Warning: This blog is political in nature.

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Friday, April 24, 2009

Our politicians are getting irritating...

- They go on about how "water boarding" is horrible and abusive. But Nancy Pelosi, current Speaker of the House, KNEW since 2002 that it was permitted and legally not torture. Neither she nor anyone else objected about any of the procedures until now, and in fact, two actually asked if it was going far enough. There are minutes of the meeting as proof.

- Obama blames Bush for his inherited debt. Yes, Bush doubled the national debt during his two terms. I didn't like most of what Bush did. But that doesn't explain Obama quadrupling the debt (based on Federal budget forecasts) during his first term.

- Republicans blame Democrats for poor control of the Mexico border. Bush created a highway through the middle of the country that is considered international territory; any truck from an approved company gets through with little if any inspection, and McCain tried to reduce control of illegal crossing even further.

- Dems blame our banking problems on lack of regulation that allowed them to make unwise loans. Sorry, but Barney Frank's House Financial Services Committee required banks make high-risk loans, and if they refused, they'd lose access to Federal borrowing sources.

- Everybody was up at arms about AIG bonuses. The bonuses were not to those who were part of the problems, but to those who took over from them. Further, these people had agreed to a salary of only $1 a year; the bonus was to be their only pay for the work, and then only if they exceeded the goals that had been set by the regulators. Since they did exceed the goals, they were supposed to get the bonus. Now the bonus, the only pay they get, will be taxed at 90%. Which is illegal, by the way, according to the Constitution, that forbids punitive taxes or taxes that are targeted to specific groups.

- Speaking of bonuses, did you know that members of Chris Dodd's Senate Finance Committee got bonuses from Fannie Mae, which is also getting bailout money? And the Fannie Mae bonuses were not protected by the bailout wording; AIG's bonuses were specifically allowed in the bailout, because they were appropriate, as explained above. And both Chris Dodd and Barack Obama got hundreds of thousands from AIG.

- The government says they want to keep the "auto industry" from failing. So they are now requiring Chrysler and GM to file bankruptcy, when they say they don't need to? (Besides, don't Honda, Toyota, BMW, etc, who make their vehicles here count as auto industry? Honda uses more US-made parts in their cars than Ford does...)

- Obama went to the opening of a wind farm? Fine. I like cheaper energy. But he took Air Force One to get there and used 9000 gallons of jet fuel to do so? And probably (he usually does) took a second one as backup, and a cargo jet with the limos, at least tripling the gas to closer to 30,000 gallons of jet fuel. And the gas used by the processional limos, which are not hybrids.

- Boston requires all taxi companies buy new hybrids by 2015. They can't get used ones; they have to be new ones.

- And by the way, research shows that hybrid cars create a lot more environmental damage when they are made than they can ever offset by being more efficient. (And they aren't usually that much more efficient...)

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