Will You Fast And Pray With Me?

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14

Starting now until the polls close on Tuesday night. Will you join me?

In Which Harry Reid Confirms He Can’t Play Nicely With Others.

Is that the face of a man who can get along with anyone?

Of course Harry Reid won’t work with a President Mitt Romney. Hell’s bells, he won’t even work with a President from his own party to pass a budget.

All this is assuming that Harry’s still the man at the top in the Senate after Tuesday next.

Don’t Ever Try to Tell Me There Isn’t a Double Standard.

Todd Akin had some ill-conceived and outdated ideas about the rate at which women conceive in the aftermath of rape, of which he’s been brutally disabused and for which he’s apologized.

On the other hand, the President of the United States holds the belief that a “fetus, or child — however you want to describe it” who has the ill grace to show “movement or some indication that, in fact, they’re not just coming out limp and dead” after an abortion procedure should be denied medical care until they finally cooperate by dying, a position for which he’s never apologized and probably still holds.

Yes, the words inside the quotes are the exact words spoken by then Illinois-State-Senator Barack Obama during a floor discussion of Illinois’ Born-Alive Infant Protection act. God knows, I certainly couldn’t have made them up.

Yet where is the outrage directed?

Someone At The Boston Globe Didn’t Get The Memo

Oh, looky. An honest article about Elizabeth Warren’s dubious claims of Native American ancestry that appeared earlier today in the Boston Globe was magically transformed into one defending Warren and attacking Scott Brown without a word of notice to readers. Seems like standard operating procedure for the liberal media these days.

Now Who’s The Bully?

Do you think the remarks in this video were appropriate for a high school journalism convention?

If you’ve ever doubted that the journalism establishment is a progressive indoctrination machine, consider that this convention was sponsored by the National Scholastic Press Association and the Journalism Education Assocation, where, presumably, no one questioned the wisdom of inviting the Editorial Director of The Stranger, a rabidly left-wing Seattle alternative newspaper and author of “Savage Love” to speak to a group of high school students. Click that last link at your own risk. To be fair, the convention’s organizers may have thought that someone who founded an organization designed to help gay youth cope with bullying would be sensitive to the feelings of other people. They were, obviously, wrong.

Savage’s remarks and his apparent shallow (or lack of) understanding of Christianity makes me wonder if he knows any actual Christians. He sounds as though the sum total of his knowledge of Christianity comes from TV news reports on Westboro Baptist Church, another group with a twisted view of what it means to be Christian. So he’s in swell company.

In another setting, with a different audience, Savage’s words might not have risen to the level of bullying, but the fact that he was speaking as an authority figure to a young audience made them so. And if it occurred to him that the hooting and clapping his remarks received might embolden some students to bully Christian students either immediately or in the future, he certainly didn’t let it deter him from continuing. I know, silly me…I think bullying is wrong regardless of who’s doing the bullying and who’s being bullied. Or who’s giving permission, so to speak, for one group to bully another.

More on this from my friend, Chris Barnhart.

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It’s come to my attention that Washington State Senator Maria Cantwell participated in a video produced in support of It Gets Better. I wonder if she’ll condemn Savage’s attack on Christianity.

Why Does Maria Cantwell Hate Jobs For Americans?

Yet another example of using the EPA to beat American businesses bloody and senseless.

Last week, Washington State junior U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell joined in the Obama administration’s curious war on American jobs. The newest target in Cantwell’s sights is a large proposed project in a sparsely populated corner of Southwest Alaska called the Pebble Mine, an undertaking to unearth rare natural resources that could provide thousands of well-paid jobs and millions in tax revenue to an area that is currently impoverished.

Even before the project has applied for permits, while plans for the Pebble Mine are being worked on and costly studies conducted, Cantwell has already requested the Environmental Protection Administration invoke subsection 404(c) of the Clean Water Act. Subsection 404(c) denies the disposal of dredge spoils or fill onto any land potentially draining into the nearby Kvichak and Nushagak Rivers.

Snip…

The Pebble Partnership has already invested more than $120 million on environmental and socioeconomic studies associated with the Pebble Mine proposal, research that would be open to the scrutiny of the EPA, the Congress, environmental activists, and the public, if it were not for Cantwell’s move to preempt. They anticipate spending several times that amount by the time the 70 required state and federal permits have been obtained for the project. (Emphasis mine.)

How many millions can job creators be asked to forfeit before they take their toys and go somewhere else to play?

The Fox Is Guarding The Hen House

Could it be any more ironic that Patty Murray was named as co-chair of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction? If there was ever anyone in Washington, D.C. who loved to spend other people’s money more than Murray, I can’t think who it might be. Ted Kennedy, maybe.

People were calling for her to resign her position as Chairman of the DSCC practically within minutes of her new appointment. Not just people on the right, either. Of course, she didn’t resign because being liberal means never having to feel as though anything you do is wrong, because what you say is so right.

As one of Murray’s lucky constituents, I’m regularly treated to her delightful e-mail communications. Today’s was positively schizophrenic. With a subject line of “Joint Select Committe on Deficit Reduction,” she discussed not only her commitment to (1) reducing the deficit but also to (2) her lastest piece of legislation, the “Workforce Investment Act.”

Yep, she went there…Patty is committed to spending money on a new program! Really committed as in she’s fighting to get it passed. She’s also sponsoring “career pathways legislation.” Now I don’t know for sure but I’m going to guess that career pathways legislation isn’t free either. The only hope taxpayers have that Patty won’t be successful in picking their pockets yet again is the abysmal success rate of legislation she sponsors.

But looking at the big picture, if she doesn’t understand the irony of this e-mail, I’m not holding out any hope that she’ll take a serious look at real budget cuts.

Appendix A

From Murray’s e-mail:

Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction

I am deeply humbled that Leader Reid asked me to serve as co-chair of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. It is so important that we address the critical issues facing our nation and work together to find solutions for our budget, our economy and our country. In a time when millions of Americans are struggling to make ends meet, this Committee needs to work together to report out a balanced and bipartisan plan with the shared sacrifices this moment calls for. I will be working hard on this over the next few months, and I welcome your input and thoughts as we move through this process.

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Addressing Our Country’s “Skills Gap”

Over the past two weeks I toured local businesses throughout Washington state and discussed my efforts to give local workers the skills they need to fill local jobs. I talked about the Workforce Investment Act that I’m fighting hard to pass, which is critical to retraining workers, including those who have recently been laid off. I also talked about my career pathways legislation that would help young people in high school get skills training, as well as other efforts to get workers the skills and training they need to move into
21 ^st century careers.

According to a report released by the Washington State Employment Security Department, statewide job openings were up 31% last fall compared to a year earlier and there are an estimated 41,889 vacant positions. It is more important than ever that we fight to fill these jobs with people who are struggling in these tough economic times.  Touring these local facilities provided me with a first-hand look at some of the skills and experience that potential workers would need for local jobs.

In Which Maria Cantwell Pretends To Care How Much You Pay For Gasoline

Evil oil speculators can't fool me...I know what they're up to.

Maria Cantwell has a super boffo idea for bringing down the cost of a gallon of gasoline and it’s so surefire, it’s a wonder no one has ever thought of trying it before! Yes! It’s as simple as reining in the evil speculators who dabble in oil. Note to Maria…while we’re reining them in, maybe we should just go ahead and tar and feather them for some good, price-busting fun!

For those of you who are as confused by the commodities market as I am, let me explain the basics in simple terms. Simple because that’s the only way I understand it myself.

The laws of supply and demand dictate that when a commodity – in this case, oil – is plentiful, prices will be low and when it’s scarce, prices will be high. Speculators capitalize on this by buying when prices are low and holding it in anticipation of future high prices.  It is true that by removing oil from the market, the cost of oil is forced upward, but what Senator Cantwell fails to take into account, among other thing which we’ll get to shortly, is that when speculators sell, i.e., release oil into the market, supply is increased, easing the upward pressure on prices and moderating the market.

I’d hate to think that Senator Cantwell knows even less about the commodities market than I do, but it appears as though that may be the case…and she’s in a position to do something stupid out of her ignorance. Or make a fool of herself in public by talking about it.

Now if Senator Cantwell really wanted a quick fix, one that didn’t meddle in the market, she could propose a gas tax holiday. The federal tax alone on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon. It’s not a lot, but it dwarfs the profits the oil companies are earning on a gallon of gas. From Exxon Mobil’s Perspectives blog:

“For every gallon of gasoline, diesel or finished products we manufactured and sold in the United States in the last three months of 2010, we earned a little more than 2 cents per gallon. That’s not a typo. Two cents.” 

In fairness to Senator Cantwell, it does appear that she wants to throw oil speculators under the bus only as a short term solution, which would lead one to believe that she has a long-term plan. If she does, it doesn’t involve tapping into our own, hefty oil reserves; she voted “No” today on S.953, “The Offshore Production and Safety Act of 2011.” Key word being “production.” As in drilling for our own oil. Let’s note that the failure to drill for our own oil “removes” many time more barrels of oil from the current supply than speculators do.

So Senator Cantwell can sit in front of the camera and yammer on about gasoline prices from now until the cows come home and it won’t convince me that she really cares at all about gasoline prices, but for her own good, she’d better not sit there until the Democrats agree to drill here, drill now…she’ll be dust before that happens.

Questions That Just Make You Scratch Your Head

Is this question seriously being proposed as if the Democrat’s Senate majority isn’t already in jeopardy?

Does Herb Kohl retirement endanger Democratic Senate majority?