How can you hold your elective representatives accountable?

How The GOP Can Stop Obama
By DICK MORRIS

How can you hold your elective representatives accountable?  Dick Morris outlines some things they can do and should not do.  If you agree with some or all of these, let your representatives know; call or email them!

If the Republicans win the Senate next week, to quote Hillary Clinton's remarks in another context, "what difference does it make?" With President Obama still in the White House and the Republicans short of 60 votes -- and far short of the two-thirds needed in either house to override a presidential veto -- how can GOP control of the Senate have much impact?

The answer is that it can have an enormous impact -- if Republicans play their cards right.

The key is how they handle the federal budget, legislation that requires only a simple majority under the Byrd Rule and for which the president does not have a line-item veto power.

Congress can go line by line through the budget, legislating as it goes, rolling back one after another of Obama's initiatives.

Obviously, the GOP must not overplay its hand. If it uses its power to defund ObamaCare entirely, for example, the president will predictably veto the entire budget and the stage will be set for a replay of the October 2013 shutdown of the government, with the same disastrous consequences for the GOP.

But if Republicans limit their ambitions and carefully choose their targets, they can use line-item changes to control and derail important aspects of Obama's agenda.

The key is to pick targets where public opinion is on the Republican side and not to use the budgetary power in ways that exceed public expectations. Even though a majority of Americans oppose ObamaCare, it would be an overreach to repeal it by defunding it. The process of defunding has no roots in American political memory and is susceptible to Obama's argument that the Congress must pay the bills it has incurred. And, in a fight of that magnitude, as Clinton and Obama well know, the presidential megaphone drowns out all else.

But if Republicans are more limited in their objectives, they can succeed. They could, for example:

• Use the Immigration and Customs Enforcement appropriation to overturn Obama's executive order, expected right after Election Day, to end deportations;

• Use the Health and Human Services line to defund the Independent Payment Advisory Board, dubbed the "death panel" by Sarah Palin;

• Repeal the medical device tax;

• Require release of IRS emails by appending a requirement to the budget for that wayward agency;

• Stop the Federal Election Commission from regulating Internet blogs;

• Block the Federal Communications Commission from its attempts at Internet regulation.

In these and a host of other areas, Republicans can use the budget to thwart and roll back Obama's initiatives.

None of them likely rises to the level where the president would veto the entire budget. And, were he to do so, he would have to fight on ground overwhelmingly favorable to the GOP. He would fail.

And then there is ObamaCare. With the lawsuits invalidating subsidies that go to people who did not pass through the federal exchanges likely to reach the Supreme Court, the chance for a verdict overturning this key element of the healthcare law cannot be discounted. Both Justices John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy have repeated attacked legislating from the bench, and the lawsuit asks not that they overturn ObamaCare, just that they read the Affordable Care Act and enforce it literally as it is written. If ObamaCare subsidies are overturned, Republicans can replace them with a new system of tax credits without coercion by a simple majority in the Senate (as ObamaCare itself was passed with a simple majority).

Would Obama veto a bill that restores coverage to the 10 million or so people who will have lost their insurance in the court decision? Doubtful.

MEET THE MIDTERMS’ 42 MEGA-DONORS

MEET THE MIDTERMS’ 42 MEGA-DONORS

A few dozen wealthy folks account for nearly a third of super PAC donations


by Fredreka Schouten and Christopher Schnaars


Forty-two of the nation’s super wealthy have donated nearly $200 million to super PACs to shape next week’s midterm elections, according to a USA TODAY analysis of contributions of $1 million or more.

In all, this relatively small group has provided nearly a third of the more than $615 million raised by all super PACs in the 2014 election, the analysis shows.

Liberal environmentalist Tom Steyer dominates the field, having pumped more than $73 million into these PACs. Most of his money has flowed to Next-Gen Climate Action, the super PAC he created to make climate change a priority in key races.

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has made gun control a top cause, is No. 2 at $20 million, nearly 65% of which has gone to his super PAC, Independence USA.

“This is a handful of people who are really driving this train and driving the dialogue” of the midterms, said Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics. “This is a harbinger of things to come” in 2016, when the presidency is at stake.

Super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money as long as they operate independently of the candidates they support, have outspent the national parties by more than $107 million through midday Tuesday, a tally by the Center for Responsive Politics shows.

“When you give money to a generic party, you don’t necessarily get to direct how the money is being spent,” said Saul Anuzis, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party. “I think donors are becoming more sophisticated. People are much more likely to want to decide how the money is spent.”

The analysis highlights the small number of Republican-aligned megadonors who are banding together to bankroll a handful of super PACs at the forefront of GOP efforts to win control of the Senate. Republicans need to net six seats to take the majority.

In recent weeks, six people have given both to American Crossroads, a super PAC tied to GOP strategist Karl Rove, and Ending Spending Action Fund, a super PAC created by TD Ameritrade founder J. Joe Ricketts, who wants less government spending.

The multiple givers include Ricketts and hedge funder Paul Singer, who gave $9.3 million to 10 super PACs. Nearly a third of Singer’s donations have gone to American Unity PAC, his pro-gay rights super PAC. Singer also gave a combined $5 million to Crossroads and Ending Spending.

Crossroads is one of the biggest Republican players in the midterms, spending more than $20 million — first to help mainstream Republican candidates beat back Tea Party-affiliated challengers during competitive primaries earlier this year and now blistering Democrats on the airwaves during the home stretch to Election Day.

A slew of recent polls show momentum building for a Republican takeover of the Senate.

“That investment has paid dividends,” Crossroads’ spokesman Paul Lindsay said. “The support we’ve received recently” from donors “is a sign of the progress we have made in the last two years.”

Only one woman donated more than $2 million to super PACs in this cycle: former wrestling executive Linda Mc-Mahon. She has contributed more than $2.6 million to nine groups, including Crossroads and Ending Spending.

“I think donors are becoming more sophisticated. People are much more likely to want to decide how the money is spent.” Saul Anuzis, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party 

Obama and National Security: A Team of Bumblers?

Obama and National Security:Team of Bumblers?

Are Susan Rice and Chuck Hagel capable for today’s new national-security challenges?

