Musgrave Supports Comprehensive Energy Bill

Congressional Representative Marilyn Musgrave has served her elected position for one reason: to serve the people in her District. Her votes are based on what she believes the District voters want. She is their Representative. Her voting is not about her beliefs and does not tell us what we need to be doing.

Musgrave believes her support of a comprehensive energy plan, including drilling the nation's reserve energy sources, will help the people and their families.

Musgrave deserves our support in the November election.

"...the futility of human pretentions"

Robert Harris wrote this in  "Pompeii," the fictionalized account of the events around the destruction of Pompeii when the

volcano erupted:

"A comfort to think that these things (nature) are somehow connected to our behavior: if only we had lived better or more frugally our virtue would be rewarded. But nature sweeps forward, indifferent. We see the futility of human pretentions."

Who controls gas prices?

Is your gas bill too high?

One reason is Congressional action including refusal to allow drilling in United States' areas where ample supplies exist.

Another reason is refusing to allow the building of new refineries or even enlarging  existing ones.

At the recent hearing before Congress Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) actually said the word "socialize" when

referring to possible actions for the government to control oil prices - and companies. She was speechless for about 

10 seconds when she realized her gaffe in revealing the Democrats' ultimate plans.  

At the hearing, an oil company executive called Congressional actions a "disservice" to American consumers - and voters.

One way for consumers to respond is to elect a Congress that will listen and serve us, not special interests.

Or don't drive at all, which, of course, is what some special interest groups want: We stay out of our cars and off

the roads.

A Republican Congress will give Americans  control of resources, commerce, even health care and our personal

resources.

Reelect  Marilyn Musgrave as Representative from Colorado's 4th District . 

(Hearings for the oil companies were shown in part on cable news. 

Fox News aired Representative Waters' untimely choice of words.)

Book Recommendation

"A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win" by Shelby Steele is recommended reading for all who want to understand Barack Obama and his politics. The book gives information about Obama and his life with an absent black father and white mother. Steele also tells of Obama's support and participation in black activism.

Steele is also the son of a black father and white mother and also was a civil rights activist. His newspaper columns and books now give the message that the people of the black community need to take responsibility for their own welfare. He feels that affirmative action deprives people of their self-satisfaction in their successes.

In "A Bound Man" Steele tells of the icons in the black community, Oprah, Tiger Woods, star athletes and celebrities, and others, who will not speak out to encourage young people to be good citizens and students and to take responsibility. One former icon is the entertainer Bill Cosby who has given many speeches on the necessity for personal responsibility and citizenship. He is no longer considered and icon.

"A Bound Man" is available at Longmont Public Library and the catalog number is 328.73.

More Democratic Obstruction

Congress has closed the door to South American markets by putting aside the renewal of the Free Trade Pact with Colombia. Speaker Pelosi says it may be acted on later but she has, in effect, rejected not only Colombia but also NAFTA, an international agreement on free trade that has benefitted the economy for over a decade. Pelosi and other Congressional Democrats cater to organized labor and any others who are against Free Trade..
Tabling the Free Trade Pact with Colombia will harm workers - even the workers in Organized labor. Acting now on the Pact would allow American exports in to Colombia for no fees. Without the Free Trade Pact, American manufacturing is weakened and jobs are at risk.
Among the American products used in Colombia is the heavy equipment manufactured here and exported to Colombia. With the agreement nullified the fees are imposed and equipment costs more for Colombia. Other countries manufacture the needed equipment. If the costs are cheaper then where will Colombia go for the equipment? Farmers are caught in Pelosi's trap because farm products and beef are exported to Colombia. Having this market for American industrial and agricultural products has helped the economy and given employment to workers - even Organized labor.
Colombian products have been imported by America under the Free Trade Pact. Without the agreement Colombian products will cost more here. Americans will buy anything cheaper and there goes Colombia's market and economy.
American workers - not Congress - are the losers in Pelosi's maneuvers.
Another problem can then develop for all of us if Colombia, and other struggling economies, are denied an American market because of high import fees and higher costs.
Some backward countries around the world, denied a market in America if NAFTA is rejected, may then turn to or even expand production of illegal drugs. An extensive network can move illegal drugs in to America. Producing countries receive dollars for survival, pay no fees to enter American, and drugs flood in to our country.
Protectionist politics are equal opportunity; all Americans are penalized.

(Information comes from daily news and is my understanding of the issue.)

It's Raising Taxes

Presidential candidate Barack Obama doesn't talk about many of his political beliefs or, should he be elected,  his policies and plans.

One thing Obama does say is that he will increase taxes.

President Bush's tax cuts of 2002 set the capital gains tax at 15% and 0% for tax payers. As a result of this CUT the federal Treasury receipts rose from $49 billion in 2002 to $110 billion in 2006.

