the GOP either.

12 Oct 2010 Update:  DEM Seats: 3 Safe DEM became Likely DEM, 2 Likely DEM became Leans DEM, One Leans DEM became Toss-up, One Toss-up became Leans GOP, and one Leans GOP became Likely GOP, GOP Seats:  One Likely GOP became Leans GOP,  The change remains massively in GOP favor!

11  Oct 2010 Update:  DEM Seats: 2 Safe DEM became Likely DEM, 1 Likely DEM became Leans DEM, GOP Seats:  No changes, The change favors the GOP.

7 Oct 2010 Update:  DEM Seats: 2 Safe Seats became DEM Likely, 3 Leans DEM became Toss-ups, 2 Toss-ups became Leans GOP, 1 Leans GOP became Likely GOP, 1 Likely GOP became Leans GOP, GOP Seats: 1 Leans DEM became Toss-up, The change favors the GOP.

The single most egregious act of Obama and the Democrat Congress was the passage of ObamaCare. This act implements the planned theft of every American's body and the imposition of a tyrannical control by bureaucrats over who lives and who dies.  The most important outcome of the election in November is to put control of the House of Representatives in the hands of Representatives who will use the power of the House to initiate expenditures to prevent the funding of ObamaCare.  Steve King, a Republican Representative from Iowa, has made a motion to discharge a number of committees from considering H.R. 4972 to repeal ObamaCare.  Most, but not all, Republican members of the House have signed this motion.  Only one Democrat has signed it, that being Gene Taylor, of Mississippi, who is in a tight race to retain his seat.  I have put the name of the Republican opponent to those who voted for ObamaCare at the end of the line for each of the tyrannical beasts of the House of Representatives.

RealClearPolitics as of 2 October had the races for the House evaluated as follows:

139 [now 137] [now 135] [now 132] [now 123] [now 121] Seats Safe for Democrats, all of which were Democrat
18 [now 20] [now 21] [now 22] [now 28] [now 26] [now 25] [now 24] Seats Likely Democratic, all of which are held by Democrats now
33 [now 29] [now 30] [now 31] [now 33] [now 30] [now 31] [now 26] Seats Leaning Democrat, all but 3 [2] [3] [2] of which are now held by Democrats
38 [now 39] [now 43] [now 34] [now 40] Seats Rated Toss-ups, all but 1 [2] [1] [2] of which are now held by Democrats
30 [now 33] [now 34] [now 35] [now 37] [now 45] [now 46] Seats that Leans GOP, all but 2 [4] [5] [6] of which are now held by Democrats
14 [now 13] [now 14] [now 15] Seats that are Likely GOP, 9 [8] [7] [6] of which are now held by Republicans
163 Seats Safe for the Republicans

11 races shifted by one category of probability since the original post.  10 of those shifts were favorable to the Republicans.  Only Virginia District 5 moved in favor of the Democrats, shifting from Likely GOP to Leans GOP.

Because Nancy Pelosi had votes to spare on ObamaCare, a few of the Democrat majority from much less socialist districts than hers were given permission to vote against the bill.  Since what matters in the next session of Congress is the defunding of ObamaCare, there is no point in voting for a would-be member of the House who has not announced his intent to relentlessly attack ObamaCare by signing the discharge motion.  For those who want to destroy the tyranny of ObamaCare, it is a very good idea to make campaign contributions to the Republican opponent of the Democrats in close races who either voted for ObamaCare or who have not signed the motion to discharge to indicate they are actual proponents of the repeal of ObamaCare.

Generally speaking, there will be very few Democrats who will ever be useful allies in the critical cause of overturning centrally planned and controlled medical care in the United States, which the pretended fiscal conservativism of the Blue Dog Democrats has proven.  I have indicated which Democrats are in the Blue Dog Caucus, which mostly just means that they pretend to their constituents that they are fiscally conservative and says very little about how they vote in Congress.  In addition, I have identified those who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America Caucus.  Of the 70 socialist Representatives, only 10 are in close races, despite Americans general turn-away from socialism.  These socialist Representatives should be especially targeted. The closely contested races by state are:

Alabama
Bobby Bright, D, 2nd District, Toss-up, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender
Parker Griffith, R, 5th District, Likely GOP, No on ObamaCare

Arkansas
Marion Berry, D, 1st District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender
Mike Ross, D, 4th District, Likely DEM, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender
Vic Snyder, D, 2nd District, Likely GOP, No on ObamaCare