When President Obama, after months of equivocation over how to respond to the takeover of parts of Iraq and Syria by radical militants, announced in September that the United States would “lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” the White House swung quickly into action, sending proposed legislation to train and equip Syrian rebels to Capitol Hill that same day. Unfortunately, the White House failed to consult with the Pentagon—which would be doing most of the rolling back—on the timing or details of the announcement.

According to multiple sources, behind the scenes a few things went badly awry in the launch of Obama’s new policy. First, the Pentagon was surprised by the president’s timing, according to a senior defense official. “We didn’t know it was going to be in the speech,” he said, referring to Obama’s Sept. 10 address to the nation. Second, the White House neglected to give Pentagon lawyers a chance to revise and approve the proposed legislative language before it went to the Hill, which is considered standard practice. Staffers working for Rep. Buck McKeon, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said they were appalled by what they saw: language so sloppy that it failed to mention adequate protections against so-called “green-on-blue” attacks by trainees on American troops, and effectively left the Defense Department liable for funding the mission against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)—even though the president was telling members of Congress he didn’t need money for this new mission, since the Saudis were putting it up. “What came over would have not have been a mission the DoD could have executed,” says a senior Republican committee staffer.

The Armed Services Committee later went directly to the Pentagon and worked out new language, the White House approved it, and Obama signed the legislation as part of a new Continuing Resolution on Sept. 19. But that was hardly the first instance in recent months when the White House failed to consult with the Pentagon. The Pentagon was not given a heads-up about that letter either, according to multiple sources. “We didn’t know it was going over there, and there were significant concerns about it,” said the senior defense official. “We had these authorities to go into Iraq under the 2002 AUMF, which is what she wanted repealed. We believed the authorities were still needed.”

But it’s clear the finger-pointing between the White House and Pentagon reflects no mere technicality. Both examples cited to me by well-placed sources close to the Defense Department offer new evidence of a criticism that has dogged this administration for most of its six and a half years: that Barack Obama’s White House is so insular and tightly controlled it often avoids “outside” consultation—including with its own cabinet secretaries and agencies. That’s especially true when the issue is one of this president’s least favorite things: opening up new hostilities in foreign lands.

Indeed, the Syrian-rebel incident recalled a more famous instance of White House surprise tactics a year earlier, when after a stroll on the White House lawn with chief of staff Denis McDonough, Obama embarrassed Kerry by abruptly deciding to ask for congressional approval for bombing the regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad—only hours after Kerry had publicly declared that Assad was facing imminent action.

In their recent memoirs, former defense secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta also have described the White House-centric foreign policy of the Obama administration—in Panetta’s case, a White House that he said was so “eager to rid itself of Iraq” it rejected Pentagon advice about the need for residual troops in Iraq after 2011, opening the way for ISIL. 

Gates was even more pointed, writing that “suspicion and distrust of senior military officers by senior White House officials—including the president and vice president—became a big problem for me.”

“I think this is the most insular White House national security team in recent history,” says Jim Thomas, vice president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and a former senior Pentagon official, who added that the president’s most recent big decision, picking an “Ebola czar,” was “symptomatic of the problem.”.

The Ebola crisis has underscored what many of Obama’s critics—including those in his party—have been saying with increasing urgency in recent months, that the White House’s approach to national security does not instill confidence and seems more questionable than ever in the face of the muscular new challenges on the scene.

“It’s a pathetically weak team,” says one retired general who was in a senior command position, and who faults Hagel as much as Rice for some of the problems. The general said that military professionals were buzzing over Hagel’s absence from the recent public exchange between the White House and Dempsey, who in congressional testimony on Sept. 16 appeared to undercut the president’s vow to put no boots on the ground in Iraq by suggesting that “close combat advisers” might be needed. “There’s no energy, no sense that the OSD stands for anything,” says one administration official, referring to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. “It’s all coming out of the Joint Chiefs.”

“An unlikely consensus is emerging across the ideological spectrum about the war against the Islamic State: President Obama’s strategy to ‘degrade and eventually destroy’ the terrorist entity is unworkable,” the Washington Post wrote in an editorial on Sunday. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., put it Sunday on “Face the Nation,” the U.S. effort now amounts to mere “pecks at a big problem,” and allies remain baffled by the lack of a larger U.S. strategy.

While Hagel defends the status quo, Rice continues to stumble in her infrequent TV appearances and to alienate potential Hill allies – as well as the Pentagon—with what critics describe as poor outreach to Republicans and coordination of policy with the Defense Department. “Our experience has been that the DoD and Capitol Hill are often taken by surprise at same time and on same issues” by the White House, says the senior Armed Services Committee staffer.

Rice is rarely heard in public except when she very occasionally appears on the Sunday talk shows—and then more times than not, it seems, in a bumbling way. (Most recently, by saying Turkey would supply bases for strikes against ISIL, only to be undercut by Ankara’s denial hours later; that followed a much-criticized performance describing former Taliban captive Bowe Bergdahl’s Army service as “honorable” despite the murky circumstances of his disappearance and capture; and her now-infamous explanation of the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, after which she was blasted by Republicans for appearing to play down terrorism links.)

"There is a sense that the NSC is run a little like beehive ball soccer, where everyone storms to wherever the ball is moving around the field,” according to another recently departed senior administration official. “They are managing by crisis rather than strategy.… It’s Syria one day, Iraq the next, North Korea the next, and so on. The NSC is finding multitasking very hard these days.

According to the federal government’s 2014 personnel survey, civilian defense employees have grown increasingly dissatisfied with their jobs, with ratings dropping in 47 of 84 categories from last year. And the larger question is whether Hagel’s mostly inward focus on budget and morale issues at the Pentagon is the right focus now—instead of helping to project American power abroad amidst spiraling global crises.

But what might be missing most from the administration—at least according to its critics—is a forceful strategist who is able to push the president (who remains, for the most part, his own No. 1 strategist) to be more decisive.

Of course, no one knows Obama’s thinking on national security better than Rice, who has been with him longer than any senior official in the administration with the exception of McDonough, his chief of staff. And as we’ve discovered during six-plus years of studying Obama’s MO, that counts for a lot with this president. Keeping America out of any more disastrous wars is his mission, and it may well be that his allegedly bumbling team is doing nothing more than implementing his desires. Whether that is any longer a policy appropriate to the times, given the resilience of ISIL—and whether he’s getting the kind of advice he needs to hear, rather than the kind he wants to hear—is another question, one for the pundits to debate.