The capital gains were scheduled in 2002 to be stopped altogether in 2010 and then resumed in 2011 to previous levels with increases to 20% and 10%.

Democrats are anxious to cancel this tax cut and put your capital gains back to the levels paid before the Bush tax cuts. Income tax rates in 2011 will also revert to levels before the tax cuts.

The Democratic Congress, by continuing to do nothing about making the tax cuts permanent, will not even renew the Bush tax cuts let alone making permanent the tax-relief measures. If Democrats prevail in November elections they could even cancel the cuts before the automatic resumption in 2011. That's a tax increase by doing nothing.

You work hard for your money. Get involved in this endless campaign season. Understand what your candidates stand for and plan to do. Future Democratic tax increases will affect us all.

VOTE Republican

Vote FOR Marilyn Musgrave's re-election to House Dist. 4.

Vote FOR Bob Shaffer for Colorado Senator.

VOTE Republican

Information from daily newspapers including Wall Street Journal

Tax Increases If Congress Continues Do-Nothing Ways

The Republican Study Committee of the sitting Congress has compiled a list of taxes that are presently not being collected. These are part of the tax cuts that President Bush called for - and have worked successfully. Congress needs to act on these tax cuts, either to vote to cancel them altogether or to give them another temporary chance to benefit our economy. By taking no action, our taxes will increase.

RSC's Impending Tax Increases if Congress takes no action:

2008 - the exemptions for the Alternative Minimum Tax will decrease. 

Taxpayers will not be able to adjust their income for qualified tuition and related expenses.

Businesses will not be able to claim a tax credit for research and development.

2009 - No tax credits for some residential energy efficient property.

2011: Marginal income tax rates will increase - 35% bracket increases to 39.6%, 33% bracket increases to 36%, 25% bracket increases to 28%, 10% and 15% brackets will be at 15%. 

Capital gains rates for individuals will increase from 15% to 20%. 

Dividends will no longer be taxed at the capital gains rate for individuals and thus increase the double taxation of individuals by up to 62%.

Child tax credit will decrease from $1,000 to $500.

Inheritance tax will return with a 55% maximum rate, $1 million exemption.

Facts and figures are taken from the Republican Study Committee report as of February, 2008. 

The committee's web page:   http://www.house.gov/jct/x-l-08.pdf

Musgrave Is Against Earmarks

The House of Representatives passed a $3 trillion federal budget on March 13. Increases in earmarks, the requests by Congress for projects in home districts, would be paid for by letting the popular and successful tax cuts expire in 2010.

Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave was among the Republicans who voted against the budget bill. She also voted for last year's moratorium on earmarks. Musgrave has said "until public confidence is restored I believe we must end all earmarks."

The budget bill of March 13 was passed by the Democratic majority in Congress, and the moratorium was voted down by the same Democratic majority.

The Republicans' presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, has never voted for earmarks when that question has been presented in the Senate.

Are the Democrats, in both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate,  looking out for you by offering gifts for their home districts and then demanding you pay more taxes for these out-of-control expenditures?

A 12-Step Program for Recovering Liberals

I received this in an email the other day and thought it raised some pretty good points I can pass on to my less conservative friends...

Most 12-step programs start out by requiring that people have to understand that they're powerless over their addiction and that only by turning their lives over to a power greater than themselves can they be restored to sanity. Far be it from me to suggest that I am that power, but clearly someone has to step in and try to rescue these poor liberal souls. Even the most harebrained among them deserves that much.

First, though, they have to acknowledge that Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, Dick Durbin, Charles Rangel, Harry Reid, and Charles Schumer, are not moderates, but, rather, leftists with a socialist agenda. Furthermore, they must recognize that the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, the three major networks, the news magazines, and the New Yorker, are not objective in their reporting of political events, and neither are Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, andBill Maher, in their commentary. If these entities and individuals are not on the payroll of the DNC, they certainly should be. They certainly put in longer hours than Howard Dean.

Step #1: It is high time that every American be guaranteed theright to speak freely. It is not reserved solely for left-wing college students who wish to take advantage of the first amendment to shout down conservatives. At the same time, they must not construe theconservative's right to dismiss them as arrogant idiots as censorship.

Step #2: Affirmative action argues that African Americans and Latinos are intellectually inferior and are unable to compete academically unless other students are handicapped because of their race.Interestingly enough, when blacks and Hispanic students are given these unfairadvantages, it's rarely at any cost to white students, whose rate of college admissions remains constant; instead, it's nearly always another minority group, Asians, who pay the price. This is what left-wingers refer to as leveling the playing field.