Arizona
Gabrielle Giffords, D, 8th District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Jesse Kelly
Raul Grijalva, D, 7th District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Ruth McClung, Was Safe DEM, Was Likely DEM, Was Leans DEM
Ann Kirkpatrick, D, 1st District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Was Toss-up, Opp. Paul Gosar
Harry Mitchell, D, 5th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. David Schweikert
John Shadegg, R, 3rd District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare, Signed Motion to Discharge, Was Likely GOP

California
Mary Bono, R, 45th District, Likely GOP, No on ObamaCare, Signed Motion to Discharge
Dennis Cardoza, D, 18th District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Mike Berryhill
Jim Costa, D, 20th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Andy Vidak, Was Toss-up
Daniel Lungren, R, 3rd District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare, Signed Motion to Discharge
Jerry McNerney, D, 11th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. David Harmer, Was Toss-up
Loretta Sanchez, D, 47th District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Van Tran

Colorado
Betsy Markey, D, 4th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Cory Gardner
Ed Perlmutter, D, 7th District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare,  Opp. Ryan Frazier
John Salazar, D, 3rd District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Scott Tipton

Connecticut
Joe Courtney, D, 2nd District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Was Safe DEM, Opp. Janet Peckinpaugh
Jim Hines, D, 4th District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Dan Debicella, Was Leans DEM
John Larson, D, 1st District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Was Safe DEM, Opp. Ann Brickley
Christopher Murphy, D, 5th District, Toss-Up, Yes on ObamaCar, Was Leans DEM, Opp. Sam Caligiuri

Florida
Allen Boyd, D, 2nd District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Steve Southerland, Was Toss-up
Mario Diaz-Balart, R, 25th District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare, Signed Motion to Discharge, Was Likely GOP
Alan Grayson, D, 8th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Democratic Socialists of America Caucus, Opp. Dan Webster
Ron Klein, D, 22nd District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Allen West, Was Toss-up
Suzanne Kosmas, D, 24th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Sandy Adams
Adam Putnam, R, 12th District, Likely GOP, No on ObamaCare, Signed Motion to Discharge

Georgia
John Barrow, D, 12th District, Likely DEM, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender
Sanford Bishop, D, 2nd District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Mike Keown
Jim Marshall, D, 8th District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Was Toss-up

Hawaii
Charles Djou, R, 1st District, Toss-up, Special Election after ObamaCare Vote, Was Leans DEM

Idaho
Walt Minnick, D, 1st District, Toss-up, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Was Likely DEM

Illinois
Melissa Bean, D, 8th District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Joe Walsh
Bill Foster, D, 14th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Randy Hultgren, Was Toss-up
Phil Hare, D, 17th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Democratic Socialists of America Caucus, Opp. Bob Schilling, Was Toss-up
Deborah Halvorson, D, 11th District, Likely GOP, Yes on ObamaCar, Was Leans GOP, Opp. Adam Kinzinger
Mark Kirk, R, 10th District, Toss-up, No on ObamaCare, Running for Senate, Was Toss-up, Was Leans DEM

Indiana
Joe Donnelly, D, 2nd District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Jackie Walorski, Was Leans DEM

Brad Ellsworth, D, 8th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Larry Bucshon
Baron Hill, D, 9th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Todd Young, Was Toss-up

Iowa
Leonard Boswell, D, 3rd District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Brad Zaun, Was Toss-up
Bruce Braley, D, 1st District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Ben Lange, Was Leans DEM, Was Toss-up
David Loebsack, D, 2nd District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Democratic Socialists of America Caucus, Opp. Mariannette Miller-Meeks

Kansas
Dennis Moore, D, 3rd District, Likely GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Kevin Yoder, Was Leans GOP

Kentucky
Ben Chandler, D, 6th District, Toss-up, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Was Leans DEM
John Yarmuth, D, 3rd District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Todd Lally

Louisiana
Joseph Cao, R, 2nd District, Leans DEM, No on ObamaCare
Charlie Melancon, D, 3rd District, Likely GOP, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender

Maine

Michael Michaud, D, 2nd District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Jason Levesque, Was Leans DEM
Chellie Pingree, D, 1st District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Democratic Socialists of America Caucus, Opp. Dean Scontras, Was Leans DEM

Maryland
Frank Kratovil, D, 1st District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender

Massachusetts

William Delahunt, D, 10th District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Retiring, Opp. Jeff Perry
Barney Frank, D, 4th District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Democratic Socialists of America Caucus, Opp. Sean Bielat, Was Likely DEM
John Tierney, D, 6th District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Democratic Socialists of America Caucus, Opp. Bill Hudak
Niki Tsongas, D, 5th District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Jon Golvick

Michigan
John Dingell, D, 15th District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Rob Steele
Gary Peters, D, 9th District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Rocky Roczkowski
Mark Schauer, D, 7th District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Tim Walberg, Was Leans GOP
Bart Stupak, D, 1st District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Retiring, Opp. Dan Benishek

Minnesota
Michele Bachmann, R, 6th District, Likely GOP, No on ObamaCare, Signed Motion to Discharge
James Oberstar, D, 8th District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Was Safe DEM, Opp. Chip Cravaack, Was Likely DEM, Was Leans DEM
Timothy Walz, D, 1st District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Randy Demmer
Collin Peterson, D, 7th District, Likely DEM, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Was Safe DEM

Mississippi
Travis Childers, D, 1st District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare
Gene Taylor, D, 4th District, Toss-up, No on ObamaCare, Signed Motion to Discharge, Blue Dog Pretender, Was Leans DEM
Benny Thompson, D, 1st District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Democratic Socialists of America Caucus, Opp. Bill Marcy

Missouri
Russ Carnaham, D, 3rd District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Ed Martin, Was Likely DEM
Emanuel Cleaver, D, 5th District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Democratic Socialists of America Caucus, Opp. Jacob Turk, Was Safe
Ike Skelton, D, 4th District, Toss-up, No on ObamaCare

Nebraska

Lee Terry, R, 2nd District, Likely GOP, No on ObamaCare, Signed Motion to Discharge

Nevada

Dina Titus, D, 3rd District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Joe Heck, Was Toss-up

New Hampshire
Paul Hodes, D, 2nd District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Charlie Bass, Was Toss-up
Carol Shea-Porter, D, 1st District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Frank Guinta

New Jersey
John Adler, D, 3rd District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare, Was Toss-up
Rush Holt, D, 12th District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Scott Sipprelle
Frank Pallone, D, 6th District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCar, Was Safe DEM, Opp. Anna Little

New Mexico
Martin Heinrich, D, 1st District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Jon Barela, Was Toss-up
Ben Lujan, D, 3rd District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Democratic Socialists of America Caucus, Opp Tom Mullins
Harry Teague, D, 2nd District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare, Was Toss-up

New York 
Michael Arcuri, D, 24th District, Toss-up, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Was Leans DEM
Timothy Bishop, D, 1st District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Randy Altschuler

John Hall, D, 19th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Democratic Socialists of America Caucus, Opp. Nan Hayworth, Was Toss-up
Brian Higgins, D, 27th District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Lenny Roberto, Was Safe DEM
Maurice Hinchey, 22nd District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare,  Democratic Socialists of America, Caucus, Opp. George Phillips, Was Safe DEM, Was Likely DEM
Steve Israel, D, 2nd District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. John Gomez, Was Safe DEM
Daniel Maffei, D, 25th District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Ann Marie Buerkle, Was Leans DEM
Michael McMahon, D, 13th District, Toss-up, No on ObamaCare
Carolyn McCarthy, D, 4th District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Francis Becker, Was Safe DEM
Scott Murphy, D, 20th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Chris Gibson, Was Leans DEM
Bill Owens, D, 23rd District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Matt Doheny, Was Leans DEM,Was Toss-up

North Carolina
Bob Etheridge, D, 2nd District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Renee Ellmers, Was Leans DEM
Larry Kissell, D, 8th District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare
Mike McIntyre, D, 7th District, Toss-up, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Was Leans DEM
Brad Miller, D, 13th District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Bill Randall, Was Safe DEM
David Price, D, 4th District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. B. J. Lawson
Heath Shuler, D, 11th District, Toss-up, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender

North Dakota

Earl Pomeroy, D, At-Large, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Rick Berg

Ohio 
John Boccieri, D, 16th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Jim Renacci
Steve Driehaus, D, 1st District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Steve Chabot
Mary Jo Kilroy, D, 15th District, Likely GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Steve Stivers, Was Leans GOP
Dennis Kucinich, D, 10th District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Democratic Socialists of America Caucus, Opp. Peter Corrigan, Was Safe DEM
Zachary Space, D, 18th District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Was Toss-up
Betty Sutton, D, 13th District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Tom Ganley
Pat Tiberi, R, 12th District, Likely GOP, No on ObamaCare, Signed Motion to Discharge
Charles Wilson, D, 6th District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Bill Johnson, Was Likely DEM

Oklahoma
Dan Boren, D, 2nd District, Likely DEM, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender

Oregon
Peter DeFazio, D, 4th District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Democratic Socialists of America Caucus, Opp. Art Robinson, Was Likely DEM
Kurt Schrader, D, 5th District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Scott Bruun
David Wu, D, 1st District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Rob Cornilles

Pennsylvania

Jason Altmire, D, 4th District, Leans DEM, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender
Christopher Carney, D, 10th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Tom Marino
Mark Critz, D, 12th District, Toss-up, Special Election since ObamaCare Vote
Kathy Dahlkenper, D, 3rd District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Mike Kelly
Charles Dent, R, 15th District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare, Signed Motion to Discharge
Jim Gerlach, R, 6th District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare, Signed Motion to Discharge
Tim Holden, D, 17th District, Likely DEM, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Was Leans DEM

Paul Kanjorski, D, 11th District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Lou Barletta, Was Leans GOP
Patrick Murphy, D, 8th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Mike Fitzpatrick
Allyson Schwartz, D, 13th District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Carson Adcock, Was Safe DEM
Joe Sestak, D, 7th District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Senate Candidate, Opp. Pat Meehan, Was Leans GOP

Rhode Island
Patrick Kennedy, D, 1st District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Retiring, Opp. John Loughlin, Was Likely DEM, Was Leans DEM

South Carolina
John Spratt, D, 5th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Mick Mulvaney, Was Toss-up

South Dakota

Herseth Sandlin, At-Large, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare, Was Toss-up

Tennessee
Jim Cooper, D, 5th District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. David Hall
Lincoln Davis, D, 4th District, Toss-up, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Was Leans DEM
Bart Gordon, D, 6th District, Likely GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Opp. Diane Black
John Tanner, D, 8th District, Likely GOP, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Was Leans GOP

Texas
Lloyd Doggett, D, 25th District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Donna Campbell, Was Safe DEM

Chet Edwards, D, 17th District, Likely GOP, No on ObamaCare, Was Leans GOP
Rube Hinojosa, D, 15th District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Eddie Zamora, Was Safe DEM
Solomon Ortiz, D, 27th District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. R. Blake Farenthoid, Was Safe DEM, Was Likely DEM 

Ciro Rodriguez, D, 23rd District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Francisco Canseco

Utah
Jim Matheson, D, 2nd District, Likely DEM, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender

Virginia
Rick Boucher, D, 9th District, Toss-up, No on ObamaCare
Gerald Connelly, D, 3rd District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Keith Fimian
Glenn Nye, D, 2nd District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare, Blue Dog Pretender, Was Toss-up
Tom Perriello, D, 5th District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Was Likely GOP, Opp. Robert Hurt

Washington
Brian Baird, D, 3rd District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Jaime Herrera, Was Leans GOP
Norman Dicks, D, 6th District, Likely DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Douglas Cloud, Was Safe
Rick Larsen, D, 2nd District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. John Koster, Was Leans DEM
David Reichert, R, 8th District, Leans GOP, No on ObamaCare, Was Likely GOP
Adam Smith, D, 9th District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Dick Muri, Was Leans DEM

West Virginia
Alan Mollohan, D, 1st District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. David McKinley
Nick Rahall, D, 3rd District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Elliott "Spike" Maynard

Wisconsin
Steve Kagen, D, 8th District, Toss-up, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Reid Ribble
Ron Kind, D, 3rd District, Leans DEM, Yes on ObamaCare, Opp. Dan Kapanke
David Obey, D, 3rd District, Leans GOP, Yes on ObamaCare, Retiring, Opp. Sean Duffy

If you are a Winter Soldier for the equal, sovereign individual rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, then you will join this desperate fight to kill this brutal, totalitarian threat by ObamaCare to our lives and liberties.  Defunding and then repealing this monstrosity of socialism may very likely save your life or that of some of your loved ones.  There is no better use for the money your work has earned you than to turn it into a fatal weapon against tyranny in this epic battle for American freedoms.  Please give to your fullest possible extent so that we can replace Pelosi as Speaker of the House and proceed to dismantle and repeal ObamaCare.  The dismantling can begin in 2011, though the repeal will require the addition of many more Senators committed to repeal in 2012 and the replacement of Obama with a Republican committed to repealing ObamaCare.