But as one former senior Pentagon official puts it, “When you select for personal loyalty, that may be all you get.”

Barack Obama often seems disengaged, so why is he acting like a control freak over state Ebola quarantines.

Barack Obama often seems disengaged, so why is he acting like a control freak over state Ebola quarantines.

While I think the President’s agenda often reveal him to be a control freak, I don’t see it often in his personal behavior as chief executive. He seems to care more about golf than many issues that seem important to others.

So what is going on that the President is actively opposing things that are not his business and should not be his concern?

Consider this New York Times headline: “Under Pressure, Cuomo Says Ebola Quarantines Will Allow Home Isolation.”

Facing fierce resistance from the White House and medical experts to a strict new mandatory quarantine policy for all medical workers who had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Sunday night that people quarantined in New York who do not show symptoms of the disease would be allowed to remain at home and would receive compensation for lost income.

Mr. Cuomo’s decision came after a weekend in which administration officials urged him and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey to reconsider the mandatory quarantine they announced on Friday. Aides to President Obama also asked other governors and mayors to follow a policy based on science, seeking to stem a steady movement toward more stringent measures in recent days at the state level.

I don’t get it.

Why can’t the White House simply worry about its many duties and leave the states alone? Why is it taking the time to pressure governors?

Obviously, governors are supposed to protect and be answerable to the residents of their states. If President Obama took a special interest in Illinois, I would understand his personal desire to get involved (though it would still be outside his jurisdiction). But why should he make New York or New Jersey his special concern? Sending his aides to lobby against their decisions makes no sense to me. If he wanted to mention he disagrees and explain why, then he could do so. But it is not his business to meddle in state affairs.

Buried in the New York Times story you can easily discover why the governors felt they had to resort to quarantine, whether you agree with them or not. But the story frames the issues, as you can see from the above quotation, as if the President is obviously right and the governors were wrong. Also, they assume an almost dictatorial role for the president. I have in mind especially this line: “Neither governor notified the White House” that they were going to implement mandatory quarantines. 

No kidding. They are the governors of their states. The President is not the governor of any state.

So why does he now suddenly get all controlling?

Restoring The Dream 2014: Message to black voters

Restoring The Dream 2014: Message to black voters

To many on the left, it came as surprise that a conservative Tea Party organization launched the most ambitious effort in anyone's memory to engage and educate minority community on just how they have been duped by the so called progressive left into thinking that only government could answer their problems.

TheTeaParty.net along with the Dr. Alveda King, the Congress of Racial Equality and several others knew that "Restore the Dream 2014" was critical to our efforts to turn America back to our founding principles of liberty and personal responsibility. Friday, we were in Ferguson, Missouri, were we were joined by hundreds of residents and community leaders.

Our message is simple. Stop listening to the lies of President Obama, Jessie Jackson, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Al Sharpton. They want the minority community to believe that by keeping them rich and in power, they will provide a few scraps in the way of handouts to buy a vote. The harm done to the black community, and minorities in general has devastated communities and left individuals believing there is no other hope.

Restore the Dream 2014 is changing that and the left is having a fit. They see it as a turf war with "how dare you invade our voting block and start telling the truth" Well, the truth must be told and it is long overdue. The Democrats have never been the champions of civil rights yet they somehow managed to take the work of Republicans and make people believe it was their doing when they knew they were defeated.
 

Help Restore the Dream and offer a vision forward for all Americans. This is what the Tea Party was born to do and is not going to let anything stand in the way. Your support is what will decide how far and  how fast we can move forward. 

Tuberculosis quarantine: A perspective for EBOLA

Tuberculosis quarantine: A perspective for EBOLA

Tuberculosis was popularly known as consumption for a long time. Scientists know it as an infection caused by M. tuberculosis. In 1882, the microbiologist Robert Koch discovered the tubercle bacillus, at a time when one of every seven deaths in Europe was caused by TB. Because antibiotics were unknown, the only means of controlling the spread of infection was to isolate patients in private sanitoria or hospitals limited to patients with TB—a practice that continues to this day in many countries. The net effect of this pattern of treatment was to separate the study of tuberculosis from mainstream medicine. Entire organizations were set up to study not only the disease as it affected individual patients, but its impact on the society as a whole. At the turn of the twentieth century more than 80% of the population in the United States were infected before age 20, and tuberculosis was the single most common cause of death. By 1938 there were more than 700 TB hospitals in this country.

Tuberculosis spread much more widely in Europe when the industrial revolution began in the late nineteenth century. The disease became widespread somewhat later in the United States, because the movement of the population to large cities made overcrowded housing so common. When streptomycin, the first antibiotic effective against M. tuberculosis, was discovered in the early 1940s, the infection began to come under control. Although other more effective anti-tuberculosis drugs were developed in the following decades, the number of cases of TB in the United States began to rise again in the mid-1980s. This upsurge was in part again a result of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions in the poor areas of large cities, prisons, and homeless shelters. Infected visitors and immigrants to the United Stateshave also contributed to the resurgence of TB. An additional factor is the AIDS epidemic. AIDS patients are much more likely to develop tuberculosis because of their weakened immune systems. There still are an estimated 8-10 million new cases of TB each year worldwide, causing roughly 3 million deaths.

TB is a major health problem in certain specific immigrant communities, such as the Vietnamese in southern California. One team of public health experts in North Carolina maintains that treatment for tuberculosis is the most pressing health care need of recent immigrants to the United States. In some cases, the vulnerability of immigrants to tuberculosis is increased by occupational exposure, as a recent outbreak of TB among Mexican poultry farm workers in Delaware indicates. Other public health experts are recommending tuberculosis screening at the primary care level of all new immigrants and refugees.

Barack Obama demonstrates the antithesis of what the leadership of an all powerful government should be!

Barack Obama demonstrates the antithesis of what the leadership of an all powerful government should be!