Step #3: Liberals always claim to be in favor of higher taxes, agreeing with Bill Clinton that the government invariably spends moneymore wisely than those who actually earn it. However, such prominent proponents of higher taxes as George Soros, Ted Kennedy, and Mr. and Mrs. John Kerry, protect their own otherwise taxable income through trusts and offshore accounts. Obviously, any American who believes higher taxes are a good thing can do the honorable thing by spurning all deductions and payingUncle Sam everything up to 100% of his income.

Step #4: Even the most secular of liberals seems to believe that Jimmy Carter is a saint. The evidence for this seems to be that he has on occasion posed with a hammer in his hand at Habitant for Humanity building sites and is constantly walking around with a expression on his face that suggests he has just forgiven Pontius Pilate for betraying him. This isthe same fellow, let us never forget, who called Yasser Arafat his good friend and who has accepted untold millions of dollars from Arab cut-throats, who ask nothing in return except that he go on insisting that there would be peace in the Middle East if only those darn Israelis would disappear from the face of the earth.

Step #5: Stop insisting that all wars are bad. It only makes you sound daft. Carrying signs that equate a U.S. president, any U.S. president, with Adolph Hitler is not only rude, but suggests you're certifiably nuts. Every president has left office right on schedule. Aside from FDR, who just happened to get elected four times, not one of them has remained in office beyond eight years. On the other hand, Hitler ran Germany for 12 years and only death and the allied forces brought that toan end; Stalin ran the Soviet show for 31 years; while that hero of the left, Fidel Castro, held the reins, not to mention the whip, for about 50 years.

Step #6: Repeat after me, 'Separation of church and state' exists nowhere in the Constitution. The first amendment does not require the removal of Christmas trees from the village green, the Ten Commandmentsfrom court house walls or 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance. All it does is forbid Congress from establishing a state religion, such as the Church of England, and anybody who tells you otherwise is a liar and, most likely, a card-carrying member of the ACLU.

Step #7: Stop using the word 'big' as a pejorative. There is nothing intrinsically bad about big oil, big agriculture, or big pharmaceuticals. Overall, they do a very good job of keeping our cars on the road, food on our tables, and most of us over 50 alive andfunctioning. On the other hand, big government, which so many liberals simply adore, represents a usurpation of the allegedly inalienable rights ofindividuals. A quick perusal of the Constitution should convince you that beyond declaring war, forging treaties, overseeing patents, printing money,running the post office, collecting taxes, and protecting our borders--and a few other things that Washington doesn't do at all well these days--thefederal government has very limited responsibilities.

Step #8: Acknowledge that the United Nations is, in the main, an aggregation of venal diplomats who live high off the hog in New York City while representing the most corrupt and vicious regimes in the history of the world. Only a fool or a diplomat would continue to suggest that this gang of well-dressed thugs possesses anything resembling moral authority.

Step #9: Do not keep insisting that at a time when nearly all the large scale evil in the world is being perpetrated by Muslims that racial profiling is anything but a sensible approach to airport security. During World War II, Swedish Americans were not suspected of performing espionage for the Axis powers and for a very good reason; namely, because theyweren't performing espionage for the Axis powers. These days, their Swedish American children and grandchildren are not suspected of trying to blow up airlines, but the smarmy bureaucrats insist on pretending that they'reevery bit as likely to be up to mischief as a bunch of 25-year-old Osama bin Laden look-alikes from Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Step #10: Stop trying to pretend that illegal aliens are the same as legal immigrants just so you can claim the moral high ground and accuse those of us who are opposed to open borders of being racists.

Step #11: Once and for all, stop forgiving murderers. Whether or not you're in favor of capital punishment, only the victim of a crime has> the right to grant forgiveness. And inasmuch as the killer has deprived his victim of that ability, don't take it upon yourself. It doesn't prove how compassionate you are, only that you're as sanctimonious and as self-aggrandizing as, say, Jimmy Carter.

Step #12: Stop bashing the U.S. military and the Boy Scouts. The only reason you have the ability to shoot your mouth off is because men and women braver and better than you sacrificed life and limb for your right to do so . As for the Boy Scouts, they are absolutely right to keep homosexuals from taking youngsters on camping trips. While it's true that many gays are perfectly fine people and that very few homosexuals are pedophiles,there's no reason on earth to take unnecessary risks just so we can all prove how broadminded we are. For what it's worth, as decent as most Catholic priests are, I wouldn't let them take youngsters into the woods, either. It's fine to be compassionate and understanding, but let the gays among us be understanding for a change and acknowledge that, every so often,commonsense should trump political correctness.

And, finally, making this a baker's dozen, Step #13: Let us all agree that while being a woman, a black, a Jew, a Catholic, a Mormon, or even a gay, for that matter, should in no way preclude anyone from being elected president of the United States. However, none of those things constitutes a sole reason to vote for someone.

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