Charles Krauthammer

The president is upset. Very upset. Frustrated and angry. Seething about the government’s handling of Ebola, said the front-page headline in the New York Times last Saturday.

There’s only one problem with this pose, so obligingly transcribed for him by the Times. It’s his government. He’s president. Has been for six years. Yet Barack Obama reflexively insists on playing the shocked outsider when something goes wrong within his own administration.

IRS? “It’s inexcusable, and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it,” he thundered in May 2013 when the story broke of the agency targeting conservative groups. “I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency.”

Except that within nine months, Obama had grown far more tolerant, retroactively declaring this to be a phony scandal without “a smidgen of corruption.”

Obamacare rollout? “Nobody is more frustrated by that than I am,” said an aggrieved Obama about the botching of the central element of his signature legislative achievement. “Nobody is madder than me.”

Veterans Affairs scandal? Presidential Chief of Staff Denis McDonough explained: “Secretary (Eric) Shinseki said yesterday ... that he’s mad as hell and the president is madder than hell.” A nice touch – taking anger to the next level.

The president himself declared: “I will not stand for it.” But since the administration itself said the problem was long-standing, indeed predating Obama, this means he had stood for it for five and a half years.

The one scandal where you could credit the president with genuine anger and obliviousness involves the recent breaches of White House Secret Service protection. The Washington Post described the first lady and president as “angry and upset,” and no doubt they were. But the first Secret Service scandal – the hookers of Cartagena – evinced this from the president: “If it turns out that some of the allegations that have been made in the press are confirmed, then of course I’ll be angry.” An innovation in ostentatious distancing: future conditional indignation.

These shows of calculated outrage – and thus distance – are becoming not just unconvincing but un-amusing. In our system, the president is both head of state and head of government. Obama seems to enjoy the monarchial parts, but when it comes to the actual business of running government, he shows little interest and even less aptitude.

His principal job, after all, is to administer the government and to get the right people to do it. (That’s why we typically send governors rather than senators to the White House.) That’s called management. Obama had never managed anything before running for the biggest management job on earth. It shows.

What makes the problem even more acute is that Obama represents not just the party of government but a grandiose conception of government as the prime mover of social and economic life. The very theme of his presidency is that government can and should be trusted to do great things. And therefore society should be prepared to hand over large chunks of its operations – from health care (one-sixth of the economy) to carbon regulation down to free contraception – to the central administrative state.

But this presupposes a Leviathan not just benign but competent. When it then turns out that vast, faceless bureaucracies tend to be incapable, inadequate, hopelessly inefficient and often corrupt, Obama resorts to expressions of angry surprise.

He must. He’s not simply protecting his own political fortunes. He’s trying to protect faith in the entitlement state by portraying its repeated failures as shocking anomalies.

Unfortunately, the pretense has the opposite effect. It produces not reassurance but anxiety. Obama’s determined detachment conveys the feeling that nobody’s home. No one leading. Not even from behind.

A poll conducted two weeks ago showed that 64 percent of likely voters (in competitive races) think that “things in the U.S. feel like they are out of control.” This is one degree of anxiety beyond thinking the country is on the wrong track. That’s been negative for years, and it’s a reflection of failed policies that in principle can be changed. Regaining control, the other hand, is a far dicier proposition.

With events in the saddle and a sense of disorder growing – the summer border crisis, Ferguson, the rise of the Islamic State, Ebola – the nation expects from the White House not miracles but competence. At a minimum, mere presence. An observer presidency with its bewildered-bystander pose only adds to the unease. 

Liberals ignore basic economics claiming the "law of demand" does not apply to jobs

Liberals ignore basic economics claiming the "law of demand" does not apply to jobs

By Walter E. Williams
So as to give some perspective, I’m going to ask readers for their guesses about human behavior before explaining my embarrassment by some of my fellow economists.

Suppose the prices of ladies jewelry rose by 100 percent. What would you predict would happen to sales?

What about a 25 or 50 percent price increase?

I’m going to guess that the average person would predict that sales would fall.

Would you make the same prediction about auto sales if cars’ prices rose by 100 percent or 25 or 50 percent? Suppose that you’re the CEO of General Motors and your sales manager tells you the company could increase auto sales by advertising a 100 percent or 50 percent price increase.

I’m guessing that you’d fire the sales manager for both lunacy and incompetency.

Let’s try one more. What would you predict would happen to housing sales if prices rose by 50 percent?

I’m guessing you’d predict a decline in sales.

You say, “OK, Williams, you’re really trying our patience with these obvious questions. What’s your point?”

It turns out that there’s a law in economics known as the first fundamental law of demand, to which there are no known real-world exceptions.

The law states that the higher the price of something the less people will take of it and vice versa. Another way of stating this very simple law is: There exists a price whereby people can be induced to take more of something, and there exists a price whereby people will take less of something.

Some people suggest that if the price of something is raised, buyers will take more or the same amount.

That’s silly because there’d be no limit to the price that sellers would charge. For example, if a grocer knew he would sell more – or the same amount of – milk at $8 a gallon than at $4 a gallon, why in the world would he sell it at $4? Then the question becomes: Why would he sell it at $8 if people would buy the same amount at a higher price?

There are economists, most notably Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who suggest that the law of demand applies to everything except labor prices (wages) of low-skilled workers. Krugman says that paying fast-food workers $15 an hour wouldn’t cause big companies such as McDonald’s to cut jobs. In other words, Krugman argues that raising the minimum wage doesn’t change employer behavior.

Before we address Krugman’s fallacious argument, think about this: One of Galileo’s laws says the influence of gravity on a falling body in a vacuum is to cause it to accelerate at a rate of 32 feet per second per second. That applies to a falling rock, steel ball or feather. What would you think of the reasoning capacity of a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who’d argue that because human beings are not rocks, steel balls or feathers, Galileo’s law of falling bodies doesn’t apply to them?

Krugman says that most minimum- wage workers are employed in what he calls non-tradable industries – industries that can’t move to China.

He says that there are few mechanization opportunities where minimumwage workers are employed – for example, fast-food restaurants, hotels, etc. That being the case, he contends, seeing as there aren’t good substitutes for minimum-wage workers, they won’t suffer unemployment from increases in the minimum wage. In other words, the law of demand doesn’t apply to them.

Let’s look at some of the history of some of Krugman’s non-tradable industries. During the 1940s and ’50s, there were very few self-serve gasoline stations. There were also theater ushers to show patrons to their seats. In 1900, 41 percent of the U.S. labor force was employed in agriculture.

Now most gas stations are self-serve.

Theater ushers disappeared. And only 2 percent of today’s labor force works in agricultural jobs. There are many other examples of buyers of labor services seeking and ultimately finding substitutes when labor prices rise. It’s economic malpractice for economists to suggest that they don’t. 

Democrats use "Gangster Government" To Win Elections

Democrats use "Gangster Government" To Win Elections

By George Will

The early morning paramilitary- style raids on citizens’ homes were conducted by law enforcement officers, sometimes wearing bulletproof vests and lugging battering rams, pounding on doors and issuing threats. Spouses were separated as the police seized computers, including those of children still in pajamas. Clothes drawers, including the children’s, were ransacked, cell phones were confiscated and the citizens were told it would be a crime to tell anyone of the raids.

Some raids were precursors of, others were parts of, the nastiest episode of this unlovely political season, an episode that has occurred in an unlikely place. This attempted criminalization of politics in order to silence persons occupying just one portion of the political spectrum has happened in Wisconsin, which often has conducted robust political arguments with Midwestern civility.

From the progressivism of Robert La Follette to the conservatism of Gov. Scott Walker today, Wisconsin has been fertile soil for conviction politics. Today, the state’s senators are the very conservative Ron Johnson and the very liberal Tammy Baldwin. Now, however, Wisconsin, which to its chagrin produced Republican Sen. Joe McCarthy, has been embarrassed by Milwaukee County’s Democratic district attorney, John Chisholm. He has used Wisconsin’s uniquely odious “John Doe” process to launch sweeping and virtually unsupervised investigations while imposing gag orders to prevent investigated persons from defending themselves or rebutting politically motivated leaks, which have occurred.

According to several published reports, Chisholm told members of his staff subordinates that his wife, a teachers union shop steward at her school, is anguished by her detestation of Walker’s restrictions on government employees unions, so Chisholm considers it his duty to help defeat Walker.

In collaboration with Wisconsin’s misbegotten Government Accountability Board, which exists to regulate political speech, Chisholm has misinterpreted Wisconsin campaign law in a way that looks willful. He has done so to justify a “John Doe” process that has searched for evidence of “coordination” between Walker’s campaign and conservative issue advocacy groups.

On Oct. 14, much too late in the campaign season to rescue the political participation rights of conservative groups, a federal judge affirmed what Chisholm surely has known all along: Since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling 38 years ago, the only coordination that is forbidden is between candidates and independent groups that go beyond issue advocacy to “express advocacy” – explicitly advocating the election or defeat of a particular candidate.

But Chisholm’s aim – to have a chilling effect on conservative speech – has been achieved by bombarding Walker supporters with raids and subpoenas: Instead of raising funds to disseminate their political speech, conservative individuals and groups, harassed and intimidated, have gone into a defensive crouch, raising little money and spending much money on defensive litigation. Liberal groups have not been targeted for their activities that are indistinguishable from those of their conservative counterparts.

Such misbehavior takes a toll on something that already is in short supply – belief in government’s legitimacy. The federal government’s most intrusive and potentially punitive institution, the IRS, unquestionably worked for Barack Obama’s re-election by suppressing activities by conservative groups. Would he have won if the government he heads had not impeded political participation by many opposition groups? We will never know.

Would the race between Walker and Democrat Mary Burke be as close as it is if a process susceptible to abuse had not been so flagrantly abused to silence groups on one side of Wisconsin’s debate? Surely not.

Gangster government – Michael Barone’s description of using government machinery to punish political opponents or reward supporters – has stained Wisconsin, illustrating this truth: The regulation of campaigns in the name of political hygiene (combating “corruption” or the “appearance” of it) inevitably involves bad laws and bad bureaucracies susceptible to abuse by bad people.

Because of Chisholm’s recklessness, the candidate he is trying to elect, Burke, can only win a tainted victory, and if she wins she will govern with a taint of illegitimacy. No known evidence demonstrates any complicity in Chisholm’s scheme, but in a new ad she exploits his manufactured atmosphere of synthetic scandal in a manner best described as McCarthyite. Indeed, one probable purpose of Chisholm’s antics was to generate content for anti-Walker ads.

Wisconsin can repair its reputation by dismantling the “John Doe” process and disciplining those who have abused it. About one of them, this can be said: Having achieved political suppression by threatening criminal liability based on vague theories of “coordination,” Chisholm has inadvertently but powerfully made the case for deregulating politics. 

4 Reasons Why Wussy Christians Are losing the Battle With Evil Big Government Goons

4 Reasons Why Wussy Christians Are losing the Battle With Evil Big Government Goons

Written by Doug Giles 

Whenever the ends of Government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the People may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new Government; the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind. –Declaration of Rights, Maryland

Unlike America’s original rebel Christians who dumped the Brits’ taxed tea into Boston Harbor and told King George that he could kiss their King George, today’s evangelicals, I believe—especially the dandy ministers who love to be loved—would have folded like one-ply toilet paper before British oppression. We’re a timid tufted titmouse compared to our rowdy founding forefathers.

Here are four reasons why I believe today’s evangelicals would have melted like little bon-bons during the American Revolution:

1. Some dainty saints of today think rebellion against tyrants is disobedience to God, when the converse is actually true. Yep, these stooges of the machine believe that Yahweh wants Christians to be the corralled cattle of corrupt politicians and policies. Indeed, a lot of pop evangelicals have become nicer than God. Our current craven “faithful” think it’s sinful to say bad stuff about bad elected leadership. Many somehow think it’s righteous to go in an unrighteous national direction. And we’ve got stacks of do-gooders who are turning the other cheek to political abuse and generational theft so fast that they make Shakira look arthritic.

2. A lot of evangelicals would rather live as government slaves than live and die as free men. Some do it out of sinful slothfulness, completely passive and thus complicit in the face of evil. Others do so because they actually think Christ was a Communist and that government theft and wealth redistribution somehow fulfill the Sermon on the Mount. Duh!

3. Others, especially in the ministry, won’t say squat about our political squalor because it’ll offend the emotional members of their congregation and thereby jack with their weekly offerings. Wow. Good luck at the judgment seat. I’ve been to many Tea Parties up and down the east coast of Florida and have only run into a handful of ministers. Where are you? Your absence and silence during America’s demise is more obvious than Renee Zellweger’s recent nip/tuck. Hello, Judas.

4. Another thing that irks me is this end-of-the-world Rapture mentality that, supposedly, all of this bad stuff we’re currently fielding as a nation is God’s plan for the ages and that there’s nothing we can do about it. I’m sure glad our predecessors didn’t look at the gargantuan junk they were facing during times of oppression and upheaval and say, “Oh, well. The Rapture must be right around the corner.” No, what they did was think, work, pray and fight. And guess what, end-of-the-world Christian? They yielded up this grand experiment in self-governance, that’s what.

The Church needs the biblical rebel spirit of our founders injected back into the evangelical mix instead of this squishy, pusillanimous, ignoble and compliant crapola that’s currently cranking through our indolent pulpits and pews. God help the Church to lose its cowardly, effeminate bent in these critical days. Amen.

Hillary Clinton says Corporations and Businesses Don't Create Jobs & Liberals Agree!

Hillary Clinton says Corporations and Businesses Don't Create Jobs

Multi-millionaire Hillary Clinton told a crowd gathered at the Park Plaza Hotel that corporations and businesses” don’t “create jobs.” I wonder if the workers and owners of the Park Plaza Hotel know that.

I also wonder how the $100 million that Bill and Hillary have earned since they left the White House account for their windfall? Did it fall from heaven in baskets, or did it grow on their backyard money trees. Maybe Hillary had just watched Irene Dunne in It Grows on Trees (1952).

'The story is about a couple who discover two trees in their backyard that grow money. One morning a few days after Polly Baxter (Dunne) purchased a couple of trees and planted them in her backyard, a $5 bill floats in through an open window, spurring a curious turn of luck to her family's ongoing financial concerns."

I'm convinced this how liberals believe we get money. who needs corporations and businesses? We have our own money tree. It's called the printing press. If corporations and businesses don’t create jobs, then who or what does? Government? Governments don’t create jobs. All government jobs are “created” by taking money from businesses, corporations, and workers through taxes. If businesses and corporations didn’t exist, government wouldn’t have any money to tax, thus, there wouldn’t be any government jobs.

Microsoft was founded in 1975. Prior to this date, Microsoft did not employ anybody. Today, Microsoft employs 126,000 people worldwide. Microsoft does not stand alone as a corporation. Millions of other people are employed indirectly from a company like Microsoft. This is but one corporation!

The same is true of Apple, General Electric, Wal-Mart, and every other big company that liberals seem to hate for their “greed.”

Hillary’s “corporations and businesses” don’t “create jobs” comments is reminiscent of President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” claim. Remember?

Liberals tried to make excuses for Obama’s comment like they will try to do for Hillary. Hillary is their person for 2016.

Here’s how the folks at FactCheck.org tried to bail out the President:

“There’s no question Obama inartfully phrased those two sentences, but it’s clear from the context what the president was talking about. He spoke of government — including government-funded education, infrastructure and research — assisting businesses to make what he called ‘this unbelievable American system that we have.’

“In summary, he said: ‘The point is … that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.’”

I thought Obama was the smartest man in the world? I thought he was a near god. How could he have been “unartful” in what he said? It was Jamie Foxx who told an audience to “‘give honor to God and our Lord and Savior Barack Obama.’ He repeated the president’s name to the applause of attendees.”

There is no money for government without people who make money. Government is the great inhibitor of economic growth.

Barack and Hillary are cut from the same Marxist cloth.

The more government grows and controls the economy, the better everybody is. Like their Marxist comrades, Barack and Hillary see themselves as a special class, two of many philosopher kings who deserve a much larger share of “evil” corporate profits. They need the money, influence, and power in order to make things right for people who do not have access to the corridors of power.

The sad part in all of this is how many corporations that Barack and Hillary love to hate suck up to these false messiahs. Then there’s this: “Liberals who most want Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to run for president are wealthy white males.”

These are liberals’ useful idiots, and like the useful idiots in the heyday of the rise of Communism, they are dangerous to all of us.

If you want proof that Liberals can’t tolerate debate, or win at it, here you go.

F.E.C. Dems Attack Conservatives in Alternative Media

We were warned that the Federal Election Commission was going to attack conservatives on the internet. As I wrote back in May, whether writing for my personal blog or writing here, I don’t have to hide my political opinions. I can tell you who I’m voting for and who I think you should vote for. But that freedom is not a surprise. The editorial boards of the New York Times and the Washington Post also have it.

In fact, everyone should have it. It is called freedom of speech. It is one of the rights recognized and guaranteed in the First Amendment of the Constitution.

But there is a huge “carve-out” in the First Amendment. There is the idea that political campaigns must be conducted in a specific way that is properly and objectively “fair.” For this purpose we have the Federal Election Commission (the FEC).

The FEC can, unilaterally and at any time, cease to allow media to operate freely. It could require media to provide financial information just like Political Action Committees (PACs) are required to do. In fact, according to the FEC Chairman, Lee E. Goodman, members of the FEC have already tried to do that.

As I said, that was back in May. But the F.E.C. is now taking further steps according to the Washington Examiner: “Dems on FEC move to regulate Internet campaigns, blogs, Drudge.”

In a surprise move late Friday, a key Democrat on the Federal Election Commission called for burdensome new rules on Internet-based campaigning, prompting the Republican chairman to warn that Democrats want to regulate online political sites and even news media like the Drudge Report.

Democratic FEC Vice Chair Ann M. Ravel announced plans to begin the process to win regulations on Internet-based campaigns and videos, currently free from most of the FEC’s rules. “A reexamination of the commission’s approach to the internet and other emerging technologies is long over due,” she said.

The power play followed a deadlocked 3-3 vote on whether an Ohio anti-President Obama Internet campaign featuring two videos violated FEC rules when it did not report its finances or offer a disclosure on the ads. The ads were placed for free on YouTube and were not paid advertising.

Under a 2006 FEC rule, free political videos and advocacy sites have been free of regulation in a bid to boost voter participation in politics. Only Internet videos that are placed for a fee on websites, such as the Washington Examiner, are regulated just like normal TV ads.

Ravel’s statement suggests that she would regulate right-leaning groups like America Rising that posts anti-Democrat YouTube videos on its website.

FEC Chairman Lee E. Goodman, a Republican, said if regulation extends that far, then anybody who writes a political blog, runs a politically active news site or even chat room could be regulated. He added that funny internet campaigns like “Obama Girl,” and “Jib Jab” would also face regulations.

“I told you this was coming,” he told Secrets. Earlier this year he warned that Democrats on the panel were gunning for conservative Internet sites like the Drudge Report.

Ravel plans to hold meetings next year to discuss regulating the internet.

If you want proof that Liberals can’t tolerate debate, or win at it, here you go. They are quite willing to silence their own internet campaigns, if they have to, because they aren’t winning in that venue anyway. Better to obstruct the whole system and try to force people to turn to the mainstream media.

If Republicans take the Senate next month, the Democrat’s only real power will reside in the executive branch. You can expect them to use everything they have to stop Republicans from winning in 2016.

TOP 10 REASONS TO VOTE DEMOCRAT

TOP 10 REASONS TO VOTE DEMOCRAT

 

#10.  I vote Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I've decided to marry my German Shepherd.

 

#9.  I vote Democrat because I believe oil companies' profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene, but the government taxing the same gallon at 15% isn't.

 

#8.  I vote Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.

 

#7.  I vote Democrat because Freedom of Speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.

 

#6.  I vote Democrat because I'm way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves.  I am also thankful that we have a 911 service that gets police to your home in order to identify your body after a home invasion.

 

#5.  I vote Democrat because I'm not concerned about millions of babies being aborted so long as we keep all death row inmates alive and comfy.

 

#4.  I vote Democrat because I think illegal aliens have a right to free health care, education, and Social Security benefits, and we should take away Social Security from those who paid into it.

 

#3. I vote Democrat because I believe that businesses should not be allowed to make profits for themselves.  They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as the Democrat Party sees fit.

 

#2.  I vote Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.

 

#1..… And, the #1 reason I vote Democrat is because I think it's better to pay $billions$ for oil to people who hate us, but not drill our own because it might upset some endangered beetle, gopher, or fish here in America.  We don't care about the beetles, gophers, or fish in those other countries. 

Houston is just a glimpse of what is to come!

The Homosexual Lobby's chilling attack on religious free speech in Houston, Texas last week is only a glimpse of what's to come.
Houston's radical lesbian mayor, Annise Parker, subpoenaed local church sermons to scrutinize them for opposing the Homosexual Lobby's efforts to enact an ordinance imposing a citywide version of the dangerous Gay Bill of Special Rights.

While the subpoenas were narrowed after a nationwide outcry, Mayor Parker and her radical allies are still gunning to silence Houston-area pastors who oppose the so-called Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO ordinance).

And you can bet it won't be long until they double-down on their efforts to squelch pastors' freedom to speak from the pulpit.

The Homosexual intimidation of Houston pastors is a classic page from their radical playbook.

Just like their push for transsexual men to use women's restrooms, their demands are so beyond the pale that many Americans fail to take them seriously at first.

But that is exactly the attitude the Homosexual radicals has exploited again and again as they ram their radical agenda down the throats of pro-Family Americans.

Traditional Values Americans must not fail to realize the dangerous precedent created by Mayor Parker's Orwellian assault on Christian free speech.

Because it will be our rights and Traditional Values that pay the price.  Especially your children and grandchildren.  There is a difference between tolerance and limiting free speech and brainwashing children.

An Open letter to those black adults, teens and all women that are suffering unemployment.

Do not believe for one minute that the Democrats care about you; they are using you!

Obama Quietly Prepares Amnesty For Millions Of Illegals

Immigration: President Obama has played it coy over amnesty for illegals. Will he or won't he? Now, his intent is revealed in preparations to legalize millions in the coming year. This while ignoring all those that voted for him: minorities, women and the poor!

As Breitbart's Big-Government website reports, "The Obama administration has quietly begun preparing to issue millions of work authorization permits, suggesting the implementation of a large-scale executive amnesty may have already begun."

With little fanfare, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services earlier this month requested bids by contractors who could handle a "surge" in green-card printing over the next year. That "surge" is expected to be about 9 million cards — with a maximum over the length of the contract of 34 million cards.

To us, this looks like a blanket amnesty. The Obama administration is preparing a sweeping — and unconstitutional — plan to grant de facto citizenship to millions of people now here illegally by giving them green cards.

We say "de facto" because, while the plan would merely issue I.D.s to illegals for working purposes, that would be only a first step. In no time, those with I.D.s and their advocates would be angling for citizenship, calling all those who oppose them racists.

And, once more, Obama will have overturned the rule of law and ignored the constitutional role of Congress.

This isn't the only hint of Obama's coming backdoor legalization. Our government has basically stopped deporting people. As the Center for Immigration Studies reports, even though 900,000 illegals have been ordered deported, the government hasn't sent them home. That number includes some 167,000 convicted criminals still walking our streets or behind bars.

This is all hush-hush because amnesty is wildly unpopular and could have a major impact on the mid-term elections. In our own IBD/TIPP Poll taken earlier this month, 54% of Americans gave "high importance" to immigration when it comes to voting.

And in the same poll we specifically asked Americans if they approved of Obama taking "executive action on immigration after the November midterm elections, providing millions of undocumented immigrants with legal protection and work permits."

By an overwhelming 63% to 33%, Americans opposed it. And by 75% to 19%, they preferred that Obama work with Congress on immigration, not "act on his own using executive orders."

Sure, Obama knows all of this. That's why he's deceptively waiting until after the election to spring his surprise on unsuspecting and distracted voters. After all, he's not running.

It's a profoundly dishonest electoral maneuver but one in keeping with this administration's complete lack of both transparency and respect for our democracy.

Main Stream Media Bias

Main Stream Media Bias

When it comes to elections, the media are “fair weather fans.” When their favorite team (Democrats) are winning or favored, they can’t stop talking about the elections. They can barely contain their excitement.

But when things don’t look so good for their team, they’d rather talk about other things.
To prove this point, the MRC’s Kyle Drennen and Rich Noyes analyzed  every election story on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from September 1 through October 20 in both 2006 (George W. Bush’s second term) and 2014. (23 million people still watch network evening news – far more than cable news.)
What they found was amazing.

When Democrats were feeling good about their election prospects eight years ago, the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and ABC’s World News aired a combined 159 campaign stories (91 full reports and another 68 stories that mentioned the campaign). But during the same time period this year, those same newscasts have offered a paltry 25 stories (16 full reports and 9 mentions), a six-to-one disparity.

ABC’s World News Tonight hasn’t mentioned the upcoming elections a single time since September 1!

Please take a minute to share this report with your friends and family. We know you have friends who don’t believe the media are biased. Send this to them and see what they say. Put it up on your Facebook page if you have one.

It would be easy to blame the nearly non-existent election coverage on the Ebola breakout, but the first U.S. case of Ebola wasn't diagnosed until September 30.

And there were plenty of other news stories to cover in 2006, too – like the war in Iraq and Korea’s first atomic test – but they found room for 159 election reports.
It’s pretty obvious what’s going on here.


The MRC Action Team

Proof of waste Democrats cannot defend: Wasteful spending versus raising taxes

Coburn’s Wastebook highlights $25 billion in wasteful spending

  

Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) released his final Wastebook on Wednesday, and it did not disappoint.

Dr. Coburn, who is retiring after this term, chronicled $25 billion spent on 100 “silly, unnecessary, and low priority projects,” this year. The report touches nearly every agency, finding that the federal government is still spending taxpayer dollars to put animals on treadmills and subsidize wine.

“Washington politicians are more focused on their own political futures than the future of our country,” Coburn writes in the introduction of the fifth-annual Wastebook. “And with no one watching over the vast bureaucracy, the problem again isn’t just what Washington isn’t doing, but what it is doing.”

The 182-page report documents waste big and small, from a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant to produce and distribute “chile-infused” wine, to $48.6 million spent on thousands of vehicles that sit idly in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) parking lots.

The report included numerous examples of waste at the National Science Foundation (NSF), including a $331,000 study that found spouses stab voodoo dolls more often when they’re “hangry”—that is, hungry and angry at the same time.

“Over the course of twenty-one consecutive evenings, 107 couples were given a chance to stick up to 51 pins into a voodoo doll representing their spouse,” the report explained of the government-funded study.

The results: “Hungry people are cranky and aggressive,” the lead researcher said.

The NSF also financed synchronized swimming for sea monkeys at a cost of $50,000; a $41,000 study for how Penn State can boost morale after the Jerry Sandusky scandal; and a $171,361 project that studied the gambling habits of monkeys.

The government is also still interested in the theater, doling out grants through the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support a play about Bruce Lee ($70,000), and a “marijuana themed musical” in Colorado ($15,000).

The NEA also awarded $10,000 to produce a musical about a young zombie searching for true love, and another $10,000 for a play about two lesbians who think they are Elvis Presley and Theodore Roosevelt.

“The National Science Foundation (NSF) taught monkeys how to play video games and gamble,” Coburn wrote. “USDA got into the business of butterfly farming. The Department of Interior even paid people to watch grass to see how quickly it grows. The State Department spent money to dispel the perception abroad that Americans are fat and rude.”

“But the real shock and awe may have been the $1 billion price tag the Pentagon paid to destroy $16 billion worth of ammunition, enough to pay a full years’ salary for over 54,000 Army privates,” he said.

After already putting monkeys, rats, cows, and goats on treadmills for past research, the NSF decided to test mountain lions skills at a cost of $856,000.

After eight months of training the mountain lions were able to walk on treadmills, though the research concluded that they “do not have the aerobic capacity for sustained high-energy activity.”

Waste was also found in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget, including $1,552,145 to create a video game that teaches parents how to feed their kids vegetables. Another $371,026 project investigates if mothers have a different emotional reaction to pictures of their dogs over pictures of their children by monitoring their brains.

Wastebook also highlighted a Washington Free Beacon story on an NIH study that is texting drunksto tell them to stop drinking.

“Btw, don’t have 2 much 2 drink,” offered Coburn as an example.

Other Free Beacon reports cited in Wastebook included a $202,000 NSF study on why Wikipedia is sexist, the Justice Department spending $544,338 to enhance its company profile on LinkedIn, and$450,000 for state of the art gym memberships for desk workers at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The report included some literal examples of government waste, such as a $50,000 USDA grant to process, package, and market “Poop Paks,” plant fertilizer made from Alpaca manure.

A housing authority in California also received $27 million despite the deplorable living conditions of its units, which were found to be full of bed bugs, “handfuls of half-dead mice,” “drug dealers,” and “blue and green mold.”

“I just got tired of the poop falling on me,” the report quoted a tenant of the Hacienda as saying.

Coburn attempted to submit an amendment that would revoke funding for any housing authority that persisted in maintaining uninhabitable conditions, but Senate Democrats blocked it.

Coburn did highlight some victories at curbing waste, such as the “Bridge to Nowhere” never being built due to public outrage, the shutdown of an unused Oklahoma airport that received $500,000 in subsidies each year, and the closing of a taxpayer-funded global warming musical.

“What I have learned from these experiences is Washington will never change itself,” Coburn said. “But even if the politicians won’t stop stupid spending, taxpayers always have the last word.”

Coburn has unearthed $91 billion in government waste since Wastebook began in 2010. The future of the project will not be known until next year, according to Keith Ashdown, chief investigator for Coburn on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee.

“While Coburn hopes every member of Congress will start making waste watching part of their job, it is hard work and not very rewarding,” he told the Free Beacon. “He says answers to how Wastebookwill continue and in what format will have to wait to next year, but notes it doesn’t require a sitting member of Congress to identify waste.”

“In fact, sometimes they are ones least able to do so since they are responsible for it to begin with,” Ashdown